Transport Scotland Rail 2014 consultation

[tbtc]

If these plans go ahead, though, places like Aberdeen, Dundee, Stirling and Inverness (i.e. 4 of Scotland's 6 cities) will need a change at Edinburgh for London, in the same way that Sunderland, pre-GC, needed a change at Newcastle.

But I agree that right now there's not really any scope, unless someone wanted to do a XC-style service from Inverness-Stirling-Edinburgh-Leeds-Birmingham, although the Highland Main Line is already at capacity (I think?) which would put paid to that.

I was just thinking of "internal" Scottish services when I was thinking of what there'd be scope to run as OA.

You'd never get OA from northern Scotland to London as that'd mean giving a share of the Edinburgh - London flows which would be a bigger ORCATS raid than GC have at York...

Talking of capacity, it may be that internal Scottish services (not dependant on paths further south on the ECML would be able to squeeze more paths out of the single track parts of the HML (and the bridge over the river Esk at Montrose), since the East Coast services don't fit into the "standard" Scotrail pattern?

 

[marks87]

I was just thinking of "internal" Scottish services when I was thinking of what there'd be scope to run as OA.

Well, internally you'd probably be looking at services that bypass Glasgow -- so Aberdeen-Stirling-Cumbernauld then either Motherwell or swinging back round via Stepps to the WHL. Or attempt to bring about Crossrail in all but name by using the City Union Line for direct services from the North East down to Prestwick and Ayr.

All hypothetical, of course, since capacity probably makes these non-starters.

 

[route:oxford]

You'd never get OA from northern Scotland to London as that'd mean giving a share of the Edinburgh - London flows which would be a bigger ORCATS raid than GC have at York...

Is Scotland exempt from the rules that permit the OA operations in England?

I'd very much doubt if an OA operator were to attempt to launch a service linking a largely rural, sparsley populated and deprived area with one of Europes largest capitals, that a mere accounting flaw would be considered a reasonable excuse in Brussels to prevent it from starting up.

Brussels would probably help fund new stock for it.

 

[Proud Salopian]

> Proposal to cut all cross-border services north of Edinburgh, forcing passengers onto ScotRail
> Proposal to cut at least one of the Caley Sleeper routes

I know the Scots want to cut away from England but this is ridiculous! Whatever next? Surcharges for Englishmen crossing over the border?

Why don't they just rebuild the Wall whilst they're at it? (Actually they probably will the moment they're independent.)

 

[YorkshireBear]

Why don't they just rebuild the Wall whilst they're at it? (Actually they probably will the moment they're independent.)

The wall no longer follows the border so it would be very strange if they rebuilt it in its current position and would probably cause hell.

 

[Invincibles]

Maybe there is an argument for electrifying to Perth as part of the EGIP final phase, then London trains (from both mainlines) can terminate at Perth (and maybe Dundee from the WCML)

I think at that point cutting the northernmost services, particularly Inverness makes a lot of sense.

Connections can be made better and cross platform with careful planning avoiding all of the problems of the luggage etc.

I do wonder if more direct links to London would help the central Scottish belt.

For example the Virgin slow path could continue to Carlisle - Motherwell - Falkirk* - Stirling - Perth - Dundee.

(* I appreciate it is not possible to call at Falkirk, but somewhere nearby must be possible)

Similarly the Newcastle terminator can continue for stations to Edinburgh - Falkirk - Sterling - Perth - Dundee*

Then there is probably only limited need to continue to Aberdeen (and if there is after eventual electrification the trains from the WCML can continue that way)

Need a few more Pendolinos though, so never going to happen.

 

[marks87]

That would be Larbert. But would Virgin really want to bypass Glasgow completely, though?

 

[Invincibles]

That would be Larbert. But would Virgin really want to bypass Glasgow completely, though?

My thinking was that the train does anyway by stopping short, so continuing to somewhere else that was not Glasgow would be fine.

It really just depends whether there is untapped demand (and potential regeneration funding) to provide the service or not.

