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Can I please gently point out that these services, being diagrammed as two car 197s, are almost always going to be, in fact, two car 197s. By all means mention the crowding issues, and noting how many carriages are available is part of that, but being all shocked and outraged that the diagrammed traction was what turned up isn't likely to be very productive. The trains are two cars because they're not as busy as the Manchester Airport services. That's it.
If I were travelling I'd look to use an Avanti West Coast service personally, unless I wanted Shotton or Abergele & Pensarn.
I think the posters on here are gently pointing out that the diagram / plan is not the correct one - not that it isn't diagrammed as intended but that it is misjudged. I hope 4 becomes the minimum, regardless of the pathing and Manchester length (4 cars is not really so long) - and all year it becomes a big success.
And the other two regional services (Manchester and Birmingham) should always run at least as far as Bangor. I know some turn early.
Sounds like Liverpool-Shrewsbury is dead. Wrexham got the Crewe shuttle as an add-on, at least.
They all appear to be on just about minimum headway Chester - Mickle Trafford Jn - Frodsham Jn. In any case, the crossing moves at Halton Jn are a limiting factor.
So that leaves us with flexing at Chester and booked orders along the Coast. There are things that can be done here, but what would you endorse? Overtaking at Chester or Llandudno Jn would put substantial additional journey time into one or both services.
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I think the posters on here are gently pointing out that the diagram / plan is not the correct one - not that it isn't diagrammed as intended but that it is misjudged.
This was discussed at great length prior to the introduction of the new service though. It consumes more resources every day than the old timetable did.
Yes, there is sometimes standing. Yes, rarely people have to wait for the next train. That was judged a price worth paying in exchange for a through service between Liverpool and North Wales at most hours of the day Monday - Saturday. Do you disagree?
Again, totally possible. But it'd mean Llandudno and Deganwy would lose their through trains along the Coast. I actually tepidly endorsed that idea myself in the previous thread, as it would clear up the nonsense issue @Krokodil rightly points out where there are two trains immediately on top of one another. If trains were all shuttles, except for when the shuttle is replaced by the Valley service, a proper half-hourly even interval service could be delivered.
This improvement in usability and capacity is pie-in-the-sky though. Can you imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would be heard were Llandudno to lose direct trains to Rhyl etc? You might call the plan misjudged, but I'd call it an impressively good use of resources given the daft red lines imposed on TfW by local politicians.
The most you can hope for is the odd service to run with a three car 197 after the saga with the tram introduction is resolved. Some very careful shuffling could see a two car released from elsewhere too, for example, by pinching the Cambrian strengthening unit once those are all in service, or by using more three cars on Manchester Airport services. I suspect you would be one of the people to complain about that, though, too.
They all appear to be on just about minimum headway Chester - Mickle Trafford Jn - Frodsham Jn. In any case, the crossing moves at Halton Jn are a limiting factor.
So that leaves us with flexing at Chester and booked orders along the Coast. There are things that can be done here, but what would you endorse? Overtaking at Chester or Llandudno Jn would put substantial additional journey time into one or both services.
Running ten minutes earlier east of Chester should work. The outbound comes a bit close to an LNW but there's a considerable amount of slack in the outbound path to play with. West of Chester it would then be flighted right behind the Birmingham/Cardiff limited stop services. Then into Llandudno, return to Junction to connect with the Manchesters (hence benefiting a wider range of passengers, local and further afield), back to Llandudno and form the return to Liverpool.
You make it sound like it's only the odd occasion (race days or whatever). That's not been the case for the last 20 years. We shall see this summer how the new timetable performs.
Yes, there is sometimes standing. Yes, rarely people have to wait for the next train. That was judged a price worth paying in exchange for a through service between Liverpool and North Wales at most hours of the day Monday - Saturday. Do you disagree?
Yes, there is sometimes standing. Yes, rarely people have to wait for the next train. That was judged a price worth paying in exchange for a through service between Liverpool and North Wales at most hours of the day Monday - Saturday. Do you disagree?
I'm sorry (ironic given this is all...) apologism.
Those 197s are pitched up doing nothing. There are other units that could now be used too - yes it's the beginning but really a new regional service into a main city (which also passes another major regional hub) - shouldn't be launched w 2 cars. We're all happy to have it, but this doesn't mean they can't have underestimated flows and uptake.
