Why is there no WMT equivalent on the ECML?/How could local stations be better served?

[A S Leib]

LDHS

What's that in this context?

 

[JonathanH]

What's that in this context?

Long-distance high-speed I think. It seems to be used quite a bit.

 

[bramling]

1999. They were pitched against Hull Trains and GNER (Leeds). It went to two formal hearings at the ORR and, despite having the stock and the crew, WAGN lost out to the other two.

Given that WAGN were cancelling trains due to no available drivers, whilst meanwhile had plenty of overcrowded 4-car services, one wonders which services would have been cut / left to overcrowd / reduced in formation in order to provide the resources for Doncaster.

What happened eventually, the York / Lincoln services provided by the long-distance operator, is so much better than if the WAGN ambitions had gone ahead.

 

[NCT]

Completely anecdotal - I do London - Nottngham fairly regularly and there's always a lot of people getting on and off Kettering, not to/from London but in the other direction. EMR is one of those routes with good neighbouring station connectivity at half-hourly intervals and such a timetable structure seems to be attracting the kind of non-London demand I'm talking about. The desperate writing-off of Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster as a regional rail demand corridor strikes me as extremely odd.

 

[m0ffy]

I’d argue the success of the WCML, particularly in the Trent Valley, is the regional connectivity. When I lived in Atherstone and commuted to London (and later Coventry), so many of the passengers boarding there were going to/changing at Nuneaton and avoiding an hour on the 48 bus.

Granted, the population density along the WCML makes this possible, compared with its east coast counterpart.

 

[HSTEd]

Completely anecdotal - I do London - Nottngham fairly regularly and there's always a lot of people getting on and off Kettering, not to/from London but in the other direction. EMR is one of those routes with good neighbouring station connectivity at half-hourly intervals and such a timetable structure seems to be attracting the kind of non-London demand I'm talking about. The desperate writing-off of Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster as a regional rail demand corridor strikes me as extremely odd.

The problem, of course, is that the MML is four tracks all the way up.the ECML is a two track railway from stoke tunnel up.

 

[43074]

I'd argue that it is the WCML that has an outmoded operational model - with an artificial division between "slow" and "fast" trains.

I think describing what you call the WCML operational model as outmoded is a bit over the top as the LNR fast services are hardly excessive - hourly to Crewe and half hourly to Birmingham.

The Euston to Crewe services are a relatively fast way of getting from Lichfield, Tamworth, Nuneaton to London - the time penalty between those and Avanti is little more than 15/20 minutes, whilst the Birmingham services also provide the main service to London from places Leighton Buzzard, Bletchley, Northampton so are more like the GTR services south of Peterborough in that respect.

Both supplement the Avanti services by being reasonably fast from Milton Keynes to Euston so add capacity and additional trains per hour where it would be needed anyway.

The ECML timetable at present is quite well balanced between connectivity from intermediate towns and journey times to London from Leeds, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh. It's a pity the York stoppers in their current form are withdrawn in December as they supplement the fast services quite well.

 

[William3000]

Completely anecdotal - I do London - Nottngham fairly regularly and there's always a lot of people getting on and off Kettering, not to/from London but in the other direction. EMR is one of those routes with good neighbouring station connectivity at half-hourly intervals and such a timetable structure seems to be attracting the kind of non-London demand I'm talking about. The desperate writing-off of Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster as a regional rail demand corridor strikes me as extremely odd.

agreed- Peterborough is a vital interchange for East Anglia

 

[A S Leib]

How well-used are Nuneaton and Tamworth as parkway stations for Coventry and Birmingham, especially areas like Sutton Coldfield? Given that that's a much shorter distance than Nottingham to Grantham or Sheffield to Retford, I'd expect that to have an impact on overall use beyond Nuneaton, Tamworth and Stafford being considerably larger than Grantham, Newark and Retford to begin with.

 

[Failed Unit]

The service between station pairs for the last few years isn’t bad. In the past you could have 5 hour+ gaps for example between Newark and Retford. Even now from Newark Northgate going south you have a few non-stop to London services.

I haven’t looked at the December 2025 timetable but I do recall from the feedback that at certain times of day Retford passengers doing local journeys will need to go via Doncaster.

As everyone has said it is the 2 track railway that is the issue. You can pass at Retford, but that is about it. (Apart from the Random loops). Let’s say you did have an hourly EMU service between Peterborough and Doncaster, I suspect demand would only fill 1 coach. However the timetable would be a little challenged

 

[Haywain]

I do London - Nottngham fairly regularly and there's always a lot of people getting on and off Kettering, not to/from London but in the other direction.

Yes, mostly because they have no choice other than to change there to get to Wellingborough, Bedford and the Luton stations, and Thameslink served stations short of London. The ECML stations, in contrast, all have direct services between London and points further north.

