The History Of CrossCountry Trains

CrossCountry is a train operating company, the brand name of XC Trains Limited owned by Arriva, that has operated Great Britain’s Cross Country rail franchise since 11 November 2007. The franchise was formed through the amalgamation of most of the former Cross Country franchise previously held by Virgin Trains (which consisted of inter-city services that do not terminate in London) with some of the longer-distance routes (including some former Central Citylink services) operated by the former Central Trains.

On 10 July 2007, the Department for Transport announced that Arriva plc had won the rights to the franchise.

Unlike most other franchise operators, CrossCountry does not manage any stations, even though there are certain stations served by no operator other than CrossCountry.

Routes

The hourly service operates on each basic route:

Plymouth to Edinburgh Waverley (via Leeds)
Reading to Newcastle (via Doncaster)
Bristol Temple Meads to Manchester Piccadilly
Bournemouth to Manchester Piccadilly (via Coventry)
Cardiff Central to Nottingham
Birmingham New Street to Leicester and Stansted Airport

Extensions

There are extensions to the normal service pattern:

* to Penzance from Plymouth
* to Glasgow Central from Edinburgh Waverley
* to Aberdeen from Edinburgh Waverley
* to Cardiff Central from Bristol Temple Meads
* to Paignton from Bristol Temple Meads
* to Guildford from Reading
* to Bournemouth from Reading

Summer Saturdays see trains to Newquay from various parts of the network.

Frequency

Typically, during weekday daytimes, each of these six routes sees one CrossCountry train per hour, with the exception of Birmingham–Leicester and Birmingham–Nottingham (which each see two). These services combine to provide higher frequencies on the following sections:

* Bristol to Birmingham: 2 trains per hour
* Cheltenham to Birmingham: 3 trains per hour
* Reading to Birmingham: 2 trains per hour
* Birmingham to Derby: 4 trains per hour
* Derby to Sheffield: 2 trains per hour
* York to Newcastle: 2 trains per hour
* Birmingham to Leicester: 2 trains per hour

Class 221 Super Voyager

Withdrawal of Brighton services

The requirement for the franchise operation did not include retaining the current services south east of Reading/Guildford to Brighton. As a result all CrossCountry services to Kensington Olympia, East Croydon, Redhill, Gatwick Airport and Haywards Heath ceased on 13 December 2008. Passengers for Gatwick Airport now have to change at Reading onto First Great Western's services.

Future services

Plans were included by CrossCountry to reopen the railway station at Kenilworth. In April 2008, they agreed with Warwickshire county council to draw up a business case.

There are proposals for a station at Worcester (Norton) Parkway near the city of Worcester, which is currently by-passed by CrossCountry's trains. If this station is built, then it may be served by CrossCountry services.

Performance

Initial performance figures released by the ORR rate the new operator slightly better than their predecessor with a PPM of 91.1% over the first quarter of the 2008/9 financial year.

Rolling Stock

Multiple Unit fleet

Virgin CrossCountry previously operated the Class 220 and Class 221 DEMUs. Now some 21 Class 221 units have been transferred to the Virgin West Coast franchise to operate the North Wales route and the West Midlands to Scotland services. CrossCountry also use Class 170 Turbostars inherited from Central Trains. Class 220s and 221s are undergoing refurbishment at Bombardier, Derby. This includes removing the shop and extra luggage space. The refurbishment is due to be completed in late 2009.

HST fleet

The first CrossCountry-livered HST powercar was released from its overhaul at Brush, Loughborough on 16 July 2008. To identify its fleet, CrossCountry is renumbering all of its HST units by adding an extra 200 to the old number, the newly repainted HST being 43301 (originally 43101). 43301 had to be completely rebuilt by Brush, as it has been out of service for more that 5 years. As a standard, CrossCountry is installing MTU engines to replace the old Paxman Valenta ones, and is repainting the units into the two-tone CrossCountry livery of grey/silver and chocolate brown.

Contacts:

HomePage

Department    Numbers and details
Customer Relations    0870 010 0084 (Opening hours Mon to Fri: 0830 to 2000 and Sat: 0900 to 1600)
Ticket sales    0844 811 0124
Group travel    0871 244 2388
JourneyCare    0844 811 0125
0844 811 0126 (text phone)
Season Tickets    0870 024 0465

Or write to:
Customer Relations Manager
CrossCountry
Cannon House
18 Priory Queensway
Birmingham
B4 6BS