Is TPE InterCity or Regional Express, and what sort of stock should operate it as a result?

nr758123 said:

The December 2019 timetable is probably the best that can be achieved with the current infrastructure.

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I agree with the sentiment. On paper it looks good - fingers crossed!

As has already been said, TPE are a bit of everything - a situation compounded by the lack of capacity to allow a range of services across the pennines. It's far from ideal, but until such a time as TRU (and any programmes that succeed it) is able to enhance the capacity it's the only option we have. In truth, customers travelling, say from Manchester to York, choose the train that is most conveniently timed for them. If you have a choice of an half hourly 'fast' train that takes 1hr 08mins and only stops at Leeds or a half hourly 'semi-fast' that takes 1hr 20mins but stops at Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Leeds, nobody is going to make a conscious choice to wait for/choose a 'fast' train for the sake of 12 mins.

With the debate settled - i.e. TPE are intercity and regional express, and have some stopping trains - that now takes us onto the next 'point' of this thread, which, if I'm honest, I find almost comical. The real cusp of this debate is whether TPE should have doors at the ends of coaches or at 1/3s. As we've already identified they do a bit of everything, what they really need is a 5 coach train with two 'intercity' coaches and 3 'suburban' coaches.

Part of my work is to monitor and resolve any potential issues causing delay to boarding of trains, or 'increased station dwell' as it were. What this means is that I've watched and monitored the Nova fleet and their performance against a Class 185 in a variety of situations. I have already shared these finding elsewhere on the forum, but I'll explain the logic here.

Why 1/3 and 2/3 doors don't work:

• People stand on the platform in such a way that only one person can alight at a time, making the wide door pointless;
• Once people board, they stand in the doorways and refuse to move down the aisles;
• People leave their luggage in the doorways, making the wide doors ineffective;
• The increased space around the doors makes it difficult to allow people to alight quickly as they have to fight past so many people to get off;
• People try to board before people have alighted as they can't see people moving down the aisle-ways.

Why end-doors don't work:

• People faff putting their luggage in the stacks delaying boarding;
• You are limited to a single stream of people boarding or alighting irrespective of whether the platform is crowded or not;
• People potentially have to walk further to get off the train;
• People can cause serious blockages by settling down, or dumping luggage in a doorway;
• It's more difficult to see how busy the next coach is so people are more likely to stay cramped in the coach they boarded.

TPE's situation is a bit more unique in that the new 'IC-type' stock is 5 coaches. In theory, you're replacing 6 wide doors with 9 narrow doors. The only time you struggle with station dwell is when there are a lot of people trying to board. If the platform is crowded, it's safe to assume that people are alighting via narrow passage ways anyway, so in the very least, your speed of alighting should be the same. Boarding is slightly different and relies on people moving down into the train at a decent pace. At the moment, the end-doors are not posing an issue because it's easier to board 200 customers via 9 narrow doors onto a 5 coach train than 6 wide ones onto a 3 coach train... When you compare a 6 coach Class 185 with a 5 coach set of Mk5a coaches, there is also not that much difference, which leads me to believe (in addition to my other data) that as long as people know to expect a long train and are evenly spaced along the platform, the dwell time will not rocket as a result of end doors.

tpjm said:

If you have a choice of an half hourly 'fast' train that takes 1hr 08mins and only stops at Leeds or a half hourly 'semi-fast' that takes 1hr 20mins but stops at Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Leeds, nobody is going to make a conscious choice to wait for/choose a 'fast' train for the sake of 12 mins.

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I certainly do/would (not just with TPE).

Metal_gee_man said:

Am I the only person thinking they missed a trick, fast loading requires pretty large double width one on one off doors and long distance commuters want vestibules for comfort.
Well start with 26m stock make the vestibules 1.8m wide fit double commuter style doors and create a hybrid that will eat commuters like the Thameslink Class 700s but have the IC comforts surely you'd assume this was achievable.

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Yeah, something like that. Or the Stadler equivalent with short vehicles and a single pair of wide double doors in the middle of the coach.

Senex said:

I certainly do/would (not just with TPE).

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I think where that argument falls down is that it assumes people turn up randomly to the station and wait for the next train. This applies with relatively high frequency services, e.g. 4tph. Less frequent and it doesn't (though people will do it on a less frequent service if there are good station facilities to wait and twiddle with your phone or read a book with a coffee). You don't, after all, have a pile of passengers sat waiting at Inverness for the next Wick in 3 hours' time.

So most people will time their journey for the fast, if viable.

Metal_gee_man said:

Am I the only person thinking they missed a trick, fast loading requires pretty large double width one on one off doors and long distance commuters want vestibules for comfort.
Well start with 26m stock make the vestibules 1.8m wide fit double commuter style doors and create a hybrid that will eat commuters like the Thameslink Class 700s but have the IC comforts surely you'd assume this was achievable.

