Northern timetable plan for May 2018

[transplanted]

Northern have completely destroyed the corridor between Man Pic and the Airport. Cannot believe they have got rid of a near enough clockface timetable and replaced with 2tph at 15min/45min gaps with some absurd stopping pattern. They'll argue that the destinations are better but frankly it is a joke. The 50 bus is no competition to the train. I imagine off-peak ridership will fall off the cliff. I don't live round there anymore so means nothing to me but i think they need to reconsider and look at improving service along this corridor rather than vandalising the timetable.

 

[pemma]

Or just a connecting train costing nowt.

Depends what station the journey is made from. If it's Buxton then it'll be extra for Metrolink to Deansgate, if it's Hazel Grove then Metrolink in the city centre is free.

The Buxton trains aren't bad for getting to Oxford Road (only a short walk from Deansgate.)

The 08:00 from Buxton will continue to Oxford Road (and Deansgate.) While that'll be too late for many commuters catching the 07:36 from Buxton, alighting the service at Hazel Grove and picking up the EMT service calling there will get passengers to Oxford Road for 08:40. The latter is an improvement on now because the current 07:24 currently doesn't go to Oxford Rd and EMT only runs 1 minute earlier than now meaning it'll be 11 minutes faster from 21st May!

In the evening catching the 17:38 EMT service from Oxford Rd and changing at Stockport will get you to Buxton at 18:50.

 

[pemma]

Northern have completely destroyed the corridor between Man Pic and the Airport. Cannot believe they have got rid of a near enough clockface timetable and replaced with 2tph at 15min/45min gaps with some absurd stopping pattern. They'll argue that the destinations are better but frankly it is a joke. The 50 bus is no competition to the train. I imagine off-peak ridership will fall off the cliff. I don't live round there anymore so means nothing to me but i think they need to reconsider and look at improving service along this corridor rather than vandalising the timetable.

The different stopping patterns are a franchise requirement as Arriva took the option of leaving a path for North Wales services to continue to the Airport every hour, opposed to the option of leaving a path for them to continue to Victoria. Consequently the all stops shuttle (introduced in 2008) has to go in favour of additional calls on other services.

 

[Starmill]

The different stopping patterns are a franchise requirement as Arriva took the option of leaving a path for North Wales services to continue to the Airport every hour, opposed to the option of leaving a path for them to continue to Victoria. Consequently the all stops shuttle (introduced in 2008) has to go in favour of additional calls on other services.

That would not really matter if they were concentrated sensibly. For example Mauldeth Road, Burnage, East Didsbury on one train, and then East Didsbury, Gatley, Heald Green on the next. But they are scattergun, like East Didsbury and then Heald Green, or just Mauldeth Road and nowhere else. Or Burnage and then Gatley and Heald Green. It's easy to structure a skip-stop timetable so that the gaps are not bad and the busiest stations (Heald Green and Mauldeth Road in this case) get the most trains. It's how the line between Birmingham and Coventry works. But that's not what's happening here.

 

[transplanted]

The different stopping patterns are a franchise requirement as Arriva took the option of leaving a path for North Wales services to continue to the Airport every hour, opposed to the option of leaving a path for them to continue to Victoria. Consequently the all stops shuttle (introduced in 2008) has to go in favour of additional calls on other services.

sort of makes sense, although i think this is pretty short-sighted. Manchester traffic, particularly in South Manchester is terrible, they should be looking to improve intra-urban commuting and off-peak trips taking cars and buses off the road, rather than helping cart fresh air between pic and the airport.

 

[Mathew S]

Or just a connecting train costing nowt.

True. Tram might be nowt depending where you're travelling from though.

 

[palmersears]

I need to be in work in Spinningfields for 0745 most days so the current 0649 from New Mills Newtown to Deansgate is spot on. This shifts to 0656 and terminates at Piccadilly which scuppers the morning, whilst I often finish work at just after 1600 and can make it to Deansgate for the 1613 back to Newtown. Now it's a bit of a trek back to Piccadilly for the 1621 which is touch and go if I don't leave bang on 1600.

It's not the end of the world, certainly it'll encourage me to run to the station a bit more, but it is a bit frustrating losing services through town.

