Public Consultation on next Cross Country franchise

[whole diary]

[eightonedee]

The line service is two an hour, but one is a slow stopper calling all stations between Wokingham and Ash, then Guildford, and terminating usually at  Guildford, Shalford or Redhill, if they go beyond Guildford there is a mixed pattern of stops towards Redhill: the second is a limited stop service missing Crowthorne, Sandhurst, Farnborough North, Ash and anything other than Dorking Deapdene, Reigate and Redhill after Guildford. There used to be a few XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) Gatwicks under Virgin management, and there is still one early morning from Guildford and a train arrives at Guildford in the early evening, so I guess there must be room to add more.

[JayMac]

The former VXC^▸ (Virgin Cross Country - former franchise) services that called at Gatwick didn't use the North Downs Lines though. They ran via the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) to Acton then onto Kensington Olympia and Brighton, calling at Gatwick.

I think the ship has sailed for reintroducing such services. The paths needed on the Great Western Main Line, through Kenny O and onto the Brighton Main Line are no longer there. It was always a struggle to maintain the paths back in the day. There are many more services on those lines now.

[grahame]

However, would Grahame's colleagues in Wiltshire welcome the opportunity of a single change of train at Reading to get to Gatwick as part of the new franchise?     

I don't see that's amy different to what's available at present from stations on the Berks and Hants and London - Bristol lines.

Two immediate issues with this:
1) Cross country is an intercity service and Reading Gatwick stops at every farm gate along the way!
2) Reading Gatwick is 2 x an hour and Reading Newcastle is hourly

A massive question in the franchise - "what's XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) it for"  - Intercity and / or shorter journeys and can it / should it cover both in some places,  should some services be transferred out (or in) and on soma lines can you / should you be providing local trains additionally to XC?   Questions like "do you serve Bridgwater" are interesting.

Reading to Gatwick is strongly tipped to go up to three services per hour ... as I understand it, the sticking point is the safety case / extra use of level crossings.  It would be two fast Gatwicks and a slower Redhill. There is also the question in the short term of rolling stock (but 769s on order) and perhaps lack of train crew.

[ChrisB]

I understood from the consultation meeting in Taunton that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) want to remove the Guildford & Bath calls in the new ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender)....although Graham is correct in that they do ask whether they ought to be serving other destinations, you would need to identify the additional stock to do this.

There are plenty of spare HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) for their core network to strengthen services =, but unsuitable to go to Gatwick. It would need to be relatively fast though, very limited stops - would there even be a path every hour? With no Gatwick platform to terminate in, it's likely to be a non-starter

[Richard Fairhurst]

The former VXC^▸ (Virgin Cross Country - former franchise) services that called at Gatwick didn't use the North Downs Lines though. They ran via the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) to Acton then onto Kensington Olympia and Brighton, calling at Gatwick.

There were both: some via London, some via the North Downs. All chronicled in remarkable detail at http://www.1s76.com/ .

[stuving]

However, would Grahame's colleagues in Wiltshire welcome the opportunity of a single change of train at Reading to get to Gatwick as part of the new franchise?     

I don't see that's amy different to what's available at present from stations on the Berks and Hants and London - Bristol lines.

Two immediate issues with this:
1) Cross country is an intercity service and Reading Gatwick stops at every farm gate along the way!
2) Reading Gatwick is 2 x an hour and Reading Newcastle is hourly

A massive question in the franchise - "what's XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) it for"  - Intercity and / or shorter journeys and can it / should it cover both in some places,  should some services be transferred out (or in) and on soma lines can you / should you be providing local trains additionally to XC?   Questions like "do you serve Bridgwater" are interesting.

Reading to Gatwick is strongly tipped to go up to three services per hour ... as I understand it, the sticking point is the safety case / extra use of level crossings.  It would be two fast Gatwicks and a slower Redhill. There is also the question in the short term of rolling stock (but 769s on order) and perhaps lack of train crew.

