Incorrect Train Tracking - Annoyed of Deganwy!

[Llandudno]

Just returned from an enjoyable evening in Llandudno, meal few beers etc…

Planned to catch the last train of the evening 2151 Llandudno to Crewe alighting at Deganwy. Enjoying a pint and checked to make sure the train was running on time and according to the Railboard app the train was showing as delayed. I checked the corresponding inward working 2027 from Blaeanau Ffestiniog, due to depart Llandudno Junction at 2132 also showing as delayed.

I kept checking the app, and as at 2145 it still indicated that the Llandudno bound service had still not left the Junction. We leusurely finished our drinks and strolled to Llandudno Station arriving at 2155 to discover the 2151 to Crewe had left on time!

Ended up paying a small fortune (3 x the equivalent train fare) on Arriva’s Number 13 bus!

Is it normal for live running apps to give out erroneous information, as I have never come across it before?

 

[Bevan Price]

Lesson - don't always believe apps. Get to the station before the advertised departure time.

Sometimes trains regain lost time; apps only give predictions.

 

[Msq71423]

Also, it may or may not be the case here, but TOCs can swap out a train midway through a journey suffering a delay, so it leaves a station en route on time, under a new headcode.

 

[hexagon789]

This thread might be pertinent reading:

Conwy Valley false delays

Was up on the Conwy Valley line this weekend, and I noticed that basically every train comes up as "delayed" once it's passed Llanrwst, which is really causing people a lot of confusion. It appears to be because the 197s are perhaps not fitted with the GPS kit that I think was being trialled...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[LowLevel]

I would suggest treating any line with "heritage" signalling equipment as if real time info doesn't exist.

One of the routes I work on (Matlock) with one form of traction (170) will report automatically as it uses RAPPORT or some similar thing, whereas if a 158 goes up there it doesn't report after Ambergate Junction and relies on the guard ringing the York ROC TDA bods to report arrival and departure from Matlock - unfortunately due to staffing issues of late there quite often no one is available to take the call, or if they do, it's one of the new staff who haven't a clue what you're on about and don't bother inputting the data anyway.

 

[Krokodil]

Realtime Trains | 2D21 2027 Blaenau Ffestiniog to Llandudno | 18/08/2025

Real-time train running information for 2D21 2027 departure from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Llandudno on 18/08/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

No report for Llandudno Junction. Looks like the signaller didn't enter the arrival and departure times into TRUST. The unit however self-reported its arrival and departure at Dolgarrog, Tal-y-Cafn and Deganwy, plus its passing Glan Conwy, and the Llandudno signaller reported the arrival in town. If TRUST doesn't receive a report when it is expecting to, then it will count up a delay. After a few minutes it stops estimating and just says "delayed".

Relying on a "delayed" train with no further information (like knowing for certain that it left Junction 10 minutes late for example) to grab an extra pint is risky. Trusting this for the last train of the night is positively foolish.

 

[MCR247]

Relying on a "delayed" train with no further information (like knowing for certain that it left Junction 10 minutes late for example) to grab an extra pint is risky. Trusting this for the last train of the night is positively foolish.

To people “in the know” sure, but I wouldn’t expect the average passenger to know about legacy railway signalling and manual TRUST reports in all fairness

 

[Surreytraveller]

Don't believe what the computer tells you.
The website ought to be programmed to tell you 'no data' rather than 'delayed', which would be more accurate

 

[styles]

To people “in the know” sure, but I wouldn’t expect the average passenger to know about legacy railway signalling and manual TRUST reports in all fairness

Perhaps not, but the average passenger shouldn't be playing risky games with the last train of the night either.

The general advice should just be - get to the station before your scheduled departure time, unless advised otherwise.

If in-the-know passengers want to take risks on departure times, that's on them.

 

[Belperpete]

To people “in the know” sure, but I wouldn’t expect the average passenger to know about legacy railway signalling and manual TRUST reports in all fairness

But the average passenger wouldn't be looking at an inbound service to work out if the outbound service is going to be late. I think this is a case of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

My interpretation of "Delayed" (as opposed to being given a specific delay time) is "we don't know" - the train might never turn up, or it can magically appear on time.

 

[amahy]

Lesson - don't always believe apps. Get to the station before the advertised departure time.

