December 2019 timetable change.

[High Dyke]

Reported on BBC News this morning. Another timetable fiasco?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-50807987

Rail commuters in the north of England have been hit by cancellations and delays as Northern launched a new timetable promising 50 new trains.

Nineteen trains had been cancelled by 10:00 GMT and 31 delayed, some due to a shortage of drivers.

The operator said the issue affected services between Blackpool North and Manchester Airport, Leeds to York and Sheffield, and Darlington to Saltburn.

Transpennine Express had also cancelled 29 services on Monday morning.

Affected services included those linking Manchester Airport with Edinburgh and Newcastle, and trains from Liverpool Lime Street to Scarborough.

 

[daikilo]

No evidence I am aware of that the timetable was late being distributed or is unworkable so I suggest NR is "innocent" this time. Lack of (trained) traincrew to run planned services is a TOC issue. There could be an issue with commissioning of new TPE stock.

 

[Failed Unit]

Reported on BBC News this morning. Another timetable fiasco?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-50807987

Very hard on northern in my opinion. TPE are much worse but northern getting most of the venom again.

 

[Iskra]

Although it is another fiasco, it does at least seem to be a smaller one.

However, it is clear that timetable changes and the quality of their implication are now heavily scrutinised by the media; it does make them look incompetent that they haven't worked this out and are still making the same mistakes.

 

[Deepgreen]

It bears the hallmarks of other timetable failures of late. It really doesn't matter who is at fault; it is a symptom of a railway that lacks basic strategic planning for rolling stock, staffing and service levels. Timetable planning skills may have dwindled too. Profit maximisation requires the narrowing of margins to the point where service fragility is too great to sustain.

Assuming we now face at least five years of a government who, at best, is not interested in railways, this will continue as the norm.

 

[zoneking]

Even without the strike making the new timetable meaningless, there would be chaos for SWR due to the line closure between Epsom and Motspur Park.

 

[Iskra]

It bears the hallmarks of other timetable failures of late. It really doesn't matter who is at fault; it is a symptom of a railway that lacks basic strategic planning for rolling stock, staffing and service levels. Timetable planning skills may have dwindled too. Profit maximisation requires the narrowing of margins to the point where service fragility is too great to sustain.

Assuming we now face at least five years of a government who, at best, is not interested in railways, this will continue as the norm.

Profit % for TOC's are pre-set. The only way you can gain a greater profit is by growing total revenue ie; attracting passengers from other modes, so a reliable service is incentivised. The problem seems to be poor management of franchises and TOC's that don't deliver by the DFT. It's not the system, it's the poor management of it that is the issue. Your problem appears to be with capitalism itself, and after the election result, that won't be going away anytime soon.

Why assume anything at this point? The tories have come to power by promising significant infrastructure investment (which will involve rail), if they don't deliver it would allow Labour a way back in to government, if they do deliver it they could keep Labour out for a long time yet. Which government signed off all these new trains currently on the network by the way?

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Reported on BBC News this morning. Another timetable fiasco?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-50807987

Yes, another needless PR disaster for Northern. Whose great idea was it to start scrapping the pacers before they knew how (un) reliable their new trains would prove to be?

 

[Failed Unit]

Profit % for TOC's are pre-set. The only way you can gain a greater profit is by growing total revenue ie; attracting passengers from other modes, so a reliable service is incentivised. The problem seems to be poor management of franchises and TOC's that don't deliver by the DFT. It's not the system, it's the poor management of it that is the issue. Your problem appears to be with capitalism itself, and after the election result, that won't be going away anytime soon.

Why assume anything at this point? The tories have come to power by promising significant infrastructure investment (which will involve rail), if they don't deliver it would allow Labour a way back in to government, if they do deliver it they could keep Labour out for a long time yet. Which government signed off all these new trains currently on the network by the way?

some of the issue’s date back to the Bliar / brown years. I haven’t seen a government that really helps rail since it was privatised. Including one that got elected saying it would re-nationalise it.

 

[Clip]

Yes, another needless PR disaster for Northern. Whose great idea was it to start scrapping the pacers before they knew how (un) reliable their new trains would prove to be?

That would be the PRM rules wouldnt it?

 

[Grumpy Git]

some of the issue’s date back to the Bliar / brown years. I haven’t seen a government that really helps rail since it was privatised. Including one that got elected saying it would re-nationalise it.

Which government got elected promising to re-nationalise the railways?

 

[Failed Unit]

Which government got elected promising to re-nationalise the railways?

Not solely for that but John Prescott stated it many times as shadow transport minister. Forgot about it when he got the power.

I see the article is now re-written stating Northern are not the only company and giving equal footing to TPE. Maybe the TPE passengers have complained.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

some of the issue’s date back to the Bliar / brown years. I haven’t seen a government that really helps rail since it was privatised. Including one that got elected saying it would re-nationalise it.

You must have missed the shedloads of money given to Network Rail in the last 10 years or so.
It's not the government's fault that NR made such a hash of the upgrades (which cost £11 billion in CP5, of which they haven't even delivered the cut-down version yet).
Then there's the loads of money gone on new trains (much of it contracted by DfT, eg 70x, 80x).
Again, it's not HMG's fault if the output is not working as expected.
And then there's Crossrail (£17 billion and still counting), of which NR has a sizeable chunk either side of the core.

 

[PR1Berske]

Yes, another needless PR disaster for Northern. Whose great idea was it to start scrapping the pacers before they knew how (un) reliable their new trains would prove to be?

