TPE this afternoon.

[Mugby]

Travelling down from Blackpool to Manchester today I thought I'd take the opportunity to sample one of the new TPE Cl.350 units. I changed at Preston and waited for the 12.47 to MIA which was the 10.12 from Edinburgh.
It was running 22 mins late at Preston and departed at 13.09.

After leaving Wigan NW, the conductor announced that the train would terminate at Manchester Piccadilly instead of MIA because "The unit needs to go to the depot for a quick repair job"

Does anyone know if that was a genuine reason or if it was terminated short simply because it was running late? I wondered why it suddenly needed a repair job only after leaving Wigan!


Incidentally, the 350s are just 185s without the noise!

 

[trainophile]

That's interesting. I was on Platform 14 at Manchester Piccadilly today, and the 1416 TPE to Edinburgh still hadn't arrived by the time I left on the 1435 Northern to Southport. Quite a muddle on the platform!

Wonder if it's all connected.

 

[White shadow]

After sampling the new units do u think could bare to ride one all the way to Edinburgh?

 

[thealexweb]

As someone who used to be a frequent traveller between Bolton and Edinburgh, and is now forced to change at Wigan NW or Preston, the changes add on 30 mins on my journey and the poor reliability of the new 350s it just rubbing salt in to the wound for people in my situation.

I personally found an easy solution. Virgin offers marginally faster services for prices that are roughly the same (I say roughly and not exactly due to the difference in the varying cost of advance fares between Wigan and Scotland between the two providers). For anyone travelling to / from stations between Wigan and Scotland I am puzzled as to why anyone would bother with Transpenine's arguably unreliable trains.