Passengers told to disembark due skipping stops but train then called?

[jamiearmley]

As per the link you posted earlier on, departed Victoria 17 minutes late, arrived at Leeds 15 minutes late. Therefore it only regained 2 minutes,

And how can a train pass another at Rochdale due to the track layout?

They passed each other between Manchester Victoria and Miles Platting, easily done with the 4 track layout. By Miles Platting the Chester-Leeds was in front of the Wigan-Leeds

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Aug 2025 ==

That announcement takes almost a minute to read out, absolutely doesn't need to waffle on complimentary tickets being "worth their weight in gold" and doesn't place enough emphasis on the fact that any passenger for Rochdale or Todmorden need to get off at Victoria to avoid being over carried. Add in the time taken to look up those connections and you're easily looking at a few minutes. That's fine if you find out about the change just after leaving Newton-le-Willows, it's no good if you find out once you've already passed Eccles and need to make sure that people who thought they were going to be onboard for another 20 minutes are fully aware that they need to get ready to leave the train in the next 2 or 3 minutes.

I'll disagree with you there, respectfully. Even if the announcement wasn't made until the train was on the platform at Victoria and the doors released, it should have been made. Connection information can be found in seconds by people who spend all day doing the job, and is essential information to provide to those who are traveling. The key theme in this thread is the lack of provided information - as it is in so many threads on here. Until we get used to providing information quickly and clearly, dissatisfaction will continue - which makes everyone's life harder.

(What isn't essential is the automated rubbish which promises to make up time during the journey and is played every 3 minutes at top volume.)

 

[Tetchytyke]

As per the link you posted earlier on, departed Victoria 17 minutes late, arrived at Leeds 15 minutes late. Therefore it only regained 2 minutes,

Had it been kept behind the stopper and stopped at all the stations it would have lost more time, possibly as much as another 17 minutes.

Many people won't be able to process that - and will ask at Manchester Victoria on arrival - but those that can, will

That’s word soup and at an intelligible speaking pace it will take 60-90 seconds to read through.

Anyone who understands that will already be very well appraised as to how the station monitors works and how Delay Repay works, so what’s the point? Those that don’t understand it will still look at the monitors, then ask the staff twice, then look at the monitors again, then ask the staff a third time, so what’s the point?

And that’s assuming, of course, that the trains don’t change in the meantime. Telling someone to catch a delayed stopper which, unbeknown to the guard, has already has been caped just aggravates people more. Telling people to go to platform 5 when it’s actually been moved to platform 4 just confuses people. Platform alterations are extremely common at Manchester Victoria because it is now such a busy station with such limited capacity.

Example: my mum was at Victoria last year and the ticket clerk helpfully told her the next train to Bradford was on platform 1. For some reason they used platform 2 instead but, because the clerk has said platform 1 she disregarded it and almost missed it. She would have missed it if she’d not texted me to moan that the next train was in an hour.

There really is such a thing as too much information.

 

[Spartacus]

As per the link you posted earlier on, departed Victoria 17 minutes late, arrived at Leeds 15 minutes late. Therefore it only regained 2 minutes,

And how can a train pass another at Rochdale due to the track layout?

Just by losing the two stops in helped by 5 minutes as there's 3 minutes worth of TSRs there, which thanks to not stopping it didn't lose time to.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Aug 2025 ==

And as was seen at Victoria a couple of weeks ago, the screens can tell you one thing, the platform staff another, the crew another again.

I'm expecting you didn't consult all three at the same time? As we've said, things are fluid, not fixed, all three might have been right at the time you consulted them.

 

[Bantamzen]

I'm expecting you didn't consult all three at the same time? As we've said, things are fluid, not fixed, all three might have been right at the time you consulted them.

Actually yes, well within a couple of minutes timeframe. Having been advised to move from P6 to P5 by platform staff (and I think also the tannoy although I personally couldn't hear it at that time), we were advised that a unit on P5 was going to be heading up the Calder Valley so we started to board. As I had passed under the boards I noted that the first Calder Valley service was still advertised as P6 (and there was a unit sat empty there the whole time, and was the reason most people had gone there in the first place). Within 30 seconds a member of train crew (I presume) announced on the unit that it was going nowhere and to immediately get off. As we did a member off staff on the platform said categorically it was to go to Leeds ASAP, but the the unit was locked out of use. Then within a further couple of minutes it was unlocked and staff again reiterated it was headed for Leeds.

For a bit of context this was around 11:30ish, and the block had been going on for a good hour or two prior to me arriving at Victoria. I had arrived shortly prior to thus via TfW and Oxford Road having abandoned a Chester - Leeds unit at Warrington Bank Quay because of the ongoing issues. So all platforms were packed, and many punters getting very fed up at the lack of information. Anyway eventually said unit did indeed depart around 11:51 for Leeds (and ironically was the same unit I'd left behind at Warrington!).

This by the way isn't about blaming the staff on the ground. It was clear there were multiple messages going around, and at the same time causing all manner of confusion. This is about highlighting that poor, conflicting or simply no information can become a major issue in it's own right. In the case of the other Saturday, it was a very prudent decision to get the unit on P5 going, a combination of platform hopping, growing crowds, all those mixed messages you could sense the mood worsening. And this is something the whole of the industry needs to address. If there are not enough people in control, then get more in. Make sure that a clear contingency exists for getting the correct comms out to all as soon as possible, that it is adhered to, and to ensure public facing staff have immediate access to it as well as a channel to query and update if things get confused as they did.

 

[yorkie]

As per the link you posted earlier on, departed Victoria 17 minutes late, arrived at Leeds 15 minutes late. Therefore it only regained 2 minutes,

And how can a train pass another at Rochdale due to the track layout?

OK it overtook between MCV and RCD (see post above by @jamiearmley ); schedules from RTT are attached.

Arguably what happened in reality has to be compared with the counterfactual; I'm pretty sure that if the stops had not been removed, the alternative was to simply keep it behind the stopper, and that removing the stops was done on the basis of minimising the overall delay to both trains, and avoiding big gaps in the service later (e.g. for people joining at stations from Hebden Bridge towards Leeds).

I think the service alteration was the right call.

However, I understand it's alleged that communication was poor. This is absolutely consistent with my experiences of Northern and is in line with my expectations of a company of the reputation/calibre of Northern. But that's a separate matter, and the issue of poor communication at TOCs such as Northern is unlikely to change any time soon, if ever.

 

[Mattplans]

Skip stopping is one of the things RTT isn't capable of handling at all, or cancelled stops en-route. Where a train has been diverted from its' booked course but will later rejoin its' booked route, it will show the stops it was supposed to make as 'No Report'. It will only show 'Not Stopping' on an after-the-fact basis after the train has basically gone through the station. If the train stops (but doesn't release doors) RTT obviously can't detect this and will record this as a stop (as you'd usually expect).