Northern's Problems in the North West

[B&I]

They are certainly doing that! It's weird how the industry doesn't seem to defend itself, I have never understood that.

Is anyone from Northern actually stepping up to explain what's happened? I haven't seen much from them at all since Monday (though there was some good info at my station and some staff there on Monday morning to explain).

As someone else suggested, it could be part of the explicit or implicit understandings which surround taking on a privatised franchise that TOCs will act as the mudguards in PR terms for the failures of DfT and the politicians. It should be shouted from.the rooftops that the roots of this mess lie with their persistent approach of treating the north of England like some particularly undeveloped bantustan

 

[B&I]

Sorry, but the marked decline in reliability seen over the past few days is not caused by infrastructure or train failures due to lack of investment; it appears to be a breakdown in railway operations - getting the right trains and staff in the right place at the right time. I appreciate this is a complex undertaking but it's what all railways around the world do. Lessons from previous timetable changes don't appear to have been learned. Northern have some culpability, but the ultimate cause is the fragmented structure of the railway, with the TOCs, NR and DfT all involved in aspects of the new timetable, but none of them taking responsibility or capable of doing so given each has a limited role. The DfT needs to step back and revert to a high level strategic role - no more micro-managing. And the railway needs full vertical integration. With rare exceptions, Franchising. Does. Not. Work.

I think it's a combination of both. Chronic problems re infastructure, rolling stock and staffing arising from DfT neglect, made acute by Northern's continued understaffing, inability to agree a new RDW agreement, slow-motion meltdown over the Blackpool works and subsequent training requirements, and cack-handed implementation of the new timetable

 

[B&I]

How, other than recreating BR or the Sectors which would have massive disadvantages (e.g. Northern's west-side trains would end up operated from Birmingham as part of a wider WMT), would you propose to genuinely vertically integrate in the North West?

I do retain the view that TPE should not be separate from Northern, but is merging beyond that actually sensible?

As with many other things, the real solution to the poor quality of many regional operations may lie with matters beyond the railway. The lack of any real regional government in England means there is no effective democratic control over how the railway operates, and no effective means of bringing pressure to bear when it doesn't operate properly

 

[WatcherZero]

Services suspended between Crewe and the Airport this morning after reports of someone on the track with a shotgun near Crewe station.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

As with many other things, the real solution to the poor quality of many regional operations may lie with matters beyond the railway. The lack of any real regional government in England means there is no effective democratic control over how the railway operates, and no effective means of bringing pressure to bear when it doesn't operate properly

The other deafening silence is from Transport for the North, a public body with all the powers to make things better in the future (across both Northern and TPE).
All I see is how "transformational" it will be - next year.
Based in Leeds. Maybe that says it all.

 

[mandub]

Of the 16 services this morning from Mauldeth Road, not a single one was 'on time' (within 1 min) and 10 were officially late (PPM = >5 mins).

0% (ZERO) on time & 37% PPM - that is absolutely atrocious and simply unacceptable.

I would suggest the timetable is simply flawed and ill suited to long distance routes. The Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe with 29 stops and designed to act as the commuter service into Manchester and Liverpool is just plain daft. A lack of qualified train drivers is a poor excuse when passengers can see what is clearly wrong - an over-ambitious timetable that is simply not deliverable.

That's my thinking too (and most people at depot).
The Liverpool to Crewe and Wigan to Alderney Edge services just don't seem like good ideas.
Also Man Picc train crew change over for both services at Oxford Rd which is surely an additional bottleneck with potential for delays even before you get to Piccadilly platforms 13/14.
I don't know if it's been published elsewhere why these longer distance commuter type services have been introduced (Northerns idea? Or DFT, or Transport for North?).

Added to the mix there's also the short term issues of Liverpool drivers learning 323's and Piccadilly drivers presumably all needing to now learn 319's. Couldn't that have been delayed or couldn't Piccadilly carry on with 323's they already sign and Liverpool with 319's they already sign?

 

[northwichcat]

Incorrect. The requirement is for 4 weeks of annual leave plus bank holidays.

