Greybeard33
Established Member
Because Northern's 170s, and the traincrew who sign them, are based in the North East. Northern needs the 185s to work the Manchester Airport to Barrow in Furness services.
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TransPennine Express North Route, New Timetable
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+ the single door 156s which serve the Airport to Liverpool via Warrington route need to be replaced by trains which can reduce delays through Manchester as a result of long dwell times. It makes sense for the double leaf 195 trains to serve this route first and for Northern to retain the 185s for the time being. EMTs 158s, Northern's 156s are a big part of the problem with dwell times at Piccadilly and Oxford Road, particularly on the run to the airport with luggage.
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noddingdonkey
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What's the story with so many cancellations of late/overnight Airport trains due to staff shortage? Is it crews taken off regular duties for training on the new stock or something less obvious?
NRE isn't clear on what (if any) alternative transport is being provided, but I'm getting worried about an early morning flight I have to catch in a few months as these issues seem quite routine now.
NRE isn't clear on what (if any) alternative transport is being provided, but I'm getting worried about an early morning flight I have to catch in a few months as these issues seem quite routine now.
nr758123
Member
Looks like today the Leeds-Manchester stoppers and the Hull-Manchester were almost all cancelled from about 6pm onwards. Mostly the reason given was shortage of drivers, so not infrastructure or weather related. As a mere passenger, I don't understand how TPE can be allowed to get away with this. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can explain why it's considered an ok thing to do.
This to me is some pretty poor advice:
Although as it happens, RTT has it down as being on the move so someone's sending out some utterly naff information.
I ended up deliberately missing the 21:19 Piccadilly to Sheffield and held back for the EMT at 21:41 as JourneyCheck had it as cancelled. Turns out that also ran anyway!
But yes it's been a poor show all evening- although to TPE's credit they had the sense to tack the cancelled 14:53 Leeds-Manchester onto the 14:40 Leeds-Manchester (ex Hull) so that it was 6 carriages throughout rather than running it as a rather rammed 3 coach.
Although as it happens, RTT has it down as being on the move so someone's sending out some utterly naff information.
I ended up deliberately missing the 21:19 Piccadilly to Sheffield and held back for the EMT at 21:41 as JourneyCheck had it as cancelled. Turns out that also ran anyway!
But yes it's been a poor show all evening- although to TPE's credit they had the sense to tack the cancelled 14:53 Leeds-Manchester onto the 14:40 Leeds-Manchester (ex Hull) so that it was 6 carriages throughout rather than running it as a rather rammed 3 coach.
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dilbertphil
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At present especially at weekends there is a chronic shortage of drivers, the company every weekend are scrabbling round trying to cover the work. They are currently recruiting drivers on a large scale approx 20 have started this year with probably another 20 next year at Manchester alone. The paying passengers have been let down by the poor management that sadly is endemic across not just TPE but First group as a whole.
Even friends who live in Cheshire stay overnight at the airport before a flight from Manchester now, and that's less than 30 miles away! Roads are likely to be blocked by an accident and, as you note, trains are just too unreliable to risk it...
Mirfield did not appear to have a train for more than 3 hours last night, I saw little in the way of these promised stop order's being implemented to cover for the cancelled services either.
It's all rather farcical.
Sam
It's all rather farcical.
Sam
I was at Manchester Piccadilly last night at round about 21.30 and the TPE service could only be described as being in meltdown with numerous delays, cancellations etc. This was confirmed by a quick inspection of Journey Check where a number of trains were also listed as stopping short of their planned destinations with road transport being provided mainly due to driver shortages.
Sadly, since the May 2018 timetable both the TPE and Northern services to Manchester Airport are too unreliable to be considered dependable enough to catch a flight.
Boysteve
Member
So the Winter timetables are now downloadable on the TPEx website. As we all knew the stopper is split, however Leeds-Huddersfield stoppers have this footnote;
❖ For all or part of this timetable period, this service
may be advertised as operated by Northern
I did not expect this but it does make sense. Maybe a unit can be saved somewhere by interworking diagrams with other Northern routes? Yes that would reduce turnaround times so less 'buffer' between services but platform capacity at Huddersfield maybe helped. Certainly maintaining a 185 on the Huddersfield-Manchester stopper is a good idea to give good acceleration on the longer climbs.
❖ For all or part of this timetable period, this service
may be advertised as operated by Northern
I did not expect this but it does make sense. Maybe a unit can be saved somewhere by interworking diagrams with other Northern routes? Yes that would reduce turnaround times so less 'buffer' between services but platform capacity at Huddersfield maybe helped. Certainly maintaining a 185 on the Huddersfield-Manchester stopper is a good idea to give good acceleration on the longer climbs.
