GB should have a national clockface timetable

[Krokodil]

I also suspect that people are less likely to rely on memory for "23 past the odd hour" thoug I can't prove it.

I agree there, except that where a pair of two-hourly services combine to form an hourly service in the core before they go their separate ways.

And the relevance of that is what? Are you suggesting the Heart of Wales line should have 6 tph so people can just turn up?

Don't be obtuse. No one even came close to suggesting that. What is important to remember when planning services on sparse branch lines is making the connections line up at the junction because just missing one means a long wait. Even takt systems recognise that passing loops on single lines may result in asymmetric patterns.

 

[JonathanH]

From my point of view, it is not the task of the railroad to use its vehicles and personnel as efficiently as possible, but to use them to transport real passengers.

On the other hand, if a more efficient operation unlocks more frequent services to Preston from the Ormskirk line, which is almost certainly the end destination for the majority of users, is that a bad thing?

Efficient operation is important whether you like it or not because ultimately someone has to pay for inefficiency.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Don't be obtuse. No one even came close to suggesting that. What is important to remember when planning services on sparse branch lines is making the connections line up at the junction because just missing one means a long wait. Even takt systems recognise that passing loops on single lines may result in asymmetric patterns.

I wasn't being obtuse. I was highlighting the ridiculousness of bringing up Metro services in a discussion that has nothing to do with multiple services per hour in urban areas.

 

[Krokodil]

Cat A = national hub (Birmingham New Street)
Cat B = regional interchange (Preston)
Cat C = important feeder (Gloucester)
Cat D = medium staffed (Penrith)
Cat E = small staffed (Boston)
Cat F = small unstaffed

 

[PTR 444]

I have no idea what a cat b or cat c station is but they are presumably not very important ones. Why should concentrating on the not very important ones be a priority when it will benefit very few people? It just seems like doing something for the sake of it because doing something useful would be too difficult or expensive.

I can't imagine many people doing relatively short journeys requiring a change at a secondary station would even consider using the train regardless of whether they connected or not.

Category B and C stations are important to the national network, mostly located in large settlements or at major interchanges. The lowest category is F2.

Examples of Cat B stations include Southampton Central, Clapham Junction and Preston. Examples of Cat C stations include Plymouth, Grantham and Tamworth.

 

[JonathanH]

Looking at times for Preston right now, I note that there are trains to Blackpool North at 1830, 1835, 1840 and 1900, and the train from Euston rolls in at 1839. You could say that there is a good reliable 21 minute connection there. There is also a 10 minute connection to Blackpool South at 1849.
You could argue that the fact that three services roll out of Preston in the ten minutes before is dire, but clearly there is also the benefit that Manchester and Liverpool have good connections to Glasgow.

Preston Station has numerous platforms but you can't set up everything to connect there without some trains having to sit for a period of time.

(As it happens, the bus from Skipton I am travelling on, arrives at Preston bus station at 1814, and therefore has a good interchange into the 1841 to Glasgow, but that is just coincidence. Where do you draw the line at what transport has to be designed to connect.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

People can plan days out. They go onto Google and type in 'train times Barnsley to Wakefield' and it either tells them or gives a link to a website that will. Why are people trying to pretend the internet doesn't exist or the vast majority of people don't have smartphones and do stuff like this all the time for all sorts of things?

Why do we not make things simple so people don't need to? Just like passive safety is better than active safety, intuitive is better than having to look things up.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Why do we not make things simple so people don't need to? Just like passive safety is better than active safety, intuitive is better than having to look things up.

Sorry, but how can you possibly make things more simple than providing easily accessible information on the internet? Even if all services at all stations on a line were at regular intervals from start of service to end you would still have to look up the time.

 

[The Planner]

And there is also the operational savings to consider from a clockface timetable simplifying the railway's planning requirements.
Every strange change in the timetable adds labour requirements to the train planning workload which is already creaking.

If we had an hour-clockface timetable for everything we'd only have to plan one hours worth of timetable, and we could have planners be far more responsive to other requirements or to contingency planning.

The vast majority of main lines are very close to that. Standard hours are nothing new and are fine off peak but peaks and start and end of service will always cause work and anomalies. The STP timetable is where the work is and that is always going to peak and trough resource wise. Its not as though people arent moved away from LTP planning to bolster STP if needed anyway.

