Trivia: Competing TOCs that serve the same route

[lancededcena]

Is there any other competing TOCs that serve the same route, such as:
Bold - has an speed advantage\primary operator

• SWR - London Waterloo to Portsmouth\Southampton and Southern - London Victoria to Portsmouth\Southampton
• GWR - London Paddington to Exeter St Davids and SWR - London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids

Edit: I was refering on full services that copy each other (however could take a diverting route) such as the above.

 

[Horizon22]

We've just had a very similar topic discussed: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/trivia-routes-with-genuine-shared-traffic-between-tocs.211065/

Plus with those mentioned, there are very different intermediate stops which are arguably where the primary flows are (excepting GWR to Devon/Cornwall) and aren't the same routes, only final destinations or share very small sections of track.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

CrossCountry and GWR on the corridor to and from Banbury & Reading and Penzance & Bristol Temple Meads, TPExpress, LNER and CrossCountry to and from Leeds / York and Edinburgh - LNER when running the 07:10ish from Leeds to Aberdeen and 18:18 from Aberdeen to Edinburgh.

There's several more I could list but it'll take me a while to list them.

 

[duncanp]

Transport for Wales and West Midlands Trains both run between Birmingham and Shrewsbury, although Transport for Wales services are limited stop whereas West Midlands Trains serve all stations.

 

[Peter0124]

Avanti / TPE between Preston and Glasgow

 

[SeanG]

Avanti share their route entirely with other operators.

Euston - Birmingham/Trent Valley - Liverpool with LNWR

Coventry - Birmingham - Crewe with XC

Crewe /Stoke - Manchester with XC & Northern

Crewe - Chester & beyond with TfW

As stated above Wigan / Preston - Glasgow / Edinburgh with TPE.

Wigan - /Blackpool Oxenholme with Northern (albeit different Northern services).

Euston - Glasgow / Edinburgh with Caledonian Sleeper

I'm sure there are more with Avanti alone.

LNER share their route with:

GC from King's Cross to Northallerton
HT from King's Cross to Doncaster
Great Northern from King's Cross to Peterborough
EMR from Peterborough to Grantham, Doncaster to Leeds, and Doncaster to York
Northern from Doncaster to Leeds / Skipton / Harrogate
XC from Leeds/ Doncaster to Aberdeen
TPE from Leeds to Edinburgh
Northern from Darlington - Alnmouth
Scotrail from Dunbar - Aberdeen/Inverness
Caledonian Sleeper from Edinburgh - Aberdeen/Inverness

TPE only are the sole operator on the line between York and Seamer (for now).
Everywhere else is shared with at least one of Northern, LNER or Avanti.

Hull Trains shares its route entirely with LNER

GC shares its route with LNER, TPE and Northern on the Sunderland leg, and LNER and partially northern on the Bradford leg.

Merseyrail, as far as I am aware do not share their route with anyone. I'm not sure if any other TOC is in this position?

XC shares its route in far too many places to count. It shares its route with Scotrail, Avanti, Caledonian Sleeper, LNER, TPE, GC, HT, Northern, EMR, WMT/LNER, GWR, SWT, AGA, TSGN, TfW. That's 15 ToCs and I presume that is the maximum.

 

[FuzzyDuck]

On a Sunday (only) SWR runs between Basingstoke and Reading, competing with the GWR normal service. SWR has the advantage of being non-stop.

 

[joeneat]

GC shares its route with LNER, TPE and Northern on the Sunderland leg, and LNER and partially northern on the Bradford leg.

Not sure TPE share the Sunderland leg, but the Tyneside Metro does so still shared by 3 operators.

 

[headshot119]

Avanti share their route entirely with other operators.

Euston - Birmingham/Trent Valley - Liverpool with LNWR

Coventry - Birmingham - Crewe with XC

Crewe /Stoke - Manchester with XC & Northern

Crewe - Chester & beyond with TfW

As stated above Wigan / Preston - Glasgow / Edinburgh with TPE.

