Running trains is complicated and there is no simple solution

[infobleep]

Here is a good example of how the railways are complicated and can't please everyone.

Tonight a broken down train caused congestion on slow lines through Wimbledon. The 18.14 to Woking grok Surbiton was running with over 20 min delay.

The 18.40 fast to basingstoke uses the slow line so would very quickly get stuck behind it if the signalman hadn't switched us to the fast line.may be there was a gap at just the right moment, I said it was complex. I suggest that because in the past we have been left on the slow line, causing me to be half an hour late as I missed two connections, as the guard said we had to let faster trains go through. No delay repay as that must be an hour for SWT.

Anyway clearly we didn't have to do that tonight. However in not doing that both the Alton and Portsmouth services, ended up leaving 10 minutes late from Woking.

Either way they can't win in these situations.

I was very tempted not to board the train at Surbiton, as I was expecting the worse but I chanced it and got lucky. Only 8 mins late into Guildford.

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[swt_passenger]

Minor point, but it's 'no delay repay' because SWT do not operate the delay repay scheme...

 

[Goatboy]

Excellent choice of Twitter hashtag for this disruption, SWT.

#Wimbledon

Yea, that'll work well and get the message out clearly.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Excellent choice of Twitter hashtag for this disruption, SWT.

#Wimbledon

Yea, that'll work well and get the message out clearly.

That's standard National Rail Enquiries hashtagging...The one for the ongoing closure between Harlech and Pwllheli, for example, is #Llandecwyn

 

[Goatboy]

They really need to just tag NRES on it or something - #NRESWimbledon or whatever. Then you get just delay information and not a torrent of people from Wimbledon chatting about nights out.

If you follow the link from the NRES site you get loads of irrelevent chatter from random people who probably don't even use trains!

 

[ushawk]

SWT have been using their own hashtag which is #WimbledonSWT - much more appropriate.

 

[ECML180]

They really need to just tag NRES on it or something - #NRESWimbledon or whatever. Then you get just delay information and not a torrent of people from Wimbledon chatting about nights out.

Or worse...tennis!

 

[infobleep]

I am fascinated by how they timetable trains and how they deal with delays. It's never consistent because every situation is different.

Saying I do think that different people deal with delay issues differently, which is why sometimes a train will have stops cancelled and another time it will be just left to carry with it's delay. I experienced just that in one week once. One night the stops were cancelled, another night train ran with no cancelled stops and was allowed to run with 30 min delay through out and no stops cancelled. Such is life.

May be if I wasn't doing the job I do now, I'd have worked for the railways.

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[Eagle]

They really need to just tag NRES on it or something - #NRESWimbledon or whatever. Then you get just delay information and not a torrent of people from Wimbledon chatting about nights out.

Worse is when you get ones like #Wool or #Healing or even #University.

 

[The North Briton]

The funniest one I have seen was #Keith, which of course produced lots of references to Mr Lemon and Mr Urban!

 

[Minstral25]

It is hard to organise the Railways and this morning at Redhill was a classic example.

Signal or Points failure outside the station meant no trains could go Northbound into the Station and hence nothing could get in to go to London.

Because the service is complex and irregular it obviously created a nightmare for the planners. A train eventually came in but someone had decided it should come in on PLatform 2, go past and block the main line to reverse to Platform 1, this meant they had to get the FGW train on platform 1 up to the siding so it could get back to platform 1 which it did. Meanwhile the 4 or 500 passengers that had been waiting for a London train were sent by announcements to platform 3 to catch a Gatwick bound train. Before the Gatwick train came in a completely unannounced London bound train came into platform 2 causing a massive rush through the narrow underpass to change platforms. I hope everybody from platform 3 managed to catch the train.

It's complex without doubt. I wonder though if life could be easier if they run simpler regular services rather than the irregular service currently in operation. That way when it goes wrong they just restart from where they were at.