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The Siemens Desiro HC and Bombardier Omnio Premium meet your aspiration for quick boarding through wider doors into standing space in short coaches to accommodate shorter journeys alternating with larger saloon coaches containing lots of seating for longer distance travellers. Only problem is that this is achieved with double deck saloon coaches that require loading gauge foreclosed to us in the UK.

Mr Mean said:

As I understand it, NPR will be a new route entirely between Leeds and Manchester. This would take all of the Intercity traffic.

The existing route is getting upgraded with separation Ravensthorpe to Hudds. There has also been talk of passing loops west of Huddersfield. This could accommodate an every 15 minute 8 car all stop metro service between Leeds and Manchester and potentially also a semi fast Manc-Staly-Hudd-Dews-Leeds service every 30 mins.

For me the focus should be on improving local routes with increased frequency and capacity rather than knocking 3 or 4 minutes off longer distance services. In an ideal world the local routes in the North would operate in a similar manner to the London Overground. Intercity would be separated as much as possible.

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I was aware of the proposed upgrades, but your post, in reply to LittleAH's concerns, seemed to suggest that a new route - NPR or otherwise - would by default include Huddersfield, which seems a presumption too far at this stage.

Bletchleyite said:

Yeah, something like that. Or the Stadler equivalent with short vehicles and a single pair of wide double doors in the middle of the coach.

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We haven’t really seen how that impacts on dwell times yet, have we? It could be worse than both existing models for all I know...

squizzler said:

The Siemens Desiro HC and Bombardier Omnio Premium meet your aspiration for quick boarding through wider doors into standing space in short coaches to accommodate shorter journeys alternating with larger saloon coaches containing lots of seating for longer distance travellers. Only problem is that this is achieved with double deck saloon coaches that require loading gauge foreclosed to us in the UK.

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You don't need double deck to achieve that. The original Sheffield tram layout is perhaps educational - low floor coaches with lots of doors for accessibility and short journeys at the ends, high floor middle bit with the traction equipment under it for longer journeys (though as most stations have the entrance in the middle of the platform I'm not sure I wouldn't do it the other way round, a bit like the way low floor intermediate coaches have been inserted into some step entrance Swiss EMUs). Absolutely no reason a railway EMU couldn't be built like that (though perhaps with end doors on the middle bit). Indeed the 80x already has two floor heights - the floor in the intermediates is about 6" higher to accommodate the engines.

tpjm said:

In truth, customers travelling, say from Manchester to York, choose the train that is most conveniently timed for them.

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I think this is quite true...

tpjm said:

If you have a choice of an half hourly 'fast' train that takes 1hr 08mins and only stops at Leeds or a half hourly 'semi-fast' that takes 1hr 20mins but stops at Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Leeds, nobody is going to make a conscious choice to wait for/choose a 'fast' train for the sake of 12 mins.

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But I think that this point doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. That's an 18% extension to journey time. Departures on the route are frequent enough that some people will choose the faster train by varying their departure time by 20 minutes or so either side.

The other point to consider is that some people will see the best journey times and only just will those be within their tolerance. The range of slightly slower journey times will be enough to put some users off entirely. This is the logic behind running one train from Edinburgh and Newcastle to London in record time, and behind trying to ensure that journey times can start with a 3 - even if its 3 hours 58 minutes, because that just pushes it over the line for some people in the way that, say, 4 hours and 10 minutes doesn't.

When I'm travelling from Manchester to Leeds I often select, quite deliberately, the train that runs fast from Hebden Bridge to Halifax, even though the most this saves is about 5 minutes.

Starmill said:

I think this is quite true...

But I think that this point doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. That's an 18% extension to journey time. Departures on the route are frequent enough that some people will choose the faster train by varying their departure time by 20 minutes or so either side.

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The point is that the current journey time between those stations is between 1hr 11mins and 1hr 18mins depending on the service chosen. If someone turns up at Leeds and wants the next fastest service to Manchester Victoria, it doesn’t matter if they get on a train that stops at Dewsbury, or one that doesn’t, they can’t overtake anywhere and that means that whatever comes first is the fastest!

I’m trying to make the point here that somebody feels the current operation is flawed. It’s not - it’s just the best of the current situation and the new rolling stock does nothing to make the situation worse

Similar to East Midlands Trains I would say a mix of intercity services and semi-rural long distance local services.

tpjm said:

I’m trying to make the point here that somebody feels the current operation is flawed. It’s not - it’s just the best of the current situation and the new rolling stock does nothing to make the situation worse

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I don't think the operation is flawed (other than some tweaks around the edges). I do however think end-doored stock was the wrong choice.

tpjm said:

If someone turns up at Leeds and wants the next fastest service to Manchester Victoria, it doesn’t matter if they get on a train that stops at Dewsbury, or one that doesn’t, they can’t overtake anywhere and that means that whatever comes first is the fastest!

