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December 2021 Timetable change
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dk1
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Will obviously take time to grow to that and things have been thrown a little off course in the last year. Future is looking good though once we get to grips again.
4-SUB 4732
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But the demographic of airport users is not, shall we say, premium and business. These are the sort of folk who would happily have a stopping unit, if it meant we could give Cambridge’s a fast path south of Stortford; and they’re the sort of folk who will want cheaper tickets. They are unlikely to be coming from elsewhere in Britain to fly on the same routes within the Ryanair empire available from other airports and with other low cost carriers. Ryanair have considerable presence at the likes of Birmingham, East Mids, Bournemouth, Bristol, Luton (even), Manchester and Liverpool. If we’re seriously suggesting people won’t find alternative flights, if even at all (eco-friendly alternatives, etc), then we’re kidding ourselves.
Stansted is not a priority for a longer distance Intercity / Regional Express operator. It is better served by better frequency, shorter distance services with, as people have said, more stops at local stations so workers can get to/from. Primary examples are Whittlesford, Broxbourne, Cheshunt and Newport.
Stansted is in trouble as an airport. Three reasons:
1) A lot of its traffic was to/from Eastern Europe, which was transient labour and settled immigrants returning to see family and friends (and vice versa). Obviously, that market is reducing post Brexit.
2) it was trying to make much of being ‘the only London airport with spare capacity’ (which rather ignored Luton and Southend), and trying to do deals with transatlantic and Middle East airlines at cut price rates. Post Covid that opportunity has gone.
3) Luton, specifically the £200m+ it has invested in the DART. Suddenly Luton will be half an hour from central London (St Pancras), well under an hour from most of zone 1, with little pfaff. This will change the equation for people with a choice between the two.
I’d be surprised if Stansted sees its 2019 passenger numbers again any time this decade.
I would certainly love another train from Norwich so I don't have to squash into a busy 4 car train.
It was possibly either this train or a bus from Three Bridges to Haywards Heath, which aas also packed, last Sunday, where I picked up my cold.
dk1
Veteran Member
The Norwich to Stansted route has been exceptionally busy weekends of late due to the ongoing engineering works Colchester to Chelmsford. East Midlands still in meltdown isn't helping either. My 4-car on the route just now was very busy indeed.
Hope you're feeling better.
Interesting to note the additional early service over the Little North Western from Skipton at 07:25 will terminate at Carnforth.
I see it then runs ECS to Lancaster, but sits at Carnforth South Jct for 11 minutes to allow the 07:47 Barrow to Manchester Airport to pass.
Unless i'm missing something obvious, it seems unnecessary to terminate at Carnforth given the ECS is due to depart Carnforth at 08:28 and the Airport train at 08:37, by which time the ECS (had it continued as a passenger service to Lancaster) would be arriving there!
That the Airport train wouldn't catch up to the service from Skipton makes me wonder why the Skipton train couldn't just continue through to Lancaster, rather than forcing passengers to change trains while the unit sits out of the way for longer than it would take to reach it's destination to allow a train that couldn't catch it to pass!
I see it then runs ECS to Lancaster, but sits at Carnforth South Jct for 11 minutes to allow the 07:47 Barrow to Manchester Airport to pass.
Unless i'm missing something obvious, it seems unnecessary to terminate at Carnforth given the ECS is due to depart Carnforth at 08:28 and the Airport train at 08:37, by which time the ECS (had it continued as a passenger service to Lancaster) would be arriving there!
That the Airport train wouldn't catch up to the service from Skipton makes me wonder why the Skipton train couldn't just continue through to Lancaster, rather than forcing passengers to change trains while the unit sits out of the way for longer than it would take to reach it's destination to allow a train that couldn't catch it to pass!
Kieran1990
Member
Could it be down to a guard rostering issue?
Halish Railway
Established Member
If it departed 1 minute later after it arrives (08:27), it would arrive into Lancaster at 08:35 1/2 (Using 150/153/155/156 timings and no pathing allowances).
There are two conflicting movements at Lancaster are:
1. A service from Morecambe arriving at 08:35.
2. A service from Glasgow to London arriving at 08:38
I'd forgotten that the engineering works might make it even more busy. Makes sense.
It didn't se so bad on thr Saturday though. What is the issue with East Midlands?
As for feeling better, since writing my message I felt worse. Still hopefully that means I can only get better.
Shortage of serviceable units, shortage of trained crews and an industrial dispute.
A mix then.
Indeed. And sadly all have been going on for a number of months now.
dk1
Veteran Member
East Mids have been running a reduced service across their network since June. The many passengers waiting at Attleborough & Wymondham struggled to board with many giving up & leaving the station. Delayed at all stations with the crowding.
Maybe XC don't have the stopping rights for Wilmslow station as there are no booked services?
No, this is a Covid-induced change.
Prior to the pandemic, XC had an up morning service to Bristol which called at Wilmslow, a down morning service from Birmingham which called at Wilmslow (1H14) and an up evening service to Bournemouth which called at Wilmslow.
Initially I think the calls were dropped because of potential overcrowding, and they haven't yet been reinstated.
The up morning service to Bristol doesn't run, because currently there are no Bristol-Manchester services, but the other two services run (the up evening one to Reading currently) , are shown to call but not be advertised to call, and in reality they don't call.
