“Long route to getting rail network in North back on track”

Posted on February 16, 2025 by admin

A front page story in the Yorkshire Post, plus an editorial and two pages of articles about the Transpennine Route Upgrade.

Some of it is behind a paywall, but for the YP it’s possible to pay for individual articles without a full subscription.

There is some interesting stuff in these articles, plus a bit of the unwarranted self-congratulation which has characterised government and Network Rail pronouncements about TRU and its various predecessor acronyms over many years.

£11.5bn plan ‘will give North a rail network to rival Elizabeth line’

Long route to getting rail network in North back on track

TransPennine Route Upgrade shows North can deliver major rail projects

TransPennine Route Upgrade will see North’s potential unleashed – Heidi Alexander

TransPennine Route Upgrade is to be applauded but work needed to restore confidence in the region’s railway network

and the letter we were prompted to send to the Yorkshire Post in response

Communities like Slaithwaite have not been consulted properly over the Transpennine Route Upgrade – Yorkshire Post Letters

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What do we want the Transpennine Route Upgrade to deliver for us?

Posted on February 3, 2025 by admin

Slaithwaite and Marsden Action on Rail Transport has just launched a survey of rail users in the area – which can be found at the link below – as we want to gather views on

i) the recent timetable change which removed a direct Leeds service for the first time in years; and

ii) what people would like to see prioritised as part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade which will be looking to rebuild our stations in the coming years.

We are concerned that these big decisions are being taken with little engagement with local people or businesses despite the disruption and significant impact on passengers.

The survey will close in 2 weeks at 5pm on Sunday 16th February 2025.

Please ask if any questions and share with others who you think will be interested.

Link to survey: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdYidm6I09YqpVbnE9Ymhz71yCGFKfL4R_W0oHrPxFIk7dmhQ/viewform

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Timetable Changes, Monday 6th to Friday 10th January

Posted on January 4, 2025 by admin

During the week 6 to 10 January 2025 there will be some significant changes from the published timetable, affecting Slaithwaite and Marsden.

There will be no train to Manchester Piccadilly at Slaithwaite 0804 & Marsden 0808. However, there will be one to Victoria at Slaithwaite 0743 & Marsden 0747. Some of the timings of other trains may change by a few minutes.

There also appear to be fewer trains, with nothing towards Huddersfield between about 0700 and 0800 from Marsden. There is no 1700 from Piccadilly this week, which is normally one of the busiest trains. TPE’s Managing Director has, on several occasions, publicly identified Manchester to Stalybridge at peak times as an overcrowding hotspot, so it’s astonishing that this should have been done seemingly without realising that (1) it makes an existing problem worse; (2) the passengers affected need to be forewarned.

There are also some fairly comprehensive daytime changes, with the daytime stopping service in both directions being on the opposite half hour from the published timetable.

These changes only appear in journey planners, so we recommend checking against a journey planner rather than getting a nasty surprise when the train you intended to catch ends up being retimed. 

We have been prepared to credit TPE when they have got things right. On this occasion they have got things badly wrong.

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Weekend engineering works & bus replacement throughout January 2025

Posted on January 2, 2025 by admin

Weekend engineering works & bus replacement throughout January 2025.

👷On weekends between Saturday 4 January – Sunday 9 February, engineering work will take place between Mossley and Deighton.

🚧As a result, no trains will be able to call at Huddersfield.

A bus replacement service Huddersfield – Slaithwaite – Marsden – Greenfield – Mossley – Stalybridge will be running every 30 minutes in both directions. Estimated total journey time: 65 minutes. Timetable link is here https://timetables.tpexpress.co.uk/#/timetables/3278/Table%202

In their publicity the TRU project are illustrating with some clever pictures of two men in orange overalls carrying a very large pencil, a toy digger, a man in orange next to a giant traffic cone, and a giant tape measure.

We suggested that the giant tape measure didn’t do them any favours, as it resembled a snail to remind people of how slowly this project has progressed in the 13 years since it was announced.

Posted in Marsden, Slaithwaite, Transpennine Express, Transpennine Route Upgrade, weekend rail services | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment