The future of services to Bradford Interchange

Halish Railway · 21 Oct 2017

This is what I understand about the future service patern will be once all the nitty gritty of timetable changes have happened;
1tph Leeds to Chester
1tph Leeds to Liverpool
1tph York to Blackpool
1tph Leeds/Selby to Huddersfield
1 tph Starts here to Manchester Airport
1 tph Starts here to Nottingham
1 tph Halifax to Leeds
4 tpd Starts here to London

The Leeds/Selby to Huddersfield may be combined with the Leeds to Bridlington service. Does anyone know about the stopping pattern of the services mentioned above or any other services that will operate?

tph - Trains per hour
tpd - Trains per day

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lejog · 22 Oct 2017

Halish Railway said:
This is what I understand about the future service patern will be once all the nitty gritty of timetable changes have happened;
1tph Leeds to Chester
1tph Leeds to Liverpool
1tph York to Blackpool
1tph Leeds/Selby to Huddersfield
1 tph Starts here to Manchester Airport
1 tph Starts here to Nottingham
1 tph Halifax to Leeds
4 tpd Starts here to London

The Leeds/Selby to Huddersfield may be combined with the Leeds to Bridlington service. Does anyone know about the stopping pattern of the services mentioned above or any other services that will operate?

tph - Trains per hour
tpd - Trains per day

1. The Leeds-Bradford-Huddersfield service will no longer be extended to Selby (let alone Bridlington) according to the May 2018 Northern proposed timetable thread. It has been reported by WYCA that Northern would like to truncate this service further to a Huddersfield to Bradford or even Halifax shuttle.(See 2)
2. The Manchester Airport service will be starting from Leeds in May 2018, not Bradford in Dec 2019 as described in the franchise agreement. There appear to be good revenue-based reasons why Northern would want to continue with this when the Liverpool/Nottingham services are running, even if it has to use the path into Leeds currently used by the Huddersfield service.
3. There's no 1tph Halifax to Leeds service in the franchise agreement, although one appeared in the interactive maps issued at the time of the franchise awards.

But I expect exactly what will be possible depends on the capacity upgrades at Bradford Mill Lane and at Leeds station. The Mill Lane upgrades are going ahead as planned for completion next year, but work at Leeds has been pushed back until the 2020s. I suspect there may be further changes to the plans.

70014IronDuke · 22 Oct 2017

Halish Railway said:
This is what I understand about the future service patern will be once all the nitty gritty of timetable changes have happened;
...
1 tph Starts here to Nottingham...

Is this an extension to the current Leeds - Nottingham via Barnsley?

lejog · 22 Oct 2017

Nope, its a new Northern Connect service via Wakefield Westgate.

70014IronDuke · 22 Oct 2017

lejog said:
Nope, its a new Northern Connect service via Wakefield Westgate.

Hmm. Really? That's interesting. And innovative.
In fact, wow! So that means from having just one train per hour north to Sheffield only up to about 8 or 9 years ago, Nottingham will now have that, plus two trains to destinations north of Sheffield?
I'm very pleased someone has noticed that there are passengers seeking to use Nottingham apart from those to London.
What's the stopping pattern, do you know?

marcouk2 · 22 Oct 2017

Extension of and rerouting via Westgate of the current Leeds - Nottingham service, Barnsley gets a Leeds - Lincoln Northern Connect service instead.

70014IronDuke · 22 Oct 2017

marcouk2 said:
Extension of and rerouting via Westgate of the current Leeds - Nottingham service, Barnsley gets a Leeds - Lincoln Northern Connect service instead.

ER, sorry, my route knowledge in that part of Yorkshire is definitely not 100%. (I hadn't realised you can go directly from Bradford - Westgate, if indeed that is what you are saying?)
Will the new Bradford - Nottingham miss out Leeds? (surely not?)
What route will the Leeds-Lincoln take - via Barnsley, then Sheffield - Worksop - Gainsborough L Rd?

marcouk2 · 22 Oct 2017

70014IronDuke said:
ER, sorry, my route knowledge in that part of Yorkshire is definitely not 100%. (I hadn't realised you can go directly from Bradford - Westgate, if indeed that is what you are saying?)
Will the new Bradford - Nottingham miss out Leeds? (surely not?)
What route will the Leeds-Lincoln take - via Barnsley, then Sheffield - Worksop - Gainsborough L Rd?

It will go Bradford - Leeds - Wakefield Westgate - Sheffield - Nottingham.

And yes the Leeds - Lincoln will go via Sheffield and then Barnsley.

http://maps.dft.gov.uk/northern/index.html has the outline of improvements.

