blackfive460
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Press reports suggest that Northern will be extending the current Blackpool - York service, not running a shuttle. May is the latest suggestion for when Northern will start but time will tell.
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Have TPE finally given up on the Scarborough service
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Glenn1969
Established Member
There is more case for TPE to serve Scarborough though. The likes of Greenfield and Mossley should be left to Northern although I have never understood why TPE doesn't serve Ashton which is biggest settlement in Tameside Council's area
nr758123
Member
You have a valid argument that in terms of the type of passenger, Mossley & Greenfield are a better fit with Northern than TPE, though there are arguments as to why it should sit with TPE at present.
It's not so much the question of whether TPE or Northern ought to serve Mossley. If TPE are required to provide Mossley with a roughly hourly service, then that's what they should do, and it's not acceptable to leave two and three hour gaps with no service.
NoMorePacers
Established Member
You can add Hull to that list as well. If anything Scarborough matters more to TPE.
And no doubt will turn late running trains round at York (or Malton at a push) as TPE do at will at the moment with scant regard for those heading to Scarborough, or changing at Seamer onto Northern to get to Filey etc.
For what good it is, my mother-in-law (a Scarborough resident) ‘commanded’ the prospective sitting Tory MP, Robert Goodwill to sort out the Scarborough-York train service when he rather foolishly knocked on her door the other day! He apparently said it is the most regular complaint he receives!
True story, The Local MPs and David Burns(Local Radio personality) have been calling out TPE for their lack of interest in the Hull - Leeds line and they’ve shown complete contempt for it.
blackfive460
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Interesting.
Quoting Robert Goodwill MP from an item in Scarborough News...
That man is a waste of space.
NoMorePacers
Established Member
Sounds about right.
There were TPE cancellations/delays on Thursday too.
I had a couple of pints after work and went to Lime Street to catch the 18.55 Northern service home (which amazingly departed on time!).
Bumped into a work colleague on the station concourse who was waiting to meet his girlfriend off a train from Leeds. He informed me that the train had been cancelled.
Saw him in work the next day and he said his g/f eventually got into Lime Street at 9pm. So there must have been several other cancellations and delays to cause her to arrive 2 hours late!
I had a couple of pints after work and went to Lime Street to catch the 18.55 Northern service home (which amazingly departed on time!).
Bumped into a work colleague on the station concourse who was waiting to meet his girlfriend off a train from Leeds. He informed me that the train had been cancelled.
Saw him in work the next day and he said his g/f eventually got into Lime Street at 9pm. So there must have been several other cancellations and delays to cause her to arrive 2 hours late!
mike57
Established Member
I would make the following comment on post 43 and the MP's comments,
In May this year the changes addressed two of the problems, a short turn around in Scarborough which meant either a late departure or a termination at Malton and the clash of two trains arriving at the same time at Malton which is now far less likely as the Scarborough departure arrives first.
There was still a lot of late running, but looking back over my delay replays it was lateness not cancellations. However things seemed to deteriorate again around September and have now reached a point where they are as bad as May 2018 IMO.
I would happily accept a change in York in return for a reliable York Scarborough service even although 75% of my long distance journeys are to Manchester or surroundings. If it was a shuttle to York then I just get the next train out of York, most of these journeys are Anytime returns, so if the core route is disrupted I maybe dont get the train that connected in the timetable, but I dont really care as long I as I arrive in Manchester around my intended time. Coming home same thing applies, just get first train out of Manchester.
As for an Express bus service the problem is the A64, journey times are going to be too long, and to go through Malton is always going to be slow.
I do think the financial penalty for cancellation due to lack of crew should be sufficiently high that it's cheaper to have some staff on standby. Maybe give TOC's say 1 cancellation per week 'free' then ramp penalties so that each cancellation due to insufficient staff is doubled from the previous one. I suspect that given this regime multiple cancellations due to insufficient staff would be a thing of the past.
Or of course TPE could just hand the franchise back.
In May this year the changes addressed two of the problems, a short turn around in Scarborough which meant either a late departure or a termination at Malton and the clash of two trains arriving at the same time at Malton which is now far less likely as the Scarborough departure arrives first.
There was still a lot of late running, but looking back over my delay replays it was lateness not cancellations. However things seemed to deteriorate again around September and have now reached a point where they are as bad as May 2018 IMO.
I would happily accept a change in York in return for a reliable York Scarborough service even although 75% of my long distance journeys are to Manchester or surroundings. If it was a shuttle to York then I just get the next train out of York, most of these journeys are Anytime returns, so if the core route is disrupted I maybe dont get the train that connected in the timetable, but I dont really care as long I as I arrive in Manchester around my intended time. Coming home same thing applies, just get first train out of Manchester.
As for an Express bus service the problem is the A64, journey times are going to be too long, and to go through Malton is always going to be slow.