And stand there in there in the cold for ages, clueless as to when the train will turn up? No thank you! Maybe the rail industry should stop providing false information to its customers.

 

[DelW]

For the OP, in future I'd suggest keeping an eye on Tiger, which AIUI replicates station departure boards. Llandudno station itself isn't covered, but Llandudno Junction is available, which should give a reasonable guide to how things are running.

Type into a browser: tiger.worldline.global and then type "lla" into the search box, and select Llandudno Junction.

 

[Belperpete]

And stand there in there in the cold for ages, clueless as to when the train will turn up? No thank you! Maybe the rail industry should stop providing false information to its customers.

I think the motto should actually be: don't try and read more into it than what the app is actually telling you. "Delayed" means that the train is potentially delayed by an indeterminate time - it may turn out to be a very short time.

Passengers also need to be aware that late running can be recovered, sometimes very quickly. On a recent trip, my departure from Birminghan New Street to Shrewsbury was shown as running nearly 30 minutes late. Then the decision was made to turn the inbound train round at New Street rather than International, and the New Street departure instantly went back from "30 late" to "on time". If I had been foolish enough to rely on the app to go drinking or whatever, I would have missed the train (and my onward connection from Shrewsbury).

 

[duffield]

I would suggest treating any line with "heritage" signalling equipment as if real time info doesn't exist.

One of the routes I work on (Matlock) with one form of traction (170) will report automatically as it uses RAPPORT or some similar thing, whereas if a 158 goes up there it doesn't report after Ambergate Junction and relies on the guard ringing the York ROC TDA bods to report arrival and departure from Matlock - unfortunately due to staffing issues of late there quite often no one is available to take the call, or if they do, it's one of the new staff who haven't a clue what you're on about and don't bother inputting the data anyway.

Thanks for that, I'd wondered why a few years ago Matlock times suddenly started showing up "properly" (sometimes), I hadn't realised it was related to the introduction of the 170s.

And on the general point, I've always understood "Delayed" with no further information as "Probably very late but could turn up at any time - or not at all".

 

[OscarH]

Lesson - don't always believe apps. Get to the station before the advertised departure time.

Sometimes trains regain lost time; apps only give predictions.

Not specific to apps, you should put the same trust (or lack of) into the departure board

 

[Falcon1200]

It seems that some systems report trains as delayed, not because they have actually been reported late at some point but simply due to a lack of reports; A similar thing happened to me at Wrexham earlier this year when my train to Chester was shown as delayed, only to turn up bang on time! This is something the industry needs to rectify.

 

[duffield]

It seems that some systems report trains as delayed, not because they have actually been reported late at some point but simply due to a lack of reports; A similar thing happened to me at Wrexham earlier this year when my train to Chester was shown as delayed, only to turn up bang on time! This is something the industry needs to rectify.

Maybe "unknown" would be a better description than "delayed" when it's still possible (as far as the system knows) for the service to turn up on time?

 

[Krokodil]

And stand there in there in the cold for ages, clueless as to when the train will turn up? No thank you! Maybe the rail industry should stop providing false information to its customers.

What "false information"? It says that the train is delayed. It doesn't specify a time, so that could be as little as a minute. Turning up after the departure time of the last train of the night on the basis of such vague information is madness.

 

[RailwayRookie]

Perhaps OP should put in a claim with the TOC that they are out of pocket because the train left on time?

Might set a precedent for the first case of Not-delay repay.

Or you know, just admit they didn't know best and have learnt a valuable lesson on trying to be clever.

 

[Benjwri]

Maybe "unknown" would be a better description than "delayed" when it's still possible (as far as the system knows) for the service to turn up on time?

In my opinion this will just result in people mocking the railway and more confusion.

Services are shown as delayed when they don’t report after a period of time. This is intended when for example a service has stopped, or hasn’t departed from a station as planned, as it provides early warning there may be an issue, and says the train is likely currently being delayed with the length and reason unknown.

 

[trainophile]

I very nearly got stuck in Blaenau for two hours longer than I intended to be, due to the train I was going to catch back to Llandudno showing Delayed on the platform display. RTT had no inbound reports since Betws-y-Coed so I presumed it was stuck there for some reason. I decided to have a walk around the loop to the top of the town, and just got back in time to see it pulling in with a few minutes turnaround.