That isn't correct. The requirement used to be 4 weeks not including Bank Holidays but that was changed when Gordon Brown was PM to make it fairer to those who work full time but don't have Monday as part of the working week. As others have stated the current minimum requirement is 5.6 weeks which can include Bank Holidays or 28 days including Bank Holidays (whichever is lower)

So:
If you work Mon-Fri - 20 days + Bank Holidays covers the requirement.
If you work Mon-Fri plus Saturday mornings (5.5 days per week) then the 20 days + Bank Holidays still covers the requirement.
If you work Tues-Sat- 20 days + Bank Holidays + an extra day every time a Bank Holiday falls on a Monday covers the requirement (not covered under the previous requirement.)

 

[northwichcat]

The Liverpool to Crewe and Wigan to Alderley Edge services just don't seem like good ideas.

There is a requirement to run direct Stockport to Bolton services. If it wasn't for the Network Rail electrification mess that would be an EMU service completely under the wires and it certainly wouldn't be sensible to start a service at Stockport given pathing constraints.

 

[quantinghome]

How, other than recreating BR or the Sectors which would have massive disadvantages (e.g. Northern's west-side trains would end up operated from Birmingham as part of a wider WMT), would you propose to genuinely vertically integrate in the North West?

I do retain the view that TPE should not be separate from Northern, but is merging beyond that actually sensible?

I'd suggest a modified form of BR's sectorisation. The sectors were the basis for the original franchises, and the most successful franchises (I'm looking at you, Chiltern) basically carried on from where the sectors left off. I would avoid having a monolithic 'regional railways' and split that into suitable regional areas which are directly funded by regional bodies - TfN, but with proper funding and decision making powers. Infrastructure and trains need to be integrated, but must be operator-led to avoid the lack of passenger focus you sometimes get with Network Rail.

 

[Bovverboy]

There is a requirement to run direct Stockport to Bolton services.

That requirement would have been fulfilled by continuing the Hazel Grove to Preston service which has just been terminated.

If it wasn't for the Network Rail electrification mess that would be an EMU service completely under the wires and it certainly wouldn't be sensible to start a service at Stockport given pathing constraints.

Electrification of Bolton to Wigan isn't going to be coming for quite a while, if at all, so if you wanted to run a Stockport to Bolton service with EMUs the service would need to be split at Bolton. Is that what you're suggesting?

 

[Bovverboy]

mandub said: ↑
The Liverpool to Crewe and Wigan to Alderley Edge services just don't seem like good ideas.

According to RTT, the Wigan to Alderley Edge service interworks with the Wigan to Stalybridge. If that's the case, I'm surprised that the fact hasn't been mentioned on here (to my knowledge).
If that's the circuit it doesn't strike me as unreasonable, it's only around four and a half hours actual running in a six-hour cycle. If I were a crew member I wouldn't relish sitting at Alderley for forty minutes every time round, but that situation existed even before the recent changes.

 

[tbtc]

I would suggest the timetable is simply flawed and ill suited to long distance routes. The Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe with 29 stops and designed to act as the commuter service into Manchester and Liverpool is just plain daft. A lack of qualified train drivers is a poor excuse when passengers can see what is clearly wrong - an over-ambitious timetable that is simply not deliverable.

That's my thinking too (and most people at depot).
The Liverpool to Crewe and Wigan to Alderney Edge services just don't seem like good ideas.
Also Man Picc train crew change over for both services at Oxford Rd which is surely an additional bottleneck with potential for delays even before you get to Piccadilly platforms 13/14.
I don't know if it's been published elsewhere why these longer distance commuter type services have been introduced (Northerns idea? Or DFT, or Transport for North?)

Re the above two points - whilst there are obvious problems within Arriva's hands (Rest Day Working, having sufficient staff), some outside Arriva's hands (delays to electrification impacting upon what services they can run and staff training, rolling stock cascades) and some that will never get solved in my lifetime (bringing Sundays into the working week), I think that the decision to make timetables more complicated by introducing more longer distance services has added to things.

Part of the franchise commitments seemed to be a focus on long distance through services - possibly to distract from the fact that a lot of shorter distance routes wouldn't actually see an increase in frequency? So we have "Bradford to Nottingham", "Leeds to Southport" etc. Let's give everywhere a direct service to Manchester Airport... let's give Bradford a direct link with everywhere!

Which sounds convenient for the relatively small numbers of people doing such long journeys but makes it much easier to introduce disruption from one line onto another (e.g. a problem at Wigan will now delay services from Bradford to Leeds) and harder to chop/change timetables when something goes wrong.