70014IronDuke · 22 Oct 2017

marcouk2 said:
It will go Bradford - Leeds - Wakefield Westgate - Sheffield - Nottingham.

And yes the Leeds - Lincoln will go via Sheffield and then Barnsley.

http://maps.dft.gov.uk/northern/index.html has the outline of improvements.

OK, thank you. So it means Nottingham-Leeds will be faster by about 15 minutes than the 1' 55" via Barnsley - but no actual frequency change between Nottingham-Sheffield. I suppose it might cause a few complaints from Barnsley folk though - I'd have thought a direct Nottingham train would be more useful to the good folks than to Lincoln.

marcouk2 · 22 Oct 2017

70014IronDuke said:
I suppose it might cause a few complaints from Barnsley folk though - I'd have thought a direct Nottingham train would be more useful to the good folks than to Lincoln.

Yep

The direct service is nice when I visit the GCR(N). Though we get a replacement service that will be Northern Connect so guaranteed to get the new trains coming through for some Leeds/Sheffield journeys.

61653 HTAFC · 22 Oct 2017

Extending to Bradford Interchange would be difficult if it still ran via Barnsley, Kirkgate and Normanton- as it would have to cross a large segment of the western station throat in order to get from one line to the other. Coming from the Outwood direction it can use the same pair of tracks in and out of Leeds station.

CaptainHaddock · 23 Oct 2017

70014IronDuke said:
OK, thank you. So it means Nottingham-Leeds will be faster by about 15 minutes than the 1' 55" via Barnsley - but no actual frequency change between Nottingham-Sheffield. I suppose it might cause a few complaints from Barnsley folk though - I'd have thought a direct Nottingham train would be more useful to the good folks than to Lincoln.

According to http://maps.dft.gov.uk/northern/index.html
"existing service frequencies between Leeds and Sheffield via Barnsley will be maintained"

So from December, Barnsley will still get two fast services per hour and a stopper to/from Leeds but every other fast train will no longer go through to Nottingham?

marcouk2 · 23 Oct 2017

CaptainHaddock said:
According to http://maps.dft.gov.uk/northern/index.html
"existing service frequencies between Leeds and Sheffield via Barnsley will be maintained"

So from December, Barnsley will still get two fast services per hour and a stopper to/from Leeds but every other fast train will no longer go through to Nottingham?

Presumably they will just swap the Nottingham fasts for the new Lincoln services.

70014IronDuke · 23 Oct 2017

61653 HTAFC said:
Extending to Bradford Interchange would be difficult if it still ran via Barnsley, Kirkgate and Normanton- as it would have to cross a large segment of the western station throat in order to get from one line to the other. Coming from the Outwood direction it can use the same pair of tracks in and out of Leeds station.

"of the western station throat" - at Leeds, presumably?
The improvements to this service in terms of cities and faster timings will, presumabliy, prove attractive. Will the units used have the capcity to cope with more 'customers' ?

lejog · 23 Oct 2017

marcouk2 said:
Presumably they will just swap the Nottingham fasts for the new Lincoln services.

Nope, according to the franchise spec, both Leeds-Barnsley-Sheffield services will be extended through Sheffield from December (or next May or whenever Northern have the rolling stock), one to Nottingham and one to Lincoln. When the Bradford-Leeds-Westgate-Sheffield-Nottingham service is introduced by December 2019, the Barnsley-Nottingham service will terminate at Sheffield.

61653 HTAFC · 23 Oct 2017

70014IronDuke said:
"of the western station throat" - at Leeds, presumably?
The improvements to this service in terms of cities and faster timings will, presumabliy, prove attractive. Will the units used have the capcity to cope with more 'customers' ?

Yes, Leeds' station throat, apologies. Will the units cope? Probably not, but what's new there!?

lejog said:
Nope, according to the franchise spec, both Leeds-Barnsley-Sheffield services will be extended through Sheffield from December (or next May or whenever Northern have the rolling stock), one to Nottingham and one to Lincoln. When the Bradford-Leeds-Westgate-Sheffield-Nottingham service is introduced by December 2019, the Barnsley-Nottingham service will terminate at Sheffield.

You say potato... :rolleyes:

marcouk2 · 23 Oct 2017

lejog said:
Nope, according to the franchise spec, both Leeds-Barnsley-Sheffield services will be extended through Sheffield from December (or next May or whenever Northern have the rolling stock), one to Nottingham and one to Lincoln. When the Bradford-Leeds-Westgate-Sheffield-Nottingham service is introduced by December 2019, the Barnsley-Nottingham service will terminate at Sheffield.

Ah, I see. Just looked at the Train Service Requirements now.