 

[tbtc]

I think there's a big difference between what people mean by "Takt"; which is a commonly planned system aligning connections at central hubs and designing the entire system - stock, infrastructure and service - to run to an efficiently optimised pattern and 'Clockface', which is just the trains departing at the same time past each hour. To introduce a true takt system we'd have to arrange a lot of services to operate in different configurations as well as linespeed and signalling improvements to get a much better pattern. The St Ives line and Wrexham-Bidston are obvious examples of this, having to run with zero slack in the turnrounds all day to squeeze the pattern in

It sounds good in theory but it’s hard to see how a “Takt” would make a genuine difference on a main line (the examples on this thread generally seem focused on rural branches)

For example, would we slow down the ECML so that everything stopped at interchanges like Peterborough and Doncaster and have lots of connections there? Slowing down the Edinburgh expresses etc to improve connections further south? But would the hourly Norwich train aim to connect to the Edinburgh trains or the Leeds ones? Or should the focus be on Ipswich connections to Hull services? Stansted connections to Sunderland? Leicester to Letchworth?

If people are increasingly buying tickets specific to a particular service, does it matter on main lines so much?

Should the “Takt” discussion be reserved only for the small number of lines with less than one service per hour (Whitby etc) or where each service is less than hourly (e.g. the Highland Main Line, where there’s roughly one train an hour but with some to Glasgow and some to Edinburgh)?

And in the case of rural branches like Whitby, it might be better to focus a couple of well timed services in each direction (e.g. for people wanting a day out in Whitby and people wanting a day out in Middlesbrough) since that’s probably more important than whether the service during the middle of the day is every hour or two because not a lot of people use those trains

Which mainline service in particular? The fast one from Euston, the train from Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Barrow or Edinburgh? Any of them could have people wanting a connection to Pleasington, and you can't please them all.

Moreover, the operation of those branches seems to be most efficient when they interwork, so they can't all leave at the same time in the hour

Agreed!

It’s one thing to complain about “poor connections” or claim that “everything would be totes amazeballs if only we were like the Swiss” but a lot of people don’t seem to like to go beyond the vague sound bites and give solid examples

 

[bahnause]

And in the case of rural branches like Whitby, it might be better to focus a couple of well timed services in each direction (e.g. for people wanting a day out in Whitby and people wanting a day out in Middlesbrough) since that’s probably more important than whether the service during the middle of the day is every hour or two because not a lot of people use those trains

I'm going to quote myself on that one:

However, it is a fundamental shift from a demand-driven to a supply-driven system. That's a big change.

Demand will follow supply.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

If you retimed Manchester Airport - Blackpool North services to provide more convenient connections at Preston then that would have knock on effects on other services in Manchester, and then those re-timings could affect services around Liverpool, Leeds or Sheffield, and so on.

That's a key feature of Takt, you don't make alterations to a single route or hub/node in isolation, you have to take a more holistic approach whereby you consider just about the whole network at once. Now clearly when first developing such a system on as large a network as ours you would in practice start with the most pivotal region and over time integrate the rest.

In fact British Rail made a tentative start to Takt in the early 1980s: a fully electrified WCML followed by introduction of HSTs had generated encouraging growth in long-distance travel with non-London journeys (ie cross-country) doing particularly well. So an effort was made to regularise long-distance services radiating from Birmingham New Street (which even today would be the obvious place from which to build up a British Takt) and that included aligning defined connections there. In the event it was overtaken by the need to introduce Sectorisation prior to eventual privatisation but while the ICWC AND ICXC francises were under common ownership (Virgin) the principles of the earlier effort continued to be applied.

Of course where capacity constraints exist a choice may have to be made between building additional physical capacity or compromising something in the timetable. A hypothetical example could be fitting in Manchester-Scotland services with the rest of the WCML timetable: a choice might arise between grade-separating Euxton Jn (which would benefit many other services in the area) or having to run non-stop between Oxford Road and Preston. Equally it might be that stopping additionally at Chorley could be accommodated in the timings. Repeat that sort of question around the network and it soon becomes a huge job with doubtless a few conflicts between interested parties along the way but the potential benefits are considerable.