 

[scrapy]

I need to be in work in Spinningfields for 0745 most days so the current 0649 from New Mills Newtown to Deansgate is spot on. This shifts to 0656 and terminates at Piccadilly which scuppers the morning, whilst I often finish work at just after 1600 and can make it to Deansgate for the 1613 back to Newtown. Now it's a bit of a trek back to Piccadilly for the 1621 which is touch and go if I don't leave bang on 1600.

It's not the end of the world, certainly it'll encourage me to run to the station a bit more, but it is a bit frustrating losing services through town.

New Mills given its population of 9521 has an excellent train service (from May 4tph to Manchester from the 2 stations)You can still get a train to Manchester earlier from New Mills Central. Change of time will suit some and not others but for New Mills as a whole changes are extremely positive and there are plenty of other much bigger places that would love the service New Mills has.

 

[splashoutradio]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

 

[pemma]

New Mills given its population of 9521 has an excellent train service (from May 4tph to Manchester from the 2 stations)You can still get a train to Manchester earlier from New Mills Central. Change of time will suit some and not others but for New Mills as a whole changes are extremely positive and there are plenty of other much bigger places that would love the service New Mills has.

There's always going to be losers for any timetable change. While the Mid-Cheshire has missed out on the additional Greenbank services we have at least got an extra Stockport-Chester service in the morning peak which will mean the Stockport arrivals/Chester departures will be something like 07:50, 08:20, 08:50 instead of 08:00 and 09:00. However, moving services 10 minutes earlier will inconvenience some, while the 08:50 being only from Stockport will mean some will have to change instead of getting a direct service but overall it will be an improvement for passengers travelling in the 'counter-peak' direction in the morning peak even if some lose out.

In the case of palmersears it seems he only gets direct services to Deansgate because he travels earlier than most commuters. There's a number of peak time Buxton trains which don't run to Oxford Rd or Deansgate. He was lucky in the previous recast, other commuters wouldn't have been.

 

[Puffing Devil]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

Thanks for sharing - seems to work well for Crewe-Manchester.

 

[Deerfold]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

Hoping this feedback is seen as constructive - you might want to run a spellchecker over it - there's "avilable" and some random capitalisations.

Otherwise, looks interesting.

 

[skifans]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

Very nice - thanks.

 

[splashoutradio]

Hoping this feedback is seen as constructive - you might want to run a spellchecker over it - there's "avilable" and some random capitalisations.

Otherwise, looks interesting.

Thanks for the heads up. It's all very rough at the moment, but once all the data is there, a heavy duty spellchecker shall require deployment

 

[pemma]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

Not sure if this will be any use or whether it relates to a bug you already know about but on table 91 I noticed 2H31 appears on Saturday when it's SSuX.

 

[pemma]

Has anyone noticed the issue with Heaton Chapel and Levenshulme calls on Sunday?

2 hourly Chester and 3 hourly Stoke services call at both stations in the northbound direction e.g. at Heaton Chapel there's a 10:21 (from Chester to Manchester) then the next hour there's a 11:17 (from Stoke to Manchester), then the Chester again at 12:23 but then between 13:00 and 14:00 there's no Chester or Stoke service to stop there so it leaves a gap, then there's a 14:16 (from Stoke) and a 14:24 (from Chester)!

 

[323235]

I'll be very surprised if there's very much space on the 1416 from Stoke for passengers to board at either station, especially after summer.

 

[faltskog36abba]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

Well done, I have enjoyed reading through these timetables -They are much easier to follow than the ones I get from the Northern webpage.

 

[gingerheid]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

Those are lovely!

 

[northernchris]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

Thanks for sharing, really handy for highlighting how much is changing

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I've been working on a little project which may be of interest to some on here. It's a piece of software which uses open source data to produce timetables, the results of which are available to view at www.railwaydata.co.uk.
It's far from complete and nowhere near perfect, but gives a good insight into some of the forthcoming changes, especially in the North West.

The dates at the head of the tables say "20 May 2017 - 01 September 2017"!
Excellent work otherwise though, presented in a format I understand/am used to.

 

[Starmill]

Northern have completely destroyed the corridor between Man Pic and the Airport. Cannot believe they have got rid of a near enough clockface timetable and replaced with 2tph at 15min/45min gaps with some absurd stopping pattern.