 

[Tomnick]

Even if you could simply restart the trainset after a problem has cleared, and drop straight into the next iteration of a regular pattern (which probably wouldn't be much easier than trying to pick up appropriate workings on an irregular service anyway), you'd still have the significant problem of drivers and guards (who might be due a PNB, or need to get back to somewhere else, or were booked to be relieved at X whilst the diagram that they've dropped onto works through so there's no-one to relieve) and trains (which aren't such a problem in the short term, but need to end up in the right place by the end of the day for fuelling, maintenance etc.) all being in the wrong place. Plus, an 'irregular' service is often necessary in the peaks, even where it follows a standard pattern for the rest of the day, to make best use of the capacity available, make additional calls and so on.

 

[Goatboy]

Worse is when you get ones like #Wool or #Healing or even #University.

It honestly makes you wonder just who they are asking to do these announcements, it's surely not rocket science that if you pick a word like that then your rail announcements are going to be lost in the noise and customers clicking the 'official' link to the twitter hashtag on the NRES site - which simply searches twitter for that hashtag - will end up with random rubbish.

 

[6Gman]

It's complex without doubt. I wonder though if life could be easier if they run simpler regular services rather than the irregular service currently in operation. That way when it goes wrong they just restart from where they were at.

In some ways railway 'life' is easier these days with operations being simplified - Virgin just belt up and down between a limited range of destinations for example. And only two forms of train. Contrast to earlier years, with many more destinations, much more varied stock, drivers who could take a Class 1 in one direction and return with a Parcels or even a freight. Mail and parcels being loaded onto Class 1 services. And 30mph freight services added to the mix!

Happy Days!

 

[455driver]

Happy Days!

Which I missed out on unfortunately!

 

[Skoodle]

Even if you could simply restart the trainset after a problem has cleared, and drop straight into the next iteration of a regular pattern...

On the London Overground East London Line we regularly do this during severe disruption. All trains sent back in to the depot and we pick up next working past New Cross Gate or Surrey Quays. Usually means we can get the service back to normal in about an hour.

 

[Minstral25]

On the London Overground East London Line we regularly do this during severe disruption. All trains sent back in to the depot and we pick up next working past New Cross Gate or Surrey Quays. Usually means we can get the service back to normal in about an hour.

The East London Line is an excellent example of repeating patterns which means if you stop the service you can just restart the repeat.

The planners make the services too complex sometimes and capacity restraints often send them down plans of immense complexity. Simplification is definitely necessary.

 

[A-driver]

The East London Line is an excellent example of repeating patterns which means if you stop the service you can just restart the repeat.

The planners make the services too complex sometimes and capacity restraints often send them down plans of immense complexity. Simplification is definitely necessary.

Well it works on a small self contained few mile long metro route but simplicity isn't possible everywhere. I don't think the planners make the service too complex, many companies off peak have an hourly timetable repeated over and over. Problem is the peaks when they can't do that any more as extra trains are needed to run and have to fit in with other operators, often in other regions.

 

[Tomnick]

In the ELL example, are all the drivers based at a single depot, the same place that all the trains are put away when things go wrong? Sounds like the ideal railway! Elsewhere, though, where it's not so self-contained and cosy, things are necessarily more complicated - with crews from different depots and trains needing to get to different places at the end of the day. If it could be simplified without affecting the level of service (e.g. the loss of peak services that disrupt an hourly pattern) or massively increasing costs (e.g. lots of extra ECS movements to avoid outstabling trains away from depots)...then don't you think they would have done?!

 

[Moonshot]

The East London Line is an excellent example of repeating patterns which means if you stop the service you can just restart the repeat.

The planners make the services too complex sometimes and capacity restraints often send them down plans of immense complexity. Simplification is definitely necessary.

Planners dont set out to make services too complex at all.....they are simply reacting to the needs of the whole network which has multi stakeholders with different aspirations. A big hurdle to overcome is the fact that most routes carry mixed traffic ( High Speed , Suburban and Freight ).

There is a general idea at higher levels of management that we should be looking to run fewer but longer trains......this has some merit in my opinion

 

[455driver]

The planners make the services too complex sometimes and capacity restraints often send them down plans of immense complexity. Simplification is definitely necessary.

