LNWR service from Liverpool to Birmingham and London.

Bletchleyite · 31 Oct 2019

Mugby said:
He acknowledged most of the reasons you quote for the problems and said that lessons have been learned and all will be well after the December timetable change!

Excuse me while I laugh my head off. There are minor changes in December which should help by effectively adding layover to one of the three legs. But only a total recast of crew diagrams (in particular) will solve it, that or returning to a fully split service.

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sprinterguy · 31 Oct 2019

Baxenden Bank said:
As it happens, services via the Stoke wobble much better than yesterday! Not that that is saying much - just a series of two and three hours gaps today rather than six hour gaps yesterday. No rail replacement provision, no station staff to arrange taxis (except Stoke and half-day at Kidsgrove), no realistic alternatives even if prepared to pay out of your own pocket.

There was an announcement of a rail replacement minibus to Stone outside the front of the station when the 16:21 ex-Birmingham arrived at Stafford.

frodshamfella · 31 Oct 2019

frodshamfella said:
22.35 Liverpool to Crewe cancelled tonight at short notice. Passengers told to get 22.23 to South Parkway and change. Not sure if a bus or a train awaits.

There was a football match last night so obviously trains were very busy, plus cancellations. Watched the 22.23 to Manchester Airport pull out with two coaches rammed. There would be some pretty upset passengers wondering why the train could not have been longer, especially when you can see other Northern units parked up.
I was on the 22.39 to Chester which was also packed, due to lack of LNW services to Crewe.

bionic · 31 Oct 2019

gray1404 said:
I really hope they return to a more reliable Liverpool to Birmingham service. Then a separate connection for Euston.

I very regularly travelled this route taking the 2 separate trains and provided the service from Liverpool wasn't more then around 7 minutes late could make the Euston via Northampton connection.

Grumpy Git said:
I was on an early morning LIV-EUS LNW service in early September. As we left Crewe, the guard announced delays south of Birmingham and told anyone going south of there to change at Stafford if they wished, (for the faster service via Tamworth). Result for me as I was in EUS 20 minutes earlier.

Sorry to drag these quotes up from Saturday. The above quotes make me wonder why anyone would choose to go from Liverpool to Euston via Birmingham when they could change at Stafford... especially in the days before there was a cheap through train.

option said:
The LNWR franchise must be planned to disappear, as it can't stay part of WMR & be managed by them forever.

Have you not been reading the news? The current rail franchising system is planned to disappear altogether. If the tories stay in power it is planned be restructured to keep private hands on it based on the recommendations of the impending Williams Report, and if Labour get in it is planned to be renationalised. Either way, the franchise system as we know it won't exist for more than another year or so.

So yes, you are right... the LNR side of things is planned to disappear - along with every other current franchise. I'd guess the West Midlands operation will be fully handed over to the local authority while LNR will be lumped in with WCML operations where it should really have been all along.

The long-running saga of the Southeastern franchise seems to be directly related to this. I'd be very surprised it wasn't. I'd also be very surprised if Branson doesn't get his hands back on a big slice of any future railway pie the tories might decide to carve up.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/q...son-scrap-broken-rail-franchise-system-813497

An overhaul of the UK's rail system that will see the divisive franchise model scrapped is among the 22 bills outlined in Monday's Queen's speech.

Boris Johnson's first Queen's Speech will include commitments to a bill scrapping the rail franchise system, which was introduced when the rail system was privatised in the 1990s.

frodshamfella · 31 Oct 2019

fowler9 said:
I'm actually just passing through Liverpool South Parkway and as if by magic after what I just said the LNR service has been terminated here and all the passengers are further delaying the East Midlands in to Lime Street. It is a farce.

This is happening very frequently these days, its made a half decent service between Liverpool and Birmingham , pretty rubbish.

Bletchleyite · 31 Oct 2019

bionic said:
Sorry to drag these quotes up from Saturday. The above quotes make me wonder why anyone would choose to go from Liverpool to Euston via Birmingham when they could change at Stafford... especially in the days before there was a cheap through train.

Before the through train I'd agree. After it, it does appeal to a certain segment of the market, probably a very similar segment who would use a National Express coach for the same journey - those who value a direct service and low price over journey time.

