Two new open-access cross-country proposals

[LUYMun]

Unsure if to create a new thread for this as it ties in with SLC Rail's involvement. RAIL Magazine is reporting that two new cross-country open access applications have been submitted for consultation by consultancy firm SLC Rail, the same group responsible for being behind the Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway proposal. I will link the online version (also present in print form) but not quote whole the article due to copyright reasons but in summary they submitted two open-access routes: https://www.railmagazine.com/news/2...-routes-set-to-be-submitted-to-rail-regulator

The first is the "Midland Central & Western Railway" (MCWR) proposal, running from Bristol to Nottingham via the East West Rail. The second is the "Liverpool & South Wales Railway" (L&SWR) proposal, running from Liverpool to Rhoose International Airport via the Welsh Marches line. Both are intended to have eight trains per day in each direction (six on Sundays), with path requests to last seven years and utilise Class 221 or 222 units.

In the RAIL article...

L&SWR says it believes there is “significant merit” in introducing direct ‘inter-city’ styled services on the main line route between Liverpool, the Marches, and Cardiff.

Such a service already features as an aspiration in the Western Gateway Partnership ‘Rail Deal’ published earlier this year. The introduction of direct trains would also cut journey times between several stations on both routes, compared with existing services.

And here are the maps accompanying the two routes:

 

[The Planner]

How are we dividing all these Voyagers up that everyone assumes they are using?

 

[Chester1]

How are we dividing all these Voyagers up that everyone assumes they are using?

Wouldn't the Liverpool - Cardiff route be 100mph units?

The abstraction rules seem to make most of the open access bids unlikely to succeed. It's quite possible that WSMR will be the only one of the batch under consideration that are granted rights. The Stirling service will use Meridians.

 

[The Planner]

Wouldn't the Liverpool - Cardiff route be 100mph units?

The abstraction rules seem to make most of the open access bids unlikely to succeed. It's quite possible that WSMR will be the only one of the batch under consideration that are granted rights. The Stirling service will use Meridians.

People need to divorce the line speed vs traction speed, it doesn't matter if its a 90mph route with 125mph traction if that is what is available. I'm not convinced any of the proposed WCML ones will get rights.

 

[philosopher]

Wouldn't the Liverpool - Cardiff route be 100mph units?

The abstraction rules seem to make most of the open access bids unlikely to succeed. It's quite possible that WSMR will be the only one of the batch under consideration that are granted rights. The Stirling service will use Meridians.

I just can’t see the Cardiff Liverpool Street service ever passing the not primarily abstractive test, it pretty much uses the same route as TFW Cardiff to Manchester service for the vast majority of the route.

 

[Bald Rick]

I just can’t see the Cardiff Liverpool Street service ever passing the not primarily abstractive test, it pretty much uses the same route as TFW Cardiff to Manchester service for the vast majority of the route.

Cardiff - Manchester also doesn’t make any money, which is why I thought this one was particularly strange.

The other one is curious, overlapping several existing flows, but also running on some congested parts of the network (linking them up in ways they are not linked now, which will make timetabling a “challenge”). Also lots of Level Crossings to worry about.

 

[ayubdaud]

Is there even timetabling capacity at Liverpool? With the additional Liverpool services being drip fed in, I doubt there is much platform capacity leftover for anything else.

 

[tomuk]

Cardiff - Manchester also doesn’t make any money, which is why I thought this one was particularly strange.

I thought it was TfWs only money spinner.

 

[Bald Rick]

I thought it was TfWs only money spinner.

It’s relative!

 

[irish_rail]

I just can’t see the Cardiff Liverpool Street service ever passing the not primarily abstractive test, it pretty much uses the same route as TFW Cardiff to Manchester service for the vast majority of the route.

Agreed. However Plymouth to Liverpool would be of more use, opening up brand new journey opportunities, providing extra capacity that XC don't seem able to provide between Plymouth and Bristol, whilst also directly connecting the north west and south west. Cardiff on the other hand opens up nothing new, surprised they plumped for it really. Population of the south west plus Bristol is far far greater than pop of Cardiff, not to mention the lure of holiday traffic to the West Country.

