Newcastle to Liverpool : 16th Feb 2025 .. no direct services available

[Willie Bee]

My wife and I hope to be travelling from Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street on Sunday morning, 16th February (12 weeks and 2 days away)

Having a quick look on the forum's ticket site now, no direct (TPE) tickets are available.

Oh well, I thought, it's not twelve weeks yet, so I'll take a look at 9th Feb and 2nd Feb (1 week and 2 weeks earlier) just to get an idea of prices. Not once is there a direct train available.

Has TPE changed their routes, or is there something else going on.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There's engineering work meaning a reduced service between Newcastle and York, which means the TPE services starting/terminating at York and CrossCountry running buses. I'm not sure what the nature of this is though, perhaps single line working or something?

 

[Willie Bee]

There's engineering work meaning a reduced service between Newcastle and York, which means the TPE services starting/terminating at York and CrossCountry running buses. I'm not sure what the nature of this is though, perhaps single line working or something?

Thank you !

Is this engineering work 'fixed in stone' or is there a chance by next February it'll be finished or the dates amended.

We travelled to Manchester last year from NCL on LNER, via Doncaster and then TPE (which would be the same train to Liverpool) so if we have to do that again, it's not a problem .. just that a direct service is always the better option

 

[tram21]

Is this engineering work 'fixed in stone' or is there a chance by next February it'll be finished or the dates amended.

Pretty much fixed. While it's technically possible it's very unlikely so you'll need to plan around it.

If you look on realtimetrains.co.uk you can see the amended schedules to see how you can complete your journey

 

[ainsworth74]

Is this engineering work 'fixed in stone' or is there a chance by next February it'll be finished or the dates amended.

Engineering work planned this far in advance will be fixed in stone. It would only be cancelled if something cropped up that meant it couldn't go ahead and that happens incredibly rarely (to the point of it basically never happens!). There will be a package of worked planned for those specific closures and they will be delivered during those closures. It's possible that the work might finish early on one or more days but that wouldn't impact the timetable as it would be a case of the work was say planned to finish at 8pm but they had some good luck so finished at 6pm instead. Nobody will know that until the day however!

If you look on realtimetrains.co.uk you can see the amended schedules to see how you can complete your journey

Though LNER have only uploaded their schedule for the weekend before. Currently RTT is showing a full service for LNER on the 15 February and that's clearly not going to be running! Looking at Saturday 8 February LNER appear to be running roughly hourly between Newcastle and York diverting via the Durham Coast. So I think @Willie Bee if you want to travel on the 15th, once tickets are on sale, you'll need to use LNER to York and then change there for TPE onwards to Liverpool. Unless you're happy with a replacement bus of course. But the bus is timed to take three hours whilst the diverted train only a little under two so I wouldn't recommend getting the bus!

 

[Bevan Price]

Not sure about cost of fares, but as an alternative you could go from Newcastle to Carlisle, then south via WCML. Some through trains from Carlisle to Liverpool, but at other times you need to change at Preston or Wigan North Western.

 

[Willie Bee]

OP here

Looking at train options for our day of travel (a Sunday morning) but a little sooner (December) there are a few train options, detailed below

Newcastle to Carlisle trains

08:45, arrive 10:25

09:55, arrive 11:35

Carlisle to Liverpool Lime Street trains

10:44, via Preston (TPE / Northern) arriving 13:09

10:44, via Manchester (TPE / TPE) arriving 14:01

11:39, direct (TPE) arriving 13:43

11:47, via Wigan North (Avanti / Northern) arriving 14:08

The early train from Newcastle is probably the better bet, meaning we would arrive in Liverpool at 13:09.

The later train would be too tight for the direct TPE connection, but I suppose the 11:47 Avanti train would be OK. We have never tried Avanti, so that may be good. Can you book specific seats on Avanti ?