Various consultations on the May 2022 East Coast Mainline timetable

[hexagon789]

One example: Is timetable planner workload better focused on finding a temporary 12 month "bodge" for Chester-le-Street, or sorting it properly for May 2023?

Well quite, I appreciate the work they must be very time consuming to get everything to fit in at times.

 

[Ianno87]

There doesn’t need to be any bodge. The existing TPE schedules for the services that run non stop to Durham have sufficient time between Newcastle and Durham to allow a Chester le Street stop without causing any delays.

Can you say that in every hour? Do the platform workings and platform end conflicts at Newcastle still work? Do the train crew diagrams still work if arrivals at Newcastle are slightly later, and departures slightly earlier? Are there freight or ECS in some hours that need to be accounted for? Etc etc etc....

e.g. This one (https://www.opentraintimes.com/schedule/G82408/2021-09-21) doesn't have "sufficient time" as it has no pathing allowance, so it would need to depart Newcastle earlier. As it goes out from P1 via the High Level bridge, it would clash with a preceding Whitby departure currently 3 minutes before.

 

[DanNCL]

Can you say that in every hour? Do the platform workings and platform end conflicts at Newcastle still work? Do the train crew diagrams still work if arrivals at Newcastle are slightly later, and departures slightly earlier? Are there freight or ECS in some hours that need to be accounted for? Etc etc etc....

There might be the odd exception, but for most hours yes.

 

[Ianno87]

There might be the odd exception, but for most hours yes.

Have you worked that out, or are you guessing? The one I detailed above was the first one, picked totally random, that I looked at, and that had multiple issues from a first inspection.

 

[DanNCL]

Have you worked that out, or are you guessing? The one I detailed above was the first one, picked totally random, that I looked at, and that had multiple issues from a first inspection.

I have looked at a good number of them. Not all, but many of them. I have been fighting the case for a better service at Chester le Street for a while now, and looked into this for exactly the reasons you mention.

e.g. This one (https://www.opentraintimes.com/schedule/G82408/2021-09-21) doesn't have "sufficient time" as it has no pathing allowance, so it would need to depart Newcastle earlier. As it goes out from P1 via the High Level bridge, it would clash with a preceding Whitby departure currently 3 minutes before.

Platform 3 is vacant the entire time that the TPE unit is in Newcastle station, and the route over the King Edward Bridge is also available.

 

[Jonny]

Have you worked that out, or are you guessing? The one I detailed above was the first one, picked totally random, that I looked at, and that had multiple issues from a first inspection.

Which ones?

I've looked at two (9M20 and 9M22) that pass through Southbound, just using tomorrow's timetable there does not appear to be any freight to either side and they likely could run a shade earlier from Newcastle and call at Chester-le-Street without significant disruption. The problem is that they appear to use pre-pandemic slots, so there may be more wiggle room as well if a Nova 1 can be guaranteed.

Unfortunately, getting multi-operator information at one time and for multiple points is rather awkward, I had to do a lot of jiggery-pokery involving the various freight junctions just to find the (apparent lack of) freight paths around those two (Birtley Junction and Tursdale Junction being the key points). Searching King Edward Bridge south does not show a lot of freight trains, even for all tomorrow, either.

As a slight aside, my last pre-pandemic (well, early pandemic) journey was Newcastle to Chester-le-Street and it was a Class 185 in a slot that looks very much like those that are calling Chester-le-Street in the current timetable. So there may be wiggle room if they are Class 185 slots run with a Nova 1.
(1643 ex Newcastle, arrive 1652 IIRC)

I have looked at a good number of them. Not all, but many of them. I have been fighting the case for a better service at Chester le Street for a while now, and looked into this for exactly the reasons you mention.


Platform 3 is vacant the entire time that the TPE unit is in Newcastle station, and the route over the King Edward Bridge is also available.

That is a large part of the problem with getting trains to call at Chester-le-Street as the timetable stands, perhaps the best short-term campaign point would be to seek better use of Nova 1 performance (where one can be guaranteed) in slots marked as Class 80x but actually timed for 185s.

====

As a slight aside, many of the freight services seem to be heading between Tees-side and Scotland. Could they be put on the Durham Coast line instead?

 

[Watershed]

That is a large part of the problem with getting trains to call at Chester-le-Street as the timetable stands, perhaps the best short-term campaign point would be to seek better use of Nova 1 performance (where one can be guaranteed) in slots marked as Class 80x but actually timed for 185s.

The services are all timed as 80x. Very occasionally 185s will substitute but this causes delays when it happens.

 

[takno]

There doesn’t need to be any bodge. The existing TPE schedules for the services that run non stop to Durham have sufficient time between Newcastle and Durham to allow a Chester le Street stop without causing any delays.

You say that, but that's assuming everything runs to time. At the end of the day if we aren't getting out faster trains from Edinburgh then the worst of all possible worlds is that more risk of delay is added to our existing journeys by a stop in some nothing town dominated by domain squatters

 

[Starmill]

With around 8 buses per hour between Chester-le-Street and Newcastle it's really unlikely that even a 10 minute journey on a train would be any more competitive at 1tph than at 0.5tph. The buses take around four times as long but they don't need a walk up a hill in Chester-le-Street to reach, offer multiple set down points in the city centre, also serve Gateshead, and are cheaper. The increased frequency means most people will have lower generalised journey times using a bus.