Puffing Devil · 31 Oct 2019

I've taken to using the LNR service from Euston to Crewe for work. The 8:16 arrives in Euston at 10:30 and is normally pretty reliable. For £78 in 1st I can walk on, straight to a table seat and crank out my laptop and get 2+ hours work in. The train really fills up on the way down, but my little bubble isn't that bad. Same on the return, which again takes longer than Virgin, but I can work for a while and then catch-up on NetFlix. The price/time compromise is worth it, even though I expense my travel.

Last night was interesting - I checked the train situation before leaving the office and saw the chaos at Euston and decided to head to Marylebone and go home via Birmingham. I caught the 17:46 and was in Crewe 3 hours later; not a bad journey compared to some and I had seat all the way.

The_Train · 31 Oct 2019

More delays on LNWR through Stafford at the moment and looks like 5U34 which was supposed to be 1U34 1433 Crewe to Rugby has come to a halt in the Madeley area which in turn seems to have brought the fasts to a halt as well.

Grumpy Git · 31 Oct 2019

bionic said:
Sorry to drag these quotes up from Saturday. The above quotes make me wonder why anyone would choose to go from Liverpool to Euston via Birmingham when they could change at Stafford... especially in the days before there was a cheap through train.

I choose the direct (but slower service) via Birmingham as it's personal use to go to a football game. It means (in theory at least) that I don't have to think about changing trains and it is a bit cheaper. I know its only a few quid (maybe a fiver), but in %age terms it's not insignificant and that goes towards the next trip. I'm also not bothered about getting in London 20 minutes earlier.

jamesst · 31 Oct 2019

Dont really want to get into any arguments over blame etc but its gotta be said the whole West Coast line seems to be having a stinker of a week this week.

Silverlinky · 31 Oct 2019

The_Train said:
More delays on LNWR through Stafford at the moment and looks like 5U34 which was supposed to be 1U34 1433 Crewe to Rugby has come to a halt in the Madeley area which in turn seems to have brought the fasts to a halt as well.

Wires down near Stableford neutral section. Wire issues the other day at Coseley......infrastructure is playing its part, but so is the compexity of the timetable and diagramming. Its virtually impossible to recover from major disruption on the same day now. Emergency timetable doesn't work, trying to run everything late doesn't work. its a nightmare every time something goes wrong. Its a big network out there and any incident has massive knock on effects.

Ref the timetable changes.....by the time the problems arose following the May changes the December timetable had already been cast......no major changes will happen until May 2020.....there may be a bit of movement of work around the depots, more matching up of crew, that sort of thing, but don't expect everything to be rosy again on December 15th!

Grumpy Git · 31 Oct 2019

Just alighted the 20:40 Euston - Piccadilly at Crewe to be told the LNW 22:35 to Lime St. is cancelled. If VTWC had any empathy, they would have announced this on the train so I could have stayed on to Manchester and got the Northern service home.

I have just hopped on the 21:07 EUS-LIV at Crewe so will now have to pay for a taxi home as I've missed the last Northern Merseyrail service to Hunts X.

Bletchleyite · 31 Oct 2019

Grumpy Git said:
Just alighted the 20:40 Euston - Piccadilly at Crewe to be told the LNW 22:35 to Lime St. is cancelled. If VTWC had any empathy, they would have announced this on the train so I could have stayed on to Manchester and got the Northern service home.

I have just hopped on the 21:07 EUS-LIV at Crewe so will now have to pay for a taxi home as I've missed the last Northern Merseyrail service to Hunts X.

The railway should pay for the taxi, not you (assuming you already hold some sort of ticket to Hunts X).

Glenn1969 · 31 Oct 2019

RTT is showing a 2338 Northern service that calls at Hunts Cross. Could you get from P10 to P7 in 5 minutes if you had to?

Grumpy Git · 31 Oct 2019

Bletchleyite said:
The railway should pay for the taxi, not you (assuming you already hold some sort of ticket to Hunts X).

I'm on an Interail Pass, so I'm not sure if it counts (I would have got a LPY to Cressington train otherwise before the Northern service ended for the day)?

Bletchleyite · 1 Nov 2019

Grumpy Git said:
I'm on an Interail Pass, so I'm not sure if it counts (I would have got a LPY to Cressington train otherwise before the Northern service ended for the day)?

I don't see why it wouldn't count, it's a valid ticket and your destination is Cressington. The difficulty may be finding someone to authorise it at Lime St at that time of night, though you could potentially try to reclaim it from LNR whose fault the delay was afterwards.

