England, History, HS2, Improvements, Lancaster, Manchester, Northern Rail, Preston, Stations, Trains, Transpennine Express, West Coast
In Incidents, Observations, Suggestions, Trains on October 19, 2009 at 2:08 pm
A Saturday outing to the western end of the Yorkshire Dales had me travelling around by Lancaster and that meant my train journey was set to take in the striking bottleneck that is the Manchester Piccadilly-Oxford Road-Deansgate-Salford line. While I had admit that it may be a difficult and expensive thing to do but the restrictive approach to Manchester Piccadilly always amazes me. It is, I think, a consequence of history in that it is a hangover from a time when Manchester had more termini than it does now. For instance, what is now the Museum of Science and Technology was once the terminus for the Manchester and Liverpool railway right back at the start of the railway revolution. Then, there was Manchester Central and that train shed has become G-Mex. Manchester Victoria was the terminus of choice of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway company, a map of whose network still adorns its walls. These days it seems underused with its better western connections but it is a mile away from Piccadilly so I suppose that makes it less convenient for some though its situation next to the Arndale Centre is more central than that of Piccadilly.
What reminded me of all of this was a 20-30 minute delay that afflicted the 07:54 Northern stopping service to Preston. My plan was to use the 08:15 Transpennine Express departure that was to follow it but I tend to use what is at hand rather than sticking rigidly to plans; in fact, my train was retarded so as not to delay the progress of that 08:15. The cause of the disruption was a fright train in difficulty, not a good thing to have on the line between Piccadilly and Oxford Road. Though it may prove expensive and disruptive, I would like to see quadrification of the through line from Piccadilly. In reality, we are probably more likely to get an HS2 rather than this kind of meaningful advance. Small changes that don’t arouse much in the way of excitement are less likely when there is cash about than the shiny one.
CrossCountry, England, Megabus, National Express, Railways, Scotland, Trains, Transpennine Express, Virgin, West Coast
In Happenings, News, Timetables, Trains on March 12, 2009 at 4:06 pm
My run in with the West Coast Mainline Upgrade saga is probably worthy of a longer post but it seems that it is still continuing as much as ever and that’s in spite of their celebrating the end of things not so long ago. Thankfully, Macclesfield is being spared by the latest attentions but weekend engineering works continue apace between Lancaster and Lockerbie and the journey suggestions supply by the National Rail journey planner for Saturday and Sunday travel can send you around by the more expensive East Coast Mainline, or even via Birmingham if you try Macclesfield as your starting point like I did when I went experimenting. Currently, the idea of a day out among the Lakeland fells remains stillborn and that appears to be the case until the end of the month. As if that weren’t enough, works between Lockerbie and the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh are to extend the disruption to Anglo-Scottish services into next month and beyond. It’s enough to make you consider going by coach instead and neither National Express or Megabus seem not to have made the running with what is taking place; they might need the business in these depressed times. Let’s hope that the railway works get scaled back to a reasonable level, without compromising safety, sooner rather than later to let us all travel in peace. That would be a change for good but I’m not holding my breath just yet.
Birmingham, Cheshire, CrossCountry, England, London, Macclesfield, Manchester, Northern Rail, Stoke-on-Trent, Timetables, Trains, Virgin, West Coast
In News, Timetables, Trains on December 14, 2008 at 6:57 pm
The massive reorganisation that is the new train timetable changeover hasn’t too kind to Macclesfield. It might not sound so bad to hear that we have been left with three an hour in each direction but it’s the timings that disappoint me, even if the frequency is a cut from that which we have been enjoying for a while now. What is the matter is that Virgin and CrossCountry don’t seem to have worked together to get their times in the hour better separated.
The main pattern for weekday service from Manchester is 27, 35 and 48 minutes past the hour. The CrossCountry in the 27 departure and the 35 is the Virgin one while the 48 is Northern Rail’s local stopping service that now goes all the way to Stoke-on-Trent, not necessarily a bad thing since it opens some new destinations for Macclesfield folk.
