Greybeard33
Established Member
From the Northern ITT and associated TSRs, the following can be deduced about the post-Dec 2017 weekday timetable on the Mid-Cheshire:
Clearly the stations that will benefit most will be Northwich, Knutsford and Altrincham, with 2tph off-peak.
Greenbank, Cuddington, Delamere, Mouldsworth and Chester will gain faster off-peak journey times to/from Altrincham, Stockport and Manchester.
Navigation Road, Hale, Ashley, Mobberley, Plumley and Lostock Gralam will have a worse service than at present, in that they will no longer have through trains to/from Chester off-peak.
The new timetable seems rather harsh on Navigation Road, Hale and Greenbank, which had 2014 footfall of 94000, 164000 and 177000 respectively (ORR figures).
Navigation Road (unlike Altrincham) has a large free car park and is well used by railheaders and cyclists. I suppose (with integrated ticketing) the railheaders could take the Metrolink to Altrincham to change to the semi-fast services, and the cyclists (who cannot use Metrolink) could cycle to Altrincham instead. Navigation Road is on a single line section, so stops there are particularly detrimental to line capacity.
Hale is only 20 minutes walk from Altrincham, but I doubt that many existing users would walk to Altrincham to get the semi-fast service. The bus service between Hale and Altrincham is slow and infrequent.
- The existing two morning peak Chester to Stockport and the two evening peak Stockport to Chester services will be extended to Manchester, continuing to call at all stations between Chester and Stockport
- The existing morning peak Chester to Manchester and evening peak Manchester to Chester services will also continue to call at all stations between Chester and Stockport
- There will be an additional hourly off-peak and contra-peak service between Northwich and Manchester, calling at all stations between Northwich and Stockport
- The existing hourly off-peak and contra-peak services between Chester and Manchester will become semi-fast between Northwich and Stockport, calling at Knutsford and Altrincham only
- One of the morning contra-peak services to Northwich will terminate at Greenbank
Clearly the stations that will benefit most will be Northwich, Knutsford and Altrincham, with 2tph off-peak.
Greenbank, Cuddington, Delamere, Mouldsworth and Chester will gain faster off-peak journey times to/from Altrincham, Stockport and Manchester.
Navigation Road, Hale, Ashley, Mobberley, Plumley and Lostock Gralam will have a worse service than at present, in that they will no longer have through trains to/from Chester off-peak.
The new timetable seems rather harsh on Navigation Road, Hale and Greenbank, which had 2014 footfall of 94000, 164000 and 177000 respectively (ORR figures).
Navigation Road (unlike Altrincham) has a large free car park and is well used by railheaders and cyclists. I suppose (with integrated ticketing) the railheaders could take the Metrolink to Altrincham to change to the semi-fast services, and the cyclists (who cannot use Metrolink) could cycle to Altrincham instead. Navigation Road is on a single line section, so stops there are particularly detrimental to line capacity.
Hale is only 20 minutes walk from Altrincham, but I doubt that many existing users would walk to Altrincham to get the semi-fast service. The bus service between Hale and Altrincham is slow and infrequent.