Train
Performance
"We are sorry for the
delays and cancellations to some of our services in this area recently.
The reasons for this include theft of signalling cable, the impact of
bad weather, and an unexpected shortage of train crew. We are working
hard to return to the high levels of punctuality that we delivered
during the spring and summer of 2008." - Lee Wasnidge, Area Director West, Northern
Rail.
There you are then. Complain to
customer.relations@northernrail.org and
you'll probably get a copy of the above. The 'rumour mill' tells us
that some of the 'unexpected' train crew shortages might be
connected to Northern's late consultation with the staff on their new
work schedules, and that some of the cancellations are due to problems
with the fancy 'new' class 180s ....
[above: extract from live departures, 19 December]
If you want to check the
running of the xx.37 trains towards Manchester and Preston, which have
been cancelled several times so far, you will need to view
the Live Departures an hour
earlier to see the status of the xx.39 to Hazel Grove, which forms the
next return train from Hazel Grove, after sitting in the siding at
Hazel Grove for 45 minutes before returning as the xx.37 to Preston.
Running information about trains is not
displayed online until they have departed (or should have departed!)
their starting station.
Picture: 180 106 at Davenport
as the 09:33 Hazel Grove to Preston on the first weekday of the new
timetable, 15 December. These five-coach 'inter-city 125 mph' trains
have been handed down from First Great Western: Northern Rail have
managed to remove most of the FirstGroup pink and white striping. See
below for which trains are being worked by them.
The first day seems to have been slightly problematic, with at least
one technical fault during the day. Also, they are considered too long
for the platforms at Woodsmoor, so only a few of the doors can be
opened there. This delayed the first train by several minutes.
Replacement buses: last-minute
change
Contrary to the information in the published timetable, we now discover
that the replacement bus service on the next six Sundays will in fact
be replacing the whole service
between Manchester and Buxton. The
timetable is here
(PDF). (It does appear, however, that trains from other routes will be
running normally on the Stockport - Manchester section, and connections
with the buses there are possible for a faster journey in some cases.)
Northern are not very good at informing
passengers exactly where the buses will stop. W have raised this matter
with Northern Rail. 'Woodsmoor' will no doubt be the
stop on Bramhall Lane some way from the station, 'Middlewood' will, we
suppose, be somewhere on the A6 near the road to the station, and
Chapel-en-le-Frith will be the New Inn on the main road. Sunday trains
from Davenport will next operate on 26 January.
Stockport shuttle bus
The long-awaited shuttle bus service around Stockport town centre is
now in daily operation between 8.00am until 6.30pm Mondays to
Saturdays, and between 10.30am until 5.30pm on Sundays. It offers free
travel to all, and runs from Stockport station every 12 minutes during
the day around a rather convoluted route (PDF
map) which serves the bus station, the roads each side of Merseyway
precinct, The Peel Centre annd Tesco. - 11 December
Adelante...
Northern Rail have secured the temporary use of three Class 180
five-coach express 'Adelante' railcar sets (capable of 125 mph!) to
relieve their shortage of trains resulting from recent increases in
passenger traffic. Two of these impressive trains will work each
day Mondays - Fridays from 15 December, mostly on the Manchester -
Blackpool route, but one of them will run to and from Hazel Grove on a
couple of trains. The times for our line are as follows:
06:53 Blackpool North - Hazel Grove 08:45
09:33 Hazel Grove to Preston 10:51
14:23 Preston to Hazel Grove 15:45
16:33 Hazel Grove to Preston 17:51
The three trains are 180 103, 106 and 108. For details of Class 180 see
Wikipedia. - 10 December
Sardine Specials
[Note: this item referred to
the old timetable.]
Some advice for Davenport passengers: if you are taking the
train to Manchester in the late morning or early afternoon for the
Christmas Markets, etc. we would strongly
advise you to study the
timetable and choose one of the trains (mostly at xx.45 from Davenport
and xx.06 back from Piccadilly) which run between Manchester and
Hazel Grove only during the day.
