Disruption on WCML last Thursday, 26 Sept: Why Terminate at Preston?

[DynamicSpirit]

Last Thursday there was damage to the overhead power lines on the WCML somewhere in Scotland, which resulted in all the West Coast Anglo-Scottish trains stopping short.

• The TPE Manchester-Scotland trains were only running as far as Carlisle.
• The Avanti Euston-Scotland trains were only running as far as Preston. In fact at Crewe, the departure boards were (somewhat misleadingly) advertising that no trains were running North of Preston - which was half-true in the sense that no trains from Crewe were going beyond Preston.
• The Northern trains to Barrow/Windermere were largely unaffected.

That rather begs the question in my mind, if TPE could run to Carlisle, why couldn't Avanti? Doing that might not help passengers for Glasgow/Edinburgh that much, but would at least allow passengers for Lancaster/Oxenholme/Penrith/Carlisle to avoid too much disruption.

 

[Somewhere]

Depends how many units and crew were trapped north of the blockage.

 

[uww11x]

Avanti laziness/incompetence

 

[JonathanH]

If the normal crew change point is Preston, and a lot of workings north of Preston involve Scottish based crews, it isn't then clear who is going to staff the trains north of Preston extended through to Carlisle.

What was the actual level of demand for Preston to Carlisle (not Glasgow)? Once through passengers were generally travelling on the East Coast via Edinburgh, could the passengers the stations to Carlisle be adequately catered for on the TPE trains?

The advice to passengers heading to Scotland was very clearly to go via Newcastle, not travel to Carlisle.

 

[ainsworth74]

If the normal crew change point is Preston, and a lot of workings north of Preston involve Scottish based crews, it isn't then clear who is going to staff the trains north of Preston extended through to Carlisle.

Preston crews (drivers and guards) sign to Scotland so, depending on where they were, they should be available to work trains north of Preston even if the Scottish crews were stuck north of the problem area.

 

[Watershed]

What was the actual level of demand for Preston to Carlisle (not Glasgow)?

That is ignoring the fact that having a direct train to Carlisle and then changing for a ScotRail service via Dumfries, or a replacement bus, is going to be hours quicker than diverting via Newcastle.

Once through passengers were generally travelling on the East Coast via Edinburgh, could the passengers the stations to Carlisle be adequately catered for on the TPE trains?

The advice to passengers heading to Scotland was very clearly to go via Newcastle, not travel to Carlisle.

Perhaps, but that passenger advice was - frankly - terrible.

Preston crews (drivers and guards) sign to Scotland so, depending on where they were, they should be available to work trains north of Preston even if the Scottish crews were stuck north of the problem area.

Indeed. Carlisle is about half way between Preston and the Central Belt both by time and distance, so you'd expect it to be possible for Preston crews to be able to cover the "southern half" of the route on their own.

 

[JonathanH]

That is ignoring the fact that having a direct train to Carlisle and then changing for a ScotRail service via Dumfries, or a replacement bus, is going to be hours quicker than diverting via Newcastle.

For people from Liverpool or the North West, yes, but it does seem that they wanted passengers from further south not to end up in Carlisle and, instead, to go via Newcastle, particularly when they didn't advertise ticket acceptance via Dumfries. (The rights and wrongs of that seem to be being discussed in another thread.)

 

[yorksrob]

If the normal crew change point is Preston, and a lot of workings north of Preston involve Scottish based crews, it isn't then clear who is going to staff the trains north of Preston extended through to Carlisle.

What was the actual level of demand for Preston to Carlisle (not Glasgow)? Once through passengers were generally travelling on the East Coast via Edinburgh, could the passengers the stations to Carlisle be adequately catered for on the TPE trains?

The advice to passengers heading to Scotland was very clearly to go via Newcastle, not travel to Carlisle.

Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith and Carlisle are always busy stops. Between them they more than justify running to Carlisle (if possible).

 

[LowLevel]

That is ignoring the fact that having a direct train to Carlisle and then changing for a ScotRail service via Dumfries, or a replacement bus, is going to be hours quicker than diverting via Newcastle.


Perhaps, but that passenger advice was - frankly - terrible.


Indeed. Carlisle is about half way between Preston and the Central Belt both by time and distance, so you'd expect it to be possible for Preston crews to be able to cover the "southern half" of the route on their own.

Depends what they're doing I suppose given the Preston crews also have other work. If they work half or less of jobs, or worse - have a mix of a Scottish driver and Preston guard or vice versa it all becomes very complicated quite quickly! Avanti rarely run much if at all north of Preston when there's disruption and haven't for years, which does seem like a cop out.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Were the TransPennine short workings to Carlisle grossly overcrowded?

Secondly, given Avanti’s apparent agreement with its drivers about ‘repeat trips’ on short shuttles, can a Preston driver do two runs just to/from Carlisle in a shift?

 

[Efini92]

Preston crews (drivers and guards) sign to Scotland so, depending on where they were, they should be available to work trains north of Preston even if the Scottish crews were stuck north of the problem area.

Preston have very little Glasgow and Edinburgh work. The bulk is done by polmadie and Edinburgh. There simply wouldn’t be anyone available to do it.

