[Archive] Northern (Arriva Rail North)

[wirralbus]

RE: Northern (Arriva Rail North)

(17/11/2016 21:30)Gordon V Wrote:  In the case of this service originally mentioned,1200 Lime St-Wigan the service sets off from Lime St with all passengers for intermediate stations such as St Helens already detrained so the original poster who saw passengers on board these would be passengers who boarded at Lime St who were travelling to Wigan only,passengers detrained at Lime St and passengers at stations between Edge Hill and Bryn inclusive would have to get the next available service,1232 Lime St-Wigan.Occasionally the plan is enacted en route if the traincrew for such a service can be contacted en route for instance yesterday there was a problem with an ATW service at Newton LW which only occurred after the 1002 Manchester Victoria-Lime St left Manchester Victoria,this train (and others) were caught up in the subsequent disruption so this train ran none stop Earlestown-Lime St to lessen the delay but obviously when the train originally left Manchester Vic it departed with the intention of calling all stations to Lime St.As regards the latter part of what you say had you of risked waiting for the train that was late you may well not of been in luck had stops been taken out of the train and it went zooming past you.You would then have to weigh up what is quicker,next train after this or next bus.As for whether the contingency plan exists for all lines,certainly local to Merseyside,yes,Merseyrail do similar to Northern and knock stops out on late trains

The bigger difference with Merseyrail is this is only one part of service recovery , with merseyrail they use it in different options particular for Chester services.

It seems that Northern Rail do seem to use the most severest form of limited stop which is Liverpool - Wigan limited stop , if a service is due to pass say St Helens Central at the time booked , but still runs non stop , the service will reach Springs Branch early and just be held till booked time , due to the possibility of arriving early at terminating station , early running is as bad as late running.