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May 2022 Timetable Changes

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swt_passenger

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BIB - I doubt it, more likely to retain route knowledge - a bit like the couple of times a day services which run beyond Corby via Oakham and Melton.
Why would they need route knowledge to Leeds once there was no need to go there when there were no HSTs though?
 
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A0wen

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Why would they need route knowledge to Leeds once there was no need to go there when there were no HSTs though?

The last EMR HST workings were May last year - it might have been that the confirmation of their replacement wasn't confirmed when the timetables were agreed so the need to keep route knowledge between Sheffield and Leeds was retained for a while longer ?

Also EMR did have a couple of services to York - now withdrawn I believe - and whilst they weren't usually routed via Leeds, that may also have been the diversion route I guess ?
 

swt_passenger

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The last EMR HST workings were May last year - it might have been that the confirmation of their replacement wasn't confirmed when the timetables were agreed so the need to keep route knowledge between Sheffield and Leeds was retained for a while longer ?

Also EMR did have a couple of services to York - now withdrawn I believe - and whilst they weren't usually routed via Leeds, that may also have been the diversion route I guess ?
Maybe. I thought the Yorks were staying when this was last discussed but perhaps not. I think they’d already removed the Scarborough extensions?

But it’s all seemingly becoming part of a trend, GWR Brighton, SWR Bristol, EMR beyond Sheffield. They all sound sort of similar, I expect people can think of other examples?
 

Starmill

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The service that used to be for York is the 1015 Sundays only from Leicester. This now terminates at Sheffield and goes empty to Etches Park.
 

HamworthyGoods

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Maybe. I thought the Yorks were staying when this was last discussed but perhaps not. I think they’d already removed the Scarborough extensions?

But it’s all seemingly becoming part of a trend, GWR Brighton, SWR Bristol, EMR beyond Sheffield. They all sound sort of similar, I expect people can think of other examples?

Southern beyond Watford to MK
Cross Country Newquay
Southern to Guildford and Wimbledon
 

Greybeard33

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Operators are still required to act in a largely siloed manner when it comes to fares. It is a quite ridiculous situation when you consider the fact that all the franchises are now under direct DfT control.

That said, offering a lower fare to encourage people to use the longest and most frequent trains on the route is fairly rational, in terms of the effective utilisation of capacity.
Presumably to manage demand and encourage the use of certain services ?
Stoke to Manchester commuters have a choice between Avanti (fast, 9/11 carriage 390) or Northern (stopper, 3 carriage 323). Why do they need a financial incentive to use the faster, more comfortable trains? The Industry is just throwing away revenue by continuing to offer these discounted Avanti-only tickets.
 

driverd

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The last EMR HST workings were May last year - it might have been that the confirmation of their replacement wasn't confirmed when the timetables were agreed so the need to keep route knowledge between Sheffield and Leeds was retained for a while longer ?

Yes - the extension had been worked by a 222 for a year now. I doubt it was for route knowledge reasons, as no crew have done Leeds to Neville Hill since May 21 - would seem pointless to retain the 20 or so miles from Sheffield, to lose the last mile to the depot.

I just think it's an awfully sad time for the industry. Everyone seems thoroughly busy making rail travel more inconvenient and more troublesome for customers and its just wrong - even if a lot of these services were infrequent, it's just cutting yet another link for customers.
 

JonathanH

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I just think it's an awfully sad time for the industry. Everyone seems thoroughly busy making rail travel more inconvenient and more troublesome for customers and its just wrong - even if a lot of these services were infrequent, it's just cutting yet another link for customers.
The alternative view is that it is making the railway less complicated, more ordered, and more efficient because there is a set way any journey is made with the same times each hour and same connection point.

In what way was a train at 1632 from St Pancras leaving Sheffield for Leeds around 7pm a good use of resources? It admittedly ran in marginal time but will have only been useful to a small number of potential passengers and from Derby northwards just duplicated the Cross Country service.