Overcrowding of the trains to and from the Buxton direction, mostly
formed of just
two coaches, has become extreme over the last couple of weeks. This
came to a head on Saturday 6 December, when the train crew of the 12:14
to
Manchester train refused to allow any Davenport passengers to board as
the train was already full, standing and well and truly 'wedged.'
On Sundays, the hourly train
has recently been four coaches, with plenty of room ... but
unfortunately Network Rail have chosen the next six Sundays to close
the Stockport - Hazel Grove line for more of their endless engineering
works, no doubt involving the new rails which are currently lying at
Davenport awaiting installation on the Buxton-bound line. A bus
replacement service between Buxton and Manchester will be running
from 14 December: Sunday trains will resume on 1 February. Trains on
other routes will, as far as we can tell, still be running on
Sundays between Stockport
and Manchester, the first one being at 09:21. - 8 December
Cryptic inscription?
This sign appeared a while back on the platform at Davenport, replacing
an older version which disappeared sometime ago. Such signs appear at
regular intervals across the whole Network Rail system, indicating the
distance in miles and quarter-miles along each route. This one marks
zero miles and three quarters of a mile from the junction with the main
London line at Edgeley. Each of the dots indicates a quarter of a mile.
These signs are important for track engineers and train crews as
they allow the location of a track fault, or the place where a train
has broken down, or a place on the line for any other reason, to be
accurately described. The railway has yet to adopt the metric system:
indeed the 'chain' - 22 yards, 80 to a mile - is still widely used as
unit of distance.
New timetable looms
A reminder that the new, much-changed, timetable for trains in our
area, begins on 14 December. Copies of the times for our line are
available at the station, or by PDF download from Northern Rail (the
full leaflet) or Network Rail (the
table from the National timetable.)
The new service on our line runs to an altered pattern, still with two
trains an hour during the day, but with most Buxton trains terminating
at Manchester Piccadilly, and Hazel Grove trains running to Preston.
The line to Preston is not electrified, so nearly all trains will be
diesels, the Class 323 electric units being used to extend the
Manchester - Macclesfield service to Stoke-on-Trent. There will be 33
trains to Manchester on Mondays - Fridays, compared with 36 previously:
the axe has fallen on some of the extra trains which have run in peak
hours, especially in the evening when the 16:59 from Manchester will be
the only extra to the pattern of departures at 21 and 52 minutes past
the hour. How many coaches each train will have remains to be
seen, but the whole thing does not add up to an improvement. The only
bright side is for anyone commuting in the opposite direction, as the
first two trains of day towards Buxton now stop at Davenport (07:06 and
08:06) and Woodsmoor rather than passing non-stop.
Boon for Sunday travellers
Some good news for leisure travellers is that Sunday services on
neighbouring lines into Cheshire have been greatly improved. Stockport
will have trains every two hours through the day to all stations on
each of the Macclesfield, Crewe and Chester (via Altrincham and
Northwich) lines, calling at all stations. The trains from Chester
continue from Stockport across Manchester and on to Southport. These
trains offer many new opportunities, especially for cyclists who will
be able to take their bikes out into the countryside to places such as
Delamere, Goostrey and Prestbury: Northern trains officially carry two
bikes per train, but more can travel at the discretion of the conductor.
Steam through Davenport
A steam-hauled excursion from Manchester Victoria to Buxton is running
on Sunday 30 November,
non-stop from Stockport to Buxton, passing through Davenport at 11:28,
and arriving Buxton at 12:25. The return train leaves Buxton at 14:45,
reversing in the sidings outside the station and returning to
Manchester via Chinley, Guide Bridge, Ashburys and the rare route from
there towards Manchester Victoria, arriving 17:03. The train, operated
by Past Time Rail, will be 8
coaches hauled by 'black 5' loco 45407.
