john.aston.96
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Be good if/when this document comes into the public domain
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Northern timetable plan for May 2018
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Hazel Grove to Buxton is not a route between major cities...
Nor is Altrincham to Chester. There is no technical barrier to running 2tph Altrincham - Chester from tomorrow, if you just had the unit and a crew, and this has been the case for years.
Furthermore I'm pretty sure Eccles is recieving a significant increase in service.
Neil I think you may have forgotten Dove Holes. There is very little to be gained in stopping at Middlewood or Dove Holes. New Mills is far better served from Central than Newtown, and Chapel-en-le-Frith may be better served from Chinley than it's own hilltop station. Improvements to New Mills Central and Chinley are quite significant too.
So that leaves Buxton itself, the station with probably the largest potential for growth, then Whaley Bridge, then Disley and then probably the rather smaller Furness Vale. In this draft at least, Buxton, Whaley Bridge and Funess Vale are to recieve no improvements, Disley is to receive a worse service. Excellent.
Greybeard33
Established Member
The lines through Levenshulme and Heaton Chapel are paired by direction, with the platforms on the Slows. But routings have to take account of the need to avoid conflicts at Slade Lane Jn (where they switch to pairing by usage) and at Edgeley Jn.
Currently, off peak, the Alderley Edge and Crewe EMUs stop in both directions, as does the Hazel Grove DMU. The remaining call is provided by the Buxton DMU southbound and the Chester DMU northbound.
The Stoke EMU runs through non-stop on the Fasts. Until a couple of years ago it used to provide one of the northbound calls. I believe the change was to improve timetable resilience to WCML delays (it is often held at Stoke or looped at Macclesfield). Southbound it is only a few minutes behind the Alderley Edge service, so it would be pointless for them both to stop.
Don't you have a source for this?
According to the proposals, it will be served by the hourly Liverpool to Crewe via Manchester Airport service. It will also be served by the hourly Chester/Ellesmere Port to Leeds service at peak times only. The current hourly (2*per hour peaks) Manchester Victoria to Liverpool service will no longer run. Whilst there will be an increase in destinations available from Eccles the frequency will be similar to now, hourly off peak 2*hourly at peak time.
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An additional Altrincham-Northwich shuttle service was mooted in 2007 but Northern were against it as they thought it would cause sales of tickets to Manchester STNs and Manchester CTLZ from Mid-Cheshire line stations to plummet and sales of tickets to Metrolink City to rocket.
Northern were also against the Virgin VHF timetable as they claimed Stockport to Manchester is a lucrative flow and Virgin would be taking their revenue as a result of the reduction in paths available for Northern services and Virgin removing the pick up and set down restrictions at Stockport.
How many Disley passengers travel to Buxton at off-peak times? If the figure is very low and punctuality improves after the recast could it in fact be argued Disley has seen improved service?
Bletchleyite
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LNW-GW Joint
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Ah, so the change was not made as proposed. Good
They started to do it but gave up and had to rip out the expensively-installed crossovers.
All part of the "Manchester South" fiasco and the Stockport 5 AB boxes.
The benefit would have been better pathing at Edgeley and Slade Lane.
Having the Stoke stopper call at Levenshulme and Heaton Chapel does not cause it to lose quite enough time to be 'properly' overtaken by a Pendo or Voyager on the fasts between Slade Lane and Adswood Rd, particularly because the longer dwell time of XC/VT services required at Stockport partly cancels out the time saved by running non-stop to Stockport compared to a stopper on the Slows.
So instead the Stokes run fast Piccadilly to Stockport so they can leave Piccadilly not far behind one long distance service, and reach Stoke just in front of the next (and vice-versa the other way) without being overtaken.
The Piccadilly departures of the Stokes are at xx48. This is why the Euston via Wilmslow service departs at xx55 each hour - the Stoke stopper dives out of the way at Cheadle Hulme.
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Bevan Price
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An improved service - but only to Stockport & Manchester. Traffic to Buxton will fall to near zero, because it will be quicker to travel to/from Buxton by bus - and a preferable option to long waits at New Mills Newtown, which is a bit basic to say the least.
But I wonder how much share rail has anyway between Disley and Buxton? The journey time is fairly comparable between both modes, and the bus has the advantage of being every half hour. And many people may just drive anyway. No point going for a market thay isn't really there in the first place.
Arguably it's better to speed up journeys from Buxton to Manchester by omutting Disley etc. as that is where rail has a better competitive advantage.
Ive worked at Disley station a few times. 99.9% of all traffic goes in the Manchester direction. One gent regularly travelled to Furness Vale. No tickets were sold to Buxton. Obviously that is quite a rough barometer.
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Philip
On Moderation
So is the Bolton electrification still on course for this December? Also regarding the 170s working to Southport...are they allowed on the Bolton line? Just thinking in case of Atherton line engineering work or some out of hours services routed that way. I thought I once remember reading that they failed a clearance test somewhere up that way.
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Philip
On Moderation
Just to follow on from my electrification question; will the 185 sub-hire arrangement continue up to next May if Northern aren't able to run electrics to Blackpool until that point? Initially I read that Blackpool will be waving goodbye to 185s upon the December timetable change.
This is a totally bizarre argument. I have never heard anyone use a potential (without any evidence even) handful of percentage points increase in PPM as a justification for cutting direct trains? And it's not only direct to Buxton, it's direct to every station south of New Mills Newtown.
