Late stopping services on Hope Valley

[luke1420]

Is there a reason why the Hope Valley stoppers always seem to be between 2 and about 6 mins late by the time the service reach Reddish North? (Travailing from Sheffield to Manchester)

I know sometimes the service is held at Sheffield (or just outside Sheffield) to let the TPE express come through. But even when it has left Sheffield and Dore on time it always seems to start losing time it is usually about 2/3 mins late when reaching Edale and then sometimes about 5 late when reaching Marple. Is this poor timetabling or are they temp speed restrictions or is just because so many people use the service?

Thanks, Luke.

 

[The Planner]

Probably a combination of all of those. Block sections are long and it only takes seeing a distant before a driver backs off and you are unlikely to make it back up.

 

[Ash Bridge]

Is there a reason why the Hope Valley stoppers always seem to be between 2 and about 6 mins late by the time the service reach Reddish North? (Travailing from Sheffield to Manchester)

I know sometimes the service is held at Sheffield (or just outside Sheffield) to let the TPE express come through. But even when it has left Sheffield and Dore on time it always seems to start losing time it is usually about 2/3 mins late when reaching Edale and then sometimes about 5 late when reaching Marple. Is this poor timetabling or are they temp speed restrictions or is just because so many people use the service?

Thanks, Luke.

Whenever I have travelled from Marple- Reddish North and the train is late it has usually been formed of a 142. Rarely seems to be the case when it's 150/156 worked.

 

[Chapeltom]

Whenever I have travelled from Marple- Reddish North and the train is late it has usually been formed of a 142. Rarely seems to be the case when it's 150/156 worked.

No, it's always late. Either catching it or alighting it at Chinley, I'd say regardless of traction the :14 off Sheffield is late at least 75% of the time when I travel by 4-5 mins normally.

 

[yorkie]

When I last used this service, the DMU I was on (a class 150) seemed to be struggling with the gradient towards the summit. In Summer, the service is very popular, so the booked dwell times are probably insufficient.

 

[luke1420]

The Stopper seems to lose 1 min between Dore and Grindleford, then stations in between Grindleford and Edale always show the train as having "No report" at the stations, so it is hard to see where the time is lost in between Grindleford and Edale but it nearly always loses 2/3 mins there.

 

[Wolf]

Probably due to a combination of the long block sections and fact that tpe's and emt are given priority over the northern stopper. Even freight sometimes get put in front of northern services even though that shouldn't happen....northern are seriously bottom of the pile in some of the signal boxes

 

[DarloRich]

The last time i used the line with T&T 47's we were late. Nice scenery mind!

 

[Tomnick]

The block sections are only around three or four miles once the various IB sections are included, so (given the fairly high linespeeds) I can't imagine that being a real problem especially for a stopper following an express. By the time the stopper's got the road behind the express, got underway and made its first station stop (Dore or Chinley), the preceding train should be well clear of the AB section beyond. As for turning freights out in front of stoppers - why shouldn't that happen? I don't know whether any are booked on that basis, but a late runner can't just sit there forever - most will comfortably outrun a stopping passenger, so that will possibly offer the best margin (even if it knocks the stopper for a minute or two as it gets underway, it's better than letting the stopper run and ending up completely stuffing the next class 1!).