Northern's Problems in the North West

[Red Devil]

Governments plans all nonsense until a RDW agreement can be instituted.
Driver rostering, driver training etc. all platitudes. Absolutely impossible to deliver without a RDW agreement.
This and only this will enable more training, more road learning and consequently a return to some kind of normality

 

[Robertj21a]

I see that this thread continues to be dominated by the rather unhelpful rants of a few while there has also been no comment on the fact that Wednesday's overall performance was rather better than Monday's or Tuesday's. As it's highly unlikely that additional drivers have suddenly appeared on the scene I would suggest that the characterisation of some of the issues being "teething problems" may in fact have some validity. The last major timetable revision in the north-west was in December 2008 when many services had to be shoe-horned around Virgin's VHF timetable. During the intervening nine and a half years you can be sure that both signallers and controllers have become used to particular out of course situations arising and over time have developed consistent methods for dealing with them. The major revision to timetables this week combined with the significant shortage of drivers due to necessary training programmes will doubtless have created problems that signallers and controllers are not used to and perhaps they have struggled to come up with the best responses. Day 3 having been a noticeably better one, though still well short of what we have the right to expect, suggests that signallers and controllers have now learned a little from experience and are finding better solutions. If Moonshot's comment about Northern having a new, and presumably inexperienced, disruption control system in place is true then someone needs to be held accountable for making such a poor decision; this change was always going to be difficult to implement and therefore any changes to control staffing should have been given time to bed in well in advance of this week. Also if the volume of problems can be reduced it will also allow more time for better communication, something which has also been very poor this week.

As for some sort of action plan going forward I would think an obvious step would be to look at de-linking some of the cross-Victoria services and adjusting drivers' diagrams to provide some spare time which could be used for shunting terminating units out of the way. Scope to do likewise at Piccadilly or Oxford Road is somewhat reduced but may well still be possible. And I would think that any drivers who have recently passed out will have their long-term route-learning plan extended to allow them more productive time in the short term.

Thanks for that. Nice to read some facts rather than the moans and rants about the negative issues (bad as they are).

 

[ainsworth74]

If Moonshot's comment about Northern having a new, and presumably inexperienced, disruption control system in place is true then someone needs to be held accountable for making such a poor decision; this change was always going to be difficult to implement and therefore any changes to control staffing should have been given time to bed in well in advance of this week.

I believe the team is new but the people within it are all people from internally within the Northern and the wider industry. So they are not inexperienced newbies. Plus the team itself has been around for some months now.

 

[jayah]

Theoretically, cross-conurbation services might be useful to reduce the need to change (or at least, the need to do so at busy central area services). However, running these services through the Central Manchester Bottleneck Zone is a recipe for disaster, particularly now that Chris 'if I had 2 brain cells, I'd be pregnant' Grayling has cancelled the crucial enhancements at Piccadilly.

I suspect that, in the case of the Liverpool-Crewe service, some numpty who has probably been to neither of those places, and doesn't understand anything about the rail infrastructure between them, has decided to wang the former Lime Street-Victoria stopper onto the Deansgate-Crewe one to give the ex-Liverpool train somewhere to go, now TPE has displaced it from Victoria.

Incidentally, in my first post on this forum I was derided for criticising the proposed re-arrangement of Liverpool-Manchester services, although I did so in the basus that certain journey opportunities were reduced, not on the basis that Northern would trigger the local railway system's self-destruct button.

Which enhancements have been cancelled at Man Picc?

Grayling didn't come up with the Ordsall Curve concept which of course moves congestion around to a different part of Man Picc.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Thanks, I stand corrected!

I see there is a helpful holiday entitlement calculator on the gov.uk website which allows certain permutations, though aside from saying that bank holidays can be included in the entitlement, I can't see any reference to your tues-sat scenario.

It's not relevant.

If you work full time (i.e. 5 days a week) you get 28 days regardless of which days you work. It is up to the company when you take them. Most traditional office employers will require you to take 8 of them as the bank holidays then allow you to apply to take the others when you wish.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Which enhancements have been cancelled at Man Picc?

Grayling didn't come up with the Ordsall Curve concept which of course moves congestion around to a different part of Man Picc.

