My understanding of the dilemma is as follows...
Chiltern railways is to get the Class 170s in 2015. As such a stock issue could arise (this is speculative) with the sheer mileage / time that the current Class 185s / Class 170s spend between Doncaster and Cleethorpes.
Therefore, the DfT proposes that the TPE [franchise] abandons stations east of Donny to better accomodate its current services.
As such, this leaves the following options.
1. The above doesn't go ahead actually things stay the same.
2. Above goes ahead and Northern operates between Sheffield and Cleethorpes, perhaps with a nice refurbished Class 158.
3. Around Grimsby the haddock is spat out of the residents' mouths in disgust at being handed a 'service' by having the existing Sheffield-Scunthorpe pacer service extended to Cleethorpes, making a totally unattractive 1hr 30min service between Cleethorpes and Grimsby with overcrowding worse than it already is on heavily loaded services.
Seriously....the DfT say there is not heavily loaded services between Clee and Grimsby. Have they not travelled on some Saturdays when a 2 car 170 is laid on and it is standing room only from Scunthorpe onwards ????
Whilst the 170 fiasco is relevant and enough cause for concern, it is not actually what has caused the rioting. It's the attempt at forward planning by the DfT to give Humberside some sort of post electrification service long before authorisation of either the Hope Valley or Sheffield-Doncaster schemes let alone the actual hardware being in place.
Of course as Haydn has referred to the capacity elsewhere situation, the re-franchising element of the consultation document could well be a thin disguise for a someone else somewhere is more important than you so they can have your rolling stock attitude at the DfT. Worse still, that same department has been less than helpful, and honest for that matter, on their muddled thoughts upon what will do for South Humberside as, post electrification dreams we are told, it will not likely be acceptable to operate diesel under the wires so the Sheffield-Cleethorpes express option is probably a non starter. It comes down to a Doncaster-Cleethorpes fast which is self defeating if rolling stock is so desperately needed elsewhere and a cheap and nasty extension of the Scunthorpe stoppers implying a two hour journey between Grimsby and Sheffield perhaps tempered by the futile gesture of omitting Althorpe/Crowle on alternate journeys to speed up the service overall.
Cleethorpes to Doncaster is no different from anywhere else in respect of use and numbers, there are some services off peak which are relatively lightly loaded and others in the peak where, west of Scunthorpe, one would be hard pressed to find a seat, it's what 185s were all about instead of 158s in the first place and is applicable as much in Northern Lincolnshire as it is elsewhere. Likewise there are some services west of Sheffield which are likely to be lightly loaded in the off peak periods too and I think that I have spent enough time travelling between North Lincolnshire and the North West at all hours of the day over the years to have observed this.
After experiencing the Central Trains and EMT farce in Lincolnshire to remove rolling stock for more deserving causes elsewhere, the first of which goes back well over a decade, I must ask why wasn't what is now going on picked up on back then, to-day's situation of rising use just didn't jump up out of nowhere, it came gradually and persistently and only those who were asleep at the controls could have failed to notice.
Having been involved in both road and rail transport since the early 1970s I have seen all too many promises of jam tomorrow and I only wish that I shared your optimism Haydn over the bright future.
In fact if Northern took over where TPE left, you just cannot rule out a 142 appearance at Cleethorpes..