Northern Rail Cup Final Chaos

[Tommy The C5t]

On the way back from the game last night I saw the the dreaded essential track maintenance poster up at Bradford Interchange with the date in bold Sunday July 18th , the date of the Northern Rail Cup Final in Blackpool.

The shock was the fact that Northern Rail have decided to take out essential track maintenance on the main artery route into Blackpool North affecting stations such as York, Leeds, Bradford Interchange, Halifax, Hebden Bridge, Burnley Manchester Road, Blackburn, Preston & Blackpool North and on the Manchester Calder Valley line stations such as Leeds, Bradford Interchange, Halifax, Hebden Bridge, Rochdale & Manchester Victoria.

So instead of a train and a journey time that would take me one hour forty from Bradford Interchange to Blackpool, it'll now take just under four hours as I''ll have to navigate the dreaded rail replacement buses, which simply can't be trusted (see the incident at Selby last year, when one of the buses set off two minutes early empty and so when the packed train from Leeds arrived at Selby there was no bus to meet us and so we had to wait for over an hour for the next one).

I just can't get my head around the fact that the final is Northern Rails showpiece final as they sponsor it and how do they repay the supporters, by making there journey to Blackpool as problematic as possible.

The Batley supporters taking the train would go Batley -- Leeds --- Blackpool North, but now they'll face the farce of having to get on the rail replacement buses.

Bad call by Northern Rail.

Edited July 3, 2010 by Tommy The C5t

[Griff9of13]

On the way back from the game last night I saw the the dreaded essential track maintenance poster up at Bradford Interchange with the date in bold Sunday July 18th , the date of the Northern Rail Cup Final in Blackpool.

The shock was the fact that Northern Rail have decided to take out essential track maintenance on the main artery route into Blackpool North affecting stations such as York, Leeds, Bradford Interchange, Halifax, Hebden Bridge, Burnley Manchester Road, Blackburn, Preston & Blackpool North and on the Manchester Calder Valley line stations such as Leeds, Bradford Interchange, Halifax, Hebden Bridge, Rochdale & Manchester Victoria.

So instead of a train and a journey time that would take me one hour forty from Bradford Interchange to Blackpool, it'll now take just under four hours as I''ll have to navigate the dreaded rail replacement buses, which simply can't be trusted (see the incident at Selby last year, when one of the buses set off two minutes early empty and so when the packed train from Leeds arrived at Selby there was no bus to meet us and so we had to wait for over an hour for the next one).

I just can't get my head around the fact that the final is Northern Rails showpiece final as they sponsor it and how do they repay the supporters, by making there journey to Blackpool as problematic as possible.

The Batley supporters taking the train would go Batley -- Leeds --- Blackpool North, but now they'll face the farce of having to get on the rail replacement buses.

Bad call by Northern Rail.

One flaw in your argument, the track is owned and maintained by Railtrack, not Northern Rail.

[Tommy The C5t]

One flaw in your argument, the track is owned and maintained by Railtrack, not Northern Rail.

I know but Northern Rail have some control over when this essential track maintenance should take place although on this occasion it would seem they are powerless to stop/hault it.

Still Batley supporters can go Batley -- Huddersfield -- Manchester Picadilly -- Balckpool North.

[Blind side johnny]

One flaw in your argument, the track is owned and maintained by Railtrack, not Northern Rail.

Do keep up! Railtrack went bust years ago and were replaced by Network Rail, hence the confusion with Northern Rail. Northern Rail will actually have very little influence on maintenance scheduling which is largely a safety issues, for which Network Rail have sole responsibility.

This is not the first time this has happened by a long chalk. Anyone who regularly travels by train will tell you that Sundays are a favourite for all sorts of maintenance work on the railways (and motorways for that matter).

[chrisl1]

I had a look at the Mersey Travel website today. There is nothing about any engineering work on the Liverpool Lime Street to Blackpool line on 18th July. There was a bus replacement service between Preston and Blackpool on 4th July. I have not looked if other services are affected on 18th July.

http://www.merseytravel.gov.uk/alerts2.asp...bcatname=Trains

[London Dick]

Dewsbury to Manc Pic at 8.50 am change there and get into Blackpool at 11am. Return at 12.40pm the day after.

[London Dick]

Dewsbury to Blackpool via Manc Pic at 8.50 am get into Blackpool at 11am. Return at 12.40pm the day after.