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TPE Scotland/Bolton/Manchester. How to stop commuters boarding?
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Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
Oh if only that was true! The reality is that TPE was formed as a separate franchise to run the quasi inter-city part of the rail network in the north and as such the DfT expects it to become profitable over the long term. Therefore it will inevitably behave in a manner that you obviously think is wrong. That is what you get from our current method of organising passenger rail services. That's also why we have the Williams review in progress.
If this was France [shudders] the Manchester-Scotland services would run non-stop from Piccadilly to Preston; if this was Germany Manchester-Preston would be quad-tracked allowing genuine segregation of local and longer-distance services; if this was the Netherlands (or Denmark) the service would depart Manchester formed of 3x4-car units with one set for Scotland, one set for Barrow and one set terminating at Lancaster. But this is Britain.
Personally don't see much of an issue with boarding set down or pick up only as it's only the TOC'S that looses out on revenue ... but speaking of revenue there is a simple low tech solution for this:
Swamp the train with commission hungry ticket inspectors and threatening to charge people who boarded at Bolton going to Man Pic an excess fare from Preston being the previous open stop if they do so again. Will be bad public relations for the TOC'S.
Swamp the train with commission hungry ticket inspectors and threatening to charge people who boarded at Bolton going to Man Pic an excess fare from Preston being the previous open stop if they do so again. Will be bad public relations for the TOC'S.
Swamp the trains with RPO. Great. So you are not a train person. You want to get to Manchester. You’re a Doris going shopping. That’ll be sixty (or whatever) quid. It’s a train. It’s goimg to Manchester. There have been so few of them recently you have no idea what’s what, but you got told it would all be new trains. Ah, here’s a new one. What shall we get in the sales? Here, Barbara, it’s got seats, it doesn’t smell of chips and bottoms and it’s quite comfortable. What, outrageous. Taking my details and treating me Like a criminal....
I am not sure you get the difference in mentality between North and South. I am a northerner. I live down south. The friendly people down here are mainly expat northerners. Fining older ladies is not what northerners do.
Everyone can clearly see that the trains, either the 319s, whatever replaces them or the TPE units will not have enough capacity. It will still be overcrowded as hell. And the railway solution seems to be to punish the passengers.
I am not sure you get the difference in mentality between North and South. I am a northerner. I live down south. The friendly people down here are mainly expat northerners. Fining older ladies is not what northerners do.
Everyone can clearly see that the trains, either the 319s, whatever replaces them or the TPE units will not have enough capacity. It will still be overcrowded as hell. And the railway solution seems to be to punish the passengers.
Sorry, I meant not advertise the Bolton calls at Manchester Piccadilly, nor Piccadilly calls at Bolton (or perhaps only advertise locally at the later)
It's a bit like the 'secret' Up Norwich calls at Stratford. To all intents and purposes not advertised as a pick up other than locally at Stratford, as its just easier to accept a few people will get on rather than attempt enforcement.
Yes, fantastic PR for the railway. "See, here's the shiny new trains following years of disruption. Oh, by the way you can't get on them unless you want to be fined".
Agree the culture in the south is very much more of charging everyone for everything. Bit of a culture shock for a northerner like me.
It’s more that many of the the people who are connected to it simply can’t see why it is the railway that is at fault. Maybe it’s because, like many men with a particular interest in stuff, they get blinkered and blinded to common sense or rationality. Or that they simply don’t understand it is there to serve people and business, not an end in itself. And the soft fleshy cargo deserves to be treated. fairly and with respect as well. Often the railwaymen rightly complain as to how the staff treat them, but then, you can see some person who has endured years of appalling services, then gets fined, is going to give them very short shrift.... I know I have so little sympathy for SWR RPO after they basically corralled the mother of my son against railings because she dared to get the first train out of Waterloo (disaster on an evening as ever) and I had gone to meet her at the station nearest. With Toddler. It was closer to London, but a different route. Fare the same. She was still partially breastfeeding and I had a toddler on my arms. Hungry. The stupid RPO were holding her with her in tears and the baby screaming. The lack of common sense was staggering. Because rules.
