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Temporary Closure for Rose Hill Marple

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Mcr Warrior

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There is a feature in this evenings edition of The Manchester Evening News, Its available online-Sorry I have not got a link.
Presumably this is the link...


'It's totally unacceptable': Plans to suspend 'vital' train service spark angry backlash

Northern Trains has announced it will withdraw services from Rose Hill station - in Marple - and Manchester Piccadilly between early September and mid-December.


By Nick Statham
Local Democracy Reporter
14:01, 28 JUL 2020


Plans to suspend a ‘vital’ rail service for three months have met with an angry backlash.

Northern Trains has announced it will withdraw services from Rose Hill station - in Marple - and Manchester Piccadilly between early September and mid-December.

Used by thousands of passengers every week, the service also stops at Romiley and Woodley, in Stockport, as well as Hyde Central in Tameside.

Rail users will now have to use either Marple or Bredbury stations, depending on which is closest for them.

Bosses say the ‘tough decision’ has been taken due to the continuing impact of Covid-19, with many staff classed as vulnerable and a training backlog affecting the number of drivers available.

The rail firm - which was brought under government control in March after years of disruption - says it will be ‘some time’ before services return to pre-Covid levels.

But the announcement has sparked fury among passengers, with thousands signing petitions against the decision within days of it coming to light.

Craig Wright, founder of Friends of Rose Hill Station, said the plan was ‘totally unacceptable’.

“It is just not possible to close down a railway line for three months without destroying its passenger base,” he said.

“I helped found the Friends of Rose Hill Station in 2009. Since then we have spent thousands of hours improving the appearance of the station.

"But we’ve also campaigned and achieved improvements to the train service.The result has been that usage of the whole line has more than doubled in the last 10 years.

"We want to do more but this three-month closure will destroy much of our 10 years’ hard work.”

Stockport’s Liberal Democrat group’s petition had attracted more than 3,000 signatures at the time of writing.

Deputy leader Coun Lisa Smart said: “This decision by government-run Northern Trains has come out of the blue and will leave many people with no decent alternative to travel to work or school. It has been made after the Conservative government took over running Northern Rail following years of poor service.

“More than 3,000 signatures in three days is a staggering number and shows just how vital this rail link is to people here, with so many people relying on it, including school pupils due to start back in September and commuters travelling to work.
 
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Greybeard33

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But the mid-Cheshire line service is being significantly enhanced at the same time that the Rose Hill service is being essentially withdrawn.
Many other lines across the Northern network are having their service "significantly enhanced" from 14 September, e.g. Alderley Edge to Southport will be restored. Why pick on the Mid-Cheshire?
 

Deafdoggie

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Every time I've been over the Stockport viaduct there's been loads of buses parked up, both in the bus station and the depot behind it.
I don't know if that depot is near enough that it could serve Marple?
See earlier post about the buses being VOR. If they’re not registered, they can’t be used. Four months RRB work isn’t worth reregistering them for.
 

Whisky Papa

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See earlier post about the buses being VOR. If they’re not registered, they can’t be used. Four months RRB work isn’t worth reregistering them for.

My understanding is that RRB work may count as private hire. Certainly this would be the case for ad-hoc work in case of disruption, but I think it also applies to pre-planned work.

If this is the case, then vehicles used would need tachographs fitted (and calibrated), their drivers trained on them and subject to much more stringent hours regulations than for normal service bus work. None of this sits well with the normal operation of bus services by the big groups.
 

Bletchleyite

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My understanding is that RRB work may count as private hire. Certainly this would be the case for ad-hoc work in case of disruption, but I think it also applies to pre-planned work.

If this is the case, then vehicles used would need tachographs fitted (and calibrated), their drivers trained on them and subject to much more stringent hours regulations than for normal service bus work. None of this sits well with the normal operation of bus services by the big groups.