For example, if the Calder Valley service was three evenly spaced trains an hour from Leeds to Victoria then it's relatively self contained and relatively easy to amend - it doesn't matter to most passengers if every service is running twenty minutes late when there's a train every twenty minutes - and its easier to drop that down to a half hourly service if nothing is going beyond Leeds/ Manchester since you aren't impacting upon other lines.

The other deafening silence is from Transport for the North, a public body with all the powers to make things better in the future (across both Northern and TPE).
All I see is how "transformational" it will be - next year.
Based in Leeds. Maybe that says it all.

Deafening silence, sure, but then Andy Burnham has had plenty of criticism for daring to voice the kind of discontent that his postbag will have been full of - people are now complaining about other Public Sector representatives not being vocal enough.

Also, I know there's rivalry between the two sides of the Pennines, but the electrification and frequency improvements coming about at this timetable change are virtually all "Lancashire" rather than "Yorkshire", regardless of where TfN are based.

 

[B&I]

The other deafening silence is from Transport for the North, a public body with all the powers to make things better in the future (across both Northern and TPE).
All I see is how "transformational" it will be - next year.
Based in Leeds. Maybe that says it all.

'Chocolate Teapot Achieves Speech' is not a headline I expect to see in the near future

 

[B&I]

That's my thinking too (and most people at depot).
The Liverpool to Crewe and Wigan to Alderney Edge services just don't seem like good ideas.
Also Man Picc train crew change over for both services at Oxford Rd which is surely an additional bottleneck with potential for delays even before you get to Piccadilly platforms 13/14.
I don't know if it's been published elsewhere why these longer distance commuter type services have been introduced (Northerns idea? Or DFT, or Transport for North?).

Added to the mix there's also the short term issues of Liverpool drivers learning 323's and Piccadilly drivers presumably all needing to now learn 319's. Couldn't that have been delayed or couldn't Piccadilly carry on with 323's they already sign and Liverpool with 319's they already sign?

Theoretically, cross-conurbation services might be useful to reduce the need to change (or at least, the need to do so at busy central area services). However, running these services through the Central Manchester Bottleneck Zone is a recipe for disaster, particularly now that Chris 'if I had 2 brain cells, I'd be pregnant' Grayling has cancelled the crucial enhancements at Piccadilly.

I suspect that, in the case of the Liverpool-Crewe service, some numpty who has probably been to neither of those places, and doesn't understand anything about the rail infrastructure between them, has decided to wang the former Lime Street-Victoria stopper onto the Deansgate-Crewe one to give the ex-Liverpool train somewhere to go, now TPE has displaced it from Victoria.

Incidentally, in my first post on this forum I was derided for criticising the proposed re-arrangement of Liverpool-Manchester services, although I did so in the basus that certain journey opportunities were reduced, not on the basis that Northern would trigger the local railway system's self-destruct button.

 

[Moonshot]

As I have been in the thick of all the problems over the last few days, it has been a very frustrating experience.....but for me as train crew , one thing absolutely stands out.....and that is there have been a good number of totally needless cancellations when all 3 of driver, guard and train itself have been ready to go. Only yesterday I had to tell a signaller to re instate a service because if we hadnt, there would have been a passenger riot.

 

[B&I]

As I have been in the thick of all the problems over the last few days, it has been a very frustrating experience.....but for me as train crew , one thing absolutely stands out.....and that is there have been a good number of totally needless cancellations when all 3 of driver, guard and train itself have been ready to go. Only yesterday I had to tell a signaller to re instate a service because if we hadnt, there would have been a passenger riot.

Why are services being cancelled if they're ready to run ?

 

[northwichcat]

That requirement would have been fulfilled by continuing the Hazel Grove to Preston service which has just been terminated.

Electrification of Bolton to Wigan isn't going to be coming for quite a while, if at all, so if you wanted to run a Stockport to Bolton service with EMUs the service would need to be split at Bolton. Is that what you're suggesting?

No. I take it you've missed the story relating to the 769 bi-modes so Northern can work around the Wigan-Bolton and Stalybridge-Manchester electrification delays, which themselves have been delayed.

We've just had years of people complaining that a Hazel Grove to Preston exists and now it doesn't people are complaining that it's been discontinued.

 

[Tomnick]

Why are services being cancelled if they're ready to run ?

