Train vs. Car

[MichaelJP59]

Indeed Michael.......the railway gods havent been too kind this evening to the driver and passenger of a car struck by a train on a level crossing, nor to the trespasser struck by a train in a separate incident. So not just you suffering delays.

Are you trying to make the point that it is wrong to complain about lack of punctuality because unfortunate people have been involved in unrelated accidents elsewhere on the network? A strange logical proposition.

Anyway, only 6 minutes late this morning. Was worried as the locomotive started out from Wakefield Westgate then a couple of seconds later immediately halted and powered down. The guard called out the driver had reported a problem, but a few minutes later the train pulled out. Must have been the old "turn it off and on again" solution!

Made me think though, what would have happened if the train had failed and blocked the station? How long would it take to shunt it out onto a siding? Would following trains have bypassed the station on the fast line and missed the stop altogether?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Are you trying to make the point that it is wrong to complain about lack of punctuality because unfortunate people have been involved in unrelated accidents elsewhere on the network? A strange logical proposition.

Anyway, only 6 minutes late this morning. Was worried as the locomotive started out from Wakefield Westgate then a couple of seconds later immediately halted and powered down. The guard called out the driver had reported a problem, but a few minutes later the train pulled out. Must have been the old "turn it off and on again" solution!

Made me think though, what would have happened if the train had failed and blocked the station? How long would it take to shunt it out onto a siding? Would following trains have bypassed the station on the fast line and missed the stop altogether?

It would have taken a while! Summon thunderbird from doncaster would take at least 45 minutes then that would do the work once it was all agreed safely. Probably an hour.

 

[MichaelJP59]

OK, to finish off the week, 13 minutes late this morning. That's only 7/20 on time for the last 4 weeks. Maybe it's time to look at the timetable, if it has absolutely no slack at all maybe add 5 minutes or so. Is that something they would do?

 

[The Planner]

Not if the timetable wasn't the cause of the issues....

 

[TheJRB]

I know being a train enthusiast, my answer is slightly biased, but I would always take the train where available. Having things like a trolley service and not having to worry about other people's reckless driving just makes the whole experience much more pleasant to me. Of course a lot of it comes down to where you live and where your destination is. Living in a railway town like Ashford which has no less than seven routes running through it, it makes a lot more sense to travel by train. From Ashford train journey times to London, Tonbridge, Hastings, Canterbury, Maidstone, Ramsgate, Sevenoaks etc. are often much quicker than via car. Not quite the same if you're on a basic A to B line and want to travel to C with a long connection time at either A or B though.

Certain bottlenecks will always cause trouble. A really good example is London Bridge. It's like a stack of cards or a game of Jenga there; a few things go wrong and the whole service collapses. I was on a train to Cannon Street a while ago and on the approach to London Bridge the guard announced "Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we will actually be on time arriving at London Bridge today, but if that changes I'll keep you informed." It's almost like being delayed is expected there.

Some people are really surprised when they hear that at 17, I'm not learning to drive straight away. Frankly, if I never have to own a car, I'll be happy.

 

[anme]

I wonder if it's to do with societies perception of social status?
As an example one place I worked - if you came in late mumbling about the traffic being bad or no parking available that was accepted regularly. Arrive late on the train, maybe once a week was acceptable. By bus you'd only get away with it occasionally before someone would pull you up over your punctuality. As for walking - woe betide you if you were ever late!

I think there's some truth in this, but I also see attitudes changing. In the nineties, car or traffic problems were accepted as a valid excuse for being late (or not making it in at all) in my office, but delays on the train got you a chat with the manager. Over time though, things changed. We moved offices, and more people started to commute by train, and occasional serious train delays became better accepted. A few bad winters, when the rail commuters generally made it in, while car drivers didn't even try, also helped.

Overall, my experience is that rail commuting is more reliable than commuting by car. In the ten years I had that job, I never once failed to get to work by train, despite snow, strikes, and anything else you can think of. None of my car driving colleagues could claim such a record.

 

[Manchester77]

I do agree with JRB, train is so much more comfortable and quicker. You have to leave an hour earlier to contend with rush hour M60/62 traffic. Sounding rather like a Br advert here but you can get stuff done on the train and if you do need to pop to the loo you don't have to get accross 3 lanes of traffic to queue to use motos toilets! Infact I've just proven to my family how its cheaper to take the train than the car to cog to York for the Christmas markets - £32.32 (prices based on our local filing station) compared to £31.70 for 2 adults 1 child return MAN to YRK (and that's on the trainline too so it'll probably be cheaper on Virgin since we don't have to pay fees!)

 

[infobleep]

Does anyone know what is the UKs most regularly delayed train? OR the one with the longest regular delay?

I can think of at least 10 trains I've regularly travelled on since 2010 that are rarely on time. All of these are peak time trains. For some it has got to the stage where you wonder why they don't amend the timetable to reflect the service they are able to provide.

If trains are regularly late then no matter what the reason then surely the timetable needs to be looked at.