Wigan - /Blackpool Oxenholme with Northern (albeit different Northern services).

Euston - Glasgow / Edinburgh with Caledonian Sleeper

I'm sure there are more with Avanti alone.

LNER share their route with:

GC from King's Cross to Northallerton
HT from King's Cross to Doncaster
Great Northern from King's Cross to Peterborough
EMR from Peterborough to Grantham, Doncaster to Leeds, and Doncaster to York
Northern from Doncaster to Leeds / Skipton / Harrogate
XC from Leeds/ Doncaster to Aberdeen
TPE from Leeds to Edinburgh
Northern from Darlington - Alnmouth
Scotrail from Dunbar - Aberdeen/Inverness
Caledonian Sleeper from Edinburgh - Aberdeen/Inverness

TPE only are the sole operator on the line between York and Seamer (for now).
Everywhere else is shared with at least one of Northern, LNER or Avanti.

Hull Trains shares its route entirely with LNER

GC shares its route with LNER, TPE and Northern on the Sunderland leg, and LNER and partially northern on the Bradford leg.

Merseyrail, as far as I am aware do not share their route with anyone. I'm not sure if any other TOC is in this position?

XC shares its route in far too many places to count. It shares its route with Scotrail, Avanti, Caledonian Sleeper, LNER, TPE, GC, HT, Northern, EMR, WMT/LNER, GWR, SWT, AGA, TSGN, TfW. That's 15 ToCs and I presume that is the maximum.

Following the OPs example, Merseyrail serve Chester - Liverpool Lime Street, which is competed with by TFWs Chester - Liverpool Lime Street service.

 

[The Planner]

Crewe and XC is stretching it a bit.

 

[Kilopylae]

If you could be bothered, I believe it would be legal to string together a GWR/XC train from Exeter to Bristol, a GWR train from Bristol to Newport, a TfW train to Shrewsbury, and a WMT/TfW train to Birmingham. So in that sense, GWR/TfW is in competition with XC for Exeter to Birmingham traffic

 

[onlinespotting]

Leeds to man vic TPE/northern

Halifax to bradford interchange Northern / grand central

Leeds to Shipley and bradford fs Northern/LNER

There are numerous ones in the PTE area

(Amended as originally put to Leeds to bradford interchange but that’s only a grand central unit not service I believe)

 

[D6975]

London - Brum has 3 options, 2 on the WCML plus 1 on the Chiltern line. Avanti/LNWR/Chiltern.

 

[SeanG]

Not sure TPE share the Sunderland leg, but the Tyneside Metro does so still shared by 3 operators.

This is shared by TPE from York to Northallerton (and then the same track used to Eaglescliffe but not the same calls).
GC overlaps with the Metro for a couple of hundred yards just south of Sunderland station but again doesn't share any calls.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

London - Brum has 3 options, 2 on the WCML plus 1 on the Chiltern line. Avanti/LNWR/Chiltern.

One of the few flows where genuine competition seems to exist, especially between Avanti and Chiltern. Depending on where the origin / destination is in London Chiltern can be as quick if not quicker

 

[jfisher21]

New Cross Gate - West Croydon /Crystal Palace. Southern or Tfl. Also from London Bridge with change at Canada Water on tfl.

 

[DB]

Depends what level you count, I suppose! Skipton and Bradford FS have one LNER train a day in each direction but is this really enough to count as competition for Northern, who run every other service?

 

[Springs Branch]

A fairly recent new example is Liverpool - St Helens - Wigan - Preston with either Northern or TPE.

 

[jfowkes]

Bedford/Luton/Luton Airport Parkway to St Pancras (EMR and Thameslink).

 

[duncanp]

On a Sunday (only) SWR runs between Basingstoke and Reading, competing with the GWR normal service. SWR has the advantage of being non-stop.

Cross Country also run services between Reading and Basingstoke.

