You can try a FOI request - your luck might be in!
Thats a masterstroke of understatement
At one point, the CrossCountry 'Devon Scot' provided the Aberdeen to West Coast link, but it should be noted that the InterCity West Coast operation was slower to London, and didn't have diesel trains, without the rigmarole of having to change locomotives. When CrossCountry focused on the East Coast route, the link to the West Coast was lost.
Grand Union (open access) wants to run four trains per day from Stirling to Euston without reversing, via Larbert, Greenfaulds, Whifflet, Motherwell, Lockerbie, Carlisle, Preston, Crewe, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes Central. I'm not sure if there's never been a direct Preston – north of Central Belt service since privatisation (excluding the Sleeper) though.
That stopped running in the 1980s though, as the Highland Chieftain was a better way of continuing the link with London from Inverness.
There is quite a big question as to how viable that operation would be without the Glasgow / Edinburgh stops if it happens.
Agreed – Motherwell's not far from Glasgow but Wolverhampton and Tame Bridge Parkway stops didn't save Wrexham & Shropshire.
No need for a unified organisation, plenty of cross-crewing arrangements around the network today. Either for disrupted working (route conducting for diverted trains) or simply because it makes economic sense for both parties to share the route.If the issue is that only a limited number of LNER crews sign north of Edinburgh, switching to Scotrail would have the same problem, though it would instead be limited crews signing south of Wallyford/Dunbar/Drem/wherever.
Sharing crews between the operators would solve the problem, with the minor inconvenience of setting it up in the first place. Come to think of it, there should be more sharing of crews and jobs across the network... maybe they could even all be employed by the same organisation? We could call it something like "British Railways"?
Nah, that'd never work and would be extremely unpopular!
Have you ever used this service?
Yes, perfectly reasonable, of course. But people are also entitled to speculate that one day of cancelled services due to bad weather means very little indeed in context.
I don't see anyone suggesting that Scotrail ran south of Edinburgh unless I'm mistaken?
The OPs thought process was ScotRail currently run HST’s which are suitable for Aberdeen/Inverness to London. They are due for replacement in the not too distant future, if they replace them with similar stock of an InterCity style nature, then why not run them to London? One of the reasons LNER’s operation is a bit of a pickle is there are no staff depots in the highlands. This means there is a risk of delay if the LNER is late to Inverness as the driver who brings that in will stay in a hotel before passing to Aberdeen the following morning to take an Aberdeen LNER departure. Therefore the minimum 12 break between shifts can cause knock on delays to the Aberdeen service if the Inverness one is delayed. Therefore, by switching to ScotRail operation you remove that. Of course, you could put the risk at the other end as ScotRail wouldn’t have a depot in London and the same happens in reverse, but the OP suggested some possible interworking with Caledonian Sleeper crews. This would give you a base of ‘Scotland/London’ capable staff that could work both trains. But someone raised that freight drivers do the sleeper working so that may not be workable.
While that was true for many years, it doesn’t happen any more since some rostering changes earlier this year. The same Newcastle lodge link driver who works the evening Down service works the Up service in the morning with a reduced (minimum 9 hour) rest in Inverness.
Ah that makes sense, I interpreted it as Scotrail running all journeys north of EDB and LNER running all journeys south of EDB (Crossocuntry fitting in somewhere in this plan too).
This argument of course also works the other way: LNER shouldn’t run the Aberdonian, as it forms part of the regular interval service between Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
I think we would need to know how much subsidy is actually provided for these services. I cant help but think that expensive bi mode high speed trains trundling around Scottish Branchlines would ever wash its face if it was a fully commercial service, perhaps we should invite Grand Central to tender with their 180s?
The issue is that there may be a level of disruption to LNER's core service from the north of Edinburgh extensions (particularly with the increase in TSRs) which no amount of money from ScotGov could ameliorate. If ScotRail are disgruntled about the increased cancellations north of Edinburgh, they have two realistic options as I see it:
There is merit to providing a daily through service down to the south-west of England and it is sensibly timed to boot. I'm just not convinced that the current method of operation is the best way of doing things? There is the morning ECS from Craigentinny to Dundee which continues to Aberdeen, and the late evening service from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. Do the loadings on Scotrail's 1A71 justify the earlier Dundee-Aberdeen service offered by XC's 2A01 which is non-stop and only arrives 13 minutes earlier? How are the loadings on XC's 1B61 - are they enough to justify a 5-car Voyager or would it be cheaper to run it as a single 158 or 170? If Scotrail crewed the XC runs on the HML, then I imagine that stabling the Voyager overnight at Aberdeen could prove cheaper than the extra mileage incurred by 5A01, 2A01 and 1B61.
