Northern timetable plan for May 2018

[Shaw S Hunter]

The reason TfGM state they are pushing the bolton-Wigan reroutings is because of the vast reduction of interchange opportunties between Vic and Pic at Salford Crescent in the new timetable. They are pushing Hindley station to take over that interrchange role for the Wigan/Bolton corridor.

This is blindingly obvious as soon as Westhoughton line services are re-routed to North Western station regardless of whether they terminate there or not. But Hindley station will need a decent sum spending on it: the current facilities for passengers changing there consist of nothing more than a single bus shelter on each platform. At least it does have a "Friends of" group to help keep it tidy.

That potential rerouting of a Manchester Wigan service via the Chat Moss wouldn't harm the prospects of reopening a station at Golborne.

I believe that previous proposals for re-opening Golborne have failed to gain any traction due to the time penalty for stopping there, even assuming a suitable service is regularly passing, set against the likely passenger numbers. I doubt that equation has changed.

 

[YorkshireBear]

From its letters to both Northern and TPE, TfGM is concerned that TPE's 5-car 397s will provide inadequate future capacity between Manchester and Preston/Lancaster, particularly on the weekend peak services currently operated by 8-car 350s. With the Northern Cumbria services via Wigan being much slower than the TPE services via Bolton, TfGM fears that the majority of Preston/Lancaster passengers will try to pile on to the latter. Northern's proposed journey time between Manchester and Windermere apparently fails to meet the franchise agreement requirement.

This was one of my main concerns when the franchise was announced.... I couldn't understand why they went for this option it seems entirely illogical. Time will tell i suppose but i don't have much hope.

 

[mwmbwls]

A lot has been made of TfGM's response to the timetable. Have other Northern transport authorities/local authorities responded - if so have they identified similar difficulties?

 

[northwichcat]

Thanks for posting the link. I see the TfGM letter says that Northern will use Class 156/158/769 on the Airport - Cumbria services. Presumably the 769s will be on the Windermere diagrams.

With it saying 156/158/769 I suspect either the plan isn't finalised or some of those options are back-up. For instance, what's the point of running an 08:00 service using a 156 and a 09:00 using a 158? However, if the plan is to have Barrow services booked as 158s but to add enough slack in so that a 156 can cover without causing too many problems then it makes more sense.

Would 4 x 20m trains be able to work the Windermere branch without any infrastructure work being done first?

I wonder if it would make sense to have all Cumbria services booked as 158s in 90mph DMU paths. Then if they are a 158 down they can switch an Alderley Edge-Wigan/Wigan-Stalybridge diagram to be DMU and use the freed up 769 on a Windermere service.

 

[northwichcat]

A lot has been made of TfGM's response to the timetable. Have other Northern transport authorities/local authorities responded - if so have they identified similar difficulties?

Merseytravel's response: http://moderngov.merseytravel.uk.ne...NORTHERN MAY 2018 TIMETABLE CONSULTA​TION.pdf

 

[Greybeard33]

With it saying 156/158/769 I suspect either the plan isn't finalised or some of those options are back-up. For instance, what's the point of running an 08:00 service using a 156 and a 09:00 using a 158? However, if the plan is to have Barrow services booked as 158s but to add enough slack in so that a 156 can cover without causing too many problems then it makes more sense.

Would 4 x 20m trains be able to work the Windermere branch without any infrastructure work being done first?

I wonder if it would make sense to have all Cumbria services booked as 158s in 90mph DMU paths. Then if they are a 158 down they can switch an Alderley Edge-Wigan/Wigan-Stalybridge diagram to be DMU and use the freed up 769 on a Windermere service.

The table in the TfGM letter to TPE indicates that the Northern Cumbria services are planned to take about 15 minutes longer between Oxford Road and Preston via Wigan than the current TPE Scottish services, so they are clearly not taking over the 100mph TPE paths on the WCML. However, it is not clear if these time increases are for all services or just some of them. I guess it might be that some of the Barrow diagrams will be timed for 75mph 156s, with the Windermere ones (which have to cover the extra WCML distance between Carnforth and Oxenholme) timed for 90mph 158s or 100mph 769s.

