Separate the services

Roy Marsden comments on the Liverpool-Norwich service and possible ‘splitting’ at Nottingham

(Open Access, RAIL 866). Personally, I feel that this service, in trying to be all things to all people, actually falls between two stools. We need to separate out the longer-distance service from the inter-urban component.

This could be achieved by, firstly, changing the Class 158s to five-car Meridian sets, running hourly Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield. Alternate trains could then extend, via Retford/East Coast Main Line, to East Anglian destinations, giving significant time savings end-to-end.

An inter-city-quality service could, at the same time, be instituted to link Manchester with Nottingham and Leicester, simply by extending alternate (perhaps six a day?) St Pancras-Nottingham trains via Erewash Valley-Totley spur connection-Hope Valley. David Cooper, Bletchley