Northern- Why Can't we vent anymore?

[J-2739]

The answer to the thread title is probably because “general ranting” threads serve no purpose, and often generate bad feeling.

Yes, it is the threads that are generating the bad feeling. Not the appalling service quality in the first place, but the threads.

(Granted, not an every day occurrence, and the east side does hold up pretty well in comparison)

 

[AverageJoe]

Shall we have a thread on everything that northern do well then? Why does it always have to focus on the negative?

 

[Topological]

Shall we have a thread on everything that northern do well then? Why does it always have to focus on the negative?

Not a bad idea. It is a shame that the good thread would probably get a lot less attention than the bad.

Ultimately, the value of being able to discuss ongoing problems remains.

 

[AverageJoe]

But ultimately I would bet northern deliver more good than bad.
It’s just that people only focus on the bad and rarely praise the good.

Not a bad idea. It is a shame that the good thread would probably get a lot less attention than the bad.

Ultimately, the value of being able to discuss ongoing problems remains.

I would argue there is no real value in discussing these issues other than people venting and and winding each other up.

The issues northern have they appear to be trying to solve but it’s no overnight fix.

 

[43066]

Yes, it is the threads that are generating the bad feeling. Not the appalling service quality in the first place, but the threads.

But venting is what people do on Twitter/X.

Surely the purpose of a discussion forum is for people to try and understand the issues and what’s causing them. If people just rant endlessly those in a position to explain the issues will be less inclined to do so, and the discussion becomes less useful for everyone.

 

[dannypye9999]

Again last night for the 4th or 5th week on the trot, the last stoppers from Manchester to Macclesfield were cancelled. These are both the 2245 and 2316 services. One day during last week there was even a 0040 Stockport to Macclesfield replacement bus. The excuses given on the app i use was cancelled due to 'extreme weather' so I think it's a joke to be using the weather as an excuse especially as by 2100 last night the storm had passed.

 

[Llandudno]

My father noted that his Sunday service (Blackpool South to Preston) is once again cancelled tomorrow. He recalls this has happened for the last 4 weeks at least for all services

The rail replacement buses is unreliable as often seems to “miss” his station!

Will be interesting to see if the emergency Northern Sunday timetable starting next weekend will be effective?
Either his service will be totally scrapped or moved from “every hour” to “every 2 hours”

Or more likely every four hours….!

 

[AverageJoe]

Again last night for the 4th or 5th week on the trot, the last stoppers from Manchester to Macclesfield were cancelled. These are both the 2245 and 2316 services. One day during last week there was even a 0040 Stockport to Macclesfield replacement bus. The excuses given on the app i use was cancelled due to 'extreme weather' so I think it's a joke to be using the weather as an excuse especially as by 2100 last night the storm had passed.

Yes in a the middle of a storm that has warranted the authorities to issue danger to life warnings and where there is blanket speed restrictions, debris and trees on the line in various places, 3rd rails on fire all causing massive delays and Traincrew to be displaced…. It is joke to use the weather as an excuse

 

[Southern Beau]

Or more likely every four hours….!

Is that a guess or for certain?

 

[156421]

To their credit (and to my surprise and amazement) the Furness Line and Cumbria Coast Line yesterday had very few cancellations and delays. The current usual practice is to close the Furness Line and provide no alternative transport and to leave passengers for dead under the usual "do not travel" tone deaf term which doesn't take account of those who already are travelling for instance on multi-day itineraries.

 

[dannypye9999]

Yes in a the middle of a storm that has warranted the authorities to issue danger to life warnings and where there is blanket speed restrictions, debris and trees on the line in various places, 3rd rails on fire all causing massive delays and Traincrew to be displaced…. It is joke to use the weather as an excuse

The punchline to the joke is:

The storm was during the day yet there were no cancellations even during the peak of the high winds and rain then but by the time the storm had passed and everywhere was calm they decided to consider everyone's life and safety by cancelling all the last trains. Those last trains were definitely not during the peak of any bad weather. Also not sure where on the Stoke to Manchester stopper route is there 3rd rail operation?