And whether or not prospective passengers feel the need to check train times before setting off is possibly irrelevant. The countries with the highest passengers per capita numbers (ie how often individuals travel by train) operate Takt or something very close to it and often journey planners which are multi-modal by default. But like so many changes to common public behaviours it takes time to persuade people to change. Little wonder then that the Germans talk about full Takt needing 50 years to implement. Once again the words Political Will come into play.

 

[bahnause]

If the germans didn't have a car chancellor and a Porsche transport minister, it wouldn't take them 50 years...

 

[Bertie the bus]

That's a key feature of Takt, you don't make alterations to a single route or hub/node in isolation, you have to take a more holistic approach whereby you consider just about the whole network at once. Now clearly when first developing such a system on as large a network as ours you would in practice start with the most pivotal region and over time integrate the rest.

Which proves the point I was making because you only partially quoted my response to a point stating you could make worthwhile changes for little cost or effort. You couldn't. What you could do is make a few superficial changes that don't really benefit many people at all.

 

[Watershed]

I can't really think of many places where a two track railway would benefit from that style of operation in the UK.

Most major railways are either four track or have sufficiently low stop density that just running all trains to all stations is the better option.

Modern very high acceleration multiple units have signficantly reduced the time penalty for stopping, even in the very highest speed areas.

The West Anglia Main Line, for one. Try running the Stansted Express as an all stations stopper (not that it's far off that as things stand!) and see how much market share you'd haemorrhage to cars and coaches...

Even with modern units, on a line with anything more than a 40-50mph speed limit, there's still a considerable time penalty for stopping - generally at least 2 minutes per station.

Sorry, but how can you possibly make things more simple than providing easily accessible information on the internet? Even if all services at all stations on a line were at regular intervals from start of service to end you would still have to look up the time.

By not having to look up the timetable at all. Obviously that only applies to lines with high frequencies, for which Takt isn't particularly relevant.

Nevertheless, even if it's simple to look things up on the internet, that's of little assistance if you're trying to make a journey from (say) Manchester to Tamworth and the journey planner says you'll have to wait at Crewe for over an hour because the connection between the TfW Marches and WMT semifast Euston services is a couple of minutes shy of the minimum connection time. Even though you're virtually guaranteed to make the connection because the two movements conflict and the TfW will almost always be given priority.

So I'd agree that it's less important to have trains necessarily at completely rigid intervals than it is to have good overall journey times, which requires coordinated connections - and not just between rail services, but ideally also with bus services.

Of course, that would require a degree of joined-up thinking that's realistically never going to happen in the UK. As @Shaw S Hunter says, the political will just isn't there, and without that nothing will happen.

I'm going to quote myself on that one:



Demand will follow supply.

Exactly. It's utterly typical of the narrow-minded British attitude to public transport to try and run things on a shoestring (even if they end up costing rather more due to inefficiency etc.) rather than invest and grow market share.

Roger Ford's most recent Modern Railways opinion piece suggested the cost of leasing a depreciated old class 150 (or similar) is £500 per vehicle per month - peanuts in the grand scheme of things. Imagine the difference it would make to punctuality and reliability, let alone the flexibility it would give for timing trains to connect.

Unfortunately, rail remains a liability to be minimised, as far as the government is concerned, and it shows.

 

[The Planner]

It would only work if revenue wasnt a factor, as anything long distance radiating from Paddington, Euston, St Pancras, Kings X etc are going to be what others connect off. Cross Country routes (not just the TOC) are going to be the losers in terms of journey time etc as they are fudged to connect.

 

[Bertie the bus]

By not having to look up the timetable at all. Obviously that only applies to lines with high frequencies, for which Takt isn't particularly relevant.

Nevertheless, even if it's simple to look things up on the internet, that's of little assistance if you're trying to make a journey from (say) Manchester to Tamworth and the journey planner says you'll have to wait at Crewe for over an hour because the connection between the TfW Marches and WMT semifast Euston services is a couple of minutes shy of the minimum connection time. Even though you're virtually guaranteed to make the connection because the two movements conflict and the TfW will almost always be given priority.

So I'd agree that it's less important to have trains necessarily at completely rigid intervals than it is to have good overall journey times, which requires coordinated connections - and not just between rail services, but ideally also with bus services.

Even if we ignore the fact that Manchester - Tamworth is never going to be a major flow it is still an incredibly poor example for you to use to try to prove a point. I've just put Manchester - Tamworth in NRES and it comes back with a 90 minute journey with a short wait at Stafford or a 96 minute journey with a change at Nuneaton so why you have specifically chosen a TfW service to Crewe is completely beyond me.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Roger Ford's most recent Modern Railways opinion piece suggested the cost of leasing a depreciated old class 150 (or similar) is £500 per vehicle per month - peanuts in the grand scheme of things. Imagine the difference it would make to punctuality and reliability, let alone the flexibility it would give for timing trains to connect.

Without in any way wanting to deflect this into a 'rolling stock' thread, this surely brings out a key point.

We are already aware that there are zero class 150s available - see the sad saga of the Marston Vale line - so the point is academic. More widely we know that a considerable amount of current DMU rolling stock is in its last years and in need of early replacement (at high cost).

Whilst it would be great if things weren't so stretched and some trains could hang around at places like Preston, Crewe, Derby, Peterborough, Bristol Temple Meads, Perth and so on to facilitate connections in and out in both directions (probably with a few extra platforms, mid-platform crossovers, extra lifts and whatnot) this would surely need more (brand new) rolling stock and crews, let alone longer trains for all the extra passengers. This is with the charitable assumption that there may be a sort of half-way house before we get onto serious engineering like flyovers, quadruple tracking, new high-speed cut-offs, power supply upgrades, new depots or whatever.

Peanuts won't cut it.

 

[Watershed]

Without in any way wanting to deflect this into a 'rolling stock' thread, this surely brings out a key point.

We are already aware that there are zero class 150s available - see the sad saga of the Marston Vale line - so the point is academic. More widely we know that a considerable amount of current DMU rolling stock is in its last years and in need of early replacement (at high cost).

Whilst it would be great if things weren't so stretched and some trains could hang around at places like Preston, Crewe, Derby, Peterborough, Bristol Temple Meads, Perth and so on to facilitate connections in and out in both directions (probably with a few extra platforms, mid-platform crossovers, extra lifts and whatnot) this would surely need more (brand new) rolling stock and crews, let alone longer trains for all the extra passengers. This is with the charitable assumption that there may be a sort of half-way house before we get onto serious engineering like flyovers, quadruple tracking, new high-speed cut-offs, power supply upgrades, new depots or whatever.

Peanuts won't cut it.

There might not be any class 150s left, but the general point stands. There are plenty of 153s in "storage" in Ely, and more 156s joining them soon. There's a shortage of some types of DMUs, but it's entirely artificial and has been caused by the DfT's typical mismanagement.

If adding a sixth diagram to the previously five-diagram circuit of local services in the Preston area allowed the connections to be improved, I'd say that's more than worth it. But clearly the Treasury and DfT would see things differently.

As for the suggestion that requiring longer trains is somehow a bad thing, again this belies the British view that demand is something to be priced off, rather than catered to.

Overall, I think it's difficult to credibly argue against the concept of a Takt timetable. The likes of Switzerland demonstrate that it's perfectly doable if you invest, and results in exceptional public transport if properly done. And whilst even a half-hearted implementation would already yield considerable benefits, we are simply too narrow-minded to entertain it.

The broadly clockface timetabling we currently see on most lines is about as close as we'll get, but it's not a patch on a properly integrated Takt timetable.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Overall, I think it's difficult to credibly argue against the concept of a Takt timetable. The likes of Switzerland demonstrate that it's perfectly doable if you invest, and results in exceptional public transport if properly done. And whilst even a half-hearted implementation would already yield considerable benefits, we are simply too narrow-minded to entertain it.

People keep quoting 1 country. 1 country in the whole world. Why do none of its proponents ask why every country that isn't Switzerland hasn't followed suit?

