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With the current state of Northern’s recently “refurbished” units we probably won’t notice much improvement... There is one thing. Travelling on a packed ex Thameslink (?) Northern 319 the other day I noticed the standing provision was much better than on Northern,s 15xs. Handrails extending...

The chances of boarding a 195 at Daisy Hill would seem quite limited :lol: The Southport and Atherton lines do seem to inherit the worst stock Northern has to offer...

He’s said before that he uses 13&14 at Piccadilly regularly. I’d be more impressed if he talked more about the rail infrastructure problems in Manchester. There are solutions on the table, like the 15&16 project, for but now they seem to be in limbo. I don’t see how local GM services for local...

Southport to Atherton/Bolton to Manchester is still heavily infested :|

At Oxford Road tonight the westbound container train was pulled by 2 electric 86s. Never seen that before.

Nah. Usually the platforms are still rammed with people waiting for the previous 2 or 3 delayed services... I don’t think my evening peak time Westbound service has left Oxford Road on time ever since May. That’s not an exaggeration...

I watch 2 trains of 40+ containers passing E and W at Oxford Road around 16:15 every night. My train home is timetabled for around then and it seems bonkers that passenger services are making way for them.

:lol: I’m sure the people that profess to like them haven’t had the pleasure of travelling on them most week days for 25 years...

Yes, Bolton has many options, Wigan has a lot less. Why shouldn’t daily commuters have a regular service with good stock? If you had the choice of 20 minutes on a 185 or 350 or 50 minutes on a 142 which would you choose?

Iirc something similar was tried about 15 years ago, with the Windermere, WNW, Manchester services. I seem to remember Countycard season tickets not being valid on the services from WNW for a while. It felt quite unfair, there’s always been attempts to keep commuters of these long distance...

The peak time TPE Chat Moss service from Oxford Road - WNW was very popular with the regular punters, too popular for TPE... It does demonstrate what happens when you have decent stock on a NW local service though, increased demand. I don’t see how TPE won’t encounter the same overcrowding...

I much rather travel on a 156 than the 150s and 142s that we usually get between Wigan and Manchester. The 156s are quite decent units imo. I can see the end doors don’t exactly lead to short dwell times though.

Apparently these are going to be used between Southport and Manchester. There’s quite an uphill drag between Wigan and Lostock with a few stops. I’ve no idea what the gradient is but pulling away from Hindley and Westhoughton stations seems to regularly cause traction problems. Hopefully Wigan...

I agree the Pacers have to go. However as a regular traveller my concern is that once the 142s have gone Northern will start trumpeting the arrival of their new trains into service. I’m certain there’s plenty of unfulfilled demand and we’ll see a further large increase in passenger numbers...

The Alderley Edge to Wigan was short terminated, I was on it. I didn’t notice them getting off, they may have though.

I was at Salford Crescent stood near the family with the disabled child in the push chair. When I arrived I could see there was some tension between the platform staff and the parents. I got the impression they had been unable to board a previous service and were very annoyed. The platform...

Yes, the last I read they just connected to the local phone network the same as your phone. The carriage can have a large aerial though so has a better chance of getting a signal. What else could they use really?

Even the Northern Connect type services?

Yes, with the cancellations and overcrowding on Northern services it does seems crazy. I can see that loco hauled carriages with end doors are hardly ideal for some services but surely anything is better than the current overcrowding. Northern desperately needs more capacity.

Thanks for the reply. Yes this does happen quite often. The really frustrating aspect is that sometimes the decision is only made, or at least relayed to px after the service has left Oxford Road. At least if we’re told at Oxford Road then the Chat Moss services to Wigan are an option.