Modern Railways: LNER and compulsory reservations

[Bletchleyite]

One of the issues with our network is that it doesn't fit neatly into InterCity trains and local services. If you were to travel from York to Doncaster for example, it's a local journey but the only trains doing that route are Inter City services. That's before you get to middle distance regional services such as TPE up the east coast main line, which is a bit of both.

That is true, but we have shifted back to the split with things like the Trent Valley LNR service - maybe it'd be better, then, if we did look at making some changes to allow every major route, as a base, to have at least an hourly local service? I'm not sure we'd need to add much to achieve that, really. A Crewe-Carlisle stopper has been needed for years, for example.

One of the benefits of the current national fare system is that you can buy flexible tickets from any station to any other station, and your through journey is protected (even if you can't be guaranteed a seat without a reservation). Many flows have Advance 'and connections' fares to cater for this, but not every one so this aspect will need some consideration too. Whatever is done I hope will retain national through ticketing with some form of consumer-protection price cap for any given journey, even if the system behind the scenes has to calculate the fare in a different fashion from today.

I've also got some thoughts on this. I think it's possibly time to split this and the services argument out into a couple of speculative threads, I'll start them in a bit.

 

[yorksrob]

That is true, but we have shifted back to the split with things like the Trent Valley LNR service - maybe it'd be better, then, if we did look at making some changes to allow every major route, as a base, to have at least an hourly local service? I'm not sure we'd need to add much to achieve that, really. A Crewe-Carlisle stopper has been needed for years, for example.



I've also got some thoughts on this. I think it's possibly time to split this and the services argument out into a couple of speculative threads, I'll start them in a bit.

I've suggested previously that it would be a good idea to have, say an hourly path on the ECML reserved for a stopping, budget service, perhaps to York, in the same way that LNR does towards Crewe. I've always seen this as providing a walk-up alternative in terms of fares, however this would be even more desireable if the IC trains cease to be turn up and go altogether.

 

[bramling]

From a customer experience point of view - for the majority of passenger - I wholeheartedly support compulsory reservations and have been for many years. Here's my rationale:

- At busy times, TOCs are bombarded with complaints, just look at the media stories and TOC Twitter feeds complaining that TOCs have "oversold" the train, and should't sell more tickets than are available. This will deal with that.

- A sizeable minority if not the majority of LNER's passenger base isn't commuter, it's leisure or occasional / business travel

- Crowded trains are an unpleasant experience for everyone, you cant reach the buffet or the toilets without difficulty for example, and if you've paid for First class do you really want to be unable to leave your seat because of people crammed in the aisles? This is exactly what has happened at the busiest times

- This model works well not only in Europe but also the US too for long distance journeys.

- Wherever possible, Longer distance trains shouldn't be used for "local" journeys. Take the TGV in the South of France for example. "Local" tickets aren't valid on TGVs between Marseille and Nice / Monaco. If you want to purchase a ticket and use the TGV then you can, but at a significant supplement. I accept that on some flows the local service will need to be improved to make this work.

- As is the model in France, if you've a reservation on a specific train, you can easily change it either online, at a ticket office or using a machine to a later / earlier service if a train is full.

And yes, if this means some people won't be able to travel at the very busiest because the trains are full then so be it - that's no different to the airlines.

It's not all about cramming as many people on to a train as possible - you have to give passengers a good experience to make them want to return and an absolutely wedged train is not the way to do it.

And nowadays, especially with COVID, how many people are going to be making a long journey but not book in advance?

I just don’t think a lot of this stands up.

I can’t see this country ever getting to the point where Intercity journeys are completely separated from shorter ones. There isn’t the track capacity to do it, and with cost cutting now very much on the radar we are simply not going to see a sudden new batch of complementary services springing up just to segregate flows.