 

[tomuk]

Nevertheless, even if it's simple to look things up on the internet, that's of little assistance if you're trying to make a journey from (say) Manchester to Tamworth and the journey planner says you'll have to wait at Crewe for over an hour because the connection between the TfW Marches and WMT semifast Euston services is a couple of minutes shy of the minimum connection time. Even though you're virtually guaranteed to make the connection because the two movements conflict and the TfW will almost always be given priority.

But taking your example you can currently travel Tamworth to Manchester on WMT and Avanti with a 16 minute change at Stafford. You can leave Tamworth every hour at 11 minutes past. Why go via Crewe and on TfW?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2023 ==

Imagine the difference it would make to punctuality and reliability, let alone the flexibility it would give for timing trains to connect.

In general flows across the network are timed to connect I couldn't make most of my journeys if they weren't as I don't reside on a principal mainline.

 

[Watershed]

But taking your example you can currently travel Tamworth to Manchester on WMT and Avanti with a 16 minute change at Stafford. You can leave Tamworth every hour at 11 minutes past. Why go via Crewe and on TfW?

That works northbound, but not southbound - and even then, only by chance. One of the key features of a Takt timetable is that timings are symmetrical in both directions, so you wouldn't have this sort of problem.

Connections at Tamworth and Nuneaton between XC and WMT/Avanti services are currently very much a mixed bag, working well in some directions but with just over an hour's wait for other flows.

Manchester to Tamworth was just an example of the top of my head - I'm sure others can come up with their own examples. There must be thousands like it.

In general flows across the network are timed to connect I couldn't make most of my journeys if they weren't as I don't reside on a principal mainline.

Perhaps for certain lines, but that's far from ubiquitous.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2023 ==

People keep quoting 1 country. 1 country in the whole world. Why do none of its proponents ask why every country that isn't Switzerland hasn't followed suit?

Switzerland isn't the only area that's done it, but it's clearly the biggest example. There are broadly two reasons why other countries haven't followed suit - there's either not the political will to bang heads together, or not the funding for the improved infrastructure and services.

None of that in any way detracts from the concept, and indeed many other countries and areas have adopted parts of the Takt concept.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sorry, but how can you possibly make things more simple than providing easily accessible information on the internet? Even if all services at all stations on a line were at regular intervals from start of service to end you would still have to look up the time.

Once, and remember it. To use Merseyrail you need to remember two numbers, basically, and be able to add 15 to them. I can even remember the times from Aughton Park in the early 90s! To Ormskirk at 11/26/41/56 and Liverpool at 00/15/30/45.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2023 ==

People keep quoting 1 country. 1 country in the whole world. Why do none of its proponents ask why every country that isn't Switzerland hasn't followed suit?

Germany, Austria and the Netherlands largely have too, though in the former case it's more regional.

The other advantage is planning. You plan a standard hour and just copy and paste it.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

People keep quoting 1 country. 1 country in the whole world. Why do none of its proponents ask why every country that isn't Switzerland hasn't followed suit?

OK then. Netherlands, Belgium, most of Denmark and Austria, even Luxembourg although that includes quiet branches at low frequency. Even Germany has Takt over much of the network but still has many quieter cross-country routes whose future roles need to be confirmed, not to mention how much more HSR should or shouldn't be built. What's more the adoption of Takt also allows for genuine co-ordination of bus services with the rail network in those areas where this can be beneficial. That would be just as true in this country if we could stop pretending that decent reliable bus services can only be provided in a deregulated environment (experience says they can't).

But any such project in this country would need sufficient consensus to ensure that it's followed through to completion over a long timescale. Unfortunately not only do our politicians have almost no interest in financing anything that can't be delivered before the next General Election, it would seem from some of the replies here that many electors have the same short-term mindset. It's a real shame. Or perhaps it just feels too foreign.

 

[tomuk]

That works northbound, but not southbound - and even then, only by chance. One of the key features of a Takt timetable is that timings are symmetrical in both directions, so you wouldn't have this sort of problem.


Connections at Tamworth and Nuneaton between XC and WMT/Avanti services are currently very much a mixed bag, working well in some directions but with just over an hour's wait for other flows.

Manchester to Tamworth was just an example of the top of my head - I'm sure others can come up with their own examples. There must be thousands like it.

Southbound you can get the 25 past XC and change at Stafford with a 12 minute wait. What is wrong with that? About 90 mins each way every hour through the day at clockface times with a short wait at Stafford.