Possibly because, for example, Control know that there’s no driver to work it forward from a certain location, or because they need the unit for something that they deem more important. It certainly isn’t within the signalman’s gift to cancel or reinstate services though, and traincrew certainly shouldn’t be ordering signalmen about on that basis. Conversely, of course, the cancellation could just have been because Control were unaware that la crew had been found!

 

[Moonshot]

Possibly because, for example, Control know that there’s no driver to work it forward from a certain location, or because they need the unit for something that they deem more important. It certainly isn’t within the signalman’s gift to cancel or reinstate services though, and traincrew certainly shouldn’t be ordering signalmen about on that basis. Conversely, of course, the cancellation could just have been because Control were unaware that la crew had been found!

I can certanly tell you thats exactly what i did yesterday.....and to add insult to injury , a number of services that have run out of turn so to speak have been carrying fresh air. We have a new " Disruption Control " team which has not yet bedded in....the inexperience isnt helping matters unfortunately

 

[BrianB]

just arrived in my mailbox

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...ign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate

Urgent plans to tackle poor performance on Northern rail services have been submitted today (23 May 2018) to Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and Rail Minister Jo Johnson.

Northern’s timetable recovery plan will tackle disruption to services following the greatest timetable change for a generation as the government carries out the biggest modernisation of the rail network since Victorian times to improve services for passengers across the country.

 

[Moonshot]

Re the above two points - whilst there are obvious problems within Arriva's hands (Rest Day Working, having sufficient staff), some outside Arriva's hands (delays to electrification impacting upon what services they can run and staff training, rolling stock cascades) and some that will never get solved in my lifetime (bringing Sundays into the working week), I think that the decision to make timetables more complicated by introducing more longer distance services has added to things.

Part of the franchise commitments seemed to be a focus on long distance through services - possibly to distract from the fact that a lot of shorter distance routes wouldn't actually see an increase in frequency? So we have "Bradford to Nottingham", "Leeds to Southport" etc. Let's give everywhere a direct service to Manchester Airport... let's give Bradford a direct link with everywhere!

Which sounds convenient for the relatively small numbers of people doing such long journeys but makes it much easier to introduce disruption from one line onto another (e.g. a problem at Wigan will now delay services from Bradford to Leeds) and harder to chop/change timetables when something goes wrong.

For example, if the Calder Valley service was three evenly spaced trains an hour from Leeds to Victoria then it's relatively self contained and relatively easy to amend - it doesn't matter to most passengers if every service is running twenty minutes late when there's a train every twenty minutes - and its easier to drop that down to a half hourly service if nothing is going beyond Leeds/ Manchester since you aren't impacting upon other lines.



Deafening silence, sure, but then Andy Burnham has had plenty of criticism for daring to voice the kind of discontent that his postbag will have been full of - people are now complaining about other Public Sector representatives not being vocal enough.

Also, I know there's rivalry between the two sides of the Pennines, but the electrification and frequency improvements coming about at this timetable change are virtually all "Lancashire" rather than "Yorkshire", regardless of where TfN are based.

As always the voice of sanity on this forum.....that is indeed what is happening. Obviously not blocking platforms at Victoria is what is trying to be achieved, but I m having doubts about if this is the way to actually achieve this.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

just arrived in my mailbox
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...ign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate

There's no hint here as to whether Northern has been called out by DfT/TfN, or whether they have initiated the recovery plan themselves.
There must be something here about resources and funding that was not being done before under the franchise planning.
"Management presence at key locations in Manchester" is novel.
At least the top brass are on to it now.

 

[td97]

https://twitter.com/DanielHewittITV/status/999274416386314251

Following a meeting for Conservative MPs from Northern seats, organised by Chris Green MP (Bolton West and Atherton), Minister for Rail Jo Johnson stated: "At a productive meeting this morning I was able to hear about local concerns regarding the new rail timetable and capacity on the lines in and around Manchester, and along the route to Carlisle. We are significantly improving passengers' journeys across the North by investing over £1bn in improvements, and I am confident that once the current teething problems subside, commuters will start to see those benefits soon. We have agreed an action plan with Transport for the North and I am determined to continue working with Conservative MPs to get the best service."

 

[northwichcat]

50 cancellations currently showing on Journey Check.

