Shrewsbury-Manchester Piccadilly yesterday

[JoeGJ1984]

When I went from Shrewsbury to Leeds for the WY challenge yesterday (20th August), I used the 0610 from Shrewsbury to Manchester Piccadilly arriving at 0818 which ran via Chester and Warrington Bank Quay (usually trains from Shrewsbury to Manchester Piccadilly go via Crewe), and then the 0842 from Manchester Piccadilly to Leeds.

My question is, looking at timetables/National Rail journey planner is that on Saturdays there is usually another train, the 0644 from Shrewsbury to Manchester Piccadilly via Crewe arriving at 0820 which would still have allowed me to get the 0842 to Leeds. Searches on the National Rail journey planner did not find this later train from Shrewsbury yesterday, so did it not run? Were there engineering works or anything? (I returned in the evening from Manchester Piccadilly to Shrewsbury via Crewe the same day).

 

[All Line Rover]

There are currently engineering works between Nantwich and Crewe (until 1pm yesterday, all day today), with no trains running between Shrewsbury and Crewe.

Trains from Shrewsbury to Manchester are being diverted (via Chester and Warrington seems sensible) although a few trains are not running.

As I said above, the engineering works only ran until 1pm yesterday, which explains why you went via Crewe (the usual route) in the evening.

 

[Thomas6187]

The 06:10 Shrewsbury-Piccadilly via Chester runs every Saturday. During the week it starts at Chester

 

[All Line Rover]

The 06:10 Shrewsbury-Piccadilly via Chester runs every Saturday. During the week it starts at Chester

That's interesting, and probably explains why the 06:44 was cancelled. If they already is a train taking the "diversionary" route during that hour, there is no need to run a second one.

 

[merlodlliw]

The 06:10 Shrewsbury-Piccadilly via Chester runs every Saturday. During the week it starts at Chester

You are correct about Saturdays Thomas and welcome to rail UK forums, the 0610 Monday to Friday terminates at Wrexham for connection into the VT 0700 which from Wrexham is 98% a commuter to Chester & Crewe, the sprinter then runs onto the Borderlands line for most of the day, in the evening you will see it sitting for a couple of hours in one of the Up bays, awaiting the arrival of the VT into Wrexham, then it runs all station to Shrewsbury.

As the Wrexham line is the diversionary & will be for a few weekend weeks, NR keep their fingers crossed about failures on the single track,

Bob