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May 2022 Timetable Changes

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dk1

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Looking at the EMR timetables it seems that other than some early morning and late evening services all Crewe-Newark Castle services will be withdrawn and replaced by the hourly West Midlands Rail services from Birmingham to Crewe via Stoke-on-Trent.

There also doesn't yet seem to be a return yet to the hourly services between Newark Castle and Crewe.
I thought that was the case. MR magazine mentioned this a few months back.
 
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Watershed

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Looking at the EMR timetables it seems that other than some early morning and late evening services all Crewe-Newark Castle services will be withdrawn and replaced by the hourly West Midlands Rail services from Birmingham to Crewe via Stoke-on-Trent.

There also doesn't yet seem to be a return yet to the hourly services between Newark Castle and Crewe.
To clarify, this is in relation to calls at Longport just north of Stoke, not to be confused with Longton just south of Stoke, which retains calls on all services. Most Longport calls have been transferred to the WMR service as you say; the WMR service is also diverted via Bescot from May to allow it to serve Willenhall and Darlaston stations, which are currently under construction. This diversion increases journey times from Alsager, Stoke, Stone, Penkridge etc. to Birmingham, but helpfully forms a half hourly clockface service between Crewe and Stoke in the westbound direction, and a 20-40 service in the eastbound direction.

Eliminating the Longport call enables the EMR service to have a slightly longer turnaround at Crewe - increasing from around 8 to 11 minutes in the 'standard hour'. Still very short but it should help a little with reliability, particularly as the WMR service will no longer have to wait for the EMR service to arrive off the single line.

Unfortunately one diagram remains withdrawn and so there is still a gap in the service every 5 hours. This means both the ~8am arrival into Crewe and ~5pm departure from Derby are missing.
 

LowLevel

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The Longport calls being withdrawn are indeed to aid reliability. I'm sure the remaining diagrams will return in time, still waiting for driver resource to catch up.
 

Peter A

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Not sure if this has been mentioned but it appears that the arrangement between Northern and Scotrail will be ending from the May timetable change.

The 05:31 Carlisle to Dumfries will be withdrawn (essentially a stock move for Northern Rail units from Carlisle). Instead a Scotrail unit will begin from Dumfries 06:04 (replacing the 06:18) running to Carlisle, there'll be a new 07:00 Carlisle to Dumfries, which then operates the 07:58 Dumfries to Newcastle (replacing the 07:41) with the unit going on to provide additional services between Carlisle and Dumfries.

In turn, the 07:14 Dumfries to Carlisle will now run 07:15 using a Scotrail unit, no longer running onto Northern's 08:03 to Morpeth and will instead run onto the 08:07 Carlisle to Glasgow. With the 16:11 from Glasgow now terminating at Carlisle and running onto the 19:20 from Carlisle which now terminates at Dumfries.

The Northern units previously operating the 06:18 and 07:14 will simply begin their day from Carlisle. A Northern 158 will now operate the 06:20 from Newcastle to Carlisle which will run onto the 08:20 from Carlisle (ex-07:41 Dumfries) where a Scotrail unit previously spent the day on Northern services, terminating at Carlisle. The 18:39 from Carlisle (ex-16:11 Glasgow) will be tacked onto the end of a running board which previously finished at Carlisle in the early evening.
 

hexagon789

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Not sure if this has been mentioned but it appears that the arrangement between Northern and Scotrail will be ending from the May timetable change.

The 05:31 Carlisle to Dumfries will be withdrawn (essentially a stock move for Northern Rail units from Carlisle). Instead a Scotrail unit will begin from Dumfries 06:04 (replacing the 06:18) running to Carlisle, there'll be a new 07:00 Carlisle to Dumfries, which then operates the 07:58 Dumfries to Newcastle (replacing the 07:41) with the unit going on to provide additional services between Carlisle and Dumfries.

In turn, the 07:14 Dumfries to Carlisle will now run 07:15 using a Scotrail unit, no longer running onto Northern's 08:03 to Morpeth and will instead run onto the 08:07 Carlisle to Glasgow. With the 16:11 from Glasgow now terminating at Carlisle and running onto the 19:20 from Carlisle which now terminates at Dumfries.

The Northern units previously operating the 06:18 and 07:14 will simply begin their day from Carlisle. A Northern 158 will now operate the 06:20 from Newcastle to Carlisle which will run onto the 08:20 from Carlisle (ex-07:41 Dumfries) where a Scotrail unit previously spent the day on Northern services, terminating at Carlisle. The 18:39 from Carlisle (ex-16:11 Glasgow) will be tacked onto the end of a running board which previously finished at Carlisle in the early evening.
Yes it's been mentioned, it allows ScotRail to offer a more consistent Dumfries/Carlisle service.

