The December 2019 timetable is probably the best that can be achieved with the current infrastructure.
I agree with the sentiment. On paper it looks good - fingers crossed!
As has already been said, TPE are a bit of everything - a situation compounded by the lack of capacity to allow a range of services across the pennines. It's far from ideal, but until such a time as TRU (and any programmes that succeed it) is able to enhance the capacity it's the only option we have. In truth, customers travelling, say from Manchester to York, choose the train that is most conveniently timed for them. If you have a choice of an half hourly 'fast' train that takes 1hr 08mins and only stops at Leeds or a half hourly 'semi-fast' that takes 1hr 20mins but stops at Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Leeds, nobody is going to make a conscious choice to wait for/choose a 'fast' train for the sake of 12 mins.
With the debate settled - i.e. TPE are intercity and regional express, and have some stopping trains - that now takes us onto the next 'point' of this thread, which, if I'm honest, I find almost comical. The real cusp of this debate is whether TPE should have doors at the ends of coaches or at 1/3s. As we've already identified they do a bit of everything, what they really need is a 5 coach train with two 'intercity' coaches and 3 'suburban' coaches.
Part of my work is to monitor and resolve any potential issues causing delay to boarding of trains, or 'increased station dwell' as it were. What this means is that I've watched and monitored the Nova fleet and their performance against a Class 185 in a variety of situations. I have already shared these finding elsewhere on the forum, but I'll explain the logic here.
Why 1/3 and 2/3 doors don't work:
- People stand on the platform in such a way that only one person can alight at a time, making the wide door pointless;
- Once people board, they stand in the doorways and refuse to move down the aisles;
- People leave their luggage in the doorways, making the wide doors ineffective;
- The increased space around the doors makes it difficult to allow people to alight quickly as they have to fight past so many people to get off;
- People try to board before people have alighted as they can't see people moving down the aisle-ways.
- People faff putting their luggage in the stacks delaying boarding;
- You are limited to a single stream of people boarding or alighting irrespective of whether the platform is crowded or not;
- People potentially have to walk further to get off the train;
- People can cause serious blockages by settling down, or dumping luggage in a doorway;
- It's more difficult to see how busy the next coach is so people are more likely to stay cramped in the coach they boarded.
TPE's situation is a bit more unique in that the new 'IC-type' stock is 5 coaches. In theory, you're replacing 6 wide doors with 9 narrow doors. The only time you struggle with station dwell is when there are a lot of people trying to board. If the platform is crowded, it's safe to assume that people are alighting via narrow passage ways anyway, so in the very least, your speed of alighting should be the same. Boarding is slightly different and relies on people moving down into the train at a decent pace. At the moment, the end-doors are not posing an issue because it's easier to board 200 customers via 9 narrow doors onto a 5 coach train than 6 wide ones onto a 3 coach train... When you compare a 6 coach Class 185 with a 5 coach set of Mk5a coaches, there is also not that much difference, which leads me to believe (in addition to my other data) that as long as people know to expect a long train and are evenly spaced along the platform, the dwell time will not rocket as a result of end doors.