Ilkeston station services, Erewash Valley Line

Killingworth · 11 Jan 2020

Ilkeston originally had three stations but all were closed in the 1950s and 60s. Allegedly it was left as the largest town with a railway line running through, but without an active station.

After a determined local campaign a new station finally opened in April 2017. Estimated passenger numbers of 252,772 in the first year 2017/18 were well over forecasts of 160,000.

Unfortunately Ilkeston has acquired a new claim to fame in the railway world. It currently features as the 2616th best station for punctuality of trains - out of 2623 over the last 12 weeks! Beaten for last place by places like Lockerbie, Brigg and Kirton Lindsey (the latter two with a limited Saturdays only service). Users of neighbouring smaller stations on the Erewash line at Langley Mill, Dronfield and Alfreton are almost as bad.

PERFORMANCE
Bottom 100 station

2,616th best · ↓49
of 2,623 stations · Details
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See how Ilkeston ranks on each day over the selected period. Higher ranks in green indicate punctual departures and arrivals with no cancellations. Select a day for more details.

Today two of the hourly Nottingham - Leeds trains have already been cancelled in each direction due to a shortage of train crews. At least when they run they're mostly 195s.

Northern's new trains, training and new rosters are playing havoc with this route. Apparently a recovery plan is being formuated. If rail is to be relied on recovery can't come soon enough.

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tbtc · 11 Jan 2020

The Erewash has become worse in the last year or so

The Norwich - Liverpool service has become worse since additional trains were squeezed through Oxford Road

The Nottingham - Leeds service became worse when the diagrams became Nottingham - Leeds - Lincoln - Leeds - Nottingham... and worse still when trying to introduce the new funsized 195s

Sadly local passengers in the East Midlands are at the receiving end of these long distance problems (so much so that Stagecoach have started running an "express" bus from Chesterfield to Nottingham, capitalising on the unreliable train service)

Obviously there will always be some stations lower down a list of over two and a half thousand (they can't all be above average etc etc), and stations which only have "long distance" services will generally do worse (compared to stations on nice simple Metro lines - e.g. Merseyrail) but I feel sorry for passengers in the Erewash who are taking the brunt of issues far far away from their neck of the woods.

And the HST service will be ending before long...

edwin_m · 11 Jan 2020

tbtc said:
And the HST service will be ending before long...

What ought to be the main morning commuter service from Ilkeston into Nottingham is a HST so can't call due to being longer than the platform (it can still call at Langley Mill due to grandfather rights). So at least the replacement of the HSTs ought to allow that timetable gap to be filled, though the EMR 2020 consultation suggests it will be a regional train not a through service to London.

yorksrob · 11 Jan 2020

I always considered the Nottingham - Leeds to be fairly self-contained and trouble free. I know we've got the new trains (they seem to turn up at Normanton on time of a morning anyway), so what's causing the problem ?

Killingworth · 11 Jan 2020

yorksrob said:
I always considered the Nottingham - Leeds to be fairly self-contained and trouble free. I know we've got the new trains (they seem to turn up at Normanton on time of a morning anyway), so what's causing the problem ?

Briefly, the problem seems to be manning them south of Sheffield.

yorksrob · 11 Jan 2020

Killingworth said:
Briefly, the problem seems to be manning them south of Sheffield.

Ah, the old staffing problem. Seems like that diminishing subdsidy profile to blame again then !

Peter Bonner · 11 Jan 2020

yorksrob said:
Ah, the old staffing problem. Seems like that diminishing subdsidy profile to blame again then !

This is a service that was so successfully built up and has now gone to pot. The Leeds to Lincoln service is the same. Vital services that must run but can anybody trust them??

tbtc · 11 Jan 2020

yorksrob said:
I always considered the Nottingham - Leeds to be fairly self-contained and trouble free. I know we've got the new trains (they seem to turn up at Normanton on time of a morning anyway), so what's causing the problem ?

It's not self contained though

For example:

07:18 Nottingham
09:14 Leeds
09:38 Leeds
11:49 Lincoln
12:29 Lincoln
14:44 Leeds
15:09 Leeds
16:58 Nottingham
17:17 (departs Nottingham again)

...so it's now a twelve hour cycle that interacts with lots of other services, and (based on my limited experience), if things aren't tickets-boo on the way from Leeds to Sheffield, services are sometimes/often cut short at Sheffield so that the unit will be back on time for the Sheffield - Leeds journey. Which is great for passengers from Sheffield to Leeds, but means that stations towards Nottingham and Lincoln are often left with gaps of two hours.

Look at the service in the last few days, e.g. https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...9/0600-2000?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=NT - and the introduction of the diddy 195s has meant reliability/staffing issues which have hindered things. Hopefully the introduction of these (short) trains will mean that the reliability sorts itself out before long but I've known people have to rely on getting from Sheffield to Nottingham via Derby as a reasonably regular thing - whilst that's a pain, it's preferable to the long wait for passengers at Ilkeston/ Dronfield etc if a Northern service is capped at Sheffield.

