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Northern Dec 2019 Timetable Bid

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AMD

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It also doesn't help that swapping the terminating stations for Leeds-Southport and Alderley Edge-Wigan scuppers the plan for electrifying Lostock-Wigan, since electric trains wouldn't be able to use it even if it was electrified from December.
Alderly Edge goes to Southport with 769s from December.
 
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Swimbar

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I had it from the mouth of someone very high up that the current pacer life is only until the end of March.

My local MP, who was the Transport Minister, told me they would be gone by the end of 2019. Who are we supposed to believe?
 

AMD

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Well it's pretty public that 144s are continuing until next year, and internally the plan is that 86 CAF units will be available for use by the end of the year, so still short of 15 units.
 

Djgr

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My local MP, who was the Transport Minister, told me they would be gone by the end of 2019. Who are we supposed to believe?

This is a joke, right? Believing a minister in the current "government"!
 

Jonny

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So are there still plans for Newcastle-Middlesborough services over the Stillington line?
 

Bovverboy

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Having said someone at work previously got the TPE from Liverpool to Piccadilly which was 35 minutes. Doesn't exist anymore (goes to Victoria) and he drives now as it would be a 20 minute walk from Victoria vs a 5 minute walk from Piccadily previously.

I’m surprised that the old TPE Liverpool - Piccadilly - Scarborough trains took 35 mins to Piccadilly, as the EMT Norwich service with (as I thought) the same calling pattern takes 50mins today. Did the old TPE service in fact have fewer stops?

No, it had exactly the same number of stops, but called at Birchwood instead of EM's Widnes - as the current NT semi-fast service still does. When the TPE Liverpool to Newcastle service was introduced (running non-stop between Lime Street and Manchester Victoria) the best start to stop scheduled time Liverpool to Victoria was, I think, 36 minutes. So Liverpool to Piccadilly via the CLC (which is a noticeably longer route than Liverpool to Victoria via Chat Moss), together with calls at South Parkway, Warrington Central, and Birchwood, couldn't possibly have been done in anything like 35 minutes.
 
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Bovverboy

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This is presumably just about Southport passengers. Wigan passengers still have Piccadilly and Airport services with TPE Barrow/Windermere trains hourly most of the day

The Barrow/Windermere services transferred to Northern a year or two ago.

It’s not quite hourly, some of the Barrow/Windermere services use the Preston - Bolton route.

Northbound only the 1634 ex-Airport goes via Bolton, other than that the service is hourly from 07.xx to 19.xx. Southbound there are a couple of journeys which do skip the Wigan stop, but they're afternoon journeys, so pretty irrelevant I would have thought for people living in Wigan and working in Manchester.
 

LowLevel

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No, it had exactly the same number of stops, but called at Birchwood instead of EM's Widnes - as the current NT semi-fast service still does. When the TPE Liverpool to Newcastle service was introduced (running non-stop between Lime Street and Manchester Victoria) the best start to stop scheduled time Liverpool to Victoria was, I think, 36 minutes. So Liverpool to Piccadilly via the CLC (which is a noticeably longer route than Liverpool to Victoria via Chat Moss), together with calls at South Parkway, Warrington Central, and Birchwood, couldn't possibly have been done in anything like 35 minutes.

It took, as you've surmised, just as long as the EMT service of the time - 50 minutes or thereabouts.
 

swt_passenger

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So are there still plans for Newcastle-Middlesborough services over the Stillington line?
It was discussed early August in this thread and posters then assumed it couldn’t be pathed on the ECML. It never appeared in online timetable data.
 

Bevan Price

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I have heard a story that, to reduce congestion in the Castlefields / Ordsall Lane section, the Liverpool / Chat Moss / Manchester Airport / Crewe services may - at some stage - revert to being an hourly Liverpool - Manchester Victoria service. Any comments, please ?

Certainly in my opinion it ought to be an improvement. The Liverpool - Airport - Crewe services have been very liable to delays & cancellations since they were introduced.
 

158756

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I have heard a story that, to reduce congestion in the Castlefields / Ordsall Lane section, the Liverpool / Chat Moss / Manchester Airport / Crewe services may - at some stage - revert to being an hourly Liverpool - Manchester Victoria service. Any comments, please ?

