New Azuma services to Harrogate: is the timetable sufficiently robust to avoid knock-on delays?

deltic08 · 27 Dec 2019

Could I have some constructive advice for members on the Forum please?
In anticipation of introducing 5 additional London-Harrogate and return services daily from the December timetable change, Network Rail relayed a disused loop in Harrogate only as a siding to stable the Azuma's during turnaround. Why Harrogate has to have 6 daily return trains to London when Bradford Forster Square and Keighley/Skipton, both larger populations than Harrogate, only have one each is beyond me.
Quite by accident, as I don't go to Harrogate very frequently, I witnessed the late running 14:19 arrival into Platform 1 at around 14:25 in the very first week of operation. It then has to shunt over to Platform 3 to enter the siding off this platform once everybody had disembarked because both through Platforms 1 and 3 are in use while the Azuma is in Harrogate. This caused a delay to the 14:45 Northern departure to Leeds entering Platform 3 from the Starbeck direction until the Azuma was safely inside the siding which in turn delayed the 14:47 terminating arrival from Leeds on Platform 1 shunting over to Platform 3 for the 15:03 return to Leeds. This train cannot stay in Platform 1 if delayed and depart back to Leeds from reversible 1 as it delays the next arrival from Leeds into Platform 1 that continues to Knaresboro'/York.
Again in the first week of the new timetable, an all electric train was allocated to a London-Harrogate service that could not complete the last leg to Harrogate as this line is not electrified which in turn was not in Harrogate for the return to Leeds and London. This was great inconvenience to through passengers who had to change trains and arrived late in Harrogate or London.
If this is already happening, I would like to check this out online daily or weekly, whichever is the best, to see how frequently these problems are occurring without having to leave home. I know some of you are able to find details of late running trains/cancellations from various websites.
I wrote to NR in Spring 2019 to disagree with their study findings that recommended reopening this siding in this position as there are better places for it with less conflicting moves especially in the middle of the day between peaks when there are now 3 trains an hour in each direction with only 2 platforms available. I knew this would happen when I saw the draft timetable and couldn't understand why NR didn't. It can only get worse as 4 trains an hour each way are planned from May 2020 with 2 each way terminating and returning to Leeds that will include a time consuming shunt between platforms. Harrogate has become too busy for the current infrastructure.

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thejuggler · 27 Dec 2019

Bradford should by now have had a two hourly Azuma service, but introduction has been delayed.

EM2 · 27 Dec 2019

The question is why was the Azuma 6m late?

deltic08 · 27 Dec 2019

EM2 said:
The question is why was the Azuma 6m late?

No idea. London trains are allowed 10 minutes to reverse in Leeds and 30 minutes to travel 18 miles between Leeds and Harrogate. They usually reverse in 6 minutes and do Harrogate in 25 or 26 minutes so assume it could have been even later arriving Leeds. Before black boxes were fitted, I have recorded times of less than 20 minutes to/from Harrogate. Maybe the preceding Northern stopper was late which I didn't see at Harrogate. With access to actual times online I could see where time was lost. That is the info I was asking how to access.

43066 · 27 Dec 2019

deltic08 said:
Could I have some constructive advice for members on the Forum please?
In anticipation of introducing 5 additional London-Harrogate and return services daily from the December timetable change, Network Rail relayed a disused loop in Harrogate only as a siding to stable the Azuma's during turnaround. Why Harrogate has to have 6 daily return trains to London when Bradford Forster Square and Keighley/Skipton, both larger populations than Harrogate, only have one each is beyond me.
Quite by accident, as I don't go to Harrogate very frequently, I witnessed the late running 14:19 arrival into Platform 1 at around 14:25 in the very first week of operation. It then has to shunt over to Platform 3 to enter the siding off this platform once everybody had disembarked because both through Platforms 1 and 3 are in use while the Azuma is in Harrogate. This caused a delay to the 14:45 Northern departure to Leeds entering Platform 3 from the Starbeck direction until the Azuma was safely inside the siding which in turn delayed the 14:47 terminating arrival from Leeds on Platform 1 shunting over to Platform 3 for the 15:03 return to Leeds. This train cannot stay in Platform 1 if delayed and depart back to Leeds from reversible 1 as it delays the next arrival from Leeds into Platform 1 that continues to Knaresboro'/York.
Again in the first week of the new timetable, an all electric train was allocated to a London-Harrogate service that could not complete the last leg to Harrogate as this line is not electrified which in turn was not in Harrogate for the return to Leeds and London. This was great inconvenience to through passengers who had to change trains and arrived late in Harrogate or London.
If this is already happening, I would like to check this out online daily or weekly, whichever is the best, to see how frequently these problems are occurring without having to leave home. I know some of you are able to find details of late running trains/cancellations from various websites.
I wrote to NR in Spring 2019 to disagree with their study findings that recommended reopening this siding in this position as there are better places for it with less conflicting moves especially in the middle of the day between peaks when there are now 3 trains an hour in each direction with only 2 platforms available. I knew this would happen when I saw the draft timetable and couldn't understand why NR didn't. It can only get worse as 4 trains an hour each way are planned from May 2020 with 2 each way terminating and returning to Leeds that will include a time consuming shunt between platforms. Harrogate has become too busy for the current infrastructure.