 

[FrontSideBus]

I'm sure somebody had photos of a 68 with Mk5a's in Liverpool Lime St recently? Maybe something to do with that?

 

[AlanL]

It’s relative!

One of TFW biggest traffic flows/income generator is Shrewsbury to Birmingham, even the 4 coach trains are often full and standing (and that's with some extra WMT services on the route).

 

[The Planner]

One of TFW biggest traffic flows/income generator is Shrewsbury to Birmingham, even the 4 coach trains are often full and standing (and that's with some extra WMT services on the route).

It probably isn't revenue wise, as its sharing that revenue with WMT. It's £20 return give or take, whereas on the Marches they are the sole operator where Newport to Hereford for example is £25 return, Hereford Shrewsbury is £28 and so on.

 

[Wyrleybart]

It’s relative!

Hang on a minute "Bald Rick". You said this
Cardiff - Manchester also doesn’t make any money, which is why I thought this one was particularly strange.

So either it does or doesn't, in as much as you are suggesting TfW are running a loss making / marginal service. Is it a loss leader ? Or maybe it is the Crewe Manchester section that "doesn't make any money".

I am still disappointed over the ATW's withdrawal of the Carmarthen -Birmingham International service after all these years, but DfT clearly prefer to operate the route from Aberystwyth and Pwllheli instead.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Cardiff - Manchester also doesn’t make any money, which is why I thought this one was particularly strange.

I've travelled on those trains a few times between Crewe and Manchester, and they typically seem packed out (and they look like they are no less packed out when they leave Crewe heading South). I'm not too surprised if they are not making money right now, but if my experience is anything to go by, I'd bet there's a lot of suppressed demand on the route because of short overcrowded trains, so the route could be making money if only TfW could source appropriate trains for it. (Yes I know there are now some loco-hauled 5-car trains on the route, but it seems a bit random when they show up, plus I can't imagine that a huge locomotive hauling just 5 carriages is at all economical to run compared to a decent modern DMU).

 

[greatkingrat]

Even if it does make a marginal profit for TfW, it doesn't mean that it would be profitable as a small standalone company, with all the fixed costs to cover.

 

[Zontar]

I wonder if they will pool resources, drivers from wsmr be expected to learn the cardiff section. Majority of Wrexham drivers I anticipate will know the Liverpool - Shrewsbury route

 

[Wyrleybart]

I wonder if they will pool resources, drivers from wsmr be expected to learn the cardiff section. Majority of Wrexham drivers I anticipate will know the Liverpool - Shrewsbury route

Not sure what you are referring to.
AIUI the WSR company is an OAO which i think is part of the SLC / Rail Adventure company leasing 221 from Alstom. I am not sure WSR can buy in crew from another company unless maybe a sister OAO. Do FHT hire in crew from TPE and / or Lumo ?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Even if it does make a marginal profit for TfW, it doesn't mean that it would be profitable as a small standalone company, with all the fixed costs to cover.

The Marches route will be expensive to operate and maintain, with manual signal boxes on most of it, some dating back well over a century.
It's a 90mph route with only 2-3 tph, with limited freight use.
Shrewsbury has 4 signal boxes, including the enormous and complex Severn Bridge Jn box - impressive and full of character but expensive to run.
GBR will be adding the cost of all this to TfW's operational costs.

Sorry, off topic really, but to do with the economics of TfW's services.

 

[Zontar]

Not sure what you are referring to.
AIUI the WSR company is an OAO which i think is part of the SLC / Rail Adventure company leasing 221 from Alstom. I am not sure WSR can buy in crew from another company unless maybe a sister OAO. Do FHT hire in crew from TPE and / or Lumo ?