Nuneaton has hourly direct trains from and to Manchester again clockface. What is the problem?

Perhaps for certain lines, but that's far from ubiquitous.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 May 2023 ==


Switzerland isn't the only area that's done it, but it's clearly the biggest example. There are broadly two reasons why other countries haven't followed suit - there's either not the political will to bang heads together, or not the funding for the improved infrastructure and services.

None of that in any way detracts from the concept, and indeed many other countries and areas have adopted parts of the Takt concept.

Like we already have in the UK with clockface timetables and connections across many lines

 

[JonathanH]

If adding a sixth diagram to the previously five-diagram circuit of local services in the Preston area allowed the connections to be improved, I'd say that's more than worth it. But clearly the Treasury and DfT would see things differently.

Which connections should be improved? Which train should the local services at Preston connect into and out of? Is everyone connecting at Preston connecting out of that service? The fact is that trains arrive and leave from Preston all round the hour.

Should trains to Blackpool North leave at even intervals through the hour, or should trains from Manchester, Liverpool and York all be 'flighted' so that connections into the other services are favoured?

I am not saying anyone is wrong to try to optimise connections, but trains converge on Preston from many different routes and it would be interesting to have a view on how a 'perfect' timetable would be structured.

 

[Falcon1200]

There must be thousands like it.

And that, in six words, sums up the impossibility of designing a timetable for the UK where every possible journey combination, no matter how little used, can be achieved with simple and short connections!

However, I do agree that timetables should be simple, and regular interval services should be exactly that, not adjusted by odd minutes here and there. And where possible trains should operate at the same times seven days a week, not like my local railway, the Glasgow/Neilston line, where the Sunday service is half-hourly, as per the rest of the week, but at completely different times.

 

[The Planner]

The example of Tamworth is a good case in point. Which line is connecting into the other and what connection time is deemed sufficient before being too long? If its the XC train that is important you are now timing the WCML slows around it and the effects of that at Colwich and Rugby, and if its the WCML train you are now timing the Derby line around it and subsequently New St, Derby etc..

 

[JonathanH]

And in the case of Tamworth, is it realistic to hold trains on either route for delays on the other? Almost certainly not.

 

[tbtc]

The more these threads go on, the more they feel like sometimes has looked at a high frequency system like Metrolink and decided that this should be the norm everywhere else, and if this isn’t replicated in each corner of the UK then it’s because the other places “Can’t Be Bothered” (Rather than because a simple Metro that can operate so regularly that passengers don’t need to memorise timetables isn’t necessarily much of a template for each and every line)

Without in any way wanting to deflect this into a 'rolling stock' thread, this surely brings out a key point.

We are already aware that there are zero class 150s available - see the sad saga of the Marston Vale line - so the point is academic. More widely we know that a considerable amount of current DMU rolling stock is in its last years and in need of early replacement (at high cost).

Whilst it would be great if things weren't so stretched and some trains could hang around at places like Preston, Crewe, Derby, Peterborough, Bristol Temple Meads, Perth and so on to facilitate connections in and out in both directions (probably with a few extra platforms, mid-platform crossovers, extra lifts and whatnot) this would surely need more (brand new) rolling stock and crews, let alone longer trains for all the extra passengers. This is with the charitable assumption that there may be a sort of half-way house before we get onto serious engineering like flyovers, quadruple tracking, new high-speed cut-offs, power supply upgrades, new depots or whatever.

Peanuts won't cut it.

But even with an endless supply of DMUs (and staff!), what would the hourly branch line service from these junction stations connect with?

e.g. the Matlock train at Derby, the Colne train at Preston, the Avonmouth train at Bristol

Or does the frequency on the branches need to be every ten minutes so that they connect with every main line train in each direction?

Do we have to double track every Branchline in the UK?

