Great Western Coffee Shop

VERY little in the way of any service/capacity improvements from the 'just do enough' franchise that is Cross Country.  Slight improvements in journey times through Staffordshire as a result of the Norton Bridge improvements, an extra 39000 seats a year along the Edinburgh to Plymouth route (which, according to maths from another forum equates to somewhere between 100-150 or so a day.  Wow!  Add in free wifi, a small amount of money (£20m) to tart up the trains a little and a couple of other minor bits and bobs, and that's yer lot!

Probably not surprising, but passengers will still no doubt be disappointed that their journeys will continue to get worse and worse for another three years before any extra trains and/or carriages are provided to relieve the overcrowding that occurs on such a high percentage of their trains.

More details:  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/better-journeys-for-passengers-on-the-cross-country-network

So, from this we get

• Worcester Parkway - No commitment, so are the government ignoring it, or assuming it will be late
• Overcrowding - No commitment to seriously address this, 39K extra seats per year on the hourly service of Plymouth<->Edinburgh is a joke
• Overcrowding - Extra trains/routes to better connect parts of the country

Not every long distance journey in this country has to centre on London (multi node) or Birmingham (single node). For example why not add in a Plymouth to Norwich?

The extra seats will be for the Mon-Fri peak across the core of XC's network between Leeds and Bristol. So it's not really a fair analysis to say there are only 100-150 extra seats a day. Those extra seats are to be targeted where they are most needed.

The extra capacity will come from more intensive use of XC's five HST sets and from creating 3x four car Voyagers from 2x five car, utilising two spare Class 22x driving cars. Those driving cars were put into store by Virgin when they converted all their West Coast Voyagers to five car.

The XC HST's are also to have power doors fitted. Presumably to the same design as the Chiltern Mk3 fleet.

WiFi will be free to all once the system is upgraded.

CrossCountry are also scrapping the £10 fee for making changes to Advance Purchase bookings.

This regular XC user is not disappointed by this direct award. There is no extra long distance rolling stock immediately available, so XC and the DfT have come up with, I think, the best short term solution. Capacity will, I suspect, be addressed in the next ITT. Of course it could have been addressed sooner by not giving a direct award, but that's a political decision most probably taken at the very top of the DfT. A decision for which CrossCountry aren't to blame.

Source: https://vimeo.com/184808769/cd57418360

Thanks for the detail, which I was struggling to find elsewhere.

I'm pleased to hear there will be more intensive use of the HST's and the creation of the extra set makes sense. Though I do feel that a commitment to take on a few more HST's as they are released by other operators could have been a relatively easy way to increase capacity further, without tying any future operator into a long term commitment.

So that pretty much means one of the 4 carriage services is becoming 5 carriage

They end up with 3 x 4 cars in stead of 2 x 5 cars, is what I understand is happening; using the two spare driving cars from when VWC disbanded a four car set.

Paul

This from the Bristol Evening Post online today.

http://m.bristolpost.co.uk/arriva-wins-contract-for-cross-country-train-route-through-bristol-and-promises-big-improvements/story-29766017-detail/story.html

I certainly hope capacity will be addressed in the next ITT.  If that means a new order of trains, then it could be well over five years until the situation improved.

A shame that other avenues appear not to have been explored to get a bit of a headstart in that respect.  AIUI there are 5 HST sets that will be retired by Grand Central (also operated by Arriva) next year when the GWR 180s replace them.  Is there any reason (other than a bit of cash that the DfT wouldn't have otherwise received) why they could not have been taken and converted at the same time as their current fleet?  Those five sets could have released 5-car 221s to cover some 4-car 220s and in turn mean a couple more diagrams could have been operated by 8-car 220s.

Towards the end of the Direct Award there should also be the possibility of acquiring some of the modern, but surplus to requirements, 100mph Class 185 fleet that TransPennine Express will be offloading.  Weight permitting they could bolster the Cardiff-Nottingham or Birmingham-Stansted services allowing their 13 2-class 170s to run in multiple so that it would be the end of packed 2-car trains on those routes (and more 6-car services on their busiest trains).

Bad example - single change in Birmingham or better with just two changes. For the number of pax making that journey, I reckon its sufficient. Alternatively via London with 1 change & likely not to be quicker on your 'direct' route.....

I strongly suspect that there was too much possibility of something failing (delayed supply of IEP stock on GWR as an example, which could delay release of HSTs and/or 180s to GCR) to definitively give XC any HSTs from either GWR or GCR before this award completes in early 2019(?)

