Manchester - Scotland future services

[Philip]

Before any extra 185s go to Blackpool, can we have them back on TPE South (Manchester Airport to Cleethorpes) please. TPE could put the displaced 170s in pairs onto Blackpool if they wish, and not as a single 2 car set on the busy 14.55 from Manchester Airport - full, standing and some both on arrival and departure at Sheffield (16.11) and even worse at Meadowhall last time I used it!

I think I remember reading class 170s aren't allowed past Salford. The alternative would be to leave 170s to operate all Hull services and thus free up the 185 for Cleethorpes use.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Also an interesting one in the May 14 timetable is a 17:11 Manchester Pic to Barrow-in-Furness which would be a braand new service, not starting from the Airport. Wonder where the unit would come from? There's no indication of an inbound working to form the unit and they don't tend to take units off Ardwick late in the day just to work one service.

 

[IanXC]

One last thought appertaining to the earlier mention of the Scarborough service and a "shuttle" provision. Is a direct Leeds to Scarborough rail service as currently provided by those services using Class 185 units viewed as an essential aid to the tourism profile of Scarborough, as is the case currently performed by the direct Yorkshire Coastliner bus service from Leeds?

I think it would be locally unacceptable for the Scarborough service to become a shuttle to York. Local business and local government will probably tell you that the link to Leeds is vital to their economic prosperity.

That said should the proposed fleet of bimode 5 car IEP be available to provide an all day London service such objections might be overcome!

 

[ainsworth74]

The alternative would be to leave 170s to operate all Hull services and thus free up the 185 for Cleethorpes use.

Well that was the original plan (before the DfT decided that TPE should run the Scottish services) and there are enough 170s to mean that, with a bit of smart diagramming, it would be possible for all peak time services to be 4-car 170s (a big improvement on the present situation!).

 

[WatcherZero]

Apologies if this has already been discussed but are the 350s still set to take over running this route via Chat Moss and Wigan this December?

What will happen to the existing hourly xx:00 from Manchester Airport which alternates between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Barrow via Bolton? Will the direct Barrow service be scrapped? There needs to be some form of replacement for this as the Manchester to Bolton and Chorley route is already running over capacity!

The latest word is the delivery is running late and there will only be a couple in service in December with the fleet phased in as their delivered by the April timetable change.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Well that was the original plan (before the DfT decided that TPE should run the Scottish services) and there are enough 170s to mean that, with a bit of smart diagramming, it would be possible for all peak time services to be 4-car 170s (a big improvement on the present situation!).

I note that passengers on the Norwich-Liverpool Lime Street service of EMT are now far happier that cascaded stock allowed them to increase the length from 2-car to 4-car sets, especially those that operate at peak period times. This is said with your aspiration for the Hull service in your last posting in mind.

 

[northwichcat]

I think I remember reading class 170s aren't allowed past Salford.

Salford will allow for diverted North TPE trains e.g. Airport-Victoria-Leeds and beyond. 170s haven't been used much in the North West past or present so haven't been cleared for many North West routes, not that many issues would be anticipated given 170s don't normally come up against clearance issues.

 

[Philip]

Salford will allow for diverted North TPE trains e.g. Airport-Victoria-Leeds and beyond. 170s haven't been used much in the North West past or present so haven't been cleared for many North West routes, not that many issues would be anticipated given 170s don't normally come up against clearance issues.

They're allowed as far as Salford Crescent, pretty sure I remember reading they're not allowed towards Bolton/Preston though and they've never been used on any North West TPE services. In class 175 days up to 2006 it wasn't too uncommon to see a 158 or a Northern DMU standing in. Also in the first timetable of using 185s there was a booked Preston-Airport/Airport-Blackpool evening working that used a Northern unit. Nowadays it's a 185 or no service.

 

[swt_passenger]

The latest word is the delivery is running late and there will only be a couple in service in December with the fleet phased in as their delivered by the April timetable change.

The track access application has always described a phase in of EMU operations between Dec 2013 and May 2014, so that doesn't seem to be due to a change due to late delivery.

 

[ainsworth74]

The track access application has always described a phase in of EMU operations between Dec 2013 and May 2014, so that doesn't seem to be due to a change due to late delivery.

Indeed I'd always been under the impression since the order went through that they'd be phased in from Dec 2013 not all in service by Dec 2013.

 

[WatcherZero]

They were originally supposed to be fully delivered by December (though not fully commisioned expected to take a couple of months past December) with TPE borrowing a unit from London Midland for training in advance of delivery releasing the 185's. It was expected they would phase in the units but it was originally expected that enough would have been delivered by start date to run a full service to Glasgow/Edinburgh. In TPE's original draft submission there would already be enough 185's released to operate the extra hourly north transpennine service from December rather than May. By the time of final access submission this had slipped to May but it was still intended that by using a combination of 350's and 185's they would be able to run the full service to Scotland from December. There is now an expectation that only a couple will be available for service from December and so the services will be run short to Preston.

 

[Philip]

They were originally supposed to be fully delivered by December (though not fully commisioned expected to take a couple of months past December) with TPE borrowing a unit from London Midland for training in advance of delivery releasing the 185's. It was expected they would phase in the units but it was originally expected that enough would have been delivered by start date to run a full service to Glasgow/Edinburgh. In TPE's original draft submission there would already be enough 185's released to operate the extra hourly north transpennine service from December rather than May. By the time of final access submission this had slipped to May but it was still intended that by using a combination of 350's and 185's they would be able to run the full service to Scotland from December. There is now an expectation that only a couple will be available for service from December and so the services will be run short to Preston.