Of course not everyone in Chester-le-Street is going to Durham or Newcastle. But nearly everyone is.

 

[DanNCL]

You say that, but that's assuming everything runs to time. At the end of the day if we aren't getting out faster trains from Edinburgh then the worst of all possible worlds is that more risk of delay is added to our existing journeys by a stop in some nothing town dominated by domain squatters

The TPE service would need to be at least 15 minutes late to hold up anything behind it. The vast majority of the time they’re on time South from Newcastle. The days of TPE normally being late on the North East route are gone.

With around 8 buses per hour between Chester-le-Street and Newcastle it's really unlikely that even a 10 minute journey on a train would be any more competitive at 1tph than at 0.5tph. The buses take around four times as long but they don't need a walk up a hill in Chester-le-Street to reach, offer multiple set down points in the city centre, also serve Gateshead, and are cheaper. The increased frequency means most people will have lower generalised journey times using a bus.

Of course not everyone in Chester-le-Street is going to Durham or Newcastle. But nearly everyone is.

The train is the first preference of a lot of people who travel between Newcastle and Chester le Street, and it’s solely the lack of a more frequent service that puts them off. Even an hourly service can easily be planned around, but the current situation with a mix of 2 and 3 hour gaps simply doesn’t work for those who use the station. The bus is more frequent, but takes considerably longer (I use both on a regular basis - even the half hourly X21 will take around 40 minutes, miss that and it’s nearly an hour on the 21) and is actually more expensive than the train too - a return on the bus is £7, the train is £5.40 without a railcard (or £6.40 if travelling in the morning peak).

For a number of the residential areas of Chester le Street the station is actually a shorter walk than any bus stop served by the 21 or X21. The majority of those using the station are commuters who live in Chester le Street and therefore are not necessarily beginning their journey in the town centre.

Heading to Durham it’s a different matter, as there is little/no time benefit to using the train once the walk to and from both stations is taken into account, as well as the 50 bus picking up in the residential areas around the station in Chester le Street. The vast majority of those who board a train at Chester le Street to alight at Durham then board an LNER or XC service to continue south.

On a further point, Chester le Street is the second busiest station (after Pewsey) in the UK not to have at least an hourly service. Given the unstaffed nature of the station, it’s likely that true usage numbers are higher than the official statistics say they are, and of course as we know there is surpressed demand caused by the current infrequent service. The justification for an hourly service is most definitely there, and there isn’t any publicly acceptable reason (not wanting to make a minor adjustment to timetables is not an acceptable reason in the eyes of the public) for the service not to be increased to hourly in May 2022.

 

[cactustwirly]

With around 8 buses per hour between Chester-le-Street and Newcastle it's really unlikely that even a 10 minute journey on a train would be any more competitive at 1tph than at 0.5tph. The buses take around four times as long but they don't need a walk up a hill in Chester-le-Street to reach, offer multiple set down points in the city centre, also serve Gateshead, and are cheaper. The increased frequency means most people will have lower generalised journey times using a bus.

Of course not everyone in Chester-le-Street is going to Durham or Newcastle. But nearly everyone is.

Most people traveling from Chester-le-Street will be driving through and not take the bus. Especially when they take that long.

An hourly train service would make the train more attractive.

How are people expected to seriously consider public transport when their options are a tediously slow bus or a sporadic train?

 

[Bald Rick]

The existing TPE schedules for the services that run non stop to Durham have sufficient time between Newcastle and Durham to allow a Chester le Street stop without causing any delays.

There might be the odd exception, but for most hours yes.

The very definition of a timetable ‘bodge’.

 

[Starmill]

Most people traveling from Chester-le-Street will be driving through and not take the bus. Especially when they take that long.

An hourly train service would make the train more attractive.

How are people expected to seriously consider public transport when their options are a tediously slow bus or a sporadic train?

You could say that about almost everywhere in England.

The very definition of a timetable ‘bodge’.

It's almost as if there's actually a reason why not every train has stopped at Chester-le-Street all these years.

 

[DanNCL]

Most people traveling from Chester-le-Street will be driving through and not take the bus. Especially when they take that long.

An hourly train service would make the train more attractive.

How are people expected to seriously consider public transport when their options are a tediously slow bus or a sporadic train?

Exactly this.

The very definition of a timetable ‘bodge’.

Not one that would take up an unreasonable amount of resources considering how minor it is. It’s one extra calling point on services that already have enough time in the schedules to allow for it, not an entirely new service squeezed in.

It's almost as if there's actually a reason why not every train has stopped at Chester-le-Street all these years.

The “reason” is that one per two hours is the service it has had since the British Rail era and consecutive franchises have been given zero incentive by the DFT to improve it. Might be acceptable in the eyes of the treasury and the DFT, definitely isn’t an acceptable reason in the eyes of the public or indeed just about anyone that actually wants rail to do well.

 

[Killingworth]

Exactly this.