If adding a sixth diagram to the previously five-diagram circuit of local services in the Preston area allowed the connections to be improved, I'd say that's more than worth it. But clearly the Treasury and DfT would see things differently

If the hourly circuit (Ormskirk, Blackpool South, Colne) is unreliable then we should consider adding an extra unit (just as we should consider whether to skip certain stops, reduce frequencies etc), sure

But it’d still be an hourly train on each branch… and that hourly service will either connect fairly well with another hourly service (the London fasts, the Liverpool trains etc) or it won’t

Unless (as per my reply to the previous quote) the idea is for branches like Colne to have a train every ten minutes so that passengers get good connections in every direction?

Overall, I think it's difficult to credibly argue against the concept of a Takt timetable. The likes of Switzerland demonstrate that it's perfectly doable if you invest, and results in exceptional public transport if properly done. And whilst even a half-hearted implementation would already yield considerable benefits, we are simply too narrow-minded to entertain it.

The broadly clockface timetabling we currently see on most lines is about as close as we'll get, but it's not a patch on a properly integrated Takt timetable.

It’s hard to argue against it… sure…

But that’s generally because it feels pretty nebulous IMHO… it’s like arguing against “integration” or “taking a holistic approach”…

All sounds lovely and conceptual but what practical differences will we need to implement at junctions?

Not just a handful of rural examples like Par but messy junctions like Preston?

That works northbound, but not southbound - and even then, only by chance. One of the key features of a Takt timetable is that timings are symmetrical in both directions, so you wouldn't have this sort of problem.

Connections at Tamworth and Nuneaton between XC and WMT/Avanti services are currently very much a mixed bag, working well in some directions but with just over an hour's wait for other flows.

Manchester to Tamworth was just an example of the top of my head - I'm sure others can come up with their own examples. There must be thousands like it

Manchester to Tamworth seems an example of a journey where the several scheduled services an hour from Manchester to Crewe mean you shouldn’t need to wait long (Avanti’s well documented woes aside!)

But given the large number of trains at Crewe, what should be the priority for connections? Cardiff to Glasgow? Stoke to Liverpool? Chester to Nuneaton?

All of this “Takt” stuff feels straightforward at rural junctions where there’s only main connection (e.g. Par) … maybe Switzerland’s small heavy rail network is more dominated by such simple cases?

But that doesn’t mean there’s a lot we can copy that we don’t already try to do (e.g. in the case of Crewe, pretty much everything is clockface other than the fringes… like some of the hourly Cardiff trains run to Milford Haven and others to Pembroke Dock, but generally everything is hourly though Crewe itself)

Switzerland isn't the only area that's done it, but it's clearly the biggest example. There are broadly two reasons why other countries haven't followed suit - there's either not the political will to bang heads together, or not the funding for the improved infrastructure and services

I’m far from patriotic, but one thing that makes me instinctively defensive of the UK is the idea that other countries are so much more enlightened than us, when there seems very little difference - we have fairly simple hourly services on most main lines , whether or not we meet the abstract notions from elsewhere

None of that in any way detracts from the concept, and indeed many other countries and areas have adopted parts of the Takt concept

But, given that pretty much every main line is clockface at the busy end, haven’t we “adopted parts of the Takt concept”?

(Obviously stopping patterns become a bit more varied the further away to get from e.g. London, like the Morpeth/ Alnmouth/ Berwick/ Dunbar stops north of Newcastle or the rural stops beyond Bangor or some of the villages on the Highland Main Line but presumably nobody is suggesting everything stop at each of these?)

Once, and remember it. To use Merseyrail you need to remember two numbers, basically, and be able to add 15 to them. I can even remember the times from Aughton Park in the early 90s! To Ormskirk at 11/26/41/56 and Liverpool at 00/15/30/45

The other advantage is planning. You plan a standard hour and just copy and paste it.

This all sounds nice and stuff but… isn’t it just a typical clockface timetable that you’d get on a relatively high frequency network on fairly segregated tracks where you’re not worrying about randomly timed freight trains? i.e. what we have on a number of UK routes

But since we do have randomly timed freight paths on various other routes, it’s not possible to replicate this on every single line?

Like we already have in the UK with clockface timetables and connections across many lines

Agreed!

There’s a lot of conceptual chat about utopian solutions here but i get the feeling that some people are taking the view that the UK is primitive for only having the same repeating patterns every hour on a simple to remember clockface basis whilst enlightened Switzerland has come up with a much cleverer solution where trains run at the same time each hour and… oh!