Jorge Da Silva
Established Member
Very big question but what services used to run to Liverpool Lime Street during British Rail and early daysd of privatisation?
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Blimey, very big question. Ha ha. Dover, Penzance, Cardiff, Poole, London Paddington, the list goes on and on.Very big question but what services used to run to Liverpool LS and what services could run again to Lime Street?
What about Bright...Blimey, very big question. Ha ha. Dover, Penzance, Cardiff, Poole, London Paddington, the list goes on and on.
Following time-wise from the previous post, the major longstanding services that no longer run as such but ran consistently from the mid 60s to the end of the millennium :
Liverpool-Birmingham 2 hourly Intercity: originally to/from Euston, from about 1971 became part of the Cross Country network towards Poole and Plymouth/Penzance.
Liverpool-Glasgow/Edinburgh, 2-3 daily, various permutations over the years.
Transpennine used to run Liverpool-Hull or Newcastle.
Lack of XC from Liverpool has been discussed a few times this year, and this summer. The main question is whose service do you withdraw to provide it, given capacity constraints at New St, and finite rolling stock?I find it bizzare there is not a Liverpool to Hull service or a CrossCountry service from Liverpool
Has been recently called for and completely ridiculous it’s not on the network. IMO I would like to see services to Bristol and Reading from Liverpool particularly after HS2.
Here are some brief details from two old timetables I own:
Winter 1963/1964 - remember that at this point the loop line didn't exist, and Liverpool Central & Exchange (Moorfields) were still terminuses:
Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe, Chester (via Runcron), Birmingham, Leamnigton Spa, Southampton, Bournemouth, Manchester Exchange, Huddersfield, Hull, Shrewsbury, Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Kingswear, Penzance, Newcastle, London Euston
And also:
Liverpool Central (High Level) to Warrington Central, Manchester Central, Stockport Tiviot Dale, London St Pancras
Liverpool Exchange to Wigan, Bolton, Manchester Victoria, Leeds, Bradford Exchange, York, Ormskirk, Preston, Carlisle, Millom, Bootle, Blackpool, Windermere, Edinburgh, Glasgow
Winter 1993/1994:
Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria, Wigan, Preston, Blackpool North, Crewe, Birmingham New St, London Euston, Derby, Peterborough, Norwich, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Bradford, Brisol, Exeter, Plymouth, Poole
Note that these are just the through services I spotted at a quick flick, and include weekend trains, and some that only ran once or twice a day.
So effectively there may not be as many destinations but they are much more regular? Needs Bristol and Exeter Back at least. They ended in 2003 i think.
I now understand why Central HL closed, there weren't many services other than London or Manchester, most of which were easily diverted to Lime Street.
So effectively there may not be as many destinations but they are much more regular?
Yes - and this is the case of most big stations.
On the one hand, Liverpool seems to attract a lot of attention for it's lack of destinations but it has a much better range of services than some other coastal cities (Sunderland, Hull etc).
As timetables became more uniform/ clock-face, service patterns became simpler - e.g. the Norwich - Liverpool service now runs hourly via Grantham and Sheffield - under BR it was a generally hourly service but sometimes starting from Harwich/ Ipswich/ Cambridge, sometimes running via Loughborough or Manchester Victoria, sometimes running to Blackpool or Cumbria (a generation previously there were services running further north up the WCML too). Now we have a simple hourly Norwich - Liverpool service rather than a random assortment of destinations.
We've traded one-a-day long distance links (which were handy for the "stick granny on a train" market) for more reliable middle distance links (e.g. Liverpool has no through services to Portsmouth any more but the half hourly service to Birmingham is more services than before).
And in a world of clock face timetables (where frequencies are bumping up against the limit of what infrastructure can cope with), any additional through services become a Zero Sum Game - if you want a train from Liverpool to Hull or Bristol or Dover then what is that running at the expense of? How do you squeeze that into the timetable? Is it instead of something else? Are these just "nice to have" destinations or genuine routes that justify through services? Most XC services link places hundreds of miles apart more by accident than design (there's a market for a Newcastle to Birmingham service and a Bristol to Birmingham service but so few people travel from Newcastle to Bristol that it's more about operational convenience).
Put it this way - Merseyrail works as a frequent simple network - you could argue that Kirkby ought to have a through service to Liverpool South Parkway/ Hunts Cross, but would that be instead of the Southport - Hunts Cross services? Or squeezed awkwardly in between them? Reality is that it's most important to provide Hunts Cross, Southport and Kirkby with a good service into central Liverpool and any "through service" is more about avoiding the need to terminate lots of trains in the city centre than because thousands of people are wanting to get from Kirkby to Hunts Cross.
However, given the "exceptionalism" of Liverpool, there'll be some who no doubt think that the reduction in through services is part of some strategy to run down the city.
Yes - and this is the case of most big stations.
On the one hand, Liverpool seems to attract a lot of attention for it's lack of destinations but it has a much better range of services than some other coastal cities (Sunderland, Hull etc).
As timetables became more uniform/ clock-face, service patterns became simpler - e.g. the Norwich - Liverpool service now runs hourly via Grantham and Sheffield - under BR it was a generally hourly service but sometimes starting from Harwich/ Ipswich/ Cambridge, sometimes running via Loughborough or Manchester Victoria, sometimes running to Blackpool or Cumbria (a generation previously there were services running further north up the WCML too). Now we have a simple hourly Norwich - Liverpool service rather than a random assortment of destinations.
