“Public consultation opens on TRU Stalybridge to Saddleworth plans”

[from Network Rail press release, 16 September 2024]

Images have been released showing the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) changes coming to the railway and stations between Stalybridge tunnel and Diggle (Saddleworth).

The public consultation on this area of the route is now open and will close on 25 October 2024. A virtual consultation room and feedback form is available at www.networkrail.co.uk/stalybridgetodiggle.  

Further images show the relocated Mossley station, and the upgraded Greenfield station. Both will see accessibility improvements for the first time in their history. 

Images have also been released of how overhead line equipment (OLE) will be sensitively installed on the historic Uppermill Viaduct, also known as Saddleworth Viaduct. The locations of the OLE masts have been considerately designed to avoid the most visible areas of the viaduct where possible. 

Oldham Road Bridge (next to Greenfield station) will be reconstructed by TRU, to facilitate the installation of OLE and to allow larger freight trains to pass through. New images show a footbridge is to be constructed from Oldham Road to Shaw Hall Bank Road adjacent to the existing Oldham Road Bridge. This will separate pedestrians from traffic and improve safety. 

Alongside the online public consultation, there will be three in-person drop-in events to view the plans and speak with TRU staff: 

18 September 2024 3pm-8pm St Peters RC Church, 119 Brierley Street, Stalybridge SK15 2E 

19 September 2024 3pm-8pm Saddleworth Rangers RLFC, Shaw Hall Bank Road, Greenfield OL3 7LD 

20 September 2024 3pm-8pm Mossley Methodist Church, Chapel Street, Mossley OL5 0EX 

This consultation does not appear to be aimed at passengers, and is limited in its scope.

Network Rail state that:

“The Transpennine Route Upgrade wants to take the public with us on this transformational journey for rail in the North of England. Our proposals from Stalybridge to Diggle will bring substantial benefits to rail passengers and businesses in this area.”

So what are the “substantial benefits to rail passengers and businesses in this area”? Nothing in this consultation attempts to answer that question. How can they expect to “take the public with them” when they don’t say what the scheme will deliver for the travelling public?

The most obvious question, of what the completed scheme will deliver for these communities, doesn’t feature in this “consultation”.

Whenever we ask whether it will deliver a more frequent stopping service “for rail passengers and businesses in this area” Network Rail either pretend the question was never asked, or offer the wording “up to two trains per hour”, which is meaningless and may even represent a reduction from the present inadequate service.

Quite clearly this is not a topic which Network Rail think might be important in the context of development of rail infrastructure projects.

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Timetable Changes from December 2024 – the end of through trains between Marsden/Slaithwaite & Leeds

The next national rail timetable change date is Sunday 15 December 2024.


The most significant change in December will be TransPennine Express’s year-long temporary reduced timetable coming to an end, meaning the following changes in
service levels on routes serving West Yorkshire:

  • There will be four fast trains per hour between Leeds and Manchester Victoria via
    Huddersfield (as against two at present), on regular clockface patterns (00, 15, 30
    and 45 minutes past each hour from Leeds).
  • The York – Castleford – Wakefield – Huddersfield – Manchester Piccadilly service,
    introduced in December 2023 and currently operating six times per day, but not
    evenings or Sundays), will increase to operating every hour all day including
    evenings and Sundays. This provides the hourly stopping service between Huddersfield and Manchester calling at Slaithwaite & Marsden.
  • The additional trains providing a half hourly service at Marsden and Slaithwaite at peak times will run between Huddersfield and Manchester Piccadilly only. These additional trains will also run on Saturdays.
  • Leeds – Dewsbury – Huddersfield stopping service. Every other train (i.e. every two hours) will be a TPE train, with the alternate train being Northern.
  • Plus point: service restored to half hourly at peak times on Saturdays
  • Minus point: No though trains between Marsden/Slaithwaite and Leeds at peak times. Whilst there will be cross-platform or same-platform interchange at Huddersfield, it’s less satisfactory than a through service changing from a train where Marsden/Slaithwaite passengers can get a seat on to another train where they might not get a seat. Likewise there will be no through services from Leeds in the evening peak. Some passengers might regard this as no inconvenience at all or a minor inconvenience. Others might take a less relaxed view of this change. SMART does not feel it is our place to tell passengers affected that it is of no consequence. As far as we can establish, this will be the first time since Slaithwaite station was reopened in 1982 that there will be not a single through train between Marsden/Slaithwaite & Leeds.
Posted in Marsden, Slaithwaite, timetable changes, Transpennine Express | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

After 25 years of vague promises, we want definite commitments

As a rail users’ group at the midpoint between Leeds and Manchester, we have followed the stop-start (but mostly stop) progress of the Transpennine Route Upgrade and all of its previous incarnations with great interest, and argued for outcomes which would bring improvements for our communities.

