LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
A plan to go digital on the North Staffs line signalling has been in the pipeline for some time (linked to upgrade work for larger container trains.
But it hasn't made it to the front of the queue yet.
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May 2021 Timetable Change
- Thread starter Harvey10
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But it hasn't made it to the front of the queue yet.
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RailUK Forums
All Liverpool to Manchester Airport via Warrington services are planned cancellations until 20th June. This may be extended depending on availability of 195s.
Ok, at least it something that’s being looked into.
It is planned as part of the franchise to have Sunday morning services between Derby and Crewe. Larger Regional changes were planned for December 2021 but it could be pushed back to May 2022.
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Peregrine 4903
Established Member
That's a whole 11 years late!
Hello everyone, I have a quick question regarding the state of the GWR Didcot-Oxford services calling at Culham station after the timetable change. According to RealTimeTrains and GWR website, the service at Culham compared to pre-covid times will actually improve, from 29 to 33 trains a day and getting close to an hourly service most of the day. The biggest change is the lack of extended service to Reading at peak times, as the route becomes more self-contained. However, RTT also shows 9 additional "unadvertised" services. All of these services include Reading as a destination, and 6 of them are just extensions of the existing service, with the same IDs (i.e. 2L15). The remaining 3 services are additional services that would plug up gaps in the timetable. Does anyone know what this means from a practical perspective? I know that this route is a recurring problem for GWR given the electrification debacle and that it will also not get 769s (making Reading extensions less justified), but does this suggest that GWR is considering these additional extensions and routes throughout the timetable period depending on passenger numbers?
Realtime Trains | Departures from Culham all day on 02/06/2021
Train information at Culham all day on 02/06/2021. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.www.realtimetrains.co.uk
Can someone advise how you get RTT to show these additional trains? Or does their apparent absence when I click the link above mean that they've been removed?
While Culham gets its near-hourly service, the formerly half-hourly off-peak service at much busier stations between Didcot and Reading remains only hourly. I'm not particularly surprised by its not being restored to normal in May, but I'm disappointed that GWR's pdf says it's the service until 11th December, as that suggests that the reduced service is all that's planned for the foreseeable future. Evidence of paths being kept for reinstatement if demand or driver availability increase would be encouraging.
dk1
Veteran Member
Was just a typo I think. Corrected now.
All of those items mentioned were due to be addressed (pre Covid) in Dec 21. At this point in time, unknown when they will be delayed until (or purse strings tightened to curtailment/cancellation).
As another user said, what was Dec 20 was only meant to be an interim timetable state prior to full overhaul of the timetable, so there will need to be some element of tidying up after this intervention. Who knows when or how much of the full plan will happen now.
You need to click on the "detailed filtering options" and enable CAN (cancelled services)
It looks like the unadvertised additional services have been cancelled until 25 June, which is the latest date where engineering work (Informed Traveller) amendments have been published.
I wouldn't expect the additionals to operate any time soon.
Thankyou. I see that the missing services at Cholsey are shown as cancelled right through to December; presumably they could be un-cancelled if GWR/DfT see fit, but I won't hold my breath.
If the DfT have allowed major timetable improvements to take place in May 21, then my gut feeling is they’ll allow the second stage of improvements to go ahead, even if they do get delayed until May 22.
And with regard to the Sunday timetable on the Robin Hood line, what’s actually being proposed? Hourly Nottingham - Mansfield, two hourly extensions to Workshop, hourly on the full route?
Thanks. I wonder how long it will be before it gets cut back to Mansfield due to low patronage north of there.
bunnahabhain
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Yes, to all of the above.
Llandudno
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May depend on whether any attempt is made to offer decent connections at Worksop for Sheffield and Retford bound trains and fare and journey planner options routing some longer journeys this way?
Jamesrob637
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So is any TOC going back to the pre-COVID timetable in a fortnight?
WMT certainly isn’t. I think they’ve pencilled in 12th September for an interim timetable change to return to a more ‘normal’ timetable.
This won’t be a return to the full December 2019 timetable as there won’t be any LNWR services running across New Street. Not sure if there will be reductions to any peak services and I know there’s been talk of the core section of the cross city line staying at 4tph long time.
