Future of TPE

[Nicholas Lewis]

Or they have a management that are continually saying "almost there, just need to tweak this and we will be fine next week"
In which case they need a big scary top boss a bit like one we had once
"Right stop.....the only word I want to hear out of your mouth is either yes or no, nothing else.....Are you fully ready to implement this?"

The timetable changes sre supposed to be stressed tested for deliverability both for the WTT and the resource plan by and independent panel since 2018 fiasco. So either it wasn't done or the the findings were ignored - you'll never get an answer.

Also going back to 2018 i had to put up with the Thamelink fiasco everyday but GTR got a grip of and resourced stacks of extra resources into key locations to rapidly respond to crew issues. Basically a temporary crew depot got created at East Croydon for instance and other locations so they could head off problems along with extra staff to support control so more real time intervention was carried out to keep the service on the move. This lasted for several months whilst they got crew training complete and by the mid Sept TT update we had something akin to what May 2018 should have been.

TPE allegedly have a plan to deal with underlying problems but its kept locked up tighter than the crown jewels - what have they got to hide and why aren't elected MPs/councillors being more demanding. Giving this to OLR should be a last resort but they can buy time by being transparent with people.

 

[Bletchleyite]

On a commuter route where there is no alternative service? I'm thinking Leeds-Huddersfield in particular. There might be some scope to punt Manchester-Leeds passengers onto Northern Calder services (and from what I've seen some punters already use this), but they don't have a lot of wriggle room especially in the peaks, so you could end up turning one problem into two.

Commuters mostly use season tickets thus reservations don't come into it. As things stand you need to actively put off leisure and discretionary business travellers unless there's space.

There is an alternative - the car. In the current position directing people into it may be the only option.

It is not desirable any more than halving Avanti's service was, but it is necessary.

 

[Bantamzen]

Commuters mostly use season tickets thus reservations don't come into it. As things stand you need to actively put off leisure and discretionary business travellers unless there's space.

So allow commuters on without reservations, but not leisure travellers? I can see a problem or three with that...

There is an alternative - the car. In the current position directing people into it may be the only option.

I'll see you the car, and raise you both the traffic chaos around Leeds with a myriad of roadworks & the cost of car parking in the city. There are of course 3 Park & Ride facilities, but two are on the wrong side of the city. So again, without any other means to reach the centre such as an underground or tram network, I can see problems...

It is not desirable any more than halving Avanti's service was, but it is necessary.

And again Avanti is primarily a long distance service, that has alternatives for passengers using it on shorter journeys. The North TP does not have anything like the same capacity to simply dial back TPEs to a bare minimum. All you would create is even more problems whilst solving none.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So allow commuters on without reservations, but not leisure travellers? I can see a problem or three with that...

I said pseudocompulsory, not compulsory. Like Avanti and LNER now, nobody would ever check it. It would just be a means of managing expectations by not selling walk-up tickets "for" trains already likely to be overcrowded, or ones which even with serious cuts may well not ru.

I'll see you the car, and raise you both the traffic chaos around Leeds with a myriad of roadworks & the cost of car parking in the city. There are of course 3 Park & Ride facilities, but two are on the wrong side of the city. So again, without any other means to reach the centre such as an underground or tram network, I can see problems...

Not going is an option. Or for companies arranging the meeting elsewhere, e.g. at a motorway-junction hotel type venue better accessible by car.

And again Avanti is primarily a long distance service, that has alternatives for passengers using it on shorter journeys. The North TP does not have anything like the same capacity to simply dial back TPEs to a bare minimum. All you would create is even more problems whilst solving none.

So you're unwilling to accept measures to manage the situation, which means it cannot improve. Enjoy the terrible service. I preferred Avanti operating a realistic service than a random one myself.

 

[Bantamzen]

I said pseudocompulsory, not compulsory. Like Avanti and LNER now, nobody would ever check it. It would just be a means of managing expectations by not selling walk-up tickets "for" trains already likely to be overcrowded, or ones which even with serious cuts may well not ru.

