Ongoing lack of honesty / transparency in station late train info

[LlanishenBull]

I've just been on the phone to my daughter, who is waiting at Exeter for a train to Cardiff.

Scheduled to leave at 1550.

It's obvious the train coming from Cardiff forms this service, however it's running late so the 1550 back to Cardiff will be late departing.

Why not be honest and tell all waiting passengers? They can go to the loo or the cafe if they wish to.

At 1550 the service to Cardiff was allegedly on time, at 1551 it was expected at 1551 etc etc. This charade went on for several more minutes before they eventually
fessed up and informed passengers accordingly.

In all my decades of travelling by train in this country this has always happened. Why don't we as passengers get treated with respect and informed honestly about delays that staff must be aware of? It would make everyone much less stressed.

 

[Polarbear]

Similar happened to me a few weeks back at Birmingham New Street. Despite Real Time Trains showing the inbound service terminating/turning at Wolverhampton, absolutely no announcements or indication my train was being cancelled until well after advertised departure time.

 

[bramling]

Similar happened to me a few weeks back at Birmingham New Street. Despite Real Time Trains showing the inbound service terminating/turning at Wolverhampton, absolutely no announcements or indication my train was being cancelled until well after advertised departure time.

Very common at Kings Cross with GTR services, especially since GTR took over. As well as not knowing what their drivers are doing, half the time they don’t seem to know where their trains are either.

However the underlying reason this happens is essentially that staffed systems have been automated over the years, so often there’s no one to pick up on it, or the staff on the ground are waiting to be told by “control” and wary of acting on their own initiative.

Unfortunately with the way the railway has gone over the last 2 or 3 decades, I can’t really see this changing. Expertise / knowledge has been lost, and once lost it’s hard to get it back. Much easier to put out announcements about holding onto handrails or being careful on wet floors than it is to provide accurate train running info.

 

[LLivery]

Does it say the location of the train on the CIS? I've found this to be very useful

 

[43096]

I've just been on the phone to my daughter, who is waiting at Exeter for a train to Cardiff.

Scheduled to leave at 1550.

It's obvious the train coming from Cardiff forms this service, however it's running late so the 1550 back to Cardiff will be late departing.

Why not be honest and tell all waiting passengers? They can go to the loo or the cafe if they wish to.

At 1550 the service to Cardiff was allegedly on time, at 1551 it was expected at 1551 etc etc. This charade went on for several more minutes before they eventually
fessed up and informed passengers accordingly.

In all my decades of travelling by train in this country this has always happened. Why don't we as passengers get treated with respect and informed honestly about delays that staff must be aware of? It would make everyone much less stressed.

It’s no different to other forms of transport. A couple of years ago I was coming back from Dublin and the screens all showed “on time” yet I could clearly see on Flight Radar 24 that the outbound aircraft had not yet departed Heathrow. Unsurprisingly it went back to “delayed” a while later.

What has changed is that apps like RTT (and FR24 for flights) give knowledge to the paying punter that for whatever reason the service provider won’t. It does take a degree of confidence and competence for the user to interpret the data correctly, though.

 

[LlanishenBull]

Real time trains was very helpful (if thats what you mean by cis) and I was able to point my daughter to it.

And to the previous response, yes I'm sure it's getting worse but my experience is it's always happened and perhaps, therefore, that lack of customer service is, sadly, perhaps passed on to less experienced newer staff.

 

[Spartacus]

A couple of problems with that is, how late do you say it's going to be? It could be just a couple of minutes after it gets in after turning around, or it could be as late as the inward.

Or it might not be late at all; I've seen an inward working was obviously late before and gone off for a quick drink, only to come back and find my train's gone because there was a set swap.

Standing around for a train that's late's not good, but standing around waiting for a train you thought was going to be late but wasn't is really bad; now imagine if you missed it thanks to official advice? Situations change and things get stepped up. Unless I was in a situation where I knew something like that couldn't happen I wouldn't want to make that mistake again, same as I wouldn't want to be making any announcements about next working delays until things were fixed, and then it might be too late to be of much use to passengers.

 

[mike57]

I regularly check inbound services to tell if my train will be running at all, or will be late, not 100% accurate as ploblems can occur later but it does save wasted time o occasions. As others have said, with all the automation of systems any common sense has flown out of the window. Like a lot of things rail related I get the feeling that the inertia and sloth introduced by the current structure is now endemic, and to honest with out a major shake up nothing will changes. A major shake up would require political buy in and *some* money, not on an HS2 scale, but its fairly clear the 11 Downing Street money tree has not only withered and died, but has been cut down as well...