If a disabled wheelchair user is delaying a train regularly then they need to amend the timetable to allow for their boarding the train. It's unfair to allowed a disabled person just as long as an able-bodied person. After all the train is rarely going to leave any earlier if they don't amend the timetable and passengers are only going to get frustrated at a delay which I'm sure the guard won't apologise for. Why should he apologise for a disabled person getting the train. They have every right to do so.

In the days of mixed goods and passenger trains they allowed the goods to be loaded train so the same should apply to passengers. If passenger(s) are regularly delaying trains then account for them in the timetable.

Here's an example. The 18.23 from Waterloo to Basingstoke is 75 trains more than 3 minutes late. It generally makes up that time between Woking Junction and Pirbright Junction. However passengers going to Surbiton and Woking will just see that their train is delayed every day. They probably won't look see if it caught up time later on. They probably only care about the journey they are making and regularly that journey is late.
http://raildar.co.uk/timetable/train?trainid=W91413

The question then is, should allowances for delays be spread out across the whole journey more evenly rather than at cherry picked points.? Could the spreading out of delays more evenly even work?

However an even better example is the 16.24 from Tring to Euston. If I am reading the table correctly, this is always late and never makes up time. The perfect example of a train service whose timetable needs amending.
http://raildar.co.uk/timetable/train?trainid=P36415

 

[The Planner]

By all means look at dwell times if that is the issue, but by adding say ½ minute to each dwell on a busy commuter route you are then in the realms of deciding which service you are going to knock out later on or which trains behind you are going to delay on a twin track route. Then you are into the journey time issue, 10 stops and then the journey is 5 minutes longer, that means they have to get to the station earlier or arrive at the destination later, that will make people look at other options. Do you look at longer trains and try and influence human behaviour to make them spread along a platform so the dwell can be reduced back down? it is a big can of worms that a timetable will not completely solve.

 

[edwin_m]

Using the example of a regular user in a wheelchair I would have thought the best action would be to alert the staff responsible to this situation (in practice they will probably know before management!) so that they can be primed to deal with it as quickly as possible. Altering the timetable to delay one train would take several months minimum, and who's to say the passenger in question hasn't started using a different train or stopped travelling by then.

 

[The Planner]

However an even better example is the 16.24 from Tring to Euston. If I am reading the table correctly, this is always late and never makes up time. The perfect example of a train service whose timetable needs amending.
http://raildar.co.uk/timetable/train?trainid=P36415

Are you talking right time as in 0 minute delay or within PPM? Right time figures would be around the 60-70% mark at a guess. If you want to fix a timetable based upon right time figures you will need a big piece of paper to jot down all the trains you are taking out the timetable.

 

[306024]

Indeed. I wish I had a pound for every time I was asked to alter the timetable, only to find the root cause of any delay was nothing to do with the timetable.

Making the timetable too slack is not good practice, can increase cost and compromise capacity. That is not to say it shouldn't be accurate, but the number of delay minutes attributable to the permanent timetable plan are minimal in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Moonshot]

And of course, nobody has a crystal ball to anticipate where tomorrows incidents will fall on the network.....a factor which also affects every other timetabled form of transport...

 

[infobleep]

Delays may not be due to the timetable itself but if a train is delayed 9/10 times then surely it shouldn't be ignored but stuided as to why it might be late so often.

If delays are acceptable then train companies need to educate customers more on why it doesn't matter if a train is late. There are enough posters informing passengers doors closed 30 seconds prior to depature.

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[306024]

Delays may not be due to the timetable itself but if a train is delayed 9/10 times then surely it shouldn't be ignored but stuided as to why it might be late so often.

Of course, and they are. That is how you discover that two days are rarely the same. On busy peak commuter routes, it doesn't take much for delays to build up. If you regularly travel on a train at the back end of the peak, it may be delayed more often, but the reason will usually be different.

 

[infobleep]

The results may be different but if the delay occurs over the same stretch of track every time shouldn't they at least do something about it. Besides in the case of the 16.26 Tring to Euston I wouldn't call that the end of peak rush hour.

I noticed something else this morning. The 8.03 fast from Guildford to Waterloo was late by 1 minute. I heard a load of screaming teenagers as they ran to try and catch the 8.04 to London Road (Guildford). Now before the autumn leaf fall timetable they had a valid connection between the two trains. Very soon they will do again but 2-3 months when they don't is a long time in a child's mind.

For good reasons, leaves, they had to bring the slow trains times forward. However just because they have done that will the children simply walk and get the later train? Of course not they will run and try to catch the same train as usual because that is the train they always get and besides sometimes the slow train is late leaving if by incoming train block's its path. Even adults do the same thing. They only have to wait an extra 8 minutes. Of course 8 minutes feels like a longer period of time to a child than an adult.

I'm not saying they can amend the timetable as the leaves are real problem, despite what some commuters on twitter think but it shows what happens when train times are messed with or trains run late.

I doubt the children take much notice of the do not run at stations posters. I don't think dults do.


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[infobleep]

Of course we should put this in perspective. The trains are far more reliable than the London busses. Whenever I walk to or from Surbiton to Kingston upon Thames, on average I see 3 buses in the opposite direction to the direction I'm going. One day it was 10. My walk is just under 25 minutes. In comparison the trains are far better and that is all down to traffic on our roads, which trains avoid.

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