 

[jonnyfan]

The punchline to the joke is:

The storm was during the day yet there were no cancellations even during the peak of the high winds and rain then but by the time the storm had passed and everywhere was calm they decided to consider everyone's life and safety by cancelling all the last trains. Those last trains were definitely not during the peak of any bad weather. Also not sure where on the Stoke to Manchester stopper route is there 3rd rail operation?

The last service to Macclesfield last night (23.16) ran last night, strengthened to a 6-car instead of a booked 3-car. The 22.45 was cancelled fairly late notice due to no driver, which I believe was because the allocated driver had exceeded hours without sufficient rest earlier in their shift due to significant late running due to the storm disruption.

 

[SuspectUsual]

The answer to the thread title is probably because “general ranting” threads serve no purpose, and often generate bad feeling.

These things ultimately self-regulate. If people aren’t interested, there won’t be replies, and the thread slides down the list of titles. Censorship isn’t the answer in my opinion. If you don’t want to read it, the title of the thread should tell you enough to steer clear

Shall we have a thread on everything that northern do well then? Why does it always have to focus on the negative?

If someone wants to create a “positive news / experience” thread they should do so. Those that want to can then read it and reply. Those that don’t, won’t.

Surely the purpose of a discussion forum is for people to try and understand the issues and what’s causing them. If people just rant endlessly those in a position to explain the issues will be less inclined to do so, and the discussion becomes less useful for everyone.

It’s an internet forum, not an educational establishment

 

[Jan Mayen]

Positive Northern experience. I've used Northern a handful of times on the last year or so. Either Leeds to Skipton or Sheffield to Edale.
Nothing cancelled, delays were minor. Tickets checked, no problem.

 

[43066]

These things ultimately self-regulate. If people aren’t interested, there won’t be replies, and the thread slides down the list of titles. Censorship isn’t the answer in my opinion. If you don’t want to read it, there won’t be title of the thread should tell you enough to steer clear

But they obviously don’t self regulate, as explained in post #3, because people are indeed free to read what they wish, and the threads with “rants” always end up with arguments and bad feeling.

It’s an internet forum, not an educational establishment

It’s a discussion forum. I’m not sure how “rants” and “venting” fit into that, or comply with the requirements to be constructive and polite/respectful.

 

[TheSmiths82]

I have a generally positive experience with Northern but I am only a leisure passenger, I don't use them to commute to work. I find they are good value compared to TPE if you don't mind a slower (and usually less busy) journey. I would always assume the last train will be cancelled though and work on an alternative on that basis. That said the majority of my journeys are not late in the evening anyway.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I'm lucky, because anytime I've needed to use a Northern train in the West side in the past 6 months or so, I've had absolutely no problems whatsoever - train ran, on time, visible staff presence, ticket checks being carried out etc etc. That said, I'm also fairly certain it's impossible to spend more than 10 minutes at Piccadilly without hearing "the xxx Northern service to xxx has been cancelled. This is due to a member of traincrew being unavailable"

 

[TheSmiths82]

I'm lucky, because anytime I've needed to use a Northern train in the West side in the past 6 months or so, I've had absolutely no problems whatsoever - train ran, on time, visible staff presence, ticket checks being carried out etc etc. That said, I'm also fairly certain it's impossible to spend more than 10 minutes at Piccadilly without hearing "the xxx Northern service to xxx has been cancelled. This is due to a member of traincrew being unavailable"

One of my favourite pubs is next to a train station and has a departures board inside the pub, it is always assuming looking at it and seeing "Manchester Airport.... cancelled" between every Liverpool service. I usually advise people if their going to the airport it is probably better to get the tram, it is slower but the frequency makes up for it and it is very reliable.

 

[modernrail]

But ultimately I would bet northern deliver more good than bad.
It’s just that people only focus on the bad and rarely praise the good.


I would argue there is no real value in discussing these issues other than people venting and and winding each other up.

The issues northern have they appear to be trying to solve but it’s no overnight fix.

I should hope they do. Everybody is getting paid, staff enjoy unionised T&C’s, the TOC is subsidised with millions in public funds, the TOC has loads of new trains.