Just sounds like standard minor disruption due to late running which occurs all over the network. The shunt moves will be timetabled to take place in between arrivals and departures.

If a train ends up arriving or leaving late that could inevitably end up causing a conflict.

Steve Harris · 27 Dec 2019

43066 said:
Just sounds like standard minor disruption due to late running which occurs all over the network. The shunt moves will be timetabled to take place in between arrivals and departures.

If a train ends up arriving or leaving late that could inevitably end up causing a conflict.

Indeed.

I also find that it has become common practise in all industries to give very little thought to what will happen when things dont go as planned.

As for analysis, try Realtime Trains or Open Time Trains, both are easily found via a search engine.

bb21 · 27 Dec 2019

I can't make heads or tails of what "advice" you are asking for. Are you asking for people's opinion on the current situation? Are you asking people how it can be fixed? Are you asking for advice of how to contact NR about it?

swt_passenger · 27 Dec 2019

bb21 said:
I can't make heads or tails of what "advice" you are asking for. Are you asking for people's opinion on the current situation? Are you asking people how it can be fixed? Are you asking for advice of how to contact NR about it?

Is it a problem unique to Harrogate? o_O

Ianno87 · 27 Dec 2019

deltic08 said:
I wrote to NR in Spring 2019 to disagree with their study findings that recommended reopening this siding in this position as there are better places for it with less conflicting moves especially in the middle of the day between peaks when there are now 3 trains an hour in each direction with only 2 platforms available. I knew this would happen when I saw the draft timetable and couldn't understand why NR didn't. It can only get worse as 4 trains an hour each way are planned from May 2020 with 2 each way terminating and returning to Leeds that will include a time consuming shunt between platforms. Harrogate has become too busy for the current infrastructure.

Perhaps because it's an existing siding already there and thus relatively cheap to bring back into use, rather than a brand new siding, built to modern standards etc, and thus very many more ££££.

deltic08 said:
Could I have some constructive advice for members on the Forum please?
In anticipation of introducing 5 additional London-Harrogate and return services daily from the December timetable change, Network Rail relayed a disused loop in Harrogate only as a siding to stable the Azuma's during turnaround. Why Harrogate has to have 6 daily return trains to London when Bradford Forster Square and Keighley/Skipton, both larger populations than Harrogate, only have one each is beyond me.

Population is in no way proportional to demand for rail travel from a given location.

Steve Harris · 27 Dec 2019

bb21 said:
I can't make heads or tails of what "advice" you are asking for. Are you asking for people's opinion on the current situation? Are you asking people how it can be fixed? Are you asking for advice of how to contact NR about it?

I think he/she was asking where they could find data on why the train was late and if it is a common occurance. Hence why I mentioned RTT and OTT in my post above.

EM2 · 27 Dec 2019

Steve Harris said:
Indeed.

I also find that it has become common practise in all industries to give very little thought to what will happen when things dont go as planned.

But you can't plan a timetable on that basis. The train plan at Harrogate clearly should work, otherwise the operators would not have accepted it. The root cause with the issue in the OP is the late LNER.

Steve Harris · 27 Dec 2019

EM2 said:
But you can't plan a timetable on that basis. The train plan at Harrogate clearly should work, otherwise the operators would not have accepted it. The root cause with the issue in the OP is the late LNER.

