Potential timetable for the Leeds - Huddersfield - Manchester route once TRU is complete

It's not my decision, but whoever does decide who gets the path (NR or ORR or whoever) should be deciding on the basis of what gives the overall best service.

Zomboid said:

The greater good. I don't know which offering would be the greater good, but ultimately the most beneficial service for greatest number of people should have the path.

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Which, hopefully, will be GBR's remit

Nottingham59 said:

There would be if XC curtailed some of their services at York, and used the released units to lengthen trains in the core of their network.

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Is the correct answer. 8 car services from Edinburgh each hour (much better capacity for Edinburgh - Newcastle - Yorkshire & Humber overall), one service starting at York via Doncaster, and a half-hourly TPE service meaning the overall service provision from Newcastle / Darlington to Leeds and onwards to Manchester is significantly improved.

Grimsby town said:

They are getting an extra train per hour to Manchester out of it though. I'd much rather have a half hourly semi-fast service to Manchester than an hourly slightly faster service to Manchester/Liverpool. Manchester and Leeds are always going to be far bigger draws and changing at Leeds/Huddersfield shouldn't be too difficult given it's generally going to be a same platform interchange.

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"An hourly slightly faster service to Manchester/Liverpool" isn't an option on the table though; a core output of TRU is Hull having two trains per hour.

What you're proposing is a return to what happened before the campaign, and exactly what TPE consulted on, the outcome of which was Hull getting an express service, not a semi fast.

Pre pandemic there were (notionally at least):

1tph Newcastle - Liverpool (express in the core)
1tph Newcastle - Airport (express in the core)
1tph Scarborough - Liverpool (express in the core)
1tph Middlesbrough - Airport (express in the core)
1tph Hull - Manchester Piccadilly (semi fast in the core)
Plus stoppers

The consultation concluded that Hull has a better case for an express than Scarborough, yet you are proposing:

4tph express in the core all from York
2tph semi fast in the core all from Hull

De ja vu.

IanXC said:

"An hourly slightly faster service to Manchester/Liverpool" isn't an option on the table though; a core output of TRU is Hull having two trains per hour.

What you're proposing is a return to what happened before the campaign, and exactly what TPE consulted on, the outcome of which was Hull getting an express service, not a semi fast.

Pre pandemic there were (notionally at least):

1tph Newcastle - Liverpool (express in the core)
1tph Newcastle - Airport (express in the core)
1tph Scarborough - Liverpool (express in the core)
1tph Middlesbrough - Airport (express in the core)
1tph Hull - Manchester Piccadilly (semi fast in the core)
Plus stoppers

The consultation concluded that Hull has a better case for an express than Scarborough, yet you are proposing:

4tph express in the core all from York
2tph semi fast in the core all from Hull

De ja vu.

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One could argue that it is not about Scarborough having the express, and instead about York - Manchester being a (near if not) clockface 4tph, which you could argue is more important…

Having worked all of these services, Scarboroughs are busier than Hulls. Even with the current arrangement…

dodecahedron67 said:

One could argue that it is not about Scarborough having the express, and instead about York - Manchester being a (near if not) clockface 4tph, which you could argue is more important…

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Whilst that doesn't seem like a bad aim, how necessary is it when there's also 2tph Northern via Garforth between York and Leeds (and CrossCountry, but ideally that would be left for longer-distance passengers), and York to Manchester passenger numbers are a third of what they are for York to Leeds?

That said, the alternative is having three roughly-even York–Victoria services and one off-pattern, not evenly having a train every twenty minutes.

If we assume the Huddersfield - Kirkgate - Castleford - York service can be kept on the 'Normanton' side at Colton Junction, running straight into platforms 3 and 5, there's no reason for that not to be the train to Scarborough, if we're being honest. Looking at the data sets, the most popular places from Scarborough are York, Leeds, Bridlington, Hull, Filey, Malton, then London, and Sheffield in 8th. Manchester is way down the list.

If you also ran the two-hourly Sheffield - Pontefract - York all day, that could run down to Scarborough every two hours as a booster service (3tp2h) and that would mean more capacity, and the through service. It frees up the bay platforms at York for the XC terminator, possibly an LNER terminator, the Blackpool terminator, shuttles from Leeds (all stations via Micklefield), and services from Selby and Hull.

Anyway, I'll put the crayons back. But if nothing else, this would also open up the capacity for a half-hourly service from Teesside to York, Leeds and Manchester, which seems very sensible.

