Increased Frequency V Longer Trains: your thoughts

[iphone76]

Having experienced the c2c timetable post December 2015, I would much prefer longer trains slightly less frequently.

In my opinion it was madness having so many 4 carriage peak trains. Whilst on paper it may work, the perception (and reality) of overcrowding increased and many passengers at places like Rainham and Dagenham Dock are often unable to board.

 

[AM9]

There isn't one solution fits all.

I'd say overall it's better for a local service to be frequent over long. If you commute to a place 10 miles away waiting 60 minutes for a train makes the train unattractive unless by chance the timings are convenient for your needs. However, in that instance once you get to a train every 15 minutes the benefits of more frequent services are fewer - I doubt anyone would give up using the car because the frequency is increased to every 12 minutes.

If it's like the Virgin Pendolino services where the train is significantly faster than the car then long is better than frequent.

Some time ago you and I has a brief discussion on train lengths in the north (ISTR about the time of the 319 plans being announced). As you said, the platforms in many places (then and maybe still) couldn't accomodate trains longer than 3 or 6 coaches. In another posting there was the point that the infrastructure around Manchester was saturated and that Slade Lane junction was one of the busiest in the north and maybe the country. I wouldn't dispute either of those points but they together explain the problem of suburban rail services casting particularly well, i.e. what is practical at one end of the run is not necessarily viable at the other. If there weren't so many two and three-car services running into city centres like Manchester, junctions like Slade Lane wouldn't be such points of multiple service failures. So when a city does get to the point of saturation, without totally unrealistic levels of infrastructure investment, something has to give. The only practical thing would seem to be available would be to split/join or run some services as fast to stations where shuttles/outer slows can be run. The frequency of reasonable length through trains on the principal routes would still be attractive to travellers. That would of course require a certain amount of work to ensure better reliability on splits/joins or connections.
This post is not intended to be a 'London view' of the northern problem. The trains here are all fully loaded and the frequency is not primarily about making the service commercially attractive. It is the only way to move the number of passengers involved. If/when the passenger levels become too much for the routes in the north, extended trains will always be the first stage of capacity improvement along with extended platforms. Track duplication and major junction expansion is probably much further downstream, maybe after all practical train-lengthening options have been implemented.

 

[GingerSte]

It's important to remember that longer trains take longer to cross things like junctions, removing operational flexibility in a manner shorter, more frequent trains don't

Assuming you have the same "extra" carriages, either as part of a lengthened set or as their own new service...

At 5 metres per second (11mph), a 25m carriage takes an extra 5 seconds to cross a junction. Increasing a train length by 4 carriages takes 20 seconds extra on a junction.

Providing an additional train with those 4 carriages gives those 20 seconds plus the headway between trains (say 3 minutes). This therefore takes up much more capacity than using the same carriages to lengthen an existing service.

 

[yorksrob]

The problem with the North TP is that from an infrastructural point of view it is simply inadequate to cope with anything other than a few long distance & stoppers along it's core. What you suggested is pretty much what was in play prior to the May timetable, and whilst it was more robust it still had its fair share of problems. What is needed is lot of the improvements long discussed previously on other threads, electrification, more passing points, faster speeds etc. And even with some / all in place, getting robust enough pathing through the core for both fast and stopping Leeds-Manchester will be a challenge, which is why I think the stoppers need splitting at Huddersfield. And that along with growing demand will mean more / longer platforms will be needed there too.

Clockface timings would be nice, however realistically you need to give as much space as possible between a stopper & fast setting off at either end to make the timetable as robust as possible, otherwise even small delays to the former will see the latter getting delayed. Personally I would give the stoppers back to Northern, and let TPE concentrate on the longer distance trains pretty much as they were as they will have stock more conducive for high frequency stoppers than TPE do & will have.

Except that's not what we had, because most of those four trains an hour were only three carriages.

Once you get to a train every quarter of an hour I believe the frequency becomes adequate and you need to start looking at longer trains. With TPE you could join and split trains to ensure each of the eastern destinations had their hourly Liverpool and Manchester airport. Yes, this introduces an element of risk, however so long as the joining is done in the correct place, the risk can be mitigated. As an example, if you had a TPE splitting/joining at Thirsk, with portions to Middlesborough and Newcastle, this could be done on the slow lines without impeding express trains. You could then route the Newcastle onto the fast line, with the Middlesborough departing soon after on the slow line.