 

[A S Leib]

haven’t looked at the December 2025 timetable but I do recall from the feedback that at certain times of day Retford passengers doing local journeys will need to go via Doncaster

The public version has been withdrawn for final changes, but the summary south of York was (in tph, LNER only)

King's Cross: Stevenage 2, Peterborough 3, Grantham 2.5, Newark 2.5, Retford 0.5, Doncaster 3.5

Stevenage: Peterborough 0, Grantham 1, Newark 1, Retford 0, Doncaster 1

Peterborough: Grantham 1.5, Newark 1.5, Retford 0.5, Doncaster 2

Grantham: Newark 0.5, Retford 0, Doncaster 1

Newark: Retford 0, Doncaster 2

Retford: Doncaster 0.5

 

[BranstonJnc]

Perhaps you don't need a WMT equivalent for the ECML, but what you definitely need is at least an hourly service which makes all stops between Peterborough and Doncaster. I haven't properly looked at the timetable for December 2025, but it looks like local journeys will be disrupted as there will be much more in the way of skip-stop to make sure the timetable works - which is a shame. People in Newark should be able to easily get to Grantham or Retford, and so on, without needing to change or wait for 2 hours.

 

[Failed Unit]

I forgot Newark to Grantham was going to become that bad. Retford - Grantham will have Hull trains. (Which also stop at Stevenage but can’t remember if all trains do)

 

[35B]

Clearly the ECML on the whole looks to be having to ration demand, and if the railway can (or has to) pick and choose who it wants to carry on its finite capacity then it's not unreasonable neighbouring station connectivity drops to the bottom of the pile.

This thread, the Welwyn thread, the Open Access threads, and the 'keep it simple' thread all point to one thing - HS2. With LDHS demand taken care of the classic railway would then have to work harder to attract new demand. Given that the vast majority of car kms in the country are on non-London, everywhere-to-everywhere flows, HS2 provided that one opportunity to encourage the railway to step out of its historical complacency.

I live in Gonerby Hill Foot. The hill is steep and, as a driver or pedestrian, it’s very clear that cyclists do struggle with the hill. Similar hills exist on all sides of the town, and drive a distinct microclimate. This part of Lincolnshire is not flat - and, yes, I am aware that nor is Cambridge entirely.

For those of us who live here, ECML local stoppers are far from a priority - and that’s been the case for decades, as demonstrated by BR closing the remaining stations in the 1950s. The railway could do better from Grantham serving Lincoln, though the GN/Midland connection at Newark is a constraint.

If I look at where economic activity is, it’s in the cities much more than the towns. Those towns, though now largely dormitories, still retain a strong position as market towns, servicing local villages.

 

[A S Leib]

(Which also stop at Stevenage but can’t remember if all trains do)

Two trains southbound, one northbound, all on Sunday afternoons.

 

[NCT]

As everyone has said it is the 2 track railway that is the issue. You can pass at Retford, but that is about it. (Apart from the Random loops). Let’s say you did have an hourly EMU service between Peterborough and Doncaster, I suspect demand would only fill 1 coach. However the timetable would be a little challenged

Timetabling a half-hourly Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster path isn't as difficult as one might think. It's only 12 minutes longer than a Peterborough non-stop Doncaster train and can be accommodated if the other handful of trains (say 6tph) are suitably flighted. Without going into details, the upcoming December timetable has some horrible pathing time due to inefficient allocation of intermediate stops between services - if you are going to have pathing time then a better timetable structure could produce better outcomes with the same actual journey times.

I live in Gonerby Hill Foot. The hill is steep and, as a driver or pedestrian, it’s very clear that cyclists do struggle with the hill. Similar hills exist on all sides of the town, and drive a distinct microclimate. This part of Lincolnshire is not flat - and, yes, I am aware that nor is Cambridge entirely.

Define struggle. If it's just going slowly in a low gear then that's a reasonable level of exercise anyone with a basic level of fitness should be encouraged to undertake. The NHS needs it.

For those of us who live here, ECML local stoppers are far from a priority - and that’s been the case for decades, as demonstrated by BR closing the remaining stations in the 1950s. The railway could do better from Grantham serving Lincoln, though the GN/Midland connection at Newark is a constraint.

If I look at where economic activity is, it’s in the cities much more than the towns. Those towns, though now largely dormitories, still retain a strong position as market towns, servicing local villages.

Existing all-mode trip patterns suggest Grantham and Newark travel to each other just as much as each one travels to Nottingham and Lincoln. This all sounds like a 'we are alright' attitude from a complacent railway sitting on its laurels. This is not a sustainable attitude. Now that the railway is becoming closer to the government then it should play a more active role in meeting government objectives around housing and decarbonisation (read mode shift).