 

[Megafuss]

Avanti would need at least three sets of crew and stock to provide even an hourly shuttle between Carlisle and Preston. Would that resource be better served providing a near normal service south of Preston, when an alternative is available north of Preston?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Were the TransPennine short workings to Carlisle grossly overcrowded?

If they don't make Scotland generally not, but the timetable doesn't make for good connections, it can render only the through Windermeres useful because of long gaps at Oxenholme, and similar at Penrith. Perhaps a compromise is that if this happens an emergency all stations TPE shuttle should be instituted.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

For people from Liverpool or the North West, yes, but it does seem that they wanted passengers from further south not to end up in Carlisle and, instead, to go via Newcastle, particularly when they didn't advertise ticket acceptance via Dumfries. (The rights and wrongs of that seem to be being discussed in another thread.)

Which other thread out of interest?

 

[JonathanH]

Which other thread out of interest?

This one - https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...mfries-due-to-disruption-this-morning.274558/

 

[43066]

Avanti would need at least three sets of crew and stock to provide even an hourly shuttle between Carlisle and Preston. Would that resource be better served providing a near normal service south of Preston, when an alternative is available north of Preston?

This is the correct answer. They have limited resources and rightly prioritise the (much busier) section of route from Preston Southbound. I realise that isn’t a popular view amongst some who fail to see the big picture (and presumably live in the areas affected so are somewhat biased), but they are doing the right thing by far more passengers. Preston also has a major crew depot and many platforms to terminate trains etc.

 

[QueensCurve]

Last Thursday there was damage to the overhead power lines on the WCML somewhere in Scotland, which resulted in all the West Coast Anglo-Scottish trains stopping short.

• The TPE Manchester-Scotland trains were only running as far as Carlisle.
• The Avanti Euston-Scotland trains were only running as far as Preston. In fact at Crewe, the departure boards were (somewhat misleadingly) advertising that no trains were running North of Preston - which was half-true in the sense that no trains from Crewe were going beyond Preston.
• The Northern trains to Barrow/Windermere were largely unaffected.

That rather begs the question in my mind, if TPE could run to Carlisle, why couldn't Avanti? Doing that might not help passengers for Glasgow/Edinburgh that much, but would at least allow passengers for Lancaster/Oxenholme/Penrith/Carlisle to avoid too much disruption.

There was a tree down at Beattock which took out the wires.

I get Avanti's difficulties with this, but it is disappointing that they iinvariably cease to operate North of Preston.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

If they don't make Scotland generally not, but the timetable doesn't make for good connections, it can render only the through Windermeres useful because of long gaps at Oxenholme, and similar at Penrith. Perhaps a compromise is that if this happens an emergency all stations TPE shuttle should be instituted.

I believe TPE now stop pretty much every Anglo-Scottish service at all stations between Preston and Carlisle anyway (I think possibly that's new and they didn't always do that). So in effect the shuttle you describe already exists

This is the correct answer. They have limited resources and rightly prioritise the (much busier) section of route from Preston Southbound. I realise that isn’t a popular view amongst some who fail to see the big picture (and presumably live in the areas affected so are somewhat biased), but they are doing the right thing by far more passengers. Preston also has a major crew depot and many platforms to terminate trains etc.

I'm not sure I get the limited resources argument: Terminating all services at Carlisle requires far fewer resources than running their normal timetable, so that shouldn't be an issue - unless of course for some reason they have loads of trains or crew stuck North of the disruption, which seems a bit implausible. So I don't see that running to Carlisle should prevent them running a full service South of Preston.

 

[Paul_10]

This is the correct answer. They have limited resources and rightly prioritise the (much busier) section of route from Preston Southbound. I realise that isn’t a popular view amongst some who fail to see the big picture (and presumably live in the areas affected so are somewhat biased), but they are doing the right thing by far more passengers. Preston also has a major crew depot and many platforms to terminate trains etc.

Biased maybe, but it's rightfully asked why a fairly large section of line(around 80miles between Preston and Carlisle) does tend to shut at times when there is a major issue north of Carlisle. Put it this way, a major issue around Euston, does every train just terminate at Birmingham and leave the Birmingham to Milton Keynes/Watford junction section unoccupied by Avanti, of course not and unlike that section there is not many other practical options either apart from an hourly Barrow service and occasional Windermere service and obviously anyone heading north of Oxenholme, those options are no good. Even if some could use those trains, unless there is ticket acceptance then it's extra money they have to fork out.

Of course the counter argument is the operational side of things but the fact this type of thread gets bought up so often maybe suggest more could be done at times. Obviously the southern part of the WCML is busier but let's not pretend the trains are carrying fresh air either, it still potentially hundreds of people being majorly affected by an issue potentially over a 100 miles away.

 

[43066]

I'm not sure I get the limited resources argument: Terminating all services at Carlisle requires far fewer resources than running their normal timetable, so that shouldn't be an issue - unless of course for some reason they have loads of trains or crew stuck North of the disruption, which seems a bit implausible. So I don't see that running to Carlisle should prevent them running a full service South of Preston.

