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Re: Cross country on Camp Hill line?

On Jul 23, 10:09 pm, allan tracy <thunderbird57...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Can someone enlighten me as to why it goes this way - I though New Stre
et
> > was really congested so it would have made more sense to go in at one e
nd
> > and reverse out again.
>
> > Is it to keep up route knowledge?  To avoid running the service in re
verse
> > formation?  To introduce slack in the timetable (to give the option o
f
> > running into the west to catch up if late)?
>
> Most XC trains are booked via University (preferred) but some are
> still booked via Camp Hill and, in any case, that route is always
> available if say you were running early / late.
>
> > Despite getting checked several times on the approach to New Street we
> > still arrived 20 mins before departure time which makes me think it was
a
> > deliberate diversion.
>
> That's the sort of slack that has to be built into the XC timetable to
> ensure reliability - so we're told - the Camp Hill route doesn't take
> any less time.

Although the OP is correct in saying that the preferred route is via
Selly Oak, many XC services use Camp Hill as it is simply less
congested. The Selly Oak route is only double track, and handles 6
Cross City trains an hour, at least 1 XC service an hour on the
Cardiff-Nottingham axis and al least 1 London Midland train an hour
From Hereford/Worcester to New Street. If you then add in the 2 an
hour NE/NW-SW XC service, that gives you 10 trains an hour in each
direction, a theoretical 6 minute headway, but a mix of fast, semi-
fast and stoppers blows that theory into the ether. The sometimes
indifferent reliability of the class 323's also complicate things
further. It seems to me that it would make sense to send all XC
Voyagers/HST's that way to keep them out of the way of this
congestion, but I guess that operating circumstances at New Street may
not always allow this.

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