New Stateman article: North TPE trains are like distracted ponies

[Senex]

Why indeed? But isn't it part of the problem that Trans-Pennine doesn't really know what it is? On the long-distance routes between Liverpool and Newcastle and between Manchester and Scotland is it trying to provide a fast inter-city service, or is it trying to provide a semi-fast service linking all significant centres? If the former, then - as long as there's the traffic to justify it - surely Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds-York-Darlington-Newcastle, and Manchester-Preston-Carlisle-Edinburgh. If the latter, which is the path XC has gone down ever since Operation Princess, then something like what we now have and certainly no question of skip-stops which spoil the connectivity between the lesser centres. But you do then end up with a service that's not very attractive to the inter-city passengers.

 

[northwichcat]

I really don't see why every train needs to stop at Huddersfield

The Newcastle-Liverpool service will take 12 minutes between Marsden [MSN] and Heaton Lodge East Jn. An overnight TPE movement which goes through platform 8 at Huddersfield without stopping takes 12 minutes between Marsden [MSN] and Heaton Lodge East Jn. Is there really any benefit to omitting Huddersfield?

Maybe you're thinking if you had 8 car trains on some services and 4 car on others you could get the 4 car ones to omit Huddersfield so that there's more space for other passengers?

 

[Senex]

The Newcastle-Liverpool service will take 12 minutes between Marsden [MSN] and Heaton Lodge East Jn. An overnight TPE movement which goes through platform 8 at Huddersfield without stopping takes 12 minutes between Marsden [MSN] and Heaton Lodge East Jn. Is there really any benefit to omitting Huddersfield?...

But the route through platform 8 is about the slowest you could get. You'd normally expect at least a ½ minute stop allowance and ½ minute start allowance plus, what, say 2 minutes actually in Huddersfield. The stop ought to cost at least 3 minutes. There's also considerable scope for improving the layout at Huddersfield. (The Swiss decide what sort of services they want and then design the layouts. We don't seem to like that way of doing things, unfortunately.)

 

[northwichcat]

But the route through platform 8 is about the slowest you could get.

Going towards Leeds it's usually the only option given platform 4 is usually used by terminating services in both directions and platform 1 is needed for through trains in the other direction. There is a proposal to build a platform 9 at Huddersfield but if anything that'll likely be slower than using platform 8, given the proposed location is the other side of platform 8 to platform 4.

 

[Senex]

Going towards Leeds it's usually the only option given platform 4 is usually used by terminating services in both directions and platform 1 is needed for through trains in the other direction. There is a proposal to build a platform 9 at Huddersfield but if anything that'll likely be slower than using platform 8, given the proposed location is the other side of platform 8 to platform 4.

It's that use of platform 4 that seems the wrong one from a TPE perspective. If there's no chance of getting one (reversible) or two through lines restored, then 1 and 4 need to be available as the up and down principal through lines and platforms. At the north end they have a straight alignment to the viaduct. At the south end don't they point straight to the old tunnel? I think you're right that the new 9 is likely to be slower even than the desperately slow 8 if it does get built right over there.

 

[northwichcat]

You'd normally expect at least a ½ minute stop allowance and ½ minute start allowance plus, what, say 2 minutes actually in Huddersfield.

On TPE services at Huddersfield currently the departure time is usually 1½ minutes after the arrival time. Some services can spend a combined total of 13 minutes stopped at Leeds and Manchester Picc*, while some services will have crew changes or the crew switching ends I think getting better paths in and out of Leeds and Manchester will do a lot more to speed up services.

* Using the 08:06 Manchester Airport-Middlesbrough service today which departed Dewsbury on time but arrived at Leeds 3½ minutes ahead of it's scheduled arrival time.

 

[edwin_m]

I don't see anything wrong with splitting and joining trains at York or Manchester, to allow for longer trains through the core. They do it at present and it seems to work well enough.

Splitting/joining at York won't work for Hull portions for obvious reasons, and if Scarborough portions continue the platform layout makes joining them at York difficult. Platform capacity issues would make this difficult to do at Leeds.

The main thing that slows the route down is the reverse curves at Guide Bridge. There's probably nowt that can be done about them, but going via Ashton into Victoria will be much quicker.