 

[Esker-pades]

Except that's not what we had, because most of those four trains an hour were only three carriages.

Once you get to a train every quarter of an hour I believe the frequency becomes adequate and you need to start looking at longer trains. With TPE you could join and split trains to ensure each of the eastern destinations had their hourly Liverpool and Manchester airport. Yes, this introduces an element of risk, however so long as the joining is done in the correct place, the risk can be mitigated. As an example, if you had a TPE splitting/joining at Thirsk, with portions to Middlesborough and Newcastle, this could be done on the slow lines without impeding express trains. You could then route the Newcastle onto the fast line, with the Middlesborough departing soon after on the slow line.

I doubt Thirsk is a feasible location for the joining/splitting of services. York or Leeds are much better locations.

 

[yorksrob]

I doubt Thirsk is a feasible location for the joining/splitting of services. York or Leeds are much better locations.

I doubt it has permissive working, but if you wanted both Middlesborough and Newcastle to have an hourly service to both Manchester Airport and Liverpool, you might want to split nearer the junction to avoid taking up paths. Ideally they should have rebuilt Northallerton with two island platforms, however they didn't, so you wouldn't want to block the line there with trains splitting and joining.

Perhaps the answer would be to split at York and make better use of the outer lines ?

 

[Esker-pades]

I doubt it has permissive working, but if you wanted both Middlesborough and Newcastle to have an hourly service to both Manchester Airport and Liverpool, you might want to split nearer the junction to avoid taking up paths. Ideally they should have rebuilt Northallerton with two island platforms, however they didn't, so you wouldn't want to block the line there with trains splitting and joining.

Perhaps the answer would be to split at York and make better use of the outer lines ?

I would split at York and run the Middlesbrough (all stations) in-front, but overtaken at Thirsk.

 

[yorksrob]

I would split at York and run the Middlesbrough (all stations) in-front, but overtaken at Thirsk.

Yes, that could work.

 

[cactustwirly]

Reservations tend to solve that. I find people spread out very well along 11-car Virgin Pendolinos despite these being the longest domestic daytime passenger trains in the UK.

No it doesn't! You just get the people with reservations bunched up in one or two coaches, with the rest in another coach.

 

[cactustwirly]

Except that's not what we had, because most of those four trains an hour were only three carriages.

Once you get to a train every quarter of an hour I believe the frequency becomes adequate and you need to start looking at longer trains. With TPE you could join and split trains to ensure each of the eastern destinations had their hourly Liverpool and Manchester airport. Yes, this introduces an element of risk, however so long as the joining is done in the correct place, the risk can be mitigated. As an example, if you had a TPE splitting/joining at Thirsk, with portions to Middlesborough and Newcastle, this could be done on the slow lines without impeding express trains. You could then route the Newcastle onto the fast line, with the Middlesborough departing soon after on the slow line.

But if one portion is late, then the whole service is screwed!

 

[yorksrob]

But if one portion is late, then the whole service is screwed!

If one portion is late, it would have been late anyway, so it still would have been late through the core. If you have separate trains, there's the chance that both would be late and you have two late trains through the core.

 

[The Ham]

I would like to see a lot more use of some of the outer edges of busy networks with extra trains heading towards a major station but turning off onto a route that runs at 90 degrees.

As an example, if you ran a service from Salisbury and could turn it to head to Ascot without impacting on capacity of the lines overly much (so a grade seperate junction), you could run an extra service/extra services without much extra track. Anyone wishing to head to London would change to one of the express services but you would also increase the frequencies from 1tph/2tph to 2tph/3tph/4tph.

The likely initial demand wouldn't justify a very long train, but it would probably free up some capacity on the London services as people would switch to the local services for local journeys so that they were more likely to get a seat, yet the London services would get busier (or at least stay the same) as more people would be attracted to use all the services.

If you saw a major local station on a route which had 5tph you would be more willing to use it even if 3tph were stopping services and 1tph was only really serving local stops than a station with 4tph. Mostly because you could get to more places, but also because you could get to some places more often (even if you would have to be on a train for longer to get there).

