30% of TPE services cancelled Thursday 8 June

[td97]

Incidentally when I asked to be re-routed, I was told to contact the retailer to obtain a refund and to re-book! Does anyone think this is acceptable/excusable?

Possibly, you could decide which option is most advantageous to you.
A York to Manchester Victoria off peak single ticket is £34.30 (TPE) or £26 (Northern only), although £10 for an on the day Northern advance.
Obviously if re routing (with Northern) means you are delayed by less than an hour, it would be cheaper for you to obtain a refund and rebook the advance.

 

[LYuen]

As one who seems well versed about York and its reputation as one of Britain's major tourist attractions for visitors from home and abroad, how much has the TPE fiasco and other associated railway disputes has affected the expected annual visitor returns there. When my wife was alive in pre-Covid times, our three-year Senior Citizen Railcards were used to visit York from Manchester Airport twice a month.

I don't think York is hit significantly by TPE cancellations as other ToCs are broadly reliable. e.g. Northern, LNER and CrossCountry.
I think towns that are more relying on TPE like Huddersfield are worse affected.

Possibly, you could decide which option is most advantageous to you.
A York to Manchester Victoria off peak single ticket is £34.30 (TPE) or £26 (Northern only), although £10 for an on the day Northern advance.
Obviously if re routing (with Northern) means you are delayed by less than an hour, it would be cheaper for you to obtain a refund and rebook the advance.

I will not cancel the original ticket but will ask for an alternative.
When the ticket is booked directly with the operator and it is cancelled, the operator will refund the ticket.
That is even when a station staff has advised an alternative and you have used the alternative. *

* At least this is the case for me with LNER. They refunded 100% even though I passed the gate at Kings Cross within 60 minutes of the original arrival time.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I don't think York is hit significantly by TPE cancellations as other ToCs are broadly reliable. e.g. Northern, LNER and CrossCountry.
I think towns that are more relying on TPE like Huddersfield are worse affected.

It is not all that often that one sees the words "Northern" and "reliable" used in the same sentence...

 

[800001]

Incorrect , we got a letter saying that we could leave without notice before the transfer over to OLR

As people have posted above! Thanks!

 

[CAF397]

It is not all that often that one sees the words "Northern" and "reliable" used in the same sentence...

They've been quite reliable for the past year I've found. Certainly seem stable, compared to TPE.

 

[Trainguy34]

They've been quite reliable for the past year I've found. Certainly seem stable, compared to TPE.

Similar to buses driving up a mountain

 

[Mak1981]

To be fair a lot of them was due to a tree falling down north of Lockerbie

None of them are, the thread is about today's issues not yesterday's, wcml seems to have been OK today

 

[YorkshireBear]

To be fair a lot of them was due to a tree falling down north of Lockerbie

That doesn't really explain cancelling 75% of this afternoon and evenings Leeds to Manchester Victoria services though!

 

[RailWonderer]

Was there really any point removing the First Group franchise and passing TPE to the OLR because of performance issues?

Purely for image purposes. The forum has discussed extensively how moving to OLR will not improve the service one iota, but since the govt cannot be seen to be rewarding failure that had to strip First Group of the franchise.

That’s the way the govt operates. Any complaints about the service now can be blanket blamed on unions and it becomes a political spat rather than the TOC specifically to blame. A dire service can ruin the reputation of a TOC but the government can handle the blame because they’re big enough that it won’t change their popularity - the Tories have been walking on thawing ice since the Covid pandemic so it doesn’t matter if OLR fails to improve anything (from a publicity point of view).

TPE regulars are all in their cars or on slowcoach Northern services now.

 

[josh-j]

Fair to say it hasn't been a great day. 7 trains between Piccadilly and Leeds cancelled in a row this afternoon.

 

[Andyh82]

There wasn’t a train from Leeds to Manchester via Huddersfield neither a stopper or a fast service for the best part of 3 hours this afternoon.

I couldn’t tell you how many were cancelled as TPE can’t be bothered to produce a printed timetable, but I guess thats about 12 services cancelled. All P coded except for one which was cancelled in the normal manner

I wonder if there was any rail replacement or ticket acceptance with Arriva buses?

 

[Bow Fell]

It must be heartbreaking to be a member of TPE staff at the moment and have to walk into this mess, day after day.

I know they are very some emotive words, and I completely understand why it’s in the interests of some to blame the situation on the staff or the union. At the end of the day the passenger is losing out here, it’s not good. Let’s be realistic, the numerous cancellations every day aren’t just because staff aren’t turning up to work like some might think. It’s proof that strike days aside, the level of service is a disgrace no matter what day.

