LNR new WCML timetable, May 2019 (in open data feeds)

[Bletchleyite]

At least you understand whats happening, i think travelling from birmingham is gonna become a lot more complicated, outside it shouldn’t be too bad just as long as the services arrive and join up or detach in good time then should be fine

In good time? Ha ha ha ha ha

Punctuality and reliability of the Liverpools is appalling, this is going to knock onto the Euston peak and the whole thing will come down like a house of cards, like Northern has.

Whoever thought this complex diagramming was a good idea wants the sack. It isn't. It will fail. Spectacularly. And we will be putting up with the fallout for years.

Southern, the ones who really know about portion working, have been simplifying diagrams - and it is the right thing to do. Why are other TOCs going the other way?

Apparently northampton is in a similar situation to brum with a lot of trains joining and splitting there too

Northampton is much simpler because it's just adding and removing units at the main depot, there are no longer splits by destination.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Southern area seems to manage the concept of portion working quite well. Let’s see. As long as there is contingency drivers and guards allocated, should trains not turn up on time to couple up, then why wouldn’t it work. Even we do it at VT, admittedly on a smaller scale, but by and large it works. Give it a chance first before condemning it. You can do you’re ‘told you so’ then, IF it doesn’t work well.

That's the same Southern who are, on the suburban services, ramping down portion working in favour of keeping trains long all day and removing splits and joins, right?

This is being done to eke out more capacity from the fleet and staff, which is the wrong reason to do it. I don't oppose portion working fundamentally (I strongly support it in some cases, e.g. the Barrows/Windermeres would benefit), but simple, self-contained diagrams are vital. Then when things end up in a mess you can straighten it all out again with a couple of cancellations and some stepping-up.

With a complex web like this, you can't.

 

[driver_m]

That's the same Southern who are, on the suburban services, ramping down portion working in favour of keeping trains long all day and removing splits and joins, right?

This is being done to eke out more capacity from the fleet and staff, which is the wrong reason to do it. I don't oppose portion working fundamentally (I strongly support it in some cases, e.g. the Barrows/Windermeres would benefit), but simple, self-contained diagrams are vital.

If NR weren’t happy with the arrangements they wouldn’t allow such a service to run, if it was to significantly harm other services and at such a critical station like New St. The fact they have is telling.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If NR weren’t happy with the arrangements they wouldn’t allow such a service to run, if it was to significantly harm other services and at such a critical station like New St. The fact they have is telling.

I hope you are right, but I really fear you aren't. After all, they let Northern get away with the mess they have created with overcomplex unit and crew diagramming.

 

[driver_m]

I’ve just checked what you said about the reliability of the service out of Liverpool being appalling. I picked three random times over a period of the last 3 months and put in Liverpool - Wolves. (Purely to discount our service). Reliability never came in at less than 90%. Used something called my journey planner. While it ain’t 100% and few of the journeys achieved bang on arrivals (no doubt due to a 5mph restriction at Bushbury outside Wolves), virtually all were within 15m. So maybe it ain’t as appalling as you make out. Also this is just anecdotal, but I don’t often get a clear run into Crewe from Lime St. If I did, that would mean the xx34 service isn’t running.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To give them some credit on something else, there appears to be a near-end to Saturday and Sunday 4-car working on the south WCML, with almost everything being 8 apart from what looks like one diagram and an odd evening 12.

(I do fear reducing the "drunkard expresses" from 12 to 8 won't go well though).

 

[47421]

The recent stakeholder presentation made the following comments. Through trains are a good idea in theory for the reasons given. But only time will tell whether it works in practice.

Birmingham New St

•Currently 10 services terminate and start –turnrounds -at New St every off-peak hour which occupy platforms

•May 2019 adds two more services which would be 12 but our changes mean we will only have THREE turnrounds

•Platform occupation will be reduced from 114 minutes to only 65 minutes

•New St has the highest level of reactionary delay on the network so this will improve performance for all operators

•New portion working for New St but we have been preparing for this with a military-style process​

 

[700007]

From a passenger perspective I fear that this new timetable is a bit too confusing and complex for my liking. It's too asymmetrical and involves too much portion working going to and from random places and sidings.

I would rather have just seen this simplified to, and advertised as, two London - Birmingham - Liverpool an hour and one London - Birmingham - Rugeley & Crewe via Stoke an hour instead, with the same calling pattern both directions.

I don't like the fact that a Rugeley train will call at Watford Junction, Hemel Hempstead and all stops to Northampton northbound but runs non stop southbound from Leighton Buzzard to London Euston.