 

[plugwash]

Generally, the customer information systems are pretty good about trains that are already moving, it's starting trains that are more difficult.

You could potentially make the CIS work based on rolling stock and/or crew diagrams rather than individual train services, but diagrams do get changed to mitigate late-running. IF you announce a train service as delayed and then it turns out not to be delayed after all (because you found a different train to run the service with, or someone made a descision to turn a train back short)that can cause it's own problems.

 

[Carntyne]

The trains aren't 'linked' in the timetable to each other by the looks of it, so the system won't know that the incoming service would be arriving late, therefore knocking on.

Something station staff at a place like Exeter should be keeping an eye on.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I know that I’ve been retired for years but I seem to recall a timetabling and diagramming concept of something like ‘associations’. I.e. train ‘A’ coming in subsequently forms train ‘B’ going out.

Do modern computerised information, control, signalling and traffic management systems no longer have this feature?

Or is it a case that they still do but GWR/DfT or whoever won’t pay for it as an add-on or something?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Looks like a track defect/safety inspection was needed between Bristol and Taunton, and reported on NRE as cleared at 1634.
So some trains were cancelled/turned short, including the previous 1452 Cardiff service.
From RTT, the incoming Cardiff service forming the 1550 return was delayed at Bristol but did run 20-30 minutes late to Exeter.
All of this would have been apparent from RTT or other industry train running data.
It eventually left Exeter at 1610, and has picked a bit of time since.
At least it ran.

 

[godfreycomplex]

I know that I’ve been retired for years but I seem to recall a timetabling and diagramming concept of something like ‘associations’. I.e. train ‘A’ coming in subsequently forms train ‘B’ going out.

Do modern computerised information, control, signalling and traffic management systems no longer have this feature?

Or is it a case that they still do but GWR/DfT or whoever won’t pay for it as an add-on or something?

The signalling at Exeter dates from 1985, and was in fact one of the last major schemes to be commissioned before Automatic Code Insertion was invented, which is what you’re referring to. ACI is a sister system of Automatic Route Setting (ARS), both of which are quite expensive systems so (rightly or wrongly) tend to be confined to major stations/installations.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Thank you @godfreycomplex .

 

[Russel]

A couple of problems with that is, how late do you say it's going to be? It could be just a couple of minutes after it gets in after turning around, or it could be as late as the inward.

Or it might not be late at all; I've seen an inward working was obviously late before and gone off for a quick drink, only to come back and find my train's gone because there was a set swap.

Standing around for a train that's late's not good, but standing around waiting for a train you thought was going to be late but wasn't is really bad; now imagine if you missed it thanks to official advice? Situations change and things get stepped up. Unless I was in a situation where I knew something like that couldn't happen I wouldn't want to make that mistake again, same as I wouldn't want to be making any announcements about next working delays until things were fixed, and then it might be too late to be of much use to passengers.

So, leave customers in the dark?

But then, to anyone that uses the railway on a regular basis should be used to that.

 

[LlanishenBull]

So, leave customers in the dark?

But then, to anyone that uses the railway on a regular basis should be used to that.

I think that's my point.

I get plans may change but in this case I very much doubt that was ever possible.

No, it wasn't a serious delay (if you knew where to look) but it's a classic example of all too common poor customer service.

 

[Bantamzen]

This is becoming a serious issue. This afternoon I've travelled homeward from my office in Salford Quays to Northwich. The trams to Altrincham were fine, but I had planned to pick up the 15:36 from there to Northwich. However having left Stockport this service had ground to a halt somewhere in-between.

But there was no official announcement of this delay / cancellation at Altrincham, the board just went from the train being due at 15:38 even at 15:50, to advertising the 16:36. After a while Northern's disruption page stated that this service had been canned at Stockport due to a fault. Fair do, I'll wait for the next. But just when the next was due to leave Manchester, that got canned to stating problems with the traction. It took another half an hour before the site eventually said the original train had failed between Stockport and Altrincham and disruption would be until at least 19:00.

Fair enough but this information a lot sooner might have given me a bus, well a two bus alternative. So now I'm about to engage in a claim back for a taxi, because I'm sorry I'm not adding 3 hours to my commute especially when the live information was poor.