I think you can see what XC is for by looking at the shape of its route map - a rather wiggly thin "X" that's largely circumferential to London, so it cuts across the long-distance franchises that still keep the London-centric shape of the old companies. So it's not really for all local/regional links between next-door franchise areas; they can do them themselves. It's for just some of those between main centres where via London is too long and slow. Ideally it should use fast lines, too, so as to not duplicate the territorial franchises and also to make longer-distance trips worthwhile.

North Downs (and on to Reading) doesn't fit as you'd be better off going via London for anywhere north of Reading, and it isn't a fast line.

The service requirement has been 2 tph to Gatwick since the 2006 franchise, but NR^» (Network Rail - home page) have not  been able to provide the paths for both. The excuse for this has varied, but having built P7 at Gatwick and P0 at Redhill they have now come up with the level crossing at Reigate. A third stopping train to Redhill has now been added to the SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) as no-one ever managed to make the 2 tph work given the conflict between serving all stops sometime and giving fast access to Gatwick itself.

So, as you can see, the Reading/Gatwick service is regarded as primarily  "for" access to Gatwick Airport across SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) and most of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) areas, for which via London isn't so helpful (though may still be quicker!). Secondarily, it does local commuter travel for Reading, Wokingham, Camberley/Farnborough Guildford, and I presume Dorking, Reigate, Redhill, and Gatwick too (and loads of schoolkids). It isn't at all clear that fits in with XC's mandate.

As to the trains - the 165 to 166 difference in seating and cooling isn't that much really, especially in the done-up ones. The luggage areas never seemed to take most of the airline suitcases out of the aisles either. The big difference will be the change to gutless 769s, if that's what we get.

[paul7575]

Alternate Newcastle to Reading services already extend to Southampton, and I’m sure there are existing strategy documents that recommend extending the other services through to Southampton if paths became available.
Can’t see removal of the existing Southampton extensions anyway, so that probably means you only have a 2 hourly train to find a route for...

Paul

[ChrisB]

Not a lot of use when one thing you need for an airport service is to at least run hourly

[JayMac]

The former VXC^▸ (Virgin Cross Country - former franchise) services that called at Gatwick didn't use the North Downs Lines though. They ran via the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) to Acton then onto Kensington Olympia and Brighton, calling at Gatwick.

There were both: some via London, some via the North Downs. All chronicled in remarkable detail at http://www.1s76.com/ .

You are right. My memory was clouded by the fact I'd only ever been the Kenny O way. Understandable as after the failure of Operation Princess the only Cross Country services that used the North Downs Line were very early in the morning from Gatwick and late at night back, or Sunday only.

Even back then the paths these trains had were poor and slow. Today I suspect such paths are non-existent.

[eightonedee]

Thanks all for your views on the Gatwick suggestion - DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) have my suggestion in my consultation response, but it sounds like plenty of reasons to say "no" - another bright idea bites the dust?

As a regular commuter on the North Downs line, the comment about use of 165s and 166s and luggage is from personal experience. Strangely though this morning there were more 166s in evidence. Is the manager of Reading depot out there behind one of your aliases?

As regards Grahame's question about what XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) is for, the answer is (I think) simple. It is to provide direct train services between the larger urban areas of the country without going via London. The fact that at times the services are also used by commuters and get busy, such as at rush hour around Birmingham should not derogate from this role - after all most mainline services into London become crowded commuter trains at peak times too. I would be against trying to limit the use of XC services at peak times - why take capacity out of Leamington to Birmingham that will simply result in other services becoming even more crowded, or their passengers taking their cars instead? This is one of the reasons I oppose removing XC services from north of Northallerton. XC services provide capacity on the lines they run on - removing an XC an hour would presumably allow another train that starts at London to use its path, but the continuing problems with the East Coast franchise hardly indicates unmet demand, and the XC services are capacity for Doncaster-York-Newcastle passengers, to say nothing of those from Leeds and Harrogate with one change of trains. Not all journeys start and finish at London.

As regards time, longer journeys may take longer than via London, but if you are travelling for leisure/holidays, which is a large part of XC's business, it is attractive to avoid hauling across London by tube - the same applies to Reading-Gatwick.   

As you may gather, I am a bit of a fan - please don't give First the franchise! If we are to persuade more people to leave their cars at home and use the train, we need a decent Cross Country network.