VTEC warn Harrogate services unlikely if paths allocated to other operators

[adrock1976]

In regards to Harrogate being served every 2 hours, could the present KGX - York service that runs every 2 hours be extended to Harrogate via Poppleton?

If my memory is right, I'm sure I've seen it mentioned in a previous thread that the section between York and Harrogate have plans for the track to be redoubled.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

In regards to Harrogate being served every 2 hours, could the present KGX - York service that runs every 2 hours be extended to Harrogate via Poppleton?

If my memory is right, I'm sure I've seen it mentioned in a previous thread that the section between York and Harrogate have plans for the track to be redoubled.

That might appear a reasonable alternative. But, it would be difficult to slot in around Northern's future half-hourly service (all stops) on that section, and I believe that in peak hours it was intended to run coupled Bradford(or Skipton)/Harrogate trains as far as Leeds to get them all paths.

 

[43074]

In regards to Harrogate being served every 2 hours, could the present KGX - York service that runs every 2 hours be extended to Harrogate via Poppleton?

It's planned that the current York (& Newark) services will go through to Newcastle so that won't be an option in a few years time.

 

[MontyP]

I still don't quite understand the rationale behind regular all-day extensions to locations such as Bradford and Harrogate using high-capacity high-speed trains. This sounds similar to the original ECML timetable introduced with the HSTs in the early 1980s when the hourly London-Leeds train was extended every 2 hours to either Bradford or Harrogate (giving 3 or 4 London services in each direction to both destinations per day). These services were scrapped to free up more units to run on the core ECML between London and Newcastle IIRC. Even if (say) 50-100 people travel through to Bradford or Harrogate on each service, is this the best use of a unit with seating capacity for several hundred? Having travelled recently on the direct service to Bradford FS in the evening peak, there were less than 20 people still on the train when it arrived in Bradford.

 

[ainsworth74]

Well for one thing there are going to be a hell of a lot of units on VTEC in the not too distant future and they're going to need to do something with them! They are going to have 43 9-car units (basically the equivalent of the combined HST/225 fleet today) and on top of that a further 22 5-car units as well.

 

[D6975]

Is the one a day Huddersfield going to call at Dewsbury?
If so it's the first time in a long time (if ever) that Dewsbury has had a direct service to London.