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I completely agree. The question is, though, how many people:
- Pay for TPE's (very expensive) long-distance flexible ticket prices (something I definitely don't do)
- Turn up at the station without consulting the timetable before doing so, or the live departures on their way to the station (again, not something I think I would ever do)

Of course there will be some people who do do both of those things. But is it all that many?

Starmill said:

I completely agree. The question is, though, how many people:
- Pay for TPE's (very expensive) long-distance flexible ticket prices (something I definitely don't do)
- Turn up at the station without consulting the timetable before doing so, or the live departures on their way to the station (again, not something I think I would ever do)

Of course there will be some people who do do both of those things. But is it all that many?

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Season ticket holders and lots of pax. Take it from me!

Mr Mean said:

No, you misunderstand my point. The transpennine route should be split into 2 separate services which NPR is trying to achieve. A new express route calling only at larger stations and the existing route converted into a frequent metro style service.

This would improve the long distance services by speeding them up and removing shorter distance crowds, creating a proper intercity style service. The metro service would dramatically increase rail patronage across the north and take thousands of cars off the roads and by stopping at all stations frequently it would improve connectivity between areas along the route.

Currently TPE is trying to be all things to all men. It's currently failing in all regards with delays, overcrowding and cancellations.

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HS3/NPR is won't be seen for a long time and then it creates more issues in that certain areas lose out. I certainly don't trust people lobbying for their town of city to be a stop on the way as a viable cost effective new railway - e.g Bradford.

The reality is that Liverpool up to Newcastle should be all 4 track to allow every sort of operation to run smoothly. Money should be pumped into enhancing what we already have to create a 100mph railway between Liverpool and York, with further upgrades to ECML.

LittleAH said:

HS3/NPR is won't be seen for a long time and then it creates more issues in that certain areas lose out. I certainly don't trust people lobbying for their town of city to be a stop on the way as a viable cost effective new railway - e.g Bradford.

The reality is that Liverpool up to Newcastle should be all 4 track to allow every sort of operation to run smoothly. Money should be pumped into enhancing what we already have to create a 100mph railway between Liverpool and York, with further upgrades to ECML.

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What's your issue with Bradford? Its one of the north's largest cities and NPR is about linking the largest cities with a high speed service.

There are people out there who still think NPR is going to happen?

Gareth said:

There are people out there who still think NPR is going to happen?

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There are, but they are mostly ambitious politicians and owners of large Crayola sets....

As @tbtc rightly says, the North TPE is a mixture of both commuter & inter city. Until the four tracking work is done between Huddersfield & Ravensthorpe, and a solution to the three other bottle necks between Manchester & Huddersfield, Ravensthorpe & Leeds, and Leeds & York can be resolved there is always going to be fast services tripping over slower ones (a bit like the CLC for example), so no one neat little solution will fully fit, no matter how much some dream of it.

The new TPE stock will solve one major problem, at least for now, and that is capacity. Going to a standard 5-6 car formation will alleviate a lot of the problems that TPE have been having through the route, regardless as to where the doors are located (don't worry about us Northerners, it has been known for us to adapt! ). However this doesn't resolve the issue of catching up with stopping services, especially when there are delays. Once the four tracking goes in on Mirfield section, there will be more opportunities to overtake. However, if it helped more I happily accept all TPE services calling at Dewsbury on that section, and if needs be Stalybridge on the dark side, although at the latter it should be possible on most occasions to get a fast service in front of a stopper. Either that or build in some additional recovery time at Huddersfield, Leeds & Manchester, although this would probably stretch the capacity of those stations.

Its not an ideal solution, and might be that RUK's ambition to have perfectly neat clock-face services can't ever be met, but if just slowing the faster services by a few minutes reduces the risk of services falling over each other then it would be worth it. As a regular user of the North TP, I'd just shrug my shoulders and pour another glass of wine at the thought.

End doors are OK if you make them big enough. Belgian railways have massive double-deck carriages which seat 140, on similar regional-ish/intercity-ish routes to transpennine. They manage the dwell times by having large double doors at the coach ends:

nimbus21 said:

What's your issue with Bradford? Its one of the north's largest cities and NPR is about linking the largest cities with a high speed service.

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It's an example of politicians lobbying for a service without looking at the cost effectiveness of building a line to where they want. The geography of Bradford will make NPR/HS3 significantly more expensive than it needs to be.

Anyway, I think we all know NPR/HS3 will never happen and that some sort of compromise will happen with new bits of the railway being built to fit in with the current infrastructure.