Free Doughnut!
The Northern Rail website is offering vouchers which rail
ticket-holders can exchange for free jam doughnuts and some 2-for-one
offers until the end of November. Follow
this link for details. - 1
November
'21st century transport'
We have been asked to draw your attention to 21st Century Transport,
a site where (if your computer is good enough) you can watch a very
artistic short film supporting the Manchester TIF/ congestion charge
proposals. - 27 October
Petition news
Readers may recall the on-line petition to the Prime Minister demanding
that CrossCountry be compelled to stop all their trains at Stockport,
rather than half of them as planned for December, and citing some
supposed Parliamentary Act of 1840, which nobody has yet been actually
been able to trace. Follow
this link to read the Government's dismissive response, now
published. - 26 October.
Strike off
"Northern Rail is pleased to announce that its drivers in the North
West have suspended their planned strike action for Monday 13 October
and a normal timetable will be in operation." - 11 October
Disruptions
There will be a bus replacement
service between Hazel Grove and
Buxton due to engineering work, all day on Sundays 19 and 26
October.
Also, note that until 15 December some changes to train times apply to
allow for problems caused by leaves on the line. In general, trains
departing from Buxton will do so a few mintes early. See the PDF
timetable. The same principle applies to some other routes, notably
the Chester - Northwich - Manchester route.
Timetable Trauma
From 15 December 2008, the
train timetables for our area are being revised, largely to accommodate
three Manchester - London trains each hour instead of the previous two.
The basic plan of two trains per hour during the day at Davenport is
retained, but with many differences in execution (see below). Of most
concern to commuters, however, is a cut in the number of trains home
from work in Manchester. The following table (based on the on-line
journey planner which has now been updated for the new period: enter 17
December as your travel date) shows the present and future departures
from Manchester to Davenport between 5pm and 7pm.
Summer 2008, 17:00 - 19:00
Manchester Ox Rd 17:03 - 17:32 - - 18:35
Manchester Pic 17:07 17:27 17:37 17:50 18:06 18:39
a a
Davenport 17:23 17:51 17:51 18:03 18:22 18:52
b h b h h b
January 2009, 17:00 - 19:00
Manchester Ox Rd - - 18:16 -
Manchester Pic 17:23 17:52 18:21 18:52
a a a a
Davenport 17:39 18:09 18:39 19:09
h b b b
Trains labelled 'a' call at Heaton Chapel and Levenshulme, others at
Stockport only. 'b' shows a train which continues to Buxton, 'h' is a
train terminating at Hazel Grove. As you can see, all trains will stop
at all stations during this period, so will no doubt be crowded with
Levenshulme and Heaton Chapel passengers, and there are no through
trains from Manchester Oxford Road until 18:16, the popular 17:32 from
there having been deleted. The morning rush hour is less affected, with
more or less the same number of trains.
During the day, there will be trains at half-hourly intervals, xx.08
and xx.37 to Manchester, xx:21 and xx.52 back from Piccadilly, but with
a big difference. The trains coming from Buxton will terminate at
Manchester Piccadilly, as in time immemorial, rather than continuing
towards Blackpool, and the alternate ones which start from Hazel Grove
will continue through Manchester, calling at Oxford Road but only as
far as Preston. Blackpool stopping trains will run from Manchester
Victoria, but we will have the option of changing at Piccadilly to one
of TransPennine's Expresses.
This may all seem like a good idea, but an unfortunate side-effect is
that, as the Deansgate - Leyland and Hazel Grove - Buxton sections of
line do not have overhead electric wires, all trains except what
Northern
Rail managers call 'one Hazel Grove - Piccadilly train each way per day
to keep the wires clean' will have to be diesels.
Thus we lose the 1990s-built Class 323 electric trains with their three
coaches, quiet interiors, plenty of space and quick acceleration, in
favour of older two-car diesels. All the money spent on wiring and
bridge rebuilding back in 1980 comes
to nothing, and polluting diesels rule the roost.