My guess would be that actually there is not the demand and that in fact scaling back the service beyond Glasgow and Edinburgh is most efficient. I would like to think there was room for sufficient growth through that belt though.

I think it is pretty certain that London - Inverness is looking doomed.

 

[ObservationCar]

I think it is pretty certain that London - Inverness is looking doomed.

I think it is pretty certain you are from Dundee?

There would be an uproar if Inverness lost its sleeper and its East Coast Service, The EC service provides competition with ScotRail it is a train of far superior quality, 1st and Std Class quality, good catering provision although it has gone down hill since May, and SNP MSP's can often be seen on this train, to their credit, quite often in Standard Class. The East Coast operation works at present, but their are other options other than what has been discussed.

1) Add a Loco or replace the electric loco at Edinburgh or Stirling, (Stirling has better provision for this, e.g plat 6, with the north sidings used for storing the loco), a loco with equivelent power of a 57/67, it works in North Wales, although the NWales 57 doesnt have to climb Drumochdair!

1a) The report looks at providing improved Intercity Services within Scotland, with a fleet of loco's having a 57 in Stirling, could also be used as a Thunderbird for other possible loco hauled services.

2) All London Services originating north of Edinburgh could be run by the ScotRail Franchise, as the sleeper does at present. Picture an HST in Saltire livery running through to Kings Cross. (ScotRail used to have 5 HST's back in BR days for all north services, this allowed some services within Scotland to run as HST's mainly for stock movement, but provided capacity at peak times).

3) Splitting the a Bi-Mode option Train at Stirling would be feasible, which could provide another return working to London or North East England.


Other points to be considered are, the Sleeper. London to Glasgow or Edinburgh is possible in just over 4 hours. This will be reduced in time. This then makes the Lowland Sleeper pointless, as it says in report, budget hotels can provide improved facilities from the Sleeper. The Highland Sleeper would not be comercial as a separate venture, unless it was run a bit like a megabus operation, but even then running only 2 trains a day would never cover its costs. This may be a luxury to us Highlanders, or a vital part of our Tourism and Business links to the rest of the world which is what London is.

Other Links to England. DFT issue really but XC should not be allowed to run a service from Glasgow to SW England via a route which takes 2 hours extra than an available direct route. Is a GLC to BHM via YRK even a valid AnyPermitted Route? Links to Scotland from England, should benefit both parties, and not just used as a fill in the gaps service from other operators.

The Report raises many issues, the other I would like to point out is about rolling stock, provision should be made to procure a new rural 2 or 3 car unit, such a unit could be used in other parts of Britain too, Scotland would probably need between 16-18 of these.

 

[pemma]

They are saying the 156s and 158s will be life expired by 2020 - optimistic!

 

[Train Pilchard]

I think it is pretty certain you are from Dundee?

There would be an uproar if Inverness lost its sleeper and its East Coast Service, The EC service provides competition with ScotRail it is a train of far superior quality, 1st and Std Class quality, good catering provision although it has gone down hill since May, and SNP MSP's can often be seen on this train, to their credit, quite often in Standard Class. The East Coast operation works at present, but their are other options other than what has been discussed.

1) Add a Loco or replace the electric loco at Edinburgh or Stirling, (Stirling has better provision for this, e.g plat 6, with the north sidings used for storing the loco), a loco with equivelent power of a 57/67, it works in North Wales, although the NWales 57 doesnt have to climb Drumochdair!

1a) The report looks at providing improved Intercity Services within Scotland, with a fleet of loco's having a 57 in Stirling, could also be used as a Thunderbird for other possible loco hauled services.

2) All London Services originating north of Edinburgh could be run by the ScotRail Franchise, as the sleeper does at present. Picture an HST in Saltire livery running through to Kings Cross. (ScotRail used to have 5 HST's back in BR days for all north services, this allowed some services within Scotland to run as HST's mainly for stock movement, but provided capacity at peak times).

3) Splitting the a Bi-Mode option Train at Stirling would be feasible, which could provide another return working to London or North East England.