 

[B&I]

https://twitter.com/DanielHewittITV/status/999274416386314251

Well that's hardly a very helpful attitude, given that the MPs for most of the affected areas belong to other parties

 

[theironroad]

That isn't correct. The requirement used to be 4 weeks not including Bank Holidays but that was changed when Gordon Brown was PM to make it fairer to those who work full time but don't have Monday as part of the working week. As others have stated the current minimum requirement is 5.6 weeks which can include Bank Holidays or 28 days including Bank Holidays (whichever is lower)

So:
If you work Mon-Fri - 20 days + Bank Holidays covers the requirement.
If you work Mon-Fri plus Saturday mornings (5.5 days per week) then the 20 days + Bank Holidays still covers the requirement.
If you work Tues-Sat- 20 days + Bank Holidays + an extra day every time a Bank Holiday falls on a Monday covers the requirement (not covered under the previous requirement.)

Thanks, I stand corrected!

I see there is a helpful holiday entitlement calculator on the gov.uk website which allows certain permutations, though aside from saying that bank holidays can be included in the entitlement, I can't see any reference to your tues-sat scenario.

 

[js1000]

Of the 16 services this morning from Mauldeth Road, not a single one was 'on time' (within 1 min) and 10 were officially late (PPM = >5 mins).

0% (ZERO) on time & 37% PPM - that is absolutely atrocious and simply unacceptable.

I would suggest the timetable is simply flawed and ill suited to long distance routes. The Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe with 29 stops and designed to act as the commuter service into Manchester and Liverpool is just plain daft. A lack of qualified train drivers is a poor excuse when passengers can see what is clearly wrong - an over-ambitious timetable that is simply not deliverable.

That's my thinking too (and most people at depot).
The Liverpool to Crewe and Wigan to Alderney Edge services just don't seem like good ideas.
Also Man Picc train crew change over for both services at Oxford Rd which is surely an additional bottleneck with potential for delays even before you get to Piccadilly platforms 13/14.
I don't know if it's been published elsewhere why these longer distance commuter type services have been introduced (Northerns idea? Or DFT, or Transport for North?).

Added to the mix there's also the short term issues of Liverpool drivers learning 323's and Piccadilly drivers presumably all needing to now learn 319's. Couldn't that have been delayed or couldn't Piccadilly carry on with 323's they already sign and Liverpool with 319's they already sign?

I'm glad that Northern Rail staff feel the same way as passengers. The 29 stop Crewe to Liverpool Lime Street via Manchester Airport and Manchester Piccadilly is an over ambitious route that is fraught with risk that can screw up the entire network. It is my personal opinion that many of Northern's problems are stemming from this route and general congestion on the Styal Line. How can a commuter service for Manchester AND Liverpool double up as a long distance airport link? It's insane.

As an addendum to your point about staff changing at Oxford Road, I was on the 18:09 from Liverpool Lime St to Manchester Airport on Monday. The conductor was delayed with the train driver taking a saunter around Oxford Road station to try and find him. Realising this train was not going anywhere I go off and walked to Piccadilly station to catch the 18:34 to Mauldeth Road. Unsurprisingly, the train from Oxford Road was eventually cancelled and held up practically every train trying to get through Manchester. This is not a way to run a railway.

A points failure yesterday outside Manchester on Monday, someone jumped in front of a train at Birchwood on Tuesday, someone reportedly had a shotgun at Crewe just before midday today. These incidents seem quite serious but are actually quite normal everyday occurences and can huge delays - which are exacerbated the longer the route is. That's why the Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe service is so daft and ridiculous.

Personally I am in favour of a branded Manchester Airport shuttle link from Manchester Piccadilly every 15 minutes and from Manchester Victoria every 20 minutes. The Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted shuttles work well - from a publicity they are clear (what Transport for the North are striving to achieve) and as long as you get to one of the London terminals they depart from you'll be fine. At the same time, this would allow commuter routes from Crewe to Manchester Piccadilly to be re-instated with a high degree of reliability. It provides the best of both worlds and something Northern Rail would probably be interested in.

