full and standing 3 car unit
This is a regular occurance, even although TPE in theory have sufficient rolling stock to run the full pre covid timetable. There is no way that 3 car units should be running York Leeds Manchester 'fast' services. What with day before cancellations, and then further cancellations/short running most days the service is usuable, as you cannot plan a journey even 24 hours ahead.
Most of the day there are 2tph timetabled before cancellations York - Manchester, and if one of these is 3 car that reduces capacity to 8 coaches per hour, little better than the situation in the early 80s, and then add in cancellations and even with reduced passenger numbers there is not sufficient capacity.
Given that this 'service' is the primary connection between the 3rd & 4th* largest Engish cities it is not an acceptable situation. (*depending on how you interpret data, the city of Liverpool is no. 4 but the Leeds urban zone is more populous and at no. 4), then add in the problems on the south route.
The problems have been the subject of press coverage over the last few weeks, but I get the feeling that the high ups in TPE dont care. Front line staff are left to sort out a mess not of their making, not just now and then but on a daily basis, and its been going on since May 2018 with a short respite during the Covid lockdown, one (ex)staff member I know socially has jacked it in and gone and done something different, quoting day to day stress of dealing with disgruntled passengers, and I suspect they are not alone. Until TPE have some commercial risk attached to failing to run the required service nothing will change. Some on here will be quick to defend TPE and point out failings from the DfT, but ultimately as a passenger my dealings are with TPE, its not very different from buying a car from a garage, it develops a fault, you take it back to the garage where you bought it, not to a factory somewhere miles away.
I would be interested to see passenger figures for the TPE routes, there must have been a drop, or at least a lower recovery from Covid figures than has been seen elsewhere. People are making other arrangements or in the case of some journeys just not making them.
What is sad is that a case is being made for further route upgrades, but while the existing service is so poor it helps those who would like to can all investment on the basis that existing resources, both in terms of paths and rolling stock are not being used.
www.tpexpress.co.uk