Other points to be considered are, the Sleeper. London to Glasgow or Edinburgh is possible in just over 4 hours. This will be reduced in time. This then makes the Lowland Sleeper pointless, as it says in report, budget hotels can provide improved facilities from the Sleeper. The Highland Sleeper would not be comercial as a separate venture, unless it was run a bit like a megabus operation, but even then running only 2 trains a day would never cover its costs. This may be a luxury to us Highlanders, or a vital part of our Tourism and Business links to the rest of the world which is what London is.

Other Links to England. DFT issue really but XC should not be allowed to run a service from Glasgow to SW England via a route which takes 2 hours extra than an available direct route. Is a GLC to BHM via YRK even a valid AnyPermitted Route? Links to Scotland from England, should benefit both parties, and not just used as a fill in the gaps service from other operators.

The Report raises many issues, the other I would like to point out is about rolling stock, provision should be made to procure a new rural 2 or 3 car unit, such a unit could be used in other parts of Britain too, Scotland would probably need between 16-18 of these.

Did Scotland have a regular inter-city service using HSTs at any point (ie within Scotland), if so what routes or what routes would often see HSTs used?

Also the XC service is dynamite for getting to Newcastle from Glasgow. Changing at Edinburgh does my head in. Although I get what your saying about it being a pretty daft route on paper, why would anyone use it to go Glasgow-Brum/Bristol/Cornwall, does anyone do this?

 

[ainsworth74]

Is a GLC to BHM via YRK even a valid AnyPermitted Route?

Direct trains are always a valid route and it's also valid on non-direct services via a number of different map combinations.

 

[tbtc]

Is Scotland exempt from the rules that permit the OA operations in England?

I'd very much doubt if an OA operator were to attempt to launch a service linking a largely rural, sparsley populated and deprived area with one of Europes largest capitals, that a mere accounting flaw would be considered a reasonable excuse in Brussels to prevent it from starting up.

Brussels would probably help fund new stock for it.

Good luck to you if you want to run an Open Access service, but it'd be a complete waste of paths and a massive ORCATS raid, which is why I'm fairly certain it'd be turned down.
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There would be an uproar if Inverness lost its sleeper and its East Coast Service, The EC service provides competition with ScotRail it is a train of far superior quality, 1st and Std Class quality, good catering provision although it has gone down hill since May, and SNP MSP's can often be seen on this train, to their credit, quite often in Standard Class

This is why I'm reserving judgement until we see what the replacement train service would be.

If its "just" more 158/170s then its A Bad Thing. If it would mean upgrading all services from the Central Belt to Aberdeen/Inverness then the good would outweigh the bad.

No great surprise to see SNP MSPs on the train, given the "early morning" departure time from Inverness and the "teatime" departure from Edinburgh.
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The wall no longer follows the border so it would be very strange if they rebuilt it in its current position and would probably cause hell.

Yup, Hadrian's Wall is 100% in England, I don't think it has formed the "border" between the countries for a long long time.

 

[Scotrail84]

There is talk of Scotrail running to Newcastle from Edinburgh in the future.

 

[marks87]

1) Add a Loco or replace the electric loco at Edinburgh or Stirling, (Stirling has better provision for this, e.g plat 6, with the north sidings used for storing the loco), a loco with equivelent power of a 57/67, it works in North Wales, although the NWales 57 doesnt have to climb Drumochdair!

Replacing the loco is interesting; with current stock, can a 67 work with Mk IVs and a DVT?

There is talk of Scotrail running to Newcastle from Edinburgh in the future.

There was talk, but I don't think the business case was there.

 

[Scotrail84]

QUOTE=Scotrail84;866578]There is talk of Scotrail running to Newcastle from Edinburgh in the future.[/QUOTE]
There was talk, but I don't think the business case was there.[/QUOTE]


I believe it will happen but probably not in this franchise, but what about an Aberdeen/Inverness to Newcastle service if cross border services are cut?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

London to Glasgow or Edinburgh is possible in just over 4 hours. This will be reduced in time. This then makes the Lowland Sleeper pointless, as it says in report, budget hotels can provide improved facilities from the Sleeper.