According to the Sectional Appendix, Staveley (55m) is the only platform on the Windermere branch that is not long enough for a 80m 769 - but neither is it long enough for the current 3 x 23m 156+153 formations. I presume local door operation is used.

 

[northwichcat]

I guess it might be that some of the Barrow diagrams will be timed for 75mph 156s, with the Windermere ones (which have to cover the extra WCML distance between Carnforth and Oxenholme) timed for 90mph 158s or 100mph 769s.

The TfGM report states the Windermere timings are non TSR compliant. For Cumbria services to be TSR complaint Windermere to Manchester Airport can't take more than 125 minutes and the reverse can't take more than 120 minutes. Barrow can't take longer than 155 in the southbound direction and 150 in the northbound direction.

The TPE Scottish services currently take around 85 minutes to get between the Airport and Oxenholme, with Oxenholme to Windermere shuttles taking 20 minutes. So TfGM are implying the journey time extension between the Airport and Oxenholme will be at least 15 minutes.

 

[lejog]

A lot has been made of TfGM's response to the timetable. Have other Northern transport authorities/local authorities responded - if so have they identified similar difficulties?

Democracy works in different way in West Yorkshire, the officers' detailed comments are emailed to WYCA members and only a management summary has been published on the website, but yes comments are generally similar to those of TfGM - some failures to meet TSRs, some reductions in service levels at particular stations and cases where there are increased real journey times due to increased bunching of services e.g. Northern blaming increased gaps on the Leeds-Bradford-Halifax corridor on capacity through Oxford Rd.
http://westyorkshire.moderngov.co.uk/ieIssueDetails.aspx?IId=1376&PlanId=0&Opt=3#AI1088

 

[WatcherZero]

If you take the two together the Flex are working Alderley Edge-Southport in morning/evening peaks then Windermere during the day. Also seen elsewhere the free stock would be assigned to the Liverpool-Wigan slow services replacing existing 319 allowing use of non electrified diversionary routes during disruption.

Business case for Southport-Airport all day not just in peaks still being worked up by Arriva due to the heavy stakeholder pressure according to the Merseytravel document though Merseytravel haven't been directly involved in the talks and aren't a member of the local MP's/line user groups working group.

 

[northwichcat]

If you take the two together the Flex are working Alderley Edge-Southport in morning/evening peaks then Windermere during the day.

I thought the idea was to also use a pair of 150s on the Alderley Edge/Stalybridge diagrams as the 769s wouldn't stretch far enough to cover Southport.

 

[scrapy]

I thought the idea was to also use a pair of 150s on the Alderley Edge/Stalybridge diagrams as the 769s wouldn't stretch far enough to cover Southport.

Not sure of the range of these things but is also worrying that the preceeding /following DMUs will not be able to couple to them in case of failure so let's hope the technology is tested properly and reliable.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

If you take the two together the Flex are working Alderley Edge-Southport in morning/evening peaks then Windermere during the day. Also seen elsewhere the free stock would be assigned to the Liverpool-Wigan slow services replacing existing 319 allowing use of non electrified diversionary routes during disruption.

Business case for Southport-Airport all day not just in peaks still being worked up by Arriva due to the heavy stakeholder pressure according to the Merseytravel document though Merseytravel haven't been directly involved in the talks and aren't a member of the local MP's/line user groups working group.

I thought the idea was to also use a pair of 150s on the Alderley Edge/Stalybridge diagrams as the 769s wouldn't stretch far enough to cover Southport.

Perhaps the real issue here is Northern/DfT not anticipating the amount of resistance to the cuts to Southport-Manchester Piccadilly/Airport services. A solution might well be as simple as authorising a larger fleet of 769s but who's going to pay?

