Atomic Systems

Haha, we still have Regional Railways logo and liveries on our stations...

The stations on the Southport/Kirkby-Wigan Wallgate lines still have Regional Railways signs, but some also have GMPTE logos. Garswood has a mix of Merseyrail and RR signs.

Rob

skipperdipper wrote:The stations on the Southport/Kirkby-Wigan Wallgate lines still have Regional Railways signs, but some also have GMPTE logos. Garswood has a mix of Merseyrail and RR signs.

Rob

Ormskirk to Preston still has Network Northwest signs!

Northern seem completely incapable of running any trains out of Blackpool North between 5pm and 6.30pm!!!
Every time I turn up at Poulton to get a train into manchester I find everything is being turned round at Preston.
Waited 1h 40 for a train the other week.
That aint good enough.
When you ask what the problem is they say trains are terminating short of Blackpool due to late running.
Last two times I asked what was causing late running I was told it was due to high volumes of passengers causing long dwell times.
It seems Northern (and TPX) for that matter, can run trains on time as long as there are no people on them!
It seems totally crazy to me to leave a branch completely without service for more than 90 minutes.
That kind of . wouldn't be tollerated in the London commuter belt, the only part of the country the DfT rail group seems to give a monkeys ball about!
I don't want FNW back, I don't want Arriva back...
I certainly don't want Northern with their disgusting livery, dirty interiors, unmotivated crews and bare minimum service.

Regional Railways North West - come back!

Amen to that!

No repaint for 158793, it was out in the Doncaster area yesterday in full branded Central Trains livery!

Theres also a rumour that Northern could be handed over to the DfT in October, just like SET?

Rob

Would that be a good or a bad thing?

Northern once stranded an elderly couple at Church Fenton (and it would not have taken much brains to give them sensible advice that would have got them to their destination instead of stranding them). Fortunately we were there to help them, but the attitude from Northern was poor.

Northern fail to connect with themselves, let alone other operators

I've also known trains be abandoned by guards at Leeds for over 20 mins, with no word from anyone.

And they reduced capacity on the Harrogate line, don't forget.

It's their attitude more than anything that I'm not too happy about, they don't seem to value their customers.

yorkie wrote:And they reduced capacity on the Harrogate line, don't forget.

It's their attitude more than anything that I'm not too happy about, they don't seem to value their customers.

I thought arriva reduced the capacity when the swapped pacers for 150s.

Using the services on the Manchester side I haven't seen a change in staff attitude from the first days. It's well known the franchise is the biggest and doesn't get a proportionate subsidy from the government - you get what you pay for!

Alan

AlanP46 wrote:I thought arriva reduced the capacity when the swapped pacers for 150s.

It's been mostly pacers on that line for as long as I can remember.

AlanP46 wrote: Using the services on the Manchester side I haven't seen a change in staff attitude from the first days. It's well known the franchise is the biggest and doesn't get a proportionate subsidy from the government - you get what you pay for!

Alan

Oh, I meant the attitude of management, I certainly wasn't referring to frontline staff. And yes, I agree!

I would like First North Western back, they had a fantastic livery, but Northern Rail are more ontime. When First North Western were running, we sometimes had to wait at Oldham Werneth for about 10 minutes after the scheduled time of it arriving but now I go from there to Manchester Victoria every week or so and the latest it had been was about 1 minute out of the 15 times we've been. Northern are more punctual.

normally a post bumped up from two and a half years ago would stand a fair chance of being deleted. However i'll let this one run for now and see if there's a point to it. BUT if it degenerates and breaks forum rules then into the skip it goes.

michael

From a completely obvious point, bringing back FNW would destroy everything Northern have worked for...


Remember that we originally RR, which then split into the RRNW and RRNE franchises and became North West Trains and Northern Spirit respectivley. This was 2 separate franchises and the only like there was the Transpennine services ran by Northern Spirit. NS were then bought out by Arriva to become Arriva Trains Northern and NWT was bought out by First to become First North Western but the franchises stayed the same. The problem was that at links all along the railway here in the North there were colliding with eachother and organisation was a shambles. Thats the main reason behind grouping them all together into a nice big happy franchise which everyone bid for, and Serco/Ned got as Northern Rail.

Now that Northern is a single entity the organisation of stock, routes, services and generally everything is much simpler, thats why more trains run on time. Sure some people dont like the new livery and think the purple is out of touch. But I'm not one for bringing back FNW just because I liked the starts, which was actually a North West Trains idea so I'd like some people to get their facts straight first. And if some people liked the Barbie then come round Manchester, we only have 2 Class 323s in Northern Colours and numerous 156s still in old FNW Barbie, along with the odd ATW 175 at times too.

As someone who regularly takes Northern services every morning I speak from a valid point of view when I say they aint perfect but they do a damn better job than FNW and ATN put together. I was late for work last week once because the original 8:46am service from Manchester Piccadilly to Crewe was late and was routed direct to Styal and onwards, leaving me to the 9:14am service for East Didsbury. Though the FTPE services that morning were shocking too but it was mainly because of ice I think...

Though, Northern only have the Franchise until September 2013 so we might see a slowdown from them. Since they had a shakey start in 2004 they have done brilliantly on the railway lines, let me just prove this example to you all, which no other rail franchise has managed yet:

"Northern Rail won public transport operator of the year 2007 at the National Transport Awards and was praised by the judges for attracting 20% more passengers since 2004."


Slam them if you will, but you do better and then touche to you sir....

To ask a more general question, why do all of these private franchises think that the most important thing when they take over is "rebranding" the trains and stations?
Quite honestly I wouldn't mind if the train arrived with a lime green and yellow spotted livery as long as it turned up on time!

I hope this post isn't giving Ian MacMillan any mischievous ideas!!