Is train really cancelled

[leejayd]

I arrived at Manchester Oxford Road for the 17:18 to Chester yesterday. Display board showed it was cancelled when arriving on platform. No alerts came from TFW. Delay repay submitted for cancelled train last night. I checked the journey on RailRadar today and it's showing as Late by 17 minutes, not Cancelled.

In this day and age why do TFW alerts not come through? I even got a text from them saying there were no problems.

Why do Oxford Road display Cancelled when the Train is delayed? Is this to clear the over crowded platform i.e. send passengers to Picc?

 

[yorkie]

Looks like it ran non stop through Oxford Road

 

[DarloRich]

Is it more accurate to say the stop at Oxford Road was cancelled rather than the train was cancelled?

 

[leejayd]

Raildar says it stopped at Oxford Road at 17:30 - why would it not stop at Oxford Road?

 

[yorkie]

Is it more accurate to say the stop at Oxford Road was cancelled rather than the train was cancelled?

Absolutely.

Raildar says it stopped at Oxford Road at 17:30 - why would it not stop at Oxford Road?

The train departed Piccadilly late.

In theory passengers at Oxford Road could have been told to go to Piccadilly to catch it there, but presumably that didn't actually happen.

Not calling at Oxford Road would potentially make up some time, or at least avoid a further delay.

Also perhaps the train was already full at Piccadilly?

 

[Bevan Price]

Raildar says it stopped at Oxford Road at 17:30 - why would it not stop at Oxford Road?

Probably grossly overloaded, as RTT shows the preceding 16:50 Piccadilly - Llandudno was cancelled, and that train is usually a well-filled 4 coach loco-hauled train.

 

[leejayd]

If I knew this before leaving the office I could have walked to Picc and caught it there. Is it unreasonable to expect to be notified of these events before getting to the station? I always check RTT but this showed no problem for 17:18.

 

[ainsworth74]

RTT is very good but I find that it falls over a bit in disruption as it doesn't seem to update anywhere near as quickly as other sources when there are cancellations or ammendments.

 

[mrcaa]

I tried to get on this one. I arrived to catch the 16:50 which would have been 4 cars but was cancelled due to faulty brakes. About a minute before this one arrived we were told to move to platform 13. There were now two services worth of people and the train that arrived was only 2 cars so about half of us weren't able to get on. That's obviously why it skipped Oxford Road as it would have been pointless stopping there. I ended up walking to Victoria to catch the 18:07 Northern train rather than risking being unable to get on the next one too. The Oxford Road cancellation was only announced when the change of platform was I think which is probably why you didn't get an alert.

 

[Bevan Price]

If I knew this before leaving the office I could have walked to Picc and caught it there. Is it unreasonable to expect to be notified of these events before getting to the station? I always check RTT but this showed no problem for 17:18.

Would not surprise me if the decision to cancel the Oxford Road stop was only made when they were "surprised" to find at Piccadilly that they could not fit any more passengers onto the service to Chester. Indeed, passengers may well have been left behind at Piccadilly, especially if the Chester service was one with only 2 coaches. Even 3 coaches would struggle to cope with its own normal load, plus many who would normally have used the 16:50 to Llandudno.

 

[yorkie]

...There were now two services worth of people and the train that arrived was only 2 cars so about half of us weren't able to get on. That's obviously why it skipped Oxford Road as it would have been pointless stopping there. ...

A very sensible decision by TfW; they are clearly much more pragmatic than GWR were when I caught a train from Paddington that was full and standing (GWR had been informed in advance it would be full) with people left behind, and yet they still decided it must make the pick-up only Reading call. The train was further delayed at Reading as there was no room for anyone else to board; it completely lost its path, causing us to be around 90 minutes late into Llanshamlet.

If I knew this before leaving the office I could have walked to Picc and caught it there. Is it unreasonable to expect to be notified of these events before getting to the station? I always check RTT but this showed no problem for 17:18.

I suppose what's really needed is a way of warning that the preceding train has been cancelled, and therefore your booked train is likely to be busier than normal. In some cases it may be obvious which service(s) the displaced passengers are going to end up on, but not always. I am not sure such a system could be fully automated and be reliable, so some manual intervention is likely to be required.

 

[mrcaa]

Well thankfully it’s turned up today at least. 67010 if anyone cares.