My idea for Transpennine limited-stop fast services

[gerryuk]

Fewer stops would presumably mean less revenue? Unless there are going to be droves of new passengers turning up to save 10 minutes on their journey time from Liverpool to Newcastle.

I am probably being totally stupid here but bear with me.
If say only a couple of customers were to board a train at one of the quieter stations on a rout like this and some of the longer distance services, wouldn’t the toc make more money by not stopping? Doesn’t it cost a lot of money when the driver applies the brakes on trains and also when he takes off, accelerates out of the station?

 

[dvalts]

I am probably being totally stupid here but bear with me.
If say only a couple of customers were to board a train at one of the quieter stations on a rout like this and some of the longer distance services, wouldn’t the toc make more money by not stopping? Doesn’t it cost a lot of money when the driver applies the brakes on trains and also when he takes off, accelerates out of the station?

I see your point (wasted fuel/electricity etc.) but I would think stations like Huddersfield and Durham that are being proposed to be skipped have more than a couple of passengers waiting to board. I would say almost all the TPE served stations have pretty good patronage, even the relatively smaller ones.

 

[Greenback]

Even if only one or two people board, what about the people getting off?

Demand level at smaller stations can be highly variable as well, if my local stations are anything to go by. It's difficult to tell how many people are going to board or alight a train on any given service, as there could be lots of factors influencing it, such as weather and sporting events.

Basically, TOC will look carefully at patterns of overall demand, including revenue and costs, and will make any decision in accordance with that, along with any statutory requirements of providing a level of service which might come into play.

 

[glbotu]

The smallest place in the NE that's served by Transpennine is probably Thirsk, with 1 tph, from Middlesbrough. That has a population of around 8000.

Other places along that route are considerably bigger:

Durham - 85,000
Chester-Le-Street - 22,000
Northallerton - 15,000
Darlington - 106,000

(approx. 2011 Census Data).

Especially in the cases of Darlington (which is more that half the population of York, where you propose to stop) and Durham, there's very little scope in reducing services to these areas.

Thirsk and Chester-Le-Street see 1tph, from what is their only train service (other than peak extras).

I don't know if there are extra paths on this 2 track section of the ECML, but I can't imagine there are any for fast trains. The service from Newcastle southbound is already awkward. It's 5 tph, with departures at approximatey

XX:00 - London Fast
XX:10 - TPE
XX:30 - London Slow
XX:35 - XC 1
XX:40 - XC 2

In essence, in order to clear a path for the London Fast, the previous service has to leave 20 mins earlier, so as not to get caught up with and even the London Fast stops at Darlington. Everything else then squeezes into a much smaller chunk of time between XX:30 and XX:40. If you needed to clear another path for a Super TPE train, I don't think you could, without making the timetable really awkward, or reducing the railway service to Durham, Darlington etc.

 

[Greenback]

If you needed to clear another path for a Super TPE train, I don't think you could, without making the timetable really awkward, or reducing the railway service to Durham, Darlington etc.

Agreed. Pathing different types of trains with different stopping patterns on two tracks is one of the main reasons why railway timetables are rarely perfect.

 

[cuccir]

The Liverpool-Newcastle service is now pretty much an express Liverpool-York: except for the occasional peak stop, it gets from Liverpool to York via Manchester, Huddersfield and Leeds only.

As pointed out above though, once you hit the North-East: there's a lack of paths; nothing else in the way of local services; already several fast Newcastle-(Darlington)-York services. Indeed, the TPE services are required for Chester-le-Street/Northallerton/Durham types to connect to other services at York or Newcastle that pass through!

 

[Greenback]

Traditionally, the fastest trains have always been first on the timetabling graph, with slower services being built in around them. I think that remains the difference between Liverpool to York and then beyond. For the former, the TPE trains are amongst the fast services, while after York they become the slows!

 

[Senex]

The smallest place in the NE that's served by Transpennine is probably Thirsk, with 1 tph, from Middlesbrough. That has a population of around 8000.

Other places along that route are considerably bigger:

Durham - 85,000
Chester-Le-Street - 22,000
Northallerton - 15,000
Darlington - 106,000

(approx. 2011 Census Data).

Especially in the cases of Darlington (which is more that half the population of York, where you propose to stop) and Durham, there's very little scope in reducing services to these areas.

It's interesting to compare the populations with the rail-usage figures (though these are of course only the overall figures and not those for specific point-to-point journeys):

Leeds 30,482,057
Manchester Piccadilly 27,320,505
Liverpool Lime Street 15,238,008
York 9,414,090
Newcastle 8,435,090
Manchester Oxford Road 8,350,672
Manchester Victoria 7,662,092
Huddersfield 5,235,101
Manchester Airport 3,336,859
Durham 2,420,065
Darlington 2,637,987
Dewsbury 1,669,758
Warrington Central 2,038,772
Stalybridge 1,213,003
Northallerton 640,843
Birchwood 583,454
Widnes 416,676
East Garforth 222,918
Chester-le-Street 199,131
Thirsk 194,394

These are the figures for in and out and interchange from the most recently published statistics.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Traditionally, the fastest trains have always been first on the timetabling graph, with slower services being built in around them.

Is that still the case? I seem to remember that in the recent (2012? 2011?) revision of the ECML timetable one of the big problems was precisely that it was not possible just to place London-Edinburgh on the graph first and then sort everything around that because of the franchise agreements with other TOCs.

We don't see the problem at its worst in this country. Look to Germany, where the regional contracts for local passenger services in some areas now make it well-nigh impossible to get decent inter-city services. For quite a number of years past there has been a wish for a genuine fast service between Cologne and Hamburg, but pathing has proved quite impossible and the less-than-optimal fast services attempted, like the "Metropolitan", have simply failed to generate enough traffic.

 

[Greenback]

Is that still the case? I seem to remember that in the recent (2012? 2011?) revision of the ECML timetable one of the big problems was precisely that it was not possible just to place London-Edinburgh on the graph first and then sort everything around that because of the franchise agreements with other TOCs.

I'm not at all sure, but if it's not, I think it should be! It's the only sensible way to do it, really.

 

[The Planner]

It can work both ways. You put the stoppers on first and time the fasts to get as close as possible at a junction/loop or terminal station or you go the other way and put the fasts in and the the stoppers follow as close as posssible at the origin or a junction/loop. If it doesnt work then you have a tendancy to go down the skip stop route. The best dilemma is usually the Class 4 vs a stopper and who goes first.

 

[Bevan Price]

Your idea of fast Liverpool to Newcastle to flawed. You need to look at the travel markets Darlington, Durham & Huddersfield are big markets. Anyway presently the the travel end to end time is around 3 hours, the plan after electrification is around 2½ hours with present station stops. A much better idea is tilting trains, tilting Micklefield to Manchester would mean a substantial time reductions.

Not unless you got rid of all the local services.

 

[Greenback]

It can work both ways. You put the stoppers on first and time the fasts to get as close as possible at a junction/loop or terminal station or you go the other way and put the fasts in and the the stoppers follow as close as posssible at the origin or a junction/loop. If it doesnt work then you have a tendancy to go down the skip stop route. The best dilemma is usually the Class 4 vs a stopper and who goes first.

Fair enough, I'll defer to your experience and knowledge