Northern - is the bad PR unfair?

northernchris · 13 Nov 2019

LittleAH said:
While a Leeds-York stopper might be held for a late running TPE service, why is the TPE running late? My last two trips from Liverpool have both been delayed due to late running Northern services and the TPE catching them up by Patricroft. Swings and roundabouts.

It certainly is swings and roundabouts! The Scarborough seems to catch up the Piccadilly - Huddersfield stopper, and in some cases runs behind the Huddersfield - Leeds stopper from Dewsbury. I'm hopeful the TPE recast next month will help reduce the small delays which often affect the North TPE route which should enable more local services to run on time

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dk1 · 13 Nov 2019

Media on an aggressive witch hunt in my opinion. Would choke them to post anything too positive for fear of alienating their probably non-rail travelling trolls.

tpjm · 13 Nov 2019

dk1 said:
Media on an aggressive witch hunt in my opinion. Would choke them to post anything too positive for fear of alienating their probably non-rail travelling trolls.

Can't agree more - and I'm not even Northern's biggest fan.

ElectroSoldier · 13 Nov 2019

Shimbleshanks said:
I live in south London so use the railways around here a bit but I also spend a bit of time travelling in Northern-land. One difference that strikes me is that, whereas in the south, it's mostly 'suits' who use the trains, Northern passengers appear to be much poorer - broken-down old pensioners, students, people in grubby overalls - more the sort of people who you would see using buses in the South.

Like it or not, that colours perceptions of what is acceptable in terms of things like train cleanliness, comfort levels and so on. I don't think filthy Pacer-type trains would have tolerated for one minute in southern England but they're deemed to be OK for the sorts of ignorant oiks that use trains in the North. I'm NOT saying that everyone up North is poor, rather that, with parking in most cities still readily available, 'nice' middle class types there tend to go everywhere by car and hardly ever venture onto trains, or indeed any form of public tansport.

I think the only really difference between the one and the other is the coating, the sweetie underneath remains the same.

The majority of workers in London work in the service industry, while that industry pays more in London the costs are higher so the rates work themselves out, so they are just as oik like as their northern counterparts.
The tolerance is the same too, people have been complaining about the 142s for a good couple of decades up north but as the south has a similar attitude to that expressed they see to think themselves above it all and so do nothing about it.
If the south were stuck with the stock they have now in 30 years time they would still use it and compalin about it just like those in the north because needs must.

The lack of updated stock in the north just shows that while people think TOCs like Northern are incharge of the franchises they are infact all tightly controlled from London.

Merseyrail has been saving for decades, and even they had to ask for permission to spend its own money on new trains!
It has to be the first time in living memory that new money has been spent on trains that will not spend the early years working in the south first.

geoffk · 13 Nov 2019

js1000 said:
To get from Liverpool to the Airport on the stopping service would take 1 hour 25 minutes. The May 2018 timetable debacle simply underlined that the DfT and Transport for the North approach TSRs as a tick boxing exercise rather than "is that a logical service that is in passengers' interests and to make a case for?"

I was on one of these a few weeks ago and there was a family from MIA going to Huyton, a 70 minute journey, but no quicker way of doing it.

Carlisle · 14 Nov 2019

ElectroSoldier said:
IMerseyrail has been saving for decades, and even they had to ask for permission to spend its own money on new trains!
It has to be the first time in living memory that new money has been spent on trains that will not spend the early years working in the south first.

508s transferred to Merseyrail in the 1980s gave them a uniform fleet of pretty modern sliding door trains 2 decades before the south got rid of it’s hundreds of slammers .

Bletchleyite · 14 Nov 2019

Carlisle said:
508s transferred to Merseyrail in the 1980s gave them a uniform fleet of pretty modern sliding door trains 2 decades before the south got rid of it’s hundreds of slammers .

And the 507s were new to Merseyrail. Weren't the 508s sent to London just to tide them over while the 455s arrived and until the frequency base on Merseyrail was upped from 3tph to 4tph, and while the 455s with a 508 coach look odd that was always what they intended to do with them?

