Solent&Wessex
Established Member
- Joined
- 9 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 2,683
A "normal" Sunday sees 3tph between Manchester Piccadilly and Leeds. The engineering work Sundays when trains are diverted via the Calder Valley sees 2tph between Manchester and Leeds - with only 1 of these coming from Piccadilly, the other 1 running from Liverpool via Manchester Victoria.
I do not have full details of all unit diagrams, but there are a significant number of 6 car diagrams from Piccadilly towards Leeds on Sundays at the moment - I saw quite a few of them the other week. There are, by default, quite a few 6 cars heading from Leeds towards Manchester. It is not possible to run 9 car sets due to the fact that the trains change ends at Salford Crescent, and there is insufficient space between the signals and junctions to allow this to happen. Also some diagrams run via Huddersfield, and again, there is insufficient space to reverse a 9 car set there.
A combination of some 6 car running on some services (which are busy - I have seen numerous 6 car sets full and standing in recent Sundays) and the extended journey times as a result of the diversions, means that I suspect there will not be any spare stock to strengthen any more trains.
Remember also that the North Route is not the whole network - engineering works on other routes may mean some sets are trapped elsewhere, and more sets may be required to maintain amended services on other routes too.
The TPE network is at capacity passenger wise, especially over weekends, and there simply isn't any room for any more passengers with the current levels of rolling stock. Until such time as the DfT do something about it the nothing will change. The introduction of 350's to Scottish services in 2 years time will make a slight difference, but not enough to be that noticeable I feel.
I do not have full details of all unit diagrams, but there are a significant number of 6 car diagrams from Piccadilly towards Leeds on Sundays at the moment - I saw quite a few of them the other week. There are, by default, quite a few 6 cars heading from Leeds towards Manchester. It is not possible to run 9 car sets due to the fact that the trains change ends at Salford Crescent, and there is insufficient space between the signals and junctions to allow this to happen. Also some diagrams run via Huddersfield, and again, there is insufficient space to reverse a 9 car set there.
A combination of some 6 car running on some services (which are busy - I have seen numerous 6 car sets full and standing in recent Sundays) and the extended journey times as a result of the diversions, means that I suspect there will not be any spare stock to strengthen any more trains.
Remember also that the North Route is not the whole network - engineering works on other routes may mean some sets are trapped elsewhere, and more sets may be required to maintain amended services on other routes too.
The TPE network is at capacity passenger wise, especially over weekends, and there simply isn't any room for any more passengers with the current levels of rolling stock. Until such time as the DfT do something about it the nothing will change. The introduction of 350's to Scottish services in 2 years time will make a slight difference, but not enough to be that noticeable I feel.