I didn't tend to catch these services because, pre-Covid, they tended to be rather busy. However I'd noted but not used the up morning Bristol service as something useful if I needed to get to Birmingham or beyond early.
EDIT Two out of the three XC services which called at Wilmslow did so to free up an extra Manchester-Stoke path for a stopping service in the rush hour in each direction.
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The Planner
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They stop when diverted for engineering works via Macc.
Though it's worth noting that services diverted due to engineering works can call at stations without the same access contracts as are needed for 'booked' services.
Have I missed something? I only see one cross country service to Cornwall in the December timetable.
I don’t think it’s a secret that XC would rather not have to bother with the tiresome excursions to the far west of the country, but is this them taking another step to quietly dumping Cornwall from their map whilst hiding the bad news behind COVID?
They appear to be the TOC who are furthest behind with their COVID recovery and seem to be happy to sit out the remainder of the franchise extension without making any effort to meet their obligations. Apologies if I’m being a bit harsh there but they still aren’t running huge numbers of the services they were pre COVID (admittedly they are using longer trains) so they must be making significant savings on driver costs and it looks like they are happy with the status quo
I don’t think it’s a secret that XC would rather not have to bother with the tiresome excursions to the far west of the country, but is this them taking another step to quietly dumping Cornwall from their map whilst hiding the bad news behind COVID?
They appear to be the TOC who are furthest behind with their COVID recovery and seem to be happy to sit out the remainder of the franchise extension without making any effort to meet their obligations. Apologies if I’m being a bit harsh there but they still aren’t running huge numbers of the services they were pre COVID (admittedly they are using longer trains) so they must be making significant savings on driver costs and it looks like they are happy with the status quo
Jamesrob637
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Have I missed something? I only see one cross country service to Cornwall in the December timetable.
I don’t think it’s a secret that XC would rather not have to bother with the tiresome excursions to the far west of the country, but is this them taking another step to quietly dumping Cornwall from their map whilst hiding the bad news behind COVID?
They appear to be the TOC who are furthest behind with their COVID recovery and seem to be happy to sit out the remainder of the franchise extension without making any effort to meet their obligations. Apologies if I’m being a bit harsh there but they still aren’t running huge numbers of the services they were pre COVID (admittedly they are using longer trains) so they must be making significant savings on driver costs and it looks like they are happy with the status quo
They're gonna get into a lot of trouble I think. Plymouth isn't even back to hourly in December (though I haven't checked RealTime Trains for a while).
Trouble with who? The DfT are basically telling them to do this.
So what are the drivers doing that would have been on the Bristol to Manchester, the 3 Cornwall services, The Newcastle Readings etc?
HamworthyGoods
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Thats part of the reason the trains haven’t been re-instated, XC are catching up with driver training / recruitment.
There aren’t lots of drivers sat spare, as you may have noticed despite reduced timetables there are still many cancellations across all TOCs due to traincrew shortage.
How do you know XC aren’t meeting their obligations - have you seen them?
As part of the new contracts replacing the previous franchises in most cases the existing train service specification (as in the one currently operating) becomes the obligation not any pre-Covid version.
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In that case XC are winners, they don’t need to bother ramping up the driver training as they are generally meeting the current timetable. Passengers are obviously the losers here.
It was a genuine question as i don’t know how they can run half the number of trains and still not have enough drivers. I understand COVID is still causing absences, but by government figures there’s a maximum of about 1 in 55 people with active COVID cases in the worst areas at the moment so that might have a relatively small impact.
Have they said anything publicly about their intentions regarding the missing services? If, like you say, they are busy recruiting and training, that sounds like a pretty serious difficulty in retention of staff to me. In general Across all TOCs, has there been a mass departure of qualified staff over the past 18 months?
They aren't really winners or losers, they just do the government's bidding and get a small percentage of operating costs (typically up to 3%) as a quasi administered profit.
Unfortunately it doesn't take half the drivers to run half the number of trains. In most cases it's more like 75-80%.
In other words, even a relatively minor shortage of drivers will require a significant pruning to the timetable.
There's generally a lot less overtime happening, which obviously helps the government reduce costs. I would be surprised if they couldn't operate at least something approaching the pre-Covid frequencies on the 'core' routes (Reading-Manchester, Bristol-Leeds/York), but it would come at a cost.
Their regional (ex-CT) side has returned to a virtually pre-Covid level of service, which won't exactly be helping matters at Birmingham, Derby and Bristol depots. To be honest I find it more surprising that this took place than anything else.
In some ways not surprising as platform lengths restrict how much they can double up units on the regional routes, particularly since they reduced the number of 2-car units, whereas on the longer distance XC network running double Voyagers and a reduced timetable is quite possible.
Indeed, and with many 170s recently extended to 3 car it meant doubling up is not practical.
Also, the effects of thinning out a frequency are less marked over a long journey. If you’re travelling Newcastle - Bristol, chances are half an hour either way won’t disrupt your plans that much. If you’re travelling Cheltenham - Birmingham, it’s more significant.
dk1
Veteran Member
But it does that’s just the point. You can no longer travel Manchester-Bristol or Newcastle-Reading for the majority of the day & don’t even think about any direct services to Doncaster.
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