Allwinter_Kit · 14 Nov 2019

For my own two cents as a regular user of the Airedale Line, TPE across the Pennines and various sundry services across the NW most weeks for work:

Airedale GOOD
- The refurbs of the 333s are very nice
- Trains are generally clean, if absolutely rammed at peak.
- New stock is on it's way (331s)
- Staff are unfailingly friendly, helpful and polite

Airedale BAD
- Even off-peak the trains are getting really rather busy
- Delays in new stock arrival mean that currently it isn't actually providing an improvement
- Still no real uplift in capacity until they fix the platform length issue
- General minor delays of 3 or 4 minutes are getting more common than I recall (anecdotally!) under Serco.

TPE - off topic, but yes - TPE North has it's own problems, however harrumble for the introduction (albeit piecemeal) of bigger trains than 3 carriage 185s!

Northern NW GOOD
-Staff are still great

Northern NW BAD
- invariably a few minutes late
- invariably dirty
- random unit generator is not good for capacity.

However, how much of that is a result of the specific TOC and how much is just a legacy of where they started from I don't know.

They could definitely clean the trains a damn sight better though.

SteveM70 · 14 Nov 2019

Absolute chaos again at MCV this evening, most of it not Northern’s fault, but made ten times worse by the way they managed it. There has to be something wrong with a TOC where a Conductor is asking to look at a passengers phone to see if he can figure out what’s happening.

gazzaa2 · 14 Nov 2019

It definitely seems a case of it depends which train/line you use with Northern and also which time.

It seems horrendous in and out of Leeds and a lot of Yorkshire. Central Manchester is a general gridlock as well. Big cities like Leeds and Manchester with the population growth has outgrown Northern (same with TOCs in Birmingham in the midlands which just can't cope with the number of passengers). You can't even get on a lot of peak time services in and out of Leeds/Manchester. A 2 car pacer or 2 car anything isn't going to cut it and 4 car is barely enough in the peaks with a normal service (which is not that common).

gazzaa2 · 14 Nov 2019

Shimbleshanks said:
I live in south London so use the railways around here a bit but I also spend a bit of time travelling in Northern-land. One difference that strikes me is that, whereas in the south, it's mostly 'suits' who use the trains, Northern passengers appear to be much poorer - broken-down old pensioners, students, people in grubby overalls - more the sort of people who you would see using buses in the South.

Like it or not, that colours perceptions of what is acceptable in terms of things like train cleanliness, comfort levels and so on. I don't think filthy Pacer-type trains would have tolerated for one minute in southern England but they're deemed to be OK for the sorts of ignorant oiks that use trains in the North. I'm NOT saying that everyone up North is poor, rather that, with parking in most cities still readily available, 'nice' middle class types there tend to go everywhere by car and hardly ever venture onto trains, or indeed any form of public tansport.

It's just the general way the north is perceived and treated (or anywhere non-London tbh). You only get a nice, spacious, comfortable train in this country if it's going to/from London. Otherwise you're rattling around on pacers, 3 or 4 carriage Cross Country trains packed to the brim from anywhere from Edinburgh to Plymouth, Arriva, dingy old LNR trains etc.

Go from Manchester to Bristol = irregular, cramped, squashed, dingy Cross Country service. Manchester-London = near enough 3 x 11 car trains an hour.

For the most part in the UK you only really get a nice, comfortable, clean journey on a good quality train if it's going to London or left from London. That's why HS2 will build out from London.

That's not to say everything is great in London, some of the commuter journeys there are hell and not enough carriages or the plushest rolling stock.

The train service in this country is suffering from the mass centralisation to big cities while the likes of Manchester are still getting by with 2-4 car trains (unless it's a London train) and a Victorian rail network.

Dr Hoo · 14 Nov 2019

SteveM70 said:
Absolute chaos again at MCV this evening, most of it not Northern’s fault, but made ten times worse by the way they managed it. There has to be something wrong with a TOC where a Conductor is asking to look at a passengers phone to see if he can figure out what’s happening.

