Best resource for information on last minute disruption.

[Grumpy Git]

On Saturday (24/02), I had planned to catch the 08:30 1B70 TPE service from Liverpool South Parkway (LPY). Knowing TPE services can be a bit sketchy, I'd checked via RTT that this train had run OK on the previous four Saturdays and it had indeed (within a few minutes), been on time at Sheffield over this period.

At 7:30 on Saturday morning, I checked the TPE website to make sure the service was still running as planned and this was confirmed.

I arrived at LPY approx 8:15 to find TPE had now partially cancelled the service and it was now running fast from Liverpool Lime St. (LIV) to Manchester Oxford Road (MCO)!

The LIV - MCO service arrived at LPY on-time at approx 08:40, so I jumped on this, hoping to get to MCO before the delayed TPE (as there's no place to pass on the Cheshire Lines route). Unfortunately for me, the delayed 1B20 TPE was routed via Chat Moss and departed MCO about 2 minutes before my LIV-MCO stopper arrived.

No harm done, a trip to the Oxford Road Greggs ensued and the cost of coffee/bacon cob was well covered by my subsequent Delay Repay (60-119 minutes).

My question is, where is the best place to get the LATEST information on disruptions. If I had known at 07:30 (when I checked on the TPE site), that there was a delay, I could have gone to Liverpool Lime Street instead of Liverpool South Parkway and only been delayed by a few minutes instead of 70 odd?

Footnote: The train I missed (1B20) was a six car 185, the train I caught (1B72) was only a three car and was completely full and standing by Manchester Piccadilly all the way to Sheffield where it more or less emptied completely, (the vesibules were packed).

 

[davews]

Probably Journey Check, which for TPE is https://www.journeycheck.com/tpexpress/

I had a similar thing last week on a trip to London on SWR, 0903 from Martins Heron. I had checked on RTT that the outgoing train was running to Reading and all seemed OK. But then RTT seemed to show it sat on the platform at Bracknell. Journey Check then stated my train would be started from Bracknell, no problem thought I as it would still stop at Martins Heron. Just before I was going to leave I checked again, Journey Check now said it would start from Ascot! Ouch, phone call to my mate and his wife took us to Ascot with 10 minutes to spare.

Journey check is not perfect but the nearest thing to official information.

 

[1D54]

RTT every time for checking progress / current locations of trains I'm catching. It's never let me down.

 

[DelW]

RTT every time for checking progress / current locations of trains I'm catching. It's never let me down.

It (or rather its sources of data) can't keep up during major disruption though. Yesterday with all the pandemonium at Reading, it wasn't nearly able to keep up. Trains were simply disappearing, or unreported, or were just showing the normal times when the actual trains were heavily delayed or cancelled. To be fair I think all systems (probably including GWR control) were struggling to keep track of what was happening, plans were changing so rapidly. On-station displays were just as unreliable.

Just to reiterate, I'm not blaming RTT, which is a great resource, but it's only as good as the data sources it's drawing from.

 

[Horizon22]

The train had probably been amended between 0730 (your check) and 0815 (when you arrived). These things happen unfortunately.

Anything that runs off a Darwin source will be the most up-to-date and that encompasses a lot of TOC's own apps / journey checks & also 3rd party systems (notably not RTT). So even something like NRES will be the most up-to-date even if their interface is pretty poor. Find a tool that works for you.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Feb 2024 ==

It (or rather its sources of data) can't keep up during major disruption though. Yesterday with all the pandemonium at Reading, it wasn't nearly able to keep up. Trains were simply disappearing, or unreported, or were just showing the normal times when the actual trains were heavily delayed or cancelled. To be fair I think all systems (probably including GWR control) were struggling to keep track of what was happening, plans were changing so rapidly. On-station displays were just as unreliable.

The information will only ever be as good as what the input it is, which in this case would be an overwhelmed GWR control and station controller(s).

 

[Deafdoggie]

RTT every time for checking progress / current locations of trains I'm catching. It's never let me down.

Not a fault of RTT, but when everything goes belly up it's not always up to date. With the chaos at Euston yesterday following the points failure at MKC, RTT wasn't helpful at all (not their fault) as things were changing fast. Open Train Times maps can, sometimes, be more helpful as you can physically see where a train is, even if it's off route, and make informed choices by what else is around it.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Thanks for your replies.

 

[Horizon22]

Not a fault of RTT, but when everything goes belly up it's not always up to date. With the chaos at Euston yesterday following the points failure at MKC, RTT wasn't helpful at all (not their fault) as things were changing fast. Open Train Times maps can, sometimes, be more helpful as you can physically see where a train is, even if it's off route, and make informed choices by what else is around it.

Well RTT isn’t linked to Darwin for a start, so on a number of circumstances won’t be best.

 

[Ant1966]

It (or rather its sources of data) can't keep up during major disruption though. Yesterday with all the pandemonium at Reading, it wasn't nearly able to keep up. Trains were simply disappearing, or unreported, or were just showing the normal times when the actual trains were heavily delayed or cancelled. To be fair I think all systems (probably including GWR control) were struggling to keep track of what was happening, plans were changing so rapidly. On-station displays were just as unreliable.

Just to reiterate, I'm not blaming RTT, which is a great resource, but it's only as good as the data sources it's drawing from.

I was caught up in that. At Worcester SH, with an Advance to Basingstoke on the 21:04 to PAD. Knew about the issues, so made sure I got to Shrub Hill for the previous train, which was showing as running (20:04). (By this time the 21:04 was indeed showing as cancelled) Was a bit concerned that RTT didnt show the inbound working as running, but trusted the station displays. Sadly, literally seconds after the 19:54 to BTM left (and minutes after the 19:47 to Dorridge left), 9 minutes before it was due to arrive and 10 minutes after it should have left Great Malverm --- the 20:04 was 'cancelled'. Leaving me stranded. Worked out I could get into BHM and get the last XC South, plus a taxi ride from Reading which is what I did. (Now need to try and claim the £65 taxi fare from GWR) The ADV was a £6 Rail sale tkct...

Should have trusted my gut and RTT; would have been a better bet in this case than the station displays

SURELY the system/control must have known that the 20:04 was never going to run well before 19:55? If I'd known that, I could have got home on either of the two trains that left just beforehand.
The station staff were limited use, GWR online help beyond hopeless (either a chatbot or a human being with very poor training - thats another thread I think!). But why couldnt we have been informed earlier?

 

[DelW]

SURELY the system/control must have known that the 20:04 was never going to run well before 19:55? If I'd known that, I could have got home on either of the two trains that left just beforehand.
The station staff were limited use, GWR online help beyond hopeless (either a chatbot or a human being with very poor training - thats another thread I think!). But why couldnt we have been informed earlier?

I've no inside knowledge whatsoever, but I imagine the main problem was that the workload simply overwhelmed GWR control and signalling centre. There were track blockages at several locations between Reading and Paddington, NR's plans for dealing with them kept changing, and there was an unrelated blockage of the North Downs line between Reading and Guildford.

I saw the consequences at Reading with main line platforms full of stationary trains, and I heard from other travellers that there were up trains stacked as far back as Swindon and even Chippenham. Train crews would have been delayed or stuck with them, and the job of contacting crews, re-crewing trains, and getting them sent back west would have been top priority. I doubt anyone had enough time to update anything other than the most essential systems, and even those would have been changing by the minute. It's frustrating as a passenger, especially in situations where late information means you've missed alternative services, but also for the GWR staff that I spoke to on the station who were themselves having trouble working out what was happening.

How that sort of situation would have been handled when everything had to be done by phone I can't imagine!