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DfT advise TOCs that full timetable is to be restored on 6 July

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birchesgreen

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Not necessarily wrong if the question is "when will the operators still saying essential travel only stop saying it?"

Some operators have already stopped saying it, mind you i booked a ticket on the LNWR app today and on one screen it said essential and on the next necessary. So that is clear.
 

northernchris

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I was hoping Northern would have been able to run more services post July 6th, it doesn't look like there's a much overall increase to now. On the plus side though there should still be plenty of spare units which can be used to max out train formations over and above what is run now
 

Jamesrob637

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I was hoping Northern would have been able to run more services post July 6th, it doesn't look like there's a much overall increase to now. On the plus side though there should still be plenty of spare units which can be used to max out train formations over and above what is run now

Philipe advised me in another thread (the one regarding Northern Pacer withdrawals) that Northern may still need to tweak/add to what they have published, between now and next Friday. So hang fire another few days :smile:
 

northernchris

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Philipe advised me in another thread (the one regarding Northern Pacer withdrawals) that Northern may still need to tweak/add to what they have published, between now and next Friday. So hang fire another few days :smile:

Interesting, thanks!
 

Grizzly

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Philipe advised me in another thread (the one regarding Northern Pacer withdrawals) that Northern may still need to tweak/add to what they have published, between now and next Friday. So hang fire another few days :smile:
That would be good if it happens. As others have said, the Northern timetables are some way short of the return to full service in the article that started the thread.
I looked at the service I use to commute to work (Leeds-Bradford) and it looks like a few extra trains just around peak times, so that will help though.
 

matt_world2004

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How would say TfL rail provide a full service given that their terminating station (,Terminal 4 ) is closed and their alternative station has insufficient capacity for a full service
 

Bald Rick

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How would say TfL rail provide a full service given that their terminating station (,Terminal 4 ) is closed and their alternative station has insufficient capacity for a full service

Advertise as operating to T2,3 only, and Run to T4 empty.
 

Bald Rick

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Well if it has, the outcome of the review hasn't been made very public. It's that kind of transparency that is needed to regain public trust!

It’s not a review. It’s assessing the data.

I don’t know who you work for, but if someone asked your company to publish detailed stats of how many people were unable to attend work during the crisis, and why, do you think they would?
 

Fisherman80

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Pretty disappointed with the Leeds to Carlisle/Morecambe timetable. Apart from an early morning Ribblehead to Leeds service,and the extension of a couple of Skipton to Lancaster services to Morecambe,Not much has changed.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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It’s not a review. It’s assessing the data.

I don’t know who you work for, but if someone asked your company to publish detailed stats of how many people were unable to attend work during the crisis, and why, do you think they would?
The difference with Northern is not only they they are an organisation whose revenue arises, during normal times, overwhelmingly from the taxpayer. They are also now (due to being an OLR and the EMAs) both an organisation directly owned by the DfT, and one whose entire revenue stream and continued existence depends on them.

Most employers are not, during normal times, remotely close to that position. It wouldn't necessarily have been unreasonable to add a condition to the furlough and other financial assistance schemes requiring employers to report back data to the government, but it was decided not to do so.

I therefore don't see it as inconsistent in the slightest to expect such organisations as Northern to report on why they cannot deliver the same level of public services in exchange for public money that other TOCs are capable of. It's basic accountability to the public and to taxpayers.
 

PHILIPE

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The signals coming from TFW in response to Twitter queries prior to any actual publication of details is that there will be just a few additional peak time services and will still be run for essential journeys only. TFW of course answer to the Welsh Government rather than the DFT although there is interaction so far as cross border services are concerned.
 

Bald Rick

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I therefore don't see it as inconsistent in the slightest to expect such organisations as Northern to report on why they cannot deliver the same level of public services in exchange for public money that other TOCs are capable of. It's basic accountability to the public and to taxpayers.

How many other government fundeD organisations have dine the same?
 

ForTheLoveOf

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How many other government fundeD organisations have dine the same?
"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"... That other government funded organisations aren't being transparent isn't an excuse for the rail industry not to be. I'm sure some information could be gleaned through FoI requests but if past experience is anything to go by, at least half the stuff you want will be rejected or 'sanitised' on spurious "commercial confidentiality" grounds.
 

Peter0124

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Avanti have released their timetable:

Theres now 3tph to Brum/Manc but still no London-Scotland via Brum extensions (Only one in the evening peak, 9S97 to GLC) or Chester services, other than that it is basically back to a full timetable.

