There is a slight variation on the option Conductor suggests if the unit that should have done the Stockport-Chester can be sent to Piccadilly. Two of the three units left at platform 5 at Piccadilly could be used for the 17:09 Chester service and the unit for the Stockport-Chester could be attached to the remaining one for the 17:23 Chinley via Hazel Grove service, giving a bit longer for the unit to reach Piccadilly.

Obviously the best solution is for the empty train to not run to Stockport if no guard is available. What’s actually the longest the unit could stay there if a guard is available but he/she misses the Alderley Edge service that the guard usually gets to Stockport?

From the Northern Twitter feed it seems that some of the crew shortages are due to errors in the Rostering opposed to there actually being an insufficient number of crews.

Empties to Chester is the usual option. Although it has been known for trains to go onto the single line at Cheadle to reverse back into Stockport. Pathing is a major issue as we all know in peak time from Stockport to Manchester. I doubt that a path could be created to get the unit into Manchester for the 1707. There is also a severe lack of time too.

Sometimes the cancellation is preplanned before the unit has even left Newton Heath because there is always a chance that train crew can be found last minute which does frequently happen.

The 16:58 Stockport to Chester is also a good example of a service which gets quite a few cancellations due to crew shortages. To make matters worse if it’s a conductor shortage the train can actually turn up at platform 2 at Stockport and then leave the platform at the correct time not-in-service and run empty towards Northenden, so the train is being wasted rather than being available to strengthen another service or to fill in for a failed train elsewhere.

I’ve purchased print@home tickets for use on trains in Spain, Italy and Germany and each time have printed them on A4 paper and this has never caused an issue as there weren’t any ticket barriers in the way. Also unlike UK tickets you can get print@home tickets without being restricted to a specific train or requiring a seat reservation with ticket inspectors either using a hand held gadget or asking for identification to prevent ticket misuse.

While automated ticket barriers are used in some EU countries they seem to be restricted to commuter and underground services e.g. the RER and Metro in Paris.

But the most serious problem is the lack of access to non rail-users – “meeters and greeters”, rail enthusiasts or those just wanting to use retail facilities. Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Sheffield stations all have well-known pubs which have access from both the street and the platform. Huddersfield is having gates installed. Does this mean that the pub doors onto the platform will remain locked? If so, this will mean loss of income from passengers changing trains and wanting to pop in for a pint as they will have to exit via the gates, making a “break of journey” – and not all tickets allow this. If gates are to become widespread, then we MUST have platform tickets as we did in the past before British Rail introduced their “open station” policy which, if I recall, was to save staffing costs and elininate the duplication of retail facilities!

Most of the rest of Europe follows an “open station” policy and no doubt they have effective ways of collecting their revenue, i.e. more effective enforcement on the trains backed up by spot checks on the platform at peak times.

Geoff Kerr
Todmorden

The bad news is that our PPM has dropped a further percentage point to 87.83%, the worst for well over 4 years. There also seems to be a worrying trend of traincrew shortages increasing.

The good news is that (at last!) we have the extra 3 minutes SRT dwell times requested coming into the timetable from 19 May, though not for all Chester-bound trains. Given that the SRT issues are making up around 25% of incidents, from 2013/14 Period 3 we should see the PPM starting to climb again back towards the 91.57% it was in February 2011.

Since we’re now into a new Railway financial year, I’ll start a new Blog post for the next set of figures.

“TRAVEL BY PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Knutsford Railway Station is situated approximately half a mile from the Knutsford entrance to Tatton Park. You can walk in through the main gates and down the estate drive (2 miles from the Station) to the Cycletta Village and event start area. Unfortunately the earliest train arriving at Knutsford Station gets in too late to start the event but any spectators looking to arrive after the event starts could use this option.”