Today, Sunday 10 November, we're back to the Manchester Victoria to Blackpool North stoppers being cancelled through driver shortage, rather than the Clitheroes (which are cancelled today Blackburn - Clitheroe through engineering works). Among other cancellations today the Yorkshire - Blackpool service is terminating at Hebden Bridge (engineering work) with bus substitution, as far as I can see, only over the section Hebden Bridge - Preston. That leaves 2tph between Blackpool North and Preston (Manchester Oxford Road and/or Airport generally at xx.00, and Liverpool mainly at xx.32). Unfortunately I suppose it was too much to hope that nothing else would go wrong, and it seems that the 1432 Liverpool has missed, leaving an hour gap between the 1400 Airport and 1500 Airport. The 0932 Liverpool departed at 0953, i.e. only a few minutes in front of the following Oxford Road, but at least it ran, and probably ensured that passengers wouldn't be left behind by the Oxford Road.
Straying a bit off-topic now, other services cancelled today include Lancaster - Morecambe (bus substitution) and Wigan North Western - Stalybridge (bus substitution Wigan NW - Bolton and Manchester Victoria - Stalybridge) - these are almost sure-fire casualties on Sundays at the moment. Also cancelled today is (on average) every other Southport - Todmorden (they are cancelled Todmorden - Blackburn through engineering works, with bus substitution). However I notice that two in a row are cancelled, both pre-planned.
A further engineering cancellation is the Colne - Preston section of the Blackpool South service.
According to Northern's website, a replacement bus is in operation between Blackpool North and Layton, to compensate for the lack of the Manchester Victorias. I have to say I'm surprised that the schedule can't be amended to arrange for the Liverpools, say, to pick up the Layton stop.
I say 'according to Northern's website', since the Layton buses don't appear on RTT, neither do those anywhere else where they have been provided to cover for a driver shortage, yet they are shown if they are covering for engineering closures. I appreciate that pre-planned cancellations are treated differently from impromptu, but the driver shortage cancellations are surely pre-planned, and appear in RTT as such. Yet the replacement buses aren't shown - any idea why not?