No LNR service between Crewe and Liverpool, evening of 29/3

[Some guy]

If boarding the following 17:47 Avanti service with a stop at Crewe would result in a wait of exactly an hour, what would they have to do then?

A Crewe - Preston/Blackpool North all stops via Earlestown and Newton-le-Willows would likely stand up on its own and provide a lot of currently missing connectivity options, however as I understand it more of a problem is capacity on the WCML between Wigan and Euxton where it needs to be requadrupled.

They’ve been needing a Crewe to Preston local service for years by northern. It would free up Avanti having to stop all their services at Wigan and Warrington and provide 3 tph between Crewe and Preston

 

[Bletchleyite]

They’ve been needing a Crewe to Preston local service for years by northern. It would free up Avanti having to stop all their services at Wigan and Warrington and provide 3 tph between Crewe and Preston

First North Western wanted to run a Crewe-Carlisle stopper in the late 90s, but only had 309s spare to use on it, and weren't allowed to use them because they had manual doors without central door locking, so it never happened.

Something will need to happen when HS2 comes along, as the Scottish fasts will just be Euston, Old Oak, Preston, Carlisle and onwards, as I recall, those being the only stations which have or will have 400m platforms on that bit. I believe the 1tph Lancaster semifast will serve them but 1tph isn't enough, and you don't have the TPE to fill in south of Preston.

 

[island]

"Different company" isn't a permissible reason. Nor is lack of what they call "ticket acceptance". At times of significant disruption, the companies already agreed to carry each others' passengers and make additional stops without compensation or the need for additional formalities through the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement:



With some caveats:


and without compensation

It must of course be remembered that passengers are not party to the TSA and have no right to enforce its terms as against a TOC.

 

[Starmill]

"Different company" isn't a permissible reason. Nor is lack of what they call "ticket acceptance". At times of significant disruption, the companies already agreed to carry each others' passengers and make additional stops without compensation or the need for additional formalities through the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement:



With some caveats:


and without compensation

The difficulty is that it's not clear that the general public, or rail customers, have standing with regards to the enforcement of any of those terms. Perhaps the Secretary of State does, I don't know, but if they do that's really a political matter.

Perhaps that gives us a clue though as to what could be done. The OP might consider an email to the office of their MP asking them to write to the rail Minister about the poor arrangements.

 

[Glenn1969]

The difficulty is that it's not clear that the general public, or rail customers, have standing with regards to the enforcement of any of those terms. Perhaps the Secretary of State does, I don't know, but if they do that's really a political matter.

Perhaps that gives us a clue though as to what could be done. The OP might consider an email to the office of their MP asking them to write to the rail Minister about the poor arrangements.

RTT said some of these trains ran from Runcorn to Birmingham. Should the OP have been put in a taxi to Runcorn at WMT's expense?

 

[Haywain]

Was there any traffic on Twitter about these problems yesterday? Train operators tend to respond a bit more clearly to publicly visible complaints.

 

[Falcon1200]

To be fair, New Street is a big depot and I can appreciate that not everyone is going to have diversionary route knowledge, as there are a lot of different possible routes around Birmingham. However, I would certainly expect drivers in the Liverpool link(s) to sign diversionary routes such as Bescot. Perhaps I'm being too optimistic there!

It would be interesting to know what the Contingency Plan says for a complete blockage between New St and Soho, ie what services would be diverted via which routes and therefore what routes TOCs should have their Crews trained for; With, of course, the proviso that implementing a Contingency Plan service during the day, with numerous trains out and about plus possibly some trapped, is not a simple task !

This could all be sorted out relatively easily by the Government, but it is only interested in revenue generation, not the day to day running of passenger operations.

It could surely equally well be sorted out by the TOCs, now, without the Government having to instruct them; The day to day running of passenger operations is after all the TOCs' job.

 

[exbrel]

"a different company" etc excuses, could/would be redundant, if dare i say a nationalised rail company, was brought back... but then again i'm just a rail passenger, who prefers to go by rail, and likes/expects to get to a from b quickly, as cheap as possible, with no hassle, and in dignity...

 

[geoffk]

"a different company" etc excuses, could/would be redundant, if dare i say a nationalised rail company, was brought back.

Presumably it will be redundant under GBR, as will single operator tickets (apart from APs).

 

[voyagerdude220]

First North Western wanted to run a Crewe-Carlisle stopper in the late 90s, but only had 309s spare to use on it, and weren't allowed to use them because they had manual doors without central door locking, so it never happened

I seem to remember London Midland (at the time) a long time ago used to operate a one off Birmingham New Street to Preston (time of departure may have been around 16:51?) formed of a class 350 although I don't think it stopped between Crewe and Warrington.

I remember the following Virgin Cross Country service (a Plymouth to Glasgow 220/221) departed New Street at 17:03 and ran none stop Birmingham to Crewe.

