Arriva CrossCountry
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Introduction
"Your Journey, Your Way"Covering around 1,600 route miles with almost 300 trains a day, serving 131 stations stretching from Aberdeen to Penzance and from Stansted to Cardiff, CrossCountry is the most extensive intercity rail service in the UK. The franchise started operating on 11 November 2007 and lasts until 31 March 2016.
For the first month of the franchise, services between Scotland and the South of England via Carlisle and Preston were jointly operated with Virgin West Coast. From 10th December 2007, services between Scotland and Birmingham were transferred to Virgin West Coast and services between Scotland Manchester were transferred to First TransPennine Express.
CrossCountry operate Class 220 and Class 221 trains on their services to and from Scotland. All Class 200 and Class 221 trains are now in the CrossCountry livery with the exception of Class 221 units 221114-221118 which are returning to Virgin Trains once AXC has all of its HST's in service
Rolling Stock
The 220 and 221 units will begin to get refurbished by Bombardier in September. The work will include the removal of the onboard shop and the bike stowage area which will become a trolley base as xc will only have trolley catering from 2009. Seats will be altered to get more into the coaches and more luggage space will be provided. 221136 is the first 220/221 to be refurbished and is due back in service on November 3 2008.Five HSTs are to be reintroduced in daily service on the Edinburgh - Plymouth route from December 2008. These will also be used on extra summer holiday services to the south coast from the North East of England. The trains will be given a full refurb for the December timetable change and will internally recieve enhancements which include a NXEC style refurbishment. The HST powercars will all recieve MTU engines similar to NXEC.Wabtec in Doncaster is carrying out the refurbishment of the HSTs. XC01 and XC02 are the first two refurbished sets. XC01 is currently in operation and XC02 will begin operation on 3 November. One HST will remain spare each day.
Staff
New staff uniforms are currently being trialled by staff at various locations.Timetable
A major timetable recast will occur in December upon completion of the West Coast Mainline upgrade. New timetables are now avaliable to download:Scotland-North East-Midlands-South Coast/South West
http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/SiteImages/Assets/3/Timetable_Scotland_North_East_to_South_West_and_South_Coast.pdf
South Coast-Midlands-Machester/North East-Scotland
http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/SiteImages/Assets/3/Timetable_South_Coast_to_Manchester_North_East_and_Scotland.pdf
South West-Midlands-Machester/North East-Scotland
http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/SiteImages/Assets/3/Timetable_South_West_to_Manchester_North_East_and_Scotland.pdf
HST Timetable
The proposed HST workings for the new December timetable are:
MONDAY-FRIDAY
XC801
06.00 LEEDS - PLYMOUTH
12.21 PLYMOUTH- GLASGOW
XC802
06.32 DUNDEE-PLYMOUTH
17.21 PLYMOUTH-LEEDS
XC803
06.32 YORK-PLYMOUTH
13.21 PLYMOUTH-ED
XC804
06.08 ED-PLYMOUTH
15.21 PLYMOUTH-LEEDS
SATURDAYS
XC801
06.00 LEEDS-PLYMOUTH
12.21 PLYMOUTH-GLASGOW
XC802
07.00 GLASGOW-PLYMOUTH
17.21 PLYMOUTH-LEEDS
XC803
SPARE
XC804
09.00 GLASGOW-PENZENCE
21.32 PENZENCE-PLYMOUTH