CIS message at Leeds: "This is a slow train"

[Bletchleyite]

Agreed. Whoever thought that Leeds to York via Harrogate trains should be advertised as to Poppleton at Leeds and to Burley Park at York was a dimwit. Visitors from outside of Yorkshire going to Harrogate or Headingley will never have heard of either Poppleton or Burley Park, while from timetables and journey planners they are expecting to see Leeds and York on the departure displays. One day last year I caught the first off-peak train towards Leeds via Harrogate from York - I've never seen so many confused passengers at a station with departure displays.

It confused the life out of me (when travelling to Headingley from York), and I understand railway operations.

The problem is that without train numbers being used, the primary key of a train is departure time + destination.

 

[xotGD]

The train from York to Burley Park may not even be the quickest way to get to Burley Park - it might be quicker to get a TPE to Leeds and change there.

I don't think there is one size fits all answer to this. There will always be a small fraction of passengers who are inconvenienced/confused/misinformed, but whatever works best at getting the most people onto the most suitable train at each location needs to be adopted there. If this is a false destination, the words 'fast' and 'slow' or 'via XYZ' or on-train announcements telling people they would be better off catching the next train, then so be it.

I have only twice got on the wrong train, and both times an announcement from the guard prior to departure allowed me to quickly jump off before unintended journeys to far away places.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The train from York to Burley Park may not even be the quickest way to get to Burley Park - it might be quicker to get a TPE to Leeds and change there.

It wasn't when I was going to Headingley. But it is also necessary to respect that the passenger may not prefer to do that, they may prefer a direct train due to luggage, because they are frail - or just because they happen to like Pacers or enjoy the scenery or dislike TPE overcrowding or whatever.

 

[edwin_m]

Do any of these trains that are displayed as terminating at the station before their actual termination point have Advances for the end-to-end journey? If so it must be very confusing to have a ticket only valid on a train that doesn't appear to be going to where the ticket says.

 

[BluePenguin]

Do any of these trains that are displayed as terminating at the station before their actual termination point have Advances for the end-to-end journey? If so it must be very confusing to have a ticket only valid on a train that doesn't appear to be going to where the ticket says.

Yes they do! For example you can (or could last time I checked) buy an advance single from Margate to St Pancras which on the departure boards at Margate is displayed as terminating at Folkestone West (or onboard as Dover Priory until Ramsgate). There is no message on the display about the service continuing on to St Pancras at all.

It highly likely that someone would not get on this train and instead board a service heading to St Pancras either via Medway stations or via Canterbury West by mistake, for which of course their advance ticket would not be valid.

I can understand that Southeastern have done this to prevent people wanting Ashford and beyond from getting on this slower train via Dover Priory, Deal and Sandwich. However it is no more helpful than GWR advertising slow Paddington services as terminating at Ealing. I'm not sure if they sell advance tickets for their stopping services though.

I wonder what a conductor would have to say if they were met with someone in this position. Surely the passenger could not be forced to buy a new ticket and the relevent TOC would be to blame for their unnecessary "helpful departure boards"?

 

[Dhassell]

At Bristol Temple Meads, Services to Weston, Taunton or Exeter which stop everywhere show as "Local Stopping Service"

 

[Andyh82]

It should really be as simple as displaying the destination as X via Y Local Stopping Service.

But a further complication is when these trains may end up as the only trains that actually have a destination of Y, meaning people going there notice them on the screens and actually board them.

An example would be trains to Leeds from York. None of the fast trains actually go to Leeds, they go to Manchester, Liverpool, Plymouth etc, so the slow train 'Leeds via Harrogate' would be the only train with the destination of Leeds.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Though TBH showing the arrival times is also a good solution (VT commissioned this at Euston I believe but it seems to now have spread to all the ATOS PIS systems), if you're happy with the arrival time, get on if you want.

I noticed that on the boards at King's Cross the other day and I thought it made the intermediate stations hard to read from a distance. I think it would be clearer if the arrival times were aligned against the right hand edge of the screen (on the same line as the station they refer to, or on the line below if there wasn't enough space) rather than in brackets with only a single space separate them from the station name.

 

[Surreytraveller]

"Next fastest train to X" boards are better for that purpose.

You'd think GWR would also realise as a commuter operation that many commuters *don't* take the fastest train on purpose. I rarely do, I take slower trains to increase the chance of a seat. Advertising MKC slows as "Tring" at Euston would, for example, just be silly.

But as a commuter, you would know that the Tring train goes to Milton Keynes, so that is a bit of a non-argument

 

[Bletchleyite]

I noticed that on the boards at King's Cross the other day and I thought it made the intermediate stations hard to read from a distance. I think it would be clearer if the arrival times were aligned against the right hand edge of the screen (on the same line as the station they refer to, or on the line below if there wasn't enough space) rather than in brackets with only a single space separate them from the station name.

They are at Euston (following my feedback, indeed, as one screen was set like that by accident and I fed back that I thought it was better), surprised they aren't at other stations. Feed it back by Twitter to NR and they might change it

 

[Bletchleyite]

But as a commuter, you would know that the Tring train goes to Milton Keynes, so that is a bit of a non-argument

I don't know the whole timetable off by heart, so if I wasn't quite at the normal time it'd make things more difficult. Whereas I don't find it hard to look at the displays (particularly now they have arrival times) and choose based on number of stops.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

So even at Slough/ West Ealing (etc) the announcements were only for Ealing Broadway?

The Reading station indicators also say Ealing. Once beyond Reading, it's London Paddington and the in train displays always show Paddington as well.

Train travel has hazards for the unwary. Someone I know ended up at Henley when travelling in the evening peak from Maidenhead to Reading.

 

[Camden]

Assuming it does, "Calling at all stations", "Semi-fast service" and "Fast service" could be a less confusing compromise which gets the message over better.