It was absolute madness building the Chord without also building P15/16. Indeed I'd argue if you only had the money to do one of them P15/16 would have been better value.

 

[jayah]

From a passenger perspective, this level of service is not satisfactory or acceptable. I don’t understand how anyone can suggest that it is. So what’s the remedy? Should we as passengers all keep quiet, and should Andy Burnham and our other elected representatives keep quiet, in the hope that it will be sorted out reasonably quickly?

It's hardly surprising that people are suggesting Northern should be stripped of the franchise, when they have been consistently failing to provide the contracted service and have done nothing to indicate to their passengers that they have a plan to bring things back to the required standard.

The problem is one of politics and incompetence. Years ago it was decided that Liverpool - Stansted would never work reliably as a through service and got chopped at Birmingham. The politicians and prospective franchises have learned nothing and come up a raft of these daft services like Leeds - Southport which do far less as through services.

Nobody put a gun to the franchisees head. Someone needs to speak truth to power otherwise the same mistakes will keep getting made.

 

[jayah]

It was absolute madness building the Chord without also building P15/16. Indeed I'd argue if you only had the money to do one of them P15/16 would have been better value.

True.

But AFAIK there has never been a project to add 15/16 for Grayling to have cancelled?

 

[Bletchleyite]

True.

But AFAIK there has never been a project to add 15/16 for Grayling to have cancelled?

It was part of the long-term plan in some form, even if there was no formal project, and was widely expected to be done.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The problem is one of politics and incompetence. Years ago it was decided that Liverpool - Stansted would never work reliably as a through service and got chopped at Birmingham. The politicians and prospective franchises have learned nothing and come up a raft of these daft services like Leeds - Southport which do far less as through services.

The problem that results in those is the lack of terminal capacity to the west in Manchester. So most things that come in from the west that can't terminate in the Oxford Road bay (which is unpopular as more people want Picc) need to run through to somewhere otherwise they waste platform space.

Short of taking over the "G-MEx" (or whatever it's called now) and reopening Central there isn't really a lot can be done about this.

 

[ainsworth74]

But AFAIK there has never been a project to add 15/16 for Grayling to have cancelled?

It was bundled into the wider "Northern Hub" project and so I believe was lost when that project had it's ambitions cut by Grayling last year.

 

[Loop & Link]

I believe the team is new but the people within it are all people from internally within the Northern and the wider industry. So they are not inexperienced newbies. Plus the team itself has been around for some months now.

They were all external.

 

[northwichcat]

I see there is a helpful holiday entitlement calculator on the gov.uk website which allows certain permutations, though aside from saying that bank holidays can be included in the entitlement, I can't see any reference to your tues-sat scenario.

If you work Tuesday to Saturday you still have to get at least 28 days off (including Bank Holidays) per year so I was just trying to illustrate how it worked, given what days of the week some Bank Holidays fall on can vary and others are fixed.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you work Tuesday to Saturday you still have to get at least 28 days off (including Bank Holidays) per year so I was just trying to illustrate how it worked, given what days of the week some Bank Holidays fall on can vary and others are fixed.

It doesn't actually matter. All that matters is that you get the required number of days. The company may, at their option, specify when some, all or none of these days are taken. They may also offer more days, as a good many companies do including my employer. Specifying that you must take the Bank Holidays but giving you the choice subject to staffing levels and advance booking of the others is the most common arrangement, but any other arrangement (including specifying that you *don't* take the BHs) is equally valid, subject to any other laws about the business operating on e.g. Christmas Day.

 

[mpthomson]

As with many other things, the real solution to the poor quality of many regional operations may lie with matters beyond the railway. The lack of any real regional government in England means there is no effective democratic control over how the railway operates, and no effective means of bringing pressure to bear when it doesn't operate properly

Though Labour held a referendum to introduce exactly that and it was roundly rejected by the population, mainly because it just added more layers of local government that would waste taxpayer's money.

 

[northwichcat]

Though Labour held a referendum to introduce exactly that and it was roundly rejected by the population, mainly because it just added more layers of local government that would waste taxpayer's money.

They held a referendum in the North East and when it didn't go they way they wanted, they didn't try in Yorkshire & Humber or North West. As we know from the EU referendum result the way the North East votes can be very different to how the rest of the country votes.

