Should passenger trains be identified to the public by their train numbers?

[miklcct]

This topic comes up again

My opinion is that, for reservable train, letters + 4 digit RSID is used, while for non-reservable train, 2 letters + 2 digit route code is used. And I wish this to be done before the final demise of the class 455 trains.

A letter suffix is used on dividing trains or variants of the route code. For example, for the Waterloo - Weymouth / Poole trains, the front set is labelled section A and the letter A is appended to the train number after splitting at Southampton, and the back set is labelled section B and the letter B is appended to the train number after splitting.

 

[SargeNpton]

I don't see why 6-Character headcodes are better than the 4-digit Retail IDs the industry is already using. The RSIDs are all in TPS, they get sent out to the systems that need them now. No need to adapt anything or change any legacy systems.

The RSID is a 6-character alpha-numeric string, of which the first two are the 2-alpha TOC code. For instance, the 0912 Sunday services from Plymouth to Paddington is GW1804. In the reservations system the RSID has an additional 2 digit suffix to indicate the portion for splitting/joining trains.

With the exception of Heathrow Express (the reasons for which are outside of the scope of this thread), each 6-character RSID is unique on any one day - across both reservable and non-reservable services.

 

[zwk500]

The RSID is a 6-character alpha-numeric string, of which the first two are the 2-alpha TOC code.

Ah, I used to get bids that would sometimes only mention the 4 digits, presumably because the TOC was obvious!

In the reservations system the RSID has an additional 2 digit suffix to indicate the portion for splitting/joining trains.

Excellent, another potential reason to object in the bin. Presumably these suffixes handle both splitting/joining for different destinations and when units get dropped off halfway (e.g. Avanti North Wales services)? So reservations could be allocated correctly without the current fudge Avanti use of running a ghost 1Zxx path on top?

With the exception of Heathrow Express (the reasons for which are outside of the scope of this thread), each 6-character RSID is unique on any one day - across both reservable and non-reservable services.

excellent, even less reason to object! - A flight number is handled easily enough and this is pretty much identical. You don't need train numbers for non-reservable services IMHO but that's a different debate.

 

[SargeNpton]

Ah, I used to get bids that would sometimes only mention the 4 digits, presumably because the TOC was obvious!

Excellent, another potential reason to object in the bin. Presumably these suffixes handle both splitting/joining for different destinations and when units get dropped off halfway (e.g. Avanti North Wales services)? So reservations could be allocated correctly without the current fudge Avanti use of running a ghost 1Zxx path on top?

excellent, even less reason to object! - A flight number is handled easily enough and this is pretty much identical. You don't need train numbers for non-reservable services IMHO but that's a different debate.

In the Network Rail CIF file, the three constituent parts of the RSID are held in 3 different fields - being merged in the system that provides the timetable data to retail systems. You would have seen the 4-digit in the "Headcode" field in the bids.

 

[zwk500]

In the Network Rail CIF file, the three constituent parts of the RSID are held in 3 different fields - being merged in the system that provides the timetable data to retail systems. You would have seen the 4-digit in the "Headcode" field in the bids.

That makes a lot of sense (surprisingly, for the rail industry).

 

[Philip]

Why not also state the unit class & number next to each timetabled service? It seems to be a typical British trait that public railway information must not in any way veer towards enthusiast/trainspotter jargon, but it would still be quite useful even for more 'in-the-know' but non-enthusiast passengers to state 'this service is worked by 1xx xxx' - particularly on a route which comprises of a mix of old and newer rolling stock and with mixed formations.

 

[zwk500]

Why not also state the unit class & number next to each timetabled service? It seems to be a typical British trait that public railway information must not in any way veer towards enthusiast/trainspotter jargon, but it would still be quite useful even for more 'in-the-know' but non-enthusiast passengers to state 'this service is worked by 1xx xxx' - particularly on a route which comprises of a mix of old and newer rolling stock and which mixed formations.

For the people who care about this, RTT is nearly there. The overwhelming majority of passengers will only want to know where their seat is. Some might want to know if it's a 'new' train or not, but most passengers won't know a Class 180 from a Class 370. ISTR Virgin and Avanti used to put notes on the CIS saying 'This is a 9 car pendolino' or whatever, which tbh is as much as the passenger needs.

