TransPennine Express North Route, New Timetable

[158756]

No. It will however even out the Newcastle’s to every 30 mins from Man Vic instead of one train leaving, then the next one 15 mins later then a 45 mins wait.

So it means the end of the clockface timetable between Liverpool and Manchester then?

 

[notlob.divad]

No. It will however even out the Newcastle’s to every 30 mins from Man Vic instead of one train leaving, then the next one 15 mins later then a 45 mins wait.

Surely if you even out the Newcastle to 30 minutes intervals it means a 15 minute interval between the two Liverpool - Leeds trains. And equally 15 minute intervals between the two Airport - Leeds trains.

I would say robbing Peter to pay Paul again, but in this case I think it is robbing both Peter and Paul to pay John.

Either that or there is going to be a changeover of end destinations. With Liverpool - Newcastle being 30 minutes and Airport - Scarborough/Middlesborough being every 30 minutes.

 

[darloscott]

Sounds to me more like Newcastle will be losing the Airport as a destination and you'll basically be left with a half hourly Newcastle-Liverpool and half hourly Airport-York going on to Scarborough or Middlesbrough hourly.

 

[Greybeard33]

Sounds to me more like Newcastle will be losing the Airport as a destination and you'll basically be left with a half hourly Newcastle-Liverpool and half hourly Airport-York going on to Scarborough or Middlesbrough hourly.

Which would enable continued interworking of the two Airport services (since both Scarborough and Middlesbrough are to get Mk5As) in order to preserve the 40 minute turnarounds.

 

[Starmill]

Surely if you even out the Newcastle to 30 minutes intervals it means a 15 minute interval between the two Liverpool - Leeds trains. And equally 15 minute intervals between the two Airport - Leeds trains.

Exactly. You cannot have a half-hourly Manchester to Liverpool, Manchester Airport to Huddersfield, Leeds and York service as well as a half-hourly Manchester to Newcastle service on the current pairings.

I for one think it would be much better to abandon the half-hourly Manchester Airport service in favour of a half-hourly Manchester to Newcastle service, but two services 15 minutes apart to Manchester Airport would make it almost pointless running the second one there rather than turning it back at Manchester Vic.

 

[BMIFlyer]

Supposedly the swap is the Airport Newcastle and the Airport Middlesbrough swapping around.

Not sure if that is both directions or just southbound.

Just swapping them over in the southbound direction would work to even out the service pattern as the Midddlesbrough can run in the southbound Newcastle path from Northallerton, and the Newcastle train would do the opposite.

The December 2019 services are:

Liverpool - Newcastle / Edinburgh every other hour (so hourly Liverpool to Newcastle)
Liverpool to Scarborough every hour
Airport to Newcastle every hour
Airport to Middlesbrough every hour

 

[Boysteve]

Personally I favour 20/10/20/10 minute departure gaps from Manchester Victoria towards Leeds, giving ample time for a proper all-stations stopper between Stalyvegas and Huddersfield. Stops at Garforth and Dewsbury should be clever enough to alter this to 17/13/17/13 by York. One NCL service would call at just Darlo and Durham the second would include Northallerton and CLStreet. This would mean that NCL services would be 20/40 minute gap at Manchester Victoria, 17/43 at York, and likely 24/36 at NCL.
This would maintain 30/30 on Leeds-Man Airport and Leeds-Liverpool which arguable are larger markets. It would give not too unreasonable balancing at Manchester Vic and Newcastle between the 2 direct services per hour given there has to be compromise!

 

[VT 390]

Are there really that many passengers who will be doing the full Newcastle to Manchester route?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Not that many other than early morning and late evening in my experience.

 

[BMIFlyer]

Not that many other than early morning and late evening in my experience.

Yes. I’ve just been looking at reservations for some TPE trains today and one service (1319 from Airport) this afternoon had 60 reservations from Manchester to Newcastle.

Another train had only 13 in the opposite direction however.

It depends on the day of week and time of year.

 

[BeHereNow]

Liverpool - Newcastle / Edinburgh every other hour (so hourly Liverpool to Newcastle)

Not every hour as planned in the bid?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Not every hour as planned in the bid?

Starts as bi-hourly, with the others being extended at a future timetable change. Presumably not enough 802s expected in traffic to go hourly straight away.

 

[Greybeard33]

Supposedly the swap is the Airport Newcastle and the Airport Middlesbrough swapping around.

Not sure if that is both directions or just southbound.

