Northern rail replacement publicity.

[BurtonM]

As we all know, at the moment Northern are completely and utterly incapable of running services to the extent they're expected to.
As such all sorts of services are replaced by buses regularly, especially late at night.
The problem is the publicity. Northern publicise this through timetables extremely well hidden in their website under the engineering section or something, and they're full of highlighting and abbreviations like FX and FO, with no explanation (I know the meanings but that's beside the point, does the layman?). No posters on stations, no announcements, nothing.
As a cyclist this is extremely infuriating, as I have no clue who's been contracted to do the rail replacement, and whether they'll accept me with my bike or not (in the past the staff have questioned why I couldn't leave my bike at the departure point locked up, while they thought I was out of earshot - what if I was travelling one way?!). How do I know how I'm getting home? It's a joke.
How do any of you think?

 

[Merseysider]

You can’t rely on Northern, full stop.

Half the time when things went tits up, their social media team had completely different information to staff on the ground.

I gave up and took driving lessons

 

[johnmoly]

You can't get a train from Edge Hill, Liverpool, any longer to Manchester Oxford Road as they simply don't stop there anymore, this since the Lime Street upgrade.
Its only about 12 months ago they put up a new bus stop shelter on platform 3/4 now there is nobody there to use it as no other train stops there, the only train that stops on P4 is one going to Lime Street so anybody getting off there just walks straight to the subway to get off the station.
The Lime Street to Manchester Airport now goes via L'pool South Parkway, Warrington etc, instead of down the Chat Moss line. I think Northern is definitely losing passengers.

 

[pemma]

As a cyclist this is extremely infuriating, as I have no clue who's been contracted to do the rail replacement, and whether they'll accept me with my bike or not

It shouldn't matter which operator is running the replacement bus, your contract is with Northern not the operator of the replacement bus. I think, unfortunately, the general rule is bikes aren't accepted unless they can be folded up and transported as luggage. Although, the problem then is what happens when there's unscheduled replacement buses due to an emergency.

 

[AMD]

You can't get a train from Edge Hill, Liverpool, any longer to Manchester Oxford Road as they simply don't stop there anymore, this since the Lime Street upgrade.

Yes you can, at xx59, via Warrington Central. If you specifically want to go to Oxford Road you've now got two an hour, as the Crewe service calls at xx32 - which used to be the one that went to Victoria.

 

[johnmoly]

Yes you can, at xx59, via Warrington Central. If you specifically want to go to Oxford Road you've now got two an hour, as the Crewe service calls at xx32 - which used to be the one that went to Victoria.

Well thats only just came back on. To be honest I gave up looking about 2 weeks ago as I couldn't see it. It always did leave Edge Hill at xx59.
Thanks for that.

 

[Clip]

As we all know, at the moment Northern are completely and utterly incapable of running services to the extent they're expected to.
As such all sorts of services are replaced by buses regularly, especially late at night.
The problem is the publicity. Northern publicise this through timetables extremely well hidden in their website under the engineering section or something, and they're full of highlighting and abbreviations like FX and FO, with no explanation (I know the meanings but that's beside the point, does the layman?). No posters on stations, no announcements, nothing.

For all the faults of northern i have to disagree that its well hidden its right there on the front page in big blue/purple box that you click on and then its all done in date format so you can see what date and then click on it - how much easier would you like them to do it for you?

 

[js1000]

You can't get a train from Edge Hill, Liverpool, any longer to Manchester Oxford Road as they simply don't stop there anymore, this since the Lime Street upgrade.
Its only about 12 months ago they put up a new bus stop shelter on platform 3/4 now there is nobody there to use it as no other train stops there, the only train that stops on P4 is one going to Lime Street so anybody getting off there just walks straight to the subway to get off the station.
The Lime Street to Manchester Airport now goes via L'pool South Parkway, Warrington etc, instead of down the Chat Moss line. I think Northern is definitely losing passengers.

Same situation south of Manchester. The long distance routes from Manchester Airport to Liverpool are just too susceptible to delays - a serious problem for those using that services as a commuter route in/out of Manchester and Liverpool.

Northern proposing Delay Repay 15 in April (before the timetable chaos which continues today) was a cock up that is going to cost them from December. It might be the straw that breaks the camels back.

 

[BurtonM]

For all the faults of northern i have to disagree that its well hidden its right there on the front page in big blue/purple box that you click on and then its all done in date format so you can see what date and then click on it - how much easier would you like them to do it for you?

You've missed the point. It's really well hidden within that link, and even when you do find it, it's hard to interpret.

This is the only place anywhere at all that some of these rail replacement services are "publicised", and that isn't acceptable. If a rail replacement service is to be run at any time, there should be posters at affected stations, something I never see.

I agree that Northern should get me and my bike home by any means, but sometimes they tender the replacement buses to Stagecoach and their drivers won't allow me to take my bike on board. From previous experience I suspect the transpost coordinator wouldn't be willing to help me if Stagey won't let me on, they claim they aren't obliged to take me with my bike and their personal opinion seems to be that I leave my bike locked up somewhere and go home without it, which is not an option. You wouldn't leave any other luggage behind!
It's the last thing I need after a long day at work (I'm a courier).