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December 2020 Timetable Change

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Scotrail314209

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In terms of Scotrail on my local route (Motherwell/Larkhall-Dalmuir/Milngavie) there are some noticable changes:

Monday-Saturday:
All Hamilton Circle services now run to Dalmuir only:
Westbound:
Previously the 2Fxx Motherwell/Cumbernauld to Dalmuir ran via Yoker, it now runs via Singer.
The 2Lxx Larkhall-Milngavie service no longer runs to Milngavie, instead Dalmuir via Yoker.
The 2Sxx Whifflet line trains still go to Dalmuir but run via Yoker instead of via Singer.
I don't get why the 2Fxx services from Cumbernauld/Motherwell westbound go via Singer when they previously went via Yoker anyway, the 2Lxx Larkhall trains should go via Singer imo.
The 2Vxx Springburn-Dumbarton Central service runs to Milngavie instead, basically replacing the trains from Larkhall to Milngavie. This means that Bearsden/Hillfoot/Milngavie can only be served by trains via Queen Street. It also means that Kilpatrick/Bowling which were normally served by these Springburn trains only, are now part of the Airdrie-Balloch route.

Eastbound:
2Cxx Milngavie-Motherwell/Cumbernauld starts from Dalmuir instead, running via Yoker. it is in the path of the old Dalmuir-WhiffletLine service as far as Rutherglen. Main departing times at Glasgow Central being xx.27, xx.57 or thereabouts
2Lxx Dalmuir-Larkhall is the same as before, running via Singer.
2Rxx Dalmuir-WhiffletLine still runs via Yoker but from Hyndland onwards it is in the path of the old Milngavie-Motherwell service, with the main departing times at Glasgow Central being xx.04, xx.34 or thereabouts.

However during the evening/night time after 20:00. Milngavie-Motherwell/Cumbernauld operates again, using the units off the Springburn services. Larkhall-Milngavie runs again too.
There is also one train which does Milngavie-Motherwell via Carmyle and the whifflet line which normally never happened:

Also there are no Friday night extra services stilll.

When I have more time I will have a look into the services more fully but that is what I can see from RTT.

Looks like Scotrail may be keeping largely to a COVID timetable, one other thing I've noticed is that Ayr is staying 2tph with Lanark remaining hourly.
 
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Bikeman78

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In terms of Scotrail on my local route (Motherwell/Larkhall-Dalmuir/Milngavie) there are some noticable changes:

It looks like the Springburn trains have 35 minutes at Milngavie. In the peaks, trains from Bathgate/Edinburgh use the vacant platform and reverse in eight minutes. Presumably this would have happened all day without the Covid reductions. Earlier in the year it was reported that the platforms at Milngavie were lengthened to permit trains to stack on top of each other. Why would that be necessary?
 

Eloise

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Please bear in mind some gaps are due to publication issues so some may get filled. This always happens.
 

Greybeard33

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Northern services now uploaded. The uplifts seem to be mainly as listed in post #53, although there are only 7, not 10, tpd on the Liverpool - Warrington - Airport route (plus one which goes to Wilmslow instead of the Airport) - and most of them are in the evening.

The Rose Hill Marple service is slightly better than hourly, with a few half hour intervals.

A minor surprise is that one peak extra is restored on the Mid-Cheshire line - the 1719 Stockport to Chester.
 

jack31439

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I'm starting to see some Southern uploaded as well.

So far I'm seeing the return of the London Bridge to Victoria services via Crystal Palace and the peak stoppers to Sutton via Forest Hill.

Also coming back are the Cat/Tat splitters to Victoria in the peaks, and the slows via Forest Hill or Tulse Hill returning to off peak only.
 

daodao

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... A minor surprise is that one peak extra is restored on the Mid-Cheshire line - the 1719 Stockport to Chester.
Is this wise, given that Northern Fail are short of trains and staff to run them? The only time I attempted to travel on this particular train (in 2019) it was cancelled - I did successfully claim "delay repay".
 

jfollows

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A lot of shuffling with the Liverpool via Warrington Northern "express" service again it seems. Wilmslow culled again from the 07:48 6-coach peak service which will start at Manchester Airport. Increase from 3 to 10 services per day not yet showing.
1F92 07:49 Wilmslow to Liverpool Lime Street today shows up as running in the new timetable, https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P23711/2020-12-30/detailed to take a day at "random".

I assume this just shows how the information in RTT is provisional and not to be relied upon yet ......