Are you suggesting that a Leeds-Huddersfield walk-up ticket shouldn't be sold?

Not going is an option. Or for companies arranging the meeting elsewhere, e.g. at a motorway-junction hotel type venue better accessible by car.

I'm not talking about meetings or jobs that can be relocated elsewhere, I'm talking about people that have to work in places like Leeds, people that don't have the choice. I can't imagine Leeds has anything like the proportional number of people travelling to it for meetings that the capital has. Most people travel to Leeds in the peaks because their jobs require them to.

So you're unwilling to accept measures to manage the situation, which means it cannot improve. Enjoy the terrible service. I preferred Avanti operating a realistic service than a random one myself.

Its not me making the decisions, or even using the service (Northern do a far better job right now of getting across the Pennines). What I am pointing out to you is that you cannot use a temporary (?) solution for a long distance service on services that also have to act as commuter as well as longer distance trains. For a lot of people crossing the Pennines, or simply commuting into Leeds or Manchester TPE is the only rail option. I can't speak for Manchester, but effectively shutting off a major commuter route because things got a bit difficult would cause utter chaos in Leeds. Crikey Leeds Council has managed that perfectly well without any help from TPE.

 

[MattRat]

Are you suggesting that a Leeds-Huddersfield walk-up ticket shouldn't be sold?

If Leeds to Huddersfield is such an important route, shouldn't there be a Northern service that people can take instead?

 

[Jonny]

You could look at other-than Northern TOCs who could take parts of the franchise. The trouble is that the only natural one for the WCML/Class 397 routes would be Avanti, who have problems of their own, never mind the relatively small portions of "new" track needed (might be as little as the Manchester Airport spur depending on what they have for diversions). At worst they would need Preston to Liverpool-Manchester and Chat Moss, which they likely have for empty stock workings and diversions.

The other one would be the Cleethorpes-Manchester/Liverpool route to EMT who already cover large sections.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are you suggesting that a Leeds-Huddersfield walk-up ticket shouldn't be sold?

It shouldn't be sold with a specific service selected if that service is already deemed full in a limited-capacity scenario, no.

Are you familiar with how LNER and Avanti are doing pseudocompulsory reservations at the moment?

Its not me making the decisions, or even using the service (Northern do a far better job right now of getting across the Pennines). What I am pointing out to you is that you cannot use a temporary (?) solution for a long distance service on services that also have to act as commuter as well as longer distance trains. For a lot of people crossing the Pennines, or simply commuting into Leeds or Manchester TPE is the only rail option. I can't speak for Manchester, but effectively shutting off a major commuter route because things got a bit difficult would cause utter chaos in Leeds. Crikey Leeds Council has managed that perfectly well without any help from TPE.

It's got more than a bit difficult. The service at present is actually useless.

 

[Greybeard33]

Given that FirstGroup did this with Avanti, why aren't they doing it for TPE? Has DaFT told them not to?

According to @Watershed in the (now locked) Late Notice Cancellation thread (and not refuted by subsequent posters), DfT has indeed refused to allow TPE to cut the timetable any further:

The DfT is also refusing to allow TPE to reduce its timetable to allow it to become more reliable, as they don't want a repeat of the negative column inches that the Avanti reductions brought on (particularly given the sensitivity of 'levelling up the North' etc.). But without a TT reduction or a change in the industrial relations position, things won't improve!

In the circumstances, TPE is doing exactly what the DfT is asking it to do, and cannot realistically be expected to perform much better. However, in order to be seen to "punish" a poorly performing operator, it's still likely that the contract won't be extended, and that the OLR will take over.