The London - Birmingham - Liverpool should be fixed 8 car North of Northampton at all times ideally and appropriately lengthened to 12 cars South of Northampton when needed.

London - Birmingham - Crewe via Stoke-on-Trent and Rugeley Trent Valley via Walsall should be 4+4 splitting at Birmingham New Street. Also make an additional call at Longport on the Crewes.

 

[43074]

That's the same Southern who are, on the suburban services, ramping down portion working in favour of keeping trains long all day and removing splits and joins, right?

This is being done to eke out more capacity from the fleet and staff, which is the wrong reason to do it. I don't oppose portion working fundamentally (I strongly support it in some cases, e.g. the Barrows/Windermeres would benefit), but simple, self-contained diagrams are vital. Then when things end up in a mess you can straighten it all out again with a couple of cancellations and some stepping-up.

With a complex web like this, you can't.

Portion working was not reduced on Southern, indeed it was introduced in the Metro area on the Tattenham Corner to London Bridge fast services, and is used to the same extent it was before at Horsham and Haywards Heath: what changed was that there were fewer attachments and detachments at the London termini and less interworking between services. Overall performance is much better, though.

Back to LNW's Birmingham services, from May we'll have:

xx15 London Euston to Crewe via Birmingham New Street (detaches Rugeley portion)
xx24 London Euston to Rugeley Trent Valley
xx49 London Euston to Liverpool Lime Street via Birmingham New Street
Birmingham International to Liverpool Lime Street

Liverpool Lime Street to London Euston (xx54 from Birmingham New Street)
Rugeley Trent Valley to London Euston (xx14 from Birmingham New Street)
Crewe to London Euston (xx33 from Birmingham New Street, attaches Liverpool portion)
Rugeley Trent Valley to Birmingham International

Of course it isn't going to work: platform workings at Euston are tightened by the fact that platforms 17 and 18 are no longer available so many reoccupation times are less than ten minutes, there is interworking everywhere, e.g. Rugeley services form Liverpool services at Birmingham International, Tring workings are formed by services from all of Milton Keynes, Crewe (Birmingham and Trent Valley), Rugeley and Liverpool: it's a mess.

I suspect the only reason this was agreed in the first place is that it reduces platform occupation times at Birmingham New Street, which is the only way to make the extra Crewe and Shrewsbury services fit at New Street, but it isn't a new concept at all - it was widely used by Central Trains until the mid 2000s (e.g. Hereford to Nottingham, Shrewsbury to Lincoln, Stansted to Liverpool) and was removed to, erm, improve performance.

 

[theshillito]

Out of interest, if they were to build some form of access provision from the southbound platform across the field to the road, would Network Rail (or whoever were to fund it) need to provide it all the way to the nearest safe pedestrian walkway, or could they literally dump them on the roadside despite it having no segregated pedestrian access? I genuinely have no idea how far obligation and legality goes with this sort of planning so would be interested to know!

It wouldn't be the only station to dump you directly onto the road I know of. Goostrey station has the gate for southbound platform directly on a road bridge with no footpath https://goo.gl/maps/CJtscy65G8yUZ5gJ9

Might not be allowed *now* compared to when Goostrey station was built.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It wouldn't be the only station to dump you directly onto the road I know of. Goostrey station has the gate for southbound platform directly on a road bridge with no footpath https://goo.gl/maps/CJtscy65G8yUZ5gJ9

Might not be allowed *now* compared to when Goostrey station was built.

Beaulieu Road does as well.

The upside with regard to Polesworth is that with some rejigging the road looks wide enough to add a pavement. There is a marked pedestrian "lane" which could be moved to the other side and raised as an actual pavement.

 

[RealTrains07]

Southern area seems to manage the concept of portion working quite well. Let’s see. As long as there is contingency drivers and guards allocated, should trains not turn up on time to couple up, then why wouldn’t it work. Even we do it at VT, admittedly on a smaller scale, but by and large it works. Give it a chance first before condemning it. You can do you’re ‘told you so’ then, IF it doesn’t work well.

Say for example, 2 trains meant to join up at brum. 1 train doesnt turn up. Could the other one leave without it?

 

[driver_m]

If you have contingency staff yes. Or a sufficient number of spare staff, yes. The trouble would obviously come if part of that chain goes missing.

 

[RealTrains07]

From a passenger perspective I fear that this new timetable is a bit too confusing and complex for my liking. It's too asymmetrical and involves too much portion working going to and from random places and sidings.