 

[Bantamzen]

Except that's not what we had, because most of those four trains an hour were only three carriages.

True, but with the new stock in the pipe dialling back to the old timetable with services going from x3 to x5 carriages would improve significantly on what was going on previously.

Once you get to a train every quarter of an hour I believe the frequency becomes adequate and you need to start looking at longer trains. With TPE you could join and split trains to ensure each of the eastern destinations had their hourly Liverpool and Manchester airport. Yes, this introduces an element of risk, however so long as the joining is done in the correct place, the risk can be mitigated. As an example, if you had a TPE splitting/joining at Thirsk, with portions to Middlesborough and Newcastle, this could be done on the slow lines without impeding express trains. You could then route the Newcastle onto the fast line, with the Middlesborough departing soon after on the slow line.

York would be far more of a natural place to introduce splits, with at least some crew based there I believe, plus there's more capacity platform-wise? Of course as you say there's always risk if one or both run late, which might mean a cancellation of one portion whilst the other continues. But it would resolve the demand for Liverpool & Airport connectivity from the east of Leeds whilst not ramming too many services through the core.

The one possible fly in the ointment might be when the MKVs & 802 take over, how many stations could handle 10 car (presumably 802s in this case) through the core?

 

[yorksrob]

True, but with the new stock in the pipe dialling back to the old timetable with services going from x3 to x5 carriages would improve significantly on what was going on previously.



York would be far more of a natural place to introduce splits, with at least some crew based there I believe, plus there's more capacity platform-wise? Of course as you say there's always risk if one or both run late, which might mean a cancellation of one portion whilst the other continues. But it would resolve the demand for Liverpool & Airport connectivity from the east of Leeds whilst not ramming too many services through the core.

The one possible fly in the ointment might be when the MKVs & 802 take over, how many stations could handle 10 car (presumably 802s in this case) through the core?

Well, a "ten car train scheme" for the Northern transpennine routes might well be the scale of physical investment that could be justified in the North. Four ten carriage fast trains an hour through the core would certainly go a long way towards solving the capacity issue.

Plus, you'd probably only need to extend Leeds, Dewsbury, Huddersfield, Stalybridge and whatever the Liverpool's stop at between there and Manchester. (Not sure how long 15 and 16 at Leeds are currently).

 

[Bantamzen]

Well, a "ten car train scheme" for the Northern transpennine routes might well be the scale of physical investment that could be justified in the North. Four ten carriage fast trains an hour through the core would certainly go a long way towards solving the capacity issue.

Plus, you'd probably only need to extend Leeds, Dewsbury, Huddersfield, Stalybridge and whatever the Liverpool's stop at between there and Manchester. (Not sure how long 15 and 16 at Leeds are currently).

Thinking about when they used to join an ex-Scarborough to an empty unit at P16 (if my memory serves me correctly it was either the 16:09 or 17:09 to Liverpool on weekdays), there wasn't a whole lot of room at the back of the rear unit coming in from the east. So P15/16 may not be long enough for this purpose without SDO, which could make life interesting on busy peak services. I'd guess that only P8/9/11/12 would fit a 10 car TPE, which could lead to some interesting conflicts at the western throat unless P0 gets built which would at least leave it and P1/6 for the LNERs (some of which will be reversing to Bradford/Harrogate anyway). Either way in the not too distant future there is going to need to be some capacity increase eat Leeds at least.

As for the rest, yes there isn't too many stations to handle and it should be possible although Huddersfield east bound might get interesting. Perhaps time to think about that P9 project, did that ever get anywhere other than aspirational planning?

 

[yorksrob]

Thinking about when they used to join an ex-Scarborough to an empty unit at P16 (if my memory serves me correctly it was either the 16:09 or 17:09 to Liverpool on weekdays), there wasn't a whole lot of room at the back of the rear unit coming in from the east. So P15/16 may not be long enough for this purpose without SDO, which could make life interesting on busy peak services. I'd guess that only P8/9/11/12 would fit a 10 car TPE, which could lead to some interesting conflicts at the western throat unless P0 gets built which would at least leave it and P1/6 for the LNERs (some of which will be reversing to Bradford/Harrogate anyway). Either way in the not too distant future there is going to need to be some capacity increase eat Leeds at least.