The withdrawal of the GWR trains to Brighton gives Southern a free hand to implement its own services over that route without needing to accommodate an off pattern service.

The process of removing these awkward services will in time be seen to be advantageous to passengers with a leaner, less anomalous railway operation.
 

Watershed

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The alternative view is that it is making the railway less complicated, more ordered, and more efficient because there is a set way any journey is made with the same times each hour and same connection point.

In what way was a train at 1632 from St Pancras leaving Sheffield for Leeds around 7pm a good use of resources? It admittedly ran in marginal time but will have only been useful to a small number of potential passengers and from Derby northwards just duplicated the Cross Country service.

The withdrawal of the GWR trains to Brighton gives Southern a free hand to implement its own services over that route without needing to accommodate an off pattern service.

The process of removing these awkward services will in time be seen to be advantageous to passengers with a leaner, less anomalous railway operation.
A very generous interpretation of events! The reality is that none of these cancelled services have been replaced in any way, nor is there any likelihood them being replaced in the foreseeable future. There has been no cooperation whatsoever between operators.

This is the inevitable outcome of insisting on cutbacks at any cost.
 

driverd

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The alternative view is that it is making the railway less complicated, more ordered, and more efficient because there is a set way any journey is made with the same times each hour and same connection point.

But losing circa 80% of through passengers in the process. Arup engineering did a detailed study into this and every introduced connection loses circa 80% of passengers. Taken to its logical conclusion, why not run every service between just a station pair and introduce more connections in a more ordered and efficient way - and discourage everyone from travelling in the process?

Customers want direct services, not convoluted journeys with connections. Just the idea of missing a connection is enough to put off lots of people.

In what way was a train at 1632 from St Pancras leaving Sheffield for Leeds around 7pm a good use of resources? It admittedly ran in marginal time but will have only been useful to a small number of potential passengers and from Derby northwards just duplicated the Cross Country service.

I think you have a thorough misunderstanding of the communities this service connected. It was the only service of the day connecting Leicester and North of Sheffield, as well as Loughborough and East Midlands Parkway. In some cases, this takes 2 connections down to zero. It also provides an additional useful link from Birmingham (departing circa 1700) towards Wakefield and Leeds, duplicating the cross country service, with one of your highly advocated connections.

It's a perfectly decent use of resource, as in the current timetable, the set simply runs to Sheffield and then ECS to Etches Park. Previously it ran in service to Leeds and in service back to Derby, being reasonably well used in the down direction.

The withdrawal of the GWR trains to Brighton gives Southern a free hand to implement its own services over that route without needing to accommodate an off pattern service.

Are you unaware that the industry does communicate? If southern were in great need to move one of these handful of trains, a simple email to GWR train planning would likely have been sufficient, as broadly the industry tries to work together.

The process of removing these awkward services will in time be seen to be advantageous to passengers with a leaner, less anomalous railway operation.

Or a less connected, more awkward railway that discourages new customer flows and doubles down on a handful of revenue flows to the disadvantage of a broader public.
 

A0wen

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Stoke to Manchester commuters have a choice between Avanti (fast, 9/11 carriage 390) or Northern (stopper, 3 carriage 323). Why do they need a financial incentive to use the faster, more comfortable trains? The Industry is just throwing away revenue by continuing to offer these discounted Avanti-only tickets.

You missed out Cross Country in the mix as well.

Avanti are 2 tph, unevenly spaced. XC and Northern provide another 2/3 services per hour, so I guess it depends if you want "turn up and go" convenience to get on the next train.
 
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Watershed

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Oh that is an excellent site. I suspect someone is going to realise soon that data transparency needs to be switched off
I doubt it; the railway refuses to accept that late notice timetable changes are problematic. It's also difficult to see how they could eliminate the data sharing that this uses, as it's simply the same feed as what booking engines use.
 

DDB

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Yes - the extension had been worked by a 222 for a year now. I doubt it was for route knowledge reasons, as no crew have done Leeds to Neville Hill since May 21 - would seem pointless to retain the 20 or so miles from Sheffield, to lose the last mile to the depot.

