Incremental benefits of infrastructure investment highlighted as Birmingham to York improvement sought
On Sunday 31 March CrossCountry operated a trial ‘speed run’ from Birmingham New Street to York using a Class 220 Voyager. The aim of the exercise was both to mark the completion of a series of investments across its network and to test the possibility of accelerating journeys on the Derby and Sheffield corridor by up to 22 minutes.
‘We want to… celebrate some of the magnificent projects completed over the last five years, which are all improving performance or shortening journey times for CrossCountry’, the operator’s Managing Director Andy Cooper told passengers on the special.
The operator set out to Network Rail its aspirational timetable strategy in July 2013, which sought to provide a clear focus on the benefits from infrastructure improvements. As the operator points out, ‘the prize for enduring the pain which often enables such works is the benefit they will deliver for services’.
READING
The problems faced by CrossCountry at Reading were particularly limiting due to the need for its services to reverse at the station, combined with flat junctions to the west. In 2008 plans were started to enha…
