Trivia - biggest London and non-London rail markets with no direct service

[IanXC]

Burnley to Manchester WOULD have been, and is still underserved? Bradford to Sheffield or Wakefield? (Not inc GC)

Bradford will soon gain a Northern Connect service to Nottingham via Leeds, Wakefield Westgate and Sheffield.

 

[scrapy]

Maybe Manchester to Derby, Leicester or Lincoln? Most I can think of seem edge cases, but that's mostly because I find them relatively easy journeys because I'm pretty much always happy to change and know which are the best trains to get. In fact many are easier and quicker to drive, but that's not usually an option for me.

Agreed that Derby and Leicester should have a direct service to Manchester (and possibly onwards to Liverpool or Preston). I'm surprised a Manchester to St Pancras service has never been proposed by an open access operator. I know that EMT wouldn't operate the route under Stagecoach ownership but might be a viable proposal for a future franchise.

 

[backontrack]

Agreed that Derby and Leicester should have a direct service to Manchester (and possibly onwards to Liverpool or Preston). I'm surprised a Manchester to St Pancras service has never been proposed by an open access operator. I know that EMT wouldn't operate the route under Stagecoach ownership but might be a viable proposal for a future franchise.

Midland Mainline used to operate such a service as part of Project Rio. It's a shame, on reflection, that they went; they served places like Burton, Barnsley and Matlock, with EMT only serving Lincoln as an extra destination. Both served York, Scarborough, and Leeds, but MML would have operated hourly to Leeds.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Out of interest, do we know if services to Barnsley, Matlock and Burton were scrapped because of lack of ridership or because of timetabling requirements?

 

[Bluepanda]

Going from Kent to Gatwick Airport is a bit of a pain - it is essentially our "local" airport. Nobody used Kent's Manston Airport even before it was shut down, so Gatwick was (and continues to be) the only real option!

I must imagine Bromley South to Gatwick Airport gets some travel - and the only two ways you could do it would be via Victoria, or via Beckenham Jn and East Croydon.

This. For East Kent, even a service from Canterbury-Ashford-Tonbridge-Redhill would save time getting to Gatwick, otherwise its into Victoria or London Bridge.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

For Burton, I believe DfT decided that changing at Tamworth provided a faster and more frequent service so there was no need for it to be retained in the franchise. I enjoyed the Burton-St Pancras service on the couple of times I caught it, but it certainly wasn't well used.

 

[tbtc]

I wonder too though if the presence of Paisley and Ayr on the list of unconnected stations might suggest viability for a through service onto the Ayrshire Coast Line from London? I realize that such a service would have to reverse back out of Glasgow Central and might not even be possible with the local infrastructure....

I don't know about platform lengths on the e Ayrshire line (now we are talking about eleven coach 390s), but this was the kind of "marginal time" service that BR were good at - e.g. there are no early morning arrivals into Glasgow (from Euston), so there's some InterCity stock sat at Polmadie until after the morning rush hour - hey, why not use it to provide extra capacity on an Ayrshire - Glasgow service in the morning peak (since it wouldn't have been used otherwise).

I don't know what time the last 390 goes into service from Glasgow these days - to assess whether it'd be feasible to attempt such a thing (platform lengths etc permitting)

As per my suggestion on a previous post, couldn't an Ayrshire-London service run via Dumfries?

Dublin has a sail and rail option to London, Belfast doesn't really. Would such a proposal be useful to our friends in Ulster?

You'd never compete with the dozens of flights.

As a resident of Cardiff Bay, the station is useless to get to anywhere other than the Valleys without a connection into Cardiff Central. No one bothers doing Bay - Queen Street, Queen Street - Central, Central - Rest of UK - they just jump in a Taxi to Central to cut a 15/25 min journey into a 4 minute one.

Would it really have involved that much investment to divert the line into Central? All the Queen Street services go through Central anyway so it wouldn't have affected anyone negatively. But that's Wales for you - no one in the Assembly seems capable of doing anything right.

Good points.

Whoever previously mentioned Birmingham - Swansea, completely agree, it is a big market as you see people flood off the trains in from West Wales at Central and then make their way to the Nottingham.

Relatedly, the lack of Birmingham-Lincoln/Grimsby always struck me as odd as Birmingham is the nearest 'Big Top 3' city to Lincolnshire. Thus turning the Nottingham - Cardiff into a Grimsby/Lincoln - Swansea service would do a world of good for connections.

Always seemed a bit illogical to have Swansea served by a very slow hourly Manchester train when it would probably be quicker to change at Birmingham anyway via two faster XCs.