 

[Moonshot]

This is becoming a serious issue. This afternoon I've travelled homeward from my office in Salford Quays to Northwich. The trams to Altrincham were fine, but I had planned to pick up the 15:36 from there to Northwich. However having left Stockport this service had ground to a halt somewhere in-between.

But there was no official announcement of this delay / cancellation at Altrincham, the board just went from the train being due at 15:38 even at 15:50, to advertising the 16:36. After a while Northern's disruption page stated that this service had been canned at Stockport due to a fault. Fair do, I'll wait for the next. But just when the next was due to leave Manchester, that got canned to stating problems with the traction. It took another half an hour before the site eventually said the original train had failed between Stockport and Altrincham and disruption would be until at least 19:00.

Fair enough but this information a lot sooner might have given me a bus, well a two bus alternative. So now I'm about to engage in a claim back for a taxi, because I'm sorry I'm not adding 3 hours to my commute especially when the live information was poor.

I got somewhat criticised earlier on for stating that the railway is unreliable......and yet here we are again with another poster stating what I am totally aware of as staff. We are getting so poor at delivering a public service....it's becoming embarrassing. There have been other issues today as well which most won't be aware of.

 

[43066]

I got somewhat criticised earlier on for stating that the railway is unreliable......and yet here we are again with another poster stating what I am totally aware of as staff. We are getting so poor at delivering a public service....it's becoming embarrassing. There have been other issues today as well which most won't be aware of.

It isn’t generally unreliable, though. My local operator in the south east delivers what I would describe as a good and consistently reliable service, including getting me to and from work at some pretty extreme times of day. It might be worse up north but to say the system as a whole is unreliable is a sweeping (and inaccurate) generalisation.

 

[Bantamzen]

I got somewhat criticised earlier on for stating that the railway is unreliable......and yet here we are again with another poster stating what I am totally aware of as staff. We are getting so poor at delivering a public service....it's becoming embarrassing. There have been other issues today as well which most won't be aware of.

I'm sorry to say but I have to agree. I make regular weekend trips up and down the Calder Valley for example, and more often than not there are delays or cancellations. In fact barely a trip goes by without having to put the obligatory Delay Repay claim. And as for trying to use my new local line, the Mid Cheshire on a Saturday night, it's literally a lottery if you get a train or play the Uber fare gamble.

It's becoming clear that the railways are starting to literally fall apart. And it's not surprising given how much money the industry has to pay back for being crap. At the very least when things go wrong getting info out to the punters should be a priority, not a chore. And the messages should be consistent and up to date. If a meme can go viral in minutes across the globe, there's no excuse not to get up to date info to passengers.

 

[MarkyT]

The signalling at Exeter dates from 1985, and was in fact one of the last major schemes to be commissioned before Automatic Code Insertion was invented, which is what you’re referring to. ACI is a sister system of Automatic Route Setting (ARS), both of which are quite expensive systems so (rightly or wrongly) tend to be confined to major stations/installations.

From new, Exeter PSB had an unusual Train Describer system, the WR Solid State TD, which wasn't processor-based; instead, it used discrete logic cards arranged geographically according to the track layout, connected to each other, and to cables leading to the individual panel displays and interpose keypads, via wire-wrap terminals on the backplane. It was an in-house developed solid-state recreation of previous relay-based TDs that used racks of telephone exchange relays arranged into custom modules. WR SSTD was fairly basic, like the earlier electro-mechanical systems it was based on, so probably didn't have those more complex functions found in later computer-based tech. I don't know if Exeter's original TD survives today.

 

[Russel]

I got somewhat criticised earlier on for stating that the railway is unreliable......and yet here we are again with another poster stating what I am totally aware of as staff. We are getting so poor at delivering a public service....it's becoming embarrassing. There have been other issues today as well which most won't be aware of.

Tuesday night I was at Crewe for the 21:13 LNWR for Lichfield, this was cancelled so I was left to wait for the 22:13, checking RTT at about 21:30 I noticed this was cancelled too, it was starting from Stafford, having an LNWR advance ticket, I asked the Avanti staff what I could get to Stafford, they tried to put me on an Avanti service that gave me a 10 minute connection at Stafford onto the last train of the night, I wasn't happy with this so asked if I could use an earlier service as we all know how sloppy Avantis punctuality can be on the WCML...

