Local train services in Manchester set for cutbacks.

[hstudent]

The following is a summarised local newspaper article, I can't find a URL that gives the level of detail below:

Virgin Trains are set to run 3 Manchester to London trains per hour from next year. To accommodate this, the following changes will have to made to existing local morning PEAK services:

Buxton to Manchester/Blackpool: Currently a half hourly service to Manchester with alternate trains continuing to Blackpool. This will become a half hourly service to Stockport with alternate trains continuing to Manchester and Blackpool.

Hazel Grove to Manchester: Currently a half hourly service to Manchester, in addition to the Buxton service which also serves Hazel Grove. This will become a half hourly service to Stockport with alternate trains continuing to Manchester.

Chester to Manchester via Stockport: Currently a half hourly service to Manchester. This will become a half hourly service to Stockport with alternate trains continuing to Manchester.

Macclesfield to Manchester: Currently a local service to Manchester about every 20 minutes, in addition to Cross Country and Virgin Trains services serving Macclesfield. This will become a local service every 20 minutes to Stockport with alternate trains continuing to Manchester.

Crewe to Manchester: Currently an inconsistent peak service via two routes, which will also see about half the local trains terminating at Stockport.

Evening peak trains would be the reserve of the above.

Rail User Groups are encouraging people to write to their MP and GMPTE opposing the above cuts as it is likely many Manchester trains will be too crowded to accommodate all the people who wish to travel on them.

[swisstrains]

When is the Office of Rail Regulation and Network Rail going to realise that the railways are a public transport system and not just a means for business travellers to get to and from London. Once again it's Virgin being given priority to enable them to compete with the airlines at the expense of everyone else.

[hstudent]

There are also plans to increase the Liverpool to London service and the Chester to London but I haven't heard anything to suggest that other services, such as Liverpool to Birmingham or Chester to Llandundno/Holyhead could be cut back.

If the Manchester proposal goes ahead and London trains continue to pick up or set down only at Stockport, then how crowded will the trains be between Manchester and Stcokport?

[Resolution]

Well, my view is that "Rail" should never have been privatised......... it's a National Strategic Asset and should be run by the Government for strategic reasons, not...for the profit or wims of a private Company.

The chickens are coming home to roost in my opinion after many years...nay, decades.

Whatever customers you drive away from rail, will go to the roads....and we all know where that's going. If you increase the price of road travel through what seems to be a broad political concensus these days, the private rail companies will then: "see a market opportunity to increase their prices to match!"....................It's Madness!

[Trev]

Originally Posted by Resolution

Well, my view is that "Rail" should never have been privatised......... it's a National Strategic Asset and should be run by the Government for strategic reasons, not...for the profit or wims of a private Company.

I agree with you 100%.

All the bad things about British Rail that privatisation was supposed to alleviate were brought about by one thing...chronic underfunding.

[martin adamson]

Will Stockport be upgraded to accommodate all of these terminting trains. Possibly see platform 0 put into good use.

[hstudent]

Originally Posted by David A Hicks

Will Stockport be upgraded to accommodate all of these terminting trains. Possibly see platform 0 put into good use.

It will need a bay at the south end of platforms 3 and 4, otherwise it would be pointless having trains from Chester terminating at Stockport, as they would still cross the paths in to platforms 3 and 2 (which London trains use) when they are shunting between services.

[hstudent]

Forgot to put on my previous post:

Platform 0 at Stockport won't be put in to good use just by trains terminating at Stockport as it would only likely happen between 7:00 and 9:30 and 16:30 and 18:30.

There's also a lot of expense that will be involved in building new platforms, adjustments to the tracks and very expensive new express trains, meaning it's unlikely the government will give money for new local trains.

[Foghut]

Originally Posted by Resolution

Well, my view is that "Rail" should never have been privatised......... it's a National Strategic Asset and should be run by the Government for strategic reasons, not...for the profit or wims of a private Company.

<Rant mode> I fully agree that the Railway should be run for the benefit of its users (both passengers and freight) but the whole trouble is that the Railway is being run by the Government, that's why it's so crap. Just like in the Health Service, it's ignorant and arrogant Civil Servants and Ministers (via the ORR) who make the decisions like who has the rolling stock, which lines will be upgraded, which TOCs get the pathways (remember the GNER fiasco), etc etc - whilst the professional railway managers have their hands tied.

What we want is far less interference from Whitehall, not more. As was stated above....what the railway needed in 1996 was financial support, sadly what it got was political meddling.

Unqualified wasters who couldn't run a bath have seized control and are dithering over the important decisions that need to be made. Look at the pathetic mess they made of the ECML electrification; everytime the wind blows off the North Sea the wires come down. Similarly now that CTRL is complete we could be getting their hardware and skillbase at an unrepeatable bargain price to create HS2 - but just watch the chance slip away.

And speaking of money, I'm saddened that so many people on here who ought to know better don't seem to realise that Train Operating Companies are compelled to make massive annual fare hikes because the terms of their fanchises require them to pay an increasing amount each year to the Treasury. What starts as a subsidy in the first year of the franchise eventually becomes a massive repayment. And the extra money that passengers pay each year goes straight into Government coffers, not infrastructure improvements. It's yet another way of taxing the people of this country.

I'm afraid that historians will look back on this period and see how the incompetence and greed of the Treasury ruined most of the Public facilities in this country. </Rant mode>

[hstudent]

But ALL TOCs have to pay that, not just Virgin. I doubt Northern or Transpennine Express could get extra new trains to run a more frequent Manchester to Preston/Blackpool service, which gets a lot more overcrowded than Manchester to London services currently do.

MPs use Manchester to London via Wilmslow services (which is the route which will get most of the extra trains) and under normal circumstances make onward travel to towns like Alderley Edge, Knutsford and Altrincham by taxi, rather than using a local train. Maybe if a local train or bus service was going to be axed or made infrequent then MPs would be seen using it.