The Victoria route is pretty slow around Miles Platting too - and I've lost track of which route at Stalybridge is the faster one since it was remodeled. I think most of the gain comes from not having to share Ashburys to Guide Bridge with stopping trains, and from avoiding the padding for the conflict at Piccadilly throat (sounds like an American football game!). Whether this is just replaced by conflicts at the new Salford junctions remains to be seen.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It's that use of platform 4 that seems the wrong one from a TPE perspective.

Not really, using platform 4 as the turnback prevents conflicting moves. If you had 8 as the turnback then anything using it would have to cross across the opposite running line to get in or out of it.

For as long as I can remember, even back to the late-80s with the 47s, platform 8 was the TPE platform and everything stopped at Huddersfield.

 

[northwichcat]

platform 8 was the TPE platform and everything stopped at Huddersfield.

When there were the through services from Victoria to Wakefield Westgate which had eastbound timings at Huddersfield close to an eastbound TPE service, the Victoria-Wakefield service was sent to platform 4 with the TPE service being sent to platform 8.

 

[Senex]

Not really, using platform 4 as the turnback prevents conflicting moves. If you had 8 as the turnback then anything using it would have to cross across the opposite running line to get in or out of it.

All true, but in that case something needs to be done to improve speeds on the platform 8 line. At present it's 35 into, through, and out of platform 4, but 25 and then 20 via platform 8. At these low speeds the difference between 20 and 35 is very considerable. (Off topic. Stand at the south end of Platform 5 at Crewe and see how the 20 from the platform line into the up fast inhibits the acceleration of a Pendolino. Or go and watch the north end of Sheffield any day and compare times to pass Masboro with those of 30 years ago.)

 

[jimm]

I really don't see why every train needs to stop at Huddersfield

Depending on which stats you believe, I can think of 150,000 to 160,000 reasons why they should. It is a major population centre.

As for all this stuff about approach speeds, who cares? Utterly marginal time savings would result. If you put eastbound services on 4, what do you do with the trains that currently use it and what would you do with 8? A straight swap, as has already been noted, sets up conflicting moves galore.

No 4 has been used for westbound and eastbound departures pretty much as long as the station has been around in its current form. I have a book with a picture from the 1870s of a train to one of the branches off the Penistone line waiting to depart from there.

I'm long enough in the tooth to remember when someone decided in the 1970s to concentrate all passenger trains except the Sheffield services on the island platform - there were of course rather fewer of them to get in each other's way at the time. Westbound Transpennine services used platform 4, along with some eastbound trains. This continued until, I think, the start of the regular interval hourly loco-hauled service in 1979, when westbound services started going into 1 again.

As jcollins says, the biggest time penalties are at the likes of Leeds and Manchester. There is a letter in the current Modern Railways from a TPE driver who says the operating practices approaching York and Liverpool often cost lots of time, trains are still within PPM 'on time' margins, but are not 'right time' as a result.

 

[LateThanNever]

Depending on which stats you believe, I can think of 150,000 to 160,000 reasons why they should. It is a major population centre.

As for all this stuff about approach speeds, who cares? Utterly marginal time savings would result. If you put eastbound services on 4, what do you do with the trains that currently use it and what would you do with 8? A straight swap, as has already been noted, sets up conflicting moves galore.

No 4 has been used for westbound and eastbound departures pretty much as long as the station has been around in its current form. I have a book with a picture from the 1870s of a train to one of the branches off the Penistone line waiting to depart from there.

I'm long enough in the tooth to remember when someone decided in the 1970s to concentrate all passenger trains except the Sheffield services on the island platform - there were of course rather fewer of them to get in each other's way at the time. Westbound Transpennine services used platform 4, along with some eastbound trains. This continued until, I think, the start of the regular interval hourly loco-hauled service in 1979, when westbound services started going into 1 again.

As jcollins says, the biggest time penalties are at the likes of Leeds and Manchester. There is a letter in the current Modern Railways from a TPE driver who says the operating practices approaching York and Liverpool often cost lots of time, trains are still within PPM 'on time' margins, but are not 'right time' as a result.

Sure his reflections are correct. Really if the agglomeration idea is true and TPE is going to be a proper part of that the authorities have to think of a London-Brighton semi fast service operation only if possible quicker, a bit further (if you treat Liverpool-Leeds as the core) and as it's got the Pennines in the middle just a bit more difficult! And still think that splitting trains definitely helps the passenger's requirements...

 

[Starmill]

Depending on which stats you believe, I can think of 150,000 to 160,000 reasons why they should. It is a major population centre.

