This is subject to all the usual caveats. Nothing becomes official until 12 weeks before the timetable change.
An early edition of May 2020 timetable can be found at
http://www.railwaydata.co.uk/timetables/May20/timetable.php?table=83
As expected there are few major changes – those took place in December 2019. A few trains might run a couple of minutes earlier or later than at present.
There appear to be two significant changes.
There will be an earlier first train to Leeds on Monday to Saturday, at 0602 from Marsden and 0605 from Slaithwaite, which should help people needing to be in Leeds before 7am either for work or for a connecting train to King’s Cross. This is something which we had raised with TPE in relation to the December 2019 timetable changes.
Most of the hourly Manchester Piccadilly to Huddersfield stopping trains are to be extended to/from Wakefield Kirkgate. Possible explanations are:
- TPE may think there’s a market to be developed for direct trains between Manchester and Wakefield.
- It might be because platform 4 at Huddersfield is needed for something else so the trains need to be sent somewhere else to get them out of the way.
One of the questions we asked was whether extending these trains to & from Wakefield might impact on punctuality and reliability, but TPE do not feel this is a significant performance risk.
A repeat of the necessary caveat. This is only a draft. It may change and does not become official until 12 weeks before the new timetable comes into effect.