Great Western Coffee Shop

Grand Union has begun industry consultation over a proposal to operate five open access services a day between Cardiff and Edinburgh, and separately is looking at rolling stock options for its planned London – Carmarthen and London – Stirling services.

Grand Union Managing Director Ian Yeowart has told Rail Business UK that the issue of connectivity between Cardiff and Edinburgh had come up many times during discussions with stakeholders in Wales and Scotland.

The proposed services would call at Cardiff, Newport, Severn Tunnel Junction, Gloucester, Birmingham New Street, Derby, Sheffield, Doncaster, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh. The target start date is December 2025, using Class 22x trainsets.

From Railway Gazette (https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/cardiff-edinburgh-open-access-train-service-proposal-under-development/65155.article)



To me, Cross Country feels like it provides for the medium distance traveller along the South West to Scotland axis, but for the long distance passengers the product feels expensive and lacking in confort, marred by lots of people getting on and off at dozens of stops along the way.  A Cardiff to Edinburgh product deigned for the long distance market is worth a look.  Considering its siblings, perhaps a Carmarthen to Stirling product, though I get the Capital Connection focus of the headlines.

How would this possibly pass a revenue abstraction test?   

And isn’t it the northern ECML between York and Newcastle where TPE have just been binned because of track capacity issues?  What happens if the franchised operator reinstates the hourly all day Reading - Newcastle service?

There are NO franchises any more. XC has the same type of contract as GWR.

Wasn't the TPE cut due to lack of staff not lack of paths?

As part of its new contract, the UK passenger train operators CrossCountry, have stated their intention to introduce a direct Edinburgh – Cardiff service, linking the two capital cities for the first time. However the service is not expected to run until late in 2024. The operator recently retired its ageing “Intercity 125” fleet – the trains originally introduced by British Railways in the 1970s under the designation HST – or High Speed Train. Although past their prime, the loco-hauled push-pull units offered a high capacity to the significant overcrowding on the CrossCountry network, and the apparent reluctance of the UK government to sanction any further investment in a larger fleet for the operator.