As opposed, of course, to better service to Greater Manchester, with it's population of around 18 times that, depending on which stats you believe
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Sure his reflections are correct. Really if the agglomeration idea is true and TPE is going to be a proper part of that the authorities have to think of a London-Brighton semi fast service operation only if possible quicker, a bit further (if you treat Liverpool-Leeds as the core) and as it's got the Pennines in the middle just a bit more difficult! And still think that splitting trains definitely helps the passenger's requirements...

The reflections that RT arrivals are far more important than the PPM Pass of Fail thing I thoroughly agree with. He is entirely correct that that is what us passengers form our views on.

However, his proposed solution of having Network Rail "respect train classification" and allow signalers to "depart from the train plan" - I am far more dubious about, and I don't really see the link to decreasing actual published passenger journeytime, which is the most important item.

Then again if NS think Manchester to Leeds is slow they should try a train from Huddersfield to Bradford... less than half the distance by rail and < 10 minutes quicker from the May TT

 

[Senex]

If the seconds here and there that small layout improvements gain really don't matter, why is TPE making so much of getting flashing yellows on the approach to the Dewsbury loop at long last? I seem to remember that a lot of what was done on the ECML in the 70s and 80s was getting seconds here and there as and when possible and seeing these add up in due course into significant timetable savings.

 

[northwichcat]

Then again if NS think Manchester to Leeds is slow they should try a train from Huddersfield to Bradford... less than half the distance by rail and < 10 minutes quicker from the May TT

Although, you're comparing a stopper and an express service. Would you compare the Blackpool TPE service with the Northern Buxton service?

 

[Starmill]

Although, you're comparing a stopper and an express service. Would you compare the Blackpool TPE service with the Northern Buxton service?

Thanks to the way in which we evaluate projects in this country and perhaps the sidelining of Public Transport overall, there are just two stops between Huddersfield and Bradford.

Don't the vast majority of trains stop twice between Manchester and Leeds?

I'm being awkward, I know - it's still a 'stopping' service that's expected to be slower. But one expects great connectivity on slow services by the virtue of the fact that they can stop everywhere - that is the whole point of having them. The Huddersfield to Bradford service manages to spectacularly achieve neither of those.

 

[northwichcat]

Thanks to the way in which we evaluate projects in this country and perhaps the sidelining of Public Transport overall, there are just two stops between Huddersfield and Bradford.

Don't the vast majority of trains stop twice between Manchester and Leeds?

In that case can we class Mid-Cheshire services as Intercity between Manchester and Navigation Road - one intermediate call at Stockport is the same as XC/Virgin services stopping at either Stockport and then Macclesfield or Stockport and then Wilmslow?

 

[Emyr]

Mid-cheshire isn't electified yet, so 170, 185 or Voyager please.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Depending on which stats you believe, I can think of 150,000 to 160,000 reasons why they should. It is a major population centre.

As for all this stuff about approach speeds, who cares? Utterly marginal time savings would result. If you put eastbound services on 4, what do you do with the trains that currently use it and what would you do with 8? A straight swap, as has already been noted, sets up conflicting moves galore.

No 4 has been used for westbound and eastbound departures pretty much as long as the station has been around in its current form. I have a book with a picture from the 1870s of a train to one of the branches off the Penistone line waiting to depart from there.

I'm glad you said that, as I'd have appeared somewhat biased!

I'm no engineer, but I'd have thought changing the layout at Huddersfield, where everything stops anyway would only gain a handful of minutes at best. If some services did miss HUD there's no opportunity to overtake slower trains until Dewsbury (Eastbound) or Marsden (Westbound) anyway.

On both TPE and Northern services, Heaton Lodge Junction feels painfully slow and awkward. Hopefully someone reasonably high-up at NR/Rail North will see the opportunities that could be gained with a redesign- there's plenty of space too, as both diverging routes were originally 4-tracked at this point.
The 3-track section between Mirfield station and Heaton Lodge junction is often used for Westbound TPE services to overtake Northern stoppers to Huddersfield- though the stopper is almost always held at the signal ahead of where the slow line joins the fast just before the Huddersfield and Brighouse routes diverge for the TPE to pass, before crawling over the junctions once the signal clears. There appears to be space for the slow line to continue towards Huddersfield, leaving the current crossover for access to the Calder Valley. Perhaps this could continue until Bradley Junction allowing the stopper to keep 'on-the-move' as the express overtakes. The turnouts from the Calder Valley to the Huddersfield line could perhaps do with replacing with some that allow a higher speed, along with associated realignment.