As for the short turns, ironically (again) some go to Llandudno itself, a weird swap - vs the Junction - but yes I think certainly Bangor should have 3tph to Chester. There used to be a stopper to there, or sometimes Crewe, which might be useful for local journeys and to speed some others up.
Is that true? Because these two routes from Chester to Liverpool serve completely different intermediate stations (e.g. Liverpool South Parkway v the Wirral) this can mean that they are both very busy.
I'm sorry (ironic given this is all...) apologism.
Those 197s are pitched up doing nothing. There are other units that could now be used too - yes it's the beginning but really a new regional service into a main city (which also passes another major regional hub) - shouldn't be launched w 2 cars. We're all happy to have it, but this doesn't mean they can't have underestimated flows and uptake.
As for the short turns, ironically (again) some go to Llandudno itself, a weird swap - vs the Junction - but yes I think certainly Bangor should have 3tph to Chester. There used to be a stopper to there, or sometimes Crewe, which might be useful for local journeys and to speed some others up.
Why shouldn't it be launched with two cars? That's a ridiculous approach. It runs all day Monday - Saturday. Only a few trains a week will be carrying a heavy standing load, and most of those only in school holidays or on warm sunny Saturdays. As I said this crowding was clearly considered worthwhile as a risk in exchange for getting the service going the rest of the time. The only alternative would have been more extended delay.
You make it sound like it's only the odd occasion (race days or whatever). That's not been the case for the last 20 years. We shall see this summer how the new timetable performs.
I agree that taking the through trains off on the busiest days and running Llandudno as a shuttle would be a sensible move as it would much reduce the risk of this.
Now let's just imagine how that would go down eh...
Transport for Wales has a very low seat occupation factor of around a quarter overall. So maybe 0.5%? 0.025%? Generally people will squash themselves in rather than be left behind as travelling in an uncomfortably full train is far nicer than not travelling at all 99% of the time. The 197s are actually quite a bit better in this regard.
Leaving Liverpool at 38 would cut turnaround time to four minutes. That may be a price worth paying, but you then clash on the single line after Halton Jn anyway.
I was in Llandudno Junction today (sampling the hospitality of the Laundry Taproom) and the next stop on the pub crawl was in Llandudno. When will the next train be? Google Maps said 50 minutes time! That can't be right, surely the service has gone to half-hourly from the timetable change. So I looked it up on RTT and found that while there were indeed two trains per hour, they run a mere 10 minutes apart and having just missed one there was 50 minutes to wait for the next. Needless to say, we took the bus. The new timetable is as bad for local trips as the old one was.
Quite apart from the continued poor ferry connections at Holyhead (arrive in Holyhead from Dublin at 20:00 on a weekday and by the time that foot passengers have been able to disembark you'll have 8 hours to kill before the first train the next morning), the combining of Wrexham and Crewe shuttles might be handy for through passengers but is utterly useless for anyone wanting to access Wrexham from Manchester trains.
This much-vaunted timetable recast seems like a massive missed opportunity.
Surely most people are capable of looking up the journey planners and seeing which ferries have rail connections and which don’t, and there aren’t people regularly sitting in Holyhead for 8 hours?
That’s before you even look at the numbers of sail/rail passengers which are minute by comparison with those using air travel to cross the Irish Sea.
I recall that the original plan was for the services to be four coaches between Chester and Liverpool, having doubled up with the now-shelved Cardiff portions. Which is silly when you consider that Chester-Liverpool is much less busy than Llandudno-Chester because the former has competition from Merseyrail.
The thing is though, in North Wales these two-car services will run 10 minutes ahead of the Manchester services, which means that all of the Chester passengers will just pile onto the two-car Liverpool service and the only people who will bother waiting for the Manchesters will be those who actually want Warrington and Manchester.
If they were pathed a bit better, it wouldn't be an issue.
Surely most people are capable of looking up the journey planners and seeing which ferries have rail connections and which don’t, and there aren’t people regularly sitting in Holyhead for 8 hours?
That’s before you even look at the numbers of sail/rail passengers which are minute by comparison with those using air travel to cross the Irish Sea.
My reading of the post you're quoting is that it's nothing to do with people not understanding, it's just correctly pointing out that the service quality has continued to degrade. In this case though, that's primarily not railway-related, as it's primarily about the port.
