Thoughts for the New Mainline Express for Northern Connect

[Harvey B]

What are the odds that the services that are going to make up Northern Connect will actually be branded as Northern connect services. I think Northern connect will exist in terms of the services (some of the NC services exist now) but I don't think it will exist in terms of branding

 

[quantinghome]

What are the odds that the services that are going to make up Northern Connect will actually be branded as Northern connect services. I think Northern connect will exist in terms of the services (some of the NC services exist now) but I don't think it will exist in terms of branding

Branding is the cheap part. Why go to the expense of running the services without some decent branding and marketing?

 

[Harvey B]

Branding is the cheap part. Why go to the expense of running the services without some decent branding and marketing?

I've not heard anything about Northern Connect for a while so the branding could have been silently scrapped

 

[quantinghome]

I've not heard anything about Northern Connect for a while so the branding could have been silently scrapped

The reason it's gone quiet is that Northern is fighting lots of fires. No operator in the their right mind would roll out the Northern Connect brand at present, not until the new trains are in place, the pacers are gone, the timetable is working and trains aren't constantly breaking down in service. If they did it now the brand image would be shot to pieces.

 

[Aictos]

I'd like to think they wouldn't eliminate the stop at Bradford Interchange ... there might be quite a big bang.

Taking out the stops at Blackburn/Accrington/Burnley would deny access east of the Pennines for these places and leave them with just all-stations services, which doesn't strike me as good enough. In the case of Accrington non-stop trains have to pass through so slowly that the time saving is pretty small.

The reason for that is the curve on the viaduct on the Leeds side of the station, can't remember the exact speed but there is a speed restriction on that viaduct.