One way this can happen is that you have an in service failure, with no spare stock to replace it anywhere near the failure. Say, one of a pair of units has something that means it needs to come out of service, half way through the day at Sheffield, and the nearest spare unit is Nottingham depot. And there’s no spare driver to get the train from the depot to meet it at Nottingham.
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East Midlands Railway short formed services
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One way this can happen is that you have an in service failure, with no spare stock to replace it anywhere near the failure. Say, one of a pair of units has something that means it needs to come out of service, half way through the day at Sheffield, and the nearest spare unit is Nottingham depot. And there’s no spare driver to get the train from the depot to meet it at Nottingham.
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Yesterday is a good example - not only was there a failed engine on 158777 doing Liverpool - Norwich, which then skipped Sheffield but didn't really regain any time due to loss of path and having to wait to access Dore South curve, and then utter chaos at Nottingham when the wrong part of the train was advertised as continuing to Norwich; there was also a fault with the brakes at the same time on a Norwich - Liverpool, losing 84 minutes between Nottingham and Alfreton (and subsequently cancelled from there) and holding up the entire Erewash Valley route northbound. That will have caused at least two units out of service, as well as a whole load of units in the wrong places for subsequent services.
But these are examples of units being faulty or out of service. It’s understandable why they can’t run when this is the case. My question is why, when trains are cancelled with plenty of notice due to CREW issues the trains sit idle and people are crush loaded onto the ones that do run, and even run shortformed. Is it really just coincidence that it’s much less effort and cheaper?
The most obvious explanation is that the units that should've worked the 1205 and the 1305 services both/all have other work to do when they would've arrived back, thus can't be used to strengthen the 1405 as they won't be back in time.
That's not necessarily the explanation here though. You'd expect that the 1405 would be a priority to be fully formed even if it causes a short-form later on (I accept that it's not always that simple, e.g. if, even with the cancellation of the 1205 and 1305, later peak services are expected to be even busier), but stuff like that doesn't always seem to get picked up when decisions are being made, much to the frustration of the staff on the ground.
Skymonster
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Surreal observation for me at Sheffield this afternoon: 1L13 arrived from Liverpool formed of two 158s and a 156, total six cars
(although only as far as Nottingham it seems, after which EMR gave up and ran the rest of the service with a single 158
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(although only as far as Nottingham it seems, after which EMR gave up and ran the rest of the service with a single 158
)1151 from Liverpool was cancelled so the 1251 and 1351 both ran as 6 coaches. I think east of Nottingham has always been single units.Surreal observation for me at Sheffield this afternoon: 1L13 arrived from Liverpool formed of two 158s and a 156, total six cars
(although only as far as Nottingham it seems, after which EMR gave up and ran the rest of the service with a single 158
Sounds like a common sense move. Though it’s possible the main motive here was to get the rolling stock in the right place.Surreal observation for me at Sheffield this afternoon: 1L13 arrived from Liverpool formed of two 158s and a 156, total six cars
(although only as far as Nottingham it seems, after which EMR gave up and ran the rest of the service with a single 158
As for the Nottingham to Norwich portion, this is almost always booked as 2 cars and is often (but not always) sufficient.
londonmidland
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22:28 MAN to NOT has been caped with pax advised to board the 2346 rail replacement, which stops at all stations. Anyone for Nottingham will now get there at 03:04 vice 00:41.
This is considered acceptable by the railway. Remember, with a single ticket, once you’re an hour late there’s no longer any rush to get you to your destination as delay repay maxes out.
Killingworth
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Like this one, although possibly not fully crewed? https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C63204/2021-12-22/detailed#allox_id=0
Exactly like that one.
Though of course the empties take a very different route - if they ran in service passengers for/at Liverpool South Parkway, Widnes, Warrington Central, Stockport, Dore & Totley, and perhaps most importantly Sheffield would still have no train. How many of the would-be passengers actually want to board or alight at these points? Of course the empties could be re-routed via the service route (it can be reasonably expected the crew sign it as otherwise how did they get to Liverpool in the first place), but as this would get into Nottingham at least 30 minutes later than normally booked (maybe more as the train now has no path), would one or both of the crew run out of hours?
Clearly if crew were short on hours then this causes a problem but just how short on hours do they need to be?
There are other Liverpool to Manchester services after this so any route will do between the two. The route it takes between Manchester and Dore junctions is slower and longer than via Stockport, and (as is usually the case) it was already 12 minutes early by the time at got to Dore and 13 Early at Nottingham where it was booked into a platform. So if it was fully crewed and the unit was fully functioning then what we appear to have done here is run a service empty for the benefit of it arriving 13 minutes early.
I’m fully appreciative of the reasons for running services the way they do, and I wouldn’t generally want to speculate too many ideas regarding how to do it better but the fact is, how it IS done is poor and anti passenger. You can clearly see the points in which there has been a decision made that has focussed on them rather than the passenger. And to continue with the same plans shows quite clearly that this is their intent.
The fact remains that on today’s railway, any operator can cancel the last service to a particular place and tell passengers tough luck, sleep on a bench and unless that person has extensive knowledge of the railway and/or the law or has good contacts with media then the railway gets away with it.
Killingworth
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EMR's IL21 srrvice is the last eastbound train of the day for Hope Valley users through to Dore and they're already unappy that it leaves Manchester before 10.30pm. Cancellation just goes to add to the unhappiness of the small numbers who try to rely on the train. Basically, they can't. A relative's drive from Edale to Stockport or New Mills to pick up a stranded passenger is well rehearsed!
Crosscountry aren't running any trains to Nottingham today making EMR the only operator to do so, so they must be extremely busy today. Not helped by the fact that the last two Derby to Nottingham trains (18:20 and 20:20) are cancelled with no communication on social media. If there aren't any other arrangements in place people will have to rely on the 17:20 which is formed of a single 156, or trentbarton buses.
Although trentbarton are finishing early today too. The 6:30 is the final Red Arrow service from Derby to Nottingham (and also the final indigo runs at 6:30). This is fine (although not ideal) for those wishing to travel around 5:30-6:30 but not for those wanting to travel around 8.
Edit: Just looked on National Rail and there are rail replacements Derby-Nottingham at 19:50 and 21:51
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Are these EMR replacements or XC replacements? Do we know they’ll actually run. A few EMR replacements in the area have been a con recently.
WesternLancer
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It was an XC replacement bus I saw on departure board earlier. Running as far as Derby.
Do you mean 1L21 or is IL21 a code for something?
Killingworth
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Got me, typo!
Hah, no worries!
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