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They are indeed completely inflexible between Earlestown and Manchester Airport. Changes at that level must be agreed pan-industry which is likely to happen next year and is very unlikely to give Transport for Wales any more flexibility than today.
At Liverpool Lime Street platforming is very restricted, and turnaround times are under pressure (not to short, but absolutely not too long). However if you can't even get past a clash on the single line on the curve that doesn't really matter.
Is that true? Because these two routes from Chester to Liverpool serve completely different intermediate stations (e.g. Liverpool South Parkway v the Wirral) this can mean that they are both very busy.
Most people aren't going to Birkenhead or Allerton, they're heading for the city centre. There's a healthy peak flow between Frodsham and Liverpool but nothing a two-car couldn't handle. On the North Wales side however the
Transport for Wales has a very low seat occupation factor of around a quarter overall. So maybe 0.5%? 0.025%? Generally people will squash themselves in rather than be left behind as travelling in an uncomfortably full train is far nicer than not travelling at all 99% of the time. The 197s are actually quite a bit better in this regard.
I'll tell you how "rarely" people get left behind by TfW in North Wales. It's four days per week (Fri-Mon) all summer. Plus any race days outside of that. Plus virtually every Sunday. Have you ever actually tried travelling in North Wales at the height of silly season?
I spent years getting sworn at because people couldn't get on a train. One woman even managed to get a court fine for the homophobic abuse she gave me when I said that I couldn't accommodate an unfolded pram. Yet when chatting to a Lime Street guard, they had only left passengers behind once in their career. And yes, outside of urban metros where there will be another train to the same place in a few minutes, leaving passengers behind should indeed be an exceptional occurrence.
Leaving Liverpool at 38 would cut turnaround time to four minutes. That may be a price worth paying, but you then clash on the single line after Halton Jn anyway.
Surely most people are capable of looking up the journey planners and seeing which ferries have rail connections and which don’t, and there aren’t people regularly sitting in Holyhead for 8 hours?
There are people who get stuck yes, I've witnessed this myself (had planned a lift, so I wasn't one of the ones looking at the blank departure boards). But that's not the point. The train timetable used to be written with consideration to ferry connections. Having the last train of the night leave at 20:26 is a very poor service and means that the afternoon eastbound Stena ferry is absolutely useless for foot passengers travelling beyond Holyhead. It's not exactly great for non ferry passengers either; Bangor gets 0.7 million passengers and yet no eastbound train after 21:06. There are many far quieter stations around the country which have trains in both directions until at least 22:30.
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I'd say that the last departure of the night being 20:26 is a railway problem and would be an issue even if there was no ferry service. How many other stations of Bangor's size get no service in one direction after 21:06?
You're foul of the headway then between Mickle Trafford Jn and Frodsham Jn. You need 14 min and only have 6. Your platforms at both Liverpool Lime Street and Chester have also been occupied.
I'll tell you how "rarely" people get left behind by TfW in North Wales. It's four days per week (Fri-Mon) all summer. Plus any race days outside of that. Plus virtually every Sunday. Have you ever actually tried travelling in North Wales at the height of silly season?
I spent years getting sworn at because people couldn't get on a train. One woman even managed to get a court fine for the homophobic abuse she gave me when I said that I couldn't accommodate an unfolded pram. Yet when chatting to a Lime Street guard, they had only left passengers behind once in their career. And yes, outside of urban metros where there will be another train to the same place in a few minutes, leaving passengers behind should indeed be an exceptional occurrence.
These issues are unconnected to the new timetable though aren't they? As it happens I have indeed seen the situation travelling to and from Bangor on a number of occasions when more people are unable to join the train after Llandudno Junction. It's also quite acute on Sundays with the numbers changing off the branch and not having a through train to the Coast. Even the five cars are often full to capacity on Sundays.
There's been almost no overall change to the fleet, very little additional rolling stock is available this year vs last year, the year before, the year before that and so on. Therefore it stands to reason that these issues will continue this year.
Even taking your hyperbolic approach as fact, if you were procuring additional (costly, diesel or battery powered) rolling stock it would be sitting idle or running around without anyone using it for over 95% of the year.
