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That service was rather late into Piccadilly tonight - some of it was probably down to two set swaps, at Cardiff and at Shrewsbury. It meant the service to Chester left half an hour late and the service to Crewe left fifteen minutes late.
A pretty poor showing all round on it last night. The 175 from Carmarthen, the 150+153 on the Cardiff to Shrewsbury leg and the 158 which was due to go to Crewe all declared failures!
Finished up swapping 1 150 for another 150 at Manchester.
The Crewe wouldn't have been so late if there were any dispatchers about at Piccadilly!
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I’m not sure Transport for Wales are particularly keen on the idea of having to accept passengers with a Shrewsbury - Chester ticket on a service via Crewe, Manchester and Warrington.
I cant see that it's that, more.of concern would be someone getting on at Shrewsbury or Crewe for Chester and ending up on a 3 hour detour via Manchester, theres also that if ever the set swap didnt happen for any reason then any intending through passengers are near enough guaranteed to miss the connection and trains arent going to be held on 14 waiting for it so easier to leave it as it is really.
EMR's Newark to Crewe train only has 8 minutes' turnaround in Crewe, which is less than you'd expect considering it's over two hours' journey and everything goes pear-shaped if Avanti or XC are running late through Stoke. I'm sure the service had even less time at Crewe when it started in Derby!
The paths are mostly unchanged between Derby and Crewe. It's just that the train now has a very short (typically 3 minutes) reversal at Derby before continuing on to Newark.
I cant see that it's that, more.of concern would be someone getting on at Shrewsbury or Crewe for Chester and ending up on a 3 hour detour via Manchester, theres also that if ever the set swap didnt happen for any reason then any intending through passengers are near enough guaranteed to miss the connection and trains arent going to be held on 14 waiting for it so easier to leave it as it is really.
Could always put on a false destination of Manchester Oxford Road until it gets to Wilmslow - same issue SWR’s already solved with clockwise Kingston Loop services for passengers going from say, Waterloo to Queenstown Road.
Although the second bit in bold is also a very good point.
With some of the TfW services you do have to take into account that there are longer dwell times at some stations en route (where the train reverses for example) that do help the timetable.
It's a bit simplistic to simply look at the turnaround time at the end point, when there are some extended dwells en route.