This debate is being blown completely out of the water and becoming silly. Pickup/ set down restrictions are used successfully across the country everyday, with occasional missed calls to stop people who aren’t intended to be on the train from using it in the future, with the extreme example being services running non-stop from Paddington to Taunton, skipping Reading. However loads of busy stations, like Clapham junction, have restrictions on boarding/alighting so that long distance passengers can have a comfortable journey and they work just fine. E.g. Long distance passengers can board the comfortable 444 for the full journey to Weymouth from either Waterloo or Clapham, and short distance passengers can use the commuter service intended for them. I’ve no idea why Boltonians are so special that they won’t be able to deal with these restrictions that work perfectly well day in, day out, everywhere else.
OK, so lets put similar restrictions at:
Wolverhampton/Coventry (barring travel to/from Birmingham)
Stevenage (barring travel to/from Kings X)
Huddersfield/Wakefield (barring travel to/from Leeds)
Stockport (to/from Manchester)
Etc etc etc.
Why do Boltonians uniquely get such restrictions placed upon them? Watford is pretty much the only other example of the practice being used day in day out for anything other than an odd train here or there.
That's why I'm suggesting 'light' restrictions - essentially don't advertise the call, but don't penalise the odd person who may jump on.
It’s not unique though, as I pointed out Reading, Clapham Junction, Woking etc all manage.
Wolverhampton and Coventry have passengers who want to travel further and inadequate capacity for none of the Intercity services to be used.
Stevenage is an ORCATS raid basically.
Huddersfield/Wakefield, see Wolverhampton
Etc.
All of these examples have more than one intercity train per hour as well, Bolton gets only one on a particularly busy service which people will genuinely want to travel on for 3+ hours, who shouldn’t be blocked from travelling by people going to Bolton.
Reading and Woking are only for a handful of peak trains.
Clapham is pick up only away from London, open (if 'not promoted') stops on the way in, with not exactly a shortage of other trains.
Bolton passengers want to get to Manchester Airport. Wonder how the number of those passengers compare to Manchester-Scotland?
Like I say, 'discourage' use through non-advertising, but don't penalise the few that do.
Beimg from Bolton, it was amazing how many people genuinely didn't realise that 'normal' tickets to Bolton were even valid on the former Virgin Cross Country services (with fully open stops). Including a friend who is now a doctor. Lots of people will self-regulate if the train is nice enough! That's what Boltonians are like!
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I used to commute from Lostock. And Bromley Cross. My dad has the old Lostock station sign in his garage.....
What people are annoyed about is that their service and their town used to have real connections. It went places. It was an inter city stop. I used to be able get a direct train from oxford back to Bolton st the day of term....
It was a proud place. Now it’s just a dead dormitory town. Cheers BMBC. The train (and bus) service has been slaughtered. Nothing used to travel through without stopping. You used to be able to get to Glasgow. Or even east Anglia. The service has been utterly atrocious for years now. It sticks in the craw to have endured the shambles, to find paths needed for commuters are being taken away and given to trains which do have alternative routes. I think the people of Bolton would rather have more trains and seats every day than watching half empty trains they can’t get on.....
It is an admission that the planning was always inadequate. They never intended offering capacity to commuters.
People talk about CLJ or RDG. I use both. No one checks the tickets at CLJ. Ever. At RDG, the commuter time long haul trains are always rammed with standing commuters. Whatever the revenue people say. That won’t change with crossrail. They’ll all still be standing. Just on slower trains as well as 345s, when they ever turn up. No one checks at Woking either. Except for the stoppers back to London, to see who used a fast train out and then tried to double back. RPOs are regularly at Brookwood. And regularly catch loads.
What people are annoyed about is that their service and their town used to have real connections. It went places. It was an inter city stop. I used to be able get a direct train from oxford back to Bolton st the day of term....