Swansea really has been a bit loser from the remapping that took place when Wales & Borders was set up - losing Bristol/ Birmingham services.

The trouble with long distance Lincoln services is going to be reliability over the flat junction at Newark (crossing the ECML) though.

Midland Mainline used to operate such a service as part of Project Rio. It's a shame, on reflection, that they went; they served places like Burton, Barnsley and Matlock, with EMT only serving Lincoln as an extra destination. Both served York, Scarborough, and Leeds, but MML would have operated hourly to Leeds.

Well, MML ordered the nine coach 222s to permit the London - Sheffield service to be extended to Leeds (and it would have been better if such service had been permitted), but the service was turned down (hence the 222s being four/ five/ seven coach lengths), so I don't think we can blame EMT for the lack of a Leeds service.

Out of interest, do we know if services to Barnsley, Matlock and Burton were scrapped because of lack of ridership or because of timetabling requirements?

I don't know about Barnsley and Burton (the morning Barnsley service was well timed to give extra capacity into Sheffield around 08:30 IIRC), but seem to recall that the Matlock service had to end when four coach 222s were going to replace Turbostars on London services (the weight being too much for a bridge on the branch).

Burton always felt a bit "token" (given that faster journeys to London were available by changing at Tamworth) but Matlock was an interesting one - the problem possibly being the lack of capacity on a long single track branch (would the London service run in place of an existing "Stopper", and could local stations cope with the length etc?).

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I don't know what time the last 390 goes into service from Glasgow these days - to assess whether it'd be feasible to attempt such a thing (platform lengths etc permitting)

...

Swansea really has been a bit loser from the remapping that took place when Wales & Borders was set up - losing Bristol/ Birmingham services.

...

Burton always felt a bit "token" (given that faster journeys to London were available by changing at Tamworth) ...

(Edited first bit) - the last empty off Polmadie seem to be 0959 (1015 arrival at Central for 1040 Euston), however with the last arrival at the depot probably getting on for 0045 I don't know how quickly they could turn around units overnight in order to have them ready for doing something else before the 0959. As for G&SW line services, that is a good example of flows that I think are best served by good, well-coordinated connections at Carlisle: sadly at the minute it's usually a trek from platform 1 to platform 7 and that's before you get to the mess of a timetable on the Dumfries line...

I too think Swansea doesn't fare particularly well from current services. Ideally you'd have the Nottingham-Cardiff services knocked through to relieve the pressure on existing services and improve connectivity to the city (and Bridgend, Port Talbot and Neath) massively. You could probably then justify using the Manchester-West Wales services to plug some gaps to the stations west of Bridgend: 1tp2h is hardly attractive for a local service between the two biggest cities in the country... Yes, no 170s, route learning required etc but in terms of what gets bounded about for ideas to the CrossCountry network, I think this is probably one of the better ones.

And as for Burton, I agree: currently the 1657 and 1757 ex-Euston on weekdays get to Tamworth in 62 minutes. The former gives an unofficial 4 minute connection to get you into Burton for 1814, or 1820 if you catch the Nottingham train behind it (officially). The latter gets you to Burton for 1920, making departing London to arriving at Burton 1 hour 23 minutes with an easy interchange. Not bad going...

 

[IanD]

Milton Keynes to Anywhere in Yorkshire or the North East.

Milton Keynes to anywhere in South Wales or the South West.

Hopefully with lots of cheap Advances.

 

[J-2739]

I don't know about Barnsley and Burton (the morning Barnsley service was well timed to give extra capacity into Sheffield around 08:30 IIRC), but seem to recall that the Matlock service had to end when four coach 222s were going to replace Turbostars on London services (the weight being too much for a bridge on the branch).

Burton always felt a bit "token" (given that faster journeys to London were available by changing at Tamworth) but Matlock was an interesting one - the problem possibly being the lack of capacity on a long single track branch (would the London service run in place of an existing "Stopper", and could local stations cope with the length etc?).

Barnsley was cut off, because everyone hates the Tykes and a direct connection to the capital is seen as a dirty taboo!

In reality, I think lack of real demand: I heard somewhere that only like 10 people a day got on the Midland Mainline service???

Shame though, for all us lazy people didn't need to change at Sheff before.

 

[Andyjs247]

Milton Keynes to Anywhere in Yorkshire or the North East.

Milton Keynes to anywhere in South Wales or the South West.

Hopefully with lots of cheap Advances.

Closer to home and both linked by the M1 and by bus there's Milton Keynes to Leicester or Milton Keynes to Luton.

 

[Morgsie]

Would Aberystwyth having no-direct rail link with London qualify for this thread?

