Trivia: shortest turnaround time for longest journey

[Johnny Lewis]

I'm just having a browse through the December 2021 timetable.

Contained within it, 1V92 0625 Holyhead to Maesteg arrives at Maesteg at 1212 and returns back as 1W94 1217 Maesteg to Holyhead. The journey time is 5 hours 47 minutes for 1V92 and 6 hours 4 minutes for 1W94.

This led me to thinking: are there any examples of where a train with such a long journey time in both directions has such a short turnaround time? (I appreciate that in the event of late running, the train will more than likely be terminated at Cardiff Central, so I'm not making any comment on timetable robustness etc.)
I'm just curious to know if there are any other UK examples of where this happens, and whether there are any longer journeys than this that turn around in the same, or even less, time?

 

[30907]

The return working stands for 13min at Cardiff which presumably mitigates what would otherwise (presumably) be a non-compliant time.

Pre-Covid, 0604 Swansea-Crewe 1111 forming 1120 return (only to Shrewsbury though, obviating serious problems.

 

[PHILIPE]

When I was working in Planning in the 90s there were minimum turn round times calculated mostly on distance. I think the case quoted here could have been a mandatory 20 minutes but over time this seems to have been eroded.

 

[Taunton]

The long running one was on the Bidston-Wrexham line, where all day the trains on the approx-one hour journey had two minutes turnround at Bidston, and minus one minute turnround at Wrexham Central. This gave a net turnround of one minute per two hours, throughout the days' diagram.

 

[The Planner]

The long running one was on the Bidston-Wrexham line, where all day the trains on the approx-one hour journey had two minutes turnround at Bidston, and minus one minute turnround at Wrexham Central. This gave a net turnround of one minute per two hours, throughout the days' diagram.

Thats not what happens/happened in the WTT though.

When I was working in Planning in the 90s there were minimum turn round times calculated mostly on distance. I think the case quoted here could have been a mandatory 20 minutes but over time this seems to have been eroded.

TfW have gamed the rules, nothing says you cannot have a 3 minute turnround at Maesteg.

 

[_toommm_]

Holyhead has some tight turnarounds. For example:

1D10 arrives in from Chester at 09:17 WTT/09:21 GBTT, and leaves again for Birmingham Intl at 09:23 WTT/GBTT.

Actually I’m not going to list them all as looking there’s far too many, but a lot of them are only five minutes on journeys that are more than three hours each way.

 

[MP393]

1W74 arrives into Manchester Piccadilly at 22:10 from Carmarthen and immediately forms 1D47 22:12 Manchester Piccadilly to Chester from platform 14! Notoriously late.

 

[The Planner]

1W74 arrives into Manchester Piccadilly at 22:10 from Carmarthen and immediately forms 1D47 22:12 Manchester Piccadilly to Chester from platform 14! Notoriously late.

Its got 4 minutes but agree that one is stupid.

 

[PHILIPE]

1W74 arrives into Manchester Piccadilly at 22:10 from Carmarthen and immediately forms 1D47 22:12 Manchester Piccadilly to Chester from platform 14! Notoriously late.

It won't work on the Public times but gets by on the WTT times. Perhaps it should be a through train

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Sep 2021 ==

Its got 4 minutes but agree that one is stupid.

I think it's done for diagramming purposes to work the 175 back to Chester as the incoming movement (158) from Chester shunts over to the main part and forms 2235 to Crewe

 

[SteelWeelApeal]

There seems to be a bit of a pattern in terms of TOC here...

 

[PHILIPE]

The long running one was on the Bidston-Wrexham line, where all day the trains on the approx-one hour journey had two minutes turnround at Bidston, and minus one minute turnround at Wrexham Central. This gave a net turnround of one minute per two hours, throughout the days' diagram.