There's a 2343 arrival in Carlisle from Dumfries. Who will operate that?
ScotRail. The unit stables overnight to work the 0534 to Dumfries next day.
 

Scotrail314209

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Are CrossCountry being more services back to Glasgow? I remember these being incredibly popular pre-COVID.

Disappointing to see that Avanti STILL have not timetabled the Euston - West Midlands - Glasgow services back, with them continuing to run to Blackpool.

It’s a shame that two direct links between Glasgow and the West Midlands are more or less gone.

I understand the TOCs are battling staff shortages, but is it now a case of if rather than when?
 

swt_passenger

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Not sure if this has been mentioned but it appears that the arrangement between Northern and Scotrail will be ending from the May timetable change.

The 05:31 Carlisle to Dumfries will be withdrawn (essentially a stock move for Northern Rail units from Carlisle). Instead a Scotrail unit will begin from Dumfries 06:04 (replacing the 06:18) running to Carlisle, there'll be a new 07:00 Carlisle to Dumfries, which then operates the 07:58 Dumfries to Newcastle (replacing the 07:41) with the unit going on to provide additional services between Carlisle and Dumfries.

In turn, the 07:14 Dumfries to Carlisle will now run 07:15 using a Scotrail unit, no longer running onto Northern's 08:03 to Morpeth and will instead run onto the 08:07 Carlisle to Glasgow. With the 16:11 from Glasgow now terminating at Carlisle and running onto the 19:20 from Carlisle which now terminates at Dumfries.

The Northern units previously operating the 06:18 and 07:14 will simply begin their day from Carlisle. A Northern 158 will now operate the 06:20 from Newcastle to Carlisle which will run onto the 08:20 from Carlisle (ex-07:41 Dumfries) where a Scotrail unit previously spent the day on Northern services, terminating at Carlisle. The 18:39 from Carlisle (ex-16:11 Glasgow) will be tacked onto the end of a running board which previously finished at Carlisle in the early evening.
The original discussion in this threadwas back in February after these changes were first discovered:

But it had come up in earlier discussions including this one, which was about sorting out 156 diagramming:
 
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route101

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Are CrossCountry being more services back to Glasgow? I remember these being incredibly popular pre-COVID.

Disappointing to see that Avanti STILL have not timetabled the Euston - West Midlands - Glasgow services back, with them continuing to run to Blackpool.

It’s a shame that two direct links between Glasgow and the West Midlands are more or less gone.

I understand the TOCs are battling staff shortages, but is it now a case of if rather than when?
Hoping they come back. The cross country service was well loaded with people going to Newcastle for the weekend. I suppose its cheaper with a change in Edinburgh on LNER.

I could be wrong but the Glasgow to Edinburgh is that going back to every 15 minutes at peak?
 

Peter A

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Yes it's been mentioned, it allows ScotRail to offer a more consistent Dumfries/Carlisle service.


ScotRail. The unit stables overnight to work the 0534 to Dumfries next day.

A train arrives at Carlisle from Dumfries at 05:34 according to RTT, rather than one departing to Dumfries 05:34?

The original discussion in this threadwas back in February after these changes were first discovered:

But it had come up in earlier discussions including this one, which was about sorting out 156 diagramming:

Ah apologies, must have missed that with it being a couple months back!
 

Manutd1999

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Are CrossCountry being more services back to Glasgow? I remember these being incredibly popular pre-COVID.

Disappointing to see that Avanti STILL have not timetabled the Euston - West Midlands - Glasgow services back, with them continuing to run to Blackpool.
Agreed, this is quite poor. Furthermore, if Avanti has to cut something, I don't understand why they have chosen the Edinburgh service to continue instead of Glasgow.

Birmingham to Edinburgh is already served by XC (albeit slower than the Avanti)
Preston northwards to Edinburgh is already served by TPE

So why doesn't Avanti run the 1p2h Euston - West Midlands - Glasgow, and terminate the Euston - West Mids - Edinburgh at Preston/Blackpool?
 

CAF397

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Yes it's been mentioned, it allows ScotRail to offer a more consistent Dumfries/Carlisle service.


ScotRail. The unit stables overnight to work the 0534 to Dumfries next day.
Does ScotRail have a lodging turn in Carlisle, or are the crew in a taxi back to Dumfries?
 

Watershed

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Agreed, this is quite poor. Furthermore, if Avanti has to cut something, I don't understand why they have chosen the Edinburgh service to continue instead of Glasgow.