Secondly, the notion that Intercity services are routinely jam packed isn’t really true. There’s certainly issues on parts of TPE and XC, in both cases mainly due to insufficient capacity, now partly resolved on TPE but still likely to be an issue on XC. Compulsory reservations here will simply degenerate into chaos as people find their chosen journey sold out. Providing sufficient capacity is very much the solution here, and will probably happen once the 222s are available, if by then we’re not so broke thanks to COVID than no one can afford to lease them!

Likewise the other situation where trains may be jam packed is during disruption, events, and on those handful of occasions when there’s high demand for specific journeys - like into Cornwall before a bank holiday weekend. For this I think people simply have to accept that the train is going to be busy, just like the motorway will be at the same time. This really smacks as a way of people clutching at straws to try and find a way of getting round this fundamental problem that at certain times lots of people wish to make a similar journey, by getting in there early and booking their own journey, and using compulsory reservations as a way of denying travel to others in order to make their own journey that little bit more comfortable. Everyone else then has to be inconvenienced by having to suffer an inflexible setup across the board, just so someone doing their pre-bank-holiday Cornwall grockle trip doesn’t have people standing down the aisle and spoiling the ambience.

I've suggested previously that it would be a good idea to have, say an hourly path on the ECML reserved for a stopping, budget service, perhaps to York, in the same way that LNR does towards Crewe. I've always seen this as providing a walk-up alternative in terms of fares, however this would be even more desireable if the IC trains cease to be turn up and go altogether.

I wouldn’t have an issue with this, *providing* the budget service was a decent length train. A 4-car EMU (as was the case for many years on the LM Crewe services) is too wasteful a use of paths.

Likewise it needs to be done without interfering with the commuter operation at the London end. It’s not reasonable for commuters to find their train (1) unreliable because it’s come from a long way out, and (2) heavily loaded with people making long cheap journeys whilst the Intercity service they should be on whisks past carrying fresh air. This also tended to be the case with some of LM’s raids on Virgin, both on the Crewe route and Birmingham as well.

 

[yorksrob]

I wouldn’t have an issue with this, *providing* the budget service was a decent length train. A 4-car EMU (as was the case for many years on the LM Crewe services) is too wasteful a use of paths.

Likewise it needs to be done without interfering with the commuter operation at the London end. It’s not reasonable for commuters to find their train (1) unreliable because it’s come from a long way out, and (2) heavily loaded with people making long cheap journeys whilst the Intercity service they should be on whisks past carrying fresh air. This also tended to be the case with some of LM’s raids on Virgin, both on the Crewe route and Birmingham as well.

I must admit, my knowledge of commuter services at the Southern end of the WCML is limited, however for the ECML, you'd still have the plethora of ironing board specials south of Peterborough through Thameslink.

The service could perhaps provide better connectivity to some of the bigger settlements south of Peterborough such as Huntingdon and Welwyn, rather than displacing Thameslink. I agree it should be a nice length though.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've suggested previously that it would be a good idea to have, say an hourly path on the ECML reserved for a stopping, budget service, perhaps to York, in the same way that LNR does towards Crewe. I've always seen this as providing a walk-up alternative in terms of fares, however this would be even more desireable if the IC trains cease to be turn up and go altogether.

Here's a new thread regarding that:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/compulsory-reservations-providing-adequate-local-services.214590/

And one about fares with a few starter ideas:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/compulsory-reservations-ticketing.214591/

 

[JonathanH]

I've suggested previously that it would be a good idea to have, say an hourly path on the ECML reserved for a stopping, budget service, perhaps to York, in the same way that LNR does towards Crewe. I've always seen this as providing a walk-up alternative in terms of fares, however this would be even more desireable if the IC trains cease to be turn up and go altogether.

Arguably you are just describing the path of LNER's two-hourly York stopper - it is sometimes possible to get cheaper advance fares on this at the moment - it just happens to be run with the same rolling stock as the rest of the service.

The DfT are hardly going to agree to put this in the hands of another operator for cheaper fares to be offered. How much cheaper is it for a 'budget' operator to run this stopping service than the incumbent one? I assume that LNR make less money on their Trent Valley services than Avanti do on their services to Crewe.