Just swapping them over in the southbound direction would work to even out the service pattern as the Midddlesbrough can run in the southbound Newcastle path from Northallerton, and the Newcastle train would do the opposite.

The December 2019 services are:

Liverpool - Newcastle / Edinburgh every other hour (so hourly Liverpool to Newcastle)
Liverpool to Scarborough every hour
Airport to Newcastle every hour
Airport to Middlesbrough every hour

If the southbound Newcastle to Airport and Middlesbrough to Airport swap paths, with the northbound paths staying as is, the 40 minute Airport turnarounds could be retained but without interworking. This would enable the 185s to be replaced by 802s and Mk5As respectively without going back to 10 minute turnarounds (if the longer trains can be squeezed into the Airport platforms for 40 minutes).

The 70-ish minute turnaround at Newcastle would come down to a more reasonable 40-ish minutes.

The turnaround at Middlesbrough would be extended from 17 minutes to about 47, rather than the 77 previously mooted.

 

[68011]

Supposedly the swap is the Airport Newcastle and the Airport Middlesbrough swapping around.

Not sure if that is both directions or just southbound.

Just swapping them over in the southbound direction would work to even out the service pattern as the Midddlesbrough can run in the southbound Newcastle path from Northallerton, and the Newcastle train would do the opposite.

Just the southbound paths are swapping.

 

[BMIFlyer]

Just the southbound paths are swapping.

Cheers!

 

[xotGD]

If the southbound Newcastle to Airport and Middlesbrough to Airport swap paths, with the northbound paths staying as is, the 40 minute Airport turnarounds could be retained but without interworking. This would enable the 185s to be replaced by 802s and Mk5As respectively without going back to 10 minute turnarounds (if the longer trains can be squeezed into the Airport platforms for 40 minutes).

The 70-ish minute turnaround at Newcastle would come down to a more reasonable 40-ish minutes.

The turnaround at Middlesbrough would be extended from 17 minutes to about 47, rather than the 77 previously mooted.

That sounds utterly sensible. What's the catch?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

That sounds utterly sensible. What's the catch?

No double sets, at least until 185s start to be freed up by the new stock- Mk5a sets look like the first to start to make inroads.

One query I have is whether the 185s freed up will go straight off-lease or whether they'll (temporarily) be used to boost capacity by doubling-up remaining 185 diagrams.

 

[Greybeard33]

That sounds utterly sensible. What's the catch?

The catch is that:

Just a reminder, if a 5 or 6 car train is already in any platform at Man Airport, you can’t put another train in, even a 2 car as the second train is not allowed.

Which means that there are simply not enough platforms at Manchester Airport, if the other services to the Airport continue unchanged after the December 2019 TT change.

For example, between xx35 each standard hour (arrival from Newcastle) and xx47 (departure to Middlesbrough) two of the four platforms will be fully occupied by TPE North trains (5-car 802 and 5-car Mk5A). The two other platforms will be needed by the TPE Cleethorpes service (6-car 185, xx25-xx53) and Scotland service (5-car 397, xx43-xx10). This will leave no platform available for the Northern Blackpool (xx32-xx39) and Liverpool (xx28-xx50) trains, not to mention the TfW Llandudno (xx10-xx36).

Quarts into pint pots.... Something will have to give.

 

[VT 390]

Would it be possible to have the TPE services from Middlesborough and Newcastle reverse out of Manchester Airport and operate down to Wilmslow either in passenger service or empty stock, I think there is only 1tph on the Wilmslow airport platforms at the moment so the capacity should be there. This would allow another service to use the platform at Airport in the time it takes to do this an if the TPE service was late it could still be turned around at the airport. Alternatively some services could avoid the airport and terminate at Wilmslow all day and connections could be made to airport trains at Piccadilly.

 

[Greybeard33]

Would it be possible to have the TPE services from Middlesborough and Newcastle reverse out of Manchester Airport and operate down to Wilmslow either in passenger service or empty stock, I think there is only 1tph on the Wilmslow airport platforms at the moment so the capacity should be there. This would allow another service to use the platform at Airport in the time it takes to do this an if the TPE service was late it could still be turned around at the airport. Alternatively some services could avoid the airport and terminate at Wilmslow all day and connections could be made to airport trains at Piccadilly.

I doubt it would be a satisfactory solution to send the TPE trains on to Wilmslow. The timings might work if they arrived at the Airport on time, but more than a few minutes late and it could all go pear-shaped, with a queue for platforms.

