What is going on with London to Liverpool trains?

[nancy75]

I'm not sure if I'm going mad, but i am trying to book a train to go from London to Liverpool on a Saturday and come back on a Sunday & they don't seem to exist!
Every website is saying booking not open yet or times not confirmed can't buy tickets. I am looking to travel in November (probably 26/27) so it's not months in advance. trains to everywhere else seem to be running.

Is that with Avanti? They're having all manner of problems right now, which would explain it:

Piece from The Guardian

its Avanti. They are awful! Only release tickets a few days before that then cost a fortune and get cancelled anyway.

Yes I had thought as per the pp, that Avanti were having all sorts of problems and at the moment were only selling tickets shortly before travel ie not selling late November tickets just yet. So frustrating, I rely on trains a lot for work trips and Avanti and TransPennine Express are really not providing any sort of adequate service just now.

I've looked at Avanti, trainline and another train company - it's like Liverpool is the Bermuda Triangle of train journeys!

Its a pain because if we are going I need to book a hotel & book a Uni tour

It's been going on for months, Avanti and Trans Pennine.

Tracey Brabin organised a meeting about it last week. Not huge traction in the national press yet but badly affecting people all over the north of England.

There’s some sort of issue with that route at weekends at the moment. We book tickets to Chester regularly and the Sunday tickets are just constantly unavailable.

Background: when the last tender went out for that service, Virgin (the previous contract holder) said they couldn’t run the service at the required pricing levels. Contract was instead awarded to Avanti, which has now pretty much collapsed (because they can’t run the service at the pricing levels).

Just another day in the life of privatised Tory Britain. 👍

It must be an absolute nightmare if you live there and need to rely on trains for work travel.

There is a train strike on Saturday.

Strike day Saturday

If all unions are out they'll be no trains if just RMT they'll be some but not many

I know there is a strike this Saturday, but they are unavailable EVERY Saturday

It's the same with trains to the Lake District. Can't plan anything in advance any more.

I tried to book that route 12th nov
nothing available
another site said although not on strike those days , the trains were run with staff on o/t
and as they could not guarantee staff taking the o/t then the train service was suspended with no tickets available to buy , I think this wAs on national rail site

I ended up changing my days to thur / Fri and also had to re jig a hotel booking but I know that’s not always possible

It’s all of the west coast mainline that’s affected. Avanti can’t run a proper service. It’s shocking. Tickets for this weekend between Manchester and London are only due to be released tomorrow, and then there’ll be a bun fight to get (shockingly expensive) tickets for the few trains they can be bothered to run.

So much for levelling up.

Avanti has been a shower of shite since August. Well, before then as well but these few months have been a new low. Impossible to book a reasonable time in advance, and when tickets do appear my friends and I haven't been able to find anything for less than £90 for an off peak return between London and Manchester. Virgin used to do a super off peak day return for under £40. They have used the industrial action as a smokescreen for their inability to run a functional service. They simply haven't hired and trained enough staff.

www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/19/why-cant-i-book-a-train-how-avanti-west-coast-hit-the-buffers

We used to have three trains an hour, Avanti cut it to one (although then Transport Secretary Grant Shapps went on TV to say that wasn't true 🤔🤥). Now the one per hour is often cancelled.

It's a scandal which has very real affects on people's lives but I've seen no sign on the government making any attempt to solve it. The northern mayors are trying to make lots of noise about it but cannot solve it without central government intervention.

Ds is at uni there, it’s a nightmare getting tickets. He went via Birmingham most recently - Chiltern Railways from Marylebone then West Midlands Rail to Liverpool. Journey is longer and you have to change station but at least he got there!

If we had a competent stable government I'd be expecting Avanti to lose the franchise the way things are going, or if we had a competent stable government with a bit more money they might increase the subsidy.

I've been looking at trains up the west coast line with a view to travelling from Euston to Glasgow Central. This used to take about 4.5 hours. It now takes 5.5 hours. Same journey, no changes. Why?

It's absolutely disgusting that the service is so bad, I can get a train to France easier than I can get to Liverpool - what a joke.

If I get somewhere north and roughly level to Liverpool are trains across working? I was thinking Manchester but if they are as bad that won't work either. Maybe Leeds?

National Express, or equivalent?

Ok, I will have a look at that as an option

don't think I can face being on a bus for that long! If it's the only option I think I would prefer to drive