It's tricky enough through Leeds for TPE services. Even a 10 minute delay has repercussions on the other side of the Pennines. But through Manchester it's another dimension.
Northern's and TPE's punctuality problems partly stem from too many trains on a finite amount of track. This is partly the fault of the DfT and Transport for the North who are demanding more services but are unwilling to invest in the infrastructure to support this growth. At the same time Network Rail do not object and go along with a timetable that clearly has no resilience to offer a dependable service to retain existing passengers and encourage new ones.
But the TOCs are equally liable. Poor resourcing of units - single leaf end carriages through Manchester Oxford Road and Piccadilly? Really? And that's usually delayed while TPE get their catering trolley off/on their trains at Piccadilly. Delays through Manchester adversely impact on TPE services due to the dependence of Manchester Airport as the effective de facto terminus for their services.
Honestly think too many people in the railway industry are genuinely deluded and not up to the job if they cannot identify poor organisation and ridiculous practices (such as the trolley change at Piccadilly) which are allowed to still persist. Too many pen-pushers - all just point fingers at one another. Not good enough.
I keep noticing at the moment that TPE Airport services are being done over between York and Leeds. Often, Northern’s York - Leeds stopper gets regulated at York and is running 7L by Church Fenton. Instead of pulling it in and letting the TPE service past, it’s allowed to go first and call at Micklefield, East Garforth, Garforth, and Cross Gates, adding upwards of 10 minutes delay onto the TPE service. There’s no chance of recovering that on the rest of the journey due to the congested nature of the rest of the route.
Another one is when the other TPE airport service is running 5L out of York and a 2E Northern Hull/Selby-Leeds stopper is put out in front at Micklefield with the same calling pattern as before - cue a 14L arrival at Leeds from the TPE.
^ This is just one small section of the network where there clearly is not enough capacity for the services that Northern, TPE and XC are trying to run.
Also, I think you’d be surprised if you actually did some research into dwell minutes at MCO and MAN... given the chronic overcrowding of a 3 car Cl185, a 5 car Cl802 can often board faster through this area due to an increased number of doors and significantly less people trying to stand immediately inside the train due to a shortage of seats. “Trolley change” at Piccadilly will soon be a thing of the past. The Nova fleet do not have trolleys that come on and off.
TPE used to run 6 car 185s using something called UDB. Not being able to run on the Hull Route I can dispute that, been on a couple some years ago.
Now because their latest train working has failed it appears you need 2 guards to run a 6 car. The cost cutting being asking “will you come in to assist on this train to man airport and back” which they won’t do for cost saving reasons.
Well, a leopard doesn’t change its spots.
I see your comments in a number of threads about TPE and I have to say that most of the stuff you are spouting is complete nonsense.
UDB is Unit Door Block - it disables
all the doors on a unit to prevent their release. It’s not an alternative solution to manually locking out doors or using C-ASDO.
TPE can and do run 6 car services on the Hull route, with and without 2 conductors. The current 6 car diagrams that stop at short platforms only have two conductors between Huddersfield and Manchester as the rest is entirely operable with one conductor.
And what short-term advantages might they be? TPE have trains that have been accepted as fit for service that are not in service because of insufficient number of trained staff. If they were introducing one new fleet instead of three, I suspect this would be less of a challenge. And they have quite a few trains still not yet accepted for service, particularly the 68+Mk5 combos that have been particularly problematic.
Given the protracted time taken to accept the fleet of 68+Mk5s, I wouldn't be at all surprised if all TPEs 802s will have been in service for quite a while before the last 68+Mk5 set is fit for service, during which a follow-up order could have been delivered (had it been placed before East Midland's).
And long-term disadvantages: ongoing costs of maintaining and operating four fleets instead of two, less-intensive stock utilisation, and what happens when they need to lengthen the trains (which could happen pretty quickly, if, as others have commented, demand has been throttled over recent years).
So it looks like short term pain and long-term pain to me. Time will tell.
The reason that the Nova 3 have not been fully introduced is because they were less of a priority to the train plan than Nova 1. The Liverpool - Edinburgh Route is entirely reliant on 125mph stock and would not have been able to be introduced from December 2019 if sufficient numbers of Cl802s were not in use. Given this is the biggest of the new fleets as well, they have the potential to provide the most transformation in the shortest time.
The Hull line has been doubly screwed over. Firstly, no new trains. That means 6 cars if we’re lucky, too often it’s just 3. Secondly, additional stops during peak time. That means you’re fighting for a seat at Manchester with people commuting to the villages between Manchester and Huddersfield. Or with people going to Cross Gates or Garforth from Leeds. It’s branded an ‘express’ but in reality is a local commuter train.
However, off-peak you now have a much faster service as the train no longer calls at Garforth, Dewsbury or Mossley.
Adding in the extra stops adds an additional 12 mins on the journey time to Manchester and causes the train to leave Manchester 5 mins earlier going the other way.
All of the services which pickup these calls are also supposed to run as 6-cars. You might not have seen it this week due to the storm and then two fatalities which caused significant unit displacement, but last night at Leeds all of the booked Hull/Piccadilly services ran as 6 cars.