There are some problems with this, however:

1) You'd lose the day each way that overnight travel saves you. That will not impress business travel planners. It's a huge hit on productivity. At the moment you can do a full day's work at one end, get the Sleeper overnight and do a full day's work at the other end.

2) You'd have to get up ridiculously early to get one of the early departures. Not good for turning up relaxed at a meeting!

3) The facilities within the budget hotels are irrelevant when points 1) and 2) are taken into account - and you'll still end up spending more because you'll have the travel and a hotel to pay for. The Sleeper fares compare very favourably with the daytime services at the moment.

 

[starrymarkb]

Did Scotland have a regular inter-city service using HSTs at any point (ie within Scotland), if so what routes or what routes would often see HSTs used?

Also the XC service is dynamite for getting to Newcastle from Glasgow. Changing at Edinburgh does my head in. Although I get what your saying about it being a pretty daft route on paper, why would anyone use it to go Glasgow-Brum/Bristol/Cornwall, does anyone do this?

No - Flybe from Exeter or Easyjet from Bristol. I can't see journey times improving enough to counter the planes

 

[sprinterguy]

(ScotRail used to have 5 HST's back in BR days for all north services, this allowed some services within Scotland to run as HST's mainly for stock movement, but provided capacity at peak times).

Did Scotland have a regular inter-city service using HSTs at any point (ie within Scotland), if so what routes or what routes would often see HSTs used?

To the best of my knowledge, the official allocation of a few Class 254 sets to the Scottish region was short-lived. The Class 254 sets have only ever operated Scottish services from north of Edinburgh to London from the likes of Aberdeen and Inverness, which were introduced in BR days to make use of "marginal time" in the diagrams.

AFAIK, the only internal Scottish HST activities would be ECS workings from Craigentinny to starting points for London bound East Coast, and Crosscountry services elsewhere, journeys like Dundee.

Although of course, Scotrail did have its' rakes of class 47/7 powered push-pull rakes of mark 3s in the eighties which worked between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and up to Aberdeen (as well as more far flung destinations on rare occasions).

 

[Scotrail84]

Although of course, Scotrail did have its' rakes of class 47/7 powered push-pull rakes of mark 3s in the eighties which worked between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and up to Aberdeen (as well as more far flung destinations on rare occasions).[/QUOTE]

Bring them back please

 

[IanXC]

The Highland Sleeper would not be comercial as a separate venture, unless it was run a bit like a megabus operation, but even then running only 2 trains a day would never cover its costs. This may be a luxury to us Highlanders, or a vital part of our Tourism and Business links to the rest of the world which is what London is.

I wonder how the Highland on its own compares to the financial performance of the Night Rivera?

 

[deltic]

According the document the sleeper services cost £26m a year to operate - not clear if that is net or gross.

Based on ORR data around 1m trips a year are made from locations north of Edinburgh to England which seems a lot to force to change trains

 

[tbtc]

Based on ORR data around 1m trips a year are made from locations north of Edinburgh to England which seems a lot to force to change trains

Of course not all of those people are using direct trains (since Perth/ Stirling/ Falkirk etc only have one train a day, and there are some places with no service to England).

 

[ObservationCar]

To the best of my knowledge, the official allocation of a few Class 254 sets to the Scottish region was short-lived. The Class 254 sets have only ever operated Scottish services from north of Edinburgh to London from the likes of Aberdeen and Inverness, which were introduced in BR days to make use of "marginal time" in the diagrams.

AFAIK, the only internal Scottish HST activities would be ECS workings from Craigentinny to starting points for London bound East Coast, and Crosscountry services elsewhere, journeys like Dundee.

Although of course, Scotrail did have its' rakes of class 47/7 powered push-pull rakes of mark 3s in the eighties which worked between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and up to Aberdeen (as well as more far flung destinations on rare occasions).