Boosting town population by encouraging densification of inner big-box retail sites aside, Grantham Station's placemaking has a lot of room for improvement. When you step out of the station building it screams 'this town serves the car'. The triangular NCP car park should be turned into a pedestrianised piazza with Dutch-style cycle parking. The existing NCP car parking spaces should be consolidated into the Network Rail site with a new multi-storey. Then the council car park to the west of the station (opposite Grantham Railway Social Club) should again have a substantial amount of space devoted to Dutch-style cycle parking for those coming from the west side of town.

 

[HSTEd]

Define struggle. If it's just going slowly in a low gear then that's a reasonable level of exercise anyone with a basic level of fitness should be encouraged to undertake. The NHS needs it.

They dismount and wheel the bikes up the slope.
It's very hard to get the bike to go up the slope fast enough to avoid losing stability.

Existing all-mode trip patterns suggest Grantham and Newark travel to each other just as much as each one travels to Nottingham and Lincoln. This all sounds like a 'we are alright' attitude from a complacent railway sitting on its laurels. This is not a sustainable attitude. Now that the railway is becoming closer to the government then it should play a more active role in meeting government objectives around housing and decarbonisation (read mode shift).

Which is about what might be expected, given that the journey from Grantham to Nottingham is much longer and the rail option is also ~1tph in real terms (typically ~45 and 00 of the hour departures from Grantham).
I grew up in the Grantham area, although I am rather less Lincolnshire-focussed than many people who did, but honestly any money or effort should be focussed on the Grantham-Nottingham axis.
That is where the economic future of Grantham is, in my view. Not pretending that you can cobble a chain of small towns into some sort of productive economic unit.

Boosting town population by encouraging densification of inner big-box retail sites aside, Grantham Station's placemaking has a lot of room for improvement. When you step out of the station building it screams 'this town serves the car'. The triangular NCP car park should be turned into a pedestrianised piazza with Dutch-style cycle parking. The existing NCP car parking spaces should be consolidated into the Network Rail site with a new multi-storey. Then the council car park to the west of the station (opposite Grantham Railway Social Club) should again have a substantial amount of space devoted to Dutch-style cycle parking for those coming from the west side of town.

I speak from bitter experience that they can't even secure the bike parking they've got there as it is.
As for a piazza.... a piazza for whoom?

It's a significant walk (and climb) from the parts of town that people still visit.
It would just turn a car park that people at least use into a void that noone would bother with.

 

[35B]

They dismount and wheel the bikes up the slope.
It's very hard to get the bike to go up the slope fast enough to avoid losing stability.



Which is about what might be expected, given that the journey from Grantham to Nottingham is much longer and the rail option is also ~1tph in real terms (typically ~45 and 00 of the hour departures from Grantham).
I grew up in the Grantham area, although I am rather less Lincolnshire-focussed than many people who did, but honestly any money or effort should be focussed on the Grantham-Nottingham axis.
That is where the economic future of Grantham is, in my view. Not pretending that you can cobble a chain of small towns into some sort of productive economic unit.


I speak from bitter experience that they can't even secure the bike parking they've got there as it is.
As for a piazza.... a piazza for whoom?

It's a significant walk (and climb) from the parts of town that people still visit.
It would just turn a car park that people at least use into a void that noone would bother with.

Quite. I don’t know if @NCT has ever been up Huntingtower Road, or seen how traffic “works” in Grantham. Suffice it to say that in the 20 years I’ve lived here, bright ideas that work well on paper have blighted the town. And when I drive to the station of a morning (getting to the 06:58, I do not fancy “active travel” extending my journey times), the triangular LNER (not NCP) car park is just nicely placed.

Completely anecdotal - I do London - Nottngham fairly regularly and there's always a lot of people getting on and off Kettering, not to/from London but in the other direction. EMR is one of those routes with good neighbouring station connectivity at half-hourly intervals and such a timetable structure seems to be attracting the kind of non-London demand I'm talking about. The desperate writing-off of Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster as a regional rail demand corridor strikes me as extremely odd.

Others have commented on the MML timetable. I’m just curious about how many travel to/from Wellingborough or Market Harborough to Kettering. Grantham, Newark and Retford have plenty of traffic, just not nearly so much between each other but as railheads and interchange points onto trains going longer distances on the ECML.

Unless there’s data saying different, it feels like an optimistic reading of anecdotal observations is then being applied to presume something that simply isn’t applicable.

 

[Hadders]

Given that WAGN were cancelling trains due to no available drivers, whilst meanwhile had plenty of overcrowded 4-car services, one wonders which services would have been cut / left to overcrowd / reduced in formation in order to provide the resources for Doncaster.

What happened eventually, the York / Lincoln services provided by the long-distance operator, is so much better than if the WAGN ambitions had gone ahead.

