TPE services allocated for Double units

LittleAH · 27 Nov 2019

Killingworth said:
6 coaches apparently means it's likely to end up with one host, so half the train gets no service. With passengers spread over 2 units that should allow the trolley to get through, piled luggage and bikes permitting.

On quieter runs the inability to work half the train reduces the maximisation of potential income. Same would apply if two hosts are provided and doubling the overheads.

Without a corridor connection between the units I can see the withdrawal of host services from more trains. More scope for station cafes to provide takeaway cups to carry onto trains.

Not true is it - as has been explained.

RailUK Forums

Killingworth · 27 Nov 2019

LittleAH said:
Not true is it - as has been explained.

I think it's likely host services will slowly be reduced, despite DfTs insistence on catering as part of the franchise. There's no catering east of Doncaster now and on the Liverpool - Norwich it stops at Peterborough. Commercial logic says it's not economic, and having two hosts working any section on lightly loaded trains outside the peak period is a cost that will be avoided in due course.

I don't want it to happen. As one who normally used dining cars on trains out of London for 3 course meals 30-40 years ago I miss real train catering. I find I can't rely on there being any catering on modern trains. Consequently I tend to be self sufficient on rail journeys due to frequent inability to receive service at all due to things like; overcrowded trains, lack of catering staff and service on the train, fault with the trolley on the trains (eg no hot water, brakes not working) and most recently host afraid to leave stabling point to pass through happy football fans.

Jamesrob637 · 27 Nov 2019

Only a Hull to Manchester shuttle short-formed today. Not too bad.

ag51ruk · 27 Nov 2019

tpjm said:
One Guard is fine, as long as they are in the back set. Hosts are not trained for anything operationally so the front set would be looked after theoretically by the driver. C-ASDO is being tested ready for full roll-out so even at short platforms, we should only see one guard per 6 coaches.

Does that mean that anyone travelling in the front set will see no revenue checks on board?

unlevel42 · 28 Nov 2019

johnnychips said:
No, Woodhead the A628. There are also three National Express services a day from Sheffield to Manchester which take 60-90 minutes. You will get WiFi and a seat. I did it on a Saturday three weeks ago and it was £8.50 return. Of course the train is much more flexible.

Weekdays Coach service:
The 0745 coach takes 1 hour and 55 minutes to Manchester.
The 1430 takes 1 hour and 40 minutes to Manchester.
There is no third direct coach on any day of the week.

Most other journeys are well over 3 hours and require 1 change.

Jamesrob637 · 28 Nov 2019

Killingworth said:
Had been running for quite some time, and prior to that had been running Monday - Thursday for at least a year or two.

The issue for users now is that they have yet to establish regular 6 car workings as standard and to be relied upon.

I know of a surgeon living in Sheffield and working in Manchester. A regular first class commuter, he could accept not getting a seat and space to work once. Before Christmas he had to squat on the floor to use his laptop. Never again and he's still telling anyone who mentions railways the same story. He has a nice comfortable Mercedes and most days uses that. It runs to the timetable he sets, doesn't get cancelled and he always has a seat.

It's the same problem with any business that forgets why customers use the service or commodity, preoccupied with its own internal issues. Having worked for 3 national companies over many decades I've seen it from different perspectives. Some loyal customers will be lost if there's a viable alternative.

Sadly regular travellers are indeed being lost. Thanks to the 3 car Friday provision more are working from home on Fridays, or using the car. The result is that at my station Friday loadings are only a little over half the other 4 days. That's a much greater loss of users than for other trains on Friday compared with the rest of the week, and evidenced by the spaces in the car park at 7.30. Chicken and egg?

Provide the space and users will come back, but only when word gets round that it can be relied on.

Getting the trains to run every day and to time is probably harder than getting the extra coaches into service, but users between Sheffield and Manchester are expressing preference for EMR's 4 car 158s.

Your surgeon friend will be glad of his Mercedes today as 07:08 from Sheffield is 0-car!

BeHereNow · 28 Nov 2019

Shortage of drivers. And yet no new trains on the South route, and no infrastructure issues.

Killingworth · 28 Nov 2019

Jamesrob637 said:
Your surgeon friend will be glad of his Mercedes today as 07:08 from Sheffield is 0-car!

Presumably 6 coaches of passengers then went for the 2 coach Northern stopping service or the following East Midlands 4 coach train, although TPEs next train an hour later should have 6 coaches.

Question for me is do we use the car to go to Preston next week or risk a train? Shortage of drivers, shortage of trains, potential for tangled knitting and flood damage! I'm still for train but my travelling companion would use this cancellation today as evidence not to trust rail and take the car. His view may yet prevail which will be 2 less tickets sold and one more car out there.

naverag · 28 Nov 2019

The 0808 from Sheffield was indeed 6-car.