Unfortunately your argument is fundamentally flawed.

1) You admit there is a problem as you used the word should instead of does

2) Timetables are planned on that basis, otherwise they would not contain pathing allowances etc.

3)It should work otherwise the operators wouldn't of accepted it. That one made me fall off the sofa. May i remind you of the infamous Thameslink timetable, which was accepted, but clearly didn't work and as you probably know GTR, NR etc ended up in front of a commons select commitee over it.

I will however agree it was caused by the late LNER. But if the LNER is late on numerous occasions and creates lots of knock on delays, I would suggest the timetable needs looking at and see if it can be tweaked.

Life has certainly taught me that sometimes theory doesn't equal practicable.

ComUtoR · 27 Dec 2019

Steve Harris said:
May i remind you of the infamous Thameslink timetable, which was accepted, but clearly didn't work and as you probably know GTR, NR etc ended up in front of a commons select commitee over it.

The main cause of the Thameslink fiasco wasn't a failure with the timetable.

Steve Harris · 27 Dec 2019

ComUtoR said:
The main cause of the Thameslink fiasco wasn't a failure with the timetable.

Ok. It was the drivers diagrams. But if you don't have the correct diagrams to have the correct drivers in the right place you have no timetable. Therefore, the timetable was a failure.

As a driver you know that driver diagrams and the timetable go glove in hand so please don't try and prentend otherwise.

I will ask you this.. If the timetable wasn't a complete failure why was a emergency timetable introduced, being in mind that according to you the timetable was fine.

As I said above, what can be carried out theoretically doesn't always mean than it can happen in pratice.

ComUtoR · 27 Dec 2019

Steve Harris said:
Ok. It was the drivers diagrams. But if you don't have the correct diagrams to have the correct drivers in the right place you have no timetable. Therefore, the timetable was a failure.

The diagrams don't matter if you don't have the staff to fulfill them. Even when the emergency timetable was introduced there was still a huge shortfall in Driver availability. There were also other factors involved too.

As the problems were slowly resolved the timetable was reintroduced. There are still issues with a lot of missing services but again, this is down to other factors.

Steve Harris · 27 Dec 2019

ComUtoR said:
The diagrams don't matter if you don't have the staff to fulfill them. Even when the emergency timetable was introduced there was still a huge shortfall in Driver availability. There were also other factors involved too.

As the problems were slowly resolved the timetable was reintroduced. There are still issues with a lot of missing services but again, this is down to other factors.

You actually quoted the wrong paragraph.

The one you should of quoted.....

Steve Harris said:
I will ask you this.. If the timetable wasn't a complete failure why was a emergency timetable introduced, being in mind that according to you the timetable was fine.

As that is the paragraph you have replied to.

By the way, only posted this post for clarity.

bb21 · 27 Dec 2019

swt_passenger said:
Is it a problem unique to Harrogate?

In the sense of reactionary delays snowballing? Definitely isn't unique to Harrogate. We will only see this happening more and more frequently as the obsession with cramming more and more services onto a network already at capacity in many places continues, some genuinely catering for unfilled demand, some for political reasons, and a whole host of other purposes.

bramling · 27 Dec 2019

ComUtoR said:
The diagrams don't matter if you don't have the staff to fulfill them. Even when the emergency timetable was introduced there was still a huge shortfall in Driver availability. There were also other factors involved too.

As the problems were slowly resolved the timetable was reintroduced. There are still issues with a lot of missing services but again, this is down to other factors.

The Thameslink timetable still isn’t wonderful. On paper it’s fine, but the moment something goes wrong it gets ripped to shreds very quickly and takes a *long* time to recover, and anything semi-serious after the late turns have booked on and that’s it through to close. And to clarify we’re not just talking about “up the wall”, but quite often it will be multiple services on the bounce cancelled or run non-stop, leaving gaps of multiple hours between services.

Returning to Harrogate, it’s quite obvious that there is and is going to be a problem if the LNER service is late getting into Leeds for whatever reason, as threading it in with stopping Northern services will always prove a problem if one or other is late. Add in a fiddly double shunt at Harrogate necessary just to get it out the way and it’s clearly a recipe for trouble.