The guard explained that it loses its GPS(?) signal on that line and reports back that it is delayed when it isn’t.

In a case like that when there’s only a two hourly service (and it was the middle of winter) it’s perhaps safest to show nothing on the display, and maybe have a Help Point phone on the platform, which would of course have to be manned by someone who knows what’s going on!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe "unknown" would be a better description than "delayed" when it's still possible (as far as the system knows) for the service to turn up on time?

"Delayed" does mean "delay is unknown", it usually comes up when a train isn't moving. It could be argued that it would be better to change it to "Delay unknown" instead, as it's a bit of a code you sort of have to know. This case is worse though as it is usually not delayed

 

[The exile]

And on the general point, I've always understood "Delayed" with no further information as "Probably very late but could turn up at any time - or not at all".

At Bristol Parkway “arrived” usually means “no it hasn’t” and “delayed” can be anything from 1 minute to eternity…
Could understand if there was more uncertainty on northbound services (hasn’t yet left Temple Meads) than southbound - but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Aug 2025 ==

a Help Point phone on the platform, which would of course have to be manned by someone who knows what’s going on!

As, of course, they all should be (but rarely are).

 

[JAWZ]

I've been digging around in the TRUST feed a lot lately. From what I've observed, it's *mostly* reliable, but sometimes I'm seeing "arrived" messages way later than the timestamp of the arrival. Like, DAYS later. Usually these are depot moves, so I'm not too bothered about those, but I've had to implement a "clean up" mechanism to delete supposedly live trains that never arrive at their destination.

Some STANOXes don't report at all on some days. Others report a minute or two early. I was in Cromer recently and the app I was testing was telling me that the train had arrived while I could see it was just coming round the corner

 

[alistairlees]

Delayed should be used for trains that are actually known to be delayed. Where there is no information as to whether the train is on time or not then “no information” should be displayed. Or just the scheduled time displayed.

 

[185]

Passengers do rely on National Rail Enquiries (and other apps driven from the same data feed). In most areas of the UK the data is reasonably accurate, so it's not an unreasonable expectation of passengers to expect a train to be delayed when the data feed is producing a delayed message. These antiquated areas are a problem for NR - perhaps it needs a workaround solution to produce data reasonably showing the progress of a train.

In the meantime, a more honest "No Data" could be shown instead of 'delayed'.

 

[JAWZ]

Passengers do rely on National Rail Enquiries (and other apps driven from the same data feed). In most areas of the UK the data is reasonably accurate, so it's not an unreasonable expectation of passengers to expect a train to be delayed when the data feed is producing a delayed message. These antiquated areas are a problem for NR - perhaps it needs a workaround solution to produce data reasonably showing the progress of a train.

In the meantime, a more honest "No Data" could be shown instead of 'delayed'.

Yeah, I use "no report" in my app, it's a reflection of the level of "trust" I have in TRUST

 

[zwk500]

At Bristol Parkway “arrived” usually means “no it hasn’t” and “delayed” can be anything from 1 minute to eternity…

Arrived normally means the train has stepped into the platform berth, doesn't it?

Delayed should be used for trains that are actually known to be delayed. Where there is no information as to whether the train is on time or not then “no information” should be displayed. Or just the scheduled time displayed.

This or 'unknown' would just lead to ridicule/jokes about how the railway's lost it's trains.

It seems that some systems report trains as delayed, not because they have actually been reported late at some point but simply due to a lack of reports; A similar thing happened to me at Wrexham earlier this year when my train to Chester was shown as delayed, only to turn up bang on time! This is something the industry needs to rectify.

Greater use of Train-borne GPS reporting should be a focus IMO.

 

[JAWZ]

Greater use of Train-borne GPS reporting should be a focus IMO.

Exactly this. I keep reading that accurate lat/long reporting isn't something the industry is that interested in though. They're happy with signalling berths. Personally I think they're missing a trick, as the travelling public has got used to apps like PlaneFinder, BusTimes etc, and there does seem to be a demand for live train maps. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part

 

[Krokodil]

These antiquated areas are a problem for NR - perhaps it needs a workaround solution to produce data reasonably showing the progress of a train.

Given that Llandudno Junction is worked by a panel, it's high time that its train describer fed berth data in automatically. Frodsham Junction now does.

They've been talking about resignalling NW Wales for years now.