It ought to be the Northern "flagship" service, the one route where they'd have a chance of making a few quid - you could run four or five coaches with First Class and a trolley - but they need to pay more attention to keeping it running first!

Killingworth · 11 Jan 2020

It's supposed to be a high profile Northern Connect route. Best laid plans................

Northern Connect
Northern Connect is our brand name for a group of specific routes which will connect our customers on the longer journeys in our franchise from December 2019. The investment and improvements will include:

- Fast, comfortable, inter-urban network
- Introduced in stages up to December 2019
- Connects all cities and towns with population over 85000 (unless served by metro or other franchise)
- 12 new and upgraded services, most hourly
- Over 90% operated with new trains
- 36 Connect Stations with consistent, higher standards
- Differentiated marketing and customer service
- Advance tickets

The routes that these enhanced services will cover are shown on the map below:

MAP
Northern Connect routes
Barrow-Preston-Wigan-Manchester-Manchester Airport
Windermere-Preston-Wigan-Manchester-Manchester Airport
Blackpool-Preston-Bolton-Manchester-Manchester Airport
Blackpool-Preston-Burnley-Halifax-Bradford-Leeds-York
Bradford-Halifax-Rochdale-Manchester-Manchester Airport
Chester-Warrington Bank Quay-Manchester-Rochdale-Halifax-Bradford-Leeds
Hull-Doncaster-Sheffield
Leeds-Bradford-Halifax-Rochdale-Manchester-Liverpool
Lincoln-Sheffield-Barnsley-Wakefield Kirkgate – Leeds
Liverpool-Warrington Central-Manchester-Manchester Airport
Middlesbrough-Durham-Newcastle-Carlisle
Nottingham-Sheffield-Wakefield Westgate-Leeds

We will be publishing more information about the new services and when you can expect to see them - please check back for updates.

yorksrob · 11 Jan 2020

Peter Bonner said:
This is a service that was so successfully built up and has now gone to pot. The Leeds to Lincoln service is the same. Vital services that must run but can anybody trust them??

If by "them" you mean the Government/DfT,then no. Clearly not.

tbtc said:
It's not self contained though

For example:

07:18 Nottingham

09:14 Leeds

09:38 Leeds

11:49 Lincoln

12:29 Lincoln

14:44 Leeds

15:09 Leeds

16:58 Nottingham

17:17 (departs Nottingham again)

...so it's now a twelve hour cycle that interacts with lots of other services, and (based on my limited experience), if things aren't tickets-boo on the way from Leeds to Sheffield, services are sometimes/often cut short at Sheffield so that the unit will be back on time for the Sheffield - Leeds journey. Which is great for passengers from Sheffield to Leeds, but means that stations towards Nottingham and Lincoln are often left with gaps of two hours.

Look at the service in the last few days, e.g. https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...9/0600-2000?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=NT - and the introduction of the diddy 195s has meant reliability/staffing issues which have hindered things. Hopefully the introduction of these (short) trains will mean that the reliability sorts itself out before long but I've known people have to rely on getting from Sheffield to Nottingham via Derby as a reasonably regular thing - whilst that's a pain, it's preferable to the long wait for passengers at Ilkeston/ Dronfield etc if a Northern service is capped at Sheffield.

It ought to be the Northern "flagship" service, the one route where they'd have a chance of making a few quid - you could run four or five coaches with First Class and a trolley - but they need to pay more attention to keeping it running first!

I don't know why they stopped running 158's on it, personally. There are routes where the new units (short though they are) would have made a far greater impact on passenger experience than a 158 route.

Peter Bonner · 12 Jan 2020

yorksrob said:
If by "them" you mean the Government/DfT,then no. Clearly not.

I don't know why they stopped running 158's on it, personally. There are routes where the new units (short though they are) would have made a far greater impact on passenger experience than a 158 route.

By "them" I actually meant the services themselves. I've been affected by cancellations a couple of times myself. But I take your point regarding other interpretation

edwin_m · 12 Jan 2020

I've never seen anything longer than a 2-car on the Leeds-Nottingham so why are 2-car 195s such a concern on here for this particular route? They may have slightly fewer seats but standing is easier, and most of the busiest sections are less than 20min.

I suspect part of the performance issue with this service is that the people with influence over Northern are TfN and the PTEs within its area. Most of the Sheffield-Nottingham leg isn't in the North so is probably seen as an easy target if something needs to be cancelled.

Ilkeston station services, Erewash Valley Line

Killingworth

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tbtc

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edwin_m

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yorksrob

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Killingworth

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yorksrob

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Peter Bonner

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tbtc

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Killingworth

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yorksrob

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Peter Bonner

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edwin_m

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