Certainly in my opinion it ought to be an improvement. The Liverpool - Airport - Crewe services have been very liable to delays & cancellations since they were introduced.

Would improve reliability (unless the Liverpool unit ends up getting in the way parked in a through platform at Victoria), but ends the link from the Chat Moss line to Piccadilly. The pre-electrification Piccadilly/Airport service was semi-fast though, so I think the only stations losing a long standing link would be St Helens Junction and Wavertree. Liverpool to Manchester Airport can now be done direct via the CLC.
 

Glenn1969

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If that happened that train could then be extended to be the Franchise Commitment Liverpool to Calder Valley service. If it ever happens of course
 

northernchris

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If that happened that train could then be extended to be the Franchise Commitment Liverpool to Calder Valley service. If it ever happens of course

It would then need to be diesel operated though. I'd much the current timetables are tweaked to become more workable than adding in more cross-Manchester services which will further spread delays
 

js1000

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I have heard a story that, to reduce congestion in the Castlefields / Ordsall Lane section, the Liverpool / Chat Moss / Manchester Airport / Crewe services may - at some stage - revert to being an hourly Liverpool - Manchester Victoria service. Any comments, please ?

Certainly in my opinion it ought to be an improvement. The Liverpool - Airport - Crewe services have been very liable to delays & cancellations since they were introduced.
I know it's conjecture and speculation but I can believe that. I assume we would revert to the Crewe/Manchester Airport - Piccadilly shuttle service as pre-May 2018.
 

DanNCL

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Unless I've missed something or got confused, the December 2019 timetable sees all calls at British Steel Redcar removed. Is the station being "mothballed" as IBM was last year, or is Real Time Trains wrong when it shows nothing calling at British Steel Redcar in the December timetable?
 
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Unless I've missed something or got confused, the December 2019 timetable sees all calls at British Steel Redcar removed. Is the station being "mothballed" as IBM was last year, or is Real Time Trains wrong when it shows nothing calling at British Steel Redcar in the December timetable?
This was mentioned on Twittier earlier this week, too. Source: https://twitter.com/realtimetrains/status/1169017225996656640
"Northern still have some gaps and omissions in their timetable data. So it may just be that timings for British Steel Redcar haven't been confirmed yet. Time will tell, I suppose :) "
 

Greybeard33

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If that happened that train could then be extended to be the Franchise Commitment Liverpool to Calder Valley service. If it ever happens of course
The franchise agreement envisaged that the Liverpool to Bradford Northern Connect service would be an additional semi-fast service on the Chat Moss line, not an extension of the stopper.

Unless and until Piccadilly P15/P16 and the Oxford Road remodelling are completed, it seems highly unlikely that paths across Manchester will be granted for either this service or the Manchester Airport to Bradford (the other Stage Three Northern Connect service - these were originally specified to start in 2020, two years later than the other Connect routes).
 

Bovverboy

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I have heard a story that, to reduce congestion in the Castlefields / Ordsall Lane section, the Liverpool / Chat Moss / Manchester Airport / Crewe services may - at some stage - revert to being an hourly Liverpool - Manchester Victoria service. Any comments, please ?

The Chat Moss line is my local line and I much prefer the stoppers heading for the Piccadilly corridor rather than Victoria. How about diverting the Scottish services into Victoria? I'm sure they don't need to go to Manchester Airport, they have airports in Scotland.

Certainly in my opinion it ought to be an improvement. The Liverpool - Airport - Crewe services have been very liable to delays & cancellations since they were introduced.

If a service leaves Lime Street half an hour late (and that sort of thing is far from unknown) then it will be half an hour late whether it goes to Piccadilly or Victoria. As to cancellations, these have been mainly a consequence of staff shortages, and would be the same whichever route was taken.
 

Philip

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Surely the Barrow/Windermere would be the more appropriate service to divert to Victoria, since Wigan already has a semi-fast service to the Oxford Road corridor (the Alderley Edge), as well as an hourly direct London and an hourly to the West Midlands from North Western, so no need to go into Manchester for connections south.
 

