Northern Trains Ltd

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
TfN meeting notes state that 92 Northern services will be missing from the December 2022 timetable on the change date, which will be added in on 3 January. It seems this includes 3 of 4 Mid-Cheshire peak time extras.

[mikestone]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
Better than TPE, and Avanti to a lesser extent, who seem to be still planning to run a vastly expanded service,

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
A FOI request has revealed Northern's diagrams from the December timetable change.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/u...ng-2119362

Looks like an increase in booked 195 workings on the Hope Valley services and the stoppers via Warrington Central. Also 331s being introduced on a limited number of Crewe, Stoke and Chat Moss services. While the Buxton line sees an increase in 156s.

[Metroline1511]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(22/11/2022 17:39)knutstransport Wrote:  A FOI request has revealed Northern's diagrams from the December timetable change.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/u...ng-2119362

Looks like an increase in booked 195 workings on the Hope Valley services and the stoppers via Warrington Central. Also 331s being introduced on a limited number of Crewe, Stoke and Chat Moss services. While the Buxton line sees an increase in 156s.

Some 331s on those lines may be being diverted there as they are no longer being allocated to Hazel Grove services

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(26/11/2022 11:26)Metroline1511 Wrote:  Some 331s on those lines may be being diverted there as they are no longer being allocated to Hazel Grove services

There are peak time 331 workings to Hazel Grove but off peak they'll be DMU workings interworked with Buxton services. The new path for arrivals from Buxton at Piccadilly is xx:47 and the departure path is xx:51, so it's probably been done to prevent a late running arrival causing knock on effects. They could have interworked Buxton and Chester to prevent that but it seems they didn't take up that option.

[mikestone]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
The trains which were showing cancelled on RTT until they start on 3rd January no longer are - presumably because far more are going to be cancelled.
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An interesting new service I'd overlooked is three round trips in each peak between Manchester Victoria and Wigan North Western. Towards Manchester in the morning and Wigan in the evening they call at Eccles - Wigan has lost calls by Windermere/Barrow trains which will mostly run via Bolton.

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(26/11/2022 16:36)mikestone Wrote:  The trains which were showing cancelled on RTT until they start on 3rd January no longer are - presumably because far more are going to be cancelled.

Some are, some aren't. The morning Chester-Stockports have appeared but the missing evening Stockport to Chester hasn't. I know some were pushing for the morning Chester-Stockports to not be delayed, as the lack of them means school children are arriving in Knutsford and Altrincham almost one hour before their school starts.

[mikestone]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
As far as I can see it's only the 17.08 from Stockport the second week still showing CAN, which suggests it has been overlooked - especially as it then goes to Helsby and neither that or the ECS from MNH are cancelled - not that I'd looked whether appropriate ECS workings were CAN, or the Helsby workings.
Which is as good a place as any to mention the loss of the last remaining Liverpool-WBQ emu goes in the new timetable and the service round the curve at Earlestown is maintained by the morning Liverpool-Hooton and evening return.

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd

(27/11/2022 17:38)mikestone Wrote:  As far as I can see it's only the 17.08 from Stockport the second week still showing CAN, which suggests it has been overlooked - especially as it then goes to Helsby and neither that or the ECS from MNH are cancelled - not that I'd looked whether appropriate ECS workings were CAN, or the Helsby workings.

The 17:10 Piccadilly to Chester will be booked as 4 car, so it's possible the existing arrangement of splitting a 4 car set at Chester will continue. However, the ECS is currently booked to run 5 minutes before the Piccadilly arrival, so the ECS wouldn't run to time if that arrangement continues but it would still be possible for the Helsby-Ellesmere Port passenger service to depart on time.

In 2019 the first evening Stockport-Chester was always the first train to be cancelled if there was a crew shortage. At one point it was only running an average of 4 times a week.

[mikestone]

RE: Northern Trains Ltd
Nearly all the others still shown CAN are random and, in some cases, unbalanced Rochdale-Blackburn services for the first week, which to my mind strengthens my overlooked theory - of course this is all probably academic.
;
Actually the pdf,s now on line, although you only seem to be able to find them by going to current timetables on the website, the Manchester-Chester booklet
https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/sites/...076051.pdf
has only one set of times, but the Blackburn one
https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/sites/...063666.pdf
has two sets of times which appear to be identical and show the aforementioned services throughout!