BranstonJnc said:

If we assume the Huddersfield - Kirkgate - Castleford - York service can be kept on the 'Normanton' side at Colton Junction, running straight into platforms 3 and 5, there's no reason for that not to be the train to Scarborough, if we're being honest. Looking at the data sets, the most popular places from Scarborough are York, Leeds, Bridlington, Hull, Filey, Malton, then London, and Sheffield in 8th. Manchester is way down the list.

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If the two most popular places from Scarborough are York and Leeds, that's a pretty big reason for the Scarborough cross-Pennine service to not avoid Leeds.
If anything, the apparent lack of demand for travel to Manchester would suggest that the Northern Halifax to Hull service be diverted to Scarborough, and the current Scarborough TP be diverted to Hull. That's assuming such a move is doable without having to recast the entire ECML timetable, of course.

61653 HTAFC said:

If the two most popular places from Scarborough are York and Leeds, that's a pretty big reason for the Scarborough cross-Pennine service to not avoid Leeds.
If anything, the apparent lack of demand for travel to Manchester would suggest that the Northern Halifax to Hull service be diverted to Scarborough, and the current Scarborough TP be diverted to Hull. That's assuming such a move is doable without having to recast the entire ECML timetable, of course.

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Agreed re: Leeds to a point, but if you did have a half-hourly Newcastle to Manchester, half-hourly Tees to Manchester, and then your XC, and at least two other services (Leeds stopper, Blackpool), then in theory, your connecting at York will add negligible overall journey time.

If anything, I would have thought re: Halifax to Hull, that you retain that and actually supplement it with an additional hourly service from at least Bradford to Selby, as that way you are creating a standard half-hourly service from Bradford to Selby, having your Halifax to Hull connectivity, and actually inventing a half-hourly cross-city service from Pudsey and Bramley to Garforth.

For those followers of the 'development' of Trans Penine services, this item may be of interest:


There has long been development of where should be linked to where, and how often

I recall the emphasis on 'mile-a- minute services.

I note from Realtime trains the preponderance of 2- and 4-car services at Hull these days: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/simple/gb-nr:HUL

dodecahedron67 said:

One could argue that it is not about Scarborough having the express, and instead about York - Manchester being a (near if not) clockface 4tph, which you could argue is more important…

Having worked all of these services, Scarboroughs are busier than Hulls. Even with the current arrangement…

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Additionally, it makes sense to concentrate those services at Victoria and concentrate the Hull services at Piccadilly. If Hull had one fast Liverpool service and one semi fast service to Piccadilly it would create a more confusing timetable that's unlikely to be clockface. Newcastle is obviously a more important market for the fast services to Liverpool/Airport.

If Hull was staying at one train per hour, I'd completely agree it should be a faster service to the Manc Airport or Liverpool. The additional service is enough compensation for it not being as fast, especially as it allows for a simpler timetable..

dodecahedron67 said:

One could argue that it is not about Scarborough having the express, and instead about York - Manchester being a (near if not) clockface 4tph, which you could argue is more important…

Having worked all of these services, Scarboroughs are busier than Hulls. Even with the current arrangement…

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The two things are not mutually exclusive. With the aim of TRU being to have 6tph fast/semi fast, it is not inevitable that one service group has to benefit above and beyond another. The Semi fast aspect of the specification seems to be that Dewsbury and Stalybridge have a half hourly express service, now actually very few people will be travelling between those two stations, so I would suggest that any given TPE 'express/semi fast' service should call at 2 stations between Leeds and Manchester. Write a timetable on that basis and I would bet that it would rapidly become apparent where the Dewsbury and Stalybridge calls should be - there will be pathing time required to make it all work, so why not insert the station stops to take advantage of this.

On the question of the loadings as they currently stand, you are correct to suggest that adding Scarborough demand to York demand is delivering higher loadings between York and Leeds especially, but it is also true that there is significant untapped demand for longer distance journeys and that it take a while for people to realise that these opportunities are available to them, and indeed the benefits of them are available (oi, I went to Liverpool last weekend and had a great time...)

Grimsby town said:

Additionally, it makes sense to concentrate those services at Victoria and concentrate the Hull services at Piccadilly. If Hull had one fast Liverpool service and one semi fast service to Piccadilly it would create a more confusing timetable that's unlikely to be clockface. Newcastle is obviously a more important market for the fast services to Liverpool/Airport.

