I agree - if all other TOCs will agree not to sell any Advance tickets until all of the timetables have been uploaded.
Agreed. But equally, I can see why northern are waiting and, I suspect from those I've spoken to, hoping very much that there are a few 195s available, and the chance to use more EMUs via Bolton.
Oh, I absolutely agree it's not ideal. But, when I've talked to people inside Northern the one thing they've been crystal clear on is that they're not announcing a timetable until they know, and I mean know, what the infrastructure situation will be on May 19th. Personally, I can't fault them for that.
So Northern alone in the industry have failed to upload a timetable. GTR and TransPennine Express have faced the same level of external difficulties as Northern have. Yet they've uploaded a timetable. And we expect Northern to take 2-3 months longer than them?
The date of April 8th has been suggested on NRE as the date we can expect most TOC timetables - GTR and TPR includes - to be confirmed. I know nothinf about GTR, but TPE are in the same boat as Northern and, I understand, won't be releasing a timetable until they know what's happening with Bolton.
TPE is not "in the same boat" as Northern. TPE timetables, like those of other TOCs, have already been loaded and can be viewed and booked in journey planners, although there is a still a risk of late changes. That NRE webpage states, for TPE:
i.e. the timetable will be confirmed at T-6, as for most other TOCs.
i.e. the timetable will not be confirmed until T-2!
So no promise even of a date for the timetable to be loaded, let alone confirmed! Anyone currently trying to book advance tickets for a journey after 18 May is likely to find that no Northern connecting services are offered.
I am afraid this just isn't true. TransPennine Express have been selling tickets for weeks against their new timetable from late May. The Bolton work to authorise the higher speeds was finished last week too, so hiding behind that is obviously nonsense.
The RDG press release is patently "economical with the truth" in respect of Northern. Both in its title:
and in this statement:
Well there has been and indeed continues to be extensive route knowledge training on both Chester to Earlestown and Chester to Lime Street so perhaps both could well happen.
The pre-nonsense version of last-May's timetable was available to book tickets for as well, before all hell broke loose and it had to be taken down.
I disagree.
No; the company have now opened reservation and released Advance tickets. This wasn't possible last year.
TPE published it weeks ago and have now decided to open reservation and Advance ticket sales. RDG say the timetable has been 'confirmed'. So what is there left to do? And why can TransPennine Express do it but not Northern?
With the best will in the world, TPE have a significantly simpler timetable then Northern do.
If they don't have enough staff trained on their trains in time, that's not an external influence. I don't see why they should be allowed to abandon the T-12 dates because of their inadequate staffing regime. The power supply issue is thornier but I don't see anyone offering uncertainty about the capacity of the power supply as a reason not to upload the whole timetable, against which the RDG claim that timetable is already "confirmed". The longer Northern delay, the more the railway industry overcharges the customers who book a long time in advance, as the company tells them to.
I can't see you and I ever agreeing on this, but for me it comes down to this one point: I'd rather a late timetable that doesn't need to be altered to a timetable published at T-12, which then has to be changed wholesale.
This is the main reason we're having this debate - nobody has said what the cause is. The company hasn't told us. They usually don't - even at the height of the crisis last year it took them over a week to even reply with a statement about what was happening, and they refused to do any interviews. It's principally speculation from other posters about what the cause is, that's what I was responding to.
The timetable should be published at the three month deadline in accordance with the informed traveller process. It should then be stuck to, except for cases of emergency. Anything less than that represents a planning failure, and a commercial loss to the company. There are lots of reasons why this might happen, and they've been well documented across the industry for over a year now. This has caused a great deal of damage to the industry reputation, but more importantly a loss of revenue. However, in this instance, the entire industry has got its act together except for Northern. Let's not try to pretend that this is an example of good practice for them to wait deliberately for a couple of months after everyone else has sorted their timetable out. Especially not given RDG say the timetable has already been confirmed. If it's confirmed, publish it.