 

[Some guy]

OLR taking over wont achieve anything. The same bloated top hravy management structure will remain in place. Those managers responsible for the franchise being in the position it is in now will still be there making the same damaging decisions, the only difference is they wont be able to hind behind the "shareholder value" mantra so beloved of them and their inability to put customer service first

It does mean the government can’t play the blame game if taken under OLR so they will give more of a damn to run a service

 

[dosxuk]

It does mean the government can’t play the blame game if taken under OLR so they will give more of a damn to run a service

Of course they can - the Government are still regularly trying to blame Labour for their issues even though it's more than 10 years since they were anywhere near power. Even with OLR in place, they can continue to blame poor performance on the state the previous management had left the company in before the Government rescued us.

 

[Bantamzen]

It shouldn't be sold with a specific service selected if that service is already deemed full in a limited-capacity scenario, no.

Are you familiar with how LNER and Avanti are doing pseudocompulsory reservations at the moment?



It's got more than a bit difficult. The service at present is actually useless.

Again you are forgetting, or ignoring that the North TP route is not a purely inter city route where operators can suppress demand through reservations or pseudoreservations, or by surge pricing. It is also, some might even say primarily a commuter route. Large portions of it sit within one of two large transport authorities with their own season ticketing which will be used by a large proportion of those people commuting. Many others will simply rock up and buy a walk up ticket for the next train.

So dialling back services to the bare minimum won't solve anything, people who spread themselves over 3 or 4 services an hour will simply shoehorn onto whatever is left. This will then lead to delays, cancellations and exactly the same problems, but with reduced capacity. I fail to see what any of your ideas would solve. Your goto seems to be "if it gets hard can it, and hope the punters will bugger off elsewhere". I'm sorry to say this won't work on this instance, it just won't. Of that I am very sure.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So dialling back services to the bare minimum won't solve anything, people who spread themselves over 3 or 4 services an hour will simply shoehorn onto whatever is left. This will then lead to delays, cancellations and exactly the same problems, but with reduced capacity. I fail to see what any of your ideas would solve. Your goto seems to be "if it gets hard can it, and hope the punters will bugger off elsewhere". I'm sorry to say this won't work on this instance, it just won't. Of that I am very sure.

And the other option is what? Keep the mess as it is?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Mar 2023 ==

According to @Watershed in the (now locked) Late Notice Cancellation thread (and not refuted by subsequent posters), DfT has indeed refused to allow TPE to cut the timetable any further:

Might have known

Absolute fools. Does mean OLRing it won't help, then.

 

[MattRat]

It does mean the government can’t play the blame game if taken under OLR so they will give more of a damn to run a service

Well interestingly governments can actually achieve things when they want to. Look how quickly they turned round the Northern franchise when it went OLR. Of course, that was likely because they believed they could score an 'easy win' (which they did), but from the passengers perspective, who cares as long as you can actually get a train.

 

[mike57]

According to @Watershed in the (now locked) Late Notice Cancellation thread (and not refuted by subsequent posters), DfT has indeed refused to allow TPE to cut the timetable any further:

The problem is it doesn't make more trains run, just creates a 'will it turn up' lottery, which is even worse

 

[Bantamzen]

And the other option is what? Keep the mess as it is?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Mar 2023 ==

Until a myriad of other issues are resolved there simply isn't one. So what happens if TPE were allowed to cut to the bone and it still didn't work because there was a scrum for every peak service? Chuck in the towel, tell punters to jump on the 202/203 bus, or tell them to get a job elsewhere?

People can choose their leisure travel options on a whim, not so much for their work options. TPE are contracts to provide commuter services, so they have to try to run as many as possible, not just give up.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Until a myriad of other issues are resolved there simply isn't one. So what happens if TPE were allowed to cut to the bone and it still didn't work because there was a scrum for every peak service? Chuck in the towel, tell punters to jump on the 202/203 bus, or tell them to get a job elsewhere?

People can choose their leisure travel options on a whim, not so much for their work options. TPE are contracts to provide commuter services, so they have to try to run as many as possible, not just give up.