It's not rocket science and they need to be far more realistic and pragmatic in what they can achieve. Not doing so will only drive commuter passengers away as well as the longer distance passengers who simply cannot trust the reliability to get them to Manchester Airport on time to catch their flight. The current system will cripple Northern Rail and provide them with nothing except angry Delay Repay claims and lost passengers.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I see that this thread continues to be dominated by the rather unhelpful rants of a few while there has also been no comment on the fact that Wednesday's overall performance was rather better than Monday's or Tuesday's. As it's highly unlikely that additional drivers have suddenly appeared on the scene I would suggest that the characterisation of some of the issues being "teething problems" may in fact have some validity. The last major timetable revision in the north-west was in December 2008 when many services had to be shoe-horned around Virgin's VHF timetable. During the intervening nine and a half years you can be sure that both signallers and controllers have become used to particular out of course situations arising and over time have developed consistent methods for dealing with them. The major revision to timetables this week combined with the significant shortage of drivers due to necessary training programmes will doubtless have created problems that signallers and controllers are not used to and perhaps they have struggled to come up with the best responses. Day 3 having been a noticeably better one, though still well short of what we have the right to expect, suggests that signallers and controllers have now learned a little from experience and are finding better solutions. If Moonshot's comment about Northern having a new, and presumably inexperienced, disruption control system in place is true then someone needs to be held accountable for making such a poor decision; this change was always going to be difficult to implement and therefore any changes to control staffing should have been given time to bed in well in advance of this week. Also if the volume of problems can be reduced it will also allow more time for better communication, something which has also been very poor this week.

As for some sort of action plan going forward I would think an obvious step would be to look at de-linking some of the cross-Victoria services and adjusting drivers' diagrams to provide some spare time which could be used for shunting terminating units out of the way. Scope to do likewise at Piccadilly or Oxford Road is somewhat reduced but may well still be possible. And I would think that any drivers who have recently passed out will have their long-term route-learning plan extended to allow them more productive time in the short term.

 

[js1000]

I see that this thread continues to be dominated by the rather unhelpful rants of a few while there has also been no comment on the fact that Wednesday's overall performance was rather better than Monday's or Tuesday's. As it's highly unlikely that additional drivers have suddenly appeared on the scene I would suggest that the characterisation of some of the issues being "teething problems" may in fact have some validity. The last major timetable revision in the north-west was in December 2008 when many services had to be shoe-horned around Virgin's VHF timetable. During the intervening nine and a half years you can be sure that both signallers and controllers have become used to particular out of course situations arising and over time have developed consistent methods for dealing with them. The major revision to timetables this week combined with the significant shortage of drivers due to necessary training programmes will doubtless have created problems that signallers and controllers are not used to and perhaps they have struggled to come up with the best responses. Day 3 having been a noticeably better one, though still well short of what we have the right to expect, suggests that signallers and controllers have now learned a little from experience and are finding better solutions. If Moonshot's comment about Northern having a new, and presumably inexperienced, disruption control system in place is true then someone needs to be held accountable for making such a poor decision; this change was always going to be difficult to implement and therefore any changes to control staffing should have been given time to bed in well in advance of this week. Also if the volume of problems can be reduced it will also allow more time for better communication, something which has also been very poor this week.

As for some sort of action plan going forward I would think an obvious step would be to look at de-linking some of the cross-Victoria services and adjusting drivers' diagrams to provide some spare time which could be used for shunting terminating units out of the way. Scope to do likewise at Piccadilly or Oxford Road is somewhat reduced but may well still be possible. And I would think that any drivers who have recently passed out will have their long-term route-learning plan extended to allow them more productive time in the short term.

You're defending the Wednesday service? The statistics say it was pretty much the same as Tuesday.

On time: 46.5%
Late: 21.5%
Very late or cancelled: 32%

And you're trying to say that's something to shout about? What planet are you on? Try paying for it, you'll soon change your mind.

Are you Liam Sumpter by any chance?

WUM

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

You're defending the Wednesday service? The statistics say it was pretty much the same as Tuesday.

On time: 46.5%
Late: 21.5%
Very late or cancelled: 32%

And you're trying to say that's something to shout about? What planet are you on? Try paying for it, you'll soon change your mind.

Are you Liam Sumpter by any chance?

WUM

If you'd read my post properly I did say overall performance for which the splits were 71%/21%/8%, a definite improvement on both Monday and Tuesday. You have quoted numbers for the Lancashire and Cumbria Inter Urban service group whose figures for Monday were 34.6%/17.8%/47.6%. I also said "though still well short of what we have the right to expect". Things have certainly moved in the right direction on Wednesday but in some areas there is still an awful long way to go. I guess you're only interested in being negative. Which is your right as much as it is mine to quote facts.

Had to look up WUM. Apparently it's Irish.