They have removed the 1tpd to and from Holyhead/Chester aswell
 

AdamWW

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Meanwhile, the DfT annoucements presumably doesn't apply to Transport for Wales, who are still running an extremely restricted (generally Sunday) timetable, aimed at "key workers" and other "essential travel".

I had an email a few days ago reminding me that their services are not available for leisure use.

It's not entirely clear to me to what extent this comes from the government.

The page here (updated 19th June) seems quite clear: "Can I use public transport? Yes".

For rail, this page (updated yesterday) includes the line "We want people to be able to make essential journeys", and warns that the BTP will be reminding the public to follow government advice and may fine people ignoring the advice, but doesn't actually forbid non-essential travel - it just sends people to the TFW web site to find out what the rules actually are.

At the moment as we're only supposed to travel no more than 5 miles this probably doesn't impact all that many people, but the expectation is that the 5 mile rule will be dropped soon and I haven't seen anything suggesting that this will come with an increase in rail services or a change in who TFW will say is allowed to use them.

Though according to Twitter, extra services were put on for people travelling to the beach last week, many of whom will have travelled over 5 miles.

(Meanwhile for buses the TFW web site just says that some bus operators are running a reduced service - no wording about essential travel. But the bus operator web sites I looked at insisted that the government advice was that buses are only for essential journeys).

Given that transport operators are saying that that government has told them that their services are for essential travel only, I would prefer it if I could find that advice clearly stated on a government web site.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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Meanwhile, the DfT annoucements presumably doesn't apply to Transport for Wales, who are still running an extremely restricted (generally Sunday) timetable, aimed at "key workers" and other "essential travel".

I had an email a few days ago reminding me that their services are not available for leisure use.

It's not entirely clear to me to what extent this comes from the government.

The page here (updated 19th June) seems quite clear: "Can I use public transport? Yes".

For rail, this page (updated yesterday) includes the line "We want people to be able to make essential journeys", and warns that the BTP will be reminding the public to follow government advice and may fine people ignoring the advice, but doesn't actually forbid non-essential travel - it just sends people to the TFW web site to find out what the rules actually are.

At the moment as we're only supposed to travel no more than 5 miles this probably doesn't impact all that many people, but the expectation is that the 5 mile rule will be dropped soon and I haven't seen anything suggesting that this will come with an increase in rail services or a change in who TFW will say is allowed to use them.

Though according to Twitter, extra services were put on for people travelling to the beach last week, many of whom will have travelled over 5 miles.

(Meanwhile for buses the TFW web site just says that some bus operators are running a reduced service - no wording about essential travel. But the bus operator web sites I looked at insisted that the government advice was that buses are only for essential journeys).

Given that transport operators are saying that that government has told them that their services are for essential travel only, I would prefer it if I could find that advice clearly stated on a government web site.
TfW's attitude is completely unjustifiable in view of the fact that their own government is explicitly condoning the use of public transport. They're not even suggesting considering alternative means first, or only using it for "essential journeys". I don't know what planet they think they're living on in contradicting their own government's advice so blatantly.
 

PHILIPE

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TfW's attitude is completely unjustifiable in view of the fact that their own government is explicitly condoning the use of public transport. They're not even suggesting considering alternative means first, or only using it for "essential journeys". I don't know what planet they think they're living on in contradicting their own government's advice so blatantly.

I have looked this morning and discovery that many more services have been added to the system after all and their latest Tweet said that it would not be a full service. The Twititer operators can only relay the advance inforrmation that they have available. Let us compare their attitude with GWR who have progressively added more services and openly telling people that all services are available to everybody.
 

London Trains

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On the GN side the Saturday timetable is pretty much the same as the weekday timetable. The only exceptions are a few extras in the peaks.

Same on the Southern side. The only difference between Saturdays and weekdays is that the service starts roughly an hour later, and theres no peak extras (basically just no Thameslink to East Grinstead and Littlehampton, Southern London Bridge to Eastbourne, some extra metro services from London Bridge or Guildford or Dorking extensions on London Bridge to Epsom services).

Arguably the timetable needs to change to start as early as the weekday timetable but the peak extras are not important and can be left for a while.
 

AdamWW

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TfW's attitude is completely unjustifiable in view of the fact that their own government is explicitly condoning the use of public transport. They're not even suggesting considering alternative means first, or only using it for "essential journeys". I don't know what planet they think they're living on in contradicting their own government's advice so blatantly.

It's not that clear to me what the Welsh Government position actually is. The page I referred to earlier refers people to the TFW Rail web site which looks like an endorsement of their position to me. And I've just noticed that the entire page is actually labelled as "Information for key workers and all other essential travel". So this seems to be contradicting anything elsewhere from the Welsh Government saying that public transport is generally available.

