LNER remove 'small number of services' from timetables

[gavin]

LNER are removing a small number of services from the current timetable details below

We’re sorry to announce that a small number of services between London King’s Cross and Leeds will be removed from the timetable from 13 August 2018 onwards. In addition, one service between Stirling and Edinburgh will also be cancelled from 27 August 2018 onwards.

We apologise for any inconvenience these changes cause you.

The affected services are:


Mondays – Fridays (and Saturdays for Leeds)
05.26 Stirling – London King's Cross (service will start at Edinburgh) - from 27 August
09.03 London King's Cross - Leeds
11.45 Leeds - London King's Cross
15.00 London King's Cross - Stirling (service will terminate at Edinburgh) - from 27 August
15.03 London King's Cross - Leeds
17.45 Leeds - London King's Cross

Sundays
13.33 London King's Cross - Leeds
17.16 Leeds – London King's Cross
16.04 Newcastle – London King's Cross (amended service - additional waiting time at Doncaster)

The cancellations and amendments are due to operational changes which will help to improve overall reliability along our East Coast route in the event of further network-led disruption.

https://www.lner.co.uk/travel-information/leeds-timetable-changes/

 

[Starmill]

Can anyone decode:

The cancellations and amendments are due to operational changes which will help to improve overall reliability along our East Coast route in the event of further network-led disruption.

Are they cancelled on the basis of short term rolling stock unavailability? Or are they going to negotiate them out of their service commitment because the new operator has recommended this? Or something in between?

Either way a deeply worrying development, if this is for anything longer than a week or two. The fact that they are ramping up the cancellations two weeks after the first ones take effect suggest this could be for a longer period.

Network-led disruption does not mean much to my ears - anyone have thoughts on that too? It just sounds like one of those business buzzowrds to me.

In my opinion, removing the 1745 Leeds to London KX is a big mistake!

 

[Kieran1990]

Assuming class 91’s & HST’s aren’t keeping to the intense diagramming on the ECML.
Shame the Class 800’s can’t enter service any sooner

 

[DanNCL]

I thought the Stirling terminators were a franchise commitment? Mind having said that, presumably LNER don't have to keep the commitments that VTEC made...

 

[yorksrob]

From my wanderings through Leeds City, the 17:45 seems to be cancelled quite regularly. Would be interesting to know what the explanation is though.

If rolling stock related, they should be forced to keep on existing sets until sufficient replacements are delivered.

 

[Esker-pades]

In my opinion, removing the 1745 Leeds to London KX is a big mistake!

That was a fairly silly train to cancel. Right in the middle of the PM-peak. Great planning.

To be fair, the early morning Stirling service is pretty much duplicated by an early morning ScotRail service from Dunblane, at least as far as Edinburgh. Shame the ScotRail has a 10 minute wait at Stirling, meaning it misses the possible connection to the 06:26 to London.

This does set a worrying precedent. Northern, Thameslink and now LNER are plan-cancelling services because they can't run the timetable that was set for them.

 

[Mag_seven]

The northbound Stirling service nearly always gets cancelled north of Edinburgh if there is even a sniff of disruption on the ECML.

 

[Iskra]

While this is regrettable, if they are just permanently removing services that often get cancelled anyway to avoid other cancellations, then from a passengers perspective at least you know if you book on a train it is likely to run.

I do agree that it's quite silly to remove the 1745 Leeds-London though.

 

[bb21]

While this is regrettable, if they are just permanently removing services that often get cancelled anyway to avoid other cancellations, then from a passengers perspective at least you know if you book on a train it is likely to run.

Yes, if it were a recurring issue and there is no realistic way of fixing it then a temporary suspension would allow expectations to be better managed.

 

[Skymonster]

One wonders what the DfT's response would have been had VTEC tried to remove these services from its franchise commitment...

 

[Esker-pades]

One wonders what the DfT's response would have been had VTEC tried to remove these services from its franchise commitment...

Nothing. Under Grayling, the DfT only act if there's a financial angle. Otherwise, he couldn't give less of a something-or-other.

 

[bb21]

Nothing. Under Grayling, the DfT only act if there's a financial angle. Otherwise, he couldn't give less of a something-or-other.

I have regular direct dealings with the DfT and that is definitely not correct. When it comes to obligations in black and white you will need very good reasons to deviate from that but they can use common sense where it is to everyone's benefit. They can be very difficult to satisfy at times.

Grayling may not be personally involved in all acts. He has civil servants working for him.

 

[Esker-pades]

I have regular direct dealings with the DfT and that is definitely not correct. When it comes to obligations in black and white you will need very good reasons to deviate from that but they can use common sense where it is to everyone's benefit. They can be very difficult to satisfy at times.

Grayling may not be personally involved in all acts. He has civil servants working for him.

Fair enough. I'm obviously far too cynical for my own good.

 

[Ianno87]

Oh great, booked on 1745 Leeds in a few weeks time....

One for the Nationalisation vs Privatisation debate...

 

[bb21]

Fair enough. I'm obviously far too cynical for my own good.

I think the DfT gets a bad vibe on this forum as a lot of niche fares matters get a disproportionate amount of air time compared to other aspects of their role.

Then throw politics into the mix.

