Living in the UK i naturally want more UK routes, these are just a few thoughts I believe could be a good option either because of the route length or the type of route/number of stations Birmingham to London “It takes an average of 2h 4m to travel from Birmingham to London by train, over a distance of around 101 miles (163 km). There are normally 236 trains per day travelling from Birmingham to London” Operator: Avanti West Coast & West Midlands Blackpool North to Manchester Airport “It takes an average of 1h 38m to travel from Blackpool North to Manchester Airport by train, over a distance of around 45 miles (72 km). There are normally 66 trains per day travelling from Blackpool North to Manchester” Operator: Northern Manchester Piccadilly to Milford Haven/Carmarthen “You'll usually find 12 trains per day running along the 169 miles (273 km) route between these two destinations” several trains throughout the day will stop at Carmarthen, with other trains going further to Milford Haven. Operator: Transport for Wales Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle “It takes an average of 3h 21m to travel from Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle by train, over a distance of around 121 miles (195 km). There are normally 36 trains per day travelling from Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle” Operator: transpennie express
The WCML route through Birmingham would also need all of the branch traffic that crosses it, a lot of freight (which comes down from the Trent Valley WCML proper), the LO route into Euston and then there's the whole loop which goes via Northampton (and includes DiRFT) This leaves out a heck of a lot of info! I used to work on this route and trains from Manchester go via Stockport, Crewe, Shrewsbury, The Marshes Line via Hereford, The South Wales Mainline between Newport and Swansea and the West Wales lines. So it may be 169 miles as the crow flies, but in route miles it's 288 from Milford Haven to Manchester (info taken from realtimetrains ) Again, a lot more to this route than quoted. The Transpenine route from Liverpool to Newcastle would include Manchester Victoria, Leeds, York and the ECML to Newcastle. Route miles 180.5