They had to scrap Pacers by now, disability legislation ensures they do/did, and not to mention Mayoral pressure on them to speed up the removal of Pacers. Northern has to be given credit, they couldn't hold on to Pacers without getting into deeper reputational problems.

 

[Edders23]

Lets face facts is it really possible to launch a new timetable without a few glitches ?

I'm sure it was a lot less dramatic than the last debacle lets see in a months time if it still isn't working properly; it needs time to bed in and iron out the issues

 

[Failed Unit]

Lets face facts is it really possible to launch a new timetable without a few glitches ?

I'm sure it was a lot less dramatic than the last debacle lets see in a months time if it still isn't working properly; it needs time to bed in and iron out the issues

most of the issues on TPE are not the timetables fault. They don’t have enough stock / crew to resource it.

 

[Edders23]

most of the issues on TPE are not the timetables fault. They don’t have enough stock / crew to resource it.

so perhaps in a month or two that situation will improve

 

[coppercapped]

Not solely for that but John Prescott stated it many times as shadow transport minister. Forgot about it when he got the power.

I think you will find he only ever spoke about a 'publicly accountable' railway - he never mentioned 'nationalisation' as that would have frightened the voters.
People believe he said that any future Labour government would nationalise the railways - but that's a common problem with belief, it ain't necessarily so!

I see the article is now re-written stating Northern are not the only company and giving equal footing to TPE. Maybe the TPE passengers have complained.

 

[Failed Unit]

so perhaps in a month or two that situation will improve

But my point is TPE shouldn’t have introduced a timetable the couldn’t resource. This isn’t May 2018. We should have learned lessons and not blindly gone on and made the same mistake again.

 

[Failed Unit]

I think you will find he only ever spoke about a 'publicly accountable' railway - he never mentioned 'nationalisation' as that would have frightened the voters.
People believe he said that any future Labour government would nationalise the railways - but that's a common problem with belief, it ain't necessarily so!

Don’t really need to nationalise anything as it is just a Franchise. We just don’t renew it but all governments have. My gut feeling is that most voters had railways as the last point in considering who to vote for. I was just sad that I had to consider the least worse option rather than had a party that was offered me something i wanted to vote for. But that is enough of that.

 

[mike57]

Very hard on northern in my opinion. TPE are much worse but northern getting most of the venom again.

Have to agree, 5 TPE trains each way have been cancelled to and from Scarborough today. Northern service now extended to Sheffield seems to have been running OK. Bear in mind that there are 18 TPE trains a day each way so five cancellations is a significant proportion. Lateness doesn't appear to be quite so bad, but several trains have also stopped/started short.

So all in all another TPE shambles, will they skate again and Northern will take all the blame.

 

[coppercapped]

Don’t really need to nationalise anything as it is just a Franchise. We just don’t renew it but all governments have. My gut feeling is that most voters had railways as the last point in considering who to vote for. I was just sad that I had to consider the least worse option rather than had a party that was offered me something i wanted to vote for. But that is enough of that.

I was referring, as I thought you were, to John Prescott's alleged statements when he was shadow Transport minister - that is over 20 years ago - and not to the recent election. Tony Blair well understood that nationalisation was anathema to many voters then, so in reality nationalisation was dropped.

 

[Failed Unit]

3 consecutive trains cancelled from Manchester Victoria.

1530 Scarborough
1545 Newcastle
1600 Edinburgh (pre planned so ok)

Add this to the 1500 Edinburgh

anyone would think we learnt nothing in 2018.

 

[johntea]

One issue is the marketing departments seem to just soldier on with their ‘hey look at how good we are a train every 15 minutes from Leeds to Manchester!’

 

[Failed Unit]

I was referring, as I thought you were, to John Prescott's alleged statements when he was shadow Transport minister - that is over 20 years ago - and not to the recent election. Tony Blair well understood that nationalisation was anathema to many voters then, so in reality nationalisation was dropped.

i was and bow to you knowledge about him. But he still re-let franchises and the system was pretty much the same as it is now

 

[JamesT]

i was and bow to you knowledge about him. But he still re-let franchises and the system was pretty much the same as it is now

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/labour-draws-up-plan-to-renationalise-railways-1568038.html being an example of the rhetoric whilst in opposition. Though the 1997 manifesto merely says they'll work with what they have.

 

[mike57]

3 consecutive trains cancelled from Manchester Victoria.

1530 Scarborough
1545 Newcastle
1600 Edinburgh (pre planned so ok)

Add this to the 1500 Edinburgh

anyone would think we learnt nothing in 2018.

So that leaves 1 hour between Manchester- Leeds Express services, wouldn't want to have been travelling on the 16.15 service to Middlesbrough.

 

[Andyh82]

Are the cancellations on Northern due to the new timetable, or just the same level they generally are every Monday?

Also Northern always get the press coverage because they are much bigger than TPE, in as much as 1% of Northern services would be a much more dramatic number than if it was 3% of TPE.

 

[Class195]

Who at Northern thought it was good to have four trains an hour between Bradford and Leeds on the hour up to half-past and then nothing in between that for nearly half an hour.

Absolutely appalling planning.

 

[Andyh82]

Who at Northern thought it was good to have four trains an hour between Bradford and Leeds on the hour up to half-past and then nothing in between that for nearly half an hour.

Absolutely appalling planning.

There is a train from Bradford to Leeds at around 53 mins past?