 

[bramling]

I must admit, my knowledge of commuter services at the Southern end of the WCML is limited, however for the ECML, you'd still have the plethora of ironing board specials south of Peterborough through Thameslink.

The service could perhaps provide better connectivity to some of the bigger settlements south of Peterborough such as Huntingdon and Welwyn, rather than displacing Thameslink.

There would certainly be some scope to do it (if it could be pathed, which is of course a big if) by offering something like KX - St Neots - Huntingdon - Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster - York.

But compared to the existing York LNER service the only extras this actually gives are St Neots and Huntingdon. It might be viable to add Stevenage and maybe Hitchin, but by that stage you are likely to be down to 75/80 mph by being stuck on the slow lines.

I’d actually go for it, as such as service would potentially be quite useful to me, but I’m not convinced it’s viable. Pathing would be somewhere between difficult and impossible, and at many times of day a short EMU would be inappropriate south of Peterborough, so now you either have to run an 8-car EMU all the way north (which still doesn’t provide a 12-car to London at the busiest times), or having splitting and joining at Peterborough. Then we’re still using a path into and out of London which at times is going to be a short train, or if it can be filled with people willing to pay less and take a hit on speed/comfort, there will be Azumas going past with empty seats for sure. Looking at the big picture I think it creates more issues than it solves, which has been largely the case on the WCML.

At the moment the GN Peterborough fasts provide vital breathing space by hoovering up people from Peterborough (many of whom should really be on LNER anyway!), Huntingdon, St Neots and Biggleswade, meaning the Thameslink services have space for people further in. They also provide a non-stop hop from Stevenage to London as a spin-off. If these services were full of long-distance passengers then what would happen is the Thameslink services would arrive heavily loaded at places like Hitchin, with passengers from there then opting to take the stopping service to London in order to get a decent seat, causing a crunch on capacity inwards of Stevenage and a domino effect.

 

[yorksrob]

Arguably you are just describing the path of LNER's two-hourly York stopper - it is sometimes possible to get cheaper advance fares on this at the moment - it just happens to be run with the same rolling stock as the rest of the service.

The DfT are hardly going to agree to put this in the hands of another operator for cheaper fares to be offered.

Not really - it's still reliant on cheap advanced fares being available and booking in advance.

You can turn up at Crewe at any time and buy a cheap walk on fare for an LNWR service - no pre-booking or fares availability to worry about.

 

[JonathanH]

You can turn up at Crewe at any time and buy a cheap walk on fare for an LNWR service - no pre-booking or fares availability to worry about.

At the moment, yes. I can easily imagine those fares being withdrawn as part of DfT-led simplification.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Arguably you are just describing the path of LNER's two-hourly York stopper - it is sometimes possible to get cheaper advance fares on this at the moment - it just happens to be run with the same rolling stock as the rest of the service.

The DfT are hardly going to agree to put this in the hands of another operator for cheaper fares to be offered. How much cheaper is it for a 'budget' operator to run this stopping service than the incumbent one? I assume that LNR make less money on their Trent Valley services than Avanti do on their services to Crewe.

Does that need to be with another operator, or would it simply be acceptable to denote it as a "RegionalExpress" or "InterRegio" or whatever, on which reservations are optional?

Most railways the world over have cheaper fares on slower trains.

 

[yorksrob]

There would certainly be some scope to do it (if it could be pathed, which is of course a big if) by offering something like KX - St Neots - Huntingdon - Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster - York.

But compared to the existing York LNER service the only extras this actually gives are St Neots and Huntingdon. It might be viable to add Stevenage and maybe Hitchin, but by that stage you are likely to be down to 75/80 mph by being stuck on the slow lines.