Are 185s cleared through Golborne Junction? Wondering if the Chat Moss route will be used solely by the EMUs with any DMUs operating the service going via Bolton/Atherton?

 

[WatcherZero]

The DMU's will be cascaded to other transpennine services.

Though reading HS2 indicative service pattern it totally destroys the TPE Scotland services relegating the stretch from Manchester Piccadilly-Manchester Airport a shuttle and extending the Scotland services (still going via Wigan and Chat Moss) from Manchester Piccadilly to Euston via Stockport and the classic network.

 

[YorkshireBear]

One last thought appertaining to the earlier mention of the Scarborough service and a "shuttle" provision. Is a direct Leeds to Scarborough rail service as currently provided by those services using Class 185 units viewed as an essential aid to the tourism profile of Scarborough, as is the case currently performed by the direct Yorkshire Coastliner bus service from Leeds?

The Existing Blackpool - York Service may to become a fast between Leeds and York and be extended to Scarbrough to maintain the Leeds- Scarborough link.

Network Rail accept in the RUS a shuttle is not the way forward unless it is to provide a second hourly service. But who knows.....

 

[swt_passenger]

As i have put many times on these threads as mentioned several times in Network Rail RUS'.... :P

The Existing Blackpool - York Service is to become a fast between Leeds and York and be extended to Scarbrough to maintain the Leeds- Scarborough link.

Network Rail accept in the RUS a shuttle is not the way forward unless it is to provide a second hourly service.

Is that not the DfT's CP5 HLOS 'illustrative options' document rather than an RUS? It has Scarborough served by a through service from Blackpool, but operated by Northern.

 

[PR1Berske]

Is that not the DfT's CP5 HLOS 'illustrative options' document rather than an RUS? It has Scarborough served by a through service from Blackpool, but operated by Northern.

It suggests that route as an example of a "merged" small n northern service. I think.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Who is in charge of commissioning the units, Will it be LM on behalf of TPE?

 

[northwichcat]

Who is in charge of commissioning the units, Will it be LM on behalf of TPE?

40 carriages have been added on to an LM order for TPE. It's like the 172 order where the LO 172s were added on to a LM order and a slightly different spec was specified for those units.

 

[Blindtraveler]

in theory they should work out of the box as it were as theres nout radically new.

 

[swt_passenger]

It suggests that route as an example of a "merged" small n northern service. I think.

It certainly doesn't. The CP5 HLOS stuff includes a pair of separate lists of services for each main station, one headed 'Transpennine' and the other 'Northern'. The possibility of a merger doesn't feature in that document.

 

[northwichcat]

The Existing Blackpool - York Service may become a fast between Leeds and York and be extended to Scarbrough to maintain the Leeds- Scarborough link.

Correct that for you.

Inclusion of a train service or an infrastructure scheme in the Department’s illustrative options does not guarantee it will be delivered; that only happens if the scheme is named in the HLOS.

Scarborough-Blackpool is in the document "DfT Illustrative Option schemes in CP5 HLOS"

 

[YorkshireBear]

Deleted.

 

[northwichcat]

Well when you talk to people at NR it becomes about 99%.

What you have to remember relating to TPE routes at present is we don't know who will be running the services, what rolling stock they will have available and what proposals the preferred operator will put forward.

Based on the CP5 HLOS we expect to see an hourly diesel North TPE between Manchester and Hull. What if the franchise bidder comes along and says we'll cut that back to Selby and use the diesel trains that would have been used on Hull services to keep some Manchester-Scarborough services?

 

[YorkshireBear]

What you have to remember relating to TPE routes at present is we don't know who will be running the services, what rolling stock they will have available and what proposals the preferred operator will put forward.

Based on the CP5 HLOS we expect to see an hourly diesel North TPE between Manchester and Hull. What if the franchise bidder comes along and says we'll cut that back to Selby and use the diesel trains that would have been used on Hull services to keep some Manchester-Scarborough services?

Well that would be morotic firstly.

They are minimum requirements in a franchise. Scarbrough maintaining a link to Leeds will be one of them making this the only sensible solution is basically what i have been told.
Who knows.

 

[northwichcat]

At the moment AFAIK there is not yet a full confirmed spec for the new franchises.

What about poor little Birchwood!?

I said Warrington would be most affected not the only place affected.

 

[YorkshireBear]

I can see some services on South TPE going along the warrington route to maintain the long distance services it has.

 

[northwichcat]

I think half-hourly Sheffield-Liverpool is a possibility but if you were say at York university and lived in Warrington when the change occurred then you would lose your nice direct train to go home and return.

 

[Nym]

Even when the Chester services get extended through to Leeds?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Even when the Chester services get extended through to Leeds?

I hope it is a when not an if. But they would run via Bradford and be slower. But i dont see why warrington needs such good links anyway, other equally as important towns on the west are one change in manchester away from the east. Lancaster, Wigan, Chester and Bolton. Ignoring infrequent trains over the Carnforth to Hellifield line.

 

[142056]

Even when the Chester services get extended through to Leeds?

What are these plans? Haven't heard of this!

 

[tbtc]

i dont see why warrington needs such good links anyway, other equally as important towns on the west are one change in manchester away from the east. Lancaster, Wigan, Chester and Bolton

I agree - if Warrington needs to retain a link to Leeds/ York/ Sheffield then why don't Bolton and Wigan justify such services?