I'm not saying it's realistic at all but maybe if more 350s had been built they could have run an hourly stopping Preston to Crewe 350 and coupled to a Liverpool to Birmingham service at Crewe.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

"a different company" etc excuses, could/would be redundant, if dare i say a nationalised rail company, was brought back... but then again i'm just a rail passenger, who prefers to go by rail, and likes/expects to get to a from b quickly, as cheap as possible, with no hassle, and in dignity...

Given that WMT is now under a NRC, maybe it was Avanti that was the issue given it isn't yet fully under the DfT.

I seem to remember London Midland (at the time) a long time ago used to operate a one off Birmingham New Street to Preston (time of departure may have been around 16:51?) formed of a class 350 although I don't think it stopped between Crewe and Warrington.

I remember the following Virgin Cross Country service (a Plymouth to Glasgow 220/221) departed New Street at 17:03 and ran none stop Birmingham to Crewe.

I'm not saying it's realistic at all but maybe if more 350s had been built they could have run an hourly stopping Preston to Crewe 350 and coupled to a Liverpool to Birmingham service at Crewe.

I do vaguely remember that LM service I think.

There are always conversations being had regarding additional routes or moving routes between TOCs, just seems to require a lot of work to get off the ground. Crewe LNWR were meant to get the Airport route, and has been talk about going up to Preston/Blackpool.

 

[Parham Wood]

What I cannot gather from this thread is whether any information was given to the OP about how to proceed on his journey in lieu of no more trains that day by the company he was booked with.

 

[Glenn1969]

What I cannot gather from this thread is whether any information was given to the OP about how to proceed on his journey in lieu of no more trains that day by the company he was booked with.

Having viewed RTT at least one service was started from Runcorn so maybe WMT should have arranged for the OP to be taken to Runcorn either via a taxi or an Avanti train? The service I saw was the 1805 from Lime St which was shown on RTT as starting at Runcorn instead ?

 

[Watershed]

What I cannot gather from this thread is whether any information was given to the OP about how to proceed on his journey in lieu of no more trains that day by the company he was booked with.

Advice was given in posts #4 and #7.

 

[AndrewE]

What I cannot gather from this thread is whether any information was given to the OP about how to proceed on his journey in lieu of no more trains that day by the company he was booked with.

I wasn't boooked with "a company," I had an open ticket and went in good time for the 1705, found it was cancelled and asked if the 1647 Avanti would stop out of course. Told by their staff "Certainly not." Saw no messages on Lime St displays of disruption in W midlands.

At that stage we assumed it was yet another LNWR staff-shortage 1-off cancellation and decided to go for a drink and come back for the 1747 express. It was only later in the evening when I looked at RTT that I found that no LNWR trains had run from Lime St. Looking at RTT now I see that later in the evening two started from Runcorn (at 1827 and 2351!) and one ran ECS from S Parkway. I don't know where the comment upthread came from which claimed that they ran from S Parkway later in the evening.

I was lucky that we had another service to Crewe, but I really feel for people trying to commute to the intermediate stations. I have suffered bus replacements on other stopping services in the past, and I can tell you that the road network is not designed to make an all-stations journey easy - if and when a bus could be found. More than once I have bailed out with travel-sickness and called home to be collected by car.

We debated whether to travel via Chester, and it would have been a viable alternative - except that some of the Chester to Crewe trains have been cancelled some days.

The problem of disrupted train journeys is about the only thing pushing me towards getting a smart phone: the ability to get proper RTT information (way beyond the quality of what railway staff are able to find or share with a member of the public) and access to Fast JP to search for for good alternatives in real time.

 

[185]

This is where distractions & disruptions in the local West Midlands area keep impacting on trains up & down the UK... LNR would be better as a standalone company or merged with Avanti to ensure that not only could cross acceptance take place much quicker, control staff at Birmingham aren't wrapped up with local services neglecting the major, more important long distance stuff which is (now) mostly only hourly. A shuttle service, say Stafford-Crewe-Liverpool could have ran - I noticed a shuttle was running Crewe-Stoke-Stafford, seemed to work very well at short notice.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is where distractions & disruptions in the local West Midlands area keep impacting on trains up & down the UK... LNR would be better as a standalone company or merged with Avanti to ensure that not only could cross acceptance take place much quicker, control staff at Birmingham aren't wrapped up with local services neglecting the major, more important long distance stuff which is (now) mostly only hourly. A shuttle service, say Stafford-Crewe-Liverpool could have ran - I noticed a shuttle was running Crewe-Stoke-Stafford, seemed to work very well at short notice.

The integrated operation of GWR does work rather well, and this has been proposed before as a reason for LNR and WMR being split. However be careful what you wish for - it would result in an end to those nice cheap fares...

 

[SCDR_WMR]

The integrated operation of GWR does work rather well, and this has been proposed before as a reason for LNR and WMR being split. However be careful what you wish for - it would result in an end to those nice cheap fares...

Now they are under NRCs this idea has officially been scrapped, which is a shame given everything is now ready for a split.