 

[northwichcat]

I wonder what the unit allocations are going to be for Saturdays under the new timetable. What made me think of it was today Northern tried to run the 11:17 Manchester to Chester with 2 carriages today and it failed spectacularly with the train getting so full that they had to throw off non-Chester passengers and run the train non-stop to Chester, then send another unit ECS to Altrincham to pick up the passengers thrown off the original train and those wanting to board at intermediate stations. As the new Saturday timetable for Mid-Cheshire will be 2tph Manchester-Greenbank and 1tph Manchester-Chester I wonder if they'll be able to strengthen the Chester services or whether the units which are currently used for strengthening are all going to finish up being used on the extra services.

 

[WatcherZero]

Perhaps the real issue here is Northern/DfT not anticipating the amount of resistance to the cuts to Southport-Manchester Piccadilly/Airport services. A solution might well be as simple as authorising a larger fleet of 769s but who's going to pay?

Indeed, there are tripartite talks going on with Rail North about various subsidised enhancements to the franchise spec, though discretionary resources are limited. It may boil down to identifying some cost savings that allow service enhancements with marginal business cases to go ahead, similar to how the PTE's managed to squueze out a few subsidised services from the rail grant as the Tocs finances improved by pairing subsidised services with capped services where the toc was repaying most of line revenues essentially cheating the DfT out of their rebate.

 

[northwichcat]

I wonder what the unit allocations are going to be for Saturdays under the new timetable. What made me think of it was today Northern tried to run the 11:17 Manchester to Chester with 2 carriages today and it failed spectacularly with the train getting so full that they had to throw off non-Chester passengers and run the train non-stop to Chester, then send another unit ECS to Altrincham to pick up the passengers thrown off the original train and those wanting to board at intermediate stations. As the new Saturday timetable for Mid-Cheshire will be 2tph Manchester-Greenbank and 1tph Manchester-Chester I wonder if they'll be able to strengthen the Chester services or whether the units which are currently used for strengthening are all going to finish up being used on the extra services.

Turns out I gave Northern too much credit. They threw the passengers off at Navigation Road and told them they'd have to wait for an hour, while the additional service started at Altrincham - a mile down the line from Navigation Road and only ran 10 minutes ahead of the next train.

 

[Greybeard33]

If you take the two together the Flex are working Alderley Edge-Southport in morning/evening peaks then Windermere during the day. Also seen elsewhere the free stock would be assigned to the Liverpool-Wigan slow services replacing existing 319 allowing use of non electrified diversionary routes during disruption.

What non-electrified diversionary routes between Liverpool and Wigan?

 

[WatcherZero]

Sorry, I meant operating when theres no power. At the moment when powers down in Liverpool which happens surprisingly often (personally experienced it twice in the last two years and I'm a very infrequent Liverpool visitor) it becomes gridlock on the Liverpool lines with stranded EMU on the St Helens Central route and at edge hill and diesel reassigned to Wigan/Preston services diverting through St Helens junction then onto the WCML further south. The thinking is with bi-modes St Helens central route would have more redundancy giving them more capacity to deal with London/Manchester reordering and freeing services heading north from the equation.

 

[mwmbwls]

Sorry, I meant operating when theres no power. At the moment when powers down in Liverpool which happens surprisingly often (personally experienced it twice in the last two years and I'm a very infrequent Liverpool visitor) it becomes gridlock on the Liverpool lines with stranded EMU on the St Helens Central route and at edge hill and diesel reassigned to Wigan/Preston services diverting through St Helens junction then onto the WCML further south. The thinking is with bi-modes St Helens central route would have more redundancy giving them more capacity to deal with London/Manchester reordering and freeing services heading north from the equation.

Is the Liverpool area power supply inherently vulnerable - if so why? Were additional facilities put in to cope with Chat Moss and the St Helens link?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Sorry, I meant operating when theres no power. At the moment when powers down in Liverpool which happens surprisingly often (personally experienced it twice in the last two years and I'm a very infrequent Liverpool visitor) it becomes gridlock on the Liverpool lines with stranded EMU on the St Helens Central route and at edge hill and diesel reassigned to Wigan/Preston services diverting through St Helens junction then onto the WCML further south. The thinking is with bi-modes St Helens central route would have more redundancy giving them more capacity to deal with London/Manchester reordering and freeing services heading north from the equation.

