Increasing the rail services?

[davidknibb]

At the moment as we know rail services have been significantly cut back. But there is a silver lining. I live on the Coventry-Birmingham line, and the local trains recently had a dreadful record of cancellations,station skipping, turning round short of the destination, significant delays and so on.
But now, on our cut back services, virtually everything is on time or only a bit late, and no cancellations at all. (Even if the trains only run with a handful of passengers).
Is it too much to hope that as the services increase, the planners will develop from this well working system and devise new timetables that are more than a work of fiction ?
Trains like the (nearly) all stations from Euston to Liverpool often turned round short at Liverpool Parkway, and those to Rugeley TV often only made it as far as Hednesford and frequently sk These complex timetables were bound to cause big difficulties.
Lets hope that the new schemes don't just reintroduce the old problems.
And no doubt this goes across the system.

 

[WestRiding]

This just goes to prove that the emphasis should be on longer, less frequent trains. Taking Sheffield for example, its running near perfect at the moment. So just lengthen the trains.

 

[The Planner]

The timetables will eventually come back exactly as they were. No one is re-writing them. It isn't exactly surprising that less train interacting with each other causes better punctuality!

 

[LittleAH]

This just goes to prove that the emphasis should be on longer, less frequent trains. Taking Sheffield for example, its running near perfect at the moment. So just lengthen the trains.

Yet if you want people to make a modal shift to public transport to hit carbon neutral targets, fast and frequent services are necessary.

 

[PeterC]

Yet if you want people to make a modal shift to public transport to hit carbon neutral targets, fast and frequent services are necessary.

I would add RELIABLE to that which is the the factor that the OP is complaining about.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would add RELIABLE to that which is the the factor that the OP is complaining about.

Reliable above frequent. Better hourly and reliable than half hourly and not.

 

[SteelWeelApeal]

Punctuality will also be improved at the moment by fewer passenger issues, although the reduced frequency will still be the main contributor.

 

[The Planner]

Reliable above frequent. Better hourly and reliable than half hourly and not.

That horse bolted long ago.

 

[Bald Rick]

At the moment as we know rail services have been significantly cut back. But there is a silver lining. I live on the Coventry-Birmingham line, and the local trains recently had a dreadful record of cancellations,station skipping, turning round short of the destination, significant delays and so on.
But now, on our cut back services, virtually everything is on time or only a bit late, and no cancellations at all. (Even if the trains only run with a handful of passengers).
Is it too much to hope that as the services increase, the planners will develop from this well working system and devise new timetables that are more than a work of fiction ?
Trains like the (nearly) all stations from Euston to Liverpool often turned round short at Liverpool Parkway, and those to Rugeley TV often only made it as far as Hednesford and frequently sk These complex timetables were bound to cause big difficulties.
Lets hope that the new schemes don't just reintroduce the old problems.
And no doubt this goes across the system.

Quite a lot of work has been done to analyse what has caused the performance improvement. There are a lot of factors, but probably the main one is that it’s a lot easier to run a reliable train service when you have nearly twice the amount of resource that would normally be required to do it. Cancellations due to traincrew shortages or rolling stock shortages have simply not happened.

Which leads to another conclusion: the base timetables are remarkably sound, it is the resourcing of them that is the problem.

 

[Hadders]

Surely the lack of passengers is a massive factor. No faffing around as people board or alight must have a positive impact.

 

[Bald Rick]

Surely the lack of passengers is a massive factor. No faffing around as people board or alight must have a positive impact.

That too. There’s about a dozen factors. I’m sure the work will come out in good time.

 

[Energy]

a) lots of the services are run by LNWR, not famed for greatness on the WCML right now
b) Coventry station is currently being rebuilt, this may introduce delays at Coventry due to station work.
c) HS2 will relieve lots of trains of the WCML, more of the Avanti services will stop at Coventry and hopefully it should allow for upgrades like ETCS L2.

 

[The Planner]

a) lots of the services are run by LNWR, not famed for greatness on the WCML right now
b) Coventry station is currently being rebuilt, this may introduce delays at Coventry due to station work.
c) HS2 will relieve lots of trains of the WCML, more of the Avanti services will stop at Coventry and hopefully it should allow for upgrades like ETCS L2.

Coventry works don't affect the running of trains and all apart from one Avanti train stops at Coventry anyway. Resignalling is probably a good 25-30 years away along there.

 

[London Trains]

c) HS2 will relieve lots of trains of the WCML, more of the Avanti services will stop at Coventry and hopefully it should allow for upgrades like ETCS L2.

Actually less trains will stop at Coventry. Currently there are 3tph Avanti and apart from one in the morning peak, everything stops. After HS2 there will only be 2tph due to less demand from Brum.