December 2024 timetable change

[SeanM1997]

Good to see 2tph but I see all pretensions to this service being a regional express have been lost, as both make stops at three or more minor stations.

Part of the issue is the Crewe - Stafford no longer continues to Birmingham via Tame Bridge. If this was to return, it would allow Penkridge to be moved over to that service to speed it up for instance

 

[Wiganlad]

The New Street to Liverpool departures at 0757 & 0857 are first stop Wolverhampton routing via Aston & Bescot.

 

[jammmmmsssssss]

Anything for GA?

Still not up

 

[danbarjon]

04:57 MAN-GLC, not showing in RTT for TPE.

Also rumours of another 802 diagram on the WCML to allow 397's to go for overhaul.

Do the 397s need an overhaul already?

 

[norbitonflyer]

GW is also upstream

An interesting feature is the GW services to/from Euston on November 17th. Appear to be missing Reading except for two which start there and one that terminates there, so anyone wishing to sample the rare track will need to go at least as far as Swindon or (usually) Taunton.

 

[wls1]

Still awaiting Greater Anglia, Avanti, c2c, GTR and Scotrail. Any more needed?

 

[A S Leib]

Still awaiting Greater Anglia, Avanti, c2c, GTR and Scotrail. Any more needed?

Outside GB, when are any timetable changes relating to Belfast Grand Central expected to be published?

 

[DanNCL]

The 04:25 TPE from Newcastle to Liverpool will be leaving at 04:21, giving Chester-le-Street a southbound service 45 minutes earlier than the current earliest. Still no northbound service until 07:13 though, and no changes to last trains.

There’s an earlier Northbound from Chester-le-Street ran by Northern, 06:48 to Carlisle.

 

[The exile]

I see that the WMR New Street to Kings Norton has been loaded.

Will these actually run before the intermediates open? Seems a bit of a waste of resources just as an end-to-end shuttle, which is what they’re currently showing as.

 

[The Planner]

The New Street to Liverpool departures at 0757 & 0857 are first stop Wolverhampton routing via Aston & Bescot.

They are now.

 

[Belperpete]

Looking at the TfW services from Machynlleth, it seems to include the T2 TrawsCymru bus services. Does that mean they are being integrated with the train services? So if I were to look up a service from Bangor to Shrewsbury, say, NR's journey planner might give me a route via Machynlleth? Unfortunately the bus services only seem to have been given a limited number of intermediate stopping points (Caernarfon, PenyGroes, Dolgellau, and Mach), so not including Criccieth or Porthmadog for example.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...9/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=AW

 

[The Planner]

An interesting feature is the GW services to/from Euston on November 17th. Appear to be missing Reading except for two which start there and one that terminates there, so anyone wishing to sample the rare track will need to go at least as far as Swindon or (usually) Taunton.

That is done for a reason, pricing the track bashers off.

Will these actually run before the intermediates open? Seems a bit of a waste of resources just as an end-to-end shuttle, which is what they’re currently showing as.

There are various ECS paths in the current timetable for them anyway, so not all new.

 

[Belperpete]

An interesting feature is the GW services to/from Euston on November 17th. Appear to be missing Reading except for two which start there and one that terminates there, so anyone wishing to sample the rare track will need to go at least as far as Swindon or (usually) Taunton.

One of the permitted routes for my journeys Birmingham to London is via Reading and then to Paddington. Does this mean I could travel to say Didcot or Oxford, and change there to a GW to Euston?

 

[ScotGG]

Nothing substantial for SE metro services it seems, still running their managed decline timetable, will continue to use the Elizabeth line.

Yep still poor with services from Kent to connect to Crossrail. Open goal for extra custom not being taken.

All London area TOCs south of the Thames seem like they don't want passenger numbers to grow, no doubt under DaFT pressure for cuts.

 

[The exile]

One of the permitted routes for my journeys Birmingham to London is via Reading and then to Paddington. Does this mean I could travel to say Didcot or Oxford, and change there to a GW to Euston?

Not if the GW services running into Euston are last stop Swindon / Taunton!

 

[Blindtraveler]

Yep still poor with services from Kent to connect to Crossrail. Open goal for extra custom not being taken.

All London area TOCs south of the Thames seem like they don't want passenger numbers to grow, no doubt under DaFT pressure for cuts.

If I were a bus company, I'd be looking to start a couple of routes to connect into the Elizabeth line that didn't involve a guided tour of various village and suburban destinations in North Kent on the way

 

[swt_passenger]

Ashington's mostly half-hourly (xx:00 and xx:30 departures, xx:24 and xx:54 arrivals) but with some gaps, e.g. no 07:00 or 10:30 southbound departures. Unless they've just been omitted for now for some reason?

They’re up now, here’s an RTT link. As I suggested in the earlier reply probably just a slightly delayed upload.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Ashington between 0600 and 2000 on 16/12/2024

Train information at Ashington between 0600 and 2000 on 16/12/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[louis97]

Tamworth or Smethwick Galton Bridge

Both of these are split, RTT just merges them under the 'common' CRS. We'll do the same in future with Bletchley.