Is the Liverpool area power supply inherently vulnerable - if so why? Were additional facilities put in to cope with Chat Moss and the St Helens link?

It's extremely disappointing if hugely capable 769s are reduced to running solely on wired routes in case the electric supply fails.
There's lots of new power kit (inc ATF) at Wavertree for the NW scheme.
I don't know if the older WCML power supplies are being upgraded along with the signalling on the Weaver Jn-Liverpool project.

Also disappointing about the timings on the Northern Chat Moss/Cumbria services, seemingly from needing mixed diesel/electric stock, some stuck at 75mph.
It might all be solved with more 769s being available.
319/769s wouldn't lose much time to 350s over the electric part of the route.
350s are only timed at 100mph anyway.

I know there is intense lobbying locally to grab new services, or at least to avoid cuts in frequency/connectivity, but every time I read the PTE submissions I think we are heading away from the most efficient timetable from the wider railway point of view.
If we are not careful we will end up with all-stations stoppers everywhere.

There's a reference in the Merseytravel document that EMT and ATW services will stay the same.
So is this an admission that ATW's Manchester Airport service is remaining after 2018?

 

[yorksrob]

I know there is intense lobbying locally to grab new services, or at least to avoid cuts in frequency/connectivity, but every time I read the PTE submissions I think we are heading away from the most efficient timetable from the wider railway point of view.
If we are not careful we will end up with all-stations stoppers everywhere.

The railway is not a trainset. Improvements should not come at the expense of vital local services. It might be "sexier" to beef up longer distance express services, however local services in the North have been sub-standard for many decades and it's about time that this was addressed.

 

[northwichcat]

Also disappointing about the timings on the Northern Chat Moss/Cumbria services, seemingly from needing mixed diesel/electric stock, some stuck at 75mph.
It might all be solved with more 769s being available.

I wonder why exactly Northern have done it given the TfGM document does mention 158s and 769s. Could it be that they are looking at using 158s and 769s but might not use them? Could it be they plan to use 158s and 769s but have timetabled services so they can be run with a 156 in case of a unit shortage (like Liverpool to Preston currently)? Could it be a case of they don't have a good path and would have to wait outside Preston for a while even if 100mph EMUs are used?

350s are only timed at 100mph anyway.

I thought that was the case when someone said about Northern not having 110mph units but didn't think to point it out in a post.

There's a reference in the Merseytravel document that EMT and ATW services will stay the same.
So is this an admission that ATW's Manchester Airport service is remaining after 2018?

I wonder if Arriva (Northern) deciding to get rid of the all-stops stopper and to serve those stations by stopping other services at intermediate stations related to Arriva wanting to include hourly Airport services from North Wales in their W&B bid?

 

[Greybeard33]

There's a reference in the Merseytravel document that EMT and ATW services will stay the same.
So is this an admission that ATW's Manchester Airport service is remaining after 2018?

On 03 April 2017 the ORR granted an extension to ATW's access rights to the Airport from December 2017 to the end of the ATW franchise in October 2018 (78th Supplemental Agreement). So the ATW Airport service will "continue to operate as now, with only minor timing changes" after the May 2018 timetable change, as the Merseytravel document says.

What happens in the next franchise presumably depends on the Welsh Government getting its act together, as discussed in the Wales and Borders Franchise Consultation thread. But it is a reasonable assumption that there will be no "cliff edge" timetable change on the franchise handover date.

 

[Moonshot]

The railway is not a trainset. Improvements should not come at the expense of vital local services. It might be "sexier" to beef up longer distance express services, however local services in the North have been sub-standard for many decades and it's about time that this was addressed.

What evidence do you have that local services have been cut at the expense of having more longer distance ones?

 

[yorksrob]

What evidence do you have that local services have been cut at the expense of having more longer distance ones?

I was responding to LN-GW Joint's implication that PTE's shouldn't attempt to "grab" new services or "avoid cuts in frequency/connectivity". These are precisely the things that PTE's should be doing.

