Morning all, first time poster. Be kind!
I noticed something in Manchester Piccadilly on an electronic notice board this morning about timetable changes, but couldn't work out from it the information that is pertinent to me. Please can someone indulge?
Will there be (and if so what are the details) of a new Macclesfield - Blackpool North Line?
I am getting all excited at the prospect of a) going all the way through to Oxford road/Deansgate where I work and B) going through to Preston for friends/family.
I can't see anything on the Northern website though. Thanks in advance.
A Macclesfield-Blackpool electric service (and many other new services) was due to have started on May 20.
However the Salford-Bolton-Preston line is still being electrified and won't be finished before summer at the earliest.
So Northern have had to rewrite their timetable for May 20, and are short of diesel trains to cover all the planned new services.
So some of the new services are not going to operate, and others will only be partially working.
Until Northern publish their timetable we can only speculate on services, based on snippets of information from various places.
You can of course get an electric train from Oxford Road to Preston now (TP to Scotland, via Wigan), and Northern will start a Manchester Airport-Blackpool electric service (also via Wigan) as soon as the Blackpool line goes live which hopefully will be on May 20.
Macclesfield-Oxford Road-Bolton-Preston should be running by December, but until then it will terminate at Piccadilly.
The trains themselves might change as 4-car class 319s will be working more services from May 20 (new trains are due next year).
Welcome to the forum by the way.