I have approached my member of the Senedd on the matter.
 

Bletchleyite

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TfW's attitude is completely unjustifiable in view of the fact that their own government is explicitly condoning the use of public transport. They're not even suggesting considering alternative means first, or only using it for "essential journeys". I don't know what planet they think they're living on in contradicting their own government's advice so blatantly.

I think you're missing the fact that in Wales the rule is still essential travel only by any mode other than locally, and it will be a very, very small number of people for whom using a train to go somewhere less than 5 miles away is a sensible option. (There will be some, but Wales' very sparse rail network means it'll be very, very few).

This of course causes the perennial issue with TfW services that operate through England, but other than duplicating them by an English TOC (which to be fair Chester-Manchester already is, by Northern) I'm not sure what the solution is.
 

PHILIPE

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Further to the essential travel issue, GWR in a response to a question which is if they could travel on any service, replied "anywhere in England"
 

Huntergreed

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Further to the essential travel issue, GWR in a response to a question which is if they could travel on any service, replied "anywhere in England"
This is true. In Scotland and Wales a 5 mile limit is imposed for non essential travel, so for now you are permitted to travel on any rail service but only in England.
 

AdamWW

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I think you're missing the fact that in Wales the rule is still essential travel only by any mode other than locally, and it will be a very, very small number of people for whom using a train to go somewhere less than 5 miles away is a sensible option. (There will be some, but Wales' very sparse rail network means it'll be very, very few).

This of course causes the perennial issue with TfW services that operate through England, but other than duplicating them by an English TOC (which to be fair Chester-Manchester already is, by Northern) I'm not sure what the solution is.

I'm fully aware of the "stay local" advice, and with respect, I think you're missing the fact in Cardiff we have some closely spaced stations and there are quite a few stations within 5 miles of the centre which in normal times have a frequent service (i.e. not a sparse network at all). Now OK this is relevant to a very, very small part of Wales, but it's not a very, very small number of people. (Yes, buses are also a possibility - but the bus companies are also insisting that people without access to a car should just stay at home unless they absolutely have to travel).

Now maybe the 5 mile rule is a good reason for TfW Rail not to have ramped up services yet. I can't see though how it justifies them telling people not to make non-essential journeys if that's not the government rules. They could just as easily remind people that they should still be staying local. (And it's also been made clear that the 5 mile rule is not absolute and can be stretched for rural areas, and it's now also OK to go more than 5 miles to visit a lonely family member even if it's not "essential" to do so).
 

LNW-GW Joint

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There will have to be new advice on how to reach airports when borders open further on 6 July, with the inevitable surge in EU travel.
The current advice is specifically to avoid pubic transport.
It's also clear that there has been no joint working with devolved admins on this policy so far.
 

Huntergreed

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There will have to be new advice on how to reach airports when borders open further on 6 July, with the inevitable surge in EU travel.
The current advice is specifically to avoid pubic transport.
It's also clear that there has been no joint working with devolved admins on this policy so far.
I do, quite honestly, believe we’re going to see a phase of a few weeks where people are encouraged to travel abroad on holiday but NOT to travel to the airport they’re flying from on the train.

What a bizarre world this is becoming.
 

Baxenden Bank

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EMR's generous contribution to the 'full timetable' request appears to be a whole of five extra services across their entire network!
Time to turn off the funding tap, the government is simply throwing good money after bad.
 

bramling

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EMR's generous contribution to the 'full timetable' request appears to be a whole of five extra services across their entire network!
Time to turn off the funding tap, the government is simply throwing good money after bad.

You can’t run something with what you don’t have. If they’re short on crews as a result of absence then quite simply services can’t run - it’s as simple as that, no matter how much we moan and groan.

Or do you want to throw good money at RDW, and be on a train whose driver hasn‘t had a rest day for ages?

Remember also things like retirements are still happening, indeed some have been brought forward. Meanwhile training has been interrupted.

Some people seem to think the railway can run on resources which aren’t there.
 
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Bikeman78

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EMR's generous contribution to the 'full timetable' request appears to be a whole of five extra services across their entire network!
Time to turn off the funding tap, the government is simply throwing good money after bad.
RTT appears to reflect some of the plans for July 6th onwards. It varies a lot from TOC to TOC.

Greater Anglia are largely back to normal out of London. Some Norwich trains are cancelled and Stansted Express is half hourly instead of quarter hourly.

GWR still only hourly Swansea to Paddington but Cardiff to Paddington and the fast Bristol trains are not running. I've not checked their other routes.

TFW largely back to normal on the main line. Large gaps between Crewe and Chester. Valleys is a complete rewrite.
 
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