EDIT - I believe this train starts from Wilmslow because there isn't room for a six-car unit to reverse at Manchester Airport at that time. Whatever the reason, it seems like a good service for Wilmslow - I've not used it myself yet but when I last wanted to go to Liverpool I went via Crewe whereas I'd think about this service now. In recent years it means additional services Wilmslow-Manchester at 07:25 (Avanti) and this one, which is nice. The choice used to be a very busy 323 stopping service, which I once used and sat opposite a slightly silly person who might have got on at Crewe when it was empty but had plonked her suitcase in the adjacent seat.
 
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Damien1986

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I had a look at realtraintimes and it seems Cumbernauld/Motherwell to Dalmuir will now operate via Singer,Motherwell/Whifflet to Dalmuir will run via Yoker and Larkhall to Milngavie seem to largely diverted to run to Dalmuir via Yoker.
 

Greybeard33

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Is this wise, given that Northern Fail are short of trains and staff to run them? The only time I attempted to travel on this particular train (in 2019) it was cancelled - I did successfully claim "delay repay".
In my pre-Covid experience, the 1719 Stockport to Chester used to be very lightly loaded between Stockport and Altrincham, then pick up homeward bound commuters (transferring from Metrolink) at Altrincham.

From RTT it appears that the stock from this service (arr Chester 1837) will form the 1900 Chester to Piccadilly. That will release the stock from the 1640 Piccadilly to Chester (arr Chester 1810) to run ECS to Helsby at 1832, then to work the 1854 Helsby to Ellesmere Port and the 1910 Ellesmere Port to Liverpool via Warrington Bank Quay.

So the restoration of the 1719 Stockport to Chester would seem to be mainly for operational convenience. It enables Northern to provide one of its two daily services to Ellesmere Port, while diverting the current 1542 Leeds to Ellesmere Port via Manchester Victoria service to terminate at Chester (arr 1815) instead. This change compensates for withdrawal of the current TfW 1715 Piccadilly to Chester (arr 1820) and so contributes to the avoidance of congestion in the Castlefield corridor.
 

greyman42

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Is there any indication when the Newcastle to the South East cross country services might resume?
 

The Planner

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Is there any indication when the Newcastle to the South East cross country services might resume?
Would be surprised if it is earlier than May 21, unless there is a sudden change in fortunes. Possible they may not even bid that back in for May at all.
 

freddiem

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Scotrail and LNER have theirs up, don't see many changes on scotrail. Presumably waiting til May next year for the big changes involving the intercity routes

On LNER, The Sunday's 0910 Edinburgh to Aberdeen doesn't appear to be running
The monday to fridays 1400 London to Aberdeen doesn't appear to be running

On cross country, only 6 trains appear to be running to/from glasgow Central.
The Aberdeen services appear to no longer call at arbroath, Montrose and stonehaven northbound and miss all fife stops both ways

The Sunday 0910 is replaced by the all stopper 0916 Scotrail, calling at all stops on the Fife Circle.
 

D.K.TAYLOR

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1F92 07:49 Wilmslow to Liverpool Lime Street today shows up as running in the new timetable, https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P23711/2020-12-30/detailed to take a day at "random".

I assume this just shows how the information in RTT is provisional and not to be relied upon yet ......

EDIT - I believe this train starts from Wilmslow because there isn't room for a six-car unit to reverse at Manchester Airport at that time. Whatever the reason, it seems like a good service for Wilmslow - I've not used it myself yet but when I last wanted to go to Liverpool I went via Crewe whereas I'd think about this service now. In recent years it means additional services Wilmslow-Manchester at 07:25 (Avanti) and this one, which is nice. The choice used to be a very busy 323 stopping service, which I once used and sat opposite a slightly silly person who might have got on at Crewe when it was empty but had plonked her suitcase in the adjacent seat.
I regularly use the Wilmslow Liverpool service when coming from Crewe the early Crewe turn is more often as not a 319 turn.
The Wilmslow being a 2 x195/1 is quite lightly loaded and gets me to Manchester 18 mins earlier.
What does surprise me it on arrival at Lime Street in goes Ecs to Allerton till about 3-30 then forms a Airport service seems a waste of 2 195s
 

LT1980

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Having been speaking directly to timetable publications teams at various TOCs over recent days - under no circumstances rely on the data you are seeing in opentraintimes / realtimetrains / other systems - the information will not be correct in these until the start of December as bids are not complete - the information is not even in TRUST which acts as a driver to these third-party systems.

Changes are occurring at present to Northern, TransPennine Express, EMR and also today I've been told XC with further reductions on the core services through Derby.

Additionally, the information on what Transport for the North has put out is also incorrect for both - there are serious changes occurring to what they have put into the paper. Information from TfN is always 100% to be treated with a pinch of salt - TfN does not have any say in the timetables/operations of what both Northern and TransPennine Express run - the buck stops at Whitehall whom give the final sign-off and not, and for now - and hopefully never, the quango offices in Manchester / Leeds.