As for the rest, yes there isn't too many stations to handle and it should be possible although Huddersfield east bound might get interesting. Perhaps time to think about that P9 project, did that ever get anywhere other than aspirational planning?

Yes, at a guess 15 and 16 would enable eight? Looking at 16, there's room on the viaduct to move 17 further West, allowing a westward extension of 16. The bonus for platform 17 passengers is that there would now be room to have a staircase from the footbridge directly down where what used to be 17 had been widened, so they might still end up with a shorter walk than the present double-back along 16.
15 might have to go eastwards with the loss of 14, but that platform doesn't appear to be heavily used anyway.

But yes, there would probably have to be some increasing and switching of platforms at Leeds.

At least with Huddersfield there's a lot of siding space to the East which might enable some extension of the island platform and bays. With the Westbound, maybe some sort of steel construction along the viaduct ?

Dewsbury and Stalybridge, SDO wouldn't be so much of a problem.

 

[GW43125]

Predictive Text?

Yes, and a rather unfortunate one at that.

I now know my phone doesn’t like “pendo”

 

[DaiGog]

It sounds like you are wanting to replace the current six trains per hour on Leeds - Huddersfield and Huddersfield - Manchester with six trains per hour (i.e. four trains per hour plus a semi-fast plus a stopper)?

I think TPE would be a good place for people to demonstrate their trade-off between longer trains and frequency, since you've got to balance a lot of different markets (some of which might be symbolic rather than essential for daily passengers, but will cause a lot of negative publicity if you remove them).

Some people want very fast services (I've even seen the suggestion of non-stop through Huddersfield, to provide more seats for longer distance passengers), some people want a stopper through Marsden etc (for the sake of the Ale Train), some people want as many trains from Leeds to Manchester as possible.

Replace the current six trains per hour with six trains per hour that are more reliable, have enough capacity, and are - in the case of four of them - worthy of the name 'Express' emblazoned on the side.

 

[tbtc]

Yes, and a rather unfortunate one at that.

I now know my phone doesn’t like “pendo”

Your phone is like most of the people who post on here, in that case...

(I don't mind them myself, but then, living in Sheffield, they are a rare treat rather than something I endure daily, which may affect my judgement)

Replace the current six trains per hour with six trains per hour that are more reliable, have enough capacity, and are - in the case of four of them - worthy of the name 'Express' emblazoned on the side.

Sure, and I don't think that's a bad idea, but (despite the large number of complaints about lines with too many trains on them, affecting reliability) nobody on this thread seems to be considering places where we could reduce the number of trains on the line so that longer trains would run instead - the consensus seems to be retaining the high number of services per hour on the line *and* having longer trains too.

Really, this thread seems to be more about Separate Local Services V Combining Services Into Longer Distance Routes.

 

[yorksrob]

Sure, and I don't think that's a bad idea, but (despite the large number of complaints about lines with too many trains on them, affecting reliability) nobody on this thread seems to be considering places where we could reduce the number of trains on the line so that longer trains would run instead - the consensus seems to be retaining the high number of services per hour on the line *and* having longer trains too.

Really, this thread seems to be more about Separate Local Services V Combining Services Into Longer Distance Routes.

Is it that high though ?

I was under the impression that it was the problem trying to fit all of those services through Oxford Road, rather than the six trains an hour between Leeds and Manchester. Certainly six trains an hour+ seem to fit between Tonbridge and Orpington without incident, so shouldn't it be possible on the TPE route ?

The point is though that we need the four very long express services serving further afield and maybe a couple of stoppers to mop up the smaller stations.

 

[squizzler]

Yes, and a rather unfortunate one at that.

I now know my phone doesn’t like “pendo”

It seemed for a moment you were about to bring some know-how from a whole different field of activity to help settle the matter of whether length, or how often, is key to delivering a satisfying service!

 

[The Ham]

Sure, and I don't think that's a bad idea, but (despite the large number of complaints about lines with too many trains on them, affecting reliability) nobody on this thread seems to be considering places where we could reduce the number of trains on the line so that longer trains would run instead - the consensus seems to be retaining the high number of services per hour on the line *and* having longer trains too.

Really, this thread seems to be more about Separate Local Services V Combining Services Into Longer Distance Routes.

