Fines. Court. Prison. Have a word with yourself..... the idea is to run trains for the people who want to use them. Not to run a railway for the train companies’ benefit.
You can't not advertise the calls at all though - you can not advertise them on the platforms, but the timetable has to show a stop at Bolton in some form to be any use to people going north. Southbound people will just get on assuming the train goes to Manchester even if it's not on the screens.
Fines and court cases are how the railway does business. Most passengers don't read the whole timetable, or the restrictions, or understand that they can (in theory) go to prison for ignoring the restrictions. An example will need to be set to stop it. Of course this will reach the local press, and of course it will put people off travelling by train, but there will be fewer people travelling on the wrong train.
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’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.
It’s not unique though, as I pointed out Reading, Clapham Junction, Woking etc all manage.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.
Reading and Woking are only for a handful of peak trains.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.
Nice new trains are for people in Leighton Buzzard, not the likes of Boltonians.
It was a proud place. Now it’s just a dead dormitory town.
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.
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!
Does it make sense (to passengers) to have empty capacity on trains stopping at Bolton when the trains are overloaded ?
How about when a train stops at any intermediate station you can both board AND alight like passengers would reasonably expect to do? Manchester-Bolton is a fairly short stretch of what is a very long journey overall, if it's busy for a time it's busy.
Nice new trains are for people in Leighton Buzzard, not the likes of Boltonians.
The difference in attitudes to transport in the north vs the south is sometimes quite stunning on this forum.
Er, aren't the 350s up north newer than the 350s down south?
Asking for a friend.
Commuters belong on long, high-density commuter trains. InterCity passengers need shorter, lower-density trains for their longer, pricier journeys. What's the fundamental issue with this? Every single European country does it.
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.As far as I know they are not a franchise requirement (but I could be wrong).
Times from Piccadilly to Bolton, with a stop at Oxford Road in all cases:Does anyone know what the difference in duration is between an intercity service from Manchester to Bolton and the commuter service (which I assume contains more intermediate stops)?
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.
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.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.
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.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.
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!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.
How often does that actually happen?Not half as cross as they get if they can't board with their Advance to Scotland because some commuter to Bolton can't be bothered waiting 10 minutes for a commuter train.