Northern rail service increases in July

[yorksrob]

I can’t comment directly on the Northern situation.
My guess is that that under normal circumstances / working timetable operation, they are interlinked with other services. I would like to think that are self contained to an extent that any disruption (or sickness/absence) doesn’t adversely affect other services. By doing this, I suspect that this would increase the number of crews required as the diagrams are generally less efficient (but more robust)

I was just wondering whether staff on these routes were being poached to bolster other lines. That said, even that situation wouldn't explain the disparity in services before and after 18:00.

 

[yorksrob]

I can’t comment directly on the Northern situation.
My guess is that that under normal circumstances / working timetable operation, they are interlinked with other services. I would like to think that are self contained to an extent that any disruption (or sickness/absence) doesn’t adversely affect other services. By doing this, I suspect that this would increase the number of crews required as the diagrams are generally less efficient (but more robust)

I was just wondering whether staff on these routes were being poached to bolster other lines. That said, even that situation wouldn't explain the disparity in services before and after 18:00

 

[IanXC]

I can’t comment directly on the Northern situation.
My guess is that that under normal circumstances / working timetable operation, they are interlinked with other services. I would like to think that are self contained to an extent that any disruption (or sickness/absence) doesn’t adversely affect other services. By doing this, I suspect that this would increase the number of crews required as the diagrams are generally less efficient (but more robust)

Thats exactly the opposite of what you want, where depots have crossover in their route cards this gives you many more options to cover all of the work when there are shortages. If a particular depot has a lot of work that no one else signs, then if you have shortages at that depot you're running out of options, whereas if there are only the odd things that are specific to a depot you can "shuffle the pack" and use capacity you have at other depots to cover shortages elsewhere.

 

[45107]

Thats exactly the opposite of what you want, where depots have crossover in their route cards this gives you many more options to cover all of the work when there are shortages. If a particular depot has a lot of work that no one else signs, then if you have shortages at that depot you're running out of options, whereas if there are only the odd things that are specific to a depot you can "shuffle the pack" and use capacity you have at other depots to cover shortages elsewhere.

I am thinking about daily diagrams rather that general depot work.

Depot works over routes A to F. The amended individual diagrams are limited to one of those routes, where in normal operation they would cover 2 or more (part) routes. The depot does not lose any routes iverall.

 

[northernchris]

I was just wondering whether staff on these routes were being poached to bolster other lines. That said, even that situation wouldn't explain the disparity in services before and after 18:00

What I can't understand is how the additional services during the peaks are crewed. Are staff working split shifts to cover these, or are they working a shorter shift? I would like to think if there was scope to introduce additional services based on the available resources this would be the case, but Northern in their current guise are far from passenger focussed

 

[yorksrob]

What I can't understand is how the additional services during the peaks are crewed. Are staff working split shifts to cover these, or are they working a shorter shift? I would like to think if there was scope to introduce additional services based on the available resources this would be the case, but Northern in their current guise are far from passenger focussed

Well exactly. With a reduction in available staff, one would have expected this across the board, rather than concentrated on afternoons/evenings on the S&C. One can't help but think that it's just a lack of consideration for peopletravelling to/from these areas.

 

[30907]

Well exactly. With a reduction in available staff, one would have expected this across the board, rather than concentrated on afternoons/evenings on the S&C. One can't help but think that it's just a lack of consideration for peopletravelling to/from these areas.

Or in favour of those travelling on the electrified routes? Impression from RTT is that most Leeds NW are running. Can't investigate personally.

 

[yorksrob]

Or in favour of those travelling on the electrified routes? Impression from RTT is that most Leeds NW are running. Can't investigate personally.

The railway has a long and sorry history of sacrificing non-electrified routes.

For Northern though, the S&C seems physically too far from the electrified Lancashire routes to have been a factor. I just wonder if they've been sent to other routes around Leeds.

 

[Jamesrob637]

I can't even see the second slower Buxton as of September. Is this being permanently withdrawn?

 

[northernchris]

I can't even see the second slower Buxton as of September. Is this being permanently withdrawn?

It seems to be peak only. According to RTT the east side looks to be mostly a full timetable with just a few obvious services missing, such as the Leeds - Harrogate semi-fasts and the off-peak Huddersfield - Castleford

 

[johntea]

The lack of a 22:00 (or thereabouts) departure from Leeds to Knottingley is getting quite frustrating!

