There's already a wide range of discounted multimodal fares out there. Pushing these harder might be a good start. However worthwhile bearing in mind the market for multimodal is low with only 1 in 10 journeys on public transport using more than one mode in England outside of London. That's not due to price, which is already relatively low in the PTE areas. It's due to quality
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TFGM press release: Mayor Andy Burnham reveals plans for Bee Network rail to boost passenger numbers and drive Greater Manchester’s growth
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Discuss223
Member
I concur, such as the Wayfarer, which offers great flexibility in GM and beyond. https://tfgm.com/tickets-and-passes/wayfarer-adult
Well they would, if they actually delivered the services. e.g. 28 Dec, GLO-PIC 40% cancelled. It doesn't matter how many trains are on on their fantasy timetable if they cancel so many that people can't rely on the service. They just stop using it.
Discuss223
Member
That's not good but changing hands won't necessarily improve matters. TransPennine are still P-coding a lot of trains even after changing in to OLR control. Northern have vastly improved since the Arriva shambles.
MasterPhillips
Member
- Joined
- 26 Jun 2019
- Messages
- 131
The most common form of cancellation is lack of train crew, followed by “short notice change to the timetable” ie P-coding, which I assume is because of lack of crew.
these issues are overcome simply by hiring more staff. Yes I know it takes a while, but look at GWR where from experience things seem to be slowing improving, there are 100 guards/TMs being trained atm. A properly staffed Northern could do well within a few years, as the mayor is targeting 2026 I believe.
Services in December were truly appalling across the board. January does seem to be better.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
They really haven’t, which is why we’re having these conversations.
As with the bus Bee Network, “taking back control” really only becomes a thing when the existing service is failing to deliver.
Northern are appalling, they’re a bit worse than they were under Arriva and they are a lot worse than they were under Serco. And that’s why we’re starting to have these conversations. The operators can’t be trusted to do things properly.
Northern’s issuing of DO NOT TRAVEL today to cover their staff shortages is just a case in point.
Blackpool boy
On Moderation
Look again what my question was, i handily linked it in the post you just quoted
So you arte saying they dont run stopping services in amongst fast services just on this route alone then? The data would suggest otherwise, maybe go and revise that data.
And this was one example of a route wher they do this - can you explain how they do this over a two track railway like the welwyn viadact please?
Thanks
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
There is a rather large difference between Manchester and Greater Manchester. .The Southport-bound trains that after leaving the Manchester stations of Oxford Road or Victoria are very quickly into Salford and from there can pass into Bolton and Wigan, before reaching the boundary of Greater Manchester and West Lancashire.
Not so very long ago, when I was on Wigan Wallgate Railway station, I was talking to a "Dyed in the Scouse" rail enthusiast from Litherland who would like to see both the lines from Southport railway station (in Merseyside) and Headbolt Lane (in Merseyside) to Wigan Wallgate converted to the Merseyrail 3rd rail system and he seemed annoyed that their "Metro Mayor" had not been pushing for this as a means of bringing more investment into Merseyside.
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Sorry, no they they haven't and in the run up to Xmas it was particularly bad MAN-GLO. It's not been great since either:
I think that's a pretty accurate summary.
Yes, I don't have the data for all of December but it has improved a bit, perhaps from utterly unacceptable to just piss poor?
Actually, for the last month, when it comes to cancellations it comes out pretty even between the two:
Well, we can always hope. What I don't understand is why MAN-GLO is so disproportionately affected by cancellations, it is far from Norther's busiest line but when it comes to outright cancellations, it's the top of the list. And why are a disproportionate number of the cancellations p-coded? Is there a particular staffing issue with the 323? Dunno.
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Derby will surely be the county town of a unified Derbyshire; Matlock is only the ‘county town’ because Derby itself is a unitary
public transport planning matters should be based on geography not history, and in transport terms Glossop is blatantly Greater Manchester.
If Labour want sensible devolution they really have to grasp the nettle and do it properly - ie tell Glossop that they can say they are from Derbyshire if they like but they are administratively GM.
Maybe time to play hardball and give councils more power to ’give residents bigger discounts’….ie make outsiders pay more for refusing to join, big fare differences at the border etc.
pokemonsuper9
Established Member
Why does that matter? Burnham is Mayor or Greater Manchester, this thread's title is TfGM.
Bolton is in "Manchester", Wigan is in "Manchester", few people care about the "Greater" just like few do for London too, even though the city of London is tiny, TfL isn't Transport for Greater London but it certainly acts like it because who cares.