I’d actually go for it, as such as service would potentially be quite useful to me, but I’m not convinced it’s viable. Pathing would be somewhere between difficult and impossible, and at many times of day a short EMU would be inappropriate south of Peterborough, so now you either have to run an 8-car EMU all the way north (which still doesn’t provide a 12-car to London at the busiest times), or having splitting and joining at Peterborough. Then we’re still using a path into and out of London which at times is going to be a short train, or if it can be filled with people willing to pay less and take a hit on speed/comfort, there will be Azumas going past with empty seats for sure. Looking at the big picture I think it creates more issues than it solves, which has been largely the case on the WCML.

That's the thing though - I don't actually see a problem with it being at 75mph on the slow lines (or even being looped on the double track sections). If you want a fast train to London, you should be catching the InterCity service.

People wanting to pay less and willing to take a hit on speed and comfort would be a key market for this service. I admit that it creates a couple of issues for service provders, but for a passenger, it really is very liberating being able to rock up and get a cheap walk on fare. Particularly as I've found at some times, even quite far in advance, there haven't been that many spectacularly good offers available with LNER.

At the moment, yes. I can easily imagine those fares being withdrawn as part of DfT-led simplification.

I must admit, it wouldn't surprise me if the DfT decided to withdraw the passenger friendly tickets !

Perhaps being able to walk up at any time and buy a reasonably priced fare is just too simple !

 

[paul1609]

Compulsory reservations won't be much use in times of high demand caused by sports event.

Say Leeds gets into the FA cup semifinal, the fans will be heading back to Leeds around the same time.
Having compulsory reservations will mean those fans trying to get on the last train as the finish time is unknown (injury time/extra time/penalties etc, plus the time taken to get from Wembley to Kings Cross, only to have to hang around until the booked train rather than currently booking the first available train (if they are using flexible tickets).

It could push those football fans away from the train onto coaches

I don't know what football matches you go to but the rail industry has been telling fans for years that they don't have the capacity and suggesting you use national express instead.

 

[Bald Rick]

I don't know what football matches you go to but the rail industry has been telling fans for years that they don't have the capacity and suggesting you use national express instead.

Where has the rail industry said that?

 

[YorksLad12]

Compulsory reservations won't be much use in times of high demand caused by sports event.

Say Leeds gets into the FA cup semifinal, the fans will be heading back to Leeds around the same time.
Having compulsory reservations will mean those fans trying to get on the last train as the finish time is unknown (injury time/extra time/penalties etc, plus the time taken to get from Wembley to Kings Cross, only to have to hang around until the booked train rather than currently booking the first available train (if they are using flexible tickets).

It could push those football fans away from the train onto coaches

As a Leeds fan (1996 Coca-Cola Cup Final, lost 3-0 to Aston Villa): we'd be happy to get past the third round, and most fans would drive+tube as a carful or stay over and drown their sorrows.

 

[Bikeman78]

- Crowded trains are an unpleasant experience for everyone, you cant reach the buffet or the toilets without difficulty for example, and if you've paid for First class do you really want to be unable to leave your seat because of people crammed in the aisles?

The only times I have been on trains this busy is after a rugby match at Cardiff or after a line has been shut for multiple hours.

- As is the model in France, if you've a reservation on a specific train, you can easily change it either online, at a ticket office or using a machine to a later / earlier service if a train is full.

I trust that rebooking to a later train will be possible after departure time? I've often gone for trains out of Paddington and missed them by seconds. But I wouldn't want to change to a later train until I know I've definitely missed the original intended train. Sometimes they are delayed a minute or two by an incoming train so I've made a train that I should have missed.

 

[zwk500]

Compulsory reservations won't be much use in times of high demand caused by sports event.

Say Leeds gets into the FA cup semifinal, the fans will be heading back to Leeds around the same time.
Having compulsory reservations will mean those fans trying to get on the last train as the finish time is unknown (injury time/extra time/penalties etc, plus the time taken to get from Wembley to Kings Cross, only to have to hang around until the booked train rather than currently booking the first available train (if they are using flexible tickets).