The Severn Beach line was similar going back to the 90s when they all went to the top. However, an afternoon trip was knocked out as a contingency to allow the service to recover if necessary

 

[MP393]

It won't work on the Public times but gets by on the WTT times. Perhaps it should be a through train

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Sep 2021 ==



I think it's done for diagramming purposes to work the 175 back to Chester as the incoming movement (158) from Chester shunts over to the main part and forms 2235 to Crewe

Correct, the train crew also swap over as Crewe don’t sign that route to Chester, which means that often 1K76 (2235 MAN CRE) is also delayed as 1W74 can be regularly 30+ late and they still do the swap to get the 175 home. Can form a right headache at Picc for us sometimes but that’s the railway, there’s a method behind the madness!

 

[craigybagel]

It won't work on the Public times but gets by on the WTT times. Perhaps it should be a through train

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Sep 2021 ==



I think it's done for diagramming purposes to work the 175 back to Chester as the incoming movement (158) from Chester shunts over to the main part and forms 2235 to Crewe

Correct. The need to get the right units in place is that important that there was a night last week the inbound set was an hour late at Crewe and they still sent it through to Manchester to form the Chester service. Plus there are the traincrew implications mentioned below.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Sep 2021 ==

Correct, the train crew also swap over as Crewe don’t sign that route to Chester, which means that often 1K76 (2235 MAN CRE) is also delayed as 1W74 can be regularly 30+ late and they still do the swap to get the 175 home. Can form a right headache at Picc for us sometimes but that’s the railway, there’s a method behind the madness!

There's 3 drivers involved in the process.

Chester driver A boards the service from Carmarthen at Crewe and travels as a passenger to Manchester. Then he/she jumps into the drivers seat and works it to Chester.

Chester driver B works the 158 from Chester to Manchester, shunts the unit into a bay platform and then travels on it as a passenger to Crewe.

The Crewe driver works up from Cardiff to Manchester, then walks from platform 14 over to the bays where the 158 has been left, then works that back to Crewe.

In theory it means that however late the service is, there should be drivers in place at the very least! It's all pretty complicated but most of the time it works.

It's easier on the guards side though - there's just one Chester guard and one Crewe guard and they just swap trains in Manchester.

 

[PHILIPE]

Correct, the train crew also swap over as Crewe don’t sign that route to Chester, which means that often 1K76 (2235 MAN CRE) is also delayed as 1W74 can be regularly 30+ late and they still do the swap to get the 175 home. Can form a right headache at Picc for us sometimes but that’s the railway, there’s a method behind the madness!

Does that mean that Platform 14 is kept blocked until 1W74 arrives

 

[MP393]

No, the unit from Chester shunts into Mayfield Loop clearing the platform. That unit comes back onto the main shed to form 1K76.

 

[sd0733]

Does that mean that Platform 14 is kept blocked until 1W74 arrives

Platform 14 wouldn't be blocked. The 158 shunts over to the main shed.

 

[PHILIPE]

Platform 14 wouldn't be blocked. The 158 shunts over to the main shed.

Forget what I said. Getting myself tied up

 

[A Challenge]

Are there only two guards but three drivers because the guard doesn't need to be on the shunting movement for the train from Chester to the main shed so can more reliably be ready for the incoming train from Carmarthen?

 

[MP393]

Are there only two guards but three drivers because the guard doesn't need to be on the shunting movement for the train from Chester to the main shed so can more reliably be ready for the incoming train from Carmarthen?

Correct, they leave the train to go into the loop and back onto the main whilst they wait on platform for 1W74 to arrive. Although it has been known for the guard to remain on the stock in error, and be in Mayfield loop whilst the Chester service is stood on 14 waiting for them! A rare occurrence however, as said earlier, it usually works just fine!

 

[Watershed]

Are there only two guards but three drivers because the guard doesn't need to be on the shunting movement for the train from Chester to the main shed so can more reliably be ready for the incoming train from Carmarthen?