Then you have transport as a subject all the press love to be negative about. I can't remember the last Transport Secretary who was not completely villified by the press, even when they do good.

For balance, they do get a lot of things wrong too, some quite spectacular and elementary. The department is just staffed by regular people like you and me.

 

[Esker-pades]

I think the DfT gets a bad vibe on this forum as a lot of niche fares matters get a disproportionate amount of air time compared to other aspects of their role.

Then throw politics into the mix.

Then you have transport as a subject all the press love to be negative about. I can't remember the last Transport Secretary who was not completely villified by the press, even when they do good.

For balance, they do get a lot of things wrong too, some quite spectacular and elementary. The department is just staffed by regular people like you and me.

To be clear, I'm not going against specific people (except the politicians). I think civil servents have a really hard job, especially when someone as fantastically inept as Chris Grayling is nominally in charge.

 

[jopsuk]

to be fair, whilst it was very handy for me, the down Stirling has always been in my experience pretty damn quiet after Edinburgh. Can't imagine the Up was any busier!

 

[yorksrob]

To be clear, I'm not going against specific people (except the politicians). I think civil servents have a really hard job, especially when someone as fantastically inept as Chris Grayling is nominally in charge.

Historically the DoT and DoE (forerunners of the DfT) have often been worse at running the railway than the politicians, so they still require scrutiny.

 

[Esker-pades]

Historically the DoT and DoE (forerunners of the DfT) have often been worse at running the railway than the politicians, so they still require scrutiny.

The balance between scrutiny and unhelpful levels of cynicism is a hard one to strike.

 

[yorksrob]

The balance between scrutiny and unhelpful levels of cynicism is a hard one to strike.

Hard but necessary.

 

[Hadders]

This is the sort of thing BR used to do.....

 

[ainsworth74]

I wonder if this is realisation that their fleet simply cannot be flogged as hard as it's being flogged and continue to function at an acceptable level of reliability? My personal suspicion is that once the 800s come on stream towards the end of the year and at the beginning of the next these services will be reintroduced as the pressure eases off.

Whilst this sort of change is never a good thing and has hopefully been subject to robust scrutiny both within LNER and also at the DfT it probably is better for passengers that steps are taken to run a reliable service by cutting a small number of services. That being said removing the 1745 from Leeds seems a brave move!

 

[47271]

Stirling's no loss, it's very underused.

They could've got rid of the Sunderland extenders while they were about it, as far as I can see they serve no purpose other than being there to irritate Grand Central. The last time I got off the late one at Sunderland there were five other passengers.

Don't know about Leeds, it's not a service I use more than once every 18 months or so.

 

[hwl]

I wonder if this is realisation that their fleet simply cannot be flogged as hard as it's being flogged and continue to function at an acceptable level of reliability? My personal suspicion is that once the 800s come on stream towards the end of the year and at the beginning of the next these services will be reintroduced as the pressure eases off.

Whilst this sort of change is never a good thing and has hopefully been subject to robust scrutiny both within LNER and also at the DfT it probably is better for passengers that steps are taken to run a reliable service by cutting a small number of services. That being said removing the 1745 from Leeds seems a brave move!

Agreed.
I think they realised this quite a while ago, this is actually doing something about it. The hiring in of the 1/2 cl.90s to substitute for 91s and the queue of stuff outside Wabtec suggests they haven't been able to cope for a long time.

 

[hwl]

Don't know about Leeds, it's not a service I use more than once every 18 months or so.

The 1745 is always well used (I use it occasionally)

 

[rg177]

Stirling's no loss, it's very underused.

They could've got rid of the Sunderland extenders while they were about it, as far as I can see they serve no purpose other than being there to irritate Grand Central. The last time I got off the late one at Sunderland there were five other passengers.

Don't know about Leeds, it's not a service I use more than once every 18 months or so.

The evening Sunderland gets canned at Newcastle half of the time anyway. Anything above a 15 minute delay and they decide not to bother.

 

[pemma]

I thought the Stirling terminators were a franchise commitment? Mind having said that, presumably LNER don't have to keep the commitments that VTEC made...

Publicly owned TOC now - they don't object to the government forcing them to make cutbacks and the government doesn't object to them doing things to reduce public expenditure.

 

[Class 170101]

Ok if they have a stock shortage but the last time I checked there is some suitable stock stored at Ely in the form of ex FGW HSTs why not make use of these in the interim.

 

[Mag_seven]

Have the Scottish Government been consulted on the withdrawal of the Stirling service?

 

[Gareth Marston]

I think the DfT gets a bad vibe on this forum as a lot of niche fares matters get a disproportionate amount of air time compared to other aspects of their role.

Then throw politics into the mix.

Then you have transport as a subject all the press love to be negative about. I can't remember the last Transport Secretary who was not completely villified by the press, even when they do good.

For balance, they do get a lot of things wrong too, some quite spectacular and elementary. The department is just staffed by regular people like you and me.

That's part of the problem and I speak from inside experience there's far to many "ordinary joes" involved in dealings with sectors / industries they know very little about therefore the generic tick box / process lead approach is adopted. DfT have sleep walked into accepting "arms race" franchise bids for new destinations / higher frequencies etc because it fits the political narrative of showing how franchise is working and no one has said hang on a minute the infrastructure/ fleet/ staff numbers cant support this.