 

[berneyarms]

Outside GB, when are any timetable changes relating to Belfast Grand Central expected to be published?

They have yet to confirm the station opening date. It won't be until sometime in September now. Translink are rolling the current timetables over on a weekly basis for the moment.

In the meantime the new interim Enterprise timetable comes into effect from Monday 26th August (still with bus transfers in operation).

 

[newtownmgr]

Will these actually run before the intermediates open? Seems a bit of a waste of resources just as an end-to-end shuttle, which is what they’re currently showing as.

Doubt it, but the paths will stay as allocated and some will be used to allow for route learning for New St depot & for the few at Worcester that still need to learn it as these will be the depots working it.

 

[Greybeard33]

Northern has long since confirmed that 323 will the default north west EMU traction. Most, if not all, Blackpool-Manchester’s will be double 323. Sorry.

From a random sample on RTT, most Blackpool - Manchester Airports are pathed for 323s, versus 331s in the current timetable. Of course, that does not necessarily mean they will all be worked by 323s.

 

[dk1]

Still not up

We are often rather tardy when it comes to downloading timetables. They save the best until last obviously

 

[Stephen42]

Yep still poor with services from Kent to connect to Crossrail. Open goal for extra custom not being taken.

All London area TOCs south of the Thames seem like they don't want passenger numbers to grow, no doubt under DaFT pressure for cuts.

Can you expand where is that open goal? By this I mean what train(s) can be pathed that will be cost positive or what alterations won't upset existing passengers while generating enough revenue to be worthwhile. My understanding is that switching which trains go to Gravesend causes issues at Dartford (and runs fairly close to existing trains). A new train from much further out is likely to cannibalise high speed revenue over generating enough new revenue.

While the new timetable isn't everyone's hopes and dreams, it's a clear step forward. Every station that used to have at least 4tph off-peak pre-covid in the metro area finally has at least 4tph off-peak on weekdays. For Crossrail connections, the Sidcup line goes from 3 direct trains in the morning and none back in the evening to 6 in the morning and 7 back at peak times. At Greenwich there's three hours in each peak of a train every 10 minutes (once Thameslink gets loaded in) up from an hour in the morning peak and never in the evening peak today.

 

[A S Leib]

Any idea if the connection time at Bletchley will still be 5 minutes for Oxford services? In both directions there's ~15 minutes in both directions between Oxford pathing and Hemel services anyway, but it would be useful to know.

~66 minutes on trains (+ ~20 minutes spent changing at Bletchley) makes it around half an hour quicker than the bus for central Hemel – central Oxford, and I think it would beat Coventry for Northampton – Oxford as well.

 

[thealexweb]

From a random sample on RTT, most Blackpool - Manchester Airports are pathed for 323s, versus 331s in the current timetable. Of course, that does not necessarily mean they will all be worked by 323s.

From Northern conductors I have spoken to in passing, the deciding factor will be how many Victoria based crews will be trained in time for December. Manchester Piccadilly/Wigan/Blackpool crews will be ‘ready’.

 

[Lg_]

Do the 397s need an overhaul already?

At the very least the seat coverings need to be replaced with a more durable material, if you've seen the state of some of them they're minging!

That and the fact that there are still consistent reliability issues, just today they've been a unit down and have cancelled/started and terminated short the Glasgow-Liverpool services.

 

[NorthKent1989]

Yep still poor with services from Kent to connect to Crossrail. Open goal for extra custom not being taken.

All London area TOCs south of the Thames seem like they don't want passenger numbers to grow, no doubt under DaFT pressure for cuts.

Also no Charing Cross services on the Woolwich line, i know a few on here go with the line of thinking that “you have the Elizabeth line so you don’t need Charing Cross” but the EL is extremely busy on the Abbey Wood branch as a result since they’ve removed CX trains

And yes ridiculous that there aren’t more Kent services to Abbey Wood

 

[Adam Evans]

LNR/WMR has been uploaded. Liverpool services will additionally call at Mossley Hill and Coseley.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Liverpool Lime Street all day on 16/12/2024

Train information at Liverpool Lime Street all day on 16/12/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I just wish more evening southbound services would call at West Allerton (and Mossley Hill by extension). The sheer drop off in frequency with large gaps after the 20:56 from Lime Street just seem ridiculous and are highly inconvenient for getting home from town beyond early-mid evening.

This isn't the case going the other way though as the half-hourly frequency in the Liverpool-bound direction continues until after the 22:42!

 

[jammmmmsssssss]

We are often rather tardy when it comes to downloading timetables. They save the best until last obviously

Well I would say that but some of the others that haven't are Avanti and GTR.
Last timetable the biggest change that affected me was my usual train changing platforms across the platform so I'm not expecting much

 

[dk1]

Well I would say that but some of the others that haven't are Avanti and GTR.
Last timetable the biggest change that affected me was my usual train changing platforms across the platform so I'm not expecting much

I’ve heard of a possible regional re-write next May but this December shouldn’t show many if any surprises.