New train service will link Wales, England and Scotland for first time

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New train service will link Wales, England and Scotland for first time

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Picture of Michael Holden

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CrossCountry Voyager at Leeds Railway Station
CrossCountry Voyager at Leeds Railway Station // Credit: RailAdvent

455 miles and 22 stations will be connected thanks to a new service from CrossCountry.

The service, described by CrossCountry as the first of its kind, will roll out as part of the timetable change on the 15th of December.

The service will see a Voyager train from Cardiff and join together at New Street before proceeding onto Edinburgh.

On the southbound journey, the train will split at before proceeding to Cardiff and Plymouth.

The train will head from Birmingham via to Leeds and then York, before joining the East Coast Mainline to and Edinburgh.

“We’re delighted to introduce this new service joining Cardiff and Edinburgh directly by rail for the very first time – meaning even more connections for customers across the length and breadth of the country.

“Thanks to colleagues across CrossCountry and the wider rail industry for their support in delivering these new services linking two of Great Britain’s capital cities, as well as many other key towns and cities in between.”

Scott Maynard, CrossCountry’s Interim Managing Director

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  1. The new timetable shows one direct train between Cardiff and Waverley each way per weekday, costing more than twice as much as journeys with one change, and not any quicker. Hardly an attractive proposition.

  2. Is it too much to hope that Cross Country can cure the chronic overcrowding that now seems to be the norm on most of their services. 4/5 coach trains with very limited luggage space are hopeless. Crowding means that Refreshment Trolleys are usually stuck at one end of then train, with passengers simply not being able to access them!

  3. Err, there previously used to be a direct service from Cardiff – Edinburgh Waverley/Glasgow Central, via Preston, in British Rail days. The Inter-City service split and joined at Carstairs, with separate portions of the train serving Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley.

    1. This sounds much better than the suggested route, plus better trains are required, the smell from the cross country voyagers toilets fill the whole train, its vile.

  4. Would be nice if CrossCountry would run some services from East Anglia apart from Stansted Airport. Maybe CrossCountry could run new services from Norwich to Cardiff Central, Birmingham New Street, Sheffield, Leeds. And East Midlands Railway to continue with operating from Norwich to Nottingham, Manchester Piccadilly and Liverpool Lime Street or to be transferred to CrossCountry to run those services.

  5. Which could also mean that CrossCountry could inherit the Class 222 Meridian from East Midlands Railway and to use them on Cardiff Central-Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Carlisle, Newcastle, Sunderland, Manchester Piccadilly and Liverpool Lime Street. What about CrossCountry to operate from Stansted Airport to Cardiff Central, Wrexham and Holyhead using Class 170 Turbostar.

  6. I forgot to mention that there used to be summer Saturday services from the north of England to Tenby until were discontinued by cross country.
    As they have documented all of their summer Saturday services from the north of England to Devon, Cornwall, Dorset etc.
    Far fewer direct travel opportunities now exist than before for travelling cross country

  7. There used to be services from the north of England to south Wales. They were discontinued after the franchise system came in. As were many other cross country services.
    Consequently far few locations are now served by services that operated cross country.
    There have been services from south Wales before via the West Coast.

  8. What is needed for Wales is that south Wales to be reconnected with Northern Wales without going the long way via England. There needs to be a link from Aberystwyth going south to Cardiff again

    1. Yes, that would be restoring the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen railway which was closed by the govt in response to Beechin’s recommendations back in the 1960s. This route was featured on a recent “Abandoned Railways from the Air” TV programme which showed a lot of the old route has been sold off or built over, so restoring it would be a major task.
      When British Rail closed routes in the 1960s and 1970s they almost immediately ripped up all the tracks and sold off bits of the trackbed to local buyers – clearly determined to prevent any future re-opening.
      They should have been directed by the Govt to maintain the trackbed intact to facilitate possible re-opening in the future, but that seemed to be be very far from the minds of politicians in those days.

      1. Nit-picking pedant that I am, I have to point out that the Aberystwyth-Carmarthen route was closed ‘temporarily’ by a landslide in 1964, not by Beeching. In the immediate post-Beeching climate, of course, it was never intended to be re-opened. The other north-south route within Wales, Moat Lane-Newport change at Brecon, closed pre-Beeching in 1962.

  9. Cannot think of a worse train than a voyager to undertake such a long distance journey! They really are the lowest of the low.

    1. Be fair to Cross Country. They need to be delighted about something for once, even though their Voyagers are the worst trains for long distance travel.

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