Great Western Coffee Shop

Sorry for those who do not like Voyagers, but
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-68657138 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-68657138)
as a humble traveller more trains and less overcrowding will be welcome.

Indeed


Replacements for the gap left by the withdrawal of the HSTs - and (?) some more.

Perhaps reinstating the third XC through to/from Penzance that hasn't reappeared post Covid and also Summer Saturday services to Newquay!!

won't be holding my breath..

My main uses of Cross Country is travelling to Worcestorshire Parkway ( I have to change at Cheltenham) and Liverpool Lime St (change at Birmingham or Stafford).

Cross country from Bristol to Birmingham needs 8 carriages for many journeys (morning and evening), and adding more 4-car or 5-car trains will stop all the regular, spurious cancellations, but not really address capacity.

A direct stopping service from Bristol to Birmingham Moor St would certainly help (GWR?)!

Direct trains from Bristol to Liverpool stopped about 20 years ago when the WCML was upgraded, but it would be nice if Cross Country added Liverpool back in the mix every 2-3 hours.

Think these acquisitions is more about increasing capacity on existing services than the introduction of additional services.

That useful... was it Portsmouth to Liverpool... regional railways train... that appeared possibly a little before privatisation and disappeared as soon as was (indecently) possible thereafter... as no franchise appeared tasked with what what the then Regional Railways conspired to do, more's the pity.

That train dropped by Bath Spa at around 8:30am, can't recall if it then missed Newport altogether* before heading up the Marches line, across to Crewe and then to Liverpool.

Mark

* In the days before the Maindee curve at Newport got the MVP** treatment.

** "Minimum Viable Product"***.

*** Perhaps 'MVP' should be a new target for a Coffeeshop TLA buster. Wikipedia indicates that an MVP may be put in place when the viability of something need to be proved - that is, to maximise the benefit, that should be quickly followed by a plan A, B or C and I'm not quite confident the DfT or various other transport bodies get the principle of a follow-through - including the benefit of including a little passive provision, or at least not to heap expense in the way of further enhancement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product)

I believe they are wanting to introduce the daily Cardiff<>Edinburgh service, refill the gaps in the Stansted service, and, from May 2025, restore the hourly Reading<>Newcastle’s only a few of which run now.

If Bristol to Worcester can merit a 5-car 80x then I think we can safely say that Cross Country merit some 9- and 5-car 80x stock, not least because they spend a considerable time under the wires, and probably settle the business case for Bromsgrove to Bristol and Birmingham to Derby.

IIRC, TfWM have an aspiration to run 1TPH to Bristol and 1TPH to Cardiff. I believe that there is also a plan afoot to beef up the Leeds to Nottingham stoppers (CC services to Chesterfield already having been significantly pruned) - I wonder at what point CC might introduce some kind of premium or reservation-only policy to keep the commuters out?

The latest track access application (TAA) did read that trains on the “Reading Newcastle service group” would be ‘mostly hourly’ from May/June 2025, but it’s suggested elsewhere that only alternate trains will be able to run north of York, because of the ongoing ECML capacity issues giving priority to London to Newcastle and Edinburgh trains.  They also refer to the “Reading Newcastle corridor” which is a somewhat loose term that possibly allows for shortening at either end.

I think it’s pretty clear another extension that’s never coming back is the 2 hourly Reading to Southampton Central, again they’re not mentioned in their TAA.

Paul

Just Need some extra drivers to go with the extra trains. Maybe they could get some from Avanti ;D

60 new carriages after the withdrawal of 40 Mk3 carriages. Is that really a 25% increase in capacity?

Doesn't it depend on a 25% increase from when?

I guess it’s 25% from now, as the HSTs are long gone. But how often did they ever use more than 2 of them per day?  Does before and after diagrammed capacity give a different % figure to before and after fleet size?  Should the PR figures only consider the Voyagers, and seats on the north/south main network? Is the lack of any reported increase in the 170 fleet just a minor point that can be ignored?

MVP = Most Valued Professional, of Microsoft applications!

CrossCountry have previewed their new livery concept on their LinkedIn blog:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/crosscountry-trains_we-have-been-working-on-a-lot-of-exciting-activity-7189192983517278208-YRTF

(https://i.postimg.cc/vTLVysZm/1714037175467.jpg)

Pedant Alert!

These are not new trains or carriages and it would be really good if the media could be persuaded to stop describing them as such.

I am not convinced by the proposed external decoration but the replacement interiors do look like a major improvement.

The forthcoming replacement interiors: are there visuals to be found please?

Mark

Some images at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/xc-voyager-refurbishment.261302/page-15 (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/xc-voyager-refurbishment.261302/page-15)

Hmm, 5000k daylight lighting, grey / light grey theme and Corporate Memphis feel to the artwork. Still, indirect lighting though which is good.

Why did rail companies discard the idea of warm calming interiors on trains? This stuff can look very bleak especially when it's dark outside.

Mark

Safe, reliable, value for money, comfortable, clean. All those are more important for me than interior colour schemes and liveries.

That said, I'd like to see every long distance train in BR InterCity Swallow livery. :P

It looks like Cross Country are removing first class from their Class 170 Turbostar services (Cardiff-Nottingham and Birmingham-Leicester/Stanstead) From the timetable change on the 15th December.

These trains are due for refurb so may mean the 2+1 seats are replaced with 2+2

Yet good interior design contributes to all five of those qualities. Safe. Reliable. Value for money. Comfortable. Clean.

Mark

Mmmmm ...............and if you replace the existing 2+2 seats with 2+3 seats that gives you 25% more seats (now where have I heard/seen that one before ??)  Gosh, I am getting cynical in my old age.

I have been cynical for many years.
"Providing more seats" sounds good but too often means higher density seating rather than longer trains.

Surely not?  ;)