I'd say that the last departure of the night being 20:26 is a railway problem and would be an issue even if there was no ferry service. How many other stations of Bangor's size get no service in one direction after 21:06?
Loads of places with very little local travel, and a similar local population and small night-time economy have this experience. Stranraer, Rhymney, Fishguard...
The 5km catchment for Holyhead and Caernarfon are each 15k, Bangor about 30k. Llandudno Junction around 50k. It would be good to see one more train all the same, even if it terminates at Llandudno Junction and doesn't connect to anything beyond.
Most people aren't going to Birkenhead or Allerton, they're heading for the city centre. There's a healthy peak flow between Frodsham and Liverpool but nothing a two-car couldn't handle. On the North Wales side however the
It is certainly NOT the case that most people travelling on the Wirral line or on the TfL line between Chester and Liverpool are travelling all the way.
Perhaps have a look at the passenger numbers at the intermediate stations e.g Hooton at 700k per annum, which is in line with Bangor. Bebington 900k Bache 500k-way more than Llandudno Junction.
TFW must have taken some notice of the crowding of the new through service , Llandudno to Liverpool, as I have now experienced some trains being 3 cars not 2. This does make a big difference and as a fairly frequent user from Frodsham to Liverpool it is most welcome. The link is definitely growing in popularity .
Loads of places with very little local travel, and a similar local population and small night-time economy have this experience. Stranraer, Rhymney, Fishguard...
It is certainly NOT the case that most people travelling on the Wirral line or on the TfL line between Chester and Liverpool are travelling all the way.
Perhaps have a look at the passenger numbers at the intermediate stations e.g Hooton at 700k per annum, which is in line with Bangor. Bebington 900k Bache 500k-way more than Llandudno Junction.
I don't care what goes on in the Wirral, that's Merseyrail's concern. We were talking about passenger loadings on the "via Runcorn" services. Which are quieter than services in North Wales. Something I don't expect to change drastically with through services.
TFW must have taken some notice of the crowding of the new through service , Llandudno to Liverpool, as I have now experienced some trains being 3 cars not 2. This does make a big difference and as a fairly frequent user from Frodsham to Liverpool it is most welcome. The link is definitely growing in popularity .
I read the post as suggesting that from the Cheshire stations, most people are wanting Liverpool city centre, not that most people coming into Liverpool city centre on these two corridors are using the Cheshire stations.
They're a minor secondary factor too of a Runcorn - Chester flow, including for Chester city centre and connections at both ends e.g. Runcorn - Wrexham or Helsby - London.
You say a massive missed opportunity, I say a very clever use of a strictly limited pool of resources. Almost as if the people who've implemented it are in fact quite good at their jobs eh?
2 minutes min margin plus 10 minutes running time including the transit at Frodsham Jn and the passenger stop at Frodsham station. The detail is less important than the fact that it simply doesn't fit because of the very primitive arrangements at Frodsham Jn.
Nearly all such demand is long-distance or railhead, as noted. There'd be very few people looking to leave Bangor at 10pm, as evidenced by the fact that such services do exist going the other way and have very, very few people boarding.
It is certainly NOT the case that most people travelling on the Wirral line or on the TfL line between Chester and Liverpool are travelling all the way.
Perhaps have a look at the passenger numbers at the intermediate stations e.g Hooton at 700k per annum, which is in line with Bangor. Bebington 900k Bache 500k-way more than Llandudno Junction.
To be fair the Merseyrail services can be (& often are) full and standing all the way between Chester and Liverpool, the timetable is an absolute nightmare to keep to time with.
The intermediate stations between Hooton and Birkenhead also have the Ellesmere Port services to absorb extra footfall.
My reading of the post you're quoting is that it's nothing to do with people not understanding, it's just correctly pointing out that the service quality has continued to degrade. In this case though, that's primarily not railway-related, as it's primarily about the port.
There are people who get stuck yes, I've witnessed this myself (had planned a lift, so I wasn't one of the ones looking at the blank departure boards). But that's not the point. The train timetable used to be written with consideration to ferry connections. Having the last train of the night leave at 20:26 is a very poor service and means that the afternoon eastbound Stena ferry is absolutely useless for foot passengers travelling beyond Holyhead. It's not exactly great for non ferry passengers either; Bangor gets 0.7 million passengers and yet no eastbound train after 21:06. There are many far quieter stations around the country which have trains in both directions until at least 22:30.