Don't think you need a tacho for RRB, you can operate to a timetable instead. You might be right about EU hours applying, though.
 

marplerambler

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Wow, this doesn't seem reasonable without replacement buses being in place. I suppose if you are the Government you can't breach your franchise agreement... :(
If you look at a map of the area you will see that the route taken by the train does not run roughly parallel to a straightforward linear road route from Manchester to Rose Hill or to Marple. The route taken by road to connect the stations is so circuitous it is totally impractical for rail replacement buses. No-one would travel on a rail replacement bus from Rose Hill to Manchester though a rail replacement bus from Rose Hill to Marple station (about a mile away) would be useful. Woodley station is only about a mile from Bredbury station with a frequent bus service Very few passengers travel from Rose Hill to any of the stations en-route to Manchester other than to Romiley, a couple of miles down the track from Rose Hill. I don't know the statistics but I would guess that 85% of passengers travel to Manchester Piccadilly, 10% to Romiley and 5% to all of the remaining stations en-route.
 

Starmill

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Fairfield will not need a RRB; trains on the Glossop line can stop there.
They certainly could stop there, but the question of if they will or not is yet to be answered!

Northern and others could stop trains from Leeds at Church Fenton while its normal services are all cancelled. They choose not to, though.
 

Tetchytyke

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Don't think you need a tacho for RRB, you can operate to a timetable instead. You might be right about EU hours applying, though.

You could get around it by registering the RRB as a service bus. This is what happens in the north east with the Metro replacement buses.

And if it's going to be a 4-month closure, it'd be worth doing.
 

Starmill

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I love the reference to Droylsden MetroLink (sic), without saying if they've arranged ticket acceptance...
 

pdeaves

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Trackman

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This is all due to pressure from local councillors and the MP in the Marple area, not Northern being nice.
 

Starmill

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No mention of extra stops in Glossop trains at Gorton or Fairfield or any kind of service for the Hyde area either
It says no service at Fairfield. One assumes they've simply decided not to stop there.
This is all due to pressure from local councillors and the MP in the Marple area, not Northern being nice.
They've not achieved much of a concession. Especially not if the company can't even be bothered to arrange ticket acceptance.
 

Mcr Warrior

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No mention of extra stops in Glossop trains at Gorton or Fairfield or any kind of service for the Hyde area either
That surprised me too. Is the timetabling so tight on the Glossop line to preclude calls at Fairfield?
 

peters

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But the mid-Cheshire line service is being significantly enhanced at the same time that the Rose Hill service is being essentially withdrawn.

Going from around 60% not operating to around 40% not operating is a significant enhancement? I don't agree when Northern are saying network wide 95% of services will be operating.

The Mid-Cheshire should never have been cut beyond removing peak time extras and late services, it was a line that missed out on service enhancements in 2017 despite the demand for the additional services already existing.
 

Bletchleyite

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That surprised me too. Is the timetabling so tight on the Glossop line to preclude calls at Fairfield?

I've long found the service there a bit bizarre anyway - you have high-acceleration Class 323s running fast, while slow DMUs (even more so in the days when it was Class 101 power-trailer sets which wouldn't pull the skin off a proverbial rice pudding - and the pattern was the same back then other than that one of the two Rose Hills went to Marple instead of Rose Hill) do the stops. Logic would be that the EMUs should run the stopping service.

I can only assume that is indeed that they would have to put an extra unit in (which would negate the point) to serve those stops.

Pretty raw they're providing nothing for Hyde though, this does set a nasty precedent.
 

py_megapixel

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I can only assume that is indeed that they would have to put an extra unit in (which would negate the point) to serve those stops.
That won't matter once Northern have 34 323s - it's more than they really need so one unit here or there is unlikely to make much of a difference.

What will matter is platform capacity, given that adding an extra diagram, even with additional stops, would result in an enormous turnarounds.
 

Bletchleyite

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That won't matter once Northern have 34 323s - it's more than they really need so one unit here or there is unlikely to make much of a difference.

What will matter is platform capacity, given that adding an extra diagram, even with additional stops, would result in an enormous turnarounds.

What will matter even more is the crew that extra unit would need, because freeing up crews for training is the whole point of the exercise.

