Cross Country Route

The Cross Country Route is a long-distance railway route in England, which runs from Bristol Temple Meads to York via Birmingham New Street, Derby, Sheffield and Leeds or Doncaster. Inter-city services on the route, which include some of the longest passenger journeys in the UK such as Aberdeen to Plymouth, are operated by CrossCountry.

It is classed as a high-speed line because its sections from Birmingham to Wakefield Westgate and from Leeds to York have a speed limit of 125 mph (200 km/h); however, the section from Birmingham to Bristol is limited to 100 mph (160 km/h) because of numerous level crossings, especially half-barrier level crossings, and the section from Wakefield to Leeds has the same limit because of a number of curves.

History

The Birmingham–Bristol section was built as the Birmingham and Gloucester and Bristol and Gloucester Railways before joining the Midland Railway, the southern forerunner to the cross-country route. From Birmingham to the north-northeast, the line had three separately owned sections, namely the:

Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to Derby, thence the

North Midland Railway to Leeds, thence the

York and North Midland Railway.

From the Labour Government's nationalisation in 1948 until privatisation in 1990, the route ran through all six regions of British Rail but did not have timetabling priority in any of them. Therefore, the services were poorly promoted and thus not always well-patronised.

Most Derby–Nottingham local passenger trains were taken over by diesel units from 14 April 1958, taking about 34 minutes between the two cities.

In the 1990s most services were operated by British Rail's InterCity business unit. As part of the privatisation of British Rail, these were taken over by Virgin CrossCountry in 1997, with the Class 47 hauled Mark 2 and High Speed Train sets replaced by Class 220 and Class 221 diesel multiple units in the early 2000s.