Indeed. All the more bizzare then, that these highly negative changes are going ahead, but the total number of trains on the route is going down from 10 to 9 in a typical hour, and some journey times are extended over the current, more efficient, pattern.

 

[158756]

Indeed. All the more bizzare then, that these highly negative changes are going ahead, but the total number of trains on the route is going down from 10 to 9 in a typical hour, and some journey times are extended over the current, more efficient, pattern.

There has been some suggestions two stoppers won't fit I think (presumably with the Calder Valley Ordsall Chord service and extra services via Stockport to add when there are trains available). It would be a tight squeeze but I would think they should fit on the branch, perhaps the restrictions imposed by the TPE timetable or concerns about reliability scuppered the stopper.

 

[pemma]

There has been some suggestions two stoppers won't fit I think (presumably with the Calder Valley Ordsall Chord service and extra services via Stockport to add when there are trains available). It would be a tight squeeze but I would think they should fit on the branch, perhaps the restrictions imposed by the TPE timetable or concerns about reliability scuppered the stopper.

Like I said earlier on it's worth remembering Northern bidders were told to leave a path for North Wales services to go to either the Airport or Victoria every hour. At present the ATW extension to the Airport doesn't happen at peak times and it seems Arriva chose the Airport option over the Victoria option so it means they need to create an extra path for ATW to run to the Airport at peak times, alongside the extra services via Stockport.

It should be noted Buxton and Macclesfield already have extra services to Manchester in the morning peak and from Manchester in the evening peak so at peak times it's mainly extra paths for counter-peak services which are required. Although, the Stockport only services from Chester need extending to Manchester and there's a need to add in extra Hazel Grove to Manchester services.

 

[scrapy]

The 05.16 from Preston to Carlisle seems to call at all stops except Barrow in Furness. Surely that's a mistake?

 

[splashoutradio]

Not sure if this will be any use or whether it relates to a bug you already know about but on table 91 I noticed 2H31 appears on Saturday when it's SSuX.

This is indeed a bug. Just had a look through the data, and it looks like the planners may have added it for Saturday by error, then added a cancellation rule. Shall update the script to take these occurrences into account. Cheers for the heads up

The dates at the head of the tables say "20 May 2017 - 01 September 2017"!
Excellent work otherwise though, presented in a format I understand/am used to.

That's correct. The earlier than usual finish date is due to leaf-fall seasons, and data for these dates not yet being available for some routes. It's also to avoid lots of almost duplicate journeys with 'squiggly lines' and just a minute or two padding in them.

The 05.16 from Preston to Carlisle seems to call at all stops except Barrow in Furness. Surely that's a mistake?

This looks like it may be an issue on Northern's part. Looking at the data (as well as RTT & OpenTrain times) it looks like there is a 10 minute stop in Barrow scheduled in the 'Working Timetable,' but this hasn't made it into the 'Passenger Timetable.' It's not uncommon for errors to pop-up, especially in the early releases of data, but they often get ironed out before the service starts.

 

[BlueFox]

That's correct. The earlier than usual finish date is due to leaf-fall seasons, and data for these dates not yet being available for some routes

So are the timetables for 2017 or 2018?

 

[pemma]

So are the timetables for 2017 or 2018?

It should say 20 May 2018 - 01 September 2018, the timetables shown are the provisional ones from 20th May this year.

 

[Lemmy99uk]

The 05.16 from Preston to Carlisle seems to call at all stops except Barrow in Furness. Surely that's a mistake?

Barrow 06:40/06:50 according to the pocket timetable.

 

[BurtonM]

It's not the end of the world, certainly it'll encourage me to run to the station a bit more, but it is a bit frustrating losing services through town.

I find myself in a similar position - I'm in Stalybridge and therefore lose all services to Oxford Road which were immensely convenient for me, especially if I go to friends' houses in Fallowfield or Victoria Park after work. Got to go to Victoria now instead as I often travel with a bike (saves taking the bus), which will be no good on TPE as I seldom know when I'll be travelling.
On the flip side, the last train home is now at a slightly more reasonable 2329, it's an improvement on 2321 but not by much!