 

[30907]

The railway has a long and sorry history of sacrificing non-electrified routes.

For Northern though, the S&C seems physically too far from the electrified Lancashire routes to have been a factor. I just wonder if they've been sent to other routes around Leeds.

I thought a good few S&C services were crewed from Skipton - I meant prioritising the electrics on Leeds NW. I agree they won't be crewing Lancs services.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

The lack of a 22:00 (or thereabouts) departure from Leeds to Knottingley is getting quite frustrating!

Likewise there's a huge gap on the Sheffield Barnsley stoppers in the evening. They're half hourly up till 21.02 then there's nothing till the last train at 22.31! To make matters worse the Sheffield Tap closes early at 21.00 during the week....

 

[yorksrob]

I thought a good few S&C services were crewed from Skipton - I meant prioritising the electrics on Leeds NW. I agree they won't be crewing Lancs services.

Ah yes, I could see that might be the case.

Some must be crewed from Carlisle though.

 

[Bantamzen]

I thought a good few S&C services were crewed from Skipton - I meant prioritising the electrics on Leeds NW. I agree they won't be crewing Lancs services.

Just worth pointing out that many of the electric triangle services are still nowhere near pre-covid levels. All Wharfedale services are running just hourly still for example.

 

[peters]

I found this thread via Google and it's provided some useful information about what's really going on. My children go to St Nicholas School near Greenbank station, returning on 3rd September. Usually they catch the 07:09 Manchester to Chester train, which is usually an overcrowded 2 carriage service. Northern have said the 07:09 will be 4 carriages but until 15th September, the train before the 07:09 and the two trains following it will not be operating. This means we'll effectively have 4 carriages on morning peak services to Chester instead of 8!

I'm informed what is normally the following service is usually overcrowded but only as far as Knutsford. However, the St Nicholas catchment area extends to Mobberley so there's potentially going to be a problem where the 07:09 Manchester to Chester arrives at Mobberley so full that school pupils can't board and the following train is then not for another 90 minutes. Mobberley station is in the middle of nowhere with no suitable other public transport to Northwich.

I've been informed the school wrote to Northern in July telling Northern when they would reopen and giving them an idea of how many pupils will be travelling. I understand TfGM, Cheshire East council, Cheshire West council, Mid Cheshire Rail User's Group, Andy Burnham, Esther McVey and Mike Amesbury (MP for Northwich), Andrew Malloy (Knutsford Town Mayor) have also been in contact with Northern regarding this issue and yet they have still been unable to come up with a resolution with Northern insisting they won't have enough drivers, even though they have enough drivers to run at least hourly services on other routes! From talking to Mid Cheshire Rail User's Group it seems Northern asked local councils to provide them with any information they had on key worker flows back in March and because Cheshire East council didn't have that information Northern wrongly presumed no data meant no passengers.

I'm not sure if what's appearing on National Rail for Chester to Manchester from 15th September is correct, it's still a vastly reduced service. There are a couple of extra services added in but there seem to be some trains which don't have workings in both directions, which seems a bit strange unless they can teleport trains from Chester to Manchester?

 

[Llandudno]

I found this thread via Google and it's provided some useful information about what's really going on. My children go to St Nicholas School near Greenbank station, returning on 3rd September. Usually they catch the 07:09 Manchester to Chester train, which is usually an overcrowded 2 carriage service. Northern have said the 07:09 will be 4 carriages but until 15th September, the train before the 07:09 and the two trains following it will not be operating. This means we'll effectively have 4 carriages on morning peak services to Chester instead of 8!

I'm informed what is normally the following service is usually overcrowded but only as far as Knutsford. However, the St Nicholas catchment area extends to Mobberley so there's potentially going to be a problem where the 07:09 Manchester to Chester arrives at Mobberley so full that school pupils can't board and the following train is then not for another 90 minutes. Mobberley station is in the middle of nowhere with no suitable other public transport to Northwich.

I've been informed the school wrote to Northern in July telling Northern when they would reopen and giving them an idea of how many pupils will be travelling. I understand TfGM, Cheshire East council, Cheshire West council, Mid Cheshire Rail User's Group, Andy Burnham, Esther McVey and Mike Amesbury (MP for Northwich), Andrew Malloy (Knutsford Town Mayor) have also been in contact with Northern regarding this issue and yet they have still been unable to come up with a resolution with Northern insisting they won't have enough drivers, even though they have enough drivers to run at least hourly services on other routes! From talking to Mid Cheshire Rail User's Group it seems Northern asked local councils to provide them with any information they had on key worker flows back in March and because Cheshire East council didn't have that information Northern wrongly presumed no data meant no passengers.

