northwichcat
Veteran Member
Apparently the franchise will officially change over at 2am on 1st April.
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The last ever Northern Rail train
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Yes, I think on the whole, I shall be sorry to see Northern go (even though they didn't give me a day rover for my last delay).
They have had some good fares and offers if you know where to look. Will Arriva continue with these I wonder.
With Alex Hyne continuing as MD most likely.
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I happened to be booking tickets online the night Virgin took over East Coast. The website changed from pleasant purple to horrid red about 00:40 and what really annoyed me the fares shot up just as I was paying by card by so much I had to rebook second class when I was going first for the complimentary dinner and had to take the 20:00 from KX instead of 18:00 just to maintain an affordable fare so missed out on dinner.
Had I not already booked the outward journey down to London I would have gone both ways by car.
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I hope so too. VTEC should have been made to retain the East Coast livery of silver, white and grey and purple staff uniforms. Virgin red is so brash and is all Virgin is contributing to the franchise. The name and the colour. The other 95% is Souter. For his 5% Branson pockets about £90m per year.
HMS Ark Royal
Established Member
Funny you should mention that - it was bitterly cold on Sunday and I noticed that at both Doncaster and York the staff were wearing Virgin overcoats but East Coast branded fleeces!
Not a Northern fan.
Only good thing was the staff who were almost all friendly and helpful.
Problems - ancient rolling stock, little effort made to collect fares, rather inconsistent approach to upgrading stations (eg lots of money spent on Widnes but leaving it without a waiting room at all, and no shelter on the Liverpool platform).
Only good thing was the staff who were almost all friendly and helpful.
Problems - ancient rolling stock, little effort made to collect fares, rather inconsistent approach to upgrading stations (eg lots of money spent on Widnes but leaving it without a waiting room at all, and no shelter on the Liverpool platform).
thejuggler
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Being a regular user of an unstaffed station with no ticket machine, the reluctance of guards to leave their cab to sell tickets is my biggest gripe with Northern and I don't catch busy services, so no excuse about not being able to walk through carriages.
It can take me longer to queue and buy a ticket then the journey took. When will mobile ticketing be introduced? I hope its a new operator requirement.
It can take me longer to queue and buy a ticket then the journey took. When will mobile ticketing be introduced? I hope its a new operator requirement.
HMS Ark Royal
Established Member
It already has that option
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the sniper
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Why don't you ask the Guard for a ticket then if you want to avoid queuing...?
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Would the fact that Widnes is a Grade II listed station have anything to do how the money was actually spent there?
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One dreads the possible comments that will be forthcoming should anything go untowards on that particular noted date...
Or alternatively you could just as easily claim East Coast shouldn't have been allowed to spend out on any rebranding, bar the absolute essentials. as they were only ever going to be a short term interim operation
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DOR adopted the white/grey/silver colours of National Express they took over and only painted their stock out of GNER blue when needed. Skyfall livery was sponsored so didn't cost. One HST and one 91/mk4 set was still unpainted at the end of the franchise after five years.
Virgin has rebranded all sets with red and Virgin in well under a year. That is so Branson can rake in £90m asap annually from his trademark. Should have been done with Bransons blood.
Do not trust this man. He publicly stated that if he continued to run West Coast after the First franchise debacle, he would run it without taking his cut until the changeover date. Did he? Did he hell. He pocketed about £50m in that time.
It was enough to reinstate the Harrogate-Ripon line so I wrote and asked him if he would fund it. Didn't even get a reply.
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1D53
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I must admit I thought the 0338 Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Airport would be the first train but there is actually a 0337 Blackpool North to Manchester Airport which would now fall as part of the new Northern franchise.
It's my major gripe too, but every time I mention it I'm hounded by the more vociferous members on this forum as being anti rail and a liar
Mobile ticketing already exists but it's absolutely rubbish. A quick look at the m-Ticket availability from Hellifield restricts my journey options to the following stations:
Code:
Appleby Armathwaite Bentham
Bradford Forster Square Bradford Interchange Brampton (Cumbria)
Carlisle Carnforth Chesterfield
Clapham (North Yorkshire) Deansgate Dent
Dronfield Gargrave Garsdale
Giggleswick Horton-in-Ribblesdale Kirkby Stephen
Langwathby Lazonby & Kirkoswald Liverpool Central
Liverpool James Street Liverpool Lime Street Long Preston
Manchester Oxford Road Manchester Piccadilly Manchester Victoria
MetroCentre Mills Hill (Manchester) Moorfields
Newcastle Ribblehead Saxilby
Settle Skipton Wennington
WetheralI can't possibly fathom how this seemingly random collection of stations (well except for the nearby ones) was selected or why certain others (e.g. Leeds which has to be the primary destination of most passengers from Hellifield) have been omitted!
My personal experience with Northern as a company has, on the whole, been rather poor. The only saving grace is that, save for some exceptions, most of the front line staff I have encountered have been friendly, attentive, professional and helpful. Fortunately while the trains change colour the staff stay the same, and I hope the new franchise does more to promote this attitude and does more to support them in their day-to-day jobs than the existing franchise appears to have done.
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Is it as simple as at 2am all services immediately become Arriva Northern regardless of where they are or what they're doing, or is there some sort of overlap?
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Tried that a couple of times. Got told off for knocking on the back cab door. Won't do it again.
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northwichcat
Veteran Member
From Knutsford you can buy one to Mobberley, Ashley or Navigation Rd but not Altrincham, Stockport or Manchester!
You'd think they'd be able to find space for a waiting room, Grade II listed or not. At Andover, which is Grade II listed, they still managed to get permission to put up a glass shack (separate from the main station building but under the canopy) in which to move the shop, so that they could move the waiting room where the shop was and then instate a new toilet on Platform 2 (which had previously remained looless for some time).
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jcollins, crehld: Likely because there are trains that aren't operated by Northern covering permitted routes of those fares, and they don't want to have to organise cross-acceptance (or the other TOC refuses to). For example, you probably can't buy tickets to Manchester from Knutsford because you could theoretically change at Stockport onto a Virgin service on a standard ticket, and Virgin wouldn't be too happy to accept Northern's mobile tickets.
Why you can't buy tickets to Stockport or Altrincham though I've no clue!
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greatkingrat
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Although they are valid for Hellifield to Newcastle, which could be used on any of Northern, VTEC, XC or GC.
This had crossed my mind, but what explains fare availability between Hellifield and Manchester / Liverpool, for which you would be perfectly entitled to use TPE services. Or even to Saxilby, where one could use VTEC, EMT and Cross Country?
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