Northern overcrowding issues (Manchester, Bank Holiday weekend)

[northwichcat]

No shortage of trains today, it's shortage of crew.

Indeed. Stoke line closed due to engineering works. Other services supposed to make calls at Heaton Chapel and Levenshulme to compensate but half are cancelled due to staffing issues.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Aug 2022 ==

People may see it like that on an individual basis, but from an industry point of view - rightly or wrongly - you're providing a seat for no additional revenue

The industry presumption is season ticket holders usually make 5 return journeys per week. If you only make 4 it's often cheaper to buy alternative ticketing options. However, it is permitted to make an unlimited number of journeys during the validity period. If you have to go home and then back to work, in the same day that's allowed.

For annual season tickets they presume you are going to have at least 28 days off travelling but for Mon-Sun weeklies if you were ill on Wednesday and make a leisure trip on Saturday, then it certainly is not a free journey. It's actually a financial bonus for the railway as you're travelling at an off-peak time with a ticket with no time restriction.

 

[Watershed]

This is less likely now that many people have hybrid roles and use a 8 return journeys in 28 days ticket.

Flexi Seasons and other devolved/local equivalents offer a derisory discount and therefore (unsurprisingly) have been largely shunned. I'm sure you could find the figures somewhere, but I'd be surprised if even 1% of commuters make use of them.

Furthermore, if you have a Flexi Season etc. and want to travel on a weekend/BH, it's almost certainly going to be cheaper for you to buy a new (Super) Off-Peak ticket and save the day's validity for a weekday.

 

[northernchris]

Sunday enhancements have been proposed on numerous routes but they've been quietly dropped due to potential issues getting more crews to work Sundays.

In fairness to Northern, they have added additional Sunday services to quite a few routes across Yorkshire over the past few years.

 

[geoffk]

In fairness to Northern, they have added additional Sunday services to quite a few routes across Yorkshire over the past few years.

Yes but it's the west (Manchester) side where there are different terms and conditions, as I understand it.

 

[muz379]

Northern could have run some extra STP services between Manchester Airport and Chester via Warrington Bank Quay using a four car 195 set, all for the cost one driver shift and one guard shift, and the fuel and maintenance miles. However, that money is simply not forthcoming.

A number of cancelled Chat Moss stopping services too, so even more pressure on TfW between Manchester and Newton-le-Willows / Earlestown.

only if there were guards/drivers available to work . Which from my understanding was not even the case to cover the already booked work minus a few routes closed for engineering . Ergo no resources to start throwing STP diagrams with additional work into the mix .

 

[Starmill]

only if there were guards/drivers available to work . Which from my understanding was not even the case to cover the already booked work minus a few routes closed for engineering . Ergo no resources to start throwing STP diagrams with additional work into the mix .

Indeed, as noted in the post a significant number of trains on the route were cancelled due to crew shortage.

Of course Northern should have been obliged to run the route seven days a week from introduction, just as Transport for Wales do.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Aug 2022 ==

Flexi Seasons and other devolved/local equivalents offer a derisory discount and therefore (unsurprisingly) have been largely shunned. I'm sure you could find the figures somewhere, but I'd be surprised if even 1% of commuters make use of them.

Furthermore, if you have a Flexi Season etc. and want to travel on a weekend/BH, it's almost certainly going to be cheaper for you to buy a new (Super) Off-Peak ticket and save the day's validity for a weekday.

Stagecoach 'Flexi5', 'Flexi10' and '12 MultiTrip' tickets (the word 'season' itself is viewed as outdated so is little used now) are valid for twelve months, rather than one. Discount rates vary significantly across the country, but plenty of them will be at a similar rate to the best Flexi Season tickets. However as a business which is at least trying to deploy some customer-focus they haven't set an arbitrarily short availability window, nor an arbitrarily large bundle size. To put this another way: the current Flexi Seasons are the worst of both worlds and therefore are, just as you say, next to no use.

 

[northwichcat]

Of course Northern should have been obliged to run the route seven days a week from introduction, just as Transport for Wales do.

But is there demand for it on Sundays?

(Arriva) Northern were contracted to enhance the Mid-Cheshire service to hourly on Sundays. Therefore, requiring them to run an hourly Chester to Victoria service as well would have seen more than a doubling of the number of direct Chester to Manchester services on Sundays. It was probably a sensible move to enhance the Mid-Cheshire first and then review Sunday demand.

 

[Watershed]

But is there demand for it on Sundays?

(Arriva) Northern were contracted to enhance the Mid-Cheshire service to hourly on Sundays. Therefore, requiring them to run an hourly Chester to Victoria service as well would have seen more than a doubling of the number of direct Chester to Manchester services on Sundays. It was probably a sensible move to enhance the Mid-Cheshire first and then review Sunday demand.

But they are completely different markets. Not many people will take the MCL to get to Manchester as it is so much slower.

 

[northwichcat]

But they are completely different markets. Not many people will take the MCL to get to Manchester as it is so much slower.

There's a few things to consider here.

On a weekday if you miss the xx:51 to Piccadilly and need to get to Piccadilly not Victoria, then your options are:
1. Catch the slower xx:02 service to Piccadilly
2. Catch the xx:22 service to Victoria and walk or take the Metrolink (meaning you need to allow 15 minutes extra)
3. Wait for the next fast service to Piccadilly
Option 1 will get to Piccadilly fastest, even if it's a slow indirect route.

