EM2
Established Member
Not according to RTT, except for buses to Stansted.*cough* Paddington *cough*
Not according to RTT, except for buses to Stansted.*cough* Paddington *cough*
Not according to RTT, except for buses to Stansted.
It's appalling - Britains second city and it's suberbs are cut off after midnight. My regular taxi charges £25 but some are much more, not bad if there are 4 of you but if you are solo for the night...
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It's appalling - Britains second city and it's suberbs are cut off after midnight. ...
The thing is most people aren't, and a taxi is so much more attractive when you're drunk/tired. It's the likes of Uber that are killing night buses/trains outside London.
We have already established Birmingham doesn't have a lot of late night services
Surprised there's much demand for an 0325 service to London (or the similar 0317 from Milton Keynes) - I guess it's for those people unfortunate enough to have to start work in London at 0500 or thereabouts. 0300 to 0400 is definitely what I'd call the "depth of night" hour above all others!
Traditionally first trains to London from the bigger "NSE" stations have, IIRC, been 0500 or so, is this a sign employers are becoming more demanding with their hours compared to the old days?
Or maybe it's to allow people to catch early flights at Heathrow or Gatwick?
Haha, you should see the scale of development on the edge of Manchester city centre, its vast. 3 Skyscrapers under construction, 9 with permission and 2 in final planning application stages. 2500 city centre flats completed during 2016, more than that will be completed during 2017. Salford Quays is growing fast too. I don't know that much about whats happening in Birmingham but its good that two cities are starting to compete with London.
Surprised there's much demand for an 0325 service to London (or the similar 0317 from Milton Keynes) - I guess it's for those people unfortunate enough to have to start work in London at 0500 or thereabouts. 0300 to 0400 is definitely what I'd call the "depth of night" hour above all others!
Traditionally first trains to London from the bigger "NSE" stations have, IIRC, been 0500 or so, is this a sign employers are becoming more demanding with their hours compared to the old days?
Or maybe it's to allow people to catch early flights at Heathrow or Gatwick?
2,500? Roughly the same as Lewisham!
I think what we have established here overall is that where trains do not run at 12tph on every line, 24/7 it will be a problem for the people that wish to use them. I don't genuinely think there is anyone here, certainly not that has participated in this thread that thinks that this scenario is possible or in any way sensible, but the fact remains that the entire network as it stands is not particularly comfortable with the amount of traffic on it for the most part. The upgrading of track, signalling, other infrastructure is happening at a rate that we may find acceptable or not, and in SOME areas things are still going downhill. More train, later in the day gives us less time to do essential maintenance to the infrastructure.
And what about if they did decide to put on trains until 0200, 0300, or whatever. The first time they NEEDED to do maintenance overnight and needed to cancel those, they'd have to put on a replacement bus service which may or may not be possible, or cancel them outright in advance. Most people wouldn't pick up on this information until they got to the station, drunk, cold and with the return portion of a day return and about £0.81 and half a twix on them. They'd be relying on the service they'd been used to and maybe would not be able to afford a taxi home.
I sympathise fully with those people who do not benefit from later services. For a point of reference some last train examples from nearby towns and cities that i have to catch in order to get home to my village are : Nottingham 2205 (35min drive) / Sheffield 2142 (25 min drive)/ Derby 2114 (40 minute drive) / Leeds 2045 (1hr drive) / Manchester 2043 (1h30 drive) / York 1931 (1hr45 drive). No trains run on a Sunday, so i do get it. I do however sympathise with the railway, probably more so as they cannot win.
I know every service is different, and a higher mileage journey isn't necessarily a higher cost for the TOC, or a higher ticket price, and the two are not necessarily proportional anyway but at the risk of going OT, i wonder, say something that left at 0100 and went to Buxton, how full would that train have to be to turn a profit?
The last train that leaves Sheffield for Worksop on a Monday to Thursday (Fri and Sat are different) usually has 20 people on it max. It only goes as far as Worksop, and if everyone on that train bought a single ticket and travelled all the way to Worksop with no railcard it would turn over £108. This clearly isn't profitable for Northern. Given that most people are travelling on return tickets which are £5.50 against £5.40 and lots get off at intermediate stations you can see why the 2244 is the latest service (incidentally i can't get my last connection from that one so have to leave earlier).