So the promises in the 'Congestion charge' booklet about better train
services look rather hollow as far as Davenport passengers are
concerned, although the lucky folks of Hazel Grove are promised that
all Sheffield - Manchester express will be stopped for them.
Another thought for those who might be considering commenting on the
consultation form: the item on page 8 of the booklet, 'The Government
has committed to deliver additional carriages...' refers to a decision
which has already been taken to provide extra new and second-hand
trains for the Northern Rail fleet. It is in no way conditional on the
'Transport Investment Fund' proposals being accepted. Beware
spin-doctors!
We discussed these matters at his recent 'surgery' with David White,
Davenport & Cale Green councillor and member of the Greater
Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, who says that he has never
been given detailed information about the changes, just general
principles, and will take up the issue.
The fact is, however, that the number of trains run on the congested
tracks through Stockport, and where to, is decided by the Department
for Transport in London, guided by Network Rail who advised on how many
trains will fit each piece of line without causing late running. As
with the last round of cutbacks at Davenport when Virgin trains to
London became half-hourly, it is all a fait accompli as far as local
authorities are concerned. - 4
October
Metrolink Piccadilly closed for 8 Weeks
The Metrolink branch to Piccadilly station is closed from 8 weeks from
27 September for track relaying. All trams will be running direct
between St Peters Square and Victoria, with a free shuttle bus in
operation between Piccadilly station and Piccadilly Gardens/Market
Street. It your train calls at Deansgate and you want a tram
connection, it will certainly be easier to alight there and cross the
bridge to G-Mex tram station. - 28
September
Congestion Charge etc
Don't
forget to express your opinions about the Greater Manchester Transport
Investment Fund bid - residents have received a form to send back by 10
October, and you can see the explanatory material at www.gmfuturetransport.co.uk.
There's a lot of detail in the downloadable information booklet.
Here's what it has to say about our line:
Stockport to Manchester line: The Stockport corridor is one of the two
busiest in the conurbation, and Manchester – Stockport is in the top
ten passenger flows within the North West .... Planned Improvements:
• extending some Manchester to Hazel Grove trains to New Mills Newtown
to serve a park and ride facility;
• improving the train services for park and ride passengers at Hazel
Grove by stopping all Manchester to Sheffield services there;
• platforms will be lengthened as appropriate;
• Bramhall and Woodsmoor stations will be improved;
• improvements to the transport interchange facilities between the
bus and rail stations in Stockport; and
• extra capacity to reduce overcrowding and enable more people to use
the service.
We are also told there will be at Stockport a
'multi-million pound transport interchange' which will take the form of
'a new
bus station [which] will be built within a single building.' This will
apparaently have a lift connecting it to the Mersey Square shopping
area, and better links to the railway station and possible future
Metrolink line. Are you having trouble visualising this? - 27 September
Engineering work at Chorley
From 26 July for six weeks, the Bolton - Blackpool line is closed at
the stone-walled cutting north of Chorley while Network Rail carry out
remedial work on the drainage of the line, which has been causing
serious problems.
This means that Buxton - Davenport - Blackpool trains, although running
in their normal times as far as Manchester, Bolton and Chorley, will
terminate at Chorley, and start their journeys there back to
Buxton. Buses will run between Chorley and Preston, but anyone
wishing to go to Preston or Blackpool from our area should change at
Manchester Piccadilly to a Trans-Pennine Express train, which will
leave from Platform 14 where the Buxton train arrives. These are
diverted to avoid the blockage, and will still be running through to
Blackpool - and also, they have more comfortable, air-conditioned
coaches. - 26 July
Gardening news
Vegetation Control under way, 2 July. Note that the rails have
been painted white again this summer in the hope of stopping them
overheating in the sun (!) and pushing the track out of line.
