EMT Liverpool to Norwich

[xtradj]

Can anyone tell me why this service does not begin until 12:52 on Sunday's. Is it purely down to low demand? That would surprise me as the services are always busy on week days

 

[dk1]

Obviously engineering work has its implications but this & Central before them has always suffered from poor Sunday services. Not sure if it's due to local staffing agreements as there are few franchises now that have Summer timetable alterations to this extent. Three hour gaps westbound from Norwich seem positively archaic too.

 

[causton]

Unfortunately, on a Sunday, 0945 is not unreasonably late for a first service, and as the train has to go all the way from Nottingham to Liverpool to come back the other way that is how long it takes to do it after the train leaves Nottingham at 0947!

 

[dquebec]

On the Eastern side of the route- demand simply doesn't exist outside the high summer months. There may be an illusion that the services are full leaving Norwich, because Abellio Greater Anglia weekend services to/from London are often disrupted due to engineering work, and customers end up travelling with East Midlands Trains via Ely. When the Norwich-London route is open normally, the EMT services aren't especially full at all.

When the AGA services from Norwich to Stansted start up, and engineering works have died down - the EMT services will quieten down further.

 

[dk1]

On the Eastern side of the route- demand simply doesn't exist outside the high summer months. There may be an illusion that the services are full leaving Norwich, because Abellio Greater Anglia weekend services to/from London are often disrupted due to engineering work, and customers end up travelling with East Midlands Trains via Ely. When the Norwich-London route is open normally, the EMT services aren't especially full at all.

When the AGA services from Norwich to Stansted start up, and engineering works have died down - the EMT services will quieten down further.

I couldn't disagree more with that comment. There are large numbers who change at Ely off the hourly xx:03 AGA into the xx:15 XC at Ely for Peterborough & beyond. What is this Summer rubbish? Far more traffic nowadays from Uni students & general weekend traffic that goes on year round.

 

[dquebec]

I couldn't disagree more with that comment. There are large numbers who change at Ely off the hourly xx:03 AGA into the xx:15 XC at Ely for Peterborough & beyond. What is this Summer rubbish? Far more traffic nowadays from Uni students & general weekend traffic that goes on year round.

There might be limited demand for an additional service to Peterborough, but the Peterborough-Nottingham section on a Sunday is dead.

The more I travel on this route, the more I think a Norwich-Birmingham via Leicester service would be the best long term solution.

 

[fowler9]

I use EMT all the time between Lime Street, South Parkway and on occasions Warrington and Manchester. I never noticed that they started so late on a Sunday. As such I would guess there isn't much demand. Not saying that I am the most important person in the world but I do use the route from Lime Street down the CLC a lot.

 

[Kite159]

On the Eastern side of the route- demand simply doesn't exist outside the high summer months. There may be an illusion that the services are full leaving Norwich, because Abellio Greater Anglia weekend services to/from London are often disrupted due to engineering work, and customers end up travelling with East Midlands Trains via Ely. When the Norwich-London route is open normally, the EMT services aren't especially full at all.

When the AGA services from Norwich to Stansted start up, and engineering works have died down - the EMT services will quieten down further.

Is the Norwich - Stanated going to be a new service or an extension of the existing Norwich - Cambridge services?

 

[chubs]

I only use it infrequently but its always really busy out of Norwich whatever day, and coming back the other way on a Sunday is rammed on the western side and still heavily used on the eastern side.

 

[Jonfun]

It causes a bit of a headache from Liverpool, because it means that on a Sunday morning the only fast service into Manchester is the TPE Scarborough at xx22, whereas any other day you'd have the xx12 fast to Victoria, and the xx16, xx22 and xx52 fasts to Piccadilly. 3 coaches per hour against the usual 14.

 

[Class 170101]

It also doesn't help that the route is resourced (units and train crew) from Nottingham. I think if EMT had a depot in Liverpool / Crewe then both Crewe to Derby and Liverpool to Norwich could have earlier services from this end of the routes.

I also find it strange that the 20:52 Norwich to Nottingham runs on a Sunday ONLY. I would have thought it would be viable to run this service all week.

 

[dk1]

It also doesn't help that the route is resourced (units and train crew) from Nottingham. I think if EMT had a depot in Liverpool / Crewe then both Crewe to Derby and Liverpool to Norwich could have earlier services from this end of the routes.

I also find it strange that the 20:52 Norwich to Nottingham runs on a Sunday ONLY. I would have thought it would be viable to run this service all week.

Again it comes down to crewing weekdays. The 19:19, 20:22, 21:13 & 23:18 last arrivals are all worked by Norwich based crews with the drivers also taking units to Crown Point for wash/fuel/exam.

 

[TheEdge]

Is the Norwich - Stanated going to be a new service or an extension of the existing Norwich - Cambridge services?

Not known yet.