Birmingham to Edinburgh is already served by XC (albeit slower than the Avanti)
Preston northwards to Edinburgh is already served by TPE

So why doesn't Avanti run the 1p2h Euston - West Midlands - Glasgow, and terminate the Euston - West Mids - Edinburgh at Preston/Blackpool?
It makes total sense when you look at the bigger picture. Throughout, they have run 1tph fast to Glasgow, so WCML to Glasgow has at least 1tph in every hour. TPE have only ran a very limited service to Glasgow for most of the pandemic; from May this should finally return to pre-Covid levels, meaning there will be 1tp2h TPE from Manchester Airport and 2 trains per day from Liverpool. So a total of 1.5tph (plus 2tpd).

By contrast, the only other WCML service to Edinburgh has been 1tp2h TPE. So if Avanti had curtailed the Edinburgh service rather than the Glasgow one, Edinburgh would have been left with 1tp2h whilst Glasgow would have had 2tph. This way it's more balanced, with 1.5tph to Glasgow and 1tph to Edinburgh.

It's also worth noting that there is a significant level of demand to Edinburgh, which could not possibly hope to be served just by a 1tp2h 5 coach TPE service. And if Avanti reduced the frequency to Edinburgh they would quickly start losing route knowledge; diverting Glasgow services to Blackpool also helps to keep up Preston's knowledge of Blackpool, to prevent losing that.

The current arrangement is not ideal, but overall it is the least worst option given the limitations which Avanti face.

Does ScotRail have a lodging turn in Carlisle, or are the crew in a taxi back to Dumfries?
Pretty sure it's a taxi - it's only 50 mins journey or so.
 

craigybagel

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Does ScotRail have a lodging turn in Carlisle, or are the crew in a taxi back to Dumfries?

Pretty sure it's a taxi - it's only 50 mins journey or so.
Unless things have changed, Northern crew at Carlisle sign as far as Dumfries and work some services on Scotrails behalf. It wasn't unknown in the past for 142s to turn up on the morning service from Carlisle - though obviously only running as far as Dumfries.
 

thenorthern

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To clarify, this is in relation to calls at Longport just north of Stoke, not to be confused with Longton just south of Stoke, which retains calls on all services. Most Longport calls have been transferred to the WMR service as you say; the WMR service is also diverted via Bescot from May to allow it to serve Willenhall and Darlaston stations, which are currently under construction. This diversion increases journey times from Alsager, Stoke, Stone, Penkridge etc. to Birmingham, but helpfully forms a half hourly clockface service between Crewe and Stoke in the westbound direction, and a 20-40 service in the eastbound direction.

Eliminating the Longport call enables the EMR service to have a slightly longer turnaround at Crewe - increasing from around 8 to 11 minutes in the 'standard hour'. Still very short but it should help a little with reliability, particularly as the WMR service will no longer have to wait for the EMR service to arrive off the single line.

Unfortunately one diagram remains withdrawn and so there is still a gap in the service every 5 hours. This means both the ~8am arrival into Crewe and ~5pm departure from Derby are missing.

And annoyingly the first departure from Derby towards Crewe is still 07:42 which doesn't arrive into Crewe until 08:58 which is relatively late. It would be nice if EMR restored the 06:42 departure from Derby.
 

Anvil1984

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Unless things have changed, Northern crew at Carlisle sign as far as Dumfries and work some services on Scotrails behalf. It wasn't unknown in the past for 142s to turn up on the morning service from Carlisle - though obviously only running as far as Dumfries.

That arrangement is ending too from what I am led to believe

At a guess it'll be a taxi back from Carlisle to Dumfries for the crew from 2L75 which stables at Carlisle overnight. The next mornings first service from Carlisle to Glasgow 1L70 could be a double set (0836 arrival at Glasgow so makes sense) formed of the previous nights 2L75 and the first arrival from Dumfries at 0534 so no taxi needed. But this is speculation
 
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175001

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There will be no more evening peak Northern service to Chinley from May.

The all stoppers are going down to 2 hourly, on the odd hours off Piccadilly.

Which means that the 1819 to Chinley is no more. And there's nothing replacing it.

The morning departure off Chinley remains though.

I'm surprised the local users haven't raised this.
 

Greybeard33

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There will be no more evening peak Northern service to Chinley from May.

The all stoppers are going down to 2 hourly, on the odd hours off Piccadilly.

Which means that the 1819 to Chinley is no more. And there's nothing replacing it.

The morning departure off Chinley remains though.

I'm surprised the local users haven't raised this.
This cut is also particularly bad news for users of Belle Vue, Ryder Brow and Strines, which are skipped by the Sheffield services.
 

Some guy

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Agreed, this is quite poor. Furthermore, if Avanti has to cut something, I don't understand why they have chosen the Edinburgh service to continue instead of Glasgow.

