Details of the timetable for Sunday 20 May to Saturday 8 December 2018 have arrived in my database over the last few days, and for the first time in many years we have some major changes on the Northwest Sparks lines.
The new schedules involve a complete re-cast of services all over our area, so it would be too much like hard work to go into details here. You can see what is intended for your local station on my Open Rail website, just enter your station and a date after 20 May.
I must, as always, warn that the information is very much provisional at this stage. Network Rail work to a twelve week deadline ("T-12") and all this is outside that limit. In particular, the rumour mill reports that the Manchester to Preston electrification will not be ready in time, and that the timetable is unworkable without it. If this turns out to be correct then we can expect major changes to what we are now seeing.
Update Friday 12th: As usual, the rumour mill was correct. Manchester - Preston will not be electric in May. What this means for the timetable changes there, and elsewhere, remains to be seen.
Update 25th February: All the trains described above have now been deleted from the database, and we await the second version of the new timetable. The Rail Delivery Group has announced that T-12 will not be met for some services.