It would be better to have the same number of services but where possible stop the slower services before they get to a major conflict point.

Yes it would mean that those traveling longer distances from more minor stations would probably need to change, however for lines where there more than a pair of tracks and/or stations where trains can pass many people will do that anyway to get onto a faster service.

Yes there will be some who will be disadvantaged, but why does someone need to travel from near one major city to near another without changing trains? Especially when most will opt to change trains to save 20 minutes.

 

[tbtc]

Is it that high though ?

I was under the impression that it was the problem trying to fit all of those services through Oxford Road, rather than the six trains an hour between Leeds and Manchester. Certainly six trains an hour+ seem to fit between Tonbridge and Orpington without incident, so shouldn't it be possible on the TPE route ?

The point is though that we need the four very long express services serving further afield and maybe a couple of stoppers to mop up the smaller stations.

Six trains per hour would be fine on TPE - no problem - the problem is when you try to make those six trains a mixture of fast, medium and slow (so they catch up with each other, create conflicts).

The NSE area that you refer to can squeeze many more services per hour out of paths (than Regional Railways in northern England) because everything is a 100mph EMU so trains can run at similar speeds.

I wonder if the answer to TPE is to make three of the services semi-fast east of Huddersfield and the other three semi-fast west of Huddersfield, so that every service would take around the same length of time from Leeds to Manchester...

• xx:00 - Leeds - Huddersfield - Slaithwaite -Marsden - Stalybridge - Manchester Victoria
• xx:10 - Leeds - Cottingley - Morley - Dewsbury - Ravensthorpe - Huddersfield - Manchester Victoria
• xx:20 Leeds - Huddersfield - Marsden - Greenfield - Stalybridge - Manchester Victoria
• xx:30 Leeds - Morley - Batley - Dewsbury - Mirfield - Huddersfield - Manchester Victoria
• xx:40 Leeds - Huddersfield - Slaithwaite - Greenfield - Stalybridge - Manchester Victoria
• xx:50 Leeds - Morley - Batley - Dewsbury - Deighton - Huddersfield - Manchester Victoria

...four or five intermediate stops on every service balances journey times, so that departures from Huddersfield would be roughly five/fifteen/five/fifteen minutes, but the slower services would have sufficient time leaving Leeds without getting in the way of the faster services over that bit of track.

Trying to mix expresses and stoppers seems a recipe for disaster though. If we want to squeeze proper fast services over the TPE line (that only stop at Huddersfield) then there's not going to be much space for slow Ale Trail trains stopping at every station they pass through.

 

[yorksrob]

Six trains per hour would be fine on TPE - no problem - the problem is when you try to make those six trains a mixture of fast, medium and slow (so they catch up with each other, create conflicts).

The NSE area that you refer to can squeeze many more services per hour out of paths (than Regional Railways in northern England) because everything is a 100mph EMU so trains can run at similar speeds.

I wonder if the answer to TPE is to make three of the services semi-fast east of Huddersfield and the other three semi-fast west of Huddersfield, so that every service would take around the same length of time from Leeds to Manchester...

• xx:00 - Leeds - Huddersfield - Slaithwaite -Marsden - Stalybridge - Manchester Victoria
• xx:10 - Leeds - Cottingley - Morley - Dewsbury - Ravensthorpe - Huddersfield - Manchester Victoria
• xx:20 Leeds - Huddersfield - Marsden - Greenfield - Stalybridge - Manchester Victoria
• xx:30 Leeds - Morley - Batley - Dewsbury - Mirfield - Huddersfield - Manchester Victoria
• xx:40 Leeds - Huddersfield - Slaithwaite - Greenfield - Stalybridge - Manchester Victoria
• xx:50 Leeds - Morley - Batley - Dewsbury - Deighton - Huddersfield - Manchester Victoria

...four or five intermediate stops on every service balances journey times, so that departures from Huddersfield would be roughly five/fifteen/five/fifteen minutes, but the slower services would have sufficient time leaving Leeds without getting in the way of the faster services over that bit of track.

Trying to mix expresses and stoppers seems a recipe for disaster though. If we want to squeeze proper fast services over the TPE line (that only stop at Huddersfield) then there's not going to be much space for slow Ale Trail trains stopping at every station they pass through.