Birmingham to Edinburgh is already served by XC (albeit slower than the Avanti)
Preston northwards to Edinburgh is already served by TPE

So why doesn't Avanti run the 1p2h Euston - West Midlands - Glasgow, and terminate the Euston - West Mids - Edinburgh at Preston/Blackpool?
Because of route retention. If they cut the edinburgh services they will need a whole new load of route training. Also edinburgh has an Avanti depot so needs staff to run services from there
 

Watershed

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Also edinburgh has an Avanti depot so needs staff to run services from there
You say that, but even today, TPE are only running 3tpd to/from Glasgow - with by far the majority of their WCML services being to Edinburgh. Yet their only Scottish depot is in Glasgow. In fact there is a link at said depot which only works between Edinburgh and Newcastle...!

In a logical world, the presence of a depot would guarantee services running to/from there. Unfortunately that's not the world we live in!
 

Peter0124

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You say that, but even today, TPE are only running 3tpd to/from Glasgow - with by far the majority of their WCML services being to Edinburgh. Yet their only Scottish depot is in Glasgow. In fact there is a link at said depot which only works between Edinburgh and Newcastle...!

In a logical world, the presence of a depot would guarantee services running to/from there. Unfortunately that's not the world we live in!
If TPE Glasgow crew work the Edinburgh-Newcastle shuttle then surely these TPE services warrant an extension to Glasgow Central? Call it at Motherwell to regain the pretty much lost Edinburgh link from there.
 

800001

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If TPE Glasgow crew work the Edinburgh-Newcastle shuttle then surely these TPE services warrant an extension to Glasgow Central? Call it at Motherwell to regain the pretty much lost Edinburgh link from there.
Formed off 802s based at Craigentinny depot.
 

Watershed

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If TPE Glasgow crew work the Edinburgh-Newcastle shuttle then surely these TPE services warrant an extension to Glasgow Central? Call it at Motherwell to regain the pretty much lost Edinburgh link from there.
That would certainly make sense in a number of ways (not least because it would be nearly cost-neutral in terms of crew, for those services that are Glasgow crewed), but that's not the direction things are heading at the moment. The services are part-funded by Transport Scotland and they clearly are happy with the service terminating at Edinburgh for now.
 

175001

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This cut is also particularly bad news for users of Belle Vue, Ryder Brow and Strines, which are skipped by the Sheffield services.
Indeed. I'm surprised there hasn't been more of a fuss about this to be honest. Especially when they are painting the new timetable as an "improvement"
 

Greybeard33

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Indeed. I'm surprised there hasn't been more of a fuss about this to be honest. Especially when they are painting the new timetable as an "improvement"
Well Northern is not really hiding the cuts, just downplaying them. Its website says:
Our timetables will broadly be staying the same through to December 2022, with some amendments to the timetables from 15 May. These changes are highlighted in the sections below:

North West​

  • (snip)
  • A small number of services removed on the Manchester - New Mills line.

North East​

  • (snip)
  • A small number of services removed on the Whitby/Middlesbrough line.

Yorkshire & Humber​

  • (snip)
  • A small number of services removed on the following routes:
  • Ilkley – Leeds / Bradford
  • Skipton – Leeds / Bradford
  • York – Harrogate – Leeds
  • Hull – Leeds – Halifax
  • Leeds – Sheffield - Nottingham
  • Leeds – Sheffield via Dearne.
 

Some guy

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You say that, but even today, TPE are only running 3tpd to/from Glasgow - with by far the majority of their WCML services being to Edinburgh. Yet their only Scottish depot is in Glasgow. In fact there is a link at said depot which only works between Edinburgh and Newcastle...!

In a logical world, the presence of a depot would guarantee services running to/from there. Unfortunately that's not the world we live in!
That’s because TPE also need to maintain services to Edinburgh. Plus Glasgow has an hourly Avanti service which people towards Manchester change at Preston for. It’s only until may when it’s back to 2 hourly including an extra Liverpool service
 

Llandudno

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Well Northern is not really hiding the cuts, just downplaying them. Its website says:




Indeed Northern are withdrawing the 2215 Nottingham-Sheffield, this one runs via Derby and had 50+ passengers on it last night leaving Nottingham and Derby towards Sheffield.

I caught it a few weeks ago on a midweek evening and it had a standing load!

Two hour gap in service now from 2115-2315

The incoming working from Leeds 2004 to Nottingham will terminate at Sheffield instead.
 

185

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...particularly as the WMR service will no longer have to wait for the EMR service to arrive off the single line.
From May leaving Crewe at :52 ish (except 1255, 1757)
Another :52 - the arrival from Liverpool usually has a substantial pile of people for it... not any more, all now reliant on that EMR turning up.
 
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