 

[Starmill]

In that case can we class Mid-Cheshire services as Intercity between Manchester and Navigation Road - one intermediate call at Stockport is the same as XC/Virgin services stopping at either Stockport and then Macclesfield or Stockport and then Wilmslow?

I have no idea what your point is.

Mine is that the Huddersfield to Bradford service takes a longer time to do a mile on average than a Trans Pennine service without any benefit in that which you get from extra stops. It's just slower. You said that it's a 'stopping service' and implied that that automatically means it's slower because it has more stops. Huddersfield to Bradford is a much less important link than Manchester to Leeds though, so I'm pointing out that relative to their importance there are a lot of places with hopelessly slow trains between them in the region.

 

[northwichcat]

I have no idea what your point is.

Mine is that the Huddersfield to Bradford service takes a longer time to do a mile on average than a Trans Pennine service without any benefit in that which you get from extra stops. It's just slower. You said that it's a 'stopping service' and implied that that automatically means it's slower because it has more stops. Huddersfield to Bradford is a much less important link than Manchester to Leeds though, so I'm pointing out that relative to their importance there are a lot of places with hopelessly slow trains between them in the region.

Well surely the reasons for that are the local rolling stock with a 75mph top speed and the line speeds being based on using 144s and the like. How would you propose improving the journey times without infrastructure or rolling stock improvements?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Without infrastructure improvements it's impossible, the journey is so slow because of the line speed at Bradley and again at Stainland.

The Huddersfield to Bradford train service takes significantly longer than the bus, which is ridiculous, but at least there IS a train service now. There wasn't for a very long time.

As for the idea of missing Huddersfield out on TPE trains, I don't really see why you would do this. Huddersfield has a population of 150,000 (which is 50% bigger than Darlington, as an example), and the wider borough of Kirklees (which admittedly includes Dewsbury) has a population of almost 500,000. It's a big town and an important one, though not as big or as important as Bradford

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I think that the New Statesman headline writer has never seen anything remotely like such as thing as a "distracted pony". It really is annoying to have to see this wording every time that I access this particular thread...

 

[jimm]

If the seconds here and there that small layout improvements gain really don't matter, why is TPE making so much of getting flashing yellows on the approach to the Dewsbury loop at long last? I seem to remember that a lot of what was done on the ECML in the 70s and 80s was getting seconds here and there as and when possible and seeing these add up in due course into significant timetable savings.

Not being entirely familiar with current arrangements at Dewsbury, as I no longer live locally, I take it the idea is all about getting stoppers out of the way of TPE fasts running at line speed in the most efficient way - slow them down and you lose minutes, not seconds. A rather different matter from trains that are stopping at Huddersfield anyway, so are not exactly moving at warp speed in the first place.

Without infrastructure improvements it's impossible, the journey is so slow because of the line speed at Bradley and again at Stainland.

The Huddersfield to Bradford train service takes significantly longer than the bus, which is ridiculous, but at least there IS a train service now. There wasn't for a very long time.

Couldn't agree more about the infrastructure - much of which is dictated by physical geography, with the railway having to go round the hills and along the valleys, rather than over the tops like the road does. So not sure how ridiculous the timing is - on current times the train beats the X6 in the peaks anyway.

Key motivations for the service were to put Brighouse and Elland back on the railway map and beef up Bradford-Halifax frequencies - and in part address the problem of extended bus journey times due to congestion in the peaks.

In the case of Elland, the station still has not happened after 14 years and it's high time it was. It would be another stop, but this is not an express service and was never intended to be one and why it even got mentioned here beats me.

 

[Anvil1984]

I have no idea what your point is.

Mine is that the Huddersfield to Bradford service takes a longer time to do a mile on average than a Trans Pennine service without any benefit in that which you get from extra stops. It's just slower. You said that it's a 'stopping service' and implied that that automatically means it's slower because it has more stops. Huddersfield to Bradford is a much less important link than Manchester to Leeds though, so I'm pointing out that relative to their importance there are a lot of places with hopelessly slow trains between them in the region.

It also doesn't help when the Bradford to Huddersfield section has some pretty long waits at Halifax in both directions of at least 5 minutes. There is probably plenty of reason but 8 minutes on at least 1 service

 

[ianhr]

I'm glad you said that, as I'd have appeared somewhat biased!