That said, if you want an example of where local services have been cut, the few Saturday morning express services on the Hallam line that used to stop at Normanton were removed some years ago, making connections much more difficult to achieve.

 

[Moonshot]

I was responding to LN-GW Joint's implication that PTE's shouldn't attempt to "grab" new services or "avoid cuts in frequency/connectivity". These are precisely the things that PTE's should be doing.

That said, if you want an example of where local services have been cut, the few Saturday morning express services on the Hallam line that used to stop at Normanton were removed some years ago, making connections much more difficult to achieve.

Ok ....I ve just been looking at " trains planned to run by Northern " figures over the last 5 years....it shows an increase every year. In 2010/11 the figure was 847363, last year it was 870933.

 

[Deerfold]

Ok ....I ve just been looking at " trains planned to run by Northern " figures over the last 5 years....it shows an increase every year. In 2010/11 the figure was 847363, last year it was 870933.

Having an increase in trains overall does not mean there are not lines and stations with a worse service.

 

[northwichcat]

Having an increase in trains overall does not mean there are not lines and stations with a worse service.

Indeed. A number of stations have seen weekday peak time cutbacks but at the same time seen Sunday enhancements but Sunday enhancements aren't much help to commuters.

 

[Starmill]

There are a small number of stations where there's been a demonstrable service cut at some point because of better long-distance services. These include Styal, Chapeltown, Ashton-under-Lyne and Walsden, and possibly Chelford and Goostrey, or Wombwell and Elsecar. Littleborough and Smithy Bridge, Sowerby Bridge and Mytholmroyd also have rather slower services to Manchester and Leeds than they did in the past, in aid of faster Manchester to Bradford journeys.

There are probably a lot more cases where a service has the traffic (and thus the prospective revenue) to justify an improvement, and the improvements were practical, but improvements to long-distance services were chosen instead. This is a rather more nebulous concept though. I would suggest places like Congleton and Church Fenton fall into this category. Stations between Altrincham and Chester may count too, as may Dronfield, Leyland, Farnworth, Lea Green, Mossley and Greenfield, Flixton and Howden.

 

[Deerfold]

Indeed. A number of stations have seen weekday peak time cutbacks but at the same time seen Sunday enhancements but Sunday enhancements aren't much help to commuters.

My sister's commute was hit by this. She used to commute from Huddersfield to Garforth by train. Originally it was one non-stop train, but when that was removed the frequency between Leeds and Garforth in the morning peak also dropped. Combined with poor reliability, she started driving and then got a different (lower paying) job.

 

[Bevan Price]

As a resident of the St. Helens area, I have mixed feelings about some of the proposed new timetables. I also think that Earlestown station is better situated than Newton Le Willows for the majority of inhabitants of that town. Both Lea Green & Newton Le Willows have 108 metre platforms, and will either need extensions or SDO for 5 coach TP trains - and SDO is less than ideal if passengers have to push their way through heavily loaded trains to reach an opening door.

Neither Lea Green nor St. Helens Jn are ideally situated for much of St. Helens; currently the only advantage of Lea Green is that it has a larger car park than St. Helens Jn, but even now, Lea Green car park can get very full on weekdays; I have doubts that it will be able to cater for lots more cars connecting with TP services.

Earlestown currently has just 2 all-stations per hour to/from Liverpool. Ideally, it could do with a faster service, and I would suggest that the Liverpool - Manchester - Calder Valley services could beneficially call at Huyton, St. Helens Jn & Earlestown instead of just Huyton. Indeed, I wonder just how many passengers there are now (or are likely to be) between Huyton & Manchester. Liverpool is the major destination for Huyton passengers, with (from my observations) relatively few eastbound passengers travelling much beyond one or two stations (Whiston & Rainhill).

It is also a pity that there is unlikely to be finance to restore the St. Helens Central to St. Helens Jn line in the foreseeable future. A direct service from St. Helens to Manchester would be very desirable, although it would take several years for trafficl to develop.