Bus disruption in Manchester
Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) is advising
passengers to allow extra time for their journeys during the four-week
closure of London Road in Manchester city centre. The road will be shut
in both directions between Whitworth Street and Auburn Street while a
major sewer upgrade takes place.
The 192, 201, 203, 204, 205 and 206 services will start and end their
journeys at Stand EW outside Tesco's on London Road; the 219, 220 and
221 at a temporary stop on Newton Street near the junction with Dale
Street; and the 173 and 188 at Stand R opposite Wetherspoons on
Piccadilly.
Routes 1 and 3 (the orange and purple routes) of the free city centre
bus service, Metroshuttle, will also be diverted while London Road is
closed. The buses will use the temporary stop on Newton Street.
New Timetable - not much change
There is a new timetable period beginning on Sunday 18 May: timetables
are available at the station and for download,
although changes on the Buxton line seem to be minimal. Do check your
train times before travelling, however. There may, also, be some
changes to fares. - 17 May
More signs, less speed?
March 2008, and the Council highways people have carried out their
promise to put a weight limit on Garners Lane to prevent Heavy Goods
Vehicles using Bramhall and Garners Lanes as a route from the south to
the M60 motorway. The increase in this kind of traffic lately,
which is indeed a major nuisance, seems to have coincided with the
widespread use of 'Satnav' equipment. According to would-be councillor
Mr Henley, the Council has also been writing letters to companies who
were regular offenders. But will the Satnavs 'know' about the weight
limit? Still, it's worth
a try ... - 12 April
Cyclists' open meeting
Cycle Stockport Open Meeting, Monday April 7, 2008 7:30 pm - 9:30
pm. Location: Friends Meeting House , Cooper Street , STOCKPORT
'We invite all members and anyone else interested in cycling in
Stockport to attend a meeting at the Friends Meeting House,Cooper
Street, at 7-30pm, on Monday 7th April, to discuss any matters relevant
to cyclists and how we should aim to progress this coming year. Don
Naylor, Stockport's Cycling Officer, and Cllr Stuart Bodsworth will
give us some idea of Stockport's bid to become a Cycling Demonstration
Town. We need to have as much Cycling input as we can achieve to try
to ensure that, if successful, Stockport's bid really does
benefit cyclists and doesn't just become a political exercise. Working
together we can achieve this, but cyclists must show they are ready to
get involved.'
Petition the PM!
There is a proposal is that, from December 2008, one of the two Cross
Country trains per hour between Manchester and Birmingham (and beyond)
will run non-stop through Stockport and Macclesfield stations. As we
understand it from the recent GMPTA seminar, it will be the new
Manchester - Bristol services which do not stop, whilst the Bournemouth
route trains will call as before.
This appears to have originated when either some civil servant at the
Department for Transport, or one of the inexperienced managers at the
Cross Country franchise, which recently passed from Virgin to Arriva,
noticed that the average speed of their Manchester - Birmingham service
was slower than on TransPennine's Manchester - Leeds line, despite the
amount of work done 'improving' the west coast routes.
It is of course, a ridiculous idea, which Mr Gibb, Virgin's Cross
Country managing director who has now moved on, would surely never have
countenanced for a moment. If implemented it will (I predict) lead to
hundreds of complaints (especially from
Buxton line residents) and loss of revenue, not least from the Greater
Manchester PTA who will no longer have to pay them a share of
Manchester - Stockport local journey subsidy. The trains will be
delayed at signals behind other trains which stop at Stockport, and the
Stockport calls will be re-instated.
Macclesfield is another matter: there may be a case for not stopping
there, and some London trains already omit the stop. But
Stockport is a large town, and a junction for other lines.
As you may have read in the press, an online petition
to the Prime Minister has been set up by a Mr Michael Perkin to
register our dissatisfaction with this, claiming that Stockport
station's '1840 Act of Parliament' requires all trains to stop there.