We've traded one-a-day long distance links (which were handy for the "stick granny on a train" market) for more reliable middle distance links (e.g. Liverpool has no through services to Portsmouth any more but the half hourly service to Birmingham is more services than before).
And in a world of clock face timetables (where frequencies are bumping up against the limit of what infrastructure can cope with), any additional through services become a Zero Sum Game - if you want a train from Liverpool to Hull or Bristol or Dover then what is that running at the expense of? How do you squeeze that into the timetable? Is it instead of something else? Are these just "nice to have" destinations or genuine routes that justify through services? Most XC services link places hundreds of miles apart more by accident than design (there's a market for a Newcastle to Birmingham service and a Bristol to Birmingham service but so few people travel from Newcastle to Bristol that it's more about operational convenience).
Put it this way - Merseyrail works as a frequent simple network - you could argue that Kirkby ought to have a through service to Liverpool South Parkway/ Hunts Cross, but would that be instead of the Southport - Hunts Cross services? Or squeezed awkwardly in between them? Reality is that it's most important to provide Hunts Cross, Southport and Kirkby with a good service into central Liverpool and any "through service" is more about avoiding the need to terminate lots of trains in the city centre than because thousands of people are wanting to get from Kirkby to Hunts Cross.
However, given the "exceptionalism" of Liverpool, there'll be some who no doubt think that the reduction in through services is part of some strategy to run down the city.
Very big question but what services used to run to Liverpool Lime Street during British Rail and early daysd of privatisation?
I find it bizzare there is not a Liverpool to Hull service or a CrossCountry service from Liverpool
What actual demand is there from Liverpool to Hull? I'd venture very little.
Yes - and this is the case of most big stations.
On the one hand, Liverpool seems to attract a lot of attention for it's lack of destinations but it has a much better range of services than some other coastal cities (Sunderland, Hull etc).
As timetables became more uniform/ clock-face, service patterns became simpler - e.g. the Norwich - Liverpool service now runs hourly via Grantham and Sheffield - under BR it was a generally hourly service but sometimes starting from Harwich/ Ipswich/ Cambridge, sometimes running via Loughborough or Manchester Victoria, sometimes running to Blackpool or Cumbria (a generation previously there were services running further north up the WCML too). Now we have a simple hourly Norwich - Liverpool service rather than a random assortment of destinations.
We've traded one-a-day long distance links (which were handy for the "stick granny on a train" market) for more reliable middle distance links (e.g. Liverpool has no through services to Portsmouth any more but the half hourly service to Birmingham is more services than before).
And in a world of clock face timetables (where frequencies are bumping up against the limit of what infrastructure can cope with), any additional through services become a Zero Sum Game - if you want a train from Liverpool to Hull or Bristol or Dover then what is that running at the expense of? How do you squeeze that into the timetable? Is it instead of something else? Are these just "nice to have" destinations or genuine routes that justify through services? Most XC services link places hundreds of miles apart more by accident than design (there's a market for a Newcastle to Birmingham service and a Bristol to Birmingham service but so few people travel from Newcastle to Bristol that it's more about operational convenience).
Put it this way - Merseyrail works as a frequent simple network - you could argue that Kirkby ought to have a through service to Liverpool South Parkway/ Hunts Cross, but would that be instead of the Southport - Hunts Cross services? Or squeezed awkwardly in between them? Reality is that it's most important to provide Hunts Cross, Southport and Kirkby with a good service into central Liverpool and any "through service" is more about avoiding the need to terminate lots of trains in the city centre than because thousands of people are wanting to get from Kirkby to Hunts Cross.
However, given the "exceptionalism" of Liverpool, there'll be some who no doubt think that the reduction in through services is part of some strategy to run down the city.
I find it bizzare there is not a Liverpool to Hull service or a CrossCountry service from Liverpool
For a period from summer 88 to about 92 (I'm not sure when) there was a 9:15 @ 11:15 departure to Cardiff Central, nearly always one of the Welsh 37/4s in the early years, then went over to 155's.
Around this time there was also an hourly all stations service to Bradford and Leeds operated by 155's and sometimes 158's. At Leeds this was always advertised as Edge Hill on the departure screens.
With regards to Hull I don' think there has been a regular service since the 70's although I vaguely remember one odd one in 1986 when the Hazel Grove chord opened, class 31's of course.
Curiously, a century ago it was a large and long term although one way traffic. Emigrants from Central/Eastern Europe to the USA came this way more than any other route. There were almost daily ship sailings from Liverpool to New York, including the cheap ones that emigrants favoured, but in contrast very little from the Baltic etc ports. So the established route was overland to Hamburg etc, then by ship to Hull (sometimes Goole), train across to Liverpool, and ship from there. A range of organisations, both commercial and charitable, sprang up along the way to support this.What actual demand is there from Liverpool to Hull? I'd venture very little.
Did the Cardiff ever go over to 155's permanently before the service was stopped. I really can't remember despite the 17:15 being my train of choice to get home to West Allerton.