There was also a Cross Country train from Aberdeen to Penzance in the Early 80's which started at Elgin, which provided massive capacity into Aberdeen before 0900. There was also a few Glasgow Queen St to London Kings Cross trains, which ended in 1989, these services run as the booked shuttle service for the EDB-GLQ-EDB, including working as a service from EDB-GLQ as stock movement, but would have been well used considering an arrival time of around 0930. There was also a SuO Glasgow to Aberdeen HST, for stock movement, but was a passenger service. There was a good discussion with Diagrams listed the other week on MacCookie's Scot-Rail website.

 

[WatcherZero]

Gone down like a ..... (well im sure you can insert something appropiate)

Government rushes to put a buffer between ministers and consultation, saying it doesnt represent the actual view of ministers, despite TWO ministers writing forewards to the consultation.
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Po...controversial-rail-services-consultation.html

'Alice in Wonderland'
http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/general/2011/11/17-scottish-proposals-branded-alice-in.html

 

[Blindtraveler]

oo yay, an 8 or 9 coach HST replaced by an unsuitable gutless 170 on the only diagram up the HML i use without a bottle of something. Great! Watch out ASDA, your smart price whisky is sounding ver attractive but, no, wate, I'm no longer allowed to drink it onboard. Watch out Citylink, I'm coming!!

Seriusly though, capacity on aberdeens would be affected badly by scrubbing the cross border HST runs which are the train of choice for the oil workers! Similarly both business and leisure traffic would be badly hit if the chiefton were stopped.

The odds on a fleat of IC standard units for scottish express work being ordered are low and TS would continue to do what they do best and place inappropriate stock on longdistance runs. With transpenine electriffication we might persuade them to lees s6me 185s but this solves little.

Rail north of the border has gone from strength to strength lately and all these ideas simply put it back a decade or 2. leav the longdistance work to somebody who knows how to do it and put the money into sleaper replacement for ALL routes! All this does other than make me cross is say to the coach opperaters youve wone!!

On bi mode not being needed, i am as against it as my fellow posters down south but there must be other ways of scrubbing it other than making passengers change trains every time they want to attend a concert in newcastle!!
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oh and on the booz ban, all this does is penalise responsible drinkers and to ilimminate the problem entirely, pubs at or within 5 minutes walk of stations would need to be shut as many including me take or buy small amounts onboard, chosing instead to drink pre journey.

In a similer veign a blanket ban on tesco expresses and cornershops with lisences at or near stations would need to be introduced again for people buying and perhaps even drinking pre travel.

The space freed up by all this could then be used for multi story carparks with bus stations underneeth as these would be needed to handle the upsurge in road travel as a result of the shorter and still inappropriate and overcrouded trains and the inconvenience of changing and most likely paying more, not to mention the nanny state proposal to stop people enjoying a quiet can during there journey!

 

[cle]

Sometimes it's worth typing longer posts in Word for the spellcheck.

I think the whole thing is dumb - there is nothing more than 170s and 158s pootling around Scotland's mainlines. And nothing more substantial has been proposed. It's parochialism and territorialism of the worst kind. Not to mention rather Beeching...

There should be another Inverness - London service, and possibly an Inverness - Newcastle or even York/Leeds XC service too.

 

[jopsuk]

The booze ban is perfectly consistent with the current adminstration's attitude towards alcohol.

 

[Blindtraveler]

which penalises responsible drinkers!
Some of us just want a few pints or our favourite whisky, not to get so plastered we need the NHS. Moreover if we get independence, the economy wil be built on oil, tourism and whisky. Whats the point in that if the pubs close duf to price hiked pints and the distileries go bust because the government are scared somebody wil have a dram too many? the tourists arnt going to travel for hours to Scotland to iether pay a fortune or eat in McDonalds are they? Oh and as the oils running out too the whole thing needs a rethink, as does the way I use my vote by the looks of it!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Sometimes it's worth typing longer posts in Word for the spellcheck.

Who was that aimed at?