Cross Country Route

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The North-East/South-West route (sometimes simply The Cross-Country Route) is the major British rail route running from South West England via Bristol, Birmingham, Derby and Sheffield to North-East England. It facilitates some of the longest inter-city rail journeys in the UK, eg Penzance to Aberdeen. It was also a major freight route, although in this role it has now largely been usurped by the M5, M6 and M1 motorways.

The route is well-connected, meeting amongst others the Great Western Main Line, West Coast Main Line, Midland Main Line, Sheffield to Hull Line, and the East Coast Main Line. Places served along the route include:

• Bristol Temple Meads
• Filton Abbey Wood
• Bristol Parkway
• Yate
• Cam and Dursley
• Gloucester
• Cheltenham Spa
• Ashchurch for Tewkesbury
  • A loop from the main route serves
  • Worcester Shrub Hill
  • Droitwich
• Bromsgrove
  • the Lickey Incline out of Bromsgrove
• Barnt Green
• Birmingham New Street (via the Cross-City Line)
• Water Orton
• Wilnecote
• Tamworth
• Burton upon Trent
• Willington
• Peartree
• Derby

The main traffic on the route are services operated by Arriva under the CrossCountry brand, with local services provided by London Midland and First Great Western. The Birmingham to Bristol section was originally built as the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway and the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, which then briefly amalgamated as the Birmingham and Bristol Railway before joining the Midland Railway. From Birmingham northwards, the line originated as the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to Derby, then the North Midland Railway to Leeds, then the York and North Midland Railway.

Milepost zero for Derby to Bristol is at Derby, hence a northbound train, for instance, will start out going "up" then change to "down."

It ran through several regions of British Rail and had timetabling priority in none of them, and as a result the services were poorly-promoted and thus not always well-patronised. This was offset somewhat on privatisation when the route was awarded as a single franchise to Virgin Trains. (The route corresponds broadly to Virgin VT3.)

In the 1960s the route was understood to be pencilled in for electrification — this would have been particularly beneficial for climbing the Lickey Incline into Birmingham from Cheltenham, as many of the early diesels were underpowered. However, this improvement did not take place, and modern, more powerful multiple-units such as the new Turbostars and Voyagers have made this unnecessary.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the network was served by High Speed Trains, and Class 47s, which hauled various types of coaching stock.

The XC Network is now served by Class 220/221 Voyager Trains. These trains are capable of achieving 125 mph, compared to the previous Class 47s and Mk 2 coaching stock, which had a top speed of 95 mph, and Class 43 HSTs, which had a top speed of 125mph. Since the Voyager trains arrived the XC network has stopped serving Inverness, Blackpool, Portsmouth, London Paddington and Liverpool. The Class 221 can tilt on some areas of the West Coast Main Line leading to a faster, more comfortable journey. The Birmingham to Derby section of the route has a line speed of 125mph, however Birmingham to Bristol is restricted to 100mph due to a number of half barrier level crossings.

Arriva have announced that it will be reinstating InterCity 125 HSTs for certain services on the CrossCountry route as part of its takeover of the franchise in response to criticisms of lack of seating capacity provided by the Voyager DEMUs.

[edit] New Stations

Many people want a new station at Worcester, called Worcester Parkway.

[edit] See also

• Rail services in Bristol
• Transport in Wales
• Virgin CrossCountry
• CrossCountry

[edit] References

de:Cross-Country Route