Not sure what the solution is in all honesty, ideally a centre siding north of Harrogate would resolve the shunt issues, but that would be costly - assuming there’s space to do it at all. Alternatively a complete rebuild of Harrogate’s station layout to include a terminating platform. If the London service is to be a permanent fixture then such investment may well be worthwhile IMO.

jayah · 28 Dec 2019

bramling said:
The Thameslink timetable still isn’t wonderful. On paper it’s fine, but the moment something goes wrong it gets ripped to shreds very quickly and takes a *long* time to recover, and anything semi-serious after the late turns have booked on and that’s it through to close. And to clarify we’re not just talking about “up the wall”, but quite often it will be multiple services on the bounce cancelled or run non-stop, leaving gaps of multiple hours between services.

Returning to Harrogate, it’s quite obvious that there is and is going to be a problem if the LNER service is late getting into Leeds for whatever reason, as threading it in with stopping Northern services will always prove a problem if one or other is late. Add in a fiddly double shunt at Harrogate necessary just to get it out the way and it’s clearly a recipe for trouble.

Not sure what the solution is in all honesty, ideally a centre siding north of Harrogate would resolve the shunt issues, but that would be costly - assuming there’s space to do it at all. Alternatively a complete rebuild of Harrogate’s station layout to include a terminating platform. If the London service is to be a permanent fixture then such investment may well be worthwhile IMO.

Harrogate captures almost everything going wrong with timetables and capacity management on the railway today.

The local trains are not very punctual. At York they are frequently held 3-6min to follow a late running express to Skelton.

There is no opportunity to recover this all the way to Leeds, where many services have as little as 6mins to return after a 70min trip.

Between 1742 and 1822 there are now 5 trains leaving Leeds for Harrogate including two York trains despite this being subject to single track. The 4th of these is the LNER express.

And into this congested contraflow at Harrogate with trains in both directions routinely off path there is the double shunt!

At some point a new turnback siding was opened at Horsforth but no longer seems to be used, with York and Knaresborough trains at 10min intervals in the peak. The local station platforms were also extended for LHCS but now very little longer than 3 cars stops.

Was this all caused by an ORCATS raid with the all too predictable incumbent response?

theblackwatch · 28 Dec 2019

jayah said:
Harrogate captures almost everything going wrong with timetables and capacity management on the railway today.

The local trains are not very punctual. At York they are frequently held 3-6min to follow a late running express to Skelton.

There is no opportunity to recover this all the way to Leeds, where many services have as little as 6mins to return after a 70min trip.

Between 1742 and 1822 there are now 5 trains leaving Leeds for Harrogate including two York trains despite this being subject to single track. The 4th of these is the LNER express.

And into this congested contraflow at Harrogate with trains in both directions routinely off path there is the double shunt!

At some point a new turnback siding was opened at Horsforth but no longer seems to be used, with York and Knaresborough trains at 10min intervals in the peak. The local station platforms were also extended for LHCS but now very little longer than 3 cars stops.

Was this all caused by an ORCATS raid with the all too predictable incumbent response?

I think this post sums things up nicely. I'd been doing some monitoring of Harrogate line services prior to the introduction of the LNER 'extra' workings, and my observations, based on my travels, RTT and being caught at the gates at Starbeck/Belmont showed that the biggest problem seems to be at York, where, as @jayah quite rightly says, trains depart late as they cannot get out of platform 8 on time due to other services. This causes them to arrive at Leeds out of path, where they may have to wait to enter the platform - they only have a short turnround at Leeds and a lot of the time don't arrive before their booked departure back to York at xx.29. Then there's getting a path out of Leeds.... and if more more than 10 mins late, it gets to Knaresborough and has to wait for the single line to Cattal. My analysis showed that on one day earlier this month, a train that had left York late at 10.11 was still late and causing other delays after 15.00!

