How could Northern Rail be improved?

[158756]

What proportion of rail passengers these days who are in the demographic that will be using taxis (being a rather expensive mode of transport) don't have a smartphone of any kind, I wonder?

Older people might be more likely to use a taxi given it reduces the need for walking anywhere. In any case, in an unfamiliar place a handy Hackney carriage will still be more convenient than finding a local private hire firm - personally I'd have no idea which app they'd be on, if at all.

 

[Jozhua]

An idea... Northern could like not cancel trains, especially when there's like one an hour to Bolton from Piccadilly on a sunday.

With through tickets from other parts of the country, I'm surprised if they make any money, because I've had many advance fares fully or partially refunded because Northern not holding up their very small end of the deal...

 

[Bantamzen]

OK, enough of the frivolity. A serious question to all members.

You have been given control of the Northern franchise, and you have 3 years to change things around with the existing management, staff, and stock. What would you change, why and how would you enact these changes?

 

[yorksrob]

OK, enough of the frivolity. A serious question to all members.

You have been given control of the Northern franchise, and you have 3 years to change things around with the existing management, staff, and stock. What would you change, why and how would you enact these changes?

Retaining all the 153's and reforming them into 3 carriage units would be a start.

Same with 155's.

 

[Eccles1983]

Retaining all the 153's and reforming them into 3 carriage units would be a start.

Same with 155's.

Rosco says no. They don't own them and who pays for the refitting.

Next.

 

[yorksrob]

Rosco says no. They don't own them and who pays for the refitting.

Next.

Rosco would rather its assets go to scrap ? I don't think so.

Reform them with compliant 150's.

 

[Bantamzen]

Rosco would rather its assets go to scrap ? I don't think so.

Reform them with compliant 150's.

It would be a relatively low cost way of increasing capacity, and reducing the number of 2 car services around the network. I'd probably go one step further and authorise Arriva to either order additional 195s, or at least additional carriages to reform 2 & 3 car units into 3 & 4 car units.

However these would only resolve some of the capacity issues in the short to medium term. The franchise needs a longer term strategy to resolve issues such as the disparity between contracts either side of the Pennines, the next phase of rolling stock replacements, how to improve communications in times of disruption, but most of all the future shape of how franchises are organised and actually if we need to rethink the whole thing.

 

[HSTEd]

Rosco says no. They don't own them and who pays for the refitting.

Next.

Then the Rosco will look forward to getting a pittance for them from the scrap dealers

Also reforming the 153s into units requires no input from the Rosco at all.
If you put them into the centre of the sprinter units they would require no mechanical work at all.

 

[yorksrob]

It would be a relatively low cost way of increasing capacity, and reducing the number of 2 car services around the network. I'd probably go one step further and authorise Arriva to either order additional 195s, or at least additional carriages to reform 2 & 3 car units into 3 & 4 car units.

However these would only resolve some of the capacity issues in the short to medium term. The franchise needs a longer term strategy to resolve issues such as the disparity between contracts either side of the Pennines, the next phase of rolling stock replacements, how to improve communications in times of disruption, but most of all the future shape of how franchises are organised and actually if we need to rethink the whole thing.

Agreed, but if you're already struggling, you need all the cheap quick wins you can get.

 

[Bletchleyite]

FWIW, I would agree with the principle that there should be an order of additional vehicles to extend at least the 2-car 195s to 3-car, ideally also the 3s to 4. There would then be little need for doubling-up.

 

[Jamesrob637]

FWIW, I would agree with the principle that there should be an order of additional vehicles to extend at least the 2-car 195s to 3-car, ideally also the 3s to 4. There would then be little need for doubling-up.

Yes but keep half a dozen as 2-car, maybe only 4. 2-car is fine for the very quiet services outside of the bigger cities.

 

[HSTEd]

Need to settle on a standard formation length across the entire Northern service area, then procure all new rolling stock to be sub-multiples of that formation length.

For example, settle on a 6x~23 formation of ~138m, then only procure stock in 2,3,6 car formations.
And all new or rebuilt platforms to be built to that length.

 

[Aictos]

FWIW, I would agree with the principle that there should be an order of additional vehicles to extend at least the 2-car 195s to 3-car, ideally also the 3s to 4. There would then be little need for doubling-up.

I would add that platform extensions were needed should be done where needed BUT I think that the entire Class 195/331 fleet should have additional carriages as to standardise on the 4 car formation.

Yes I am aware there are reasons for the fleets to be ordered as they are but for uniformity I think it’s better economically for them to all be the same length as it would deliver much needed capacity for the North.

It might even be the case that additional units are ordered IF the business case proves the need.