We go back further than the 2011 announcement of electrification in the 2011 Autumn Statement.

A public meeting took place in Marsden in October 1999, at which Railtrack (as was) set out the capacity constraints and limitations of the Manchester to Leeds via Standedge route, and proposed some enhancements which would address those constraints. This, for the first time, held out the prospect that our hourly stopping service with additional trains in the peaks could be enhanced to half-hourly. Glossy brochures were handed out.

Fast forward almost a quarter of a century to the present day, and very little of the route has been enhanced, and we are still to discover not just when, but whether, TRU will deliver those two stopping trains per hour.

Over recent years, we have experienced an unreliable and infrequent stopping service, culminating in the infamous May 2018 timetable which could only have been designed by someone with zero knowledge of commuting patterns along the route. It was so bad that our MPs arranged in December 2018 for the rail user groups covering Mossley, Greenfield, Marsden and Slaithwaite to meet in person with the then Secretary of State Chris Grayling. At the end of that meeting we asked him whether TRU would deliver our aspiration of two stopping trains per hour. He said he didn’t know but would find out.

In spite of constantly asking the same simple question, neither he nor any of his successors, nor Network Rail nor anyone else in the railway industry has been prepared to give an answer. The only response that we are given is that it will deliver “up to two stopping trains per hour”, which is meaningless and may even allow a reduction from the current inadequate service. Not only that, but we have been told that improving the stopping service is at the bottom of the list of priorities, behind an increase in the number of (already frequent) expresses and semi fasts and freight services. It is clear that if any descoping is to take place, it will be to the detriment of communities like ours.

This has added resonance now that works have started at other locations along the route but causing disruption at our stations. Last Spring the route was blocked at Stalybridge for a month, condemning commuters at Mossley, Greenfield, Marsden & Slaithwaite to bus replacement tripling their daily commute times. Throughout the rest of 2023 and 2024 to date, there have been weekend and weekday closures because of works at Stalybridge and at and to the east of Huddersfield.

It is not unreasonable for passengers and residents in our communities to ask what we will get in return for all the disruption which started more than a year ago and for which no end date has been set. We are not asking for anything more than most routes in the Leeds and Manchester city regions already take for granted.

Yet we are repeatedly met by a refusal to answer that simple question.

One of the proposals which currently forms part of TRU is the provision of a third track between Huddersfield and Marsden, partly for freight but also to enable fast trains to overtake stopping trains. We regard this as essential to resilience and the ability to meet the modest aspirations of the communities along the route for a more frequent stopping service.

We share concerns that the key section between Stalybridge to Huddersfield is even now only at an early stage of design, with the risk that it could be descoped. We will not, however, be fobbed off by a bit of public relations fluff. We have waited long enough for TRU (and its various predecessor acronyms) to deliver for our communities, and have no intention of settling for something which is at best the same as we currently have and potentially worse.

[A slightly amended version of this first appeared as an article in Railwatch 180, May 2024. It was originally intended as a letter in response to an article by Alan Whitehouse in Railwatch 179, but it ended up far longer than a typical letter. Alan Whitehouse (Railwatch 179, April 2024 rw175test (railwatch.org.uk) ) provided a comprehensive narrative of the stop-start (but mostly stop) nature of the Transpennine Route Upgrade and all of its previous incarnations.]

Posted in Campaigning, Marsden, Northern Hub, Slaithwaite, Transpennine Route Upgrade | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Media coverage of TPE, Six Months On

Six months on from Transpennine Express being taken back into public control (and yes, we know that the Department for Transport had quite a lot of control even before that date), some press and media coverage of the Huddersfield to Manchester service and of Huddersfield being the worst station in the entire country for cancellations.

[Whether Huddersfield actually is the worst station in the entire country for cancellations depends on how it is measured – over what time period, is it just the 500 busiest stations being looked at, are “P-coded” trains (pre-cancelled the night before) included and is it the percentage of cancellations or the total number or something which takes account of both. ]

First, Sky News

Train network: What it’s like travelling on some of the worst rail routes for delays and cancellations | UK News | Sky News

‘Unreliability is creeping up’: What it’s like travelling on some of the worst rail routes – YouTube

Train network: ‘It’s getting worse at the moment, the unreliability is creeping up again’ – YouTube

Also, The Observer

‘It’s chaos’: ruined plans, lost hours at UK’s worst station for cancelled trains | Rail industry | The Guardian

Maybe some other media outlets will be covering roughly the same areas in the next week or so.

Posted in Huddersfield Railway Station, Transpennine Express | Tagged , | Leave a comment