CrossCountry

Industrial action

During November and December 2017, CrossCountry on-board train managers and senior conductors affiliated with the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) staged five 24-hour and two 48-hour strikes in an industrial dispute regarding staff rostering, in particular in relation to working on Sundays. Further strikes had been planned for January 2018, but these were cancelled after CrossCountry and the RMT came to an agreement over staff working conditions on 11 January.

Separate strike action was later threatened by the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) union later that month, with strikes planned for 26 January. These were in relation to CrossCountry staff being offered a 1% pay rise, compared to a 3.3% pay rise for staff at other Arriva-owned train operating companies. As a result of an agreement with CrossCountry to match their demands for an equal pay rise, the planned industrial action by the TSSA was cancelled.

CrossCountry is one of several train operators affected by the 2022–2024 United Kingdom railway strikes, the first national rail strike in the UK for three decades. Its workers were amongst those who voted in favour of industrial action due to a dispute over pay and working conditions. CrossCountry was capable of operating only a very minimal timetable on any of the planned dates for the strikes due to the number of staff involved.

Performance issues

In August 2024, the Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh, criticised the company's performance saying she had "serious concerns" and threatened to take action if it did not improve, following its request to reduce its service levels in the new three-month timetable which is due to run from 10 August to 9 November 2024.

The company cited a driver training backlog as the reason for the reduced service. In a letter to the company's joint interim managing directors, Haigh said

Over the past year, the level of train cancellations across your company has increased significantly and by your own forecasts, you expected to breach your contractual targets for cancellations in the coming months. I do not find this level of service provision acceptable, nor do I find a three-month reduced timetable to be a satisfactory response. Given your inability to run a full timetable, and the need to provide clear information for passengers I had little choice but to approve this request. Put simply, the only reason I accepted your proposal was to give passengers more certainty on which services will run. If you fail to deliver the Remedial Plan, I will not hesitate to take further action.On the 23rd August 2026, all CrossCountry services nationally, with the exception of services between Stansted Airport and Peterborough, and a limited service between Birmingham New Street, Derby and Leicester from the early evening, were cancelled for the entire day due to a power failure at their control centre. 17 other train operating companies agreed to accept CrossCountry tickets, with a number running additional services in place of CrossCountry services.

Core

As of June 2026, the Monday-Friday daytime services, with frequencies in trains per hour (tph), include:

These services combine to provide higher frequencies between Birmingham and the following major destinations:

Wolverhampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Stockport and Manchester: two trains per hour

Derby: at least three trains per hour

Sheffield, York, Darlington and Newcastle: at least one train per hour via Leeds

Nottingham: two trains per hour

Leicester: two trains per hour

Leamington Spa, Oxford and Reading: two trains per hour (including one via Coventry)

Cheltenham: three trains per hour

Bristol: two trains per hour

The Sunday service pattern is mostly similar to the weekday one, except that services typically do not start until late morning or early afternoon, and often have a slightly different stopping pattern. Several Bristol–Manchester trains start from Birmingham New Street on Sundays.

Extensions

The above table shows the basic service pattern; however, a small number of these services are extended beyond their usual destination:

from Plymouth to Penzance

from Bristol Temple Meads to Cardiff Central, Exeter St Davids, Paignton, Plymouth and Penzance

from Edinburgh Waverley to Dundee and Aberdeen

from Newcastle to Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central

travelling via Crewe either in lieu of, or in addition to Stoke-on-Trent

Until 2019, CrossCountry also extended a limited number of Plymouth services to Newquay during the summer timetable to serve additional holiday traffic to the Cornish seaside resort. These services were not restarted after being paused during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Special services

CrossCountry extended some of its Bournemouth services to Weymouth for the Sailing at the 2012 Olympics & Paralympics. There were two services Monday to Saturday in each direction with one in each direction on Sundays. These ran express to Weymouth from Bournemouth. One train also operated a Weymouth to Bournemouth return journey, calling at Wareham and Poole.

Proposed services

During December 2016, CrossCountry published a consultation document for changes to the timetable proposed to be implemented in December 2017. These included:

Extending all hourly Bristol–Manchester services to and from Exeter St Davids, providing a total of two trains per hour between Exeter and Birmingham;

Increasing the frequency of services during peak times on several routes;

An additional service to and from Aberdeen running in the early afternoon.

To allow these changes to take place, all CrossCountry services on some routes (which had a limited service) would be withdrawn and replaced with extra services run by other operators. These included:

between Exeter St Davids and Paignton (except for one early-morning northbound service), replaced by Great Western Railway services;

between Reading and Guildford, replaced by Great Western Railway services;

between Edinburgh Waverley and Aberdeen in the morning and evening (Aberdeen would be served during the day instead), replaced by ScotRail services.

In April 2017, it was announced the proposed changes would not be proceeding.

Stations served only by CrossCountry

CrossCountry does not manage any stations, although there are stations managed by other train operating companies at which it is the only operator: five stations (Burton-on-Trent, Hinckley, Narborough, South Wigston and Willington) are managed by East Midlands Railway, while three stations (Coleshill Parkway, Water Orton and Wilnecote) are managed by West Midlands Trains. At Tamworth station, which has tracks and platforms at two levels, the high-level platforms are served only by CrossCountry, but the entire station is managed by West Midlands Trains, which serves the low-level platforms alongside Avanti West Coast. Similarly, at Worcestershire Parkway, the low-level platforms are served only by CrossCountry, but the station is managed by Great Western Railway, which serves only the high-level platform.

Manea was served only by CrossCountry until 2013, when Abellio Greater Anglia started running one train every two hours at the station in addition to the CrossCountry services there.

Other route information

To improve the travelling experience, CrossCountry has designated four stations as alternative changeover stations: these are Cheltenham Spa, Derby, Leamington Spa and Wolverhampton. Connection times can be shorter at these smaller stations. For example, passengers travelling from Cardiff to Edinburgh could change at Cheltenham – where both their trains use the same platform – instead of Birmingham New Street, a larger, more complex station.