I'm no engineer, but I'd have thought changing the layout at Huddersfield, where everything stops anyway would only gain a handful of minutes at best. If some services did miss HUD there's no opportunity to overtake slower trains until Dewsbury (Eastbound) or Marsden (Westbound) anyway.

On both TPE and Northern services, Heaton Lodge Junction feels painfully slow and awkward. Hopefully someone reasonably high-up at NR/Rail North will see the opportunities that could be gained with a redesign- there's plenty of space too, as both diverging routes were originally 4-tracked at this point.
The 3-track section between Mirfield station and Heaton Lodge junction is often used for Westbound TPE services to overtake Northern stoppers to Huddersfield- though the stopper is almost always held at the signal ahead of where the slow line joins the fast just before the Huddersfield and Brighouse routes diverge for the TPE to pass, before crawling over the junctions once the signal clears. There appears to be space for the slow line to continue towards Huddersfield, leaving the current crossover for access to the Calder Valley. Perhaps this could continue until Bradley Junction allowing the stopper to keep 'on-the-move' as the express overtakes. The turnouts from the Calder Valley to the Huddersfield line could perhaps do with replacing with some that allow a higher speed, along with associated realignment.

I agree with you, I cannot see how changing the layout at Huddersfield can achieve much. What IS needed is more track capacity but there appears to be little intention of increasing this. There is plenty of space to reinstate 4 tracks Thornhill LNW Jct-Heaton Lodge, 3 tracks Heaton Lodge-Huddersfield (with one reversible), an UP loop at Batley (with higher approach speeds at all junctions) + redesign the Marsden & Diggle Loops to allow higher speeds into and out of the loops. Ideally Thornhill Jct should be grade separated to reduce conflicting movements.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I have no idea what your point is.

Mine is that the Huddersfield to Bradford service takes a longer time to do a mile on average than a Trans Pennine service without any benefit in that which you get from extra stops. It's just slower. You said that it's a 'stopping service' and implied that that automatically means it's slower because it has more stops. Huddersfield to Bradford is a much less important link than Manchester to Leeds though, so I'm pointing out that relative to their importance there are a lot of places with hopelessly slow trains between them in the region.

It is difficult to see how it could be much improved given the PSRs at Bradley Wood and Greetland-Dryclough due to tight curvature. There are long dwell times at Halifax but it is probably quite difficult to find timetable paths between the Calder Valley line trains + Grand Central (occasionally) and TPE and the Huddersfield stopping trains. Maybe, as well as access to Brighouse the main utility of this route is to open up connectional possibilities e.g. Bradford-Barnsley/Sheffield, Halifax-Man Picc (without using Metrolink) & MIA etc and so journey times are not so critical. Would there be some attraction if these trains ran through to Sheffield via Penistone as was the case until ~1965?

There was of course once a more direct route via Bailiff Bridge but I doubt it was either well used or much quicker.

 

[Olaf]

We need to go beyond HS2 and build a Liverpool-Leeds rail link:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...eyond-hs2-and-build-liverpool-leeds-rail-link

The overall tone of the article is 'emotive', making claims that something must be done based on a few incorrect assertions, with a deficit of solid facts.

Peterborough and Milton Keynes are reported as the fastest growing cities in the 2014 report:
http://www.centreforcities.org/assets/files/2014/Cities_Outlook_2014.pdf

Liverpool is listed as one of the slowest growing cities in the UK, however it is correct in that Manchester is the UK's second city (base on Global City status):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

The reference to 'so-called "agglomeration economics"' seems somewhat dismissive, yet it is a well established model of urban economics.

It does redeem itself somewhat with regard to its comments on HS2, but that is then shut down by the suggestion of a high-speed link (200kph+ ?).

It is clear to me that there is a need to improve the Manchester City Region rail services, but to establish the case for an argument it needs to be built on facts; this article falls at the first hurdle ad I would expect better from an A-level student.

 

[swt_passenger]

We need to go beyond HS2 and build a Liverpool-Leeds rail link:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...eyond-hs2-and-build-liverpool-leeds-rail-link

Er... isn't that article the subject of this whole thread anyway?

 

[Gareth]

Not sure Centre for Cities equals 'solid facts' but there you go.

 

[LateThanNever]

Not sure Centre for Cities equals 'solid facts' but there you go.

No, nor me! But the agglomeration theory is worth a whirl and at worst is a good excuse improving rail connectivity!