What I found poor was the total lack of information, when 2 services in a row are cancelled, I'd expect an announcement or two advising passengers what to do, but instead I had to seek out advice myself and didn't consider the advice I got to be all that great.

 

[billio]

I use the Northern website for a particular station like https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/stations/halifax. This shows arrivals/departures and choosing a particular train will show the stops on the whole route and the current status: on-time, cancelled, timetable time, expected time of arrival at each station. Assuming the information is correct, and it seems to be, it gives you a good ides of what's happening to your train. Perhaps this information is not widely advertised.

 

[saismee]

The trains aren't 'linked' in the timetable to each other by the looks of it, so the system won't know that the incoming service would be arriving late, therefore knocking on.

Something station staff at a place like Exeter should be keeping an eye on.

They are sometimes linked. I've seen an Ipswich to Felixstowe service be displayed as delayed before the previous outbound has even reached its first stop! It's a single unit running back and forth so it's very easy to tell how delayed it will be by the time its done a whole journey.

Morning Norwich to Liverpool Street services often display as delayed before departing for god knows why. The information screens (and human controllers) can be pretty good at times, but they can also be questionable during disruption. Today was disruption at Diss and the information screens displayed a service with a destination of "Ipswich & Norwich" with no platform or departure time for a while. A very strange thing to see when there weren't any Norwich-bound departures for at least an hour.

 

[Vexed]

The trains aren't 'linked' in the timetable to each other by the looks of it, so the system won't know that the incoming service would be arriving late, therefore knocking on.

Something station staff at a place like Exeter should be keeping an eye on.

I know that I’ve been retired for years but I seem to recall a timetabling and diagramming concept of something like ‘associations’. I.e. train ‘A’ coming in subsequently forms train ‘B’ going out.

Do modern computerised information, control, signalling and traffic management systems no longer have this feature?

Or is it a case that they still do but GWR/DfT or whoever won’t pay for it as an add-on or something?

This is possible. The "one source of truth" passenger information system that powers TOC apps, station departure boards, and some third party apps is called Darwin and does support associations, which will auto delay the outbound based on inbound. These can be changed live on the day to reflect set swaps.

I experienced it myself at Waterloo last weekend - the inbound was late, got a bit earlier while it skipped stops, then got later again when it got stuck in congestion between Clapham Jn and Waterloo. Evey delay change to the inbound was immediatly reflected in the outbound working with an offset for the turnaround time.

Unfortunately, most TOCs don't bother putting associations into Darwin so they usually aren't linked.

A live example below of associations working properly from https://railchecker.app/service/2025-08-28/L51380. This website is Darwin-based, so uses the exact same data as station departure boards (except some major stations where they have local control and will sometimes override the Darwin data).


Expected delay arriving at Waterloo of 7 minutes, 1947 instead of the timetabled 1940. Link shown to the outbound service

Shows the linked outbound service has an expected delay of 5 mintes

 

[Lewisham2221]

There was, of course, this recent thread, where the inbound and outbound journeys were linked and because the inbound journey showed as "delayed", so did the next working. In that instance a "false" delay, caused by lack of train reporting, led to the OP missing their train - it actually departed on time! In that case, if the journeys hadn't been linked, the return train would've showed as "on time" and the OP would presumably have caught the intended train.

 

[ainsworth74]

I think it's worth noting that it isn't an issue of "honesty" or "transparency" nobody is trying to cover anything up or hide things from people. It's just a failure within the way that information is presented to passengers (and staff, particularly platform staff!).

But there was no official announcement of this delay / cancellation at Altrincham, the board just went from the train being due at 15:38 even at 15:50, to advertising the 16:36. After a while Northern's disruption page stated that this service had been canned at Stockport due to a fault. Fair do, I'll wait for the next. But just when the next was due to leave Manchester, that got canned to stating problems with the traction. It took another half an hour before the site eventually said the original train had failed between Stockport and Altrincham and disruption would be until at least 19:00.

Yes I've noticed this can be a real issue at some stations, I think it's related to the source of the data (I notice it happens around here on bits of line that are driven by signallers inputting times rather than having actual information on where a train is), services just getting later and then dropping off the board with no idea what's actually happened to it. I've rolled into Redcar Central on late running (often not even that late, perhaps five or ten minutes) trains and the departure board is advertising the service after ours already. Obviously it's something that should be tackled but hopefully it will eventually be a thing of the past as there are fewer and fewer areas that are effectively "dark territory" outside of the local boxes panel!