Or if you want to go cheaper take the bus, they're quite frequent down that way aren't they, including a night bus? (Warning: my knowledge may be a bit out of date)

Baxenden Bank · 1 Nov 2019

sprinterguy said:
There was an announcement of a rail replacement minibus to Stone outside the front of the station when the 16:21 ex-Birmingham arrived at Stafford.

That's all well and good if you are at Stafford Station.

If you are at home planning to set out, en-route elsewhere, or more importantly at your destination checking your journey home, a platform announcement if as useful as a chocolate fire-guard.

There is this thing called the internet, on which run websites (or phone networks and apps). Most people have access to them, immediately they are updated. Perhaps LNR and NRE could make an effort to inform people of the alternative arrangements in place eg "minibus running all stations between Stafford and Crewe via Stoke-on-Trent" is not too difficult a message to put out. Adding times and/or frequency would be an improvement. Entering onto on-line journey planners probably a step too far at short notice.

sprinterguy · 1 Nov 2019

Baxenden Bank said:
That's all well and good if you are at Stafford Station.

Oh aye, I don't deny that a last minute announcement at one station was of no use to the majority of prospective passengers to or from Stone.

The_Train · 1 Nov 2019

Same again today. Lots of delays and cancellations including the Trent Valley services. The 1156 I was going to catch to Tamworth has been cancelled because of a lack of crew. I think I'd be more comfortable travelling on Northern than LNWR at the moment

gray1404 · 1 Nov 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I don't see why it wouldn't count, it's a valid ticket and your destination is Cressington. The difficulty may be finding someone to authorise it at Lime St at that time of night, though you could potentially try to reclaim it from LNR whose fault the delay was afterwards.

Or if you want to go cheaper take the bus, they're quite frequent down that way aren't they, including a night bus? (Warning: my knowledge may be a bit out of date)

The 86 runs 24/7 now between Liverpool and the Airport, via Liverpool South Parkway. The OP might have been able to catch the last Hunts Cross service from Liverpool Central at 23:43 if they were quick.

Finding a member of staff at Lime Street that time is difficult, rightly or wrongly. My advice to grumpy git is to 1. Claim delay repay from WMT based on their final arrival time. This kicks in after 15 minutes on WMT. 2. Contact WMT Customer Services to request to be rehemburaed any taxi fares, bus tickets or additional train tickets that they needed to purchase as a result of the delay. If they initially refuse, esculate the matter to a Manager. I've had to do this twice and they've paid up in the end and accepted I was genuinely caused to miss the last connection of the day and there are limited staff to arrange taxis that time of night at Lime Street.

Grumpy Git · 1 Nov 2019

Glenn1969 said:
RTT is showing a 2338 Northern service that calls at Hunts Cross. Could you get from P10 to P7 in 5 minutes if you had to?

Thanks for this, it was great information and I caught it, (just). I couldn't get a taxi for love nor money at LPY, but by the time I'd finished ringing around for one the rain had diminished enough to walk the 25 odd minutes home without getting drowned.

One thing that left a really nasty taste though was upon leaving the train at LPY, there was a young lady who arrived on the platform (1) at the bottom of the stairs to get my train as the doors closed, she pressed the door button, but it was ignored and about 5 seconds later the train left without her. It was the last train and that could have easily been my daughter, I don't think that was on (also given it was Halloween, horrible weather and taxis were non-existent).

Grumpy Git · 1 Nov 2019

gray1404 said:
The 86 runs 24/7 now between Liverpool and the Airport, via Liverpool South Parkway. The OP might have been able to catch the last Hunts Cross service from Liverpool Central at 23:43 if they were quick.

Finding a member of staff at Lime Street that time is difficult, rightly or wrongly. My advice to grumpy git is to 1. Claim delay repay from WMT based on their final arrival time. This kicks in after 15 minutes on WMT. 2. Contact WMT Customer Services to request to be rehemburaed any taxi fares, bus tickets or additional train tickets that they needed to purchase as a result of the delay. If they initially refuse, esculate the matter to a Manager. I've had to do this twice and they've paid up in the end and accepted I was genuinely caused to miss the last connection of the day and there are limited staff to arrange taxis that time of night at Lime Street.