Can anybody confirm or rebut the impression often given on this forum that Northern conductors are not issued with any form of electronic information/communication device (or are subject to severe restrictions on how or where it might be used, such as on a train in service) so that they are effectively always ‘unaware’ of what is going on, without being told by (say) the driver?
Only the other day I had to help a Northern guard on a packed Hope Valley local by showing them on Opentraintimes that we were in Heeley Loop.
Genuine question.
Thanks

underbank · 14 Nov 2019

Dr Hoo said:
Can anybody confirm or rebut the impression often given on this forum that Northern conductors are not issued with any form of electronic information/communication device (or are subject to severe restrictions on how or where it might be used, such as on a train in service) so that they are effectively always ‘unaware’ of what is going on, without being told by (say) the driver?
Only the other day I had to help a Northern guard on a packed Hope Valley local by showing them on Opentraintimes that we were in Heeley Loop.
Genuine question.
Thanks

Are guards banned from having their own mobile phones with them? It seems strange that we keep hearing of them having to ask passengers for info from their phones?

ainsworth74 · 14 Nov 2019

Dr Hoo said:
Can anybody confirm or rebut the impression often given on this forum that Northern conductors are not issued with any form of electronic information/communication device (or are subject to severe restrictions on how or where it might be used, such as on a train in service) so that they are effectively always ‘unaware’ of what is going on, without being told by (say) the driver?
Only the other day I had to help a Northern guard on a packed Hope Valley local by showing them on Opentraintimes that we were in Heeley Loop.
Genuine question.
Thanks

They should all have a works mobile. But they're all around three years old now (they were a new franchise big bang thing) so the battery life is not the best and they've not been provided with any means of charging them during their shift so could very well wish to be sparing with the usage in case they need to use them for operational reasons (i.e. to ring control).

Dr Hoo · 14 Nov 2019

Thanks, ainsworth74.
Hopefully the new Class 195s and 331s have charging points in the cabs. (Not that that will help on the many routes that will be keeping older stock.)

johntea · 14 Nov 2019

There was an 'interesting' dispatching situation on my way to work this morning, the 09:59 Leeds to Knaresborough was delayed arriving and therefore departing Leeds, but the 10:15 Leeds to Harrogate 'express' was fairly on time, so I expected them to let the express to go first but they let the stopper go just a couple of minutes ahead, so by the time the express got going it had to crawl to Harrogate because it was basically stuck behind the stopper!

20:58 Leeds to Knottingley this evening was a disaster all round, first it was shown as delayed 15 minutes or so from Platform 17B, then it was decided it should depart from 11B when a nice 158 turned up around 21:20, 5 minutes later just as everyone had got sat down and settled an announcement by the guard that it wasn't actually the train for the service (eh?!) and 11D was the final destiny where eventually a 150 turned up and got me home for around 10pm rather than 9:15pm

The guard was great but what a mess! You can quite easily see why Northern get bad PR when that is just one example (granted the weather didn't help this evening but still)

Also of slight annoyance was the 21:04 Leeds to Nottingham was cancelled so I couldn't do my backup plan of heading to Kirkgate and connecting in with the 21:29 to Castleford from there!

oscarthecat92 · 15 Nov 2019

The 0730 Skipton to Leeds has been cancelled 4 out of 5 weekdays this week, meaning the following service has been leaving people on the platforms from Bingley onwards.

Horizon22 · 15 Nov 2019

Mountain Man said:
One thing that doesn't help are local politicians.

All too regularly they do a soundbite and run about Northern. Yet when the media try and engage them in serious debate, they dodge it.

They are fanning the flames and not helping put forward solutions

Almost like there's an election on...

ainsworth74 · 15 Nov 2019

Horizon22 said:
Almost like there's an election on...

Oh they've been doing that for a long time before the election...

LittleAH · 15 Nov 2019

Horizon22 said:
Almost like there's an election on...

