The May Timetable will never operate in full

In RAIL 906’s The Fare Dealer, I explained that although the May-December National Rail Timetable (NRT) had been published, it was inevitably going to be fluid for some months.

I gave a sketch of the sorts of temporary timetables that various operators were utilising. Since then there have been several uplifts, but although general figures of around 85% are quoted as to the percentage of the full timetables that are now in use, there is still a significant variation among the operators.

Lots of factors come into play here, and it’s far from a matter of simply how much of the timetable an operator wishes to run.

A major factor remains the effect of the pause in driver training in March. In some cases, route knowledge has been lost - and then there’s the training on new traction that was inevitably delayed.

LNER, for example, tells me it could be October before the planned new service from King’s Cross to Huddersfield can commence, for the above reason.

On the other hand, the reason the ‘Highland Chieftain’ to Inverness couldn’t run was because Scottish hotels were closed, and staff have to stay overnight.

Some operators are limited owing to working difficulties in depots, while one major operator has said it will be impossible for it to run the full May timetable at all, as extra time is required for turnarounds, dwell times, staff breaks and so on. It isn’t possible just to retime trains as quite often the next train is only two minutes later.

Finally, Northern tells me that its planned new hourly York-Scarborough service, paralleling the existing TransPennine Express link, can’t start until October at the earliest and it’s more likely to be December.

I think readers will therefore understand that it’s not going to be possible for me to provide any meaningful NRT review until the next version in December. Will some peak services no longer be required by then, as many more work from home in the ‘new normal’?