To say that these late night services benefit quite a few people is not likely to cut it with any TOC, in order to go to the hassle of putting on later services, having less down time for maintenance of trains and infrastructure, a complete shake up of staffing introducing later running services, the inevitable ECS moves that would have to be done in some circumstances to get things to the right place, they'd need a large volume of passengers and/or subsidy from local authorities.
I'd sooner go out earlier and go home earlier, when my job allows it, but then i'm unlikely to be going home drunk and if i did want to be out later i'd choose the hotel option, or i'd drive either to the place or to a station closer where there WAS a later service and drink soft drinks.
Personal bugbear of mine. Bolton has 250k+ population, not to mention the other towns along the Preston line, and
(a) the last stopping train is around 2320 from Victoria (2245-ish from Piccadilly/Oxford Road
(b) there is one later - 2355 I think - which is a bustitution Piccadilly/Bolton/Preston
(c) the Fri/Sat night buses have gone, the last bus is 2359.
So if you want the 2320 from Victoria and you are on a night out (or working) in the Theatre/Gay Village areas you have a 20-minute walk to Victoria or hope a bus/tram comes along.
It's appalling - Britains second city and it's suberbs are cut off after midnight. My regular taxi charges £25 but some are much more, not bad if there are 4 of you but if you are solo for the night...
there SHOULD be a better service Manchester Airport/Centre/NW corridor until 2am, and a good early service too (from 5am) and it should be part of the contract.
Yes, the current electrification means scheduling night trains is difficult; but afterwards?
And if lines need to be worked on, couldn't a train leaving (say) Bolton to Preston on one track simply return on it freeing up the other side for work?
My last train Mon to Fri from lime street to Acton Bridge is 23.34 , which I think is not bad.....but on a Saturday its 19.04 !! Saturday a night when people go out.
The 0325 from Peterborough is 'all shacks' arriving into Kings Cross at 0500. There is a demand for it,especially as it gets closer to London.
Personal bugbear of mine. Bolton has 250k+ population, not to mention the other towns along the Preston line, and
(a) the last stopping train is around 2320 from Victoria (2245-ish from Piccadilly/Oxford Road
(b) there is one later - 2355 I think - which is a bustitution Piccadilly/Bolton/Preston
(c) the Fri/Sat night buses have gone, the last bus is 2359.
So if you want the 2320 from Victoria and you are on a night out (or working) in the Theatre/Gay Village areas you have a 20-minute walk to Victoria or hope a bus/tram comes along.
It's appalling - Britains second city and it's suberbs are cut off after midnight. My regular taxi charges £25 but some are much more, not bad if there are 4 of you but if you are solo for the night...
there SHOULD be a better service Manchester Airport/Centre/NW corridor until 2am, and a good early service too (from 5am) and it should be part of the contract.
Yes, the current electrification means scheduling night trains is difficult; but afterwards?
And if lines need to be worked on, couldn't a train leaving (say) Bolton to Preston on one track simply return on it freeing up the other side for work?
The first train into London from Hatfield can be very busy (0419 or thereabouts) and I've seen the 0507 at Knebworth extremely busy, and with probably 85% of the occupants being asleep or near asleep!
Not sure which part of Manchester you would be going to in order to pay £60 for a taxi home.
Given the behaviour issues on those trains I'm not *that* surprised, though I doubt the troublemakers are all from Acton Bridge!
I've got the 0504 from Stevenage a few times - standing room only by the time it gets to Kings Cross!
I'm too old now, but in my youth, nights out in Manchester stretched beyond midnight just because it was easier to catch a morning train than suffer the 1am coach back to Preston.
I'm too old now, but in my youth, nights out in Manchester stretched beyond midnight just because it was easier to catch a morning train than suffer the 1am coach back to Preston.
Of course there should be better midnight-5am services up here. I suspect it will never happen, for reasons both technical (timetables, stock, engineering) and mortal (wages, Union rules and regs, passenger safety).
I can't say I've ever noticed any behaviour issues.....but I'm hardly ever on the last service of a week day night . I would however quite like to be able to see a show or have a meal on a Saturday and return a bit later than 7PM which is a bit rubbish.
The thing is most people aren't, and a taxi is so much more attractive when you're drunk/tired. It's the likes of Uber that are killing night buses/trains outside London.
We have already established Birmingham doesn't have a lot of late night services