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I'd say that the last departure of the night being 20:26 is a railway problem and would be an issue even if there was no ferry service. How many other stations of Bangor's size get no service in one direction after 21:06?
The ferry timetable in operation currently is a temporary one due to one of the berths at Holyhead being knocked out of use last winter.
It was supposed to switch back to normal at the end of June, but that has now been revised to the end of October.
Once they revert to the normal times again, then the afternoon Stena sailing from Dublin will connect into trains at Holyhead once more.
Going back to your desire for a later eastbound train, wouldn’t that require more staff, along with creating an imbalance in units for the start of services in the morning at Holyhead?
I’m still not sure how you can change the headway between Liverpool and Manchester services along the North Wales Coast if their paths are dictated by the slots allocated to them into and out of Lime Street and Piccadilly, unless you’re advocating longer waits at Chester?
2 minutes min margin plus 10 minutes running time including the transit at Frodsham Jn and the passenger stop at Frodsham station. The detail is less important than the fact that it simply doesn't fit because of the very primitive arrangements at Frodsham Jn.
Nearly all such demand is long-distance or railhead, as noted. There'd be very few people looking to leave Bangor at 10pm, as evidenced by the fact that such services do exist going the other way and have very, very few people boarding.
So you're saying that because there's comparatively little demand between Bangor and Holyhead in the evening there must also be little demand between Bangor and Chester?
It's quite simple. Services in North Wales have very strong leisure demand that two car units cannot cope with.
Chester to Liverpool via Runcorn however had little traffic going end-to-end because Merseyrail is quicker and more frequent, ticket interavailability is extremely poor so you can't go out one way and come back the other at a reasonable price. A couple of peak trains have a good loading between Frodsham and Liverpool but nothing that put capacity into question.
Through services will obviously entice some North Wales passengers away from Merseyrail, so off peak trains won't cart around fresh air all day like they have done until now. However by definition this number cannot be greater than the number of North Wales passengers who were already on when the train arrived at Chester, crammed in with those who left at Chester. So the original plan of "two coaches Llandudno-Chester, four coaches Chester-Liverpool" was clearly daft, and was ditched when the Liverpool-Cardiff service was shelved.
By running the smaller train (with its extra call) right ahead of the larger one, the smaller one gets slammed both with the through traffic to Liverpool, and with the Chester traffic. The larger one gets just the Manchester passengers because there has just been another train right ahead of it. Naturally Murphy's Law means that the passengers who get left behind by the Liverpool train won't be the ones who could just as well have been on the Manchester train.
That's something which I do on the regular, actually. Have you tried travelling from Bedford to Leicester recently? Same for extremely poor spacing. Durham to Newcastle for example?
I'm likely to be doing the same thing with one journey involving Llandudno myself before the end of the year.
It wasn't snarky. You brought out your frequently-repeated line about conductors on TfW being hard done to by the schedule, without offering your colleagues who produced it any right of reply. I was simply thinking about them, though, arguably, the 'hard yards' in this case are in fact done by Network Rail planners.
As it happens, I agree with you about the service being substandard. I also deeply sympathise with the unacceptable abuse from the general public, and with being in the firing line or feeling that you're defending the indefensible. However, saying it's down to 'bad pathing' rather than a broken politics and a lack of proper resources from public spending is quite insulting.
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So you're saying that because there's comparatively little demand between Bangor and Holyhead in the evening there must also be little demand between Bangor and Chester?
Some very careful shuffling could see a two car released from elsewhere too, for example, by pinching the Cambrian strengthening unit once those are all in service,
I'll tell you how "rarely" people get left behind by TfW in North Wales. It's four days per week (Fri-Mon) all summer. Plus any race days outside of that. Plus virtually every Sunday. Have you ever actually tried travelling in North Wales at the height of silly season?
It's the same elsewhere on TFW's network. Not just North Wales.
The Cambrian - Birmingham line leaves people behind if 2 cars, and often struggles even as a 4 car on the really busy days to/from Birmingham.
Local Cardiff services to Maesteg, Ebbw Vale and Cheltenham often leave people behind on busy Saturdays if 2 cars, and on the really busy event days / summer saturdays / Christmas a 3 car can struggle. Booked 2 cars from West Wales towards Swansea and Cardiff often leave people behind.