Yes, they have to run as many as possible reliably. The timetable should be cut until they can do so.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Mar 2023 ==

The problem is it doesn't make more trains run, just creates a 'will it turn up' lottery, which is even worse

Exactly.

 

[Bantamzen]

Yes, they have to run as many as possible reliably. The timetable should be cut until they can do so.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Mar 2023 ==



Exactly.

And how do you run reliable commuter services with far less capacity than is needed, at a frequency that is far from ideal?

 

[Meerkat]

And how do you run reliable commuter services with far less capacity than is needed, at a frequency that is far from ideal?

If those commuter services are really that essential maybe they will get priority when deciding the reduced timetable - longer trains, short trips, or peak extras.

 

[Killingworth]

I hardly like to mention it but TPE are trying to operate an hourly service over the core Sheffield - Manchester section but the published regular timetable already has a gap in each direction before late cancellations. Some days both run as empty coaching stock. Phantom Nova 3s!

 

[Bantamzen]

If those commuter services are really that essential maybe they will get priority when deciding the reduced timetable - longer trains, short trips, or peak extras.

Hold on? "If those commuter services are essential"? Are you being serious? How long has the debate raged on this forum that the route was horribly under capacity?

Quite honestly the mind boggles on here sometimes, it really does...

 

[Trainbike46]

Hold on? "If those commuter services are essential"? Are you being serious? How long has the debate raged on this forum that the route was horribly under capacity?

Quite honestly the mind boggles on here sometimes, it really does...

having a timetable full of trains that don't show up is no help to anyone though.

Making a real assesment of both what can be run reliably, and what services are most essential, to come up with an emergency timetable to rebuild from there worked reasonably well for avanti. If the temporary timetable prioritises the commuter services, and services on routes without other operators, then there would actually be more services running on those routes, as far as possible with traincrew availability

 

[Meerkat]

Hold on? "If those commuter services are essential"? Are you being serious? How long has the debate raged on this forum that the route was horribly under capacity?

Quite honestly the mind boggles on here sometimes, it really does...

Essential - couldn't be done a bit earlier/later or by another operator. And if commuters know then they can adapt, rather than be stuck for ages if the train just doesn't turn up.

 

[InkyScrolls]

Couple of reasons :
some of the staff might not live near start and end, so have to commute to the journey commencement point (and if they commute on TPE probably late a quarter of the time)
The other is scheduling of breaks. So to allow a lunch (mid shift) break would normally work a return just over an hour later. Not great at the extremities if service only runs every 2 hours as probably going to have to wait for next return service so break will be nearer 2 hours 20 (assuming trains have a 20 minute turnaround, and run every 2 hours)

Staff travel time is irrelevant.

When breaks are scheduled is almost irrelevant - there is no attempt to make them line up with mealtimes.

 

[Bantamzen]

having a timetable full of trains that don't show up is no help to anyone though.

Making a real assesment of both what can be run reliably, and what services are most essential, to come up with an emergency timetable to rebuild from there worked reasonably well for avanti. If the temporary timetable prioritises the commuter services, and services on routes without other operators, then there would actually be more services running on those routes, as far as possible with traincrew availability

Conversely having a commuter timetable so scarce that you know your choices are to trying and batter ram your way onto a train that is remotely useful to your needs, or face endless delays on the roads only to pay even more than the train fare in daily car parking fees, well is helping people far, far less.

Essential - couldn't be done a bit earlier/later or by another operator. And if commuters know then they can adapt, rather than be stuck for ages if the train just doesn't turn up.

Essential - You need to get to work when your employer requires you to, and there is only one rail operator where your alternative is... Well see above...

 

[Jack Hay]

It does mean the government can’t play the blame game if taken under OLR so they will give more of a damn to run a service

Why doesn't that apply to NR and its repeated project over-runs and delays? I suggest that the government (all recent governments) are incapable of managing delivery and OLR won't be any improvement.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Why doesn't that apply to NR and its repeated project over-runs and delays? I suggest that the government (all recent governments) are incapable of managing delivery and OLR won't be any improvement.