 

[craigybagel]

It also doesn't help that the route is resourced (units and train crew) from Nottingham. I think if EMT had a depot in Liverpool / Crewe then both Crewe to Derby and Liverpool to Norwich could have earlier services from this end of the routes.

The joys of messing around with franchise boundaries. The Central Trains depot in Crewe used to work both of those services but now under London Midland its restricted to 350s only.

 

[LowLevel]

Under Central Trains I don't think any depot except Nottingham worked via Sheffield. It was a BR Regional Railways implementation. EMT opened Derby local depot who also work a few trains. Crewe line trains are entirely restricted by the signal box opening hours which looks unlikely to change with the resignalling being cancelled.

Crewe depot did used to work to Derby via Stoke but it makes little functional difference to the service with the signal box issue.

 

[Class 170101]

Again it comes down to crewing weekdays. The 19:19, 20:22, 21:13 & 23:18 last arrivals are all worked by Norwich based crews with the drivers also taking units to Crown Point for wash/fuel/exam.

Do EMT still crew the shunts? I thought AGA covered those.

One would have to extend the 16:52 Liverpool to Nottingham forward to Norwich to allow 14:52 Liverpool to Norwich to return as 20:52 Norwich to Nottingham covered by Nottingham crew Nottingham to Norwich and back, releasing Norwich crew to cover the 16:52 Liverpool from Nottingham.

 

[Ianigsy]

There seems to be a certain amount of apathy about this service on EMT's part (although it quite often shows on the departure boards at Liverpool as "Empty to Depot & Norwich"). It's not unknown for it to be cancelled entirely north of Nottingham if there's engineering work between Nottingham and Sheffield with passengers told to use alternative services- nobody seems to have the imagination to combine it with the Derby-Crewe service, for example.

The trouble is that it puts pressure on the other operators- several years ago I was travelling from Liverpool to Leeds when Northern had a guards' dispute between Christmas and New Year, making TPE the only operator running between Liverpool and Manchester at the height of the sales. EMT were running Nottingham to Norwich only, so the hourly Trans-Pennine was standing room only leaving Liverpool with first class declassified and leaving people behind at Warrington to wait another hour.

 

[kevconnor]

There seems to be a certain amount of apathy about this service on EMT's part (although it quite often shows on the departure boards at Liverpool as "Empty to Depot & Norwich"). It's not unknown for it to be cancelled entirely north of Nottingham if there's engineering work between Nottingham and Sheffield with passengers told to use alternative services- nobody seems to have the imagination to combine it with the Derby-Crewe service, for example.

The trouble is that it puts pressure on the other operators- several years ago I was travelling from Liverpool to Leeds when Northern had a guards' dispute between Christmas and New Year, making TPE the only operator running between Liverpool and Manchester at the height of the sales. EMT were running Nottingham to Norwich only, so the hourly Trans-Pennine was standing room only leaving Liverpool with first class declassified and leaving people behind at Warrington to wait another hour.

The section from Liverpool - Sheffield is restricted by limited choice of options and route knowledge. On the Liverpool - Manchester section EMT drivers only sign the CLC route so if there are any issues on this route they cannot switch to Chat Moss and instead must terminate at Manchester.

There is a small amount of redundancy between Manchester and Sheffield, they sign out of Manchester Piccadilly both via Stockport and via New Mills. At the other end of the hope valley I am sure I have also heard of EMT signing use of Dore south junction.

The section between Sheffield and Nottingham offers the most redundancy. I have been on an early morning sunday train which went via Derby due to engineering works, missing out Alfreton and Langley Mill. I am quite sure they also sign on the old road via Beighton.

 

[Ianno87]

At the other end of the hope valley I am sure I have also heard of EMT signing use of Dore south junction.

The section between Sheffield and Nottingham offers the most redundancy. I have been on an early morning sunday train which went via Derby due to engineering works, missing out Alfreton and Langley Mill. I am quite sure they also sign on the old road via Beighton.

Various early/late services are routed via these diversionary routes for the purposes.

Also, I believe the very early ECS off Nottingham to work the first departure back off Liverpool is the one that covers route knowledge over the Dore South curve.

 

[CyrixDes]

The section from Liverpool - Sheffield is restricted by limited choice of options and route knowledge. On the Liverpool - Manchester section EMT drivers only sign the CLC route so if there are any issues on this route they cannot switch to Chat Moss

EMT drivers do sign Chat Moss and regularly divert that way on Sundays when the CLC is blocked. The first ECS is routed that way for route retention. The big issue EMT have when there are blocks on the Liverpool route that cant be avoided by their usual diversionary routes (Derby, Toton, Beighton, Romiley, Chat Moss etc) is that they have no resource base west of Nottingham and if they have to start to taxi crew in from Nottingham, by the time they have done that it leaves little time to work trains. That's of course assuming they can leave units blocked in the other side of the block also!