 

[B&I]

Though Labour held a referendum to introduce exactly that and it was roundly rejected by the population, mainly because it just added more layers of local government that would waste taxpayer's money.

The way to really save money is to sack the entire DfT. Few would notice the difference

 

[B&I]

If you'd read my post properly I did say overall performance for which the splits were 71%/21%/8%, a definite improvement on both Monday and Tuesday. You have quoted numbers for the Lancashire and Cumbria Inter Urban service group whose figures for Monday were 34.6%/17.8%/47.6%. I also said "though still well short of what we have the right to expect". Things have certainly moved in the right direction on Wednesday but in some areas there is still an awful long way to go. I guess you're only interested in being negative. Which is your right as much as it is mine to quote facts.

Had to look up WUM. Apparently it's Irish.

It's difficult to be positive if you are actually dependent on Northern services to get around the north of England (eg to and from work), and your journey times are being increased substantially by the deficiencies in the service. That'a not a 'rant' or a 'moan'. That's cold hard 'facts' of the sort that will put prospective rail travellers firmly back in their cars. I doubt they're all that interested in some marginal improvement yesterday if the overall service remains dire

 

[ainsworth74]

They were all external.

Huh fair enough. I must have misunderstood what I was told.

 

[Bertie the bus]

The problems with Northern services in Lancashire are bad but are compounded by the total lack of information. Yesterday I went to catch the 09:48 Preston – Leeds. Until 09:41 it was showing as on time, then suddenly went to 20 minutes late. It departed 46 minutes late and didn't make it to Leeds. There wasn’t even a train there when I gave up so it wasn’t down to driver shortage.

We are encouraged to check our service is running beforehand but when the above happens what are we expected to do? Do Northern think we all live within a 30 second walk of the station?

 

[CHAPS2034]

Here's the experience yesterday of a friend of mine (Wednesday) travelling from the Airport to Cheadle Hulme. He's a fairly experienced train traveller and as you can see knows his way around Piccadilly. However he does not own a car and so relies on public transport. Of course this situation seems to have been quite mild from stories that are around, but a few weeks ago you would have been unlucky to get delayed like this.

Back from AMS, from getting off the plane to arriving at the airport railway station - 13 minutes!

TPE to York 18.19 via MCO, MCV. Arrived 4-5 minutes late. Quick turn-around, fast to Mauldeth Road then reduce to a crawl. Announced that due to delays through Victoria the train was "diverting to a more scenic route". In other words it was going back to reversing in MAN.

Missed the 18.38 and arrived at 18.44 but spotted that train hadn't departed. Ran around to platform 8, delayed by 2 minutes, then 3, 4, 5 etc. Lots of announcements apologising and mentioning awaiting a crew.

At 18.58 myself and some of the many other awaiting passengers headed on over to P4 for the 19.01. Out the checked gate but had to wait for a staff member to open P4 gate. Train at far end beyond XC. No crew for it. Some more passengers arrived via footbridge then, realising what was going on, made their way back to the top level to see which train might get a crew first.

Doors opened on P8 train so we ran for that. Guard had arrived but no driver. At 19.04 announced that when it departed it would be terminating at Macc, told Stoke passengers to catch 19.05 XC service and Kidsgrove and Congleton passengers to wait for 19.44! A few more people ran over from P4 just as we were about to depart.

Shambles.

It's all very well examining the minutiae, but the end result will not do and the travelling public just want a punctual and reliable service. This is generally what we had in the Manchester area until the last few weeks. It only takes a few bad experiences and people will try alternative modes and it will then take a massive effort to entice them back to rail.

The current situation seems to be the perfect storm, much of which has been predictable. This new timetable in the Manchester area seems to use all available capacity and no doubt looks good in theory, but it only takes one incident or late runner to cause massive and snowballing disruption. It happens to any transport system that is running at capacity - Heathrow and some bits of the Motorway network are good examples.

As various people have mentioned, these cross county suburban services are so long that any one incident will have massive knock ons and cause unreliable service. The new Wigan - Alderley service has been delayed more often than not coming through the Deansgate area and ending up 15-20 late at Alderley even when leaving Wigan RT. Weren't the Preston - Buxton trains curtailed to MAN - BUX a few years ago because they were entirely unreliable, particularly south of MAN?