The “reason” is that one per two hours is the service it has had since the British Rail era and consecutive franchises have been given zero incentive by the DFT to improve it. Might be acceptable in the eyes of the treasury and the DFT, definitely isn’t an acceptable reason in the eyes of the public or indeed just about anyone that actually wants rail to do well.

Indeed, my father lived in Newcastle and worked in Chester-le-Street in LNER days, not long after WW2. From the stories he told he always got the bus,except one very hot day they were on strike and he nearly killed himself cycling in his suit! As a railway enthusiast I didn't know why he wouldn't have caught the train. Just looked up a 1947 Bradshaw and see there wasn't a good rail service back then either! He wouldn't have relied on it.

 

[tbtc]

Most people traveling from Chester-le-Street will be driving through and not take the bus. Especially when they take that long.

An hourly train service would make the train more attractive.

How are people expected to seriously consider public transport when their options are a tediously slow bus or a sporadic train?

An hourly train service would make the train "more attractive", sure, but how much more frequent would it need to be to be properly attractive for a ten minute journey? More like the "every fifteen minutes" that the Metro provides for similar distanced journeys - an hourly train still wouldn't be anything like "turn up and go" for that distance.

That's the problem with places like Chester le Street (and Morley, Dore etc - "local" stations on "main" lines) - there's essentially no space for additional services or additional stops on the trains that zoom past, and the current frequency isn't good enough to attract people for a short journey to the nearest city (hourly would be fine for a long distance journey where you'd plan ahead but for a ten minute journey I'd want to turn up and go without needing to consult a timetable). If Chester le Street (or Morley/ Dore etc) was on its one branch line I'm sure it could sustain a good "metro" service - the X12/ X21 and 21 show that demand is there on the Durham - Chester le Street - Newcastle corridor - but one train per hour won't cut the mustard for such a short journey.

There's (obviously) no scope for a fifteen minute service at Chester le Street, so what do we do with it? Keep hoping that locals will wait around for a train every hour or two, and that there are spare seats on the long distance trains that must pick up calls there (since there are effectively no "local" trains on the line)? Force sufficient trains to stop there to reach a "turn up and go" tipping point (even if that means inconveniencing passengers from London/ Birmingham/ Manchester?

 

[DanNCL]

Exactly this.


Not one that would take up an unreasonable amount of resources considering how minor it is. It’s one extra calling point on services that already have enough time in the schedules to allow for it, not an entirely new service squeezed in.


The “reason” is that one per two hours is the service it has had since the British Rail era and consecutive franchises have been given zero incentive by the DFT to improve it. Might be acceptable in the eyes of the treasury and the DFT, definitely isn’t an acceptable reason in the eyes of the public or indeed just about anyone that actually wants rail to do well.

Indeed, my father lived in Newcastle and worked in Chester-le-Street in LNER days, not long after WW2. From the stories he told he always got the bus,except one very hot day they were on strike and he nearly killed himself cycling in his suit! As a railway enthusiast I didn't know why he wouldn't have caught the train. Just looked up a 1947 Bradshaw and see there wasn't a good rail service back then either! He wouldn't have relied on it.

An hourly train service would make the train "more attractive", sure, but how much more frequent would it need to be to be properly attractive for a ten minute journey? More like the "every fifteen minutes" that the Metro provides for similar distanced journeys - an hourly train still wouldn't be anything like "turn up and go" for that distance.

That's the problem with places like Chester le Street (and Morley, Dore etc - "local" stations on "main" lines) - there's essentially no space for additional services or additional stops on the trains that zoom past, and the current frequency isn't good enough to attract people for a short journey to the nearest city (hourly would be fine for a long distance journey where you'd plan ahead but for a ten minute journey I'd want to turn up and go without needing to consult a timetable). If Chester le Street (or Morley/ Dore etc) was on its one branch line I'm sure it could sustain a good "metro" service - the X12/ X21 and 21 show that demand is there on the Durham - Chester le Street - Newcastle corridor - but one train per hour won't cut the mustard for such a short journey.

There's (obviously) no scope for a fifteen minute service at Chester le Street, so what do we do with it? Keep hoping that locals will wait around for a train every hour or two, and that there are spare seats on the long distance trains that must pick up calls there (since there are effectively no "local" trains on the line)? Force sufficient trains to stop there to reach a "turn up and go" tipping point (even if that means inconveniencing passengers from London/ Birmingham/ Manchester?

I have created a new thread for discussion about Chester-le-Street's service levels here.

 

[ItsGrimUpNorth]

Apologies if been asked already, but if the ECML Timetable is being put back a year, what will happen to the Northern proposals connected?

Assuming the same? Or will they go ahead regardless.

Thanks in advance anybody who can answer!

 

[HS2isgood]

I don't think they will go forward, they're all connected.

 

[ainsworth74]

On the basis that this timetable change has been postponed until at least May 2023 and in any event the consultations are now closed this thread is now locked. If anyone has anything substantive to add regarding the proposed new ECML timetable please feel free to report this post and the Forum Staff will look at re-opening. Otherwise please feel free to start a new thread to discuss any related topics or use existing threads where relevant.