Let’s face it, 5 years ago, would we have been discussing overtime rates for drivers on TPE probably not. Because all passengers want is a train that turns up. I think what the person up front is getting paid for the privilege is irrelevant. But it’s a handy stick to beat the drivers and ASLEF with, let’s face it this has dragged on for so long there’s no incentive to put this right, on either side truthfully. And now overtime has become such a focus is a distraction from the real issue, I’d love a overtime deal like the ASLEF one but what about for example when one day it just doesn’t suit me to be RDW due to that thing called life getting in the way, is it right to criticise me if there’s cancellations as a result?! It seems that’s why we’re heading when we are critical of someone’s refusal to work overtime

As someone who works in a control it must be soul-destroying to walk in this mess every single day, I’m sure it’s not want of trying for them to try and run some sort of service, people honestly don’t realise how passionate Controllers/DCM’s are about running a service, that’s their bread and butter. I’ve had some absolutely horrible shifts lately, to the point where you dread coming in the next day just because of what you are going to deal with. I’ve never never had that before, but I spare a thought for those at TPE, it must be horrible to come into that with no end in sight. You’re walking into a bad day regardless and that’s without any unplanned disruption.

 

[Some guy]

That doesn't really explain cancelling 75% of this afternoon and evenings Leeds to Manchester Victoria services though!

Of course it doesn’t. That’s all on the the management for cutting each depots route knowledge and also the fact TPE are absolute mess and have been since May 2018

 

[sjm77]

Looking at JourneyCheck the worst affected routes seem to be in the North East - nearly all of the Saltburn services are cancelled and so are most of the Newcastle. The other routes don't seem as badly hit (though still have a few cancellations here and there).

That's a bad enough attitude to customer service on a normal day of TPE disruption.

On a day like today, where there are no TPE services whatsoever from York to Leeds for nearly 6 hours (09:40 to 15:20), that's inexcusable.

I can't see any indication of either ticket acceptance on TPE JourneyCheck, or their website. They don't even have a banner or anything on the homepage warning people.

What are people at Chester-le-Street supposed to do today?

 

[DanNCL]

What are people at Chester-le-Street supposed to do today?

They’ve been abandoned. No arrangements made, or if they have been there’s been zero publicity of them.

 

[LYuen]

They've been quite reliable for the past year I've found. Certainly seem stable, compared to TPE.

A broadly reliable Northern - Train cancelled? Anyway, get on the later train and should arrive within an hour late.
TPE - With some luck you can get there on the same day.

 

[800001]

TPE have just tweet an apology with a short statement from there MD Chris Jackson, tweet attached below

https://twitter.com/tpexpresstrains/status/1666868816607838221?s=46&t=JLp3J2Up_Gl_m9cQz-au6w

 

[Bletchleyite]

A broadly reliable Northern - Train cancelled? Anyway, get on the later train and should arrive within an hour late.
TPE - With some luck you can get there on the same day.

I think the reason Northern is seen as quite bad is that they largely operate a fairly disparate set of hourly, relatively short services, thus a cancellation takes you straight to "full refund" territory and almost certainly means the next one is severely overcrowded to boot. The impact of a cancellation on something like Merseyrail or an Avanti Manchester is vastly smaller, partly because the wait for another train isn't long, and partly because there's enough capacity that it is unlikely to cause things to be totally overrun.

It was very bad, but I think it's just average now (whereas TPE is awful).

 

[SteveM70]

TPE have just tweet an apology with a short statement from there MD Chris Jackson, tweet attached below

https://twitter.com/tpexpresstrains/status/1666868816607838221?s=46&t=JLp3J2Up_Gl_m9cQz-au6w

Tweet sent at 19:04, two negative replies at 19:06, then they've disabled any further replies. So basically saying sorry with their hands over their ears

 

[Gaelan]

Tweet sent at 19:04, two negative replies at 19:06, then they've disabled any further replies. So basically saying sorry with their hands over their ears

I don't blame them - making their social media people scroll through pages and pages of Twitter vitriol isn't going to do anything useful for anyone, and will likely get in the way of communicating to customers who need help with rerouting.

 

[Whistler40145]

It is not all that often that one sees the words "Northern" and "reliable" used in the same sentence...

The same could be said for TransPennine Express

 

[SteveM70]

I don't blame them - making their social media people scroll through pages and pages of Twitter vitriol isn't going to do anything useful for anyone, and will likely get in the way of communicating to customers who need help with rerouting.

No.

They use a different account (TPEassist) for dealing with customers who need help.

The account that sweet was from is their corporate account, so exactly where people should be telling them how useless they are

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

What are people at Chester-le-Street supposed to do today?