I would rather have just seen this simplified to, and advertised as, two London - Birmingham - Liverpool an hour and one London - Birmingham - Rugeley & Crewe via Stoke an hour instead, with the same calling pattern both directions.

I don't like the fact that a Rugeley train will call at Watford Junction, Hemel Hempstead and all stops to Northampton northbound but runs non stop southbound from Leighton Buzzard to London Euston.

The London - Birmingham - Liverpool should be fixed 8 car North of Northampton at all times ideally and appropriately lengthened to 12 cars South of Northampton when needed.

London - Birmingham - Crewe via Stoke-on-Trent and Rugeley Trent Valley via Walsall should be 4+4 splitting at Birmingham New Street. Also make an additional call at Longport on the Crewes.

I dont like the fact they are having crewe and rugeley joint trains splitting at birmingham when they already have a train going direct the rugeley anyway without having to split at n street

 

[RealTrains07]

The recent stakeholder presentation made the following comments. Through trains are a good idea in theory for the reasons given. But only time will tell whether it works in practice.

Birmingham New St

•Currently 10 services terminate and start –turnrounds -at New St every off-peak hour which occupy platforms

•May 2019 adds two more services which would be 12 but our changes mean we will only have THREE turnrounds

•Platform occupation will be reduced from 114 minutes to only 65 minutes

•New St has the highest level of reactionary delay on the network so this will improve performance for all operators

•New portion working for New St but we have been preparing for this with a military-style process​

What are the 3 turnouts then? And what are the 2 services being added?

 

[ChrisHogan]

What are the 3 turnouts then? And what are the 2 services being added?

The three turnrounds at NS from May should be the two Shrewsburys and the Hereford. Rather more than that in the peaks when the Herefords are more frequent.

The problem with congestion at New Street isn't platform occupation but the ironwork at each end that reduces capacity. You can spend ten minutes (particularly) at Proof House yet the station is half empty on Traksy or OpenTrainTimes.

I share concerns about the practicability of the new timetable.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Of course it isn't going to work: platform workings at Euston are tightened by the fact that platforms 17 and 18 are no longer available so many reoccupation times are less than ten minutes, there is interworking everywhere, e.g. Rugeley services form Liverpool services at Birmingham International, Tring workings are formed by services from all of Milton Keynes, Crewe (Birmingham and Trent Valley), Rugeley and Liverpool: it's a mess.

I suspect the only reason this was agreed in the first place is that it reduces platform occupation times at Birmingham New Street, which is the only way to make the extra Crewe and Shrewsbury services fit at New Street, but it isn't a new concept at all - it was widely used by Central Trains until the mid 2000s (e.g. Hereford to Nottingham, Shrewsbury to Lincoln, Stansted to Liverpool) and was removed to, erm, improve performance.

The Industry planning community rumour is that the mastermind behind the bizarre Central Trains join ups has had a big hand in this timetable. In which case the resource plan will be "interesting" as his previous plans involved short turnrounds after very long journeys and also train crew having to be remarkably fit when (often) changing trains!

Apparently, the only serious performance modeling has been Euston to Bourne End, to model the loss of the two platforms. Nobody has done a Railsys on Birmingham New Street in a perturbed state, which is weird as some of the platform re-occupations at Birmingham New Street look really "brave" to me. Unsurprisingly, the DfT are now starting to wake up to the potential horror if it all goes wrong on the day. But it's much too late to do anything significant now.

 

[The Planner]

Railsys wouldn't necessarily tell you anything though as it will run a perturbed timetable and that is it, it cannot make decisions which is pretty much key to somewhere like New St. To be honest, it is very rare that a performance model is done on any timetable change, it is normally off the back of an infrastructure change such as taking out 17 & 18 at Euston as you note. Interested to know where the brave re-occupations are.

 

[DavidGrain]

I am assuming that if a contingency train were kept for late running duties into Birmingham, it would have to come from Soho so a path would have to be found for it to cross the Down Stour Valley onto the up Stour Valley to run to New Street.

Sometime ago I heard an announcement that a XC train would be departing late from New Street because the crew were on a delayed inbound train.

All this makes me wonder how they managed back in steam days with rosters having to be calculated on paper with crews often having to lodge away from home on some turns.and locos being switched for refueling and coaches attached and detached on the long distance trains.

 

[RealTrains07]

The three turnrounds at NS from May should be the two Shrewsburys and the Hereford. Rather more than that in the peaks when the Herefords are more frequent.