It was a proud place. Now it’s just a dead dormitory town. Cheers BMBC. The train (and bus) service has been slaughtered. Nothing used to travel through without stopping. You used to be able to get to Glasgow. Or even east Anglia. The service has been utterly atrocious for years now. It sticks in the craw to have endured the shambles, to find paths needed for commuters are being taken away and given to trains which do have alternative routes. I think the people of Bolton would rather have more trains and seats every day than watching half empty trains they can’t get on.....
It is an admission that the planning was always inadequate. They never intended offering capacity to commuters.
People talk about CLJ or RDG. I use both. No one checks the tickets at CLJ. Ever. At RDG, the commuter time long haul trains are always rammed with standing commuters. Whatever the revenue people say. That won’t change with crossrail. They’ll all still be standing. Just on slower trains as well as 345s, when they ever turn up. No one checks at Woking either. Except for the stoppers back to London, to see who used a fast train out and then tried to double back. RPOs are regularly at Brookwood. And regularly catch loads.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Boltonians are getting new trains. Are those 331s for use on "NorthWest Express" services to Blackpool a mirage?
LBZ of course is also served by some Class 319s as well as our lovely Desiros. I reckon you'll see some of them in due course, too - I can see the 350/2s ending up up north in due course.
The North's rail network does need some improvement, but Bolton really is not badly done by. And really, it makes no sense to carry commuters on short InterCity trains.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The state of the town has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of an infrequent CrossCountry train service using knackered old Mk2 stock.
And you will again. But carry on the whining with regard to using those trains as a commuter service from Manchester, and they'll just get annoyed and pull them completely. As far as I know they are not a franchise requirement (but I could be wrong).
Would you like to show me precisely which TransPennine Express trains, other than those between Manchester and Manchester Airport, you are referring to?
It is not "inadequate planning" to plan to use InterCity trains for InterCity passengers, and for commuters to use commuter trains. It's good practice the world over. The long-term game is long semifast and stopping EMUs to Blackpool - they are what provide your commuter capacity. You can also use the InterCity trains to travel north.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The trouble is that the IC train will always be perceived as nicer, even if it isn't. (I think 350/1 and /3 are much nicer than Pendolinos in terms of the accommodation, but yet the MKC commuters whine about not being able to use the Pendolinos). It's all about a feeling of prestige rather than the practicality, which is that there's only 5-6 coaches of demand for the Scottish TPE but if you want every Boltonian, and for that matter Prestonian, to have a seat you're going to have to run 12-car to Preston then carry fresh air thereafter. You could portion work, but it's just easier to provide commuter trains for the commuters.
Does it make sense (to passengers) to have empty capacity on trains stopping at Bolton when the trains are overloaded ?
And a 4 car 331 has barely different capacity from the pairs of 156s in the late 1980s. And since then they’ve built Buckshaw. An entire commuter town. Which fills up the trains. And Loads of new estates round Horwich Parkway. And Manchester has crippled the East Lancs road in.
Where is the extra capacity ? There is certainly a load more demand. So what have they done to improve the lot and to plan for the future... oh yes, slashed platforms and therefore capacity at VIC and not built more platforms at Piccadilly. It’s all not good enough.
Seen what you said about 12 cars from Preston.... so what capacity do they intend with their 331s. They won’t be 12 cars. They will be four cars. And the odd eight car. They will be very happy with the revenue from all the people standing. Because they are commuters. They have to put up with it.
And a 4 car 331 has barely different capacity from the pairs of 156s in the late 1980s. And since then they’ve built Buckshaw. An entire commuter town. Which fills up the trains. And Loads of new estates round Horwich Parkway. And Manchester has crippled the East Lancs road in.
Where is the extra capacity ? There is certainly a load more demand. So what have they done to improve the lot and to plan for the future... oh yes, slashed platforms and therefore capacity at VIC and not built more platforms at Piccadilly. It’s all not good enough.