It could push those football fans away from the train onto coaches

You would plan an additional relief train that would run in the event of extra time, unreserved. When advertising the tickets, the operator could very easily advertise that 'in the event of extra time, we will run a later train for you to get home'

Virgin West coast did exactly this for the 2018 & 2019 Semi-Finals and Final. Additional relief planned for 90 minute Full Time, with a Q path (and associated ECS moves) if it went the distance. The additional was unreserved completely (the 90 minute time was, I think, advertised).

 

[Bikeman78]

If these services were full of long-distance passengers then what would happen is the Thameslink services would arrive heavily loaded at places like Hitchin, with passengers from there then opting to take the stopping service to London in order to get a decent seat, causing a crunch on capacity inwards of Stevenage and a domino effect.

In the latter months of the 317s on the ECML I did a few Saturday trips. The faster trains were pretty much full by Arlesey never mind Hitchin. There is a cheaper Great Northern fare from Peterborough but I don't know how many people use it. The trains are rarely busy from Peterborough.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I trust that rebooking to a later train will be possible after departure time? I've often gone for trains out of Paddington and missed them by seconds. But I wouldn't want to change to a later train until I know I've definitely missed the original intended train. Sometimes they are delayed a minute or two by an incoming train so I've made a train that I should have missed.

There's certainly a disadvantage to those who are often last-minute for trains, though that's offset by the reduction in people running across stations and the related safety benefit.

Whether you can rebook after a missed departure or not is not linked to compulsory reservation in and of itself, it's a fares matter. Budget airlines offer this at a fee, for example.

 

[Starmill]

Wherever possible, Longer distance trains shouldn't be used for "local" journeys. Take the TGV in the South of France for example. "Local" tickets aren't valid on TGVs between Marseille and Nice / Monaco. If you want to purchase a ticket and use the TGV then you can, but at a significant supplement. I accept that on some flows the local service will need to be improved to make this work.

There are just six services a day between Marseille and Nice which are Reservations Compulsory. On the busiest route in the country outside Paris. Would you suggest it's feasible to have Leeds to London cut to 6tpd just so that Wakefield to Leeds and Stevenage to London passengers aren't allowed on? Oh, and also, the TGV is regularly cheaper for Nice - Cannes than the TERs

Long-distance trains carry short-distance passengers in this country. The only way out of this is to build a new route for one or the other. That's your only choice. There's absolutely no way you can possibly run more local trains between Stevenage and London or Wakefield and Leeds to replace the lost capacity otherwise.

 

[bramling]

That's the thing though - I don't actually see a problem with it being at 75mph on the slow lines (or even being looped on the double track sections). If you want a fast train to London, you should be catching the InterCity service.

People wanting to pay less and willing to take a hit on speed and comfort would be a key market for this service. I admit that it creates a couple of issues for service provders, but for a passenger, it really is very liberating being able to rock up and get a cheap walk on fare. Particularly as I've found at some times, even quite far in advance, there haven't been that many spectacularly good offers available with LNER.



I must admit, it wouldn't surprise me if the DfT decided to withdraw the passenger friendly tickets !

Perhaps being able to walk up at any time and buy a reasonably priced fare is just too simple !

The trouble is the LM example hasn’t worked out so well in practice. I remember doing London to Atherstone, a few years ago, at around 0900 on a weekday morning, so not really a time when one might expect it to be rammed. 1x350/1. Full Euston Scrum (thank goodness for RTTT!). Train totally crush loaded the entire way, such that getting off at Atherstone with bike was a bit interesting. After few hours got on another service to Rugby, not quite as packed but still no seats. An hour at Rugby and trying to be on the one behind back to London - rammed again. At this point decided to wait for a Virgin, which turned up half empty. Now as far as I could tell there was nothing unusual going on, it seemed to be people on cheap tickets to Stafford and Stoke mainly. Not a good experience, especially as this was the only service at Atherstone.

In the latter months of the 317s on the ECML I did a few Saturday trips. The faster trains were pretty much full by Arlesey never mind Hitchin. There is a cheaper Great Northern fare from Peterborough but I don't know how many people use it. The trains are rarely busy from Peterborough.