A simple timetable is easy, but you wont fit all the trains in that people want to run, to run them all the timetable has to be juggled around (hence the working timetable).
The planners have to fit the trains around each other, if there was an easy way of doing it then they would, nobody sets out to make a simple job difficult (management/government excepted ).

As you seem to have all the answers maybe you should put in for a planners job, maybe then you would have an idea about what the job entails because your post above it is clear you really dont have a clue!

Planners have a thankless task at the best of times and sometimes its down to the signalmen and drivers to make it work and boy do we bitch about the planners when that happens!

Would I do their job?
No bloomin chance!

 

[306024]

Planning a timetable is just half the story, and that can be difficult enough depending on the geography you are given. Try planning the GEML (to pick the route I know) with all the different train types, and then get the branch lines (mostly with single track in places) to connect. It is good fun.

One of the biggest challenges however is the unit and train crew diagrams that bring it all to life. Planing the unit diagrams so there are good links to maintenance depots is essential, with sufficient down time for exams etc. Matching demand is difficult too (as discussed elsewhere), unit mileage is expensive.

Then there is producing the train crew diagrams to the various agreements. Good crew diagrams will make service recovery easier. For example, in ex-NSE land a good principle is to plan the unit diagrams so the driver can keep with the same unit until their meal break, then work with a second unit after the break to get back home. That makes Control's job easier during disruption, but isn't always as simple as that.

At the end of the day there are lots of different aspects to railway work. Would I be a signaller, driver, conductor or controller?
No bloomin chance either!

 

[DJL]

On this subject - who is actually responsible for figuring out pathing in a busy area?
I imagine this can get very complex in busy areas - especially if 2 TOCs want to run a service at the same time - who wins?

 

[swt_passenger]

On this subject - who is actually responsible for figuring out pathing in a busy area?
I imagine this can get very complex in busy areas - especially if 2 TOCs want to run a service at the same time - who wins?

Network Rail are responsible for the overall timetable - everywhere. They have rules in place to deal with timetabling and access disputes.

 

[306024]

Yes Network Rail are responsible for the allocation of capacity on the network and the final timetable. However in areas where the service is intensive and one TOC runs the majority of services, the TOC will submit a fully detailed timetable, complete with unit diagrams and platform working, at the appropriate point in the planning process.

It also makes good sense for NR to get TOCs together when planning new timetables well before this date. If all TOCs simply bid what they want, NR will have an impossible puzzle to solve. In the early days of privatisation, it was like a game of poker. These days common sense mostly prevails, if you have to resort to the access disputes procedure you have failed in my opinion.

 

[6Gman]

Which I missed out on unfortunately!

And which I wouldn't have missed for the world!

 

[DJL]

if you have to resort to the access disputes procedure you have failed in my opinion.

Unless of course the primary TOC submits a timetable that leaves no space at all for a competing TOC!

I imagine this could happen in a situation where 1 TOC has only a handful of services.

e.g. FCCs weekday morning service from Orpington - there are just 2 or 3 of these on a Mon-Fri. Everything else is SE

 

[306024]

Some TOCs get on better with each other than others. Yes there have been blocking tactics played by some TOCs (First Great Eastern and Anglia Railways used to have fun for example), but the Office of Rail Regulation is there to see fair play. TOCs have to have access rights for the services the apply for.

 

[Eagle]

e.g. FCCs weekday morning service from Orpington - there are just 2 or 3 of these on a Mon-Fri. Everything else is SE

Those "FCC" services are actually joint Southeastern services in that case, so probably no problem there.

(Officially, the trains switch from being SE to FCC at Blackfriars.)

 

[Bald Rick]

Those "FCC" services are actually joint Southeastern services in that case, so probably no problem there.

(Officially, the trains switch from being SE to FCC at Blackfriars.)

There is no problem. They are SE services south of Blackfriars, and FCC services north thereof as you say.