This is possible. The "one source of truth" passenger information system that powers TOC apps, station departure boards, and some third party apps is called Darwin and does support associations, which will auto delay the outbound based on inbound. These can be changed live on the day to reflect set swaps.

I experienced it myself at Waterloo last weekend - the inbound was late, got a bit earlier while it skipped stops, then got later again when it got stuck in congestion between Clapham Jn and Waterloo. Evey delay change to the inbound was immediatly reflected in the outbound working with an offset for the turnaround time.

Yes it's disappointing that the industry doesn't ensure that this is rolled out comprehensively across all services. It's a really vital tool in providing accurate information during disruption because it captures those delays that will be caused by late running inbound services. Not having those links generates the delays that passengers find most annoying/unnerving where their train just gets later and later until it ticks over to just being "Delayed". When in reality it would be perfectly possible to have a fair stab at how late it's going to be if only the inbound was associated to its next working. Even in places that it's fairly straight forward terminus like Saltburn where the Northern unit in is going to be the next Northern unit out again it isn't done for all services only if control spot a delay and link them together (though it is done at the other end in Darlington for all services so delays are correctly carried over to the next service!).

All that criticism being said it's also worth remembering that we're not the only place that struggles. I think the worst case of bad information I ever had was in Warsaw waiting for a train that was coming from Krakow heading towards Mockava (in Lithuania). Get to the station at around 0650 for something like a 0710 departure and then at 0705 the train is suddenly delayed by 80 minutes or so. Now, there's no way that PKP suddenly realised at 0705 that the train was going to be 80 minutes late, they must have known some time in advance but was that communicated anywhere? Nope. I've never experienced anything as bad as that in the UK even in the time before we had access to things like RTT!

 

[Geeves]

Regards to the Chester via Altrincham line one of all the small signal boxes, how does the train update to realtime trains etc when it's absolute block and a signaller pressing bells? We can't see the train properly so I guess the system must struggle.

As others have said generally when the train is moving the updates are great, when the delay becomes one where the train is no longer moving and the delay has no end time that's when it all falls apart.

Sometimes the systems don't talk to each other so even though we all know the train going back can't possibly be on time the ones operating the cis at a particular station might only be able to put in a guesstimate time. Sometimes we add delays and then a unit gets stepped up, you've announced the train will be half an hour late, when suddenly it's only ten now as they have split a train in two. The issue now is you'll have passengers that don't hear or see the announcements, so they then miss it.

So is it better to just show nothing or on time or try to guess a return time to display on your screens? Which ever you pick someone isn't likely to be happy.

 

[Horizon22]

The issue is this needs a lot more manual intervention than you would expect. Many trains that go A to B and then are booked to form a service from B to C will be “associated”. This means delay associated to Train A will eventually filter through to Train B via Darwin. However, it also takes into account turnaround times etc and it is never an exact science. And not every service has an association, which is often an issue at TOC planning stages.

When trains stop moving, after 3 minutes they generally become “delayed”. The system can’t forecast that and often the responsible individuals (signallers / crew / controllers) may not be able to provide an accurate estimate either and is dependent on the actual issue; too small and it causes complains; too long and people complain they’ve then missed a service.

TOC information / station controllers are responsible for ensuring this information is updated but they may be dealing with the more immediate delays & amendments, liaising with stations, updating route messaging etc. Workload management in emerging disruption is also an issue and almost impossible to get correct as there are so many competing demands in a short space of time. Once a “steady state” has been implemented it becomes easier to disseminate information in a more timely manner.

 

[londonbridge]

On one occasion I arrived at Newcastle Central intending to catch the 8:10 to Chester le Street for parkrun. Train was showing as on time, but no sooner had I bought my ticket than the expected time began slipping back, 8:12, 8:13, 8:14 until it reached 8:20 when it changed to delayed. Platform staff couldn’t tell me how long the delay was, it still hadn’t arrived at 8:30 so I went off and ran Town Moor run instead. Checking RTT after the run revealed that the train had been cancelled, so I went in the ticket office and asked for a refund for abandoning my journey due to disruption. First clerk I spoke to told me to claim delay repay from TPE! Spoke to another clerk who thankfully understood the position and gave me the refund.