This also does not address the fact that Disley is one of the most likely locations for a big increase in usage but it isn't getting any more trains.
So do the obvious and provide a half-hourly service all the way to Buxton?
Close or stop serving Dove Holes by more than 1 train a week, and keep Middlewood as 2-hourly. The fast train should serve only the stations I've highlighted above, which are Stockport, Hazel Grove, Disley, New Mills Newtown, Furness Vale, Whaley Bridge and Buxton. That will get people out of their cars, although it will take up a couple more units and crews.
This plan uses significantly more units and crews than at present and seems very unlikely to realise big benefits because the end-to-end journeys will be far too slow still, and intermediate journeys aren't catered for at all well.
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Skipping Disley but not Heaton Chapel and Levenshulme is therefore crazy.
Doctor Fegg
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Central Trains had a period of running inter-regional through trains across Birmingham New Street - for example, Cambridge to Liverpool - but stopped this because delays on one 'leg' were adversely affecting the other.
You didn't read the franchise consultation document then. The 'bizarre argument' wasn't just included in it, passengers were specifically asked their opinions on it. I imagine most people want a fast and reliable service between the two points they most often travel between.
Incidentally Disley is the one station on the line outside both the remit of TfGM and Derbyshire County Council.
Passengers were asked for their priorities I agree. But nobody was asking about this in the way you put it.
Exactly what kind of proposed reliability improvements are likely? Why is the service at present so unreliable that people might be put off from using it and what exactly will change to make reliability go up?
I think reliability is neccesary but not sufficient to encourage use. Increasing reliability is very unlikely to be seen as a reason for people to switch to using the train, its merely something people moan about if it isn't there. Like a hygenie factor, if you were a Business student.
How many more people would travel from Northwich and Knutsford if Ashley, Mobberley, Plumley and Lostock Gralam were closed, and that resulted in a saving of 3 minutes and a 3 point increase in PPM? If reliability has such a big impact, maybe we should just do that instead of wasting our resources on multiple tph along tracks where paths are in high demand?
What would encourage more people to use the service is a better standard of rolling stock, higher frequencies and lower journey times - probably in that order.
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Which makes good sense. I can't imagine many people are desperate to travel from Cambridge to Liverpool who cant get a decent connection and are unhappy at the lack of direct trains. Disley to Whaley Bridge or Buxton is a completely different point.
Yes, what sense is there is trying to create faster links between a major UK tech hub and one of the top 5 major cities... who on earth would use such a thing?...
Emmerdale Farm to House on the Prairie though... that's of vital importance...
Emmerdale Farm to House on the Prairie though... that's of vital importance...
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The consultation actually asked if lesser used stations should be given frequency cuts if that resulted in improvements to the service at more heavily used stations. Peter Wilkinson later revealed the consultations questions were deliberately provocative. I remember my response to that question being along the lines of what journeys people make and what times they make them need to the considered and gave an example of a village station which can have no passengers at some times but around 10 for one service in the late afternoon when there's a lot of schoolkids using it.
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Get the point, but I can't imagine too many folk do that journey fully. Top 5 for what???
But if so, you'd definitely be better off going via London - mainly because the Liverpool-Brum trains are semi-fast at best. Which yes, is a bit rubbish.
Slightly off-topic but relevant to the discussion regarding the number of Airport-Piccadilly services - the rights for ATW services to Manchester Airport have been extended from December 2017 until the end of the current W&B franchise: http://archive.nr.co.uk/browse docu...y 2017/arriva trains wales 78th sa form p.pdf
Get the point, but I can't imagine too many folk do that journey fully. Top 5 for what???
But if so, you'd definitely be better off going via London - mainly because the Liverpool-Brum trains are semi-fast at best. Which yes, is a bit rubbish.
Liverpool's the 5th largest city in the UK (unless you use an illogical method of working out population e.g. trying to claim the population of Wigan counts towards Manchester's population.)
Doctor Fegg
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Well, you did say "I have never heard anyone use" (my italics), so maybe not completely different to the point you were making...!
More seriously, inter-regional trains are of course more often used for journeys between intermediate stations than end-to-end. So although Cambridge to Liverpool might not be that popular, the number of new direct journey opportunities offered, such as (say) Leicester to Wolverhampton, makes this worthwhile and revenue-positive if the punctuality can be sorted. In this case it couldn't.
(Though I did know a few people who used the Cambridge-Aberystwyth direct trains end-to-end at the time!)
Oh, it's about faster links is it? And pray how will this service be faster than going via London? Non-stop from Liverpool to Cambridge?
The most important thing to do on the Buxton line is improve the service at Buxton, as it is the station (and settlement) with by far the most potential for growth. But Northern clearly do not agree because they aren't speeding the service up or increasing its frequency. Neither are they doing anything for Disley, with the exception of some undefined and undefinable 'reliability improvement' which might happen anyway.
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Not getting into a population stats discussion, because I agree with you -
it can always be twisted to suit the agenda.
But demand and population are completely different. The former should dictate rail provision - unless we think there is untapped growth/suppressed demand but I doubt that very much.
The intermediate journeys however might be worth investigating. Nobody travels Dundee to Plymouth, for example - but look at the huge numbers of 30-90 minute journey pairs within a XC service.
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