So we have to ask why the new timetable re-instates these long routes; have lessons not been learnt? Have TOC train planning teams lost a lot of their experienced members who would remember this? And could someone explain to me why (if posts on this thread are correct and I'm sure they are) so many diagrams seem to involve train crew deadheading (to use an aviation term) on other trains to commence their own duties? This is another area where delays can snowball. It may make the most efficient use of staff, but what about the additional costs when it all goes wrong? Are crewing diagrams written from scratch or are they just modified from timetable to timetable? If the latter, maybe it's all got too complicated and something simpler should be found. I know it's very complex with all the route competency, hours etc issues, but it does seem to me that relying so much on non-operational crew travelling on service trains is something that needs to be looked at.

Interesting to hear about the new disruption control team - very certainly a baptism of fire for them and those that manage to stick it out will be much wiser about what works and what doesn't in the future.

In the Airport business which I worked in for 40+ years, a crisis team was a legal requirement to gain an operating licence and the teams were regularly tested by live and desktop exercises, in particular the chains of communication. The major exercises were observed and audited by the CAA (Licensing Authority), any shortfalls were addressed, an action plan agreed and then the changes were audited and tested next time around.

The crisis teams also included service partners such as airlines and handling agents. I think such multi-company crisis / control teams now work on the railways in certain areas - I presume not yet in Manchester?

I am going on my first journey using local trains since the timetable change tomorrow and more interestingly have to go to Preston on Saturday which is disrupted by the strike and engineering works. I am expecting to have to revise my plans quite regularly that day!

CW.

 

[jayah]

It was part of the long-term plan in some form, even if there was no formal project, and was widely expected to be done.

Some that doesn't exist can't be cancelled.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

It's difficult to be positive if you are actually dependent on Northern services to get around the north of England (eg to and from work), and your journey times are being increased substantially by the deficiencies in the service. That'a not a 'rant' or a 'moan'. That's cold hard 'facts' of the sort that will put prospective rail travellers firmly back in their cars. I doubt they're all that interested in some marginal improvement yesterday if the overall service remains dire

From the point of view of an individual user you are quite correct. The point I was making was that in order to ascertain whether the situation will remain so dire for evermore or not it is necessary to see the bigger picture: are there any signs of improvement? The answer is clearly yes but nothing like enough as yet. I agree that the reputational damage in some areas will be considerable hence some politicians actually showing some interest.

As various people have mentioned, these cross county suburban services are so long that any one incident will have massive knock ons and cause unreliable service. The new Wigan - Alderley service has been delayed more often than not coming through the Deansgate area and ending up 15-20 late at Alderley even when leaving Wigan RT. Weren't the Preston - Buxton trains curtailed to MAN - BUX a few years ago because they were entirely unreliable, particularly south of MAN?

Time for a reality check. Cross-Manchester services are not at all new. Back in the dark days of the 1970s the only all-day service on the Atherton and Southport line was an hourly train from Leeds via Bradford and the Calder valley. More obviously the opening of the Windsor Link in 1988 allowed for a number of cross-Piccadilly services to be introduced; existing Inter-City Glasgow-Victoria and Piccadilly-Birmingham (& points south) services were linked together, a number of Hope Valley fast services were amended from being Humberside-Liverpool services to be East Anglia-Lancashire (Blackpool or Barrow) services and the aforementioned Buxton-Blackpool local service was introduced, thus meeting a strong local political aspiration for cross-county services.

There was also for a number of years a link-up of Mid-Cheshire line services with Blackpool and the MCL's Sunday service was linked to Southport until quite recently.

While franchise re-mapping led to the long-distance services being changed the local service patterns described above survived almost intact until December 2008 when all services in the north-west were recast to accommodate Virgin's VHF scheme. At that point it proved impossible to path all the existing local services and so the Buxton line reverted to its traditional terminus of Piccadilly. It was nothing to do with actual reliability, more to avoid unreliability in the revised paths that were then available.