SLC will own/part own both proposed services, Liverpool - Cardiff and Wrexham - London.
As Liverpool and Wrexham are quite geographically close, and also share a chunk of the same route, I was wondering if they intend to also share drivers.

 

[niceman]

Smells a bit like an ORCATS raid on the WM to London market to me.

(Thread posted to generate discussion of the application, not to invite speculative postings)

You can speculate but then tell us not to! Ok boss.

 

[tomuk]

The Marches route will be expensive to operate and maintain, with manual signal boxes on most of it, some dating back well over a century.
It's a 90mph route with only 2-3 tph, with limited freight use.
Shrewsbury has 4 signal boxes, including the enormous and complex Severn Bridge Jn box - impressive and full of character but expensive to run.
GBR will be adding the cost of all this to TfW's operational costs.

Sorry, off topic really, but to do with the economics of TfW's services.

TfW just pay normal access charges. Maintaining the route is NRs problem.

I am still disappointed over the ATW's withdrawal of the Carmarthen -Birmingham International service after all these years, but DfT clearly prefer to operate the route from Aberystwyth and Pwllheli instead.

What? When did ATW run Carmarthen to International? A reverse And what has the DfT got to do with Aberystwyth and Pwllheli?

 

[Bald Rick]

Hang on a minute "Bald Rick". You said this
Cardiff - Manchester also doesn’t make any money, which is why I thought this one was particularly strange.

I did say that. My “It’s all relative” was to suggest that whilst Cardiff - Manchester does make more revenue relative to any of their other routes, that doesn’t mean it turns a profit. Those trains are expensive to run.

To understand the economics of busy longer distance services that don’t serve London that are operated mostly with 4 or 5 coach diesel trains, see Cross Country.

 

[tomuk]

I did say that. My “It’s all relative” was to suggest that whilst Cardiff - Manchester does make more revenue relative to any of their other routes, that doesn’t mean it turns a profit. Those trains are expensive to run.

To understand the economics of busy longer distance services that don’t serve London that are operated mostly with 4 or 5 coach diesel trains, see Cross Country.

A five coach 197 doesn't guzzle anywhere near the fuel of a Voyager. Class 67 might be another question.

 

[Bald Rick]

A five coach 197 doesn't guzzle anywhere near the fuel of a Voyager. Class 67 might be another question.

But a 5 coach 197 costs a lot more to lease!

 

[Helvellyn]

The first is the "Midland Central & Western Railway" (MCWR) proposal, running from Bristol to Nottingham via the East West Rail... intended to have eight trains per day in each direction (six on Sundays), with path requests to last seven years and utilise Class 221 or 222 units.

In the RAIL article...


And here are the maps accompanying the two routes:

Odd they miss out Wellingborough when stopping pretty much everywhere else. Given EMR only serve Kettering/Corby North of there directly they could argue they are providing better journey options.

 

[Zomboid]

As a resident of Oxford, the MCWR idea would offer some useful journeys that aren't that easily made. Though if GWR run more Bristol - Oxford trains that might take some of their market.
I imagine it'll need the new platform in Oxford to work.

 

[LUYMun]

Odd they miss out Wellingborough when stopping pretty much everywhere else. Given EMR only serve Kettering/Corby North of there directly they could argue they are providing better journey options.

I'm quite surprised they haven't thought of running over, and reopening stations on, the Leicester-Burton line to justify their application for creating new links. It might only be eight trains to start with but with time could see more frequent services by MCWR or others. That application looks like a rival to Cross Country services by avoiding the West Midlands entirely. Maybe some Class 47 and Mark 3 coaches to top it off?

 

[Zomboid]

Is that line even permitted for passenger trains? That's probably not the kind of thing that an open access operation is going to be funding. Though I suppose there's no fundamental reason why they couldn't.

 

[weeklycommuter]

The Government run half hourly passenger train service to be operated by Chiltern on the reopened railway between Oxford and Milton Keynes has not even started yet and already this reopened railway is part of an open access passenger train service application.