At is an interesting way to interest
the press
- Councillor David White, Stockport Council's executive member for
transport, did actually raise the issue back in December 2007 (BBC
news item) but it does not seem to have got us anywhere.
However - the Manchester and Birmingham Railway was granted its act in
1837 - and opened
in 1840. All these
acts were printed and published. The John Rylands Library in Manchester
has a copy of this, and having looked through it I cannot
see any reference to this supposed requirement, or indeed any
requirement to build any intermediate stations at all. It concerns
itself in detail with the protection of various landowners' and canal
operators property and rights, and includes various standard clauses of
the time including 'locomotives must consume their own smoke' and 'the
line must be screened off from turnpike roads' (neither of which ever
happened) and the changes for carriage of dung, etc. It has been
suggested by the petitioners that it might be in the Act for the
widening of the station in the 1880s' we have not found this text yet;
the subject is not mentioned at all in Vincent Hollands' excellent 2004
book The Stockport railway viaduct : and the Manchester &
Birmingham Railway Company. (Available
in Stockport Libraries.) If anyone can find any documents about
this alleged legal requirement, we'd be pleased to hear from them.
Trains have run non-stop through Stockport before, including
regular morning and evening commuter trains serving Davenport back in
the 1980s. Sign
the petition, but one can't help thinking that a message
to Cross-Country Trains and Ann
Coffey MP might also be worthwhile. It's notable that the original 'stakeholder
briefing document'
about the new franchise issued by the Department for Transport in 2006
says something completely different to (and much more sensible than)
what is now proposed: 'It is proposed to speed up the services between
Manchester and Birmingham to give shorter journey times between these
two key cities. These services will stop at Stockport, Wilmslow, Crewe
and Wolverhampton on one service in each hour and to Stockport,
Macclesfield, Stoke and Wolverhampton on the other service each
hour.' - 28 March
Steam news: A reminder that on
Sunday 4 May, the Altrincham - Chester line will be hosting its
Mid-Cheshire Steam Day, with two return trains between Altrincham and
Chester hauled by LMS 4-6-0 45407
(not 2-8-0 48151 as previously advertised). The Mid-Cheshire
Community Rail Partnership website has more details and a link to a
booking form. - 8 March
Ticket
barriers at Manchester Oxford Road:
Northern Rail have switched on the automatic ticket barriers at Oxford
Road station: people joining or leaving trains there in future will
have to feed their tickets into the machines, having first found one
that is actually working. Season ticket holders will have to take their
tickets out of their wallets, and holders of tickets without magnetic
stripes (over 60s-passes, day passes issued on buses, etc) will need to
find a person to show them to. We would show you a picture of the
barriers, but unfortunately Mr Walker of Northern Rail, whho was nearby
when we took it, became agitated for some reason, and seemed to suggest
that we might possibly be terrorists, so you'll have to use your
imagination.
Platform
Zero! After lying almost
unused for some considerable time, the new platform '0' at Stockport
was brought into daily use at the beginning of March, additional staff
having been taken on to dispatch trains from there. Most (but perhaps
not all) trains heading towards Davenport, Buxton and Sheffield
will (we are told) be stopping there instead of the main platforms 1
and 2 as in the past. This is supposed to reduce delays to trains, but
it seems to us that its main effect will be to deprive passengers of
east access to the bookstall, buffet and toilets. - 8 March
'Milk Float' in new colours: A start has been made on painting the
Class 323 electric
trains
into Northern Rail's colour scheme: this is 323 223 at Manchester
Piccadilly on 17 February on arrival from Hazel Grove.
Engineering: A Sunday
timetable for 24 February, 2, 9 and 16 March
is available showing that trains will run normally through
Davenport to Manchester Piccadilly, but passengers for stations beyond
Piccadilly will have to catch a replacement bus from Manchester
Piccadilly to Manchester Victoria. No alternative service to Oxford
Road and Deansgate stations appears to be planned.