The Southport-Wigan line leaves Merseyside after only 2.1 miles, and Southport functions as a pretty good interchange and natural changover point, and given that they couldn't get approval to have 3rd rail for the completely grade seperated 0.75 miles to Headbolt Lane, I don't think the 17.4 miles with many level crossings will be easy.
Agreed there, Headbolt Lane (and Kirkby before it) are just obstructions creating an unnessecary change, I think the 777/1s on battery could even get to Wigan and back already if the line wasn't seperated (and they'd fit in platform 3) so you probably wouldn't even need 3rd rail (which the ORR probably wouldn't like anyway).
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Wigan isn't "in Manchester" any more than Milton Keynes is "in London" or Ormskirk "in Liverpool". Burnham has more sense than to parade that round, as if he does he'll lose votes.
pokemonsuper9
Established Member
Wigan is in (Greater) Manchester
Milton Keynes is in Buckinghamshire, far from London
Ormskirk is in Lancashire
Wigan is in Manchester just as much as Croydon, Romford, Kingston etc are in London.
Neither are in the "City of" but are in the "Greater [x]" county.
Wigan is very much part of "Manchester", even if it's just in "Greater Manchester".
Some people here are stuck pretending they're still in Lancashire when they haven't since 1974, 51 years ago.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
"Greater" is important. Wigan (interestingly I'm there at the moment!) is a Lancashire town which is politically within the remit of Greater Manchester. It is not "in Manchester" in any sense. It is not in the City of Manchester (which only takes up about a third of the conurbation). It is not in the contiguous built up conurbation - there's a fair bit of green between it and that. Literally nobody born and brought up in Wigan would say "I'm from Manchester".
Both have a load of green and other stuff between them and the big city. Just like Wigan.
As I said, the Greater bit is important. London is different because pretty much all of Greater London is part of the contiguous built up area. If Watford was brought in, though, nobody who was born and bred there would say they lived "in London".
Once again the distinction is important. Would you say Southport was in Liverpool, or rather it was in the Liverpool City Region or Merseyside? Again, everyone actually born and bred there would say one of the latter - the odd one would probably hark back to Lancashire - but nobody would say it was in Liverpool unless they were talking to someone with a very poor knowledge of UK geography who only knew of the big cities.
Bolton and Stockport are maybe different because they are in the contiguous built up area, though I suspect from some locals you'd still get an argument!
They aren't however "in Manchester" by any sensible definition of the phrase.
MasterPhillips
Member
- Joined
- 26 Jun 2019
- Messages
- 131
Why does it matter if somewhere outside of Greater Manchester is served by a rail line or bus services controlled by the Mayor of GM. It will probably see services improved. See Elizabeth line stations between Iver and Reading for the benefits. I’m sure they don’t care their services are controlled by Sadiq Khan given how much they have improved.
pokemonsuper9
Established Member
I can say that, if someone asks me where I'm from I say Manchester not Wigan or Lancashire (ok I wasn't born here but I've grown up since I was 1 here)
Regardless, Wigan is part of Greater Manchester, which is clearly under TfGM and the Mayor's authority.
That's a good point I hadn't thought about.
I guess socially is very different to literally.
Agreed
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Similarly Merseyrail. Ormskirk doesn't moan about the Liverpool taxpayer funding it getting 4tph of EMUs rather than the 1tph of DMU and nothing on a Sunday it would probably have otherwise. And I doubt there are campaigns to cut the Met Line back to Moor Park among Amersham and Chesham commuters.
Presumably more people will know where Manchester is, whereas Wigan they are less likely to have heard of.
nr758123
Member
Are you serious?
The Marsden to Greenfield cross-boundary fare has been referred to earlier in this thread. It has been known about, and objected to, for at least 40 years. The practical consequence has been that many passengers from within West Yorkshire, rather than catching the train from their local station, will drive over the moors and catch the same train at Greenfield to get the cheaper fare. A fare structure which promotes what would otherwise be absurd travel decisions is a fare structure which needs to be changed.
The practical consequence of what you are suggesting, on the Glossop line, would be a fare structure which encourages Glossop and Hadfield residents to drive to Broadbottom or Hattersley stations.
Cross boundary fare penalties need to be removed, not new ones created.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I agree, but someone is much more likely to say "near Manchester" than that it's the same place. For instance if asked where Milton Keynes is, I say it's near London, or if I'm talking of Ormskirk or Southport (the latter of course in the LCR) that it's near Liverpool.