Correct, there's a Chester guard that works the Chester-Picc service and then relieves the Crewe guard who's worked the ex-Carmarthen service from Cardiff up to Picc. The Crewe guard swaps from one service to the other and there's no passing involved.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

As a standard rule of thumb, best practice suggests that 10 mins of turnaround should be allowed for every hour of inbound journey, for Class 1 services. This is honoured more in the breach in my experience and is a result of a very congested and tightly resourced network. Where trains have 'extra' dwell enroute this can be deducted from the requirement, but it still doesn't justify the Maesteg example! The TOC should have robust mitigations in place to maintain right time performance where turnarounds are compressed to that extent.

 

[PHILIPE]

As a standard rule of thumb, best practice suggests that 10 mins of turnaround should be allowed for every hour of inbound journey, for Class 1 services. This is honoured more in the breach in my experience and is a result of a very congested and tightly resourced network. Where trains have 'extra' dwell enroute this can be deducted from the requirement, but it still doesn't justify the Maesteg example! The TOC should have robust mitigations in place to maintain right time performance where turnarounds are compressed to that extent.

If the Maesteg arrival didn't turn straight back on the single line and spent some time there, the next train wouldn't be able to get up there in order to maintain the hourly Timetable in the Branch

 

[Ianno87]

I'm just having a browse through the December 2021 timetable.

Contained within it, 1V92 0625 Holyhead to Maesteg arrives at Maesteg at 1212 and returns back as 1W94 1217 Maesteg to Holyhead. The journey time is 5 hours 47 minutes for 1V92 and 6 hours 4 minutes for 1W94.

This led me to thinking: are there any examples of where a train with such a long journey time in both directions has such a short turnaround time? (I appreciate that in the event of late running, the train will more than likely be terminated at Cardiff Central, so I'm not making any comment on timetable robustness etc.)
I'm just curious to know if there are any other UK examples of where this happens, and whether there are any longer journeys than this that turn around in the same, or even less, time?

Rather brilliantly, once it gets to Holyhead, it then has a whopping 5 minutes' turnround before it heads off to Crewe again!

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

If the Maesteg arrival didn't turn straight back on the single line and spent some time there, the next train wouldn't be able to get up there in order to maintain the hourly Timetable in the Branch

Yes I realise that. The fact it goes to Maesteg at all is what is daft.

 

[craigybagel]

Long turn around times are the sort of luxury TfW can't afford - yet another aftermath of the 15 year growth franchise awarded to their predecessor. Every minute needed to be squeezed out of the fleet then to try and keep up with passenger numbers, and there hasn't been enough time to fix all of that yet.

It should all be different after the big recast in a few years. I suspect most if not all of the examples listed here will come to an end after that.

 

[vlad]

EMR's Newark to Crewe train only has 8 minutes' turnaround in Crewe, which is less than you'd expect considering it's over two hours' journey and everything goes pear-shaped if Avanti or XC are running late through Stoke. I'm sure the service had even less time at Crewe when it started in Derby!

 

[Kite159]

Yes I realise that. The fact it goes to Maesteg at all is what is daft.

But remove the service and someone will no doubt complain they no longer have a direct train from Rhyl to Wildmill

 

[Alex365Dash]

It won't work on the Public times but gets by on the WTT times. Perhaps it should be a through train

I’m not sure Transport for Wales are particularly keen on the idea of having to accept passengers with a Shrewsbury - Chester ticket on a service via Crewe, Manchester and Warrington.

 

[_toommm_]

Correct, there's a Chester guard that works the Chester-Picc service and then relieves the Crewe guard who's worked the ex-Carmarthen service from Cardiff up to Picc. The Crewe guard swaps from one service to the other and there's no passing involved.

That service was rather late into Piccadilly tonight - some of it was probably down to two set swaps, at Cardiff and at Shrewsbury. It meant the service to Chester left half an hour late and the service to Crewe left fifteen minutes late.

 

[Ianno87]

I’m not sure Transport for Wales are particularly keen on the idea of having to accept passengers with a Shrewsbury - Chester ticket on a service via Crewe, Manchester and Warrington.

Is that a big issue for a single train late in the evening?