The point is it is not good enough. Hardly anybody is going to praise anything whilst northern regularly cancels trains or has poor punctuality. All the other issues, dirty smelly trains, the poor ticket buying facilities, attitude of some staff etc compound this. However, it is Russian roulette nature of the service that keeps Northern firmly in the dock, as it should be.

 

[xotGD]

poor ticket buying facilities

Ticket offices. Ticket vending machines (that will even sell you a Rover). Website.

What's poor about that?

 

[D6130]

The post after yours disproves the suggestion that traincrew on the west always vote against Sundays being brought into the week!

The interim deal they’ve just rejected was for committed Sundays, not Sundays in the week.

Apologies....my misunderstanding!

 

[Killingworth]

Positive Northern experience. I've used Northern a handful of times on the last year or so. Either Leeds to Skipton or Sheffield to Edale.
Nothing cancelled, delays were minor. Tickets checked, no problem.

When Northern run to timetable the journey to Edale is a positive experience. Today has been bleak, wet and windy, so those who did travel would welcome a 4 coach train.

Sadly those who went for an hourly train today would have found that it was a shuttle service every 3 hours. Probably.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Edale all day on 08/12/2024

Train information at Edale all day on 08/12/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Jpr463]

On a positive note, the almost daily cancellation of the 1552 RCD - MCV - BBN service made it a no-brainer when I was asked to work a regular bit of overtime. Earn a bit more and save waiting around in the cold.
Apart from peak time short forming, weekday service is mostly ok on the Ribble Valley line, it's just this particular diagram that's regularly cancelled.

 

[Iskra]

Quite a number of cancellations on the Hallam Line/Sheffield today. I'm planning to travel today so hopefully I avoid the worst of it!

Personally I think a Northern performance thread should remain open. It was incessant whining that made the Pacers become politically untenable. People can always choose not to read the thread if they don't like it. Although for what its worth I do think the Northern travel experience is generally improving.

 

[Tetchytyke]

FWIW I don't think the merger of the non-express rump of the north east and north west franchises has ever really worked. I think we see many of the same issues at Northern as we did at Central Trains before that franchise was broken up. Northern is simply too unwieldy.

It doesn't help that they had the profitable express work spun out into its own franchise before then being denied new stock because of the subsidy requirements. Well of course Northern requires lots of subsidy; all the profitable bits were spun out into TPE and then, when TPE decided they couldn't be bothered with the Blackpool, Barrow, and Windermere expresses anymore, they were spun back into Northern.

The issues in the north west are not new- North Western Trains had exactly the same Sunday staffing issues 25 years ago. But the solution would require negotiation with the trade unions and so it has been kicked into the 'too difficult' pile ever since. There was a brief window of opportunity to harmonise conditions based on the eastern terms (slightly more money at the time, but mandatory Sundays) when Northern was created in 2005 but don't get me started on just how bad Serco were and so we have what we have now in the north west.

What's very telling is a look at JourneyCheck. As of now, the website reports 103 cancellations for the rest of the day. From a quick scan, it looks as though only 13 of those are not in the north west.

 

[Jamesrob637]

The Northern Twitter team are very hit and miss. They'll joke with regular "tweeters" but ignore the needs of genuinely concerned travellers. Quite alarming really.

 

[Confused52]

Where I am there are 16 out of 71 cancelled today; 7 cancelled on the day because the Conductor wasn’t available and 9 p-coded on a previous day. It isn’t a Sunday, in whose imagination is this acceptable?.

While we are on it this thread moved to the back end of beyond without any explanation; why?

 

[Iskra]

Well, I cursed it. Last train from Leeds to Chapeltown cancelled with an RRB provided that will take even longer. At least there is a bus and I may get delay repay.

 

[yorksrob]

I think that when people have a consistently sub-standard service, such a thread as this acts as a kind of group therapy session.

For me, I've just had my first cancellation (outside of severe weather) for a few weeks, so I'm hoping its a one-off.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It isn’t a Sunday, in whose imagination is this acceptable?

133 full cancellations today as of now, a quick scan shows 23 of them not in the north west. Of those 23, 21 of them seem to be Sheffield jobs, so I wonder what’s going on at Sheffield?

It’s not acceptable. But fixing it isn’t easy.