 

[Andyjs247]

Also Leicester to Northampton and Northampton to Luton.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Oxford to Swindon/Bath/Bristol is another potential flow. It might become viable as an extension to EWR. That will also give you Reading/Oxford to Milton Keynes. And depending on what is finally agreed it's possible you could also connect to Leicester, Nottingham etc via Bedford and EWR too.

 

[Taunton]

Milton Keynes to Anywhere in Yorkshire or the North East.

Milton Keynes to anywhere in South Wales or the South West.

Actually Milton Keynes to anywhere that's not on the WCML is a challenge or completely impractical - Oxford, Luton, etc.

Wellingborough and Kettering are in Northamptonshire, but to get to the county town Northampton, which is a significant demand, is similarly quite impractical by rail. Nearby, Cambridge to St Ives/Huntingdon is another very substantial commuter flow with no rail service.

 

[Ianno87]

My understanding that the premise of this thread was strong flows that are already present on rail in spite of not having a direct service.

Some of the last few examples are flows that are strong, but rail does not have much (if any) of a market (such as being down to a very indirect route being necessary, such as MK to Luton), or beung well covered by alternative modes already (Huntingdon-Cambridge).

Therein lies the subtlety.

 

[route101]

What about Glasgow to Cardiff via WCML ! When was the last XC service from Glasgow to Wales ? I know Edinburgh has had a token service recently.

 

[Kite159]

I'm surprised SWT hasn't introduced a random peak time Waterloo - Romsey service to give Romsey a direct London train.

Just use a 158 (or 159) which detaches at Salisbury at the moment which returns to depot, maybe using one of the services with a 158 on the rear swapping it with a Romsey "6" service (so a 'direct' service for the fine people of Dean as well)

 

[Martin S Heron]

Pretty sure they used to be a through service in the intercity days , in SPT timetable i have from 1989 the royal scot is listed starting at Ayr . Cant imagine a pendo starting at Ayr , not sure if they are cleared that way .

There certainly was. We had a family holiday to the Butlin's at Ayr in the late 70s when I was 8 or 9. Got on at Euston, got off on the Ayrshire coast. Wish I could remember the stopping pattern, the only one I remember is Oxenholm because I'd never heard of it before, I also don't think it was actually Ayr that we got off at.

 

[317 forever]

York to Leicester, which only has a very limited through weekend service.

 

[route101]

There certainly was. We had a family holiday to the Butlin's at Ayr in the late 70s when I was 8 or 9. Got on at Euston, got off on the Ayrshire coast. Wish I could remember the stopping pattern, the only one I remember is Oxenholm because I'd never heard of it before, I also don't think it was actually Ayr that we got off at.

I have a 1989 spt timetable and its mentioned that the Royal Scot starts at Ayr but in the actual timetable its not marked as an Intercity service . No mention of an Ayr Bound sevrvice

 

[7Pinza]

Lincoln to Leeds or York - giving better options than changing at Newark or Retford

 

[Realfish]

Actually Milton Keynes to anywhere that's not on the WCML is a challenge or completely impractical - Oxford, Luton, etc.

Wellingborough and Kettering are in Northamptonshire, but to get to the county town Northampton, which is a significant demand, is similarly quite impractical by rail. Nearby, Cambridge to St Ives/Huntingdon is another very substantial commuter flow with no rail service.

Yes, substantial road flows and as Andyjs says ditto between Northampton and Leicester. Also Rugby to Leicester which once upon a time had two rail routes, now none.

 

[IanXC]

Lincoln to Leeds or York - giving better options than changing at Newark or Retford

Lincoln to Leeds confirmed as a future service of course.

 

[neonison]

Liverpool - north Wales coast

I thought the Halton Curve was being restored to allow this?

 

[7Pinza]

Lincoln to Leeds confirmed as a future service of course.

Was thinking more about a service via Doncaster and not a continuation of the current Lincoln - Sheffield service (which is what I think Northern are proposing)

 

[northwichcat]

Now that direct rail services are operating between London to Blackpool and Shrewsbury what is the largest rail market (in terms of value) where there are no direct rail services?

For London market I suggest Middlesborough or Huddersfield

How are you defining a 'market'? Collectively there is huge demand for rail between Cheshire East and London and while 3 stations in the borough have direct services to London most people have to travel much further than Huddersfield-Brighouse/Mirfield to get a direct train.

 

[dk1]

Lincoln to Leeds or York - giving better options than changing at Newark or Retford

Ironically VTEC are running a direct service from Leeds to Lincoln for the Christmas Market this year. It's basically turning the ECS either side of the Lincoln Kings X service & a pre 07:00 start maybe too early for many.