When you are doing look-ups at the moment:
  • what you can see now is only indicative as Network Rail has extended the 'data system window' so that services can be loaded to allow timetable publications to be generated and to allow a final picture of units balances to be seen on 'the graph'
  • Normally you'd fine looking up 4-3 weeks out as we would have been at 99.9% timetable confirmation, however, these are different times TOCs are still dealing with December to May in different ways some as an overwrite of the indicative LTP timetable from what was given earlier in the year in May to NwR to path-up

For added thought, weekend timetables are currently correct TWO weeks out - hence the delays in advance ticket releases on a number of operators routes.

And before anyone chimes off say I don't know what I'm on about; I do a heck of a lot of close work with the publications to design work which varies dependant on timetable cascades and I've got a lot of work sat at the moment awaiting the final go/no go bid confirmations and it's getting a little frustrating as I can not really plan other works round in case I've to drop things.
 
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yorksrob

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Additionally, the information on what Transport for the North has put out is also incorrect for both - there are serious changes occurring to what they have put into the paper. Information from TfN is always 100% to be treated with a pinch of salt - TfN does not have any say in the timetables/operations of what both Northern and TransPennine Express run - the buck stops at Whitehall whom give the final sign-off and not, and for now - and hopefully never, the quango offices in Manchester / Leeds.

Well, TfN have stated that there will be 89% of the published service running. Does your post suggest that we can expect an even lower service than that from our Whitehall overlords ?
 

Eloise

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Having been speaking directly to timetable publications teams at various TOCs over recent days - under no circumstances rely on the data you are seeing in opentraintimes / realtimetrains / other systems - the information will not be correct in these until the start of December as bids are not complete - the information is not even in TRUST which acts as a driver to these third-party systems.

Changes are occurring at present to Northern, TransPennine Express, EMR and also today I've been told XC with further reductions on the core services through Derby.

Additionally, the information on what Transport for the North has put out is also incorrect for both - there are serious changes occurring to what they have put into the paper. Information from TfN is always 100% to be treated with a pinch of salt - TfN does not have any say in the timetables/operations of what both Northern and TransPennine Express run - the buck stops at Whitehall whom give the final sign-off and not, and for now - and hopefully never, the quango offices in Manchester / Leeds.

When you are doing look-ups at the moment:
  • what you can see now is only indicative as Network Rail has extended the 'data system window' so that services can be loaded to allow timetable publications to be generated and to allow a final picture of units balances to be seen on 'the graph'
  • Normally you'd fine looking up 4-3 weeks out as we would have been at 99.9% timetable confirmation, however, these are different times TOCs are still dealing with December to May in different ways some as an overwrite of the indicative LTP timetable from what was given earlier in the year in May to NwR to path-up

For added thought, weekend timetables are currently correct TWO weeks out - hence the delays in advance ticket releases on a number of operators routes.

And before anyone chimes off say I don't know what I'm on about; I do a heck of a lot of close work with the publications to design work which varies dependant on timetable cascades and I've got a lot of work sat at the moment awaiting the final go/no go bid confirmations and it's getting a little frustrating as I can not really plan other works round in case I've to drop things.
Indeed, what's in RTT etc at the moment shouldn't be in journey planners as such, TOCs will open these up as and when. What's in TRUST at the moment (and it is there) is more or less everything WTT wise and will then be amended. COVID aside we typically publish the WTT twenty to eighteen weeks out, you can't plan a journey or book a ticket until twelve weeks out so the first STP weeks can be completed. With COVID everything is running later under compressed timecslaes but there will still be a lag between the first publication run and what will actually run in that first December Timetable week.
 

Starmill

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Having been speaking directly to timetable publications teams at various TOCs over recent days - under no circumstances rely on the data you are seeing in opentraintimes / realtimetrains / other systems - the information will not be correct in these until the start of December as bids are not complete - the information is not even in TRUST which acts as a driver to these third-party systems.
While this might be what you'd like to be true, tickets are available to book against most of the timetables in question already, including right through January!

If someone's bought a ticket they aren't going to know that the data isn't reliable.
 

drb61

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Looks like Scotrail may be keeping largely to a COVID timetable, one other thing I've noticed is that Ayr is staying 2tph with Lanark remaining hourly.
Hourly Lanark is a bit of a pain and timed such that Uddingston and Bellshill have a rather unbalanced service pattern with their three trains per hour crammed into a 15-20 minute window then a 40-45 minute gap. Also eastbound, there is now no convenient connection from Cambuslang into Shotts line services. Would be much better if Lanark services could be timed to leave GLC at xx.50, rather than xx.20 - seems workable albeit it would mean a 40 minute layover at Lanark. On the plus the eastbound Shotts express services have reverted to their previous departure times around xx.05 giving a relatively fast service from GLC-EDB, one or two now actually managing it in under an hour.
 