What might work operationally would be for the Liverpool Northern Connect train to bypass the Airport and terminate at Wilmslow instead all day long (one morning peak service will be doing this in the May TT) and for the TfW train to terminate at Piccadilly all day long (as it already does in the peaks). Then the Northern Connect Blackpool train could vacate a platform before the TPE Scotland train arrives.

Liverpool and N Wales/Chester passengers would have a same platform change at Piccadilly, with journey times only increased by a few minutes. Nevertheless, I imagine there would be strong objections from Merseyside and Wales.

And the ballet dance at the Airport would rely on everything arriving in the right order, through the Castlefield corridor. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[daodao]

Something radical needs to be done to make more streamlined and efficient use of the limited capacity of inner Manchester's rail network, which cannot practicably be expanded, given the massive costs of doing so.

The solution is to stop running long-distance 5-6 car trains to the Airport because they clog up the platforms there and at platforms 13/14 of M/c Piccadilly, and as they are long-distance services, are more likely to be late. In particular, the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle have major airports of their own, each with an extensive number of destinations, and are some distance from Manchester, so don't need through trains to Ringway.

The Glasgow/Edinburgh services should all go through Carlisle, be run by the WCML franchise and terminate at Victoria. The Standedge services should be run as Northern Connect, have no first class to increase capacity, not extend north of Newcastle, and should not use the Ordsall curve; all those terminating at M/c should run to Piccadilly platforms 1-4 via Guide Bridge and the others (2/hour) should run through Victoria to Lime Street. East Midlands franchise should run all the trains via the Hope Valley - after all, it is in the East Midlands; these services should also have no first class to increase capacity.

 

[transmanche]

In particular, the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle have major airports of their own, each with an extensive number of destinations, and are some distance from Manchester, so don't need through trains to Ringway.

Your pejorative use of obsolete name 'Ringway' suggests that you might be a bit out of touch.

Manchester Airport (with its three passenger terminals) handles almost 30million passengers a year - about the same as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle airports combined. Manchester Airport offers inter-continental routes that are not available from smaller airports - e.g. over 1 million passengers a year fly between Manchester and Dubai. Manchester Airport is expanding capacity so it can handle up to 50 million passengers a year.

In short, pretending that Manchester Airport is not a major passenger destination is just daft. People will want to travel to Manchester Airport from across Northern England and beyond. And the railway needs to accommodate that.

 

[43074]

Something radical needs to be done to make more streamlined and efficient use of the limited capacity of inner Manchester's rail network, which cannot practicably be expanded, given the massive costs of doing so.

The solution is to stop running long-distance 5-6 car trains to the Airport because they clog up the platforms there and at platforms 13/14 of M/c Piccadilly, and as they are long-distance services, are more likely to be late. In particular, the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle have major airports of their own, each with an extensive number of destinations, and are some distance from Manchester, so don't need through trains to Ringway.

The Glasgow/Edinburgh services should all go through Carlisle, be run by the WCML franchise and terminate at Victoria. The Standedge services should be run as Northern Connect, have no first class to increase capacity, not extend north of Newcastle, and should not use the Ordsall curve; all those terminating at M/c should run to Piccadilly platforms 1-4 via Guide Bridge and the others (2/hour) should run through Victoria to Lime Street. East Midlands franchise should run all the trains via the Hope Valley - after all, it is in the East Midlands; these services should also have no first class to increase capacity.

This misses the point really: it isn't necessarily Glasgow/Edinburgh or Newcastle which contribute the significant numbers to the Airport, more fairly important places like Lancaster/Preston or Leeds which are on the way and either have smaller airports or no airport at all. The problem isn't 5 and 6 car trains going down there, rather the 2 and 3 car ones. Virtually everyone agrees more strategic use needs to be made of the Airport route & Castlefield corridor rather than just playing franchise commitment bingo with it, but I don't think a mass culling of popular destinations is the way to go about sorting it out really.

 

[Boysteve]

The Glasgow/Edinburgh services should all go through Carlisle, be run by the WCML franchise and terminate at Victoria.

This sort of moves the problem but does not solve it as Victoria is short of space to terminate trains arriving from the West!

 

[Bungle965]

This sort of moves the problem but does not solve it as Victoria is short of space to terminate trains arriving from the West!

