You could say the Whitby-Middlesbrough service is dreadful but there are at least some direct trains between the two but try getting from Warrington to Tatton Park (one of the most popular tourist attractions in the UK) by public transport - bus to Altrincham, train to Knutsford, followed by long walk.
So there's not a direct link from a town to a stately home over ten miles away? And that's evidence of how rough things are up here?
Those from London will be reading this thread as an updated middle class version of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch! Ee lad, we had to traipse to reach t'flower show.
Well Newcastle is getting a lot of investment as well with a £8.6m station redevelopment, new IEP trains and likely a half-hourly electric service to/from Liverpool. So if you want to focus only on the main cities in the North then the North East is doing just as well as the North West
In infrastructure terms, Newcastle is seeing no electrification within seventy five miles planned any time soon, no light rail upgrades in the past decade, no additional local trains (although I think they got one extra 142 as part of the cascade of DMUs a couple of years ago?.
Manchester has recently seen/is seeing electrification of the main unelectrified corridors (to Leeds/York, to Bolton/Preston/Blackpool, to Wigan, to Liverpool) plus dozens of extra electric trains to run on them, dozens of new trams, many tram extensions, new infrastructure like the Ordsall Chord, other infrastructure upgrades in the "commuter zone" (like at Todmorden or loops in the Hope Valley)...
...yet the complaints on this forum are always from those in/around Manchester.
All the routes into Manchester/Liverpool/Leeds/Sheffield need electrifying and modern rolling stock
In an ideal world.
But most of the corridors into Liverpool/Manchester will be electrified in the next few years - whilst London still sees unelectrified lines and old trains.
Who's going to pay for your gold-plated vision?
It's the most criticised public transport system on social media, with the criticism coming from the people who use it
Maybe that says more about the cheery attitude of Mancunians?
Passenger numbers show that its becoming more popular
The last T68 has recently been withdrawn. West Midlands Metro are in the process of replacing their newer T69s so the Metrolink trams have lasted as long as any other second generation trams in the UK, even though they are being withdrawn early based on life expectancy of trams in European countries.
Yup - a whole new fleet of trams for Manchester.
Tyne & Wear still has the same thirty year old units running on it as it's always had (first ones built before Thatcher came to power) - nothing newer than 1981.
Sheffield still has its original trams, all over twenty years old now - no extensions built.
But, Manchester is hard done by...
The money which might be spent on new trains evaporates in subsidy every day on Northern and other regional TOC areas without a viable revenue stream.
There are some basic rules of economics that are inescapable.
It's all about short uneconomic trains running on an over-complex network, taking low fares over short distances (relative to intercity and south east services).
It's no better in most of Scotland, Wales or the south-west.
Yes - something that keeps going over people's heads on here
Merseyrail carries hundreds of thousands of passengers every day and Merseyrail are rated highly in Passenger Focus surveys while Metrolink rate poorly in Passenger Focus surveys
As below , Passenger Focus Survey .....
83 percent of Metrolink passengers were satisfied with their journey overall. This was significantly higher than the same measure achieved on the National Rail Passenger Survey (76%) and significantly lower than the Bus Passenger Survey in the Transport for Greater Manchester area (86%)
Selective quoting there, 83% is the lowest score given in the tram survey and 15% of Metrolink suffer delays compare to the average of 10%. In the Liverpool area passengers have 93% satisfaction with Merseyrail so what's the big deal about this tram system?
Passenger Focus also found 47% of Metrolink users thought Metrolink is either very poor value for money or poor value for money, while 48% of users thinks it provides either very good or good value for money. So, roughly for every Metrolink user who's happy with what they pay there is one unsatisfied Metrolink user.
Yes what I think of it's irrelevant but so is your constant overselling of the system.
People who pay the full market price for their travel are less satisfied with "value for money" than people who use a heavily subsidised train service?
It seems that a few selective areas of modernisation are being used to justify the North West as 'getting a good deal'
Plenty areas of modernisation, Peter.
- Electrification of Manchester - Leeds - York
- Electrification of Manchester - Bolton - Wigan/ Preston - Blackpool
- Electrification of Manchester - Chat Moss - Warrington/ Liverpool
- Electrification of Liverpool - Wigan - Preston - Blackpool
- Electrification of the Windermere branch
- Electrification of Liverpool - Warrington
- Various tram extensions around Manchester
- A whole new fleet of trams (whilst the Tyne & Wear and Sheffield systems are still running their original fleet with no new ones built)
- The Orsdall Chord
- The Todmorden Chord
- Various other improvements as part of the "Manchester" Hub
That's around a dozen schemes that some other places would love to dismiss as "a few selective areas of modernisation".
Take Bolton for example. As already pointed out, it is not dissimilar in size and population from the main NE towns, but at 3.5 million, has 50% more passengers than Middlesbrough and Sunderland put together. Despite this, the town is served by mainly pacers and other 2 coach DMUs with a few 3 car TPE services. Stand on the huge platforms and one gets a feeling of gross underinvestment, as people cram themselves desperately onto these crappy trains.
Bolton gets around eight trains an hour to central Manchester (plus a similar number in the opposite direction split between Southport, Blackpool, Clitheroe etc) - Sunderland gets one train an hour in each direction (either a 142 or a 156) - plus a handful of GC 180s.
No wonder Bolton gets such a good deal.
Move to Stockport and a station with slightly fewer passengers than Bolton, and you have nice shiny Pendolinos every 20 minutes, Cross Country trains to Birmingham and beyond every half hour, and around 9 other mainly fast and comfortable commuter trains every hour.
Yes - Stockport has always had longer/ faster trains as it's on the route to Birmingham/ London - there are always going to be some stations that get a better service because they happen to be on a main line to somewhere else.
Currently Altrincham, Greater Manchester is the most expensive to buy a property outside London & The South East with an average price of £2,227 per m² ahead of Edinburgh (£2,214)
You were complaining about "selective quoting" earlier - now you are comparing the average property price in a relatively affluent town of around 40,000 (if you trust the Wiki figure) with the average property price in a city around ten times the size.
There are some expensive properties in Edinburgh, but then there's Muirhouse/ Niddrie etc that take the average down. Hardly a fair comparison.
it appears the plan is to run the lines with cast off rolling stock from somewhere considered more important
We should have a Forum drinking game for when such comments are (re)mentioned
London's a lot more dependent on public transport than other parts of the country, people have to use it however much it costs
...which is why transport spending there is so essential - there are no alternatives
An Altrincham to London Advance starts at £14. If the Northern Rail service is delayed and you miss the booked Virgin service you can travel on the next train and you may get rail travel vouchers as compensation
What percentage of Metrolink passengers at Altrincham are headed to London though? Selective quoting?