Friday 20 June 2014

Northern Rail and TransPennine Express franchise consultation

Early last week the Department for Transport released it's consultation on the new Northern Rail and TransPennine Express rail franchises, which contains some worrying proposals for the Humber Region. In summary:
  • If the Hull to Selby line is not electrified one of the service options proposed is a Hull to Leeds diesel shuttle service. There is no guarantee that through services to Manchester will be maintained. A separate proposal raises the possibility of linking Hull to the South TransPennine service which could be an alternative option for Manchester links. This is not guaranteed however.
  • A proposal is made to remove South Humberside from the TransPennine Express network. The new service pattern would be a TransPennine Express Doncaster to Manchester service and a Northern Rail Cleethorpes to Sheffield service. This would remove current through links to Manchester and Manchester Airport. What makes this proposal even more concerning is that the replacement Cleethorpes to Sheffield service could be an extension of the current Scunthorpe-Doncaster-Sheffield stopping service. This would increase journey times from Cleethorpes, Grimsby Town, Habrough and Barnetby and reduce Scunthorpe to Doncaster service frequency from two to one service per hour.
  • If TransPennine Express continued to serve Cleethorpes the Northern Rail Cleethorpes to Barton service would transfer to East Midlands Trains.
I have submitted my own response to the consultation. To submit your response read the consultation document and submit your consultation response via this link. The response deadline is 2345 on 18th August.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The consultation talks about changing one train per hour between Sheffield and Hull to TP-Express which will likely be an express service and make service to places like Saltmashe even worse.

Humber Transport said...

Until the specifications of the franchises are released we wont know for sure but I would have thought it would be the current Hull-Sheffield express that goes to TPE if that happens, with the Hull-Doncaster Northern stopper remaining, serving the smaller stations

Anonymous said...

..in addition the Don - Scun stopping trains are provided by inferior rolling stock (4 wheeled units)making the journey on this segment less comfortable in addition to less frequesnt and slower.

Anonymous said...

I find it odd that it shows passenger pie charts for Hull, Middlesbrough and other places. But it doesn't show what proportion of passengers from Cleethorpes or Grimsby goes where. And then they claim that they all go to Sheffield or Doncaster without evidence to back it up.
I bet tourists won't want to go to Cleethorpes on an overcrowded railbus in place of the current trains.
The train will stop at Mexborough, Consiborough, Swinton, Rotherham, Thorne, Althorpe, Crowle, Hatfield, Kirksandall, this must be a lot slower.
Rail magazine says it's to reduce subsidies by not running diesels as far.