I was just writing that but you got there before me!
There is (I believe) an idea for a West facing bay at Victoria however that's only an idea at this stage, so it will be years before it's gets off the ground.
Until that point don't go putting anymore trains through Victoria, it has a tendency to struggle already.
Sam

 

[daodao]

Your pejorative use of obsolete name 'Ringway' suggests that you might be a bit out of touch.

Manchester Airport (with its three passenger terminals) handles almost 30million passengers a year - about the same as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle airports combined. Manchester Airport offers inter-continental routes that are not available from smaller airports - e.g. over 1 million passengers a year fly between Manchester and Dubai. Manchester Airport is expanding capacity so it can handle up to 50 million passengers a year.

In short, pretending that Manchester Airport is not a major passenger destination is just daft. People will want to travel to Manchester Airport from across Northern England and beyond. And the railway needs to accommodate that.

Clearly there should be trains from M/c Airport to regional destinations within 50-60 miles such as Preston/Liverpool/Leeds/Sheffield/Crewe, but there is no need for long-distance "inter city style" services to run to M/c Airport. You quote the example of Dubai as a long-haul destination available from M/c, but there is no need for passengers from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle to travel to M/c Airport to fly to Dubai - they can fly direct.

This sort of moves the problem but does not solve it as Victoria is short of space to terminate trains arriving from the West!

There should be one train per hour from the Standedge line to the Airport, but it could go to Piccadilly platform 4 via Guide Bridge and reverse there to travel to the Airport without causing too much disruption. At present there are 4 trains per hour from the Standedge line serving Victoria, 2 of which then proceed via the South Junction line and Piccadilly platforms 13/14 to the Airport. Diverting these services back to run via Guide Bridge would free up capacity to enable the trains from Scotland and North Wales to be diverted to Victoria, and ease the problems on the South Junction line.

 

[Glenn1969]

I would say passengers from my corridor which includes Rochdale as well as Bradford and Halifax are worthy of an Airport service. I just don't know how you would fit it in. Maybe a 6 car Northern service could run with 3 continuing from Vic to Bradford and the other 3 going to another destination- maybe the Barrow/Windermere train if splitting off such a long distance train is not too much of a risk

 

[daodao]

I would say passengers from my corridor which includes Rochdale as well as Bradford and Halifax are worthy of an Airport service. I just don't know how you would fit it in. Maybe a 6 car Northern service could run with 3 continuing from Vic to Bradford and the other 3 going to another destination- maybe the Barrow/Windermere train if splitting off such a long distance train is not too much of a risk

I agree. Removing the services from the Standedge line to M/c Airport from running via Victoria and the South Junction line would free up capacity to enable trains from Rochdale and beyond to run to the Airport via this route.

 

[transmanche]

Clearly there should be trains from M/c Airport to regional destinations within 50-60 miles such as Preston/Liverpool/Leeds/Sheffield/Crewe, but there is no need for long-distance "inter city style" services to run to M/c Airport.

Clearly there is, as people are using them. Nearly everyone I know on Tyneside has, at some time, flown from Manchester - and they would have driven to the airport if there hadn't been a direct rail link.

You quote the example of Dubai as a long-haul destination available from M/c, but there is no need for passengers from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle to travel to M/c Airport to fly to Dubai - they can fly direct.

Yes, an example. As you well know there are plenty of destinations available from Manchester that are not available from the smaller airports. And even if some destinations are available from the smaller airports, they are more often more frequent/at more convenient times/cheaper from Manchester.

Compare Manchester with similar and larger international airports. Paris CDG, Frankfurt, Amsterdam Schipol, Copenhagen, Zurich, Düsseldorf spring to mind: they are all directly served by long-distance inter-city services.

 

[43074]

There should be one train per hour from the Standedge line to the Airport, but it could go to Piccadilly platform 4 via Guide Bridge and reverse there to travel to the Airport without causing too much disruption. At present there are 4 trains per hour from the Standedge line serving Victoria, 2 of which then proceed via the South Junction line and Piccadilly platforms 13/14 to the Airport. Diverting these services back to run via Guide Bridge would free up capacity to enable the trains from Scotland and North Wales to be diverted to Victoria, and ease the problems on the South Junction line.

A significant reason for diverting TPE North trains via Victoria to both Liverpool and the Airport was precisely to avoid having trains from the Guide Bridge direction crossing the entire throat to get to 13/14 or the Airport route. It would also lead to a slower journey time between Leeds and Manchester. Running them via the Ordsall Chord makes sense, it's just that there are too many other services on both the Castlefield and Airport lines at the moment for it to be consistently reliable.