Are they having to begin the new service with whatever stock is available or waiting for the new DMUs to make it 'Northern Connect' from the start?

Edit: Just had a quick(!) glance through the franchise agreement and think I've answered my own question, that the Stage Two Northern Connect Passenger Services (which includes Leeds - Lincoln & Bradford - Nottingham) have to meet the Rolling Stock Quality Requirements by 31st May 2019.

lejog · 23 Oct 2017

Well spotted.

NorthernSpirit · 23 Oct 2017

Its written into the either the franchise comittment or WYCA have said it that the services between Halifax and Huddersfield cannot be cut back into a shuttle it must go to Leeds.

Starmill · 23 Oct 2017

It would be a much better use of capacity to have the service from Manchester Airport run through to Leeds than the one from Huddersfield.

Huddersfield and Brighouse customers going to Leeds have alternative, quicker services than this one via Bradford, those going to Bradford have bus services that are considerably more frequent and offer the same journey times as the train. This leaves just New Pudsey and Bramley. Surely it would be more useful for them to have a direct train to Hebden Bridge, Rochdale, Manchester Picadilly and Manchester Airport than one to Brighouse and Huddersfield? I suspect that Northern want to run direct services between Leeds and Manchester Airport because they realise they can sell a lot of Advance tickets for that flow, even on a slower journey time.

As I understand it this point was made by Northern but WYCA were strongly against it.

tbtc · 23 Oct 2017

70014IronDuke said:
"of the western station throat" - at Leeds, presumably?
The improvements to this service in terms of cities and faster timings will, presumabliy, prove attractive. Will the units used have the capcity to cope with more 'customers' ?

Good question.

Whilst other threads see people use Operation Princess as a reason to bash other improvements (e.g. five coach SETs), there's not been a lot of complains about Northern's plan to increase frequencies with two/three coach DMUs (rather than the boring option of lengthening existing services). But the way the wind is blowing, everywhere seemingly needs a direct service to Bradford and/or Manchester Airport, so they've had to complicate the timetables and interwork between different lines, leaving a muddle.

Will a two/three coach DMU be able to cope with demand for a fast service between Sheffield and Leeds? It's the busiest section on the XC network, it only has one "fast" train per hour (I don't count the existing Northern services via Barnsley as being fast - since they take around an hour to cover forty miles as the crow flies) - plus XC have had to remove their plans for peak improvements on this corridor (due to the need to keep their 125mph Voyagers down West Country branch lines instead).

I guess that the good news for Northern is in the West Midlands - firstly the fact that LM's successor are ordering 195s themselves (therefore keeping the production line open further) - secondly the 170s freed up - which means Northern may be able to offer something better than a two coach DMU on the Bradford - Nottingham service - spreading the two/three coach 195s thinly over the Northern network doesn't fill me with confidence though.

Starmill · 23 Oct 2017

tbtc said:
Will a two/three coach DMU be able to cope with demand for a fast service between Sheffield and Leeds?

I think you have rather missed the point. Currently this service does not exist. At present the capacity on offer is zero. The capacity provided by XC isn't going to change as a result of Northern introducing a new service. In future there will be a service offered, so even if it only has 2 or 3 coaches... that's 2 or 3 more than at present.

OK, that may be inadequate to keep up with passenger growth but... does that mean we shouldn't introduce a new service? This line of argument fundamentally contradicts itself - we shouldn't add capacity because... there might not be enough capacity.

NB It seems likely there will be some 4 and even 5 car services in the 'end-game' for that route, based on what I have heard.

tbtc · 23 Oct 2017

Starmill said:
I think you have rather missed the point. Currently this service does not exist. At present the capacity on offer is zero. The capacity provided by XC isn't going to change as a result of Northern introducing a new service. In future there will be a service offered, so even if it only has 2 or 3 coaches... that's 2 or 3 more than at present.

OK, that may be inadequate to keep up with passenger growth but... does that mean we shouldn't introduce a new service? This line of argument fundamentally contradicts itself - we shouldn't add capacity because... there might not be enough capacity.

NB It seems likely there will be some 4 and even 5 car services in the 'end-game' for that route, based on what I have heard.

There's an existing service from Nottingham - Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall - Wakefield - Leeds.

This is going to be sped up, diverted via a different Wakefield station and extended to Bradford but there will be some existing passengers from Nottingham/ Chesterfield to Meadowhall/ Leeds for whom this is a continuation of the existing service.

Plus, as this "45m" service will probably overtake one of the existing "semi-fast" Northern services (that take an hour), their passengers will probably migrate.

When TPE increased the Leeds - Manchester capacity by a fifth hourly service there were a number of people complaining, saying that it'd have been better to have increased numbers of seats on the existing frequency (not practical to do so for obvious reasons).