Mathew S

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Surely the Barrow/Windermere would be the more appropriate service to divert to Victoria, since Wigan already has a semi-fast service to the Oxford Road corridor (the Alderley Edge), as well as an hourly direct London and an hourly to the West Midlands from North Western, so no need to go into Manchester for connections south.
The other fast service from Wigan to Manchester (in addition to the Barrow/Windermere) isn't the Alderley Edge service, it's the Leeds service which already runs to Victoria. The Alderley service is comparatively slow, leaving before the Leeds and getting into Manchester later.
Additionally, the Barrow/Windermere trains are the only connection from Wigan to Manchester Airport - and see a lot of use for that purpose by both airport workers and travellers. Justified or not, and I make no judgement on that, there would be a lot of opposition to removing that connection.
 

si404

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Any attempt to change the timetable is met with competing demands and so we end up with a tangled mess of overly-long overlapping infrequent services, changes that get undone, and everything far from ideal.
 

Agent_Squash

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The other fast service from Wigan to Manchester (in addition to the Barrow/Windermere) isn't the Alderley Edge service, it's the Leeds service which already runs to Victoria. The Alderley service is comparatively slow, leaving before the Leeds and getting into Manchester later.
Additionally, the Barrow/Windermere trains are the only connection from Wigan to Manchester Airport - and see a lot of use for that purpose by both airport workers and travellers. Justified or not, and I make no judgement on that, there would be a lot of opposition to removing that connection.

Plus it would be very controversial politically in the Lakes (especially when they’re marginals!) - it would be presented as cutting the Lake District off from its tourists (even though the majority of services are to Barrow anyway)
 

Philip

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But then going by the alternative suggestion, Penrith, Carlisle, Glasgow and Edinburgh will all lose their own direct Oxford Road/Airport corridor connection and these are also well used, so it swings on roundabouts.
 

transmanche

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How about diverting the Scottish services into Victoria? I'm sure they don't need to go to Manchester Airport, they have airports in Scotland.
Not everyone travels the entire length of the route. There are plenty of people who board/alight at Bolton, Preston, Lancaster, etc. and connecting stations.
 

Bovverboy

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Not everyone travels the entire length of the route. There are plenty of people who board/alight at Bolton, Preston, Lancaster, etc. and connecting stations.

And travel to/from the Airport, I presume you mean. Well they certainly shouldn't be travelling from Bolton, since the TPEs are generally set-down only at Bolton, heading south. As to Preston and Lancaster, well Preston has two alternative services to the Airport per hour, and Lancaster has one. (Occasional ex-Windermere services don't currently call, but I'm sure that situation is capable of being sorted out). How many trains to the Airport do the folk of Preston and Lancaster need?
I accept that passengers probably travel from Carlisle to/from Manchester Airport, but there are Virgin trains available as well as TPE, and an easy interchange at Preston.
 

Voyager lad

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The Chat Moss line is my local line and I much prefer the stoppers heading for the Piccadilly corridor rather than Victoria. How about diverting the Scottish services into Victoria? I'm sure they don't need to go to Manchester Airport, they have airports in Scotland.
I think diverting the Scottish services would be a terrible idea! I’m someone who travels once a week between Glasgow and Manchester Piccadilly (to make an onward connection to the south of Manchester) and there are a very high number of people who do this, as well as those joining in Cumbria. Running the service to Victoria would inconvenience a lot of people who make onward connections from Piccadilly or Oxford Road, as well as those actually heading to the Airport. Whilst both Glasgow and Edinburgh have their own airports, there are far more frequent flights to many more international destinations from Manchester than can avoid changing planes at Heathrow. Not to mention for people travelling from Cumbria, travelling direct to Manchester Airport is a lot more convenient than travelling up to Scotland to then have to make 2 or 3 changes to get to the airport!!
 

Mogster

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The Barrow/Windermere services transferred to Northern a year or two ago.



Northbound only the 1634 ex-Airport goes via Bolton, other than that the service is hourly from 07.xx to 19.xx. Southbound there are a couple of journeys which do skip the Wigan stop, but they're afternoon journeys, so pretty irrelevant I would have thought for people living in Wigan and working in Manchester.

Hmmm, it’s the 16:34 North that would be useful to me and a lot of other homeward bound Wigan commuters I suspect. That’s the one that made me post earlier.
 
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