I'm not sure you know. Several newspapers MEN seem to be obsessed about Pacers or trains being delivered late, yet when there's any positive news or there needs to be some digging into actual causes - they eat into the soundbite.

Lack of proper transport correspondents for me is a huge issue within the press to truly hold soundbite politicians to account and inform the public of the real issues. Northern, TPE, even LNER have all at times been on the wrong end of this due to politicians soundbites and misguided 'balance' from the media.

Djgr · 15 Nov 2019

LittleAH said:
I'm not sure you know. Several newspapers MEN seem to be obsessed about Pacers or trains being delivered late, yet when there's any positive news or there needs to be some digging into actual causes - they eat into the soundbite.

Lack of proper transport correspondents for me is a huge issue within the press to truly hold soundbite politicians to account and inform the public of the real issues. Northern, TPE, even LNER have all at times been on the wrong end of this due to politicians soundbites and misguided 'balance' from the media.

Positive news in the Manchester area. Where?

Laurencew · 15 Nov 2019

I can't be the only one to be very disappointed with the CAF class 195s.
I made a journey from Chester to Leeds yesterday, to visit the Christmas Market (not my choice) using the £10 newspaper offer.
The Chester - Leeds service is a great service in theory, but suffers from appalling timekeeping no doubt due to pathing problems on route starting with east of Chester. Choosing table seats next to the cab as these are the only ones where the tables line up with the windows, however we were forced to move after a few miles as the restless riding and hunting from the bogies was intolerable. The information screens and auto announcements were not working, with only spasmodic manual announcements; surely contravenes PRM regulations. A visit to the toilet showed that the toilet seat about to fall off and the changing table had fallen off and was missing. The toilet bowl was well stained and the saloon carpet had not been vacuumed since new - granted these faults are with Northern not CAF.
I smiled when I heard someone commenting that CAF stood for "cheap as ****". Interesting, especially as the CAF bodied trains on Leeds North West electrics are still one of the best trains on the network all those years later.

On the return journey we missed our Chester train owing to rail conditions on the Harrogate loop. Caught the next Calder Valley service, also a 195. This was delayed awaiting "fitters attention", in practice two blokes in orange gear with a hammer, spanner and a torch (literally). Crawled to Bradford where it was cancelled, not the most passenger friendly station; thankfully the Greggs in the bus part was open. A 'dead' 195 was in platform 4, presumably an earlier failure. The following Leeds - Chester service was over half an hour late for some reason, another 195. The third unit example with no announcements or information screens. Much worse absolutely no manual announcements; goodness knows how passengers for the dimly lit Pennine stations knew where to get off.

Not a great day for Northern, initial impressions are that the 195s are terrible, but they don't help themselves as well.
In my opinion the 195s are a step back from the 158s or 170s. Give me a 158 on the Chester - Leeds any day, or even better one of the 170s used on the Harrogate services.

Mountain Man · 16 Nov 2019

Horizon22 said:
Almost like there's an election on...

They've been doing it for ages, and not MPs up for election either. The elected mayor's are terrible for it

GRALISTAIR · 16 Nov 2019

dk1 said:
Media on an aggressive witch hunt in my opinion. Would choke them to post anything too positive for fear of alienating their probably non-rail travelling trolls.

Cynical but I agree

Mogster · 16 Nov 2019

As a daily traveller from Wigan to Manchester Castlefield I’m struggling to find many positives that the media could mention... I find the 195s acceptable but the constant breakdowns are very disappointing.

I agree that the chronic infrastructure problems and lack of stock are outside of Northern’s responsibility. The filthy trains and ongoing staffing problems do fall at Northern’s door though. The local media reporting of the ongoing problems is terrible, a complete lack of insight. Although the quality of local journalism both in print and in the broadcast media does seem to be nosediving so maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise.