Wigan is a distinct town in its own right that is in no form part of "Manchester", though it is in Greater Manchester. It's just there because it had to go somewhere in the then new metropolitan structure - probably too far north to be Cheshire (where Warrington went in an almost identical geographical position between the two but a bit further south), probably too far south east to stay as an outpost of Lancashire, but it could as easily have gone in Merseyside, really, as it's basically half way between the two.
No, it absolutely, utterly will not be. Derby City Council is already a Unitary, the changes are about flattening the current 2-tier County and Borough councils into Unitaries. DCC want UberDerbyshire (of course) but there'll be resistance to that because of their well-established utter incompetence and virtual bankruptcy. Other possibilities are a North / South Derbyshire split, carving off bits e.g. High Peak into GM, other bits into Staffs Moorlands etc.
Postcodes and ceremonial county borders likely won't change, this is change is about council services. But Glossop being in East Midlands at the moment is utterly bonkers.
That's pretty much the case already. A local parent fought long and hard to get the GM-valid concessionary bus passes for High Peak students as higher education in Glossop is delivered in Tameside, and Derbyshire's student passes aren't accepted in GM. After much campaigning, GM agreed. Derbyshire County council then tried to block it, on the basis that it "wasn't fair" ignoring the fact that a) other areas of Derbyshire could use Derbyshire's student pass scheme and b) nobody in Ashbourne is going to want to travel to Ashton-under-Lyne for college. It had to be rammed through by the East Midlands mayor.
Mayor's free college bus plan stalled
People have an emotional attachment to Derbyshire and many don't want to be part of Tameside, but I've yet to hear anyone say that DCC are going a good job.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Greater Manchester does not have a rail service anything remotely like the Elizabeth Line. If one were to superimpose the Elzabeth Line over a map of the area of the TfGM administered region, with Manchester being where the Elizabth Line tunnelled section is, where would the west and east terminal sections lie?
You are intended to hold your particular geographical views at all costs but that does not automatically follow that your view is correct. I was born in 1945 and can give a longer considered view of how this region has had different affiliations. Whereas "Greater Manchester" in the mind-set of younger people from its inauguration commencement day would cover a very large part of their life span, people of my age remember a previously different scenario.
Do you remember the "Greater Manchester Council" town hall on the corner of Aytoun Street and what became of it and the reasons appertaining?
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pokemonsuper9
Established Member
Based on this twitter post, Reading is now Liverpool, Shenfield is now Sheffield.
Although it's not centred on Manchester, if rotated a little Shenfield would probably be more Wakefield.
Or it looks like you could about lay it out a different way, running Southport - Sheffield.
It's always been in "Manchester" to me, I'm suprised to find out it's controvertial.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
There’s lots of controversy still with the various administrative border changes in 1974. The people of Saddleworth still think of themselves as being in Yorkshire. People from Warrington don’t tend to see themselves as from Cheshire. There are plenty in Barrow who still see themselves as Lancastrian.
None of it really matters unless it impacts on public services. I can’t imagine many in Glossop and Hadfield would complain if the trains moved into Bee Network. They haven’t complained that their buses have.
I've seen complaints about the Unitary County Council thing, but none about the Bee network changes. Mind you, the bar set by Northern is so abysmally low, I'd be surprised if anyone did complain. About the only way the service could get any more unusable is if they shut the line altogether - indeed in some ways that would probably be better, as at least people would 100% know they had to make alternative travel arrangements.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
I have been discussing matters over the telephone today with a resident of Darwen who made the point that as Northern Trains run the line from Bolton to Blackburn already has TfGM-administered area stations in Hall i' th' Wood and Bromley Cross, the Bee Network could also take over the stations in Entwistle and Darwen and run a Bee Network train service from Manchester to Blackburn.
Let's wait and see on that front. The Elizabeth line arrangement suits both parties (non Tfl authorities and TfL). Key difference up north is that major uplifts in service quality are at best, a decade away, and non-metropolitan authorities also already have a theoretical input into how their rail service is managed via Rail North. Will potentially non Labour local authorities on the fringes be happy to throw in their lot with Andy's yellow trainset?
Transilien
Member
A proper boundaries redraw would likely help to fix these issues as many of these boundaries were made pre-industrialisation when many cities weren't as significant or developed as they are now. Perhaps a change in name from 'Greater Manchester' would help this be more popular, much like how Ile de France is used for the region surrounding and including Paris.
station_road
Member
That's not correct, Matlock was the county town of Derbyshire well before Derby became a unitary authority (1977 Vs 1997)