As for the current Wigan-Alderley Edge service it is somewhat shorter than the Southport-Manchester Airport service that it has effectively replaced. Likewise the Crewe-Airport-Chat Moss-Liverpool stopping service has effectively replaced the previous Airport-Chat Moss-Liverpool fast service with TPE now providing the fast service and the Manchester termini swapped over. In short the suggestion that the longish cross-county stopping services are in themselves the cause of so many problems is not obviously true.

The real issue is the appalling shortage of drivers leading to valuable platforms being repeatedly blocked by trains stuck due to "no forward driver" thereby causing other services to be held outside stations where crew changes have "failed". This is almost entirely a self-inflicted wound on the part of Northern and will need, at the very least, the revival of a Rest Day Working agreement with ASLEF to restore a degree of reliability to the timetable. Only when this has been achieved will it be possible to judge whether the timetable itself is over ambitious and therefore what long-term adjustments are worth making. It would appear that the provision of spare drivers at Piccadilly and Victoria, as a minimum, has already been flagged up as part of any recovery plan.

 

[LeylandLen]

It was absolute madness building the Chord without also building P15/16. Indeed I'd argue if you only had the money to do one of them P15/16 would have been better value.

From what little I know about a new P15/16 at Man Picc, part of the problem was that UMIST did not want to give up the land required , and they had nowhere suitable to move to in the time .

 

[Chester1]

Some that doesn't exist can't be cancelled.

It has not even been cancelled anyway. Grayling still has the transport works act on his desk. I don't think it would be the holy grail that many expect because the whole area is full of flat junctions and conflicts. I would rebuild Oxford Road next including the removal of platform 5 to allow platforms 1-4 to be extended. This would limit the capacity of the corridor to 12tph without Piccadilly platforms 15 and 16 being built. That would require all 4 CLC services running through Piccadilly and a maximum of 8 others. The W&B service is too short and high dwell times due to end doors, therefore it should be diverted to Victoria. The emphasis should be on switching Northern services through Oxford Road to 6x23m and 8x20m sets as demand grows. Reducing services through the corridor from 11tph through Piccadilly and 2tph terminating at Oxford Road to 12tph through with no conflicting moves at Oxford Road would provide a little bit more breathing space compared with the current timetable.

Hopefully the Lime Street blockade should provide enough respite for a contigency plan to be developed and then introduced. Perhaps an autumn blockade of Manchester to Preston to make sure the electrification completes by the December timetable change and to reduce the number of services in the mean time?

 

[CHAPS2034]

Thank you for the history lesson Mr Hunter...

I'll reserve further judgement until this settles down but I do remember that the timekeeping of the Preston - Buxton left a lot to be desired. And it improved markedly when it was curtailed to Piccadilly.

I'll repeat my point - for the ordinary passenger, they don't care why things have happened - they just want a reliable service and good communication. Continuing disruption, even for a relatively short period, will encourage people to try other modes and they may stick with them.

 

[WatcherZero]

https://www.networkrailmediacentre....dent-review-to-improve-service-for-customers#

Network Rail putting out a press release at 6:30pm (long day of meetings?) announcing they will be jointly funding with Northern an independent inquiry in to the events ('Preparation and Processes') leading up to the new timetable.

Instinct says this is part of an agreement to resolve liability questions.

 

[CHAPS2034]

Thanks Watcher

Mmm - an Independent Report. Having dealt with civil servants for years, I hope this is not a "Sir Humphrey" response.

I suspect not in this case. It does not say when the report will be concluded except that it will "ensure lessons are learned and that there are no repeats of current problems as we prepare for the next major timetable change in December this year.” So hopefully short and sweet. I wonder how passengers will be involved in the consultation.

Maybe I'm out of touch but this sentence appears in the Press release
This is in addition to measures announced yesterday to tackle the current disruption. Can anyone please enlighten me as to what these measures were?

Cheers
CW

 

[Bletchleyite]

Some that doesn't exist can't be cancelled.

I think that is unduly picky; it was widely expected to be done, and in my view the Chord's effect is negative without it - P13/14 were too busy already without adding trains to them.

 

[Bertie the bus]

The new timetable has really been a godsend for Northern.

As many of us have said the problems began a long time before this week but with all the fuss over the new timetable, and now this report most people are focussing on the one event when the problems are longer term and more fundamental than that. They are going to get off very lightly. Even Chris Grayling blamed Network Rail for the whole thing in Parliament today.