Welcome to the railway industry!Yes. It's a bit incongruous having a policy of "commuting only", essentially, and not having a train timed usefully for most commuters
Welcome to the railway industry!Yes. It's a bit incongruous having a policy of "commuting only", essentially, and not having a train timed usefully for most commuters
Not necessarily wrong if the question is "when will the operators still saying essential travel only stop saying it?"
I was hoping Northern would have been able to run more services post July 6th, it doesn't look like there's a much overall increase to now. On the plus side though there should still be plenty of spare units which can be used to max out train formations over and above what is run now
Philipe advised me in another thread (the one regarding Northern Pacer withdrawals) that Northern may still need to tweak/add to what they have published, between now and next Friday. So hang fire another few days
That would be good if it happens. As others have said, the Northern timetables are some way short of the return to full service in the article that started the thread.Philipe advised me in another thread (the one regarding Northern Pacer withdrawals) that Northern may still need to tweak/add to what they have published, between now and next Friday. So hang fire another few days
How would say TfL rail provide a full service given that their terminating station (,Terminal 4 ) is closed and their alternative station has insufficient capacity for a full service
Well if it has, the outcome of the review hasn't been made very public. It's that kind of transparency that is needed to regain public trust!
The difference with Northern is not only they they are an organisation whose revenue arises, during normal times, overwhelmingly from the taxpayer. They are also now (due to being an OLR and the EMAs) both an organisation directly owned by the DfT, and one whose entire revenue stream and continued existence depends on them.It’s not a review. It’s assessing the data.
I don’t know who you work for, but if someone asked your company to publish detailed stats of how many people were unable to attend work during the crisis, and why, do you think they would?
I therefore don't see it as inconsistent in the slightest to expect such organisations as Northern to report on why they cannot deliver the same level of public services in exchange for public money that other TOCs are capable of. It's basic accountability to the public and to taxpayers.
"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"... That other government funded organisations aren't being transparent isn't an excuse for the rail industry not to be. I'm sure some information could be gleaned through FoI requests but if past experience is anything to go by, at least half the stuff you want will be rejected or 'sanitised' on spurious "commercial confidentiality" grounds.How many other government fundeD organisations have dine the same?
TfW's attitude is completely unjustifiable in view of the fact that their own government is explicitly condoning the use of public transport. They're not even suggesting considering alternative means first, or only using it for "essential journeys". I don't know what planet they think they're living on in contradicting their own government's advice so blatantly.Meanwhile, the DfT annoucements presumably doesn't apply to Transport for Wales, who are still running an extremely restricted (generally Sunday) timetable, aimed at "key workers" and other "essential travel".
I had an email a few days ago reminding me that their services are not available for leisure use.
It's not entirely clear to me to what extent this comes from the government.
The page here (updated 19th June) seems quite clear: "Can I use public transport? Yes".
For rail, this page (updated yesterday) includes the line "We want people to be able to make essential journeys", and warns that the BTP will be reminding the public to follow government advice and may fine people ignoring the advice, but doesn't actually forbid non-essential travel - it just sends people to the TFW web site to find out what the rules actually are.
At the moment as we're only supposed to travel no more than 5 miles this probably doesn't impact all that many people, but the expectation is that the 5 mile rule will be dropped soon and I haven't seen anything suggesting that this will come with an increase in rail services or a change in who TFW will say is allowed to use them.
Though according to Twitter, extra services were put on for people travelling to the beach last week, many of whom will have travelled over 5 miles.
(Meanwhile for buses the TFW web site just says that some bus operators are running a reduced service - no wording about essential travel. But the bus operator web sites I looked at insisted that the government advice was that buses are only for essential journeys).
Given that transport operators are saying that that government has told them that their services are for essential travel only, I would prefer it if I could find that advice clearly stated on a government web site.
TfW's attitude is completely unjustifiable in view of the fact that their own government is explicitly condoning the use of public transport. They're not even suggesting considering alternative means first, or only using it for "essential journeys". I don't know what planet they think they're living on in contradicting their own government's advice so blatantly.
On the GN side the Saturday timetable is pretty much the same as the weekday timetable. The only exceptions are a few extras in the peaks.
TfW's attitude is completely unjustifiable in view of the fact that their own government is explicitly condoning the use of public transport. They're not even suggesting considering alternative means first, or only using it for "essential journeys". I don't know what planet they think they're living on in contradicting their own government's advice so blatantly.
TfW's attitude is completely unjustifiable in view of the fact that their own government is explicitly condoning the use of public transport. They're not even suggesting considering alternative means first, or only using it for "essential journeys". I don't know what planet they think they're living on in contradicting their own government's advice so blatantly.
This is true. In Scotland and Wales a 5 mile limit is imposed for non essential travel, so for now you are permitted to travel on any rail service but only in England.Further to the essential travel issue, GWR in a response to a question which is if they could travel on any service, replied "anywhere in England"
I think you're missing the fact that in Wales the rule is still essential travel only by any mode other than locally, and it will be a very, very small number of people for whom using a train to go somewhere less than 5 miles away is a sensible option. (There will be some, but Wales' very sparse rail network means it'll be very, very few).
This of course causes the perennial issue with TfW services that operate through England, but other than duplicating them by an English TOC (which to be fair Chester-Manchester already is, by Northern) I'm not sure what the solution is.
I do, quite honestly, believe we’re going to see a phase of a few weeks where people are encouraged to travel abroad on holiday but NOT to travel to the airport they’re flying from on the train.There will have to be new advice on how to reach airports when borders open further on 6 July, with the inevitable surge in EU travel.
The current advice is specifically to avoid pubic transport.
It's also clear that there has been no joint working with devolved admins on this policy so far.
EMR's generous contribution to the 'full timetable' request appears to be a whole of five extra services across their entire network!
Time to turn off the funding tap, the government is simply throwing good money after bad.
RTT appears to reflect some of the plans for July 6th onwards. It varies a lot from TOC to TOC.EMR's generous contribution to the 'full timetable' request appears to be a whole of five extra services across their entire network!
Time to turn off the funding tap, the government is simply throwing good money after bad.