The problem with congestion at New Street isn't platform occupation but the ironwork at each end that reduces capacity. You can spend ten minutes (particularly) at Proof House yet the station is half empty on Traksy or OpenTrainTimes.

I share concerns about the practicability of the new timetable.

So no LNR turnarounds at New street after new timetable? Improvement i guess lets hope it works

 

[Bletchleyite]

So no LNR turnarounds at New street after new timetable? Improvement i guess lets hope it works

I hope so but I don't think it will. Too much complexity.

If as someone else said above you'd kept it simple - 2 Euston-Brum-Liverpool circuits and a Euston-Brum-Rugeley/Crewe one all fully self-contained, I think it'd work fine.

 

[DavidGrain]

Turnrounds at New Street which also have to be taken into account include Virgin 2tph and XC Leicester & Stanstead and some XC Nottingham-Cardiff which terminate at Birmingham. TfW continue to International to turnround.
There was a time many years ago when the BR Inter City London trains used to go for a run round the Soho Loop in order to avoid standing in New Street.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

In recent years Platform 4c at New St has been invaluable for keeping the Liverpool service going, allowing trains to slip in and out with minimal congestion.
It will be unused by Liverpool services if the trains are splitting/joining on through platforms, and from RTT it looks like it will be used by Shrewsbury services instead.
So if the through services go pear-shaped there will be nowhere to turn round Liverpool services as now.
It's going to get interesting on the Stour Valley line next month!

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's going to get interesting on the south WCML as well... at least my favourite morning train, while it no longer starts from Bletchley, will be 12.319 rather than 8.319 so might actually have enough capacity. With 3 units a decent chance of a /2 in the formation too!

 

[43074]

Apparently, the only serious performance modeling has been Euston to Bourne End, to model the loss of the two platforms. Nobody has done a Railsys on Birmingham New Street in a perturbed state, which is weird as some of the platform re-occupations at Birmingham New Street look really "brave" to me. Unsurprisingly, the DfT are now starting to wake up to the potential horror if it all goes wrong on the day. But it's much too late to do anything significant now.

Interested to know where the brave re-occupations are.

Platform 7 between 1230 and 1240 on a weekday for instance: the Bristol to Manchester, followed by the Birmingham International to Liverpool, followed by a Euston to Rugeley. All it needs is for the Manchester to lose five minutes or so on the CrossCity and platform alterations will be needed...

To be honest with platforms 17 and 18 out at Euston this is probably the worst time to be doing this sort of thing, there's probably more of a case to split the London to Birmingham services at Northampton to remove some of the splitting & joining and protect WCML South performance than to be adding Liverpool/Crewe/Rugeley services to the Birmingham end. Ah well, maybe it won't be so bad after all.

 

[RailAleFan]

Stafford departure screens are going to be showing 3 London Euston services in the space of 11 minutes at certain times during the day.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Stafford departure screens are going to be showing 3 London Euston services in the space of 11 minutes at certain times during the day.

They might want to put notes on them showing the TOC, but we cope with that at MKC fine

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Stafford departure screens are going to be showing 3 London Euston services in the space of 11 minutes at certain times during the day.

Crewe currently has xx56/01/02 to Euston (VT from Chester direct, VT from Scotland via Birmingham, LNR via Stoke and TV).
After the change it will be: xx56/01/01/33/51 (VT from Chester, VT from Scotland, LNR via Stoke/Brum, LNR via TV, LNR from Liverpool via Brum).
Plus the existing xx22/29 VTs ex Liverpool/Manchester.

That's two xx01s to both Birmingham and London (one runs via Stoke)!
And the station summary PIS doesn't show the operator, one of NR's seemingly permanent PIS shortcomings.

 

[The Planner]

Platform 7 between 1230 and 1240 on a weekday for instance: the Bristol to Manchester, followed by the Birmingham International to Liverpool, followed by a Euston to Rugeley. All it needs is for the Manchester to lose five minutes or so on the CrossCity and platform alterations will be needed...

The XC will have to have dropped more than that considering its got 8 minutes up its sleeve from Longbridge as it follows the Bromsgrove Lichfield in. There will be agreed contingency anyway as it wouldn't have got through TCRAG without it (Timetable Change Risk Assessment Group). It will be the Birmingham International Liverpool that will cause the problems as if anything goes wrong on the Cov corridor that gets regulated back at International.

 

[The Planner]

And the station summary PIS doesn't show the operator, one of NR's seemingly permanent PIS shortcomings.

Shouldn't be difficult to sort, New St deals with it, Birmingham International does too.