I'm not sure if what's appearing on National Rail for Chester to Manchester from 15th September is correct, it's still a vastly reduced service. There are a couple of extra services added in but there seem to be some trains which don't have workings in both directions, which seems a bit strange unless they can teleport trains from Chester to Manchester?

Sheer incompetence.

And we thought Northern were inept when operated by Arriva!

 

[Greybeard33]

I'm not sure if what's appearing on National Rail for Chester to Manchester from 15th September is correct, it's still a vastly reduced service.

According to RTT, from 14 September to 11 December the Mid-Cheshire line will have 12 trains per day (tpd) westbound and 13tpd eastbound. This is an improvement on the current 8tpd each way, but still far less than the pre-Covid timetable of 22tpd and 20tpd respectively.

There will be an hourly service in the peaks, but dropping to two hourly between the peaks and in the evening.

Realtime Trains - Departures from Greenbank

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Realtime Trains - Departures from Greenbank

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[northernchris]

Ah yes, I could see that might be the case.

Some must be crewed from Carlisle though.

Yes, some are crewed by Carlisle. There used to be one particularly unpleasant conductor from Carlisle who often worked the 6pm-ish from Leeds

Just worth pointing out that many of the electric triangle services are still nowhere near pre-covid levels. All Wharfedale services are running just hourly still for example.

I hadn't realised that! The Airedale line isn't far off the usual timetable now so assumed the Wharfedale line would be too given the interworkings

Sheer incompetence.

And we thought Northern were inept when operated by Arriva!

Each operator of Northern seems to do worse than their predecessor

 

[peters]

According to RTT, from 14 September to 11 December the Mid-Cheshire line will have 12 trains per day (tpd) westbound and 13tpd eastbound. This is an improvement on the current 8tpd each way, but still far less than the pre-Covid timetable of 22tpd and 20tpd respectively.

There will be an hourly service in the peaks, but dropping to two hourly between the peaks and in the evening.

Realtime Trains - Departures from Greenbank

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Realtime Trains - Departures from Greenbank

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

What surprises me is things like a Stockport-Chester service appearing in the morning, despite the Chester-Stockport service not having run in the opposite direction. The 07:40 Manchester-Chester service isn't there and that's the train the Knutsford Academy pupils normally use. Then there's a 16:02 Chester-Manchester but how is the train for that service going to get to Chester when the 13:40 Manchester-Chester isn't running? I think hoping it might be the return working for one of the nice new trains which has arrived at Chester from Leeds might be asking too much! The 18:02 Chester-Manchester is also still missing, despite being a busy service.

 

[peters]

I can't even see the second slower Buxton as of September. Is this being permanently withdrawn?

While I don't want to see reduced services anywhere I don't think it would be fair for the Buxton line to go back to half-hourly if Northern can't even manage to run hourly on the Chester line and can't even manage any service on the Rose Hill Marple route!

 

[Jamesrob637]

While I don't want to see reduced services anywhere I don't think it would be fair for the Buxton line to go back to half-hourly if Northern can't even manage to run hourly on the Chester line and can't even manage any service on the Rose Hill Marple route!

Chester via Altrincham is showing hourly from September, even those which only go to and from Stockport. Sundays are only two-hourly even under normal circumstances (probably warrants its own thread if one doesn't already exist).

Rose Hill Marple has its own thread.

 

[peters]

Chester via Altrincham is showing hourly from September, even those which only go to and from Stockport. Sundays are only two-hourly even under normal circumstances (probably warrants its own thread if one doesn't already exist).

Rose Hill Marple has its own thread.

Do you have a source for that? Both what I've seen in National Rail and what @Greybeard33 found on Real Time Trains (which there is a link to in post 108) shows there's less than 2/3rds of services operating from mid-September with mainly hourly at peak times (even where it should be half-hourly) and mostly 2 hourly at off-peak times. I mentioned the morning Stockport-Chester in my earlier post, it's perhaps a mistake given neither of the two morning Chester-Stockport services are shown as operating and if it's not a mistake it's a bad decision given the earlier Manchester-Chester which the Knutsford Academy pupils get is not shown as operating!