If your journey is to Sheffield or somewhere else with a direct train from Stockport, there is no time advantage of using the TfW Rail service. In fact in the specific case of Sheffield journey planners would recommend travelling via Altrincham as a 10 minute connection at Stockport gives a faster journey time than a 25 minute connection at Piccadilly.

If the idea of Chester to Manchester semi-fasts via Altrincham had gone ahead, then they would still be slower than the TfW Rail service but the difference would be reduced.

Not all villages have stations and sometimes they are on the wrong line for where you need to go. So some people do drive to a suitable station. If you have a car but and live between Frodsham and Delamere but don't want to drive in to Chester, then the important factors are car parking and frequency of service. If Frodsham has an hourly Sunday service and Delamere has a 2 hourly Sunday service, which one are you going to choose?

 

[Starmill]

But is there demand for it on Sundays?

Yes. There's more demand every day of the week for Manchester - Warrington Bank Quay - Chester services than there is for Manchester Piccadilly - Northwich - Chester. I would have thought why was obvious but for the avoidence of all doubt: journey times are significantly better, Warrington is a much larger traffic driver than Knutsford and Northwich are, and there are WCML connections in both directions at Warrington Bank Quay, but no connections by rail to anywhere from the Mid Cheshire Line (walking between Hartford and Greenbank is ~0 because it will never be suggested by a journey planner and never have a through ticket available).

I'm surprised that even needs to be said, but then I guess people have a far, far greater interest in their local line, to the point that they might choose to spend several years posting mostly about just that one line

 

[northwichcat]

Yes. There's more demand every day of the week for Manchester - Warrington Bank Quay - Chester services than there is for Manchester Piccadilly - Northwich - Chester.

I never said there's more demand for Mid-Cheshire services than Manchester to Chester via Warrington! Although, given you've mentioned it sometimes the Mid-Cheshire service does seem to frequently leave Chester with more passengers than the Chester to Leeds service. The TfW services already have many passengers travelling from North Wales on board when they arrive at Chester and they call at more stations than the Leeds service, so yes I expect they are the busiest on average.

What I actually said was at the time the franchise specification was written it would have been sensible to see what happened as the result of the proposed enhanced Mid-Cheshire Sunday services, rather than to double the Sunday frequency on both lines simultaneously and then hope it works. Given Northern haven't managed to get the proposed Sunday enhancements going, I'm not sure what the point is of arguing they should have been required to run more of them!

In terms of Sunday resource allocations it's not simply a case of which Manchester to Chester line is most in need of them. Manchester Piccadilly doesn't have a direct train to Windermere until 11:49 on Sundays. To me that's at least two hours too late and a bigger issue than Chester to Leeds not running on Sundays.

 

[Starmill]

I never said there's more demand for Mid-Cheshire services than Manchester to Chester via Warrington! Although, given you've mentioned it sometimes the Mid-Cheshire service does seem to frequently leave Chester with more passengers than the Chester to Leeds service. The TfW services already have many passengers travelling from North Wales on board when they arrive at Chester and they call at more stations than the Leeds service, so yes I expect they are the busiest on average.

What I actually said was at the time the franchise specification was written it would have been sensible to see what happened as the result of the proposed enhanced Mid-Cheshire Sunday services, rather than to double the Sunday frequency on both lines simultaneously and then hope it works. Given Northern haven't managed to get the proposed Sunday enhancements going, I'm not sure what the point is of arguing they should have been required to run more of them!

In terms of Sunday resource allocations it's not simply a case of which Manchester to Chester line is most in need of them. Manchester Piccadilly doesn't have a direct train to Windermere until 11:49 on Sundays. To me that's at least two hours too late and a bigger issue than Chester to Leeds not running on Sundays.

As people keep explaining though the paucity of Sunday service isn't because of the absence of demand, it's as a result of refusing to spend enough money to bring in the crew on Sundays.

There is an 0853 Manchester Piccadilly to Windermere in the Sunday WTT 15/05/2022 - 23/10/2022. Sundays after this until the December change date, it's from Manchester Victoria. I'm not sure there's a problem with this.

 

[northwichcat]

As people keep explaining though the paucity of Sunday service isn't because of the absence of demand, it's as a result of refusing to spend enough money to bring in the crew on Sundays.

There is an 0853 Manchester Piccadilly to Windermere in the Sunday WTT 15/05/2022 - 23/10/2022. Sundays after this until the December change date, it's from Manchester Victoria. I'm not sure there's a problem with this.

Making Sunday part of the working week requires more crews. Adding additional services also requires more crews. There was probably a good reason why the proposed enhancements were split in to Dec 17 changes and Dec 19 changes. There would probably have been an option for Dec 21 enhancements, based on updated demand, as well had it not been for COVID. Didn't Arriva have provision to bring in further additional trains if needed?

While Sunday demand is increasing, it would have been presuming a lot to think an additional hourly service is needed on Sundays before it's known how well the new service performs on Saturdays. Sunday still has more limited retailing hours and some people still see Sunday morning as the time for church. Generally people don't require trains to get to church.

The service you refer to showed as starting at Oxenholme on the date I searched. But maybe there's engineering works or something that morning.