Seen what you said about 12 cars from Preston.... so what capacity do they intend with their 331s. They won’t be 12 cars. They will be four cars. And the odd eight car. They will be very happy with the revenue from all the people standing. Because they are commuters. They have to put up with it.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Once again, what empty capacity? The whole reason this is even being considered is that those boarding at Picc for Bolton will crowd the trains out and people going to Scotland may be unable to even board, let alone get a seat.
The only trains anywhere on TPE's network with "empty capacity" of any kind (other than at the crack of dawn and midnight) are those wastes of paths and rolling stock operating between Picc and the airport.
Because, I understand, there have been incidents where people travelling beyond Bolton have been unable to board the train because of overcrowding.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Er, aren't the 350s up north newer than the 350s down south?
Asking for a friend.
They're newer than most of ours, though they were part of the same order as the /3s. You get an extra bog, though, I think?
Only if you remove the word "shorter". A sixteen carriage Long Distance double-decker in Switzerland or Duplex TGV in France, for example, are anything but shorter.
Greybeard33
Established Member
The franchise TSR specified that all the TPE trains should call at Bolton, except for services that arrive at Manchester between 0700 and 0959 southbound or depart Manchester between 1600 and 1859 northbound. But it gave TPE the option of designating the northbound calls pickup only and the southbound calls set down only.
It appears that TPE intends to comply but take up the option.
Greybeard33
Established Member
Times from Piccadilly to Bolton, with a stop at Oxford Road in all cases:
TPE (350) 18 minutes
Northern Airport/Hazel Grove to Blackpool (319) 19 minutes, with stops at Deansgate and Salford Crescent
Northern Alderley Edge to Wigan (75mph DMU) 19 minutes, with stop at Salford Crescent.
The TPE timings seem generous.
bramling
Veteran Member
Stevenage used to have restrictions back in the 1990s, and people did used to get pulled up on it (I presume they got charged the full fare from/to the next stop?). It was a cause of substantial local disquiet at the time.
FWIW I can understand the Bolton situation, especially heading out of Manc where there could quite easily be a situation of the train being heavily filled with Bolton passengers and those from further afield being unable to board / get a seat. Something like Stevenage might well be different as it was probably mainly up passengers doing it simply on the basis of seeing the first London train arrive, and in the down direction a few people alighting at Stevenage would create space for anyone boarding so not really cause a problem, not to mention the train being rather longer than a 3 or 4 carriage 185/350.
Timings of 38 to 40 minutes for TPE between Manchester and Preston — well under mile-a-minute — seem pretty pathetic after the expenditure of so much money on modernising the line, even after allowing for the inclusion of a couple of minutes padding to cover the future stop at Bolton.
Precisely. These people are getting on the TPE trains because there isn’t capacity for them on the trains they are having foisted on them. Why does a (typically) less regular traveller take priority over some poor sod enduring the trains five days a week.
The problem is that the capacity isn’t there. That the TPE trains are running on a crowded route where the locals have suffered from ineptitude, financial disaster and the usual shambolic deliveries of ‘improvements’ and are not able to use them. You go ask those who live on the southern ends of HS2 whether they are looking forward to the disruption when they will get no benefit...
How long will the 331 formed trains be? Because they’re not making enough of them.
I guess that the electrification is of no benefit then, nor is the longer services to Scotland, which they can use, but not towards Manchester because there is insufficient capacity and a Northern service 4 minutes later. Is it worth doubling rolling stock costs to allow passengers to save 5 minutes getting in to Manchester? The less regular passenger clearly takes priority because they're paying more. The cheapest Walk up from MAN-GLC is £70.10, a season ticket holder's journey cost is £2.26. And the next train to Glasgow will be two hours later if a long distance passenger is forced off because there are too many people going to Bolton aboard, a Boltonian will have to wait a whole 3 minutes!
Mountain Man
Member
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How often does that actually happen?
The line which I used to use regularly has major standing issues, but very rarely was it the case of not getting on.
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