I just think it's an awfully sad time for the industry. Everyone seems thoroughly busy making rail travel more inconvenient and more troublesome for customers and its just wrong - even if a lot of these services were infrequent, it's just cutting yet another link for customers.
I believe at the time EMR said they were specifically asked to run it by the DfT to provide extra capacity presumably to relive XC or Northern over the Sheffield to Leeds paer. The Leeds back to Derby leg was I think just returning to Depot in public service afterwards.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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I am delighted that while 1330/1430 Cardiff Portsmouth have remained 4-158, the new TT change has swapped the 1530 from 3-166 to 2-158+3-158. Not only do I get another 158 diagram but a 5 car one.
 

Greybeard33

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You missed out Cross Country in the mix as well.

Avanti are 2 tph, unevenly spaced. XC and Northern provide another 2/3 services per hour, so I guess it depends if you want "turn up and go" convenience to get on the next train.
Cross Country diverts via Crewe in the peaks, so is no use to most Stoke commuters (first arrival at Piccadilly from Stoke 0902). And from this week until (at least) September, the first Avanti of the morning does not arrive at Piccadilly until 0908. Hence the complaints about Avanti-only annual seasons.

DfT could have forestalled this issue by requiring Avanti to cease selling these tickets under the National Rail Contract regime.
 

Deerfold

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You missed out Cross Country in the mix as well.

Avanti are 2 tph, unevenly spaced. XC and Northern provide another 2/3 services per hour, so I guess it depends if you want "turn up and go" convenience to get on the next train.
They're not complaining about wanting turn up and go convenience. They're complaining about having to pay an extra £800 to be allowed to catch an earlier, slower service which is now the only way they can get to work for 0900.
 

43074

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The alternative view is that it is making the railway less complicated, more ordered, and more efficient because there is a set way any journey is made with the same times each hour and same connection point.

Yes but that isn't true is it, because we don't have a consistent timetable where connections are designed in from the outset, look at the Bristol to Westbury stopping service - it terminates at Westbury, Frome, Weymouth or Warminster at whim to suit the operational need of the railway.

The process of removing these awkward services will in time be seen to be advantageous to passengers with a leaner, less anomalous railway operation

Two trains a day to Brighton or a train a day to Leeds won't make an ounce of difference to most passengers to the complexity of the system, and the cost of maintaining a piece of route knowledge that has been required for 40 years is pretty marginal really after all that time.

All you do to the customers who previously used them is force passengers to change trains, a good proportion of the passengers who made a beeline for the direct trains before will now not bother. It deserves to be seen as the industry cutting it's nose off to spite it's face, nothing more.
 

syorksdeano

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It would seem that Northern have worked out a way to deal with people complaining about cuts to services
 

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miklcct

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But losing circa 80% of through passengers in the process. Arup engineering did a detailed study into this and every introduced connection loses circa 80% of passengers. Taken to its logical conclusion, why not run every service between just a station pair and introduce more connections in a more ordered and efficient way - and discourage everyone from travelling in the process?
How was the survey taken? Don't customer want the flexibility to travel anytime they want, with fixed route and connection points that they can just wait for the next train to come within 15 minutes even if there are delays, rather than looking at timetables to take point-to-point services?

In my experience in Hong Kong, a once-per-day service doesn't attract many passengers when there are frequent connections along the same route, even if the connections charge more than the direct service and/or slightly (a few minutes) faster than making connections. In contrast, if the once-per-day service is much more direct (faster) than using connections and serves the demand well, it will become full immediately and result in service enhancement.

But if the once-per-day, or peak-hour only service is enhanced to a regular half-hourly service, people will be much more likely to wait for the direct service rather than making connections.
 

Bikeman78

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Two trains a day to Brighton or a train a day to Leeds won't make an ounce of difference to most passengers to the complexity of the system, and the cost of maintaining a piece of route knowledge that has been required for 40 years is pretty marginal really after all that time.

