London to Llandudno anyone?

[Shrop]

Mrs Shrop and I had a lovely day in Llandudno last week, taking the train from Shropshire but once again leaving me with a question. As we stopped in Llandudno Junction at 10.53 I was aware that there was a train from London just a few minutes behind us, due in at 10.59. We duly departed before the London train arrived, and out of interest I wondered how long anyone from London would have to wait for the next train to Llandudno. I was surprised to see that there were no trains after 10.59, until 12.38!

Given that our 10.53 train arrives Llandudno at 11.02 and then has 40 minutes to wait until its departure time of 11.42, I did wonder if there was any merit in holding it at Llandudno Junction for just a few minutes for the ex London train to arrive? Are passenger numbers from London to Llandudno so small these days for this not to be worthwhile? And if so, then perhaps the numbers are small precisely because passengers leaving London at the apparently sensible time of 8.00am for such a journey, just don’t think it’s worthwhile taking the train with such a long enforced wait when they’re so close to their intended destination? It would be interesting to know what people think …

 

[Bletchleyite]

That is a very strange gap - there are mostly 2 trains per hour though not perfectly clockface. I think it would be useful to fill it but it may not be easy to do so.

The eventual switch to a Liverpool-Llandudno service might allow the gap to be filled. It seems to be because what would be the 1153 LLJ-LLD runs to Holyhead instead - the old Irish Mancunian - but I would seriously question whether there is any benefit in this persisting at all given that very few will be heading for the ferries from Manchester these days but rather will fly to Ireland from Manchester Airport.

The other option would be to portion work that train as it appears to be diagrammed as two sets, so one would go to Holyhead and the other to Llandudno. There are some cases of this already, though at least one of them isn't actually shown in the timetable as such.

 

[Shrop]

That is a very strange gap - there are mostly 2 trains per hour though not perfectly clockface. I think it would be useful to fill it but it may not be easy to do so.

The eventual switch to a Liverpool-Llandudno service might allow the gap to be filled. It seems to be because what would be the 1153 LLJ-LLD runs to Holyhead instead - the old Irish Mancunian - but I would seriously question whether there is any benefit in this persisting at all given that very few will be heading for the ferries from Manchester these days but rather will fly to Ireland from Manchester Airport.

The other option would be to portion work that train as it appears to be diagrammed as two sets, so one would go to Holyhead and the other to Llandudno. There are some cases of this already, though at least one of them isn't actually shown in the timetable as such.

Yes, I was surprised at that gap, and on Saturdays it's not so bad as there is an 11.25 from LLJ, it just seemed unfortunate that this gap exists on weekdays just as the train from London arrives. Your suggestion of splitting the following two sets at LLJ is better than nothing (and a helpful one which I hadn't thought of), although it would still leave a gap of almost an hour unless there is some re-timetabling.

I often wonder about timetable planning. Last time we travelled this route a few months ago, our return train had four coaches and ran along the North Wales coast about half full, and it was announced on the train that two coaches would be detached at Chester, which was at around 17.30. This wasn't a great look in the eyes of passengers heading on to Wrexham, Shrewsbury etc, as the inevitable happened, ie the train capacity being halved exactly when the passengers numbers swelled hugely. Now of course those in the rail industry will know and cite that there were "operational reasons" for this, and even I know that the two coaches would have been detached because the need for them was probably greater elsewhere. However, there have also been many times over the years when these "operational reasons" have been a demonstrably hollow default excuse, ie when sufficient scrutiny shows that there really isn't much, if any reason why things couldn't have been done a little better, or even much better. Examples available!

 

[Starmill]

That is a very strange gap - there are mostly 2 trains per hour though not perfectly clockface. I think it would be useful to fill it but it may not be easy to do so.

This gap has a very interesting history. Prior to the December 2014 timetable change, the train which did what is now the 0925 departure from Manchester Airport was a service to Llandudno. It arrived just before midday and worked a 1208 Llandudno to Llandudno Junction and 1228 Llandudno Junction to Llandudno. What is today the 1252 Llandudno Junction to Manchester Airport started back at Llandudno.

Post December 2014, what is now the 0925 from Manchester Airport goes to Holyhead. This provides the stock for the new (new a decade ago) through service from Holyhead to Manchester Airport at 1304, connecting off the two ferries from Dublin.

Llandudno "Town" was sacrificed to assist with this. The 1304 used to start at Bangor rather than Holyhead and stock for that used to come an hour later out of Manchester and terminated at Bangor. This meant a lot of people used the 1248 Holyhead to London just to go one stop to Bangor and then stepped back onto the Manchester train, which was all very odd too.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2025 ==

Yes, I was surprised at that gap, and on Saturdays it's not so bad as there is an 11.25 from LLJ, it just seemed unfortunate that this gap exists on weekdays just as the train from London arrives. Your suggestion of splitting the following two sets at LLJ is better than nothing (and a helpful one which I hadn't thought of), although it would still leave a gap of almost an hour unless there is some re-timetabling.

On Saturdays the now 0825 service from Manchester Airport does an additional shuttle to Llandudno Junction after it gets to Llandudno. This is the same as with the 0625. This point has been discussed quite a few times in the intervening years as to why this fix hasn't worked on weekdays, but it probably can't be fit in every day without an extra crew diagram. Or perhaps in future it can. As Bletchleyite notes, Liverpool Lime Street services taking over most of the Llandudno through trains would require several additional crew diagrams regardless of anything else.

 

[Shrop]

This gap has a very interesting history. Prior to the December 2014 timetable change, the train which did what is now the 0925 departure from Manchester Airport was a service to Llandudno. It arrived just before midday and worked a 1208 Llandudno to Llandudno Junction and 1228 Llandudno Junction to Llandudno. What is today the 1252 Llandudno Junction to Manchester Airport started back at Llandudno.

Worth another re-think of this part of the timetable perhaps. I'm not sure how easy it is to gauge the justification for serving passengers from London based on existing statistics - is there a reliable way to quantify any latent demand?

 

[30907]

Worth another re-think of this part of the timetable perhaps. I'm not sure how easy it is to gauge the justification for serving passengers from London based on existing statistics - is there a reliable way to quantify any latent demand?

Should be possible to quantify the loss of passengers following the timetable change and compare it with the reduction of complaints re overcrowding on the Holyhead route, both of which should have financial impacts.

(I can't imagine that London-Llandudno is a significant flow at 0800, but Crewe at 0930 might be.)