However there seems to be little grumbling about a two coach DMU being the answer to capacity problems on Leeds - Sheffield. It's an increase in overall capacity, sure, but there won't be enough 195s to fully operate all of the "Connect" services (given that some "Connect" routes will have a number of 158s - e.g. 13/17 of the Sheffield Hull services will be operated by "new" trains, suggesting that 4/17 will be operated by "old" trains), so I remain to be convinced that there'll be a lot of doubling up of 195s - given the numbers involved the are going to be spread fairly thin. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, mind.

Starmill · 23 Oct 2017

tbtc said:
There's an existing service from Nottingham - Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall - Wakefield - Leeds.

This is going to be sped up, diverted via a different Wakefield station and extended to Bradford but there will be some existing passengers from Nottingham/ Chesterfield to Meadowhall/ Leeds for whom this is a continuation of the existing service.

I am afraid you have still missed the point. The existing service is not being cut. There will be the same frequency of semi-fast services via Barnsley.

It seems unlikely that many people use either of the two stopping trains all the way from Sheffield to Leeds anyway, but as for overtaken services, one of the semi-fast services is already overtaken by the CrossCountry service. Does that mean nobody uses it? Admittedly overtaking the other one might cause some people to move over from one to the other but it's unlikely that they will be unable to cope - and the service via Barnsley will still be there.

tbtc said:
When TPE increased the Leeds - Manchester capacity by a fifth hourly service there were a number of people complaining, saying that it'd have been better to have increased numbers of seats on the existing frequency (not practical to do so for obvious reasons).

Apart from concerns over the reliability of the timetable (the main cause of which seems to be infrastructure faults, which the higher frequency makes it slightly more difficult to recover from), I did not and do not recognise these complaints. How are they relevant here?

It's unlikely that the problem will be solved just like that, but between the new XC services and the additional Northern service it seems a lot better than what we have now.

Halish Railway · 24 Oct 2017

This all leaves the question of the length of the 195's on each diagram? The Blackpool services should be 3 coaches as at the moment a 3 coach 158 is rammed on a Saturday. Are the Manchester Connects more likely to be 2 coach trains that are doubled up in Peak hours. Also, how busy do the Calder Valley line trains tend to be in Rush Hour? Is it 17:26 Leeds to Skipton levels of crowding?

Starmill · 24 Oct 2017

These questions have been discussed elsewhere and the answers are a little murky. It also seems that things have changed a little bit since the franchise announcement. It seems likely that the entire 158 fleet will be upgraded to 'Northern Connect' standard, although we have yet to see a completed example of that, and as such there will be scope for some 4 and 5 car services. What the balance will be like I don't know and I'm not sure anyone knows exactly, although many people will have a better idea than me. The numbers certainly aren't disappointing, but perhaps they won't completely solve the problem by the time they finally arrive. For more information dig deeply in this thread.

superkev · 24 Oct 2017

I've never understood why the Bradford Huddersfield service dosent go through to Sheffield which would mimic some of the former South Yorkshireman.
K

lejog · 24 Oct 2017

Halish Railway said:
This all leaves the question of the length of the 195's on each diagram? The Blackpool services should be 3 coaches as at the moment a 3 coach 158 is rammed on a Saturday. Are the Manchester Connects more likely to be 2 coach trains that are doubled up in Peak hours. Also, how busy do the Calder Valley line trains tend to be in Rush Hour? Is it 17:26 Leeds to Skipton levels of crowding?

The Calder Valley services to Manchester are due to be lengthened to 6*23m to meet peak hour passenger number targets, so it is a reasonable assumption that they will be 3 car 195s out of the rush hour. The train lengthening/platform lengthening programme does not include Leeds to Lincoln or Bradford to Nottingham, so at least under Northern's initial plans train lengths will be limited by current platform lengths (whatever they may be).

Iskra · 24 Oct 2017

superkev said:
I've never understood why the Bradford Huddersfield service dosent go through to Sheffield which would mimic some of the former South Yorkshireman.
K

I was thinking that earlier, it would probably be a similar journey time if not quicker and provide some useful direct journey opportunities that aren't especially easy by car.

IanXC · 24 Oct 2017

superkev said:
I've never understood why the Bradford Huddersfield service dosent go through to Sheffield which would mimic some of the former South Yorkshireman.
K

Bradford to Sheffield via Huddersfield and Penistone? or Huddersfield to Sheffield via Bradford and Leeds?

Either way they introduce significant conflicts and would take significantly longer than by changing at Leeds.

The future of services to Bradford Interchange

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