As an example, on Southern being told 'This service is operated by 377423, 377452 and 377413 today' is going to be of no help to any commuter. They might assume that each unit = 4 cars, but that's not always the case and they're unlikely to know the subclasses well enough to tell them apart.

 

[Philip]

For the people who care about this, RTT is nearly there. The overwhelming majority of passengers will only want to know where their seat is. Some might want to know if it's a 'new' train or not, but most passengers won't know a Class 180 from a Class 370. ISTR Virgin and Avanti used to put notes on the CIS saying 'This is a 9 car pendolino' or whatever, which tbh is as much as the passenger needs.

As an example, on Southern being told 'This service is operated by 377423, 377452 and 377413 today' is going to be of no help to any commuter. They might assume that each unit = 4 cars, but that's not always the case and they're unlikely to know the subclasses well enough to tell them apart.

When TPE introduced the 185s, for the first couple of years they had seat cloths which read 'Welcome to the new Pennine Class 185'. Despite most passengers not initially being any the wiser, it is potentially a good marketing tool, plus it might spark or develop an interest in railways for some passengers as they're more likely to look up and research 'Class 185' and subsequently other train types/routes if the information is displayed publicly like it used to be.

Perhaps listing the exact unit number would be too much information, but I think there is value in stating something like 'this is a 3-coach Class 175 service' or '5-coach Voyager service' on departure boards.

 

[Bletchleyite]

When TPE introduced the 185s, for the first couple of years they had seat cloths which read 'Welcome to the new Pennine Class 185'. Despite most passengers not initially being any the wiser, it is potentially a good marketing tool, plus it might spark or develop an interest in railways for some passengers as they're more likely to look up and research 'Class 185' and subsequently other train types/routes if the information is displayed publicly like it used to be.

Perhaps listing the exact unit number would be too much information, but I think there is value in stating something like 'this is a 3-coach Class 175 service' or '5-coach Voyager service' on departure boards.

I think using a brand for the unit works better - Pendolino, Voyager, Adelante, whatever. People learn and remember those, not class numbers.

 

[Annetts key]

My view is this: the legacy train describer systems (TD) are limited in the codes that they can handle, the form being NLNN where N is any number between 0 and 9 and L being a sub-set of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Most older TD systems have been replaced with computer based systems where the four digits can be any number or letter of the alphabet. Hence signallers being able to put four letter words or abbreviations in TD ‘berths’ to remind them of a reason why a line is closed.

So with any of the four digits of the train reporting number / headcode being able to be any number or letter of the alphabet, if we decide not to use the letters I and O to save confusion with the numbers 1 and 0, that gives us 1,336,336 codes available each day.

Even if there are some legacy systems that can not be reasonably quickly replaced, adapted or upgraded, that’s still more than enough codes for each and every mainland U.K. train to have a unique code. And more than enough for there still to be some structure to the code series used by each operator so that signallers can continue to correctly route and regulate trains.

This will then remove the duplicate train reporting numbers (headcodes) that currently exist. This will be much better for internal railway management of the system. And it would allow each train service to be identifiable to the passengers. No need to have two completely different systems to identify a train.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So with any of the four digits of the train reporting number / headcode being able to be any number or letter of the alphabet, if we decide not to use the letters I and O to save confusion with the numbers 1 and 0, that gives us 1,336,336 codes available each day.

Actually quite the opposite. Eurostars are 9Inn and 9Onn within the UK, but 91nn and 90nn in France/Belgium. Quite useful!

 

[Annetts key]

Actually quite the opposite. Eurostars are 9Inn and 9Onn within the UK, but 91nn and 90nn in France/Belgium. Quite useful!

Well, with the railway, there is always an exception to every rule or standard…

 

[SargeNpton]

Even if there are some legacy systems that can not be reasonably quickly replaced, adapted or upgraded, that’s still more than enough codes for each and every mainland U.K. train to have a unique code. And more than enough for there still to be some structure to the code series used by each operator so that signallers can continue to correctly route and regulate trains.

