SMART

Number of cancellations

The high number of cancellations at the beginning coincides with the May 2018 timetable which fell apart on day 1 and never recovered.

In December 2018, the splitting of the Manchester to Leeds stopping service at Huddersfield and transfer of Slaithwaite to that stopping service led to a reduction in the number of cancellations from an average of 32 to an average of 3.

The May 2019 timetable changes initially saw little change. The spike in the number of cancellations coincided with weather events, but in the Autumn there has been a significant increase in the number of cancellations. Whilst it’s normal for performance to deteriorate in Autumn, this appears to be largely down to driver shortages, which is something which is within TPEs control and ought not to happen.

Whilst there is a trade-off between staff training on new routes and new rolling stock, the trade off is being made at our expense (and at the expense of Scarborough passengers who have been seeing up to half of their services cancelled on a regular basis), it’s a trade off at the expense of passengers and not acceptable.

Whilst the restoration of a half-hourly peak service from the December 2019 timetable change has to be a good thing, it depends on TPEs ability to actually operate that timetable. Their recent past record does not inspire confidence.

But at least if one is cancelled during the peak period it should only be a half-hour wait until the next one, a comment which perhaps reflects TPEs success in lowering passenger expectations.

What ought to be a good news story in our area – the restoration of the half-hourly peak service at Slaithwaite & Marsden which existed from 1990 until May 2018 – turned into a farce by the inability of TransPennine Express to provide sufficient staff to operate the new timetable.

BBC article follows, below

Rail commuters in the north of England have been hit by cancellations and delays as new winter timetables were launched.

Northern had cancelled 19 trains by 10:00 GMT and 31 were delayed, which it said was down to “operational issues” rather than the timetable change.

Transpennine Express also cancelled 29 services on Monday morning.

The issues largely affected commuters in Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside.

Transpennine Express services hit included those linking Manchester Airport with Edinburgh and Newcastle, and trains from Liverpool Lime Street to Scarborough.

The firm’s managing director Leo Goodwin said he was “really sorry” for the disruption to customers at such a busy time of year.

He said: “Due to a number of issues with crew training caused by the late delivery of some of our new trains, along with a maintenance backlog and some infrastructure issues we have had to implement a temporary timetable, cancelling some journeys along one of our routes.”

Northern services which were affected were between Blackpool North and Manchester Airport, from Leeds to York and Sheffield, and Darlington to Saltburn.

A spokesperson for the rail firm said:

“Very few of our services have seen any changes as a result of the timetable coming in.

“The small number of delays and cancellations are due to operational issues including driver sickness, signalling failure and train faults.”

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said rail issues had “gone on far too long” and called for Northern to be stripped of its franchise.

“If the government is serious about supporting the north, then it needs to show it by acting this week to sort out our failing rail services,” he said.

“As a first step, it should strip Northern of its franchise. That would send a clear signal to all rail operators – notably Transpennine Express – that we will not accept a second-class rail service for people in the North.

“If Transpennine Express fail to respond to that message, they should be next.”

The National Rail timetable is changed in May and December each year.

Northern had said the new timetable would see 50 new trains being introduced across its services.

In October, fewer than half of Northern rail services ran on time, the firm’s figures showed.

Cancellations were also at their highest level since July and August.

The operator had said the changes in its new winter timetable would focus on “reliability and stability” and add to the services each week.

Transpennine is running a pre-planned temporary reduced timetable on some routes as a maintenance backlog and infrastructure problems have delayed staff training on new trains.

Its managing director Mr Goodwin said as new trains were introduced improvements to services would be made.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of watchdog Transport Focus, said:

“Passengers don’t care what causes the disruption – they just want things running again as soon as possible, and plenty of visible staff on hand to help them in the meantime.

“Train operators should ensure every eligible passenger knows how to claim compensation so that they get the money they are entitled to.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-50807987

The new timetable has now been published and Slaithwaite and Marsden will see significant improvements to peak train services in the December 2019 timetable.

Since the May 2018 timetable fiasco SMART along with our colleagues from Mossley & Greenfield have met with TfGM, WYCA, Transport for the North (TfN), TransPennine-Express and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, and took our concerns direct to the then Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling.

Indeed, we had been talking to some of these organisations as far back as 2011 to set out our concerns about what the May 2018 timetable pattern would mean for Slaithwaite, Marsden, Greenfield and Mossley.

TPE and TfN have listened to our concerns, and understood why things needed to change, and the result is a new timetable from December 2019 which will deliver:-

• An equal interval half-hourly peak service to Manchester Piccadilly and the reinstatement of the half-hourly peak stopping service to Huddersfield, restoring the frequency which existed for 30 years until the May 2018 timetable change.
• an hourly peak service direct to and from Leeds.
• The end of the failed experiment of the skip-stopping service, so there will again be direct trains between Greenfield, Mossley, Marsden and Slaithwaite.
• A later last train from Manchester at 23:35 and from Leeds at 23:05, seven days a week.
• Earlier first Sunday morning trains.

It involves changes which the railway industry spent the past seven years insisting were impossible.

There’s a strange anomaly in that Northern will continue to manage both Slaithwaite & Marsden stations, even though none of their trains will call at either station.

For historical reasons which no longer make much sense, there’s more than one timetable showing train services at stations between Stalybridge and Huddersfield. Northern’s version of the new timetable, or at least that past of it between Manchester and Huddersfield, is online at https://d2cf7kiw5xizhy.cloudfront.net/images/timetables/2019-10/dec-may-timetables/Northern_25_booklet_1219_24pp.pdf. This is the only version of the timetable to show connecting services to Manchester Victoria.

TPE has published a timetable showing trains at all intermediate stations between Manchester and Leeds. They have also published a much larger timetable, showing all their services on the North Transpennine Route between Liverpool/Manchester and Leeds/Hull/ Scarborough/York/Middlesbrough/Newcastle. Link is https://www.tpexpress.co.uk/travel-updates/timetables

There’s one unexpected downside, which is that the first weekday eastbound train is approximately 20 minutes later than at present. Since May 2014 this was at 0614 from Marsden, in May 2018 this changed to 0610. From 15th December 2019 this will be 0630 from Marsden. TPE acknowledge that there are passengers who will be inconvenienced by this, but acknowledging an issue is only the first step towards finding a solution. SMART made a suggestion which we thought could provide a solution, but we have been given reasons why our suggested solution can’t be implemented at present. We will continue to make the case for an eastbound train giving an arrival time in Leeds before 7am.