Marches services from South all the way North to Manchester can be cosy at different points as 4 and 5 cars.
So what gives?
TFW have become a victim of their own success. Passenger numbers are rising and the full fleet implementation isn't quite there yet, but even when it's done, I think passengers numbers will still continue to grow.
Even taking your hyperbolic approach as fact, if you were procuring additional (costly, diesel or battery powered) rolling stock it would be sitting idle or running around without anyone using it for over 95% of the year.
I think 95% of the year is a stretch.
TFW deals with big rugby games through Feb/March, big concerts and festivals in Cardiff, Shrewsbury, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Chester from Spring into Summer.
Big demand on many summer/holidays routes from June-Sept in West Wales, Mid Wales and North Wales.
Regular Racing events at Chester, Chepstow and Cheltenham. Exhibitions at the NEC. Events in Llandudno.
Big demand South, Mid and North during the Christmas period.
As well as heavy commuter flows to Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester.
And that's not an exhaustive list.
TFW must have taken some notice of the crowding of the new through service , Llandudno to Liverpool, as I have now experienced some trains being 3 cars not 2. This does make a big difference and as a fairly frequent user from Frodsham to Liverpool it is most welcome. The link is definitely growing in popularity .
I would agree with this. One thing not noted is the reduction of 158 diagrams after losing the 2 Talerddig units meaning Birminghams turning at Llandudno Junction. So the Manchesters had to go to Holyhead and the Liverpools had to go to Llandudno. Much of the entire timetable is dictated by paths into Manchester and Liverpool.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the surplus 197s from the South when the 398's come in and mainline gets 231s.
4 car Manchester - Holyhead and 3 car Liverpool - Llandudnos would be ideal but I can't see that happening for every service, as some of those services are needed for West Wales - Bristol services, which ironically are going to be 2 cars and likely very busy. But that's for a whole different topic which i'll expect to be created sometime in December.
You have the fleet you have. If it's incapable of meeting the demands placed upon it, both political and practical, then there is only one answer, which is to justify why it represents good value for money to have more or better fleet.
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TFW deals with big rugby games through Feb/March, big concerts and festivals in Cardiff, Shrewsbury, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Chester from Spring into Summer.
Big demand on many summer/holidays routes from June-Sept in West Wales, Mid Wales and North Wales.
Regular Racing events at Chester, Chepstow and Cheltenham. Exhibitions at the NEC. Events in Llandudno.
Big demand South, Mid and North during the Christmas period.
As well as heavy commuter flows to Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester.
So essentially exactly the same as every operator then? These are just examples of the same things that happen all over Britain and Ireland. If they can cover the cost of additional rolling stock year round in economic benefits, great.
So essentially exactly the same as every operator then? These are just examples of the same things that happen all over Britain and Ireland. If they can cover the cost of additional rolling stock year round in economic benefits, great.
Going back to your desire for a later eastbound train, wouldn’t that require more staff, along with creating an imbalance in units for the start of services in the morning at Holyhead?
I don’t have a particular view on the line, but this strikes me as someone who has decided their point of view and is attempting to justify it no matter the evidence.
The same could be said for any route in country. The easiest way to balance stock is to run no services, and that also requires the least amount of staff.
They had plenty of opportunity to invite feedback via internal channels. They never did. Maybe if the company ever bothered to actually communicate with its frontline staff - and actually made them feel like they were listened to - then the staff wouldn't be so fed up. If they had been upfront and honest, and said "here is the new timetable, we recognise that x and y aren't ideal but we were unable to fix them because z" then at least we'd have known that someone was actually listening.
Even if they'd said "we couldn't get Sundays sorted in time, but we're working on it" it would have been something. For all anyone knows North Wales will continue to be stuck with a service pattern that largely dates back to FNW days and leads to a stampede at Chester every hour.
Instead we get a load of PR fluff about the new timetable, and when we went "hang on, what about Sundays?" we just heard crickets.
We had someone from the events team at Chester one Sunday. Saw the scrum for a coast-bound train (which wasn't event traffic, it was contraflow) and remarked how bad it was. Yeah, that's what we dealt with every week. Maybe more senior leadership from Cardiff should pay visits up north on the busy days.