All you do to the customers who previously used them is force passengers to change trains, a good proportion of the passengers who made a beeline for the direct trains before will now not bother. It deserves to be seen as the industry cutting it's nose off to spite it's face, nothing more.
Going back 20 years when I worked at rail enquiries, we had a fair number of calls from people asking about the two crosscountry trains per day. I'd offer them the faster times via London but plenty of people insisted they wanted the direct train and weren't interested in any of the other options.
 

Bletchleyite

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Going back 20 years when I worked at rail enquiries, we had a fair number of calls from people asking about the two crosscountry trains per day. I'd offer them the faster times via London but plenty of people insisted they wanted the direct train and weren't interested in any of the other options.

Crossing London is a massive, massive faff and quite scary to people not familiar with it. I can completely understand that request. It's quite different from an easy change at one station.
 

miklcct

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Going back 20 years when I worked at rail enquiries, we had a fair number of calls from people asking about the two crosscountry trains per day. I'd offer them the faster times via London but plenty of people insisted they wanted the direct train and weren't interested in any of the other options.
Which route was that?
 

td97

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The Northern TT has not substantially changed yet the service since Monday has been at best poor. 2 consecutive peak Manchester to Blackpools (1702, 1731) were cancelled on Monday, and cancellations/short-forms/part-cancellations have been common on all routes on Journeycheck this week. Even the relative safe havens of Newcastle/Middlesbrough (which are usually well performing) feature prominently on Journeycheck.
What has substantially changed since last week to cause this level of service distruption (though fortunately not on a level comparable to TPE's diabolic service)
 

Andyh82

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Are TPE planning on increasing services at any point? The frequency between York and Manchester is now only 2 per hour, and with frequent cancellations often it is only hourly.

Pre Covid wasn’t there a service every 15 minutes between York and Manchester?
 

HamworthyGoods

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Are TPE planning on increasing services at any point? The frequency between York and Manchester is now only 2 per hour, and with frequent cancellations often it is only hourly.

Haven’t you answered your own question there - if TPE are struggling with crew numbers to deliver 2tph what’s the point of increasing the timetable as that would just lead to promising even more and delivering even less sadly.
 

Watershed

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Are TPE planning on increasing services at any point? The frequency between York and Manchester is now only 2 per hour, and with frequent cancellations often it is only hourly.

Pre Covid wasn’t there a service every 15 minutes between York and Manchester?
Currently pencilled in for an uplift in mid-September, as with Avanti - see here for example. Wouldn't hold your breath on either count though; it seems like timetables across the industry are likely to move in the opposite direction if anything, with the amount of industrial disputes.
 
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The Northern TT has not substantially changed yet the service since Monday has been at best poor. 2 consecutive peak Manchester to Blackpools (1702, 1731) were cancelled on Monday, and cancellations/short-forms/part-cancellations have been common on all routes on Journeycheck this week.
Since the timetable change, all Northern services to/from Ellesmere Port have been cancelled, with the exception of the one afternoon return trip on Wednesday 18th. I can see these reliability issues resulting in a few headline (low usage) figures when the relevant station usage statistics are released.
 

Bletchleyite

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Since the timetable change, all Northern services to/from Ellesmere Port have been cancelled, with the exception of the one afternoon return trip on Wednesday 18th. I can see these reliability issues resulting in a few headline (low usage) figures when the relevant station usage statistics are released.

They could hardly get much lower when it's little more than a Parliamentary service. Lopping these near-useless services out first does make sense. If anyone whines they can always be offered a taxi, and one is likely to be quite sufficient.
 

Starmill

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Crossing London is a massive, massive faff and quite scary to people not familiar with it. I can completely understand that request. It's quite different from an easy change at one station.
I know someone who doesn't mind long distance rail travel at all, as long as it doesn't involve boarding at London Euston. They can't stand it and will literally drive for four or five hours to avoid it, even if the fuel ends up costing more and they're stuck in traffic. I can't exactly say that I blame them.
 
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