Have you ever looked up the number of bus services (and destinations served) that residents in Chester-le-Street can access?

 

[DanNCL]

Have you ever looked up the number of bus services (and destinations served) that residents in Chester-le-Street can access?

Have you ever actually tried using those bus services?
I live in Chester-le-Street and can tell you now that what appears on paper to be a decent bus service is in fact poor. It’s slow taking more than triple the amount of time the train takes to get anywhere, and unreliable albeit not quite as unreliable as TPE at the minute.

A lot of the bus destinations from Chester-le-Street are places you can’t reach by train, such as Houghton-le-Spring, Waldridge, Stanley, Consett etc. Newcastle and Durham are the only two places with both direct trains and buses from Chester-le-Street, and both are considerably slower by bus.

Routes such as the 25 and 28, though they do eventually go to Newcastle, taking them to Newcastle is equivalent to taking the Circle Line from Paddington to Victoria via Liverpool Street. Even the ‘direct’ 21 and X21 take 40 minutes and up to an hour respectively up to 60 minutes and 40 minutes respectively. It’s 8 minutes on a train.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Have you ever actually tried using those bus services?
I live in Chester-le-Street and can tell you now that what appears on paper to be a decent bus service is in fact poor. It’s slow taking more than triple the amount of time the train takes to get anywhere, and unreliable albeit not quite as unreliable as TPE at the minute.

A lot of the bus destinations from Chester-le-Street are places you can’t reach by train, such as Houghton-le-Spring, Waldridge, Stanley, Consett etc. Newcastle and Durham are the only two places with both direct trains and buses from Chester-le-Street, and both are considerably slower by bus.

Routes such as the 25 and 28, though they do eventually go to Newcastle, taking them to Newcastle is equivalent to taking the Circle Line from Paddington to Victoria via Liverpool Street. Even the ‘direct’ 21 and X21 take 40 minutes and up to an hour respectively. It’s 8 minutes on a train.

Those bus services offer public transport provision to quite a number of destinations to places, which you admit, are not served by rail.

You make mention of the 25 and the 28 routes, but there are people who use part-route journeys between Chester-le- Street and Newcastle on those services.

 

[DanNCL]

Those bus services offer public transport provision to quite a number of destinations to places, which you admit, are not served by rail.

You make mention of the 25 and the 28 routes, but there are people who use part-route journeys between Chester-le- Street and Newcastle on those services.

To suggest that Chester-le-Street is fine not having a reliable train service because you can get a bus to completely different places is madness at best. What use is a Consett or Houghton bound bus to someone who is heading to Darlington? Absolutely none.

I’m well aware of what typical usage is like on the 25 and the 28. I mentioned them as it’s easy to see them listed as Newcastle services when you see what Chester-le-Street has and assume they’re ‘direct’ like the 21 and X21.

 

[basfordlad]

What in peoples eyes do TPE need to do in order to get the RDW agreement up and running?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

To suggest that Chester-le-Street is fine not having a reliable train service because you can get a bus to completely different places is madness at best. What use is a Consett or Houghton bound bus to someone who is heading to Darlington? Absolutely none.

You misunderstand my reasoning. I was making reference to the fact that quite a number of towns are served by buses but not trains from Chester-le- Street.

Of course, buses to either Consett or Houghton are no use whatsoever to Darlington-bound travellers, but there again, what type of silly person would consider using those buses to go to Darlington....as you say above, that is madness at best.

 

[DanNCL]

You misunderstand my reasoning. I was making reference to the fact that quite a number of towns are served by buses but not trains from Chester-le- Street.

Of course, buses to either Consett or Houghton are no use whatsoever to Darlington-bound travellers, but there again, what type of silly person would consider using those buses to go to Darlington....as you say above, that is madness at best.

I’m really not sure what relevance any buses from Chester-le-Street are here then other than those to Newcastle and Durham. So in other words the 21 and X21.
Beyond Newcastle and Durham you can’t get a bus to anywhere the train goes to. And in neither city does the bus from Chester-le-Street stop at the station to provide connections. So my point still stands, that Chester-le-Street’s bus service doesn’t justify Chester-le-Street’s station being left with an unusable train service.

The short term solution for the specific case of Chester-le-Street is obvious. Get XC to stop like they did 10-15 years ago. Obviously the long term solution is to sort out TPE.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The short term solution for the specific case of Chester-le-Street is obvious. Get XC to stop like they did 10-15 years ago.

A point worthy of query you raise. Historically, what reason was given at the time you quote for XC to remove Chester-le-Street from its itinerary and now in 2023, what reasons could be given to cause this aspirational reinstatement by that TOC.