Throw in these extra London trains and more delays are inevitable. So to answer the original question - no, it isn't robust enough. It works perfectly on paper, but this relies on all the trains being on time. There seems to be no 'slack' in the system (and this applies all over the country, not just Harrogate), but we are told passengers want more frequent services so that's what they shall have - despite a complete lack of infrastructure improvements to allow for it. It seems frequency is considered more important than reliability.

johntea · 28 Dec 2019

I travel from Leeds to Harrogate and vice versa for work Monday - Friday (for 3 years now!) and it certainly doesn't run to clockwork, it seemed more reliable in the days where you just had a half hourly departure rather than chucking in the extra Northern 'express' services and now the LNER ones on top, having said that the 17:36 LNER Harrogate to Kings Cross seems to be a pretty reliable bet so far which makes for a much more peaceful journey back to Leeds than either the 17:15 or 17:45 Northern departures! (another advantage is they're pretty much guaranteed to be pulling in at P6/P8 at Leeds)

I used to overhear a lot of conversations on the Northern services about how people would miss their connecting Kings Cross service at Leeds so they do help passengers in that sense too, there is a very popular convetion centre in Harrogate which hosts many trade events so I suspect many Londoners visit for that, or an overpriced cup of tea at Bettys

There was a late running incoming service from Kings Cross to Leeds the other week which meant the 10:15 Northern service ran in front meaning the LNER then had to literally crawl behind

EM2 · 28 Dec 2019

Steve Harris said:
Unfortunately your argument is fundamentally flawed.

1) You admit there is a problem as you used the word should instead of does

I used the word should because I've not had a chance to fully review the train plan.

2) Timetables are planned on that basis, otherwise they would not contain pathing allowances etc.

Pathing is used create a compliant timetable.
There is no timetable planned on a basis of 'we'll give that a bit more headway in case the first train runs late'.

Point 3 covered by others.

I will however agree it was caused by the late LNER. But if the LNER is late on numerous occasions and creates lots of knock on delays, I would suggest the timetable needs looking at and see if it can be tweaked.

If the timetable is compliant, it is compliant. If the LNER is frequently delayed, that doesn't mean it is a timetable issue.

Life has certainly taught me that sometimes theory doesn't equal practicable.

There is absolutely no difference between theory and practice. In theory.

EM2 · 28 Dec 2019

theblackwatch said:
So to answer the original question - no, it isn't robust enough. It works perfectly on paper, but this relies on all the trains being on time.

As all timetables do.

jayah · 28 Dec 2019

EM2 said:
As all timetables do.

Some timetables naturally recover from typical delays experienced in day to day operation.

Others only see delays increasing until services or stations are removed taking Liverpool Scarborough or York to Leeds via Harrogate as examples.

Steve Harris · 28 Dec 2019

EM2 said:
There is absolutely no difference between theory and practice. In theory.

But life doesn't run on theory and you know that. If you don't, well, there's probably no hope.

EM2 · 28 Dec 2019

Steve Harris said:
But life doesn't run on theory and you know that. If you don't, well, there's probably no hope.

I really do worry that some people seem to have to take everything that they read 100% seriously.
It was a jokey little comment that I thought was apt, that's all.

adrock1976 · 28 Dec 2019

Are the Harrogate extensions intended to be done from the York side or the Leeds side?

If it is the York side, I seem to remember that there are a few single track sections between York and Knaresborough, which would cause a lot of problems as it presently stands.

yorkie · 28 Dec 2019

There are no LNER services to Harrogate via York; I believe there were plans at one point but clearly that would not be viable with current infrastructure.

43066 · 28 Dec 2019

Steve Harris said:
Indeed.

I also find that it has become common practise in all industries to give very little thought to what will happen when things dont go as planned.

Not sure that’s fair in this case. A great deal of emphasis it placed on improving performance within the railway industry. I’m sure most of us on here are familiar with the huge amounts of money incurred by delays - hundreds of pounds per minute in some cases.

But the industry has to strike a delicate balance between competing priorities: making the timetable robust; yet also running more trains, in order to increase capacity.

It also needs to achieve both of the above objectives while operating within the constraints of a Victorian network, with cost being a limiting factor.

As someone else has posted above - a complex shunt move for the terminating LNER services at Harrogate isn’t ideal, but what would the cost of remodelling the station and track layout in order to eliminate them be (if this was even possible, given geographic restrictions etc.)?

johntea · 13 Jan 2020

The 07:33 service out of Kings Cross seems to struggle to keep on time, by Wakefield it typically seems to be 10 minutes delayed (today was more like 20) and can’t seem to make up the time at Leeds as it then gets sandwiched in between the 09:59 and 10:15 Northern services

I also noticed the GPS is a bit whacky as it announces that it will shortly be arriving in Harrogate just after passing Pannal!

New Azuma services to Harrogate: is the timetable sufficiently robust to avoid knock-on delays?

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