From a fares point of view, many passengers would almost certainly have access to cheaper fares had WAGN operated services to Doncaster.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Others have commented on the MML timetable. I’m just curious about how many travel to/from Wellingborough or Market Harborough to Kettering.

According to the ODM data tool at railwaydata.co.uk:
Kettering is the #3 destination from Wellingborough and #4 from Market Harborough
Newark is #5 destination from Grantham and #11 from Retford

So Kettering seems to be a comparatively more important destination in this context. Whilst I have no doubt that the clock-face half-hourly service on the MML generates market share for train travel, it's also worth remembering that the MML destinations are a lot closer together, and proximity tends to be an important factor in overall demand for travel between two places.

 

[Failed Unit]

As this is a speculative discussion thread.

A Stansted Airport - Leeds service may be the solution. (which of course would mean that Ely - Peterborough needs to be electrified first)

This will give all stations a hourly service to Leeds (it could also be used to speed up the LNER service but I suspect dropping stops to achieve this would not go down well with passengers heading to London)

I still think timetabling any stopping service is a challenge. Look at the current timetable and the London - York service. I is fairly close to the x03 London - Leeds service upon leaving Peterborough and by the time it gets to Doncaster the x30 is right on its tail. Granted they could change the timetable for it to pass it at Retford, however I suspect a long dwell would be need to allow the x33 Leeds service to pass as well.

 

[35B]

According to the ODM data tool at railwaydata.co.uk:
Kettering is the #3 destination from Wellingborough and #4 from Market Harborough
Newark is #5 destination from Grantham and #11 from Retford

So Kettering seems to be a comparatively more important destination in this context. Whilst I have no doubt that the clock-face half-hourly service on the MML generates market share for train travel, it's also worth remembering that the MML destinations are a lot closer together, and proximity tends to be an important factor in overall demand for travel between two places.

It is also noticeable that volumes on the MML are significantly greater as absolutes, as well as relative numbers. Looking at Grantham/Newark, I notice that the numbers average out at less than 50 people per day, and suspect that they may be flattered by the need to change at Newark on many itineraries between Grantham and the ECML to York and beyond.

They don't suggest significant suppressed demand for a local service between the towns.

 

[NCT]

Timetabling a half-hourly Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster path isn't as difficult as one might think. It's only 12 minutes longer than a Peterborough non-stop Doncaster train and can be accommodated if the other handful of trains (say 6tph) are suitably flighted. Without going into details, the upcoming December timetable has some horrible pathing time due to inefficient allocation of intermediate stops between services - if you are going to have pathing time then a better timetable structure could produce better outcomes with the same actual journey times.

Correction - this should say hourly.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 19:23 ==

They dismount and wheel the bikes up the slope.
It's very hard to get the bike to go up the slope fast enough to avoid losing stability.

Are you talking before or beyond Gonerby Hill Foot? Either way the continued exercise will do them good.

Which is about what might be expected, given that the journey from Grantham to Nottingham is much longer and the rail option is also ~1tph in real terms (typically ~45 and 00 of the hour departures from Grantham).
I grew up in the Grantham area, although I am rather less Lincolnshire-focussed than many people who did, but honestly any money or effort should be focussed on the Grantham-Nottingham axis.
That is where the economic future of Grantham is, in my view. Not pretending that you can cobble a chain of small towns into some sort of productive economic unit.

Improving the two directions are not mutually exclusive.

Quite. I don’t know if @NCT has ever been up Huntingtower Road, or seen how traffic “works” in Grantham. Suffice it to say that in the 20 years I’ve lived here, bright ideas that work well on paper have blighted the town. And when I drive to the station of a morning (getting to the 06:58, I do not fancy “active travel” extending my journey times), the triangular LNER (not NCP) car park is just nicely placed.

Others have commented on the MML timetable. I’m just curious about how many travel to/from Wellingborough or Market Harborough to Kettering. Grantham, Newark and Retford have plenty of traffic, just not nearly so much between each other but as railheads and interchange points onto trains going longer distances on the ECML.

Unless there’s data saying different, it feels like an optimistic reading of anecdotal observations is then being applied to presume something that simply isn’t applicable.

Plenty of people routinely cycle steeper than Huntingtower Road elsewhere (Farringdon Road between Clerkenwell Road and Rosebury Avenue looks to be similar). The only things that blight Grantham are the excessive surface parking and a public realm that's stuck in the last century.

What Grantham Station desperately needs is high-quality sightline pedestrian / cycle routes towards Railway Terrace and Fletcher Street. The pedestrian severance effect caused by the car park is simply unacceptable. This relatively simple intervention would take away a good chunk of unnecessary car trips.

Similar places have existed all over Europe for more than 20 years without being anywhere near as car-brained as Grantham. If Huntingtower Road is considered so steep that active travel has to be written off for Grantham then the people of Grantham needs to be put under special measures.