Jamesrob637 · 28 Nov 2019

naverag said:
The 0808 from Sheffield was indeed 6-car.

Good thing too if employers could tolerate people being an hour late

tpjm · 28 Nov 2019

ag51ruk said:
Does that mean that anyone travelling in the front set will see no revenue checks on board?

Revenue Protection will be around a lot more.

Roose · 29 Nov 2019

Starmill said:
Is it? The Spanish verb 'Ir', which means 'to go' conjugates to 'va' in the third person singular. This means that 'no va' translates as 'it does not go'. I suspect that the controversy arises because the word 'nova', which is pronounced differently to 'no va', also means 'exploding star' - and that if a Spaniard really wanted to complain that their train 'does not go' they would probably say 'no funciona' ('it doesn't work') or something like that. Either way, I don't judge that either explanation impinges upon or deunks the the joke.

Of course, there's never a shortage of people willing to show off by claiming something obviously intended in humour is apocryphal, but who doesn't bother to search for any actual facts about the situation.

You have made the language point well to support what I wrote. Thank you.

Starmill · 29 Nov 2019

Roose said:
You have made the language point well to support what I wrote. Thank you.

Ok thanks

vlad · 29 Nov 2019

Bear in mind that if you consider "nova" to be the same as "no va" then you also have to consider "therapist" to be the same as "the rapist".

Killingworth · 1 Dec 2019

Killingworth said:
Presumably 6 coaches of passengers then went for the 2 coach Northern stopping service or the following East Midlands 4 coach train, although TPEs next train an hour later should have 6 coaches.

Question for me is do we use the car to go to Preston next week or risk a train? Shortage of drivers, shortage of trains, potential for tangled knitting and flood damage! I'm still for train but my travelling companion would use this cancellation today as evidence not to trust rail and take the car. His view may yet prevail which will be 2 less tickets sold and one more car out there.

We have all but decided it has to be the car to get to the meeting for 10.00. Looks a good train from Dore to Preston would be EMR's 7.39 arriving Preston with one (9.43) or two (9.38) changes. BUT there's only 10 minutes connection time for both at Piccadilly. That EMR service averages 8 minutes late. Evens chance we'd not make it.

TPE's 7.14 looks good, but gets to Preston at 9.03 with over 20 minutes connection time, too early. The 8.14 gets there for 10.04, too late.

I'd take one of these options, especially now we know TPE is likely to be 6 cars on both trains. Driving across the Pennines in November doesn't attract me, but my friend is not at all keen on the stress of the rail lottery, or the rail prices. 2 of us in one car allows greater flexibility all round. And so rail loses yet more income.

naverag · 2 Dec 2019

When would you need to leave to be sure of getting there on time by car, though? I wouldn't have thought it was much later than 7:14.

Killingworth · 2 Dec 2019

naverag said:
When would you need to leave to be sure of getting there on time by car, though? I wouldn't have thought it was much later than 7:14.

We left at 7.30 by car and got here for 10.15. Roads aren't great either! If we'd taken the EMR service we'd have missed the connection, it arrived at Piccadilly 9 minutes late.

Yes, the 7.14 would have done better, but it was also 9 minutes late which would have made a connection.

BHXDMT · 2 Dec 2019

Killingworth said:
Yes, the 7.14 would have done better, but it was also 9 minutes late which wouldn't have made a connection.

The 07:14 from Dore arrived Manchester Piccadilly at 08:11. The TPE Edinburgh service to Preston left late at 08:38, arriving Preston 09:14. Would've been absolutely fine, even if the Edinburgh had been on time and departed at 08:26 because you still have 15 mins connection?

And to make this post on topic, the usual South route diagram is 6 car today (North route doesn't look as lucky, two 185s on Scottish services).

Jamesrob637 · 2 Dec 2019

Would the North doubles be strengthened today by taking some of the units from cancelled services hence nothing on Journey Check?

BHXDMT · 2 Dec 2019

Jamesrob637 said:
Would the North doubles be strengthened today by taking some of the units from cancelled services hence nothing on Journey Check?

It's a possibility, indeed.

Killingworth · 2 Dec 2019

BHXDMT said:
The 07:14 from Dore arrived Manchester Piccadilly at 08:11. The TPE Edinburgh service to Preston left late at 08:38, arriving Preston 09:14. Would've been absolutely fine, even if the Edinburgh had been on time and departed at 08:26 because you still have 15 mins connection?

And to make this post on topic, the usual South route diagram is 6 car today (North route doesn't look as lucky, two 185s on Scottish services).

Previous post corrected, but recent unreliability had made my colleague unwilling to try it. Having experienced motorways around Manchester videoconferencing seems the best ecological solution!

