Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

cancellations. The days affected were Tuesday the 19 th , Thursday the 21 st and Saturday the 23 rd , although according to one of my sources, Saturday was extremely quiet despite the continuing spell of hot weather. This could have been because the World Cup was currently underway in Russia. July There were complex reasons for the shambles which had blighted Northern Rail’s timetable plans, these involving the failure to in order complete the electrification of the Bolton to Preston section of the line between Manchester and Blackpool North. However, circumstances further distant also had an adverse affect on their ambitious plans. They had expected to draught in redundant rolling stock from several sources and these had failed to come up to expectations. This had resulted in part to 436 cancellations, 450 part-cancelled trains and 563 station stops being omitted, including on the East Lancs Line between June 4 th and the 12 th . Details of the ‘missing’ sets which might have been used on the East Lancs Line were as follows - Source Type Expected Receive d Shortfall Carriages West Midlands Trains 150/1 2-car DMUs 3 0 3 6 Great Western Railway 150/1 2-car DMUs 15 13 2 4 Great Western Railway 153 1-car DMUs 6 3 3 3 ScotRail 158 2-car DMUs 8 2 6 12 ScotRail 170/4 3-car DMUs 17 4 13 39 TOTALS 49 22 27 64 These figures do not include the figures for Electric Multiple Units, which of course could not operate over the non-electrified East Lancs Line. It had been announced that by way of compensation, Arriva Northern Rail were to give all holders of period travel tickets and season tickets a month’s free travel, but only after the intervention of the Government’s Rail Minister, Jo Johnson, who had been put onto the case. It had also been announced that the ‘new’ timetable, which had initially been put back to the end of this year, might now not come into operation until the summer timetable for 2019. Another threatened strike by members of the RMT, which was due to take place on Saturday the 21 st , had been put on hold. This suspension of industrial action had come about because talks were taking place between the Union and Northern Rail on the contentious issue of keeping guards on trains as opposed to driver-only operation. In what appeared to be a ridiculous state of affairs on Sunday the 15 th , the company stated, that due to driver shortages and a deluge of requests for leave, they would be unable to run anything other than a skeleton service. Over 170 trains did not run as due to Sundays being recognised as non-compulsory overtime, they could not compel drivers to sign on. This of course just happened to coincide with the playing of the World Cup Final in Moscow, between France and Croatia, even though England had played on the Saturday, eventually finishing in fourth place behind Belgium. One could only hope that some resolution to this long running dispute could be arrived at, as the train services over the past year and a half have been below the standard set before the franchise was awarded to Arriva. On Tuesday the 24 th , the two locomotives on the VTG tanker train were Colas Rail’s 56:096 with 56:094 leading. It appears the pairing would remain as later in the week the same combination was in charge again. Correspondence from MP Graham Jones, suggested that the Department of Transport now sees all matters involving transport as the responsibility of Transport for the North (TfM). He however, has become somewhat frustrated by this attitude with regard to direct access from North East Lancashire to Manchester International Airport via the Ordsall Curve. Northern Rail stated that it was not included in their franchise bid’s service requirements, siting the difficulties of finding pathways between North and South Manchester, where at Piccadilly Railway Station priority was being given to the east  west corridor as part of the problem. They felt that access from the area to the airport would be improved when the electrification of the Preston to Manchester line was completed. For their part when he contacted TfN on this subject, they indicated that it could be included in their Strategic Development Corridor plan for the Central Pennines for 2050. What did please him however was the news from TfN that the feasibility

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