Boysteve
Member
OK, but would the TPEx crews then have to be trained on whatever unit Northern decide to make available?
dilbertphil
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TPE are using 2 Northern 170's with Northern driver and TPE conductor.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
It was ridiculous on Saturday. I attended the firework display in Mirfield that night with my partner, and ended up getting a taxi home. It's frustrating that TPE made a big song and dance about their 6tph, but the stopper is always the first to suffer when things go wrong. Today's 1253 Westbound stopper ran fast to get back on schedule, meaning several local stations had a 2 hour gap. Still called at Dewsbury of course, despite that having alternative services. If First weren't interested in serving local stations they shouldn't have insisted on doing so to fit their false advertising.
Does that mean they won't be affected by Saturday strikes, I wonder...?
It seems that both the current and new timetables were designed with no attention paid to local travel patterns. The appalling service by TPE would be headline news if it was on GWR. I pay a lot of money for my monthly season, but getting back into car ownership is more appealing by the day.
dilbertphil
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Northern Drivers aren't on strike, it's only a handful who are in the RMT so shouldn't be an issue.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
That's why I asked: one saving grace of the pathetic timetable is that my journey to Huddersfield and back for the football is unaffected by the guards striking at Northern: if the plan is for TPE guards to work the replacement stoppers then presumably they'll still be running on Saturdays even if Northern guards are on strike?
dilbertphil
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Yes they will run as I believe these are still TPE services. Hopefully it might make your journey to Hudd a bit better than it may have been recently
pdq
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Unfortunately it will be worse. We currently have two direct trains from Batley to Huddersfield - one all stops and one Dewsbury then fast to Hud. With the new timetable we retain the stopper but lose the express. Instead the Northern to Southport via Brighouse now calls at BTL but we get a 14 minute wait at DEW to pick up the express. So a 12 min journey is now 26 mins. At least prior to May the wait was only around 5 mins at DEW.Yes they will run as I believe these are still TPE services. Hopefully it might make your journey to Hudd a bit better than it may have been recently
They seem to operate as Manchester Piccadilly to Huddersfield, Huddersfield to Marsden (in some instances empty stock), and Marsden to Manchester Piccadilly. Without shunting on the mainline there isnt a suitable crossover to terminate at Marsden coming from the West.
Boysteve
Member
Talk about First World Problems
!Normally with a timetable change there are winners and losers. However, if this upcoming change gives a much more stable/reliable and achievable timetable then we shall all be winners for once.
The 1754 and 1854 Man Picc Northern services are down as operating to Marsden only on Real Time trains.
I didn't realise that some of them operate in service between Huddersfield and Marsden as separate services though.
td97
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Good to see that Northern can provide drivers for TPE services but not their own
I'm not clear what times or days you're looking at to draw that conclusion.
I can only think that use of the loop at Marsden is a consequence of the restricted platform availability at Huddersfield.
pdq
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Yes, I know it's not a big deal in the scheme of things, and 'first world problem' occurred to me as I was typing. I was only replying to the assertion that things will improve in Dec, where for Batley folk it doesn't, and is slightly worse than the previous timetable. It's just a bit annoying that in addition to the stopper being split (which doesn't affect us at all to HUD) we are also losing the Hull stopper, which I don't quite see the reasoning for.Talk about First World Problems
Normally with a timetable change there are winners and losers. However, if this upcoming change gives a much more stable/reliable and achievable timetable then we shall all be winners for once.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
Absolutely. The May changes were sold to us as an improvement, but in practical terms it was a worse service... we went from evenly-spaced services to Huddersfield and Manchester (albeit with a change at DEW) to a 15/45 split which wasn't really softened by not needing to change. We lost our service to the Calder Valley, with a much more awkward change into that service. As someone working in Mirfield, the changes to come do at least restore me to 2 trains per hour from Batley, rather than the current 1tph if I'm lucky.
We at the smaller stations in the core have been treated as an inconvenience by TPE for the last six months. There are many things wrong with Northern but local stopping services are their bread and butter. In the old days if a train was 20 or 30 minutes down at least we still got a service eventually, rather than being cut just so the operator could meet PPM.
It's not First's decision though to skip intermediate stops when services are running late. It's NR control.
This issue will be resolved with the splitting of the stopping service though, although somebody somewhere will find some issue...
DaiGog
Member
That's my single biggest annoyance with TPE. I appreciate that they have a congested network to deal with, but (for example) dumping 150 passengers at Stalybridge to squeeze on to another already well-loaded train, to then send the train back empty while leaving another 150 people on the platform at Piccadilly, is not in the interests of the customer. There seems to be a mentality of being in business to move trains around rather than move customers around.
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A quick solution would be to bin the unworkable TPE only timetable - revert to Huddersfield - Kirkby services via Vic and Sacrifice the famed 6tph.
Locals get a service that is workable, and you reduce the amount of delays caused by excessively long services from all shacks to Manchester.
Locals get a service that is workable, and you reduce the amount of delays caused by excessively long services from all shacks to Manchester.
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