Appendix C Discussions with Representatives of Community Rail Partnerships
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Appendix C Discussions With Representatives Of Community Rail Partnerships Contacts with community rail representatives Meeting notes summarising the discussions held with community rail organisations are provided below. Mid Cheshire Line Rail Users Association Retrospective The quality of service offered was felt to have declined over the last 20 years. This is in part due to increased congestion associated with the Manchester Hub, restricting service opportunities (access) and flexibility (reliability) for Mid Cheshire line rail services. The service used to offer 3 peak period arrivals in Manchester, now reduced to just one, and 4 coach trains have been largely replaced by 2 car pacer units. The possibility of enhancing capacity through train lengthening is hampered by a lack of rolling stock. Despite this situation, patronage has grown by 8-10% per year over the last 6 years, up until the Dec 08 timetable, which has depressed usage into Manchester and Stockport by 22%. Evening peak departure has been particularly unfortunately retimed, leaving too soon after 17:00 and then a 70+ minute gap until the next departure. Train Services The hourly frequency was felt to be too low, with half hourly being the ideal. Maintaining the link with Stockport was also important. A higher frequency would also provide benefits at the Chester end, enabling rail access to be better tied in with travel planning to major employment sites in the city. The station footfall figures provided by ORR under represent true usage. There are difficulties in fare collection due to inability for conductor to pass through the busiest trains and the lack of platform ticket issuing machines at the many unstaffed stations. Unlike many commuter lines, the Mid Cheshire sees good use throughout the day. Sunday service use has risen considerably after recent timetable improvements from 3- hourly Chester-Altrincham to 2-hourly Chester-Manchester. It was felt that an hourly Sunday service was justifiable. MCRUA with support from Northern and GMPTE conduct their own counts and are willing to supply data to illustrate the above. Rail Infrastructure The current line speed over the core section could be enhanced to 75mph (from 60) without large investment. The 20mph restriction over the Leftwich viaducts could also be raised to 50mph if Pacers were not used on the line. Stations: Overall quality is felt to be reasonable considering that most stations are unstaffed, however there are particular issues needing to be addressed. Northwich has a lack of car parking, the opportunity for developing which was lost when the Tesco store was opened in recent years. There is almost non-existent integration with bus services. Delivering improvements will require movements from the south to be able to turn right into the station. Achieving positive changes had proved largely intractable in the face of efforts so far and needed a planning-based joined up approach. Lostock Gralam has huge potential for developing as a park & ride site, perhaps addressing the parking constraints at Northwich. There are section 106 funds available to assist this and a plan has been progressed by Vale Royal Borough Council. Chester station is important in a general sense: points raised were Interchange between trains is not managed very well, despite the large numbers of connections made there. There is minimal staff presence to help passengers, as might be expected in a station like this; It is undersold as a point of access to and from a wide catchment area of interest to visitors. There should be a large Tourist Information Centre, complementing the City’s status, instead of merely a leaflet rack Poor/misleading information is provided by the destination electronic display on the main concourse. Points receiving plaudits include the completion of the station forecourt traffic arrangements, the prospects for continuing work to complete the island platform, the new Costa franchise and integration with Wrexham and Mold bus services and the Monday to Saturday free bus shuttle, though the Sunday one is poor. MCRUA also has interests in matters concerning the London Midland Birmingham- Liverpool service, west coast main line connections and the stations served by these north-south operations. Winsford station was considered to be in a poor condition and had very constrained parking, although opportunities for bus integration were better. Hartford station suffered from poor integration with buses, with only an hourly service passing the station, timed so as to miss rather than greet the train. Car park capacity is exhausted early in the working day as this is a popular station. Acton Bridge offers good strategic park & ride opportunities for north-south movements, if a scheme could be funded and sufficient trains arranged to call there. Merseytravel’s encouragement of commuter and other travel opportunities to Liverpool from these stations was noted. Miscellany Integration with Metrolink at Altrincham is considered poor, particularly in outbound direction. On arrival at Altrincham the trains are likely to be discouragingly full: trams are sometimes curtailed to Timperley, making the connection hazardous with only hourly frequency trains. There were boundary effects in respect of ticket/fares integration. Flexibility is limited and penalises users from outside GM who need flexibility of routing within the boundary. The situation for concessionary travel is more complicated for senior railcard holders. On-train ticket issue to certain Metrolink destinations is not possible although it is available at staffed stations. The half hourly Sunday frequency of rail link buses at Chester was not considered to offer real value for travellers. Crewe is an important rail location for CW&C travellers from the Northwich area, as travelling to London is more easily achieved from there than via Stockport, Wilmslow (or Hartford) due to fare and time penalties at the latter. This highlights the importance of addressing north-south as well as east-west movements from that part of the authority’s area. Interchange to/from London services at Chester with Mid Cheshire line services suffers from poorly timed connections. Major initiatives A tram-train future for the line has been extensively discussed and it came top of a league table of ‘lines with potential’ for this type of operation, prepared by independent consultants for ACORP in 2002. Reopening of services on the Middlewich line would work well in service planning terms, opening up opportunities for southbound movements from Northwich to Crewe and beyond as well as making it much easier from those destined for Northwich and Knutsford from the south. The Airport Western Link remains on the agenda and has been considered within the Manchester Hub studies. It offers potential to radically recast service patterns in a way wholly beneficial to Northwich and other Mid Cheshire locations. Relation with planning context The A556 between Knutsford and Altrincham is one of the most congested roads in the country (IPPR studies). The impact on rail’s attractiveness for commuting/travelling to Manchester destinations should be beneficial. The Growth Point proposals also reinforce this by proposing major growth in housing supply. Further support may be derived from the situation in the housing market, as Northwich/Winsford is a relatively affordable location, and should be attractive to people unable to live in Knutsford or locations closer to Manchester. Rail offers very good potential to capitalise on these aspects and supporting the sought- after regeneration, however it is held back by the current pared-down nature of the railway and institutional obstacles to its improvement both within the rail industry generally and from the way transport planning proceeds within GM. North Cheshire Rail Users Group Train service groups N Wales – Chester – Manchester service Capacity of service an issue – use of 2 car trains (an occasional lapse) results in gross overloading of peak services Increasing flows leave the train at Warrington Bank Quay View that existing rates of demand growth will demand resolution in 5 years Off peak services are generally not overcrowded, although there are exceptions, such as Chester race days or summer weekends The overall level of service (hourly) with peak strengthening was seen as satisfactory at present, with services running usefully late into the evening. Proposals to increase this to half hourly have been aired as part of the Manchester Hub testing work The main deficiency to address in the immediate future was lack of train capacity. Ticketless travel was also seen as a major problem: In the peaks, the recorded footfall could understate the true revenue figure, by as much as 20%; train guards cannot collect revenue of units full with standing passengers. No checking is carried out in Bank Quay: the loss from Runcorn East (Halton) could fall into the £50-100,000 per annum. Connections at Chester and Warrington were important but not universally effective, particularly at the latter. The improvement proposed for Dec 09, is extension of the service to Manchester Airport. Ellesmere Port – Helsby service Current service almost useless, but retained as a result of franchise specification. It was thought that Northern Rail had little or no interest in its operation of this route due to it being so isolated from Northern’s other interests. There was concensus that the line sat more naturally within the Merseyside RUS area (and therefore within the Merseyrail