Should Greater Anglia take over the Stansted Airport-Birmingham Cross Country service?

[SouthEastBuses]

In your opinion, would it be feasible for Greater Anglia to take over operations on the Birmingham New Street – Stansted Airport Cross Country service, and use Class 755 Stadler FLIRTs on the route?

This would allow a complete elimination of diesel only working between Stansted Airport and Ely.

 

[CBlue]

Feasible? Not really.

GA don't have enough 755's, for a start.

Better off buying XC some bi-modes when the 170s are finally worn out.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would either put it in WMT, EMT or GA, yes. It is a poor fit for XC, being a local service.

 

[peteb]

Yes if the trains will be longer. The current service has too few seats for the majority of the journey: Bham to Leicester and Leicester to Peterborough being particularly crowded. I started to use STN via London services to/from the West Mids instead. As quick and often cheaper using Advances. Now however it's pretty irrelevant until air travel picks up post Covid.

 

[greatvoyager]

I would either put it in WMT, EMT or GA, yes. It is a poor fit for XC, being a local service.

I agree, but even then it seems to be a little bit of an oddball as to where the route should go.

 

[Bayum]

Is Stansted even worth running a service to these days, let alone with new stock?

 

[pdeaves]

I agree, but even then it seems to be a little bit of an oddball as to where the route should go.

It's 'oddball' that makes me think leave it with XC, given that its other routes cut across other operators' territories. I suppose it's one of those routes that is useful but would forever be at the mercy of decision makers trying every other combination out to see what works best.

 

[Ianno87]

Fuel capacity might be a problem for such a long run off the wires.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Well.

If they could have been bothered to allow another operator into New Street (I don’t buy it’s a problem at all in reality, I think it’s just excuses), then EMR is the best operator with new / 170 trains.

Transfer all of Leicester and Cambridge crew depot over (XC establishment) and then EMR are sole operator on that Birmingham - Leicester - Peterborough axis.

One addition to my previous post is that given Stansted is hardly in need of a long-distance through service, it would arguably be better to extend the Ipswich via Bury service down, along with the Norwich, so GA are sole operator between Cambridge and Stansted, no? Then it’s just BHM - CBG.

 

[ABB125]

I think EMR would probably be the best fit if the operator were to be changed. However, to me it makes sense for both BHM-LEI services each hour to be operated by the same operator, and would BHM-LEI on its own be a good fit? Possibly not. Extend it to Peterborough though...

 

[Energy]

Do the 755s have a long enough diesel range of the wires? If so then I would call it feasible, it is fairly easy for them to order a few more FLIRTs. Quite a lot is outside GA's area though.

 

[SussexLad]

I think it should be left as it is.

Birmingham to leister really need extending to peterbrough or Cambridge, probably not stansted due to capacity. If you do that, you can take some of the stops out of the current Stansted service and put it into the new service to make both of them a better fit with XC

 

[GTR fail]

Yes it could be however only if it is split into two separate services (can’t imagine greater anglia running all the way to Birmingham) e.g. Stansted to Leicester and then Leicester to Bristol XC or other

 

[4-SUB 4732]

There’s no way you can sensibly fit it into GA.

WMT it would be too far, and outside their area.

EMR already operate Leicester - Ely (albeit the Melton line is only two a day or what have you), but it all makes sense.

Ivanhoe line services can be resourced by that Leicester train crew depot too, and you just transfer 170s over to suit.

One final thing is you can consider extending those Brum - Leicester local services to Posh, to hook up with GA connectivity down to Ipswich and what not.

It’s a solid fit. And then you have the chance of re-mapping the services to suit the region e.g. Norwich - Birmingham, Cambridge - Birmingham and Peterborough - Manchester or whatever you truly fancy.