Is that something that affects all politicians, national and local? There seems a trend to let city mayors (Burnham in Greater Manchester being a prime example) have free rein with transport in their mayoral area remit.

 

[mike57]

Is that something that affects all politicians, national and local? There seems a trend to let city mayors (Burnham in Greater Manchester being a prime example) have free rein with transport in their mayoral area remit.

I think the railways have been seen as a banana skin by governments for many years, probably dating from the time of the Beeching report, and therefore they much prefer to have someone between them and the front line that they can blame when things go wrong. Hence a lack of enthusiasm for sorting any of the current problems out, because if the goverment take things into direct control they cannot pass the blame.

 

[RailWonderer]

Another very grim day, so much so nobody bothers documenting their disappointments but I’ll go for it today. 15:00 ex-Manchester Pic cancelled. Passengers advised to take the 14:58 and change at Huddersfield and catch the stopper from there but it didn’t run either.

Realtime Trains | 1554 Huddersfield to Manchester Piccadilly | 09/03/2023

Real-time train running information for 1554 departure from Huddersfield to Manchester Piccadilly on 09/03/2023. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I don’t even want to touch TPE, I said to the woman at the ticket office when getting a refund it’s like being a ping pong ball and TPE is batting it’s customers back and forth with these left and right cancellations.

Others posters saying driving is equally punishing with congestion, taxes and verbal discouragement from the govt and poorly paved roads. At this point I don’t think I’m exaggerating by saying this country is not just broken, but anti growth, anti prosperity and anti progression.

My earlier train I was meant to catch at Crewe I missed as Avanti morning disruption rendered my service (10:02 ex-London Euston) 28 mins late and terminated at Crewe as the sub driver didn’t sign to Chester (OT I know).

Apparently this is to save on driver route knowledge costs, in the Virgin era more drivers knew more routes (is there any truth to this?) TPE is heading the same way that we know for sure.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Well OK maybe not the simplest solution. However would reducing the TPE routes to the bare bones really be the best solution? Remember TPE (as is) is basically a long distance & commuter service, one hamstrung by not being able to run particularly long formations. So knocking services down will just cause more scrums at peak hours through the TP core. I think that would create more problems than it would solve. People may well opt not to use as many long distance services whilst Avanti trims to recover, but passengers in the core may have less of a choice.

I don't think it is clear. The current service is a mess with no passengers (or staff) knowing which services are going to be cancelled each day. It can be assumed it is roughly the same level of cancellation day-to-day but different services. The benefit of making a temporary timetable with fewer services is that people will know weeks in advance what services are going to run. That is not fewer services than actually currently run at the moment BUT it is a predictable service pattern. To blindly cling on to the the current timetable is a foolish stupid naive approach that just generates unnecessary frustration.

A relable timetable is better than the current work of fiction. It is not enough trains, just as the current mess is not enough trains, but it is a predictable service.

You could look at other-than Northern TOCs who could take parts of the franchise. The trouble is that the only natural one for the WCML/Class 397 routes would be Avanti, who have problems of their own, never mind the relatively small portions of "new" track needed (might be as little as the Manchester Airport spur depending on what they have for diversions). At worst they would need Preston to Liverpool-Manchester and Chat Moss, which they likely have for empty stock workings and diversions.

The other one would be the Cleethorpes-Manchester/Liverpool route to EMT who already cover large sections.

Yes if TPE do not have enough drivers then how do Northern etc suddenly have enough drivers to take over.

Well interestingly governments can actually achieve things when they want to. Look how quickly they turned round the Northern franchise when it went OLR. Of course, that was likely because they believed they could score an 'easy win' (which they did), but from the passengers perspective, who cares as long as you can actually get a train.

Easy win would be if DfT miraculously let the OLR use Rest Day Working !.