 

[edwin_m]

nobody seems to have the imagination to combine it with the Derby-Crewe service, for example.

That would only help passengers between Nottingham (or stations east) and Liverpool, and perhaps Manchester by making a connection at Crewe which they can do anyway off the Derby train. In my view not really a reason to spend money on getting and keeping the crews signed up for the Crewe to Allerton section.

 

[LowLevel]

I sign Nottingham to Chesterfield via Radford and Alfreton, Toton Centre or via Derby, Chesterfield to Sheffield via Dore or Barrow Hill, Sheffield to Manchester via Stockport or Bredbury, Manchester to Liverpool via Warrington Central or Earlestown.

Unfortunately if you close the Hope Valley we are stuffed as we don't go via Wakefield/Huddersfield as per TPE. This happens very rarely though with trains running generally as far as possible.

 

[dk1]

Do EMT still crew the shunts? I thought AGA covered those.

EMT look after all their own work at Norwich inc depot & shunts. AGA only touch the 05:36 Lowestoft & return & of course when hiring in to cover unit shortages as they did again today thanks to four spare 158s at Norwich.

 

[tom1649]

I sign Nottingham to Chesterfield via Radford and Alfreton, Toton Centre or via Derby, Chesterfield to Sheffield via Dore or Barrow Hill, Sheffield to Manchester via Stockport or Bredbury, Manchester to Liverpool via Warrington Central or Earlestown.

Unfortunately if you close the Hope Valley we are stuffed as we don't go via Wakefield/Huddersfield as per TPE. This happens very rarely though with trains running generally as far as possible.

Has EMT ever worked the route via Hyde and Guide Bridge?

 

[bunnahabhain]

Has EMT ever worked the route via Hyde and Guide Bridge?

Not under normal circumstances. I know in the 1990s that the service was diverted via Manchester Victoria for a period for engineering work, picking up a route conductor at Stockport

 

[edwin_m]

As a fairly frequent user of this service I've been diverted via Dore South Curve several times when the train is running late, so I get the impression this is pretty routine.

 

[185143]

I use EMT all the time between Lime Street, South Parkway and on occasions Warrington and Manchester. I never noticed that they started so late on a Sunday. As such I would guess there isn't much demand. Not saying that I am the most important person in the world but I do use the route from Lime Street down the CLC a lot.

Whenever I travel on CLC on sundays with TPE, the trains are always incredibly overcrowded so demand does exist at our end! Last time I was standing in first class (with a first class season ticket), the guard came through (somehow) and everyone seated payed the upgrade bar one person, who blatantly refused to pay it. The conductor checked my ticket and asked if I would like a seat, guess who's I got[emoji1]

 

[jamesontheroad]

There seems to be a certain amount of apathy about this service on EMT's part (although it quite often shows on the departure boards at Liverpool as "Empty to Depot & Norwich").

As a long time user of the route throughout the CT and EMT days, I'd disagree. Compared to EMT, the route has become a lot more stable. I lost count of the number of times CT services to Norwich were curtailed at Nottingham or cancelled throughout.

EMT devised and have refined the joining/dividing-at-Nottingham routine to support demand with what little appropriate stock that they have. They've overseen a substantial interior refurbishment, will have power plugs and wifi soon and have extended catering east to PBO. From a customer point of view, the service (at the eastern end of the route, at least) has never been as reliable.

 

[dk1]

As a long time user of the route throughout the CT and EMT days, I'd disagree. Compared to EMT, the route has become a lot more stable. I lost count of the number of times CT services to Norwich were curtailed at Nottingham or cancelled throughout.

EMT devised and have refined the joining/dividing-at-Nottingham routine to support demand with what little appropriate stock that they have. They've overseen a substantial interior refurbishment, will have power plugs and wifi soon and have extended catering east to PBO. From a customer point of view, the service (at the eastern end of the route, at least) has never been as reliable.

100% agree with you mate. They where certainly dark days reliability wise under CT. didn't know about upcoming plugs/Wifi but the catering extension is most welcome.

 

[trentside]

As a long time user of the route throughout the CT and EMT days, I'd disagree. Compared to EMT, the route has become a lot more stable. I lost count of the number of times CT services to Norwich were curtailed at Nottingham or cancelled throughout.

EMT devised and have refined the joining/dividing-at-Nottingham routine to support demand with what little appropriate stock that they have. They've overseen a substantial interior refurbishment, will have power plugs and wifi soon and have extended catering east to PBO. From a customer point of view, the service (at the eastern end of the route, at least) has never been as reliable.

The joining/dividing at Nottingham also adds the additional safety net that services can be restarted right time if there's a significant delay. I think this is more applicable heading north west, as you've got a unit there waiting and normally a crew as well. I believe that there are some crew changes at Sheffield, but they're few and far between - maybe someone who signs the route could confirm?