May Virgin Trains timetable change

[Ianno87]

Could they stop in the southbound direction bearing in mind most of the trains have 12 minute stop at Wolverhampton without affecting other services?

(I realise the calling pattern would unbalanced northbound and southbound).

The 12 minute stop is deliberate to allow performance recovery before entering the West Midlands (it is, strictly speaking, required in the Timetable Planning Rules in order to allow a 20-25 minute turnround time of the train once it gets to Euston as per a standard West Midlands service, rather than the 40 minutes normally required from Scotland)

Plus, I beleive it is followed closely behind from Stafford by the Manchester-Bournemouth XC service, so doubt it could run sufficiently later south of Stafford to permit a stop (unless Norton Bridge flyover permits the XC to be accelerated to be placed in front instead)

 

[The Planner]

The Wolves stop was just to keep it in its original path.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Things at Stafford might change when the Norton Bridge scheme is finally out of the way, and 100mph is available on the Slow all the way to Crewe.
Probably it will have to wait till the new franchise round.
An extra hourly London-Preston with more TV stops has been on the agenda for ages.
Another daft situation is 3tph Stafford-Liverpool, 2 of them chasing each other all the way.

 

[infobleep]

I think the phrase I'm looking for is "Are you being serious?"

Tell the National Rail Enquiries App that, they will list journey because it gets in before the other one on paper. In practice it may well not to do. They will of course also list the direct journey without any changes.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

 

[A0wen]

There is considerable interchange potential with services to the Trent Valley.

Which is also achieved at Crewe - and Crewe has the added benefit of providing the link to Stoke, which as someone has pointed out, is a more significant place than Stafford.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Another daft situation is 3tph Stafford-Liverpool, 2 of them chasing each other all the way.

But that's because of their different origin points - 2 are to / from Birmingham and therefore run an 'every 30 min clockface' whereas the other 1 is the Virgin service from London, which needs to fit in with every other northbound service which uses the fast lines out of Euston - so moving that may cause other problems.

 

[All Line Rover]

Which is also achieved at Crewe - and Crewe has the added benefit of providing the link to Stoke, which as someone has pointed out, is a more significant place than Stafford.

There is no interchange potential at Crewe between the xx:58 VTWC arrival from Scotland and the xx:02 LM departure to the Trent Valley. There isn't even an official interchange with the xx:07 EMT departure to Derby (via Stoke) because of the 10 minute minimum connection time at Crewe, even though the VTWC and EMT services arrive/depart using adjacent platforms!

No-one is suggesting that Stafford should replace Crewe is as a calling point.

 

[185143]

I used the 07:35 MAN-EUS on saturday which had additional calls at LTV and TAM. When I alighted at LTV, I noticed a few other people alight, and a very significant number waiting to board! By comparison, the starship to Brum had around 10 people on it!

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[Optimo]

This has already been discussed fairly extensively in a previous thread, starting around here.

My main thoughts on the merits of additional intermediate ICWC calling points can be found here.

The change to the 16:30 from Euston is a good idea, to better serve Warrington and Wigan

But there were multiple trains Euston to Glasgow that stopped at those intermediaries - there was only one such 'fast' limited-stop service up to Glasgow. It was a very attractive option at a touch over 4 hours, and has been in place for years.

Seems like a strange change to make given there were already 2 trains an hour (every hour but one) from WGN to Glasgow.

Yours,
A disgruntled EUS-Glasgow traveller!

 

[Voyager 2093]

I know this may not be the correct place to post this but does the on loan Valenta that VTEC have require any timetable adjustments or does it achieve the the same timings as their own MTU HST sets?

 

[childwallblues]

Just because the trains pass through Stafford doesn't mean that they should stop there. The "hardship" for someone from Stafford travelling to Scotland having to change at Crewe is no worse than it is for someone from Chester or Shrewsbury. Should they both also have direct services to Scotland?

Or from Liverpool changing at Wigan NW.

 

[The Planner]

I know this may not be the correct place to post this but does the on loan Valenta that VTEC have require any timetable adjustments or does it achieve the the same timings as their own MTU HST sets?

You wouldnt change anything.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I know this may not be the correct place to post this but does the on loan Valenta that VTEC have require any timetable adjustments or does it achieve the the same timings as their own MTU HST sets?

It's a VP185, not a Valenta - and last Monday I saw it at Newcastle on the front of the 09.52 Aberdeen to King's Cross.