Actually, there are a lot of double track sections on the Southern which have an intensive service, and a mixture of stopping and fast services (Tonbridge - Orpington being one).

Perhaps the answer is to make better use of older wide formations to increase/extend loops.

 

[Spartacus]

TPE with 6 paths Leeds- Manchester will never work properly without serious infrastructure enhancement, and even then it would be too much strain on other places to be reliable, I've modelled it. Using skip-stoppers does nothing for local journeys either apart from put people in cars. I don't think the current plan is as good as it could be (two trains from Newcastle in 15 minutes is pointless, and two from Deighton to Huddersfield in 5 (and from Mirfield in a little longer) is lunacy, it's a box ticking exercise, not a service) but even at best it would be a best-worst solution.

5 tph can work, the last timetable just needed a few tweaks. With 5 and 6 car services on expresses and enhanced length on the stoppers would likely be plenty for a good while to come. Increasing the frequency before planned increases in train length really is putting the cart before the horse.

 

[tbtc]

TPE with 6 paths Leeds- Manchester will never work properly without serious infrastructure enhancement, and even then it would be too much strain on other places to be reliable, I've modelled it. Using skip-stoppers does nothing for local journeys either apart from put people in cars. I don't think the current plan is as good as it could be (two trains from Newcastle in 15 minutes is pointless

I agree that the Newcastle situation is stupid - the obsession with giving as many places a direct link with Manchester Airport as possible and the obsession with giving Liverpool a direct link to as many places as possible has created a lop-sided timetable. But cut either of these and you'll get moans that you are damaging the economic health of the entire north of England by asking Airport passengers to change trains (like they manage down south) or moans that Liverpool is cut off from places (and why does Manchester get so many services to places whilst Liverpool gets the short straw etc etc).

But I think that skip-stopping is the way forward on routes like TPE - partly to smooth out the end-to-end journey times (to avoid a non-stop service quickly catching up the "local" train ahead of it) - but partly because the number of people doing journeys involving the most important stations (Manchester/ Stalybridge/ Huddersfield/ Dewsbury/ Leeds) is significantly greater than the kind of Marsden to Slaithwaite journeys that a stopper provides.

 

[Spartacus]

Trouble is that with longer distance skip-stoppers they don't speed other things up significantly as instead of being looped somewhere like Marsden (platform issues aside), or terminating somewhere like Huddersfield they keep things piling up behind them when things go wrong, knock it down to 5tph and they aren't needed. To be honest I don't see why if there was one Newcastle it couldn't be an airport service, it might just mean that whatever came into MIA as a Newcastle went out to somewhere else instead. Fact is whatever's done someone's going to moan, like people in Scarborough when they lost most of their airports, or in Dewsbury in the previous timetable when they lost theirs.

 

[DaiGog]

It seems that when a direct Manchester Airport service from any station is provided, it is the most contentious thing when it is removed as part of a timetable change. So if everybody wants a direct service to the airport, which they will in reality use once or twice a year, you could in theory make these the slower services without anyone kicking up a fuss - and leave the Liverpools with their faster paths for non-airport traffic.

 

[6Gman]

If one portion is late, it would have been late anyway, so it still would have been late through the core. If you have separate trains, there's the chance that both would be late and you have two late trains through the core.

But that doesn't take account of the crewing issue.

If the M'boro - Manchester and the S'boro - Liverpool (for example) are both late then clearly that messes up the subsequent paths, but both can run late, crewed.

If you're coupling them at York - one's on time, the other 20 late - what do you do? Send the first forward on time, but terminate the second at York (no TC)? Or do you occupy a platform at York for 20 minutes to await the second portion?

 

[yorksrob]

But that doesn't take account of the crewing issue.

If the M'boro - Manchester and the S'boro - Liverpool (for example) are both late then clearly that messes up the subsequent paths, but both can run late, crewed.

If you're coupling them at York - one's on time, the other 20 late - what do you do? Send the first forward on time, but terminate the second at York (no TC)? Or do you occupy a platform at York for 20 minutes to await the second portion?

You would have to wait for the second portion, which is why you'd do so at a location with loops or multiple platforms.

But the benefit is that its the only way to get services to the range of destinations required, and the only way to get capacity in the core without over-provision at the extremities.