Sundays see the same sort of thinking about which I have already complained on my hillwalking blog, especially with the timings of the local stopping service; the TSO timetable had more services listed but these have since turned out to be a work of fiction. Until March 29th, Virgin and CrossCountry do well when keeping their Sunday services to different parts of the hour but this is forgotten on the date in question and both services end up so close together as make it laughable to suggest that Macclesfield is getting any more than an hourly service
This is the sort of thing that makes you want to go to a central timetabling authority to complain but there appears to be none so it’s a case of contacting each operator. Maybe, Passenger Focus might be able to provide some help if no satisfactory response is forthcoming from either of the companies in question. Our local MP is said to have “intervened” but, like a lot of places where he has stuck in his oar, it doesn’t seem to have the desired effect and we have been left with the less than ideal situation that we now face. It probably needs someone else to make an effort…
Birmingham, Chester, CrossCountry, Edinburgh, England, Glasgow, Holyhead, Manchester, Preston, Scotland, Super Voyager, Transpennine Express, Virgin, West Coast
In News, Suggestions, Trains on November 18, 2008 at 8:17 am
The weekend that’s just gone featured a return journey from Scotland that had me a Virgin Super Voyager between Glasgow and Preston. Even after the loss of the CrossCountry franchise, Virgin has retained some of its Voyagers, the ones with tilting capability for 125 MPH running, for use as part of its remaining West Coast franchise. These tend to be used for workings that include Birmingham to Glasgow and Edinburgh together with London to Chester and Holyhead.
They have been talking been talking about refurbishing these train interiors so that the travelling public would know if they were on a Pendolino or a Super Voyager and I seem to have come upon the results of those changes. I may be a reader of Rail magazine but, only for the normal traveller not caring so much for such things, I would not be so sure that they are succeeding that well if what I saw was any guide. The coach in which I was travelling had no airline style seating with at table seating everywhere. Taking a cue form the said Pendolinos, those tables did have retractable table tops but they were sliding rather than flip-up. That made for a two-tier table top that may not be to the taste of everyone but I was unperturbed. You also seem to sit higher too and there are no seats that aren’t next to a window. In fact, any gaps forced by this layout are left there to be used for luggage storage, a very useful way of doing it. That’s not to say that Super Voyagers will become devoid of airline seating because a quick look into other carriages while changing train and platform in Preston revealed one coach with only that style of seating, if my eyes didn’t go and deceive me (we all know what can happen).
My experience of travelling in the refurbished trains left me with no displeasure so I must rather like what they have done. The old interiors were getting rather tired anyway after their seven or so years of use. it remains to be seen what CrossCountry do with their Voyagers but I’m not sure that their actions would be the most positive of developments with their replacement of the shop/buffet with a trolley in combination with increases in seating capacity. Another possibility that comes to mind is the addition of Manchester-Scotland runs to the West Coast franchise to remove the three-carriage sources of discontent that Transpennine Express has inflicted on the travelling public from time to time. All in all, Virgin’s Super Voyager refurbishment is a reminder of a reasonable if imperfect operator that i would like to see continue to ply their various ways on Britain’s railways and maybe even return to haunts as of now unfrequented by their flair.
Arriva, CrossCountry, First, Keolis, Trains, Transpennine Express, Virgin, West Coast
In Trains on November 2, 2008 at 11:21 am
Transpennine Express is a train company that you could see mentioned here a lot. It just so happens that I was on one of their trains yesterday morning and in a carriage where there was no heating. It’s not exactly warm in the U.K. right now so having no heating meant that the Polartec fleece that I had on me came in very handy and I also had a down jacket in my rucksack that could have been used too if the need arose. To be fair about this, heating can fail even on very new trains like the one on which I was travelling. Older ones can be similarly afflicted too of course, like the one on which I was coming home to Edinburgh (where I lived at the time) from Coventry after a long taxing day at a selection centre for a certain large multinational IT services company. That was a good few years ago and those trains were subsequently replaced with Voyagers by Virgin Crosscountry and they still ply the U.K.’s tracks at the behest of Arriva’s CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast.