 

[yorksrob]

I think that as a rule of thumb, the priority should be to get a usable all day service back for all routes. Getting services increased from hourly should be less so.

 

[OrangeJuice]

I think that as a rule of thumb, the priority should be to get a usable all day service back for all routes. Getting services increased from hourly should be less so.

Agreed everywhere should be getting a use able service ideally hourly on the mid Cheshire line, and then if Northern have spare/extra crews then they can go half hourly on the busiest peak flows.

Although of course this would be far too sensible for Northern!

 

[Jamesrob637]

Do you have a source for that? Both what I've seen in National Rail and what @Greybeard33 found on Real Time Trains (which there is a link to in post 108) shows there's less than 2/3rds of services operating from mid-September with mainly hourly at peak times (even where it should be half-hourly) and mostly 2 hourly at off-peak times. I mentioned the morning Stockport-Chester in my earlier post, it's perhaps a mistake given neither of the two morning Chester-Stockport services are shown as operating and if it's not a mistake it's a bad decision given the earlier Manchester-Chester which the Knutsford Academy pupils get is not shown as operating!

Yes the 08:18 Stockport to Chester is showing on Real Time Trains for the 14th of September as of literally a second ago.

 

[yorksrob]

Agreed everywhere should be getting a use able service ideally hourly on the mid Cheshire line, and then if Northern have spare/extra crews then they can go half hourly on the busiest peak flows.

Although of course this would be far too sensible for Northern!

Yes, the mid-Cheshire is one of those routes that always seems to get a raw deal.

 

[johntea]

A rather weird timetable moment at Leeds yesterday, I was going to Bradford so I could catch either the 17:12 to Forster Square or the...17:12 to Interchange! (presumably the Interchange one normally would be carrying on further afield?)

In the end I actually managed to catch the 16:56 Hebden Bridge Grand Central Northern hybrid service

 

[peters]

Yes the 08:18 Stockport to Chester is showing on Real Time Trains for the 14th of September as of literally a second ago.

We seem to be struggling to communicate with one another. I said the 08:18 Stockport-Chester IS shown as operating, albeit strange given the busier and standard pattern 07:41 Manchester to Chester is not. Perhaps the train which runs the 05:56 Chester-Manchester is going to run the 08:18 Stockport to Chester instead of the 07:41 Manchester to Chester, which seems a poor use of resource?!

What I was questioning was your claim that Mid-Cheshire is going back to hourly including 'even the Chester-Stockport services'. So can you point to a source which shows all Mid-Cheshire services, including the below, operating from 14th September:
- 06:21 Chester to Stockport
- 07:15 Chester to Stockport
- 07:41 Manchester to Chester
- 09:41 Manchester to Chester
- 10:02 Chester to Manchester
etc.

If you can't we are in agreement that it's a still reduced timetable with many services not operating, even if there's a few additional services over what is currently operating. If you can then it's great and I will pass on the relevant information to people who will find it of interest.

 

[Jamesrob637]

We seem to be struggling to communicate with one another. I said the 08:18 Stockport-Chester IS shown as operating, albeit strange given the busier and standard pattern 07:41 Manchester to Chester is not. Perhaps the train which runs the 05:56 Chester-Manchester is going to run the 08:18 Stockport to Chester instead of the 07:41 Manchester to Chester, which seems a poor use of resource?!

What I was questioning was your claim that Mid-Cheshire is going back to hourly including 'even the Chester-Stockport services'. So can you point to a source which shows all Mid-Cheshire services, including the below, operating from 14th September:
- 06:21 Chester to Stockport
- 07:15 Chester to Stockport
- 07:41 Manchester to Chester
- 09:41 Manchester to Chester
- 10:02 Chester to Manchester
etc.

If you can't we are in agreement that it's a still reduced timetable with many services not operating, even if there's a few additional services over what is currently operating. If you can then it's great and I will pass on the relevant information to people who will find it of interest.

RTT has been updated this week. I hadn't checked it for a bit. Now it shows an incremental increase. 1tph some times of day and 1 train per 2 hours for the middle. A slight improvement on current levels. I'm more curious as to whether Southport to Alderley Edge will be reinstated, even if only every 2 hours.