Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
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by Lib Dem team on 9 December, 2015
With all the concerns about Northern Rail’s fare-enforcement antics in recent weeks, we had the news today that they have lost their franchise and instead Arriva will be taking it on.
Arriva currently run the trains in North Wales where they have considerably higher satisfaction than Northern Rail manage in our patch.
That’s not the biggest part of the news though. Whereas the last franchise in 2004 was “steady state” – asking train companies to carry on running the services as before – this one is very different. To win the franchise a company had to show how they were going to improve services across the rail network. For the first time, councils across the North of England got together (forming “Rail North”) to push to get as much as well all could out of the franchise, and it seems to have worked.
Improvements include:
The new franchises for Northern and Transpennine start in April 2016.
6 Comments
Could be good news, but need to see how fares will be affected first. disappointing to see some improvements will take nearly 5 years to be completed. I see heald green will benefit again. All gatley is asking for is friendly available staff and an out of hours ticket machine, not much is it!
I assume northern rail will now milk all they can out of the remaining 5 months of their service…..
Any news on whether we’ll have decent trains for the stopping services on the Crewe and Stoke lines? I read that the (rather good) 323 electrics are being sent elsewhere because the franchise change meant there was nobody to sign a new lease on them. Whatever is promised in the longer term, I fear we’ll regress to sprinters and pacers for years while more electrics are built….
Will the smart ticketing update released by tfgm on 15th September 2015 be available by the year end and be useable on the changed train franchise services and existing bus services.
And, does anybody know when the Greater Manchester Mayor will issue his public transport proposals or is he too busy attending Carbon Literacy functions?
Alf – the smart ticketing update is for buses (it was led by the bus companies after TfGM’s work with Atos failed to produce a proper travel smart card). There are some limited options for Metrolink but nothing in the near future for trains.
This is something the Lib Dems are campaigning on and will continue to do so – expect more news in the new year!
I have no idea on the mayor’s plans.
I have had the dubious pleasure of travelling to Wales with Arriva trains. Oh dear!
Good news for Heald Green, perhaps the kiosk could also carry a limited newsagency range.
If you are looking for other proposals for Arriva to consider, may I suggest:
1. Hourly (at least) trains from Crewe to Manchester via the airport and Heald Green until, say, 11.30pm. The present service finishes far too early, necessitating a lengthy change wait at Wilmslow.
2. Provision of some covered seating on the southbound platform at Heald Green. Its not a comfortable place in wet weather.
3. Will Arriva consider supporting the provision of new station stops at Cheadle and Gatley/Northenden as well as others on the Stockport – Altrincham line and maybe test the demand for the re-introduction of Stockport to Stalybridge services?