If they were stopping at Arlesey and Hitchin this would the semi-fast, though for many years there’s been 3tpd each way on a Saturday to cover tidal day trip flows. These trips, including on weekdays, do tend to have some level of loading on to/from Peterborough.

 

[Hadders]

- At busy times, TOCs are bombarded with complaints, just look at the media stories and TOC Twitter feeds complaining that TOCs have "oversold" the train, and should't sell more tickets than are available. This will deal with that.

I agree, but how many media stories, twitter feeds will there be if passengers can't get reservations because they are full, especially as these 'full' trains will often have available seats as they will have been booked by passengers from intermediate stations. This would certainly look just as bad, if not worse.

- A sizeable minority if not the majority of LNER's passenger base isn't commuter, it's leisure or occasional / business travel

Leisure passengers often want flexibility as well. On the day 'things' happen. One key advantage of rail is its flexibility.

- Crowded trains are an unpleasant experience for everyone, you cant reach the buffet or the toilets without difficulty for example, and if you've paid for First class do you really want to be unable to leave your seat because of people crammed in the aisles? This is exactly what has happened at the busiest times

Ideally more capacity is required and has been added in recent years. Gross over crowding on inter-city trains is unusual, certainly outside of disruption. There are some exceptions, for example I recall the 06:16 Euston to Manchester, arrives 08:28 is very busy after Stoke on Trent where it calls at 08:00. Consequently it is the commuter train for the good people of Stoke into Manchester (prior to Stoke it carries fresh air). If you ban the Stoke commuter from this train (an 11 carriage Pendolino) there simply isn't the capacity to hoover up these passengers on other Stoke to Manchester services or the available paths to run an additional service.

This is actually a really good use of resources by the railway. If you made the 08:00 from Stoke reservation only then just imagine the negative publicity with everyone crammed onto the Northern trains at that time, as an 11 carriage fresh air express speeds past from London to Manchester. That would be very brand damaging for the railway.

- This model works well not only in Europe but also the US too for long distance journeys.

It is difficult making this comparison because in Europe and the US inter-city trains don't really provide local services as well. See my example above of where and why this happens in Britain.

- Wherever possible, Longer distance trains shouldn't be used for "local" journeys. Take the TGV in the South of France for example. "Local" tickets aren't valid on TGVs between Marseille and Nice / Monaco. If you want to purchase a ticket and use the TGV then you can, but at a significant supplement. I accept that on some flows the local service will need to be improved to make this work.

Ideally I agree but we generally don't have the available paths on our network to run additional trains. See my London to Manchester example above - other examples are available.

- As is the model in France, if you've a reservation on a specific train, you can easily change it either online, at a ticket office or using a machine to a later / earlier service if a train is full.

In Britain the inter-city trains often double up as local services. For example Retford to Newark, Doncaster to York, Wakefield to Leeds. These are short distance journeys where the inter-city operator is also the main provider of local journeys. Ideally we'd run additional 'local' services but in many cases there aren't the paths or capacity available. If you insist on reservations to make the local journey good luck trying to enforce it at stations along the route, people will just board the train.

And yes, if this means some people won't be able to travel at the very busiest because the trains are full then so be it - that's no different to the airlines.

That's going to be a problem, especially when there is disruption. I don't just mean mass disruption either. A 10 minute delay to a connecting service (a sort of routine delay if you like) can often cause a connection onto a long distance inter-city journey to be missed. What happens if the trains for the rest of the day are fully booked, especially if I'm at somewhere like Retford or Newark which are interchange station but not with the most frequent service or loads of staff about either to assist.