 

[onlinespotting]

Wakefield Westgate to Leeds : EMR (midland mainline used to run a more regular service) LNER, Northern, Crosscountry

 

[SargeNpton]

How many examples do you want? One of the principals of privatisation was that competition was supposed to drive down fares.

 

[coppercapped]

How many examples do you want? One of the principals of privatisation was that competition was supposed to drive down fares.

I think you will find that one of the principles of privatisation in the form adopted was that it was a way to enable Government to fund a loss-making industry in a financially transparent manner so meeting the EU requirements for state aid to private industry.

You are quite wrong in suggesting that on-rail competition was intended to reduce fares on certain traffic flows. The competition was for the franchises, with the aim of reducing the global subsidy. In turn this may have had some effect on fares, but as from the beginning of privatisation the Government had always controlled the levels of key fares wide scale fare cutting was never going to happen.

 

[SargeNpton]

In the foreword to the White Paper, New Opportunities for the Railways: ‘more competition, greater efficiency and a wider choice of services more closely tailored to what customers want’.

Competition usually either provides an increased customer experience for the same price as before, or provides the same customer experience for a lower price.

 

[charley_17/7]

MKC - London, "choice" of Avanti Only, LNR Only, Southern Only or Any Permitted.

 

[Zooty]

Avanti share their route entirely with other operators.

Crewe-Warrington-Wigan ?

 

[Taunton]

One of the effects of "competitive" routes is they take a disproportionate share of capacity and management attention, just to scoop revenue off the other operator.

For example, the East Coast runs from London to Edinburgh. But the West Coast has got into the act, not by direct services as they don't have any, but by their through-routed trains via Birmingham, on which they employ substantial marketing effort, to the extent of selling first class advances at pretty much what the ECML operator is charging for standard. This is great, it means when one of these through trains comes into Birmingham New Street it's already pretty full in First Class, and those there travelling back from business meetings to Preston, or (me) Carlisle where there is no competition find there are no such seats left, despite having paid a substantial multiple of those making the full journey. I do accept that if there's a trainload already waiting to travel from Birmingham and I don't get sat down, that's tough. What is less reasonable is that accommodation provided for this has already been given out to quite a different flow, already catered for elsewhere on the franchised railway. Furthermore there appears to be no capacity control on these tickets, they seem to happily fully fill up the accommodation with them. It is notably concealed that such services take much longer than the direct service. Sure it's in there somewhere, but not obvious to the casual user.

Same elsewhere. Chiltern put so much effort into ORCATS-raiding GWR on Oxford to London, while continuing to send out short formations such that those from High Wycombe etc boarding find there are no seats left.

I think there's a perception that mainstream flows at TOCs are pretty much a sure thing, once you have won the franchise, and you don't have to bother too much about them any more. It's the extra, over and above the franchise, that has the interest.

 

[lancastria]

New Cross Gate - West Croydon /Crystal Palace. Southern or Tfl. Also from London Bridge with change at Canada Water on tfl.

Thameslink also covers part of the same route - London Bridge to Norwood Jcn, and the route is served by TfL and Southern.
Thameslink goes on to serve East Croydon alongside Southern services and then out to Horsham, which is also served by Southern.

 

[xotGD]

Most posts have missed the stipulation that they need to both be end to end services between A and B.

Using that rule I offer:

Bradford to London (LNER and GC)
Leeds to London (LNER and East Midlands whatever they call themselves now)
Birmingham to London (Avant and Chiltern)
Inverness/Aberdeen to London (LNER and Caledonian Sleeper)

 

[Peter0124]

Most posts have missed the stipulation that they need to both be end to end services between A and B.

Using that rule I offer:

Bradford to London (LNER and GC)
Leeds to London (LNER and East Midlands whatever they call themselves now)
Birmingham to London (Avant and Chiltern)
Inverness/Aberdeen to London (LNER and Caledonian Sleeper)

Also add Glasgow/Edinburgh to London with Avanti, LNER, Sleeper