Scotrail314209

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Hourly Lanark is a bit of a pain and timed such that Uddingston and Bellshill have a rather unbalanced service pattern with their three trains per hour crammed into a 15-20 minute window then a 40-45 minute gap. Also eastbound, there is now no convenient connection from Cambuslang into Shotts line services. Would be much better if Lanark services could be timed to leave GLC at xx.50, rather than xx.20 - seems workable albeit it would mean a 40 minute layover at Lanark. On the plus the eastbound Shotts express services have reverted to their previous departure times around xx.05 giving a relatively fast service from GLC-EDB, one or two now actually managing it in under an hour.

Looks like the fastest one is the 11:10, managing it in 57 minutes
 

peters

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While in some ways the situation is similar to what it was a few months ago - people being told to work from home where possible and in some areas people are being told not to avoid non-essential journeys, what worked as an emergency timetable in the Spring and Summer doesn't work anymore. One key difference being schools, colleges and universities have reopened so the services scholars used are needed again. Another being commuter demand has changed - some people who couldn't work from home back in March now can (e.g. due to their employer ordering the necessary hardware), while a change in customer demand has meant more warehouse workers are required and fewer retail/hospitality staff are required.

With Northern I do not believe the emergency timetable was drawn up based on predicted passenger demand but was drawn up based on which lines the available drivers were trained on e.g. if on a given morning there were likely to be 20 drivers available and all of them signed line a but only 5 signed line b then line a retained a better service regardless of passenger numbers.
 
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northernchris

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With Northern I do not believe the emergency timetable was drawn up based on predicted passenger demand but was drawn up based on which lines the available drivers were trained on e.g. if on a given morning there were likely to be 20 drivers available and all of them signed line a but only 5 signed line b then line a retained a better service regardless of passenger numbers.

I think this is correct, and to some degree makes sense in order to provide a reliable service. It's notable at the moment that crew related cancellations are very low so seems to be working. The downside is there's units which currently work in the morning peak then sit idle for the rest of the day
 

js1000

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Northern services now uploaded. The uplifts seem to be mainly as listed in post #53, although there are only 7, not 10, tpd on the Liverpool - Warrington - Airport route (plus one which goes to Wilmslow instead of the Airport) - and most of them are in the evening.

The Rose Hill Marple service is slightly better than hourly, with a few half hour intervals.

A minor surprise is that one peak extra is restored on the Mid-Cheshire line - the 1719 Stockport to Chester.
These timetables still seem to be subject to change so I suspect we may see the 3 "missing" services added between Liverpool and Manchester. For instance, the Wilmslow service originally terminated/started at Manchester Airport on RTT last week but is now timetabled to terminate/start in Wilmslow as it is at the moment. Currently on RTT there is a two hour gap at peak time between 16:20 and 18:20 for an hourly Northern express service from where this slot would appear like the most logical service to add.
 

Eloise

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Scotrail and LNER have theirs up, don't see many changes on scotrail. Presumably waiting til May next year for the big changes involving the intercity routes

On LNER, The Sunday's 0910 Edinburgh to Aberdeen doesn't appear to be running
The monday to fridays 1400 London to Aberdeen doesn't appear to be running

On cross country, only 6 trains appear to be running to/from glasgow Central.
The Aberdeen services appear to no longer call at arbroath, Montrose and stonehaven northbound and miss all fife stops both ways
14:00 London Aberdeen is there. 16:00 London Aberdeen was missing until this morning but that has appeared too.
 

greyman42

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Re LNER, the 2200 of Kings Cross (not sat) has been reinstated to Newcastle as opposed to York and the 2300 to York (not sat) is reinstated. Will these definitely run or are they just covering their backs?
 

berneyarms

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These timetables still seem to be subject to change so I suspect we may see the 3 "missing" services added between Liverpool and Manchester. For instance, the Wilmslow service originally terminated/started at Manchester Airport on RTT last week but is now timetabled to terminate/start in Wilmslow as it is at the moment. Currently on RTT there is a two hour gap at peak time between 16:20 and 18:20 for an hourly Northern express service from where this slot would appear like the most logical service to add.
Even in normal circumstances, I'd treat what is uploaded now with care.
Until the final timetable pdfs are published, usually four weeks out, things often change.

But with the Covid situation, I'd treat everything as subject to change. None of us know how the next six months are going to pan out.
 
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