There are many such legacy systems, and I doubt that anybody has a sufficient overview to calculate how many and what they all do. For any such systems that have a safety case, the costs of upgrading them are substantial.

 

[zwk500]

My view is this: the legacy train describer systems (TD) are limited in the codes that they can handle, the form being NLNN where N is any number between 0 and 9 and L being a sub-set of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Most older TD systems have been replaced with computer based systems where the four digits can be any number or letter of the alphabet. Hence signallers being able to put four letter words or abbreviations in TD ‘berths’ to remind them of a reason why a line is closed.

So with any of the four digits of the train reporting number / headcode being able to be any number or letter of the alphabet, if we decide not to use the letters I and O to save confusion with the numbers 1 and 0, that gives us 1,336,336 codes available each day.

Even if there are some legacy systems that can not be reasonably quickly replaced, adapted or upgraded, that’s still more than enough codes for each and every mainland U.K. train to have a unique code. And more than enough for there still to be some structure to the code series used by each operator so that signallers can continue to correctly route and regulate trains.

This will then remove the duplicate train reporting numbers (headcodes) that currently exist. This will be much better for internal railway management of the system. And it would allow each train service to be identifiable to the passengers. No need to have two completely different systems to identify a train.

From what @SargeNpton has said, myunderstanding is that the 4-digit RSIDs can be repeated between operators, so you'd need the 6-character visible to utilise RSIDs for routing purposes.

 

[Annetts key]

Four digit Retail Service ID numbers comprising of only the digits 0 to 9 are inefficient and the number of combinations is only 9999. Hence why I was not suggesting using this system.

No need to use six digit numbers either.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Four digit Retail Service ID numbers comprising of only the digits 0 to 9 are inefficient and the number of combinations is only 9999. Hence why I was not suggesting using this system.

No need to use six digit numbers either.

The way most countries that have numbering for passenger-facing use work is that they use lower numbers for prime intercity trains and higher ones for regional trains (often including a route identifier). A bit like the way single digit bus numbers are for main routes and multi-digit ones typically secondary routes.

 

[SargeNpton]

Four digit Retail Service ID numbers comprising of only the digits 0 to 9 are inefficient and the number of combinations is only 9999. Hence why I was not suggesting using this system.

No need to use six digit numbers either.

Let's be clear about this. RSIDs are a 6-character string, not a 4-digit string, and are unique on any one day (except for Heathrow Express).

The number of available RSIDs is 10,000 for each TOC on each day.

 

[markymark2000]

Something is 100% needed. A recent visit to Crewe showed what a mess the current situation is. For low frequency regional trains, I think the current system works fine, just a timetable but for LNER, Avanti and such services where reservations are in place, quite strict advance tickets for a specific train and also where 2 trains may go to the same place but via completely different routes, we need more identifyers.

During normal timetables, Crewe can have 2 Avanti trains to London within 10 minutes of eachother. If one of these is delayed even slightly, people all jump onto the wrong train. Of course from Crewe trains can go the long way via Birmingham or the fast way via Trent Valley but people don't listen to that. They see 'It's the time my train is due, it's the right train operator and the train ends up in London', they ignore the routing and so because of the lack of identifier, people end up on the wrong train and potentially delayed by around an hour.

 

[Llanigraham]

Why not also state the unit class & number next to each timetabled service? It seems to be a typical British trait that public railway information must not in any way veer towards enthusiast/trainspotter jargon, but it would still be quite useful even for more 'in-the-know' but non-enthusiast passengers to state 'this service is worked by 1xx xxx' - particularly on a route which comprises of a mix of old and newer rolling stock and with mixed formations.

So what happens when a service gets to an intermediate junction station and the service gets stops and the passengers are moved to a different unit to continue their journey? This can happen fairly regularly on the trains on the Cambrian at Shrewsbury.

 

[etr221]

Something that came up on another thread : how should the ordinary passenger booked on the '20 Jan 02:20 - 03:31 (Leeds to Manchester Pic) CANCELLED' relate it to the '1P04 20/01/23 01:38 York to Manchester Airport due 04:07', and that it might be worth attending to information about the latter?