 

[yorksrob]

The trouble is the LM example hasn’t worked out so well in practice. I remember doing London to Atherstone, a few years ago, at around 0900 on a weekday morning, so not really a time when one might expect it to be rammed. 1x350/1. Full Euston Scrum (thank goodness for RTTT!). Train totally crush loaded the entire way, such that getting off at Atherstone with bike was a bit interesting. After few hours got on another service to Rugby, not quite as packed but still no seats. An hour at Rugby and trying to be on the one behind back to London - rammed again. At this point decided to wait for a Virgin, which turned up half empty. Now as far as I could tell there was nothing unusual going on, it seemed to be people on cheap tickets to Stafford and Stoke mainly. Not a good experience, especially as this was the only service at Atherstone.

If you have two methods of charging for journeys and people are free to choose between them, I suppose its inevitable that at some times there will be a disparity between numbers choosing each method. That said, if trains charged using one methodology are consistently overcrowded whilst those using another are largely empty, doesn't that suggest that there should be more services charged using the popular methodology, rather than less ?

I suppose a lot of it will depend on how easy it would have been to obtain a decent fare using the competitive service at the time as well.

I did actually manage to use LNWR from Crewe back in the dim and distant past prior to Coronavirus, and whilst it did get busy towards London, and it took a long time, I didn't find it to be an unpleasent experience at all.

Getting back to the premise of the thread, even at the most basic level, the LNWR experience suggests that there is an inherant demand for walk on travel, and it doesn't behove the main provider on one of our premier routes to remove that facility.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The LNR services now mostly run as 8 car and this has solved the overcrowding problem. XC, are you watching?

 

[norbitonflyer]

There would certainly be some scope to do it (if it could be pathed, which is of course a big if) by offering something like KX - St Neots - Huntingdon - Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster - York.

But compared to the existing York LNER service the only extras this actually gives are St Neots and Huntingdon. It might be viable to add Stevenage and maybe Hitchin, but by that stage you are likely to be down to 75/80 mph by being stuck on the slow lines.

I’d actually go for it, as such as service would potentially be quite useful to me, but I’m not convinced it’s viable. Pathing would be somewhere between difficult and impossible, and at many times of day a short EMU would be inappropriate south of Peterborough, so now you either have to run an 8-car EMU all the way north (which still doesn’t provide a 12-car to London at the busiest times), or having splitting and joining at Peterborough. Then we’re still using a path into and out of London which at times is going to be a short train, or if it can be filled with people willing to pay less and take a hit on speed/comfort, there will be Azumas going past with empty seats for sure. Looking at the big picture I think it creates more issues than it solves, which has been largely the case on the WCML.

At the moment the GN Peterborough fasts provide vital breathing space by hoovering up people from Peterborough (many of whom should really be on LNER anyway!), Huntingdon, St Neots and Biggleswade, meaning the Thameslink services have space for people further in. They also provide a non-stop hop from Stevenage to London as a spin-off. If these services were full of long-distance passengers then what would happen is the Thameslink services would arrive heavily loaded at places like Hitchin, with passengers from there then opting to take the stopping service to London in order to get a decent seat, causing a crunch on capacity inwards of Stevenage and a domino effect.

Splitting at Peterborough could work, if the other half continues via Spalding to Lincoln (or beyond - maybe Grimsby). This would free the paths north of Peterborough currently used by the Lincoln (via Newark) service - maybe more than one path as, unlike Newark, the junction at Peterborough is now grade separated.

Timings between Lincoln and Peterborough are similar by both routes, as the "Joint Line" is shorter, and would be even more closely matched if a station were built in Sleaford where the "Joint" line crosses the Boston line in the south east of the town, allowing trains to and from Lincoln to avoid the sharply curved two-mile detour to serve the existing station (and reducing the number of trains crossing the level crossing in the centre of the town).

 

[Bikeman78]

There's certainly a disadvantage to those who are often last-minute for trains, though that's offset by the reduction in people running across stations and the related safety benefit.

Whether you can rebook after a missed departure or not is not linked to compulsory reservation in and of itself, it's a fares matter. Budget airlines offer this at a fee, for example.

Actually I think I've confused myself here. 99% of the time I use walk on tickets so presumably I'd just reserve a seat on the next train? Assuming that walk on tickets still exist. As for people running on stations, there will always be people who arrive for a train last minute, often through no fault of their own.