Welcome new fence
Ever since Network Rail, for reasons best known to
themselves,
built a brick ledge in the area by the passage under the ticket office,
homecoming commuters have often had to run the gauntlet of drinking and
smoking teenagers sitting on this obvious perch. Following requests
from station staff and users, a new security fence has now been built
to close off this area, as seen in the picture; a locked gate had been
provided to allow removal of the inevitable litter. Well done Network
Rail, we say. - 14 February
Replacement buses Stockport - Manchester Saturday
evening 26 January and Sunday
Morning 27 January.
In
addition to the above, there are disruptions to the last train of the
day on Mondays - Thursdays almost all the time at the moment. Always
check the Journey Planner.
Steam Train Rides
For
those who would like to sample steam locomotive traction on the main
lines, there are some opportunities from nearby stations, of not from
Davenport itself in 2008.
Charter company Past Time Rail are running a monthly train (some
Saturdays, some Sundays) from Manchester Victoria, called the 'Cotton
Mill Express, which will make a circuit via Huddersfield, Burnley and
Blackburn. Full details can be found on Past Time
Rail's website;
the locomotives used will be Bury-based 45407 and 76079, which have
performed several times recently on steam specials to the Buxton area.
On Sunday 4 May, the Altrincham - Chester line will be hosting its
Mid-Cheshire Steam Day, with two return trains between Altrincham and
Chester hauled by LMS 4-6-0 45407. The Mid-Cheshire
Community Rail Partnership website has more details. - 22 January
Have Your Say (1)
The Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority will be holding a
public meeting (a 'Sub Regional Seminar') on 27 February 2008 at 10:00 for 10:30
in Manchester Town Hall. Full Details on
their website.
We believe this one will focus on the local railways, and would
encourage you to attend; the January meeting seemed to be dominated by
people from the north of Manchester.
At this meeting we were shown the breakdown of the PTA's budget. For
2007/2008, they will receive a Government grant of £75 million to
support rail services, forming 32% of their total budget, the remainder
of which (£152 million) is a levy on your council tax.
Interestingly, the expenditure figures shown only 29% of the budget
being spent on rail support, which appears to work out at £65
million. Another £58 million, 24% of the total, is earmarked to
pay bus, train and tram operators for the concessionary fares scheme.
£47 million is spent on providing bus services which bus
companies will not run on a commercial basis. It would seem, from
these figures, that although the PTA does subsidise local rail
operators, as far as ordinary non-concessionary this money in fact
comes direct from the Government and not from anyone's council tax.
From April 2008, the free bus travel scheme for over-60s will be
extended to allow people to travel free (between 9.30am and 11pm on
weekdays and all day at the weekends and bank holidays) on local buses
all over England - including, it was explained at the meeting,
travel across the boundaries of Greater Manchester on through
buses which cross the boundary. Nobody knows how much extra subsidy
this will require, although the funding is apparently fixed by the
Department of Transport. This does not apply to trains, and supporters
of rail might well be concerned that travellers to and from outside
Greater Manchester might desert the trains for the free bus. One bus
operator in North Wales, when a national scheme was set up there,
started a route in direct competition with the Conwy Valley branch
line, hoping to make a profit mostly from the concessionary fares
subsidy.
Have your Say (2)
GMPTA have also organised what they call 'Operator Surgery Events' at
which representatives of bus and train companies will be present at
suitable points to meet passengers. The next event for Stockport
is at Stockport Station from 07:00 to 09:00 on Thursday 21 February.
First North Western, our previous train company, used to run 'meet the
manager' events on this kind of basis, which were very useful as it was
possible to talk to the Managing Director himself. Whether theses
PTA-organised ones will encourage Northern Rail MD Ms Mottram to turn
up remains to be seen.
Sundays 6, 13 and 20 January
2008: There
will be a bus service
replacing
the trains between Stockport and
Manchester until lunchtime, as on 6 January. See the Journey Planner
for details.
