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One other problem with Northern is that they have no ambition and their head office is in York. Under North Western and First North Western new class 323s were brought in to run local services on electrified routes to and from Manchester, which are now over 10 years old and class 175s were made for services in the north west, which are mainly operating in Wales now. As well as refurbishing 150s.
Under Northern they've swapped 142s round so there are ones with more seats in the Yorkshire area, but ones with less seats in the North West. Likewise they've swapped 158s from the North West with unrefurbished 150s from Yorkshire. While Northern are bringing in some 158s they all seem to be going to Yorkshire, with some 156s being cascased to the North West.
I appreciate that there are problems with overcrowding, particuarly in Leeds and West Yorkshire, but there are also overcrowding problems in the Manchester and Liverpool areas.
Northern Rail really need to look at changing frequencies of the Manchester to Buxton/Chester/Crewe/Alderley Edge trains. Their excuse is always we run the number of trains that we are told to run. Currently Buxton and Chester get one per hour with a couple of extra ones at peak times, some of these can get very crowded. Crewe gets two local trains per hour with an additional two local trains running part of the Crewe routes as far as Alderley Edge. The Alderley Edge trains mainly run at least three quarters empty. Northern should really run two trains per hour to Buxton, Chester and Crewe. Although they would need to swap some 323s for diesel trains to be able to do that.
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