The timetables for May 2018 are already on RTT AND National Rail Enquiries.
It shows 4 trains an hour EACH WAY on the Atherton line. Plus Wigan NW - Alderly Edge/Stalybridge services, Moses Gate/Farmworth/Kearsley getting HOURLY stopping services ALL EVENING instead of just up until 19:00 as it stands now, HOSCAR/NEW LANE/Bescar Lane getting served HOURLY (!), Southport-Airport service replaced by Southport-Leeds with no connection to Piccadilly anymore.
Two extra Kirkby stoppers every evening.
No services at all from Wallgate to Bolton or Piccadilly. All day, every day.
Intensive timetable in the evening. This means even between 1900 & 2100hrs there will be 4 trains per hour EACH WAY via Atherton and Daisy Hill. That means 8 trains stopping at Daisy Hill between 2000 & 2100, up from the current two, an increase of 4X !!! Is this really necessary ? Over the top ?
Is this still going ahead in May despite all the delays ?? (Rolling stock cascades, New trains, Electrification delays particularly those pertaining to the Chorley Line?)
As you'll have seen earlier in this thread, nobody yet knows quote what the May timetable will look like. Some of the changes will almost certainly still happen, some won't, and unfortunately we'll have to wait until the planning teams at Northern, TPE, and others manage to put together a timetable that they can actually run. Normally, this would be published a minimum of 12 weeks in advance, but it's possible (maybe even likely) that because of the late decision to postpone the Manchester-Preston electrification until December we may not see a final timetable until March or even later.
The background to this is that TPE services are going to change, and therefore Northern will be forced to go through with some of the planned changes despite the engineering holdups. However, they simply don't have enough diesel powered trains to run the original version of the May timetable now that they are no longer going to be able to run electric trains on the Manchester-Preston route.
Whether Daisy Hill really needs all of those evening stops is something I can't answer, however on occasions when I travel back from Manchester at around the times you've mentioned, I do see many people alight at that station, often 15-20 from one train. It's also worth remembering that these are trains which are also providing inceased capacity from Southport/Wigan and further afield into Manchester, and that stopping at Daisy Hill doesn't really cost anything.
As planned, there is also an earlier Kirkby-Manchester in the mornings, which is a welcome addition for anyone commuting from that line into the city - like me
.
Also as planned, Southport retains a peak time link to the airport, with the off-peaks moved to Victoria. That's a change from the original plan and intended to placate passengers from Southport who say they feel that they need an all-day, direct link to Picadilly and the airport.
At the end of the day, though, although I'd guess that what you've written is what will happen eventually (likely December of this year), we just won't know what will happen in May until we get a final version of the timetable.