Again great info., thanks, but as I walked from LPY, I have not incurred any loss, (apart from getting home about 50 minutes later than expected).

Bletchleyite · 1 Nov 2019

Grumpy Git said:
Again great info., thanks, but as I walked from LPY, I have not incurred any loss, (apart from getting home about 50 minutes later than expected).

Can Delay Repay be claimed with an InterRail, if so what would it be based on I wonder?

MalaiseForever · 1 Nov 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Can Delay Repay be claimed with an InterRail, if so what would it be based on I wonder?

I claimed off VTWC, in summer 2017, and got a complimentary standard ticket for use on the VTWC network. Seemed fair enough to me.

Grumpy Git · 1 Nov 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Can Delay Repay be claimed with an InterRail, if so what would it be based on I wonder?

I've give it a go on the WMT website. It doesn't specifically work right for an Interail Pass, as some of the questions/answers just don't "fit". there is also nowhere to make a quick comment.

I guess it depends whether the WMT person who reviews the claim is experienced?

I wasn't able to claim from Eurostar for my ~30 minute delay going out to Brussels (which caused me more hassle than the LNW cancellation coming home) as they don't count anything less than 60 minutes late as 'late'!

fowler9 · 1 Nov 2019

Grumpy Git said:
I'm due to travel EUS-Liverpool tomorrow evening and was planning to change from the VTWC to the LNW service at Crewe, (so I can alight at South Parkway instead of Lime St.).

Has something out of the ordinary happened today or is it just general ongoing chaos? I think I'll just stay on the VTWC to Lime St.?

To be honest it normally reaches Parkway. The one due to stop at Parkway at 17:32 this evening was turned at Parkway. Fortunately the TFW service I caught escaped platform to before all the LNWR service reached platform 2.

fowler9 · 1 Nov 2019

jamesst said:
Dont really want to get into any arguments over blame etc but its gotta be said the whole West Coast line seems to be having a stinker of a week this week.

Not arguing of course but this is just pretty standard for LNW. I started the thread months after they were already a pain in the neck .

frodshamfella · 2 Nov 2019

Grumpy Git said:
Thanks for this, it was great information and I caught it, (just). I couldn't get a taxi for love nor money at LPY, but by the time I'd finished ringing around for one the rain had diminished enough to walk the 25 odd minutes home without getting drowned.

One thing that left a really nasty taste though was upon leaving the train at LPY, there was a young lady who arrived on the platform (1) at the bottom of the stairs to get my train as the doors closed, she pressed the door button, but it was ignored and about 5 seconds later the train left without her. It was the last train and that could have easily been my daughter, I don't think that was on (also given it was Halloween, horrible weather and taxis were non-existent).

That's terrible !

Lozzy0603 · 2 Nov 2019

Trying to think out of the box: if the WCML Euston area is already up the creek, say down to the 2 slow lines already, and the majority of LNR services are off, VT have to follow anyway. Is there something in particular that would prevent VT from putting stopping orders at say MKC, HML and either WFJ or HRW? I believe VT have at one time or another called at all of these stations. They are guard-operated, the platforms are long enough. Ticketing would be a mess, but ticket acceptance may already be in place.

Another one: assuming disruption was off-peak and LO had AC/DC trains spare, is there something to prevent LNR/VT and LO from working together to use up spare paths and run an express EUS/HRW/WFJ service? I believe LO must have some additional route knowledge as they use the slow lines for empty stock moves. Both sets of their trains have cameras so again platform infrastructure shouldn't be a problem. They could even use the new bay at WFJ?

I also can't see why the Southern couldn't run yesterday. All of the disruption was south of the WLL junction. In fact, the fast lines were even open north of the WLL, so Southern could have made up time by not diving under. There must have been spare paths from all the trapped VT services? Even if they reduced to the CLJ to WFJ shuttle it would have been better than nothing. Forgive me if I'm wrong but seems a bit like operational cutting loose on Southerns part.

There have got to be some out-of-the-box solutions during WCML disruptions if only they could all work together? No? Over this railways dead body?

Bletchleyite · 2 Nov 2019

I did wonder about the Southern - it seemed odd to me too, and normally on the 2-track timetable they turn them at Watford bay, not Shepherd's Bush. I wonder if something else was an issue, e.g. for some reason the OHLE on that section had to be isolated that far up.

LNWR service from Liverpool to Birmingham and London.

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