The planned improvements to Sunday service due to take place in May 2021 won’t be happening. Not sure if these will go ahead at a later date, will be scaled back or abandoned altogether. Even if it doesn’t go to a full Saturday timetable on Sunday’s, there’s some lines where the Sunday service really does need improving.
ChrisC
Established Member
If when the Sunday service to Worksop starts there are decent connections at Worksop it will be purely by chance rather than any attempt made to offer them. No attempts to offer decent connections at Worksop have ever been made right from when from the Robin Hood Line reopened north of Mansfield in 1998. There has always been a wait of 40-50 minutes at Worksop for the connections to both Sheffield and Retford/Lincoln.
From May 2019 until Covid halted things about 10 months later, the new Sheffield to Gainsborough Central service at last offered good connections at Worksop. Journeys to the north via Worksop became quicker than via Nottingham and began to show up on journey planners. The Sheffield to Gainsborough Central timetable, except for a couple of peak time journeys is not being restored before December if it even does happen. Through fares to destinations in the north are rarely cheaper via Worksop but by splitting tickets at Sheffield large savings can often be made.
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Jamesrob637
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A lot of Sunday services needed improvements even pre-COVID. That would be worthy of a separate thread if one does not already exist.
philosopher
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Using Covid as an excuse not to implement previously planned improvements to Sunday timetables seems like a particularly shorted sighted move by WMT. The railways at least in the short term are going to need all the leisure passengers they can get. Improving Sunday services would be an obvious way to attract leisure passengers onto the railways.
HamworthyGoods
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No as outlined in a few posts non of the TOCs currently have the ability to resource this.
Some TOCs are getting near on some routes but DfT doesn’t ask for 100% at the moment. There’s a lot of training to catch up on and training takes crews off booked services.
It’s not an excuse - better to deliver what is achievable than over promise and underdeliver, that would be shortsighted. Sunday work is often voluntary; when most TOCs have a training backlog the last thing you want to do is increase the Sunday service until you have greater numbers.
EMR are moving to a significantly enhanced timetable over pre COVID.
SteelWeelApeal
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I think GWR almost is. Pretty much everything except half the Didcot stoppers, half the South Wales fasts, the two-hourly Newbury fasts and a few of the Cheltenhams east of Swindon is planned to run. I’m not including the Bristol “super fast“ services as they were never fully implemented before Covid anyway.
Your quite correct about Worksop, the only good thing about the Worksop 50 minute wait was that café on the platform , which in normal times was open and did a very nice Full English.
Connections between rural services haven't been great in Lincs / Notts / S Yorks / Humberside for quite a while. So often connections are missed by a few minutes, necessitating lengthy waits. Perhaps there's little demand, other than by track gricers!
Llandudno
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There won’t be any demand if you have to wait 50 minutes at places such as Worksop for a relatively short journeys like Mansfield/Shirebrook etc to the likes of Sheffield, not great for anyone looking for employment opportunities after Covid.
Indeed they are, quality operator, shame they can’t take on some of Northern’s routes such as Nottingham-Leeds, Hope Valley stopper etc
There is an aspiration to extend passanger services to Ollerton so the extra service may get diverted that way instead.
I wonder whether I should feel aggrieved that my local service is one of the exceptions, or pleased that things are better elsewhere. There are some other exceptions -- the Henley branch remains hourly, as does Reading-Basingstoke on Saturdays (in contrast to the North Downs line, where the normal service resumed on Saturdays some weeks before it is due to do so on weekdays).
In some ways they are just going back to their "normal" service except the normal service changed in the background in May 21, delayed from the planned Dec 20. (I imagine at least in part by COVID-19) .
I wonder if the knowledge that they had extra training requirements anyway from new traction and increase in services meant they were forced to figure out how to keep training going during the pandemic earlier than the rest of the TOCs? When this all started and it was only going to be a few weeks I imagine lots of TOCs just suspended training as the easiest option. The fact that restrictions are going to end up lasting 18 months has perhaps bitten those that didn't sort out bubbles early doors.
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ChrisC
Established Member
Absolutely. I used the Robin Hood Line to Sheffield and beyond quite regularly during 2019 when just for one year there were decent connections at Worksop. Now it’s back to having to use my car to drive to Alfreton station instead. Sometimes it’s just easier to remain in the car for the whole journey.
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