One thing I've just noticed, though, is that they seem to be running it in a "linear" manner, i.e. using Glossop as a terminus. Could they perhaps save enough time to call at Fairfield if they ran alternately round the "loop" instead, i.e. Manchester-Glossop-Hadfield-Manchester (then the next train the opposite way) or vice versa?
 

py_megapixel

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One thing I've just noticed, though, is that they seem to be running it in a "linear" manner, i.e. using Glossop as a terminus. Could they perhaps save enough time to call at Fairfield if they ran alternately round the "loop" instead, i.e. Manchester-Glossop-Hadfield-Manchester (then the next train the opposite way) or vice versa?
Quite probably. The double back takes quite a while. Also it's Hadfield, not Glossop, used as a terminus these days.

It depends on how many people use the serice to actually get between Hadfield and Glossop
 

Greybeard33

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One thing I've just noticed, though, is that they seem to be running it in a "linear" manner, i.e. using Glossop as a terminus. Could they perhaps save enough time to call at Fairfield if they ran alternately round the "loop" instead, i.e. Manchester-Glossop-Hadfield-Manchester (then the next train the opposite way) or vice versa?
Quite probably. The double back takes quite a while. Also it's Hadfield, not Glossop, used as a terminus these days.

It depends on how many people use the serice to actually get between Hadfield and Glossop
Under the normal timetable, the trains run "round the loop" from Dinting during the peaks (clockwise in the morning, anticlockwise in the evening), to enable a 3tph peak service with Glossop to Manchester commuters prioritised. However, it appears that Northern does not intend to reinstate the peak extras before December, so there will be 2tph all day, terminating at Hadfield and calling at Glossop in both directions. This timetabling requires a very quick turnaround at Hadfield in order to avoid a conflict with the next service on the single track between Dinting and Glossop. Maybe there would be pathing issues between Piccadilly and Guide Bridge if calls at Fairfield were added?

Not mentioned on the Northern webpage, but from RTT it appears that many of the Hadfield services will continue to skip Gorton, leaving 3- and 4-hour gaps at times:
 

daodao

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On Mon-Sat, there are currently hourly services from Piccadilly to New Mills Central via Reddish and to Rose Hill via Hyde. If Northern wish to keep reduced services to permit driver training, why not just leave this service arrangement alone until December 2020. Removal of all services to Rose Hill and on the Hyde loop seems to me more like a deliberate permanent/long-term withdrawal by stealth.
 

Greybeard33

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On Mon-Sat, there are currently hourly services from Piccadilly to New Mills Central via Reddish and to Rose Hill via Hyde. If Northern wish to keep reduced services to permit driver training, why not just leave this service arrangement alone until December 2020. Removal of all services to Rose Hill and on the Hyde loop seems to me more like a deliberate permanent/long-term withdrawal by stealth.
The Reddish line has hourly services to Sheffield as well as the hourly New Mills terminator, giving 2tph most hours. The Northern intention is to maintain this service frequency, while freeing up the drivers currently working the Rose Hill services.
 

daodao

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The Reddish line has hourly services to Sheffield as well as the hourly New Mills terminator, giving 2tph most hours. The Northern intention is to maintain this service frequency, while freeing up the drivers currently working the Rose Hill services.
We are both incorrect. The New Mills terminator (which is in addition to the Sheffield service) is currently only running approximately every 2 hours, up to 2000 only, Mon-Sat.
 

peters

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Removal of all services to Rose Hill and on the Hyde loop seems to me more like a deliberate permanent/long-term withdrawal by stealth.

When I was watching Ian Hislop's program on the Beeching Cuts he talked about the little bit of line that remained open to Rose Hill Marple and suggested with hindsight it was a mistake to keep that section of line open just for a second Marple station, while larger towns lost their only station on lines that remained open for freight.

Has any line being properly closed to trains in recent times, other than the lines converted to Metrolink?
 

61653 HTAFC

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When I was watching Ian Hislop's program on the Beeching Cuts he talked about the little bit of line that remained open to Rose Hill Marple and suggested with hindsight it was a mistake to keep that section of line open just for a second Marple station, while larger towns lost their only station on lines that remained open for freight.

Has any line being properly closed to trains in recent times, other than the lines converted to Metrolink?
The last closures in England were I think Clayton West in 1983 and Derby to Sinfin in the 1990s.
 
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