They often will end up with fewer resources south of Preston because some units/crews will be trapped to the north. Therefore to maintain a given service south they’ll need to use those resources they have available more intensively. Keep in mind that they also need to maintain the services from London to Manchester/Birmingham/Liverpool etc.

Biased maybe, but it's rightfully asked why a fairly large section of line(around 80miles between Preston and Carlisle) does tend to shut at times when there is a major issue north of Carlisle. Put it this way, a major issue around Euston, does every train just terminate at Birmingham and leave the Birmingham to Milton Keynes/Watford junction section unoccupied by Avanti, of course not and unlike that section there is not many other practical options either apart from an hourly Barrow service and occasional Windermere service and obviously anyone heading north of Oxenholme, those options are no good. Even if some could use those trains, unless there is ticket acceptance then it's extra money they have to fork out.

Of course the counter argument is the operational side of things but the fact this type of thread gets bought up so often maybe suggest more could be done at times. Obviously the southern part of the WCML is busier but let's not pretend the trains are carrying fresh air either, it still potentially hundreds of people being majorly affected by an issue potentially over a 100 miles away.

If the line is shut then nothing could run anyway. In this instance AIUI services were still running north of Preston, just not Avanti so there is at least some alternative.

In an ideal world it wouldn’t happen - but we are talking about degraded situations here. You will never be able to please everybody when things go wrong, but cancelling a train from London to Birmingham (for example) because the unit is running a shuttle north of Preston will lead to more inconvenience overall, although I appreciate that will be of little comfort if you’re directly affected.

The best thing would be to focus on improving resilience of the infrastructure so that these situations arise less frequently. It does seem to have worsened of late, for various reasons.

 

[CJSwan]

That is ignoring the fact that having a direct train to Carlisle and then changing for a ScotRail service via Dumfries, or a replacement bus, is going to be hours quicker than diverting via Newcastle.

ScotRail wouldn’t have offered much assistance with their current timetable on the Carlisle to Glasgow, via Dumfries route. At the moment there’s only four trains a day in each direction, with considerable gaps between each.

 

[TUC]

So yet again what would serve passengers' needs best takes third place to operational convenience. Remind me again why anyone should think of rail as a reliable option?

 

[Peter0124]

-Deleted-

 

[JonathanH]

So yet again what would serve passengers' needs best takes third place to operational convenience. Remind me again why anyone should think of rail as a reliable option?

If it was all one rail company and they decided to terminate the London trains at Preston, and run a shuttle each hour to Carlisle, would that pass the test for passenger needs?

It seems that there is an exception being raised here because Avanti terminated at Preston, and TPE did the shuttle.

We have no access to information about what the Preston to Carlisle demand was, taking into account no trains going to Glasgow, and through passengers being directed via Newcastle.

 

[43066]

So yet again what would serve passengers' needs best takes third place to operational convenience.

Well, no. If services between Preston and Carlisle were maintained at the expense of services further south, far more passengers would be inconvenienced. So, by your own logic, surely you should be praising the decision?

Remind me again why anyone should think of rail as a reliable option?

It isn’t reliable when lines are blocked by fallen trees bringing the wires down. The question is whether more should be spent to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

 

[MontyP]

So yet again what would serve passengers' needs best takes third place to operational convenience. Remind me again why anyone should think of rail as a reliable option?

For London to Glasgow passengers, the right option was definitely to go via the ECML - around an hour slower than the Avanti service, less with a slick change at Edinburgh. If Glasgow passengers had gone to Carlisle, where would they have gone to from there? There is only a train every 4 hours via Dumfries at the moment.

For London to Lancaster/stations to Carlisle, there's the TPE service every hour from Preston, generally leaving around 20 mins after the Avanti service. So not ideal but not a huge inconvenience.

As has been pointed out earlier in the thread, Avanti services all swap crew at Preston - the Scottish crews work Glasgow-Preston and back, and Preston crews work Preston-London and back. So all the rostered Preston crews would have been allocated to the parts of the services still running between Preston and London. There were no (or very few) Scotland-based crews south of the blockage who could have worked the Preston-Carlisle section.

 

[QueensCurve]

ScotRail wouldn’t have offered much assistance with their current timetable on the Carlisle to Glasgow, via Dumfries route. At the moment there’s only four trains a day in each direction, with considerable gaps between each.

Which in turn makes extra paths available for diversions although suitable stock and crews may not be available for them.

 

[Horizon22]

So yet again what would serve passengers' needs best takes third place to operational convenience. Remind me again why anyone should think of rail as a reliable option?

"Operational convenience" also leads to a more consistent service overall, rather than random gaps and unaffected areas also being disrupted thus impacting more passengers. It is a much more complex operation than just "serve further North" because that extends the timing of trains and the associated southbound trains and crew gaps etc.

 

[6Gman]

I note that today's disruption north of Preston has extended to holding trains as far south as Stafford.

 

[Iskra]

My sister is in Glasgow Central, trying to get back to West Yorkshire. I've advised her to go via Edinburgh. Is it actually a rail defect as per RealTimeTrains, or it is flooding related?