The trouble is the LM example hasn’t worked out so well in practice. I remember doing London to Atherstone, a few years ago, at around 0900 on a weekday morning, so not really a time when one might expect it to be rammed. 1x350/1. Full Euston Scrum (thank goodness for RTTT!). Train totally crush loaded the entire way, such that getting off at Atherstone with bike was a bit interesting. After few hours got on another service to Rugby, not quite as packed but still no seats. An hour at Rugby and trying to be on the one behind back to London - rammed again. At this point decided to wait for a Virgin, which turned up half empty. Now as far as I could tell there was nothing unusual going on, it seemed to be people on cheap tickets to Stafford and Stoke mainly. Not a good experience, especially as this was the only service at Atherstone.



If they were stopping at Arlesey and Hitchin this would the semi-fast, though for many years there’s been 3tpd each way on a Saturday to cover tidal day trip flows. These trips, including on weekdays, do tend to have some level of loading on to/from Peterborough.

Yes indeed, all stations to Stevenage then Finsbury Park. The 317s were rare on the fast trains. But the point still stands. If people are encouraged off the LNER trains then more fast GN trains will be needed or the semi fasts will get even fuller. Admittedly they are 12 cars now which will help a lot.

In Britain the inter-city trains often double up as local services.

Another example, the Germans seem contect to stand for one stop hops on the ICE route between Cologne and Munich. I was quite surprised. I always assumed they were reservation only like TGV/Thalys.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Actually I think I've confused myself here. 99% of the time I use walk on tickets so presumably I'd just reserve a seat on the next train? Assuming that walk on tickets still exist. As for people running on stations, there will always be people who arrive for a train last minute, often through no fault of their own.

As I mentioned fares are not inextricably linked to it. We could retain the existing fares system as-is and just require reservations on certain trains, or we could have "airline style" global fares. In the former case, which is what LNER do now, yes, you would just need to make another reservation.

 

[Bald Rick]

Another example, the Germans seem contect to stand for one stop hops on the ICE route between Cologne and Munich.

Presume you mean Düsseldorf or Frankfurt. It’s over 4 hours Köln - München and at least 6 stops!

 

[Hadders]

Yes indeed, all stations to Stevenage then Finsbury Park. The 317s were rare on the fast trains. But the point still stands. If people are encouraged off the LNER trains then more fast GN trains will be needed or the semi fasts will get even fuller. Admittedly they are 12 cars now which will help a lot.

Pre covid there were fast GN trains in the peaks calling at Huntingdon, St Neots, Biggleswade and Stevenage. Some even operated on Saturdays but these didn’t call at Stevenage.

 

[KeithMcC]

Actually I think I've confused myself here. 99% of the time I use walk on tickets so presumably I'd just reserve a seat on the next train? Assuming that walk on tickets still exist. As for people running on stations, there will always be people who arrive for a train last minute, often through no fault of their own.


Yes indeed, all stations to Stevenage then Finsbury Park. The 317s were rare on the fast trains. But the point still stands. If people are encouraged off the LNER trains then more fast GN trains will be needed or the semi fasts will get even fuller. Admittedly they are 12 cars now which will help a lot.


Another example, the Germans seem contect to stand for one stop hops on the ICE route between Cologne and Munich. I was quite surprised. I always assumed they were reservation only like TGV/Thalys.

The Germans discourage local traffic on IC and ICE trains by charging more for them, but there is no compulsory reservation and they can get busy. My usual technique is to find a space in the buffet and have a Weissbier! IC and ICE use the DB tariff and also have a supplement. The cheaper local area day rover tickets aren't valid. I have also been on some very crowded local express services on which the local rover tickets are valid which therefore attract the cost minded traveller.
Germany also has a very efficient universal DB App to buy tickets.

 

[43096]

My usual technique is to find a space in the buffet and have a Weissbier!

Not just me who does that, then!