If Hull was staying at one train per hour, I'd completely agree it should be a faster service to the Manc Airport or Liverpool. The additional service is enough compensation for it not being as fast, especially as it allows for a simpler timetable..

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If the choice is, 4 express tph from one Manchester station, and 2 semi fast plus (up to) 2 local tph from the other Manchester station, then the logic you describe about their distribution has some merit. I'm far from convinced that is the choice, however.

I could well imagine a situation where the core is 6tph, with each calling at Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds, and one of Ashton under Lyne, Stalybridge and Dewsbury, leaving all the local services at the west end of the core to run to Piccadilly. There is a very key, and ultimately transformational benefit, from passengers knowing that if you arrive at Leeds or Victoria, there will be a train to the other station within 10 minutes....

The problem is 6tph doesn’t work to Victoria. You could just about squeeze 2 Liverpools, 2 Airports and 2 terminators with clever platform use (I suspect this becomes harder if not impossible when TPE’s trains are too long to use P1/2), but the big problem is the ‘local’ North West to Stalybridge EMU.

Given the local is likely to end up at 2tph minimum (more likely 4, 2tph Wigan/Southport via Bolton + 2tph Wigan NW via Golborne), I would be surprised if there is the capacity between Victoria and Stalybridge for 10tph, let alone at Stalybridge West Jn for 6tph to Victoria, 2tph to Pic crossing AND up to 4tph crossing to/from the P5 bay

Remember at Stalybridge a train from Picc stops a train towards Vic, and a P5 bay departure stops everything towards/from Vic

I would imagine the timetable will look roughly like:

Victoria
XX00 Express Newcastle
XX05 Stalybridge Local
XX15 Express Teeside
XX20 Stalybridge Local
XX30 Express York then somewhere
XX35 Stalybridge Local
XX45 Express York then somewhere
XX50 Stalybridge Local

Piccadilly
XX00 York Local via Wakefield
XX15 Hull Semi-Fast
XX30 Huddersfield Local
XX45 Hull Semi-Fast

So from Stalybridge eastbound

XX09 Newcastle Express (non-stop)
XX13 York Local
XX24 Teeside Express (non-stop)
XX28 Hull Semi-Fast
XX39 York Express (non-stop)
XX43 Huddersfield Local
XX54 York Express (non-stop)
XX58 Hull Semi-Fast

With all Stalybridge - Victoria traffic on the 4tph local EMU service

I would imagine the timetable will look roughly like:

Victoria
XX00 Express Newcastle
XX05 Stalybridge Local
XX15 Express Teeside
XX20 Stalybridge Local
XX30 Express York then somewhere
XX35 Stalybridge Local
XX45 Express York then somewhere
XX50 Stalybridge Local

Piccadilly
XX00 York Local via Wakefield
XX15 Hull Semi-Fast
XX30 Huddersfield Local
XX45 Hull Semi-Fast

So from Stalybridge eastbound

XX09 Newcastle Express (non-stop)
XX13 York Local
XX24 Teeside Express (non-stop)
XX28 Hull Semi-Fast
XX39 York Express (non-stop)
XX43 Huddersfield Local
XX54 York Express (non-stop)
XX58 Hull Semi-Fast

With all Stalybridge - Victoria traffic on the 4tph local EMU service

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This seems pretty sensible to me. It will be a squeeze at the Dewsbury end to fit in 6ph fast/semi-fast, 2ph stoppers + 1ph Calder Valley but presumably this has been checked as part of the TRU planning.....

The only other question is whether all of this capacity is really needed? I.e. could the 2ph semi-fasts be scrapped, with stops at either Dewsbury or Stalybridge added to the fast services and Hull taking one of the paths from Victoria? One of the Huddersfield stoppers could then be extended to Leeds to provide additional connectivity.

One thing that isn’t made clear by the illustration is what is going to happen to the Halifax to Hull services. Will the additional TPE train replace these east of Selby or will there be a total of 3tph between Leeds and Hull (not a bad outcome)?

Regarding the TPE services to Hull, I’m of the opinion that it should be served by 1tph to Liverpool using the fast path and 1tph to Manchester Piccadilly, using the semi-fast path as it balances the needs of a frequent service and increases the number of destinations served. The other semi-fast path to Manchester Piccadilly should be used by the Scarborough service, retaining Stalybridge and Dewsbury’s direct link to York.