I do think the financial penalty for cancellation due to lack of crew should be sufficiently high that it's cheaper to have some staff on standby. Maybe give TOC's say 1 cancellation per week 'free' then ramp penalties so that each cancellation due to insufficient staff is doubled from the previous one. I suspect that given this regime multiple cancellations due to insufficient staff would be a thing of the past.
Or of course TPE could just hand the franchise back.
NoMorePacers
Established Member
People froth over TPE because they have 68s. This means their shortcomings are overlooked and they apparently become a "good TOC". I'm sure many people who live on the TPE network can tell you that they are not. I shall be one of them.
Really? When...
Square one
NR: we have a late running freight at Trafford Park what do we do?
TPE: let it go through we don’t mind
NR: will do
TPE: Delay minutes Kerching
TPE(1) an hour later: Erm, the Guard has a booked PNB in Scarborough
TPE(2): tell them to have 20mins and carry on
5 mins later
TPE(1): They want their break
TPE(2): Did you say?
TPE(1): Yes I did
TPE(2): Right i’ll email their OBSM
TPE(1): Should we terminate this at York now?
TPE(2): Yes, tell Customer Service for Malton, Seamer and Scarborough to put everyone on the next one it will be alright
Despite all the above
Yeah but 68s
I’m sure it isn’t!
NoMorePacers
Established Member
Class 170101
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Wasn't he a tranpsort minister until fairly recently?
Marton
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At least Middlesbrough is accessible via Darlington. The stats for some services on recent train times are pretty grim. A lot of Thornaby turn rounds.
Between 2013 and 2016 he was firstly under-minister, then a minister at the Department for Transport.
He did an awful lot of good there, such as:
Interntionally blank!
What contempt? Shutting a gate because the British Transport Police advised it? Or is it cos they're not getting new trains.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
My response to that is to wonder what percentage in terms of personal order of preferences that the electorate at large would place railways in their "pecking order" of priorities.
Obviously, this being "RailUK forums", a certain blinkered view that only sees railways at the top of the priority list would prevail in terms of importance, but there again, a website of "HandloomWeavers UK" would place loom matters at the top of their priorities...
I was at Victoria on Saturday and from 1330 to 1830 TPE had had 21 cancelled trains. It wasn't that they were turning short, it's that they never left at the start of the day. Whole diagrams totally uncovered including the last trains. For balance Northern were not far behind on cancelled trains either. Staff on the station were being manhandled into the 4ft. How a riot didn't occur I'll never know. Abismal is putting it mildly!
mike57
Established Member
06,40 out of Scarborough cancelled this morning "train crew' given as reason. Now waiting for 843 bus. Less risky than waiting an hour and then finding next one cancelled as well.
Ignoring complaints from passengers, MPs, Local Business?
"Cos" That's what it is.
If they had their way, it would be part of the Northern Franchise.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
And of course, should Northern take over as you say, with their current reputation for passenger "service", train cancellations, etc. the old adage of "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" would be an apt description of what the service would be like...
And of course, should Northern take over as you say, with their current reputation for passenger "service", train cancellations, etc. the old adage of "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" would be an apt description of what the service would be like...
At least the Northern side of the operation there has some Experienced Railway Management who know how to sort things when they go wrong. God help them when the current(TPE) Station Supervisors all start to Retire.
One of the concerns was TPE didn’t have a Station Manager for the area, they appointed two and they both left, impossible job, what the spin doctors on here don’t realise, you can sing the praises of the company all you like but there’s no guarantee you’ll be around in a year, or even six months.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
From the numerous recent and past postings on this website that have made reference to very poor quality levels of Northern management, I am indeed interested in where these hidden gems of Northern management that you describe above are based and I should well imagine there are many other website members wanting the answer to that.
So a customer who is, say, relying on that service to travel onward at York to London to connect with a Eurostar journey at St Pancras, is expected to do what?
Bantamzen
Established Member
a) Speak to station staff about making onward connections & ticket acceptance on later services
b) Jump in a taxi and ask them to floor it to York, & get next south bound train
Sorry if that all sounds flippant, but cancellations are not unique to ScarVegas, nor are the means to deal with them.
mike57
Established Member
TPE senior managers still take home the same salary even if service isnt up to scratch therefore individual passengers have sort out their onward connections themselves. I have say this is the reason we travel from Bridlington when going away, via Hull and Doncaster, because although slower its more reliable, and there are more trains as they are 2ph from Brid
Until poor performance hits senior managers and shareholders in the pocket hard nothing will change.
No they are not, and as I have written before, I think most of us on here accept that things can occasionally go wrong.
What isn't acceptable whatsoever is cancellations and serious delays being the daily norm. There's no good reason at all why Scarborough shouldn't have a reliable train service to and from York. It is not difficult or challenging to provide.
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