Operational Flexibility – Merseyrail v Everywhere Else

[Bertie the bus]

Why has the Merseyrail network retained so much operational flexibility when everywhere else has lost it?

For example there are various stations with crossovers, e.g. Town Green, Maghull, Hillside + others which permit a service to still run much of the way when there is engineering work or operational issues. Also today I was at Hooton trying to get to Chester (the line was flooded) and a Chester service had terminated and was occupying platform 3 waiting to return to Liverpool when an Ellesmere Port – Liverpool arrived into platform 2 and carried on on its way.

The Merseyrail network seems more resilient than possibly everywhere else in the country. Is there a specific reason for this? MerseyTravel actually caring about passengers perhaps?

 

[Lewisham2221]

It's a small, self-contained network. There's very little interaction with the wider rail network. Other operators elsewhere, once running late, lose their path and have to wait for signallers to be able to slot them in between other services where and when possible. Displaced traincrew cause less of an issue too, if things go wrong they haven't got traincrew stuck 100 miles from where they need to be. Same goes for units really. There's also less issues with finding that you have a unit available to restart are service but the traincrew you have available don't sign that unit, or maybe even the route.

 

[LYradial]

From the operational view the crossovers (not sure about hillside but Ainsdale had one untill recently,might still be there)
are left over from the days when these stations had goods yards and were used during shunting.

as an eight year old I used to watch an old Aspinall 0-6-0 shunting ainsdale, whenever I got the chance.
in later years 1965ish it was used to turn back summer Sunday specials running to deliver folks from Liverpool
to enjoy the golden sands of Ainsdale beach.

 

[Bald Rick]

Merseyrail also have a lot more crew available than almost all other train operators, and only one tyoe of rolling stock, and (effectively) two crew depots each of which sign one set of routes (witha few exceptions).

Therefore it is a much, much easier operation, and much more resilient regardless of the infrastructure.

 

[Djgr]

Perhaps lessons to be learnt here?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The single electrified platform at Chester is still a constraint.
Merseyrail are also prone to skip-stopping and turning short to restore the timetable, and occasionally suffers from icy 3rd rails and flooding near Hooton.
But yes, they are more reliable than adjacent operators, for sure.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Merseyrail are also prone to skip-stopping and turning short to restore the timetable.

Interestingly this is a recent thing. In the 1980s and 1990s this was almost never done except in very severe circumstances, I think I came across turning short once and skip stopping never. Instead the preference was to take a severely delayed unit out at Kirkdale (or a suitable location on the other lines), cancel a round trip and put it back in on time.

 

[HSTEd]

Perhaps lessons to be learnt here?

Well despite being a high service density, heavily trafficked system, it remains heavily subsidised compared to the railway as a whole.
Those crew numbers have to be paid for, although it would obviously be much easier if the railway could slash the number of disparate types of rolling stock.

 

[Llandudno]

Merseyrail also have a lot more crew available than almost all other train operators, and only one tyoe of rolling stock, and (effectively) two crew depots each of which sign one set of routes (witha few exceptions).

Therefore it is a much, much easier operation, and much more resilient regardless of the infrastructure.

Why does Merseyrail have sufficient train crew to reliably operate their network and the neighbouring operators Norrhern and Avanti are regularly cancelling trains owing to a lack of staff?

Is the pay or working conditions better on Merseyrail meaning that drivers/guards on Merseyrail don’t jump ship to join mainline operators?

 

[Bald Rick]

Is the pay or working conditions better on Merseyrail meaning that drivers/guards on Merseyrail don’t jump ship to join mainline operators?

It‘s more about availability. Generalising greatly, but when there’s only one type of traction, and everyone in each depot all sign the same routes, and its all simple railway, the amount of training refesh required is much lower, and any gaps in the roster can be easily filled as everyone can cover everyone (at any one depot).

It is not a coincidence that ’simple’ operators like this have much better cancellation rates than complex operators.

 

[HSTEd]

It‘s more about availability. Generalising greatly, but when there’s only one type of traction, and everyone in each depot all sign the same routes, and its all simple railway, the amount of training refesh required is much lower, and any gaps in the roster can be easily filled as everyone can cover everyone (at any one depot).

It is not a coincidence that ’simple’ operators like this have much better cancellation rates than complex operators.

Even if a crew ends up out of position, how long could it possibly take them to move to anywhere on the system with a taxi?

It's going to be a lot faster than trying to relocate crew on the long distance operators

 

[Djgr]

It‘s more about availability. Generalising greatly, but when there’s only one type of traction, and everyone in each depot all sign the same routes, and its all simple railway, the amount of training refesh required is much lower, and any gaps in the roster can be easily filled as everyone can cover everyone (at any one depot).

It is not a coincidence that ’simple’ operators like this have much better cancellation rates than complex operators.

So perhaps best not to have an operator that sprawls from the Scottish to the Welsh border?

 

[Bald Rick]

So perhaps best not to have an operator that sprawls from the Scottish to the Welsh border?

Or perhaps best to simplify operations in other ways? I think the concept of a TOC has a limited life…

 

[jamesst]

It‘s more about availability. Generalising greatly, but when there’s only one type of traction, and everyone in each depot all sign the same routes, and its all simple railway, the amount of training refesh required is much lower, and any gaps in the roster can be easily filled as everyone can cover everyone (at any one depot).

It is not a coincidence that ’simple’ operators like this have much better cancellation rates than complex operators.

Merseyrail run far closer to the bone staffing wise that you'd think, it can be purely down to some clever planning sometimes that there aren't more staffing related cancellations.

 

[rower40]

And one signalling centre covering (almost) the entire network.
It may be nostalgic to yearn for semaphore signals, but both Merseyrail and the London Tilbury and Southend mostly lost their 'Misery Line' tag when resignalled.

 

[Krokodil]

So perhaps best not to have an operator that sprawls from the Scottish to the Welsh border?

It's not so much about how far the operator goes (one integrated operator can pool resources to cover issues more creatively, using regional stock to cover an IC service which would otherwise have been cancelled for example), it's more about the interactions trains have across the network. Of course you could split everything up and have local networks only, with people having to change trains at the boundaries - that way disruption would never spread across the network - but would you really want to change trains at Milton Keynes, Crewe, Preston and Carlisle just to get to Glasgow?