 

[Meerkat]

How sustainable is ordering more 195s?
I assumed they were ordered as short trains with thirds doors as they were to be cascaded fairly quickly down to end up on the minor branches as electrification took hold.
Do we want to be building more diesels, particularly ones difficult to convert to electric?
Build new bi-modes for SWR and send all the 159s northward for a start whilst the wires go up in all the cities

 

[Meerkat]

How much safety related hassle is there for providing a trolley on a train?
Is it too much to be viable for small businesses?
I am thinking local entrepreneurs (be that a corner shop owner or a hippy coffee shop owner) getting on at their local station just for a few stops then swapping to a train back to their base again.
A trolley loaded with whatever sells, pushed by a keen friendly local might be really popular.

 

[tbtc]

OK, enough of the frivolity. A serious question to all members.

You have been given control of the Northern franchise, and you have 3 years to change things around with the existing management, staff, and stock. What would you change, why and how would you enact these changes?

Okay, sticking within the parameters you've given (and not getting out a bland cheque to buy lots of additional 195s or electrifying more lines or whatever)...

1. Cut a number of frequencies and use the stock to enhance train lengths
2. Chop up a number of diagrams so that they are (more) self contained - i.e. remove the complicated muddle where a DMU will come into Leeds/Sheffield from one route and go out onto a separate route and therefore a delay on one route will cause a delay on other routes, causing cross-contamination and making it a lot harder to get the services back to schedule (that'll also make it easier to clean trains - they'll have sensible layovers at big cities rather than being rushed out onto the next service - improved reliability) << at the moment it's hard to clean trains because they don't have long enough at big stations (and it's not cost effective to have cleaning teams at termini that only have one or two trains terminating per hour)
3. Simplify the mess of cross-Manchester services. Simpler route maps (e.g. everything from Wigan goes to Victoria, everything from Chorley goes to Piccadilly), don't worry about whether there's a link from Bolton to Rochdale/ Stockport/ Airport - the numbers making cross city journeys aren't significant enough to need a direct link from everywhere to everywhere
4. I know that you have to work around other TOCs but *try* to provide better gaps between trains - there's no point in running six trains per hour on a line if there are regularly gaps of over fifteen minutes - there are plenty of corridors in northern England where we have terribly spaced trains (but the awkward combination of through services mean that we can't space them very well)
5. Stop worrying about ORCATS so much - e.g. the move to double the Leeds - York service through Garforth by making the Blackpool service non-stop and running a second service as a stopper - TPE provide the bulk of services on this route - a second Northern service is just getting in the way for the sake of making some ORCATS cash - same goes with the additional Wakefield Westgate - Leeds service (the extended ex-Pontefract one)
6. If you want to keep the franchise much longer then sit down and have a difficult conversation about DCO/Sundays - we need a fully staffed railway - we need a safe system where Guards can get around and attend to passengers (not just spending their time opening and closing the doors, which is what happens on a route where the train stops every five minutes - maybe I'd offer a bucketload of cash for anyone willing to be tied down to a long term contract (i.e. that doesn't allow them to scamper off to a longer distance TOC once they've a couple of years under their belt, getting away from the cycle where the local TOC spend time/money training staff up and the other TOCs use that as a source of trained staff)

 

[Jozhua]

OK, enough of the frivolity. A serious question to all members.

You have been given control of the Northern franchise, and you have 3 years to change things around with the existing management, staff, and stock. What would you change, why and how would you enact these changes?

I would reduce daytime frequencies through the most overcapacity areas of the network, provided there is at least one train an hour to various places. Then I would focus on making those services run more reliably with more staff available to take over should some not arrive on time.

Also spending the extra on staffing and running a reliable evening/weekend service. If people feel like they can rely on the train to get them back in the evening, this could fill up some daytime services nicely with more fare revenue.

I would really vocally fight the corner for the necessary infrastructure improvements to relieve bottlenecks.

I definitely wouldn't be getting rid of 319's, they're fine trains, cheap to lease and provide much needed capacity. I would extend platforms in certain places to allow 6-car formations of trains. Same with 153's, they would stay as well and boost capacity, perhaps used as extra crowd-busting at rush hour.

Unfortunately, I can't help but feel Northern still have their hands tied as the Infrastructure is out of their control.

 

[HSTEd]

Convert entirely to metro style operation.
Fixed stopping patterns on a clockface timetable for all routes.
No more handful of trains going between random destination pairs.

Select the routes to minimise conflicting moves across key junctions.
Then cut fares on routes deemed to be less heavily loaded to increase patronage and maximise effective stock utilisation.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

On the industrial relations side, surely harmonising the East and West sides needs doing by hook or by crook. I was astonished to find out that this wasn't done under the Serco/Abellio franchise.

However I do NOT support DOO/OPO or whatever you want to call it. Not until we have S-Bahn type frequencies anyway.