The lack of consultation with frontline grades (until things start going wrong, just like we anticipated each time) is endemic within the company. I once had an interesting chat with someone who worked on the 197 procurement. He wasn't very complimentary about the head of that team (who had been sacked some time before the units were anywhere near passenger service). His former boss refused to entertain any consultation with the people who would actually be working the things. Of course trying to get them altered after the fact is not a cheap exercise. Hence the silly catering cupboards taking up a vast amount of space on units with few seats to begin with. When the transition from 175s to 197s was planned, they said that they'd stable and service these extra units at Chester. The representative from Alstom on the call laughed and asked if they'd ever been to Chester. They had no idea that the DMU depot only had one spare slot each night alongside the 175s (which had to be maintained in service at the same time) and that Middle Yard was also full. When the things got introduced (which was late, which meant CAF took over the DMU depot with the 175s still in service, which didn't end well) the Chester shed drivers were tearing their hair out trying to find stabling space for all of these units, there were drivers having to take units out of the station and sit out west of the station because there was no room. It turned out that the plans had assumed TfW could use every inch of siding and bay platform space - no regard for the fact that tampers and test trains regularly stable on Middle Yard, that Northern stable units at Chester, and that Network Rail will periodically have overnight possessions. If they'd consulted they'd have realised this much earlier on. The poor communication around the introduction of free accompanied child fares resulted in an almighty kick-off at the end of 2019.
This is why I am glad that I no longer have to deal with the corporate BS of a passenger TOC. That makes me a passenger (whether a leisure or a business trip) so I get to join the whinging "why don't you put more coaches on?" as if the person in the uniform stood there had any influence in the decision (not that I would treat my old colleagues like the public do).
And as a passenger I probably can avoid having my intelligence insulted on here by people who think that they know the trains I worked better than I did.
I think 95% of the year is a stretch.
TFW deals with big rugby games through Feb/March, big concerts and festivals in Cardiff, Shrewsbury, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Chester from Spring into Summer.
Big demand on many summer/holidays routes from June-Sept in West Wales, Mid Wales and North Wales.
Regular Racing events at Chester, Chepstow and Cheltenham. Exhibitions at the NEC. Events in Llandudno.
Big demand South, Mid and North during the Christmas period.
As well as heavy commuter flows to Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester.
And that's not an exhaustive list.
Quite. But apparently our trains are only 25% full so it's "hyperbole". I must have imagined all of those times I got sworn at, received homophobic slurs, or just felt sorry for the holidaymakers emerging from the sardine tin with relief.
The 158s weren't the reason - they don't write very long term plans based on units that would have been withdrawn a few months after the timetable is introduced. The reason was that there aren't enough ETCS-fitted 197s.
There are 21 ETCS-fitted 197s to replace 24 158s. Now yes, some 158s used to be diagrammed to fill gaps the 175s couldn't cover (a morning peak Manchester for example). But the hourly Aberystwyths replaced that unit demand. It appeared that their original plans relied on CAF's hopelessly optimistic availability projections, and on reducing the Birmingham-Holyhead service to two coaches between Shrewsbury and Holyhead (luckily they got cold feet on that one when that plan was ripped to shreds by staff and the specific aspect of splitting a four car unit at Shrewsbury and sending just two towards Chester was openly described as "madness" by a controller).
But just remember that the "experts" know everything and that frontline staff are "hyperbolic" when they get proven to be right, time and time again. Those catering cupboards were such a good idea, weren't they?
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
I don’t have a particular view on the line, but this strikes me as someone who has decided their point of view and is attempting to justify it no matter the evidence.
I'm yet to see any actual evidence that counters my years of experience. All I've seen is comparisons which don't really apply, and the usual operational convenience argument when there are plenty of alternative ways of working, if the will is there.
The same could be said for any route in country. The easiest way to balance stock is to run no services, and that also requires the least amount of staff.
I'm yet to see any actual evidence that counters my years of experience. All I've seen is comparisons which don't really apply, and the usual operational convenience argument when there are plenty of alternative ways of working, if the will is there.
I’m struggling to see how my post relates to you? I was specifically making a point about two points a different poster made because they aren’t reasons a service shouldn’t exist. I don’t know enough about demand on the line in the late evening to suggest if services should exist, although I doubt many people on this thread know for sure.
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