Yes, that’s very useful.
It's been delayed to start at the beginning of next year. The usual spurious excuses given - reality is probably that they don't have enough crew to run it at the moment.
That makes sense and will be very welcome during the XC diversions.
Also running on Sat 20th Dec
What does 'ease the introduction' mean though? Either the new timetable works or it doesn't.
Same happens at most big timetable changes, they are aren't immediately switched on. There is nothing that suggests a timetable works well until it starts and beds in even if its compliant on a graph.
And then what if they don't work in practice? Still doesn't make any sense to me.
You are in trouble, like May 18 and potentially this one, and you are recasting or removing services rather quickly. A significant change should always be refined as a matter of course anyway.
Whack that on the “Ah GBR will sort it out” pile of things we seem to be creating on here.
This has been mentioned in post #469/#470.
There are a lot of these "soft launch" measures and unfortunately all of them are essentially nonsense. They don't help anyone, but they do make it seem like the Event Steering Group did something useful to prevent a repeat of May 18.
Coming up with that idea rather late in the day, after already planning to rely on it to provide capacity between Leeds and Sheffield during the Church Fenton closure is symptomatic of the problems with this approach.
Plus I imagine they need time to get all the 'Northern Connect' branding on the units (I kid)
www.northernrailway.co.uk
Perhaps platform 2 is going to be renumbered as platform 1....which would be entirely logical in the circumstances.
A large amount of sickness considering the bugs and flu going around would do it I'd think. Plus possibly less interest in overtime and rest day working as we approach Christmas. Not sure there's anything else to it really!
That is dreadful for me, as I often use that train all the way back to Huddersfield.Northern are being a tad disingenuous on their timetable improvements page and station posters.
Timetable Changes
Northern | Buy Cheap Train Tickets and Check Train Times
Er....no, the "new" 2135 departure from Sheffield is actually a retiming of the former 2238. It plugs the gap on the Sheffield -Barnsley stoppers where previously after the 2102 there was a 90 minute gap after which two trains (2231 to Leeds, 2238 to Huddersfield) left within seven minutes of each other.
You could argue therefore that, as the 2135 is the last Sheffield-Huddersfield train of the day, it's a worse service for passengers travelling beyond Barnsley!
I suspect this is to do with Transpennine Route Upgrade work in the Huddersfield area. Monday to Thursday evenings the Long Term Plan has buses only after 2300 at Huddersfield. Northern should really be publishing this though.
Thank you, they should definitely publish that, I understand now the reasoning. For the greater good and all that.
