Great Western Coffee Shop

In the light of some of the comments on here about the XC bus company, I feel sorry for the passengers from North of England going to Glasgow...DaFT meddling again.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/4863615.More_trains_and_faster_journeys_promised_for_East_Coast_rail_passengers/

I don't feel that sorry for them.  XC vomitors will be easy for most peopel to aviod.  Most people will catch the EC train to Edinburgh and then get Scotrail's train to Glasgow Queen Street.  It has a 15 minute frequency and is 20 minutues faster than the route to Central taken by ECML trains.  It will be better and faster still when electrification is completed. 

Queen Street may not have the same connections as Central so it will be a step back for some and it is an extra change but I suspect that most of the ECML trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow were half empty compared to the Scotrail service, which is not a good use of stock.

Good also I think to have stock switched from Scotland to England for a change.

The DfT Consultation Document is at
http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/open/2010-08/consultation.pdf (http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/open/2010-08/consultation.pdf)
Having not yet studied it in detail, it does seem to be positive about speeding up journeys and frequency, as well as making full meals part of the franchise.

It does seem that XC will operate the Glasgow - Motherwell - Edinburgh services since DfT talks about new journey opportunities to Leeds and Sheffield. It has clearly escaped their notice that a number of Edinburgh - West Country XC services start back from Glasgow now. There is no doubt from my experiences that trains from Glasgow to the East Coast do not load heavily and a Voyager with 4 small coaches as opposed to 8 or 9 Mark 4's would be adequate for the available business. And don't forget that in the next few years additional services between Glasgow Central (and intermediately) and Edinburgh will become available. No mention of where any extra XC stock might come from. Also seems weird to electrify lines in the North West to enable Class 319's and new  Manchester - Scotland electrics to operate whilst running DEMUs under the wires between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Mind you no more weird than Voyagers all the way under the wires Birmingham to Glasgow / Edinburgh. The actual timetable details do not yet seem to be available, though the earlier draft showed all EC services stopping at Edinburgh, except Aberdeen and Inverness.

Clearly the views of passengers from East Anglia, who currently are able to travel to Peterborough and change into direct trains to Glasgow have been ignored.

It seems the new EC timetable is put off by 12 months from December this year to Autumn 2011.

If I recall from my early experience from ECML electrification in the early 1990's the extension of the service to Glasgow was to secure additional EU funding, it was also seen as a precursor to the planned renewal of the WCML allowing for a reduction in Euston Glasgow services for the duration of the renewals

Yes...you are probably right there ET. It still seems an underhand way of dumping a quality service. What next? why would we run 125s to Inverness, or Aberdeen? that's not electrified (despite a Tory promise)...seems to me a thin end of the wedge.
Despite what Daft think (they're only accountants damnit) people really do notice a diminishing quality...viz loss of restaurant cars on NXEC+NXEA...just watch out for Ryanair rail...
"that's a rather large suitcase Gran...that'll be ^25...toilet...of course only ^2"...very bah

It seems to me a way of matching stock to passenger demand.  I am sorry but the mark 4 would be fuller if redeployed elsewhere. 

The latest edition of the timetable proposals have been posted on East Coast's website, asking for comments.
http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/travel-information/Eureka/ (http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/travel-information/Eureka/)

Having printed out the timetable (all 50 pages!) there are a number of issues, but rather like the West Coast, to get a "Clockface" timetable you will have losers and winners. 

CrossCountry's Reading - Newcastle services will run every 2 hours via Doncaster (a faster journey) and every 2 hours via Leeds (slower). As this seems to result in a shorter turn round at Newcastle (about 20 minutes) expect trains to be terminated at York or Darlington in case of disruption. I appreciate that this Forum is about the West, but I will just comment that a year or so ago I could travel Doncaster to Bristol in about 3hours 15 minutes with no change, every hour and come 2011 I will need to change at Sheffield every time onto a crowded Plymouth - Edinburgh service and take an extra half hour over the journey. Progress!

My main point in adding the "Eureka" timetable is that this regular clockface pattern is the future, so how could this be implemented on Great Western?