(26 Apr 2025, 8:53 am)Storx wrote Looking at that route, it seems that they want to take over the Reading to Newcastle, Crosscountry services as an open access operator. It's basically the route and calling points it does now. I guess the extension to Brighton is to claim it does something different but something in the back of my head says they used to do this, or something similar years ago anyway.

Certainly back in British Rail days there were cross-country services from the South Coast to the north-west and north-east - I recall Poole, Brighton and Ramsgate as starting points.  The Brightons were, I think, cut back to Gatwick Airport later.