class 9 · 16 Nov 2019

Laurencew said:
I can't be the only one to be very disappointed with the CAF class 195s.
I made a journey from Chester to Leeds yesterday, to visit the Christmas Market (not my choice) using the £10 newspaper offer.
The Chester - Leeds service is a great service in theory, but suffers from appalling timekeeping no doubt due to pathing problems on route starting with east of Chester. Choosing table seats next to the cab as these are the only ones where the tables line up with the windows, however we were forced to move after a few miles as the restless riding and hunting from the bogies was intolerable. The information screens and auto announcements were not working, with only spasmodic manual announcements; surely contravenes PRM regulations. A visit to the toilet showed that the toilet seat about to fall off and the changing table had fallen off and was missing. The toilet bowl was well stained and the saloon carpet had not been vacuumed since new - granted these faults are with Northern not CAF.
I smiled when I heard someone commenting that CAF stood for "cheap as ****". Interesting, especially as the CAF bodied trains on Leeds North West electrics are still one of the best trains on the network all those years later.

On the return journey we missed our Chester train owing to rail conditions on the Harrogate loop. Caught the next Calder Valley service, also a 195. This was delayed awaiting "fitters attention", in practice two blokes in orange gear with a hammer, spanner and a torch (literally). Crawled to Bradford where it was cancelled, not the most passenger friendly station; thankfully the Greggs in the bus part was open. A 'dead' 195 was in platform 4, presumably an earlier failure. The following Leeds - Chester service was over half an hour late for some reason, another 195. The third unit example with no announcements or information screens. Much worse absolutely no manual announcements; goodness knows how passengers for the dimly lit Pennine stations knew where to get off.

Not a great day for Northern, initial impressions are that the 195s are terrible, but they don't help themselves as well.
In my opinion the 195s are a step back from the 158s or 170s. Give me a 158 on the Chester - Leeds any day, or even better one of the 170s used on the Harrogate services.

The 333s on the Leeds NW triangle are mainly Siemens, assembled by CAF and maybe they cost more(at the time)

ainsworth74 · 16 Nov 2019

class 9 said:
The 333s on the Leeds NW triangle are mainly Siemens, assembled by CAF and maybe they cost more(at the time)

They're also still maintained by Siemens as well.

trainophile · 16 Nov 2019

Shimbleshanks said:
I live in south London so use the railways around here a bit but I also spend a bit of time travelling in Northern-land. One difference that strikes me is that, whereas in the south, it's mostly 'suits' who use the trains, Northern passengers appear to be much poorer - broken-down old pensioners, students, people in grubby overalls - more the sort of people who you would see using buses in the South.

Like it or not, that colours perceptions of what is acceptable in terms of things like train cleanliness, comfort levels and so on. I don't think filthy Pacer-type trains would have tolerated for one minute in southern England but they're deemed to be OK for the sorts of ignorant oiks that use trains in the North. I'm NOT saying that everyone up North is poor, rather that, with parking in most cities still readily available, 'nice' middle class types there tend to go everywhere by car and hardly ever venture onto trains, or indeed any form of public tansport.

It works both ways - those of us who are used to dirty trains deliberately don't wear our good clothes to travel on them. No real excuse for being unclean or smelly yourself, but we certainly wear our more scruffy attire as it isn't going to look much worse by the end of the journey. I used to make more of an effort when travelling in 1st Class, but having seen the assortment of fellow passengers even in there I now don't bother so much.

My pet hate is people who stink of smoke. Sometimes I move seats to get away from it. Probably doesn't do much for the upholstery either.

marty56110 · 16 Nov 2019

Northern Service has been terrible today in the North East. 3 services in a row cancelled between Newcastle and Middlesbrough, along with 3 in row between Saltburn and Darlington. Most Bishop Auckland services have been 2 hourly most of the day and cancellations between Darlington and Saltburn have lasted all night. How Northern think it’s acceptable to leave a 2 hour gap between trains! Shortage of train crew was what Northern have blamed it on, bad management in my opinion.

yorksrob · 16 Nov 2019

Northern ?

Couldn't run a whelk stall.

Get rid.

I counted six policemen/women patrolling the concourse at Leeds station tonight. Not one person from the rail industry available to provide information.

Disgusting.

Northern - is the bad PR unfair?

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