Jamesrob637 · 3 Dec 2019

06:22 Middlesbrough to Airport is 6-car today instead of 3 according to Journey Check. MAN commuters from Leeds, Dewsbury and Huddersfield will love that as Tuesday is a busy commuting day and it gets to Victoria at 08:39 which is fine for 09:00 start if working in the vicinity or 09:30 start if working a little further afield.

Will this be a permanent thing or is it to position units after yesterday's ECML disruption?

SHerr · 3 Dec 2019

Jamesrob637 said:
06:22 Middlesbrough to Airport is 6-car today instead of 3 according to Journey Check. MAN commuters from Leeds, Dewsbury and Huddersfield will love that as Tuesday is a busy commuting day and it gets to Victoria at 08:39 which is fine for 09:00 start if working in the vicinity or 09:30 start if working a little further afield.

Will this be a permanent thing or is it to position units after yesterday's ECML disruption?

I’m on that service and was wondering the same, it does seem to have 2 hosts which infers it is planned but could still be just a nice one off.

They are however splitting it at Victoria as presumably until timetable change it may not fit in allocated platform at the Airport.

Killingworth · 4 Dec 2019

After a few days with 6 cars on South Pennine the 7.09 and 8.08 from Sheffield are back to 3 today, as will be those return workings for the rest of the day. Users who found 3 trains cancelled yesterday are looking to move homes or get new jobs.

It's no consolation to see that Scarborough users are getting an even worse service.

Jamesrob637 · 5 Dec 2019

Killingworth said:
After a few days with 6 cars on South Pennine the 7.09 and 8.08 from Sheffield are back to 3 today, as will be those return workings for the rest of the day. Users who found 3 trains cancelled yesterday are looking to move homes or get new jobs.

It's no consolation to see that Scarborough users are getting an even worse service.

Both 3 today also according to Journey Check :'(

Killingworth · 5 Dec 2019

Jamesrob637 said:
Both 3 today also according to Journey Check

And the 7.14 from Dore was 20 minutes late. Some took the Northern stopping service. The following EMR service is also running late. The Hope Valley Capacity Improvement Scheme can't solve short forming, signalling issues elsewhere, shortage of drivers and all the other things that are driving regular users away from rail.

Jamesrob637 · 5 Dec 2019

I did actually see the 06:26 Cleethorpes to Airport today (3-car) and it looked busy but not rammed. Is it more of a Stockport train than a Manchester one, so not actually that busy after Stockport? You could (just) get to your desk for 09:00 start if you worked near Stockport station, though I think you'd have to have an employer who would be tolerant of you arriving a couple of minutes late on occasions!

Killingworth · 5 Dec 2019

Jamesrob637 said:
I did actually see the 06:26 Cleethorpes to Airport today (3-car) and it looked busy but not rammed. Is it more of a Stockport train than a Manchester one, so not actually that busy after Stockport? You could (just) get to your desk for 09:00 start if you worked near Stockport station, though I think you'd have to have an employer who would be tolerant of you arriving a couple of minutes late on occasions!

It was only made up to 6 car a month or two ago, and has managed to run as 6 on very few occasions.

More often than not I've had to stand until Stockport where quite a few do indeed get off. With a TPE (or any other TOC in the North) service to rely on at present you need a very tolerant employer.

Jamesrob637 · 5 Dec 2019

Killingworth said:
It was only made up to 6 car a month or two ago, and has managed to run as 6 on very few occasions.

More often than not I've had to stand until Stockport where quite a few do indeed get off. With a TPE (or any other TOC in the North) service to rely on at present you need a very tolerant employer.

Forgot to say that I'm just north of Stockport not Hazel Grove area, hence it didn't look rammed. Yes I'm glad I stopped putting my commuter money into the trains 2 years ago this week in fact! They're stressful even on day rangers when one has full flexibility (within the valid zone!) For example Saturday just gone I made a train from Bryn to Wigan only because it was running slightly late, however had I not made that one, I'd have had to wait an hour as the following service was cancelled!

Killingworth · 5 Dec 2019

Jamesrob637 said:
Forgot to say that I'm just north of Stockport not Hazel Grove area, hence it didn't look rammed. Yes I'm glad I stopped putting my commuter money into the trains 2 years ago this week in fact! They're stressful even on day rangers when one has full flexibility (within the valid zone!) For example Saturday just gone I made a train from Bryn to Wigan only because it was running slightly late, however had I not made that one, I'd have had to wait an hour as the following service was cancelled!

I'd also say that many more would use the TPE and EMR services if they provided seats for season ticket holders, ran to time and weren't subject to frequent cancellations.

Our cars don't put in the same mileage, but they're usually just outside the door, ready to go at 2 minutes notice 24/7 and can divert around obstacles at will. Long distance commuting is probably a bad thing for global warming, so encouraging travellers not to travel may be a cunning plan, but not if it gets more of us into cars.

TPE services allocated for Double units

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