Forum

摘要

As probably the key person behind the West Coast main line December 2008 Virgin High Frequency (VHF) timetable, I suggest Tim Shoveller was not entirely correct when he stated the starting point was the West Midlands corridor (p73, last month), although I openly agree it was latterly a very key part. That complete timetable had one prime location as its centre around which the rest of the timetable was constructed, and that was Chester. The most restricting issue was the supply of Class 221 s, for which there were a fixed number of diagrammed units, so the service was built around the ability to perform a round trip from Euston to Chester, a suitable turnround allowance, then back to Euston and again a suitable turnround allowance in London before being ready to depart once more. With a journey time of around two hours in either direction, when adding turnround at either end this figure needed to be five hours in total and indeed still exists to this day.