Pretty sure the 180s will definitely be going from GWR to Grand Central next year.  The GWR HSTs are more likely to deviate a little from the original planned cascade.

https://www.grandcentralrail.com/about-us/news-press/%C2%A378m-investments-are-just-the-ticket/

Yes, you likely to be right, as the DfT has little effect on an open-access operator. I also suspect that GCR will hang on to its HSTs too

I'm rather less sure of that.   A track access application that they made a while ago definitely said that the addition of the 5 ex GW 180s would allow for "a uniform fleet", and avoid nugatory costs of fitting ERTMS to the HSTs, e.g:


They haven't had much success with new open access applications, they were turned down for Edinburgh Kings Cross (the service that First group had approved) so they then withdrew their application for services to various Lincolnshire coast destinations, as they didn't have a decent business case as an independent application.

I suspect they'd have too much rolling stock with the HSTs.

Paul

CrossCountry aren't hanging about. Two of their Mk3s have today gone to Wabtec Rail in Doncaster for fitting of plug doors and controlled emission toilets.

Aren't they already controlled-emission toilets?

Richard Gibson of CrossCounty came down to Taunton (TravelWatch SouthWest) on Saturday (8th October) to tell us about the direct award.   Well - that's what was billed, but he started by telling us there really wasn't all that much to tell and gave us a general flavour of CrossCountry for much of his time.

My notes from that first section:


He then moved on to speak about the new franchise


Then  a handful of questions


Time was limited for questions; more wanted to ask than could be called. This was the final main presentation before lunch, but Richard had to dash off giving apologies "because my wife's away" and couldn't join us.

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Comment

I get the feeling that Richard's talk was designed more to limit expectations and tell his audience why things couldn't be done rather than to herald any bright new future.  His flow figures telling us that no one "flow" was responsible for more than 1% of their business, and that Bristol's 6th and Plymouth 29th in the their passenger numbers, and his presentation of train loading graphs showing why the 16:44 from Bristol to Taunton couldn't be made less crowded because it wasn't overcrowded on the rest of its journey from Scotland to the West Country. 

Statistically I'm sure all his data was correct, but I question Richard's splitting up of flows - from what I could see - into individual station to station journeys.   That way he could give the message "you're really not that important to us" to (say) Bristol Temple Meads to Taunton passengers, and also to Bristol Parkway to Taunton passengers, to Bristol Temple Meads to Tiverton Passengers, to Bristol Parkway to Tiverton Passengers, to passengers from the Bristol areas to Exeter and from Cheltenham Spa to Taunton.

I appreciate the honesty of saying that the current WiFi in the trains couldn't cope with all the traffic that would come if it were free, but I question whether it should really take 2 years to beef up the WiFi hubs / boxes to the level required; is it just possible that leaving the accountants rather like the idea of leaving the income-generating system in place as long as possible?

The lack of answers on how community rail is to be supported, on how the passenger panel is to work, and the bringing of the commnications with 24 hour service where others have done these things already gave the impression of an operator being pulled along rather than jumping at th eopportunities offered - opportunities (for example) to promote further the quieter sections of their routes working with people in communities along the way ("we don't look after stations" is a poor staring point for engaining with non-users of rail near those stations).  And a need to dash off before the ability for us to ask any lunch time questions rather than paying the childminder for another hour (an educated guess) doesn't exactly shine in customer care terms.

Saying that "they have a whole new fleet of trains and we have one extra 2nd hand voyager" may be true in some of the comparisons with East Anglia.  And I can understand a jealously.  But I'll also point out the rather good work done on other parts of the network using cascaded rolling stock built in the last century, rather than this century's stock such as the Class 220/221.   Richard was notably short on comment on the utilisation of the HSTs, and wasn't around at lunch to ask.

If the franchise is so wide that passenger groups in individual areas feel they're of little or no interest to the operator, might it be sensible to divide the franchise into operating divisions or if that's already done to pass more of the stratgy and customer relations to those divisions?  Could there be some sense in splitting the franchise so that long distance service route groups are relocated into other franchises - taking (in each case) a franchise somewhere along the way and giving it tentacles out to new markets?   I'm noting that GWR run to Brighton ... how about Virgin West Coast to Bournmouth, GWR to Manchester, East Midlands Trains to Cardiff and East Coast to Plymouth and Penzance?   With this current franchise being a do-little, direct award, perhaps we'll see something that's far better in terms of progress for the customer in 2019?

Thanks for that, Graham.  As I previously said, XC are the 'just do enough' franchise IMHO.  Hopefully they'll be a little more to cheer about in 2019 when a proper franchise is let and a proper set of improvements will be specified by the DfT.

Calling it a 'just do enough' franchise sums XC up nicely. But then again, Cross Country was the Cinderella of the IC network too because of its non-London based network. It improved somewhat when the cascade of HSTs took place following the electrification of the East Coast line. It's best days of investment were the brand new fleet of Voyagers introduced under the franchise held by Virgin. Shame they were totally inappropriate for the lines they now serve though  ::)

Bear in mind that the DfT specify the requirements...XC simply respond by signing up. So its a 'just do enough' DfT....