Platform Departure Screens with Wrong Carriage Formation

[Smylers]

How do official platform departure screens showing carriages in train formations manage to be wrong for a service where Realtime Trains shows the correct formation? The system must have the correct data in it somewhere for Realtime Trains to use it, so how does it get mangled on the way to departure screens?

At Birmingham New Street, the screens at the top said for the 17:03 to Leeds to go to either the Green or Red Zone depending on whether I was seated in the front or the rear of the train. A message elsewhere said included “Formation - G I J L Front a c d r - Rear” (capitalization and punctuation copied from the original). My seat reservation claimed to be in coach F. Down on the platform, the scrolling message said the same thing. Unsurprisingly to many on this forum, when the train arrived, the rear carriage was actually F, not R. And that's how Realtime Trains shows it.

Then when passing Derby, I noticed the display there was differently wrong. Its screens had a diagram of the service, showing the rear half-train with (from the rear) L, J, I, G and the front one with F, D, C, A. Each individual half-train has the correct carriages in the right order and is facing the correct way, but the screen thinks they were joined together the opposite way round, with G–L being attached to the rear of A–F rather than in front of it.

I could understand if all these systems were wrong in the same way, but how do they managed to disagree with each other?

 

[GordonT]

Worth reporting it as a complaint to the relevant TOC and station operators if you've not already done so and asking them why these occurences happened and what they will do to prevent this in future. Would be interested if you would then post any responses to your complaint.

 

[Smylers]

Worth reporting it as a complaint to the relevant TOC and station operators if you've not already done so

I haven't yet. Who are the relevant operators for New Street and Derby?

 

[GordonT]

I haven't yet. Who are the relevant operators for New Street and Derby?

Network Rail directly manages New Street and East Midlands Railway for Derby.

 

[AndrewE]

I wouldn't bother, Avanti WC are routinely wrong in this. Yesterday at Crewe what should have been the 1240 Euston - Edinburgh arrived at Crewe at 1607, having lost only 15 more minutes after leaving Euston 45 late. The departure boards at Crewe showed the train as running to Preston - with the pointy end at the left, then coaches K to A reading across... However the text on the line above said "1st class at rear." It was actually the right way round when it arrived, so a lot of people had to run along the platform from the rear to get the coaches at the front.

It was a complete omni-shambles as far as the public were concerned, RTT showed it running to Edinburgh, it was announced on the train that it was terminating at Preston... then that it was running through to Glasgow! Luckily at Carlisle there was a late-running TPE train to Edinburgh behind it for people to connect into. I hate to think how busy that would have been.
This is almost a story for the "Why should I go by train?" thread!

 

[CJSwan]

I was once waiting on a very busy platform at Dundee for a train to Glasgow. The automatic announcements and screen said the train was “formed of one carriage”. There were lots of concerned grumblings about if there’d be room for everyone… In rolled a 5+2 HST! Then at Glasgow, the return working to Aberdeen, formed of the same 5+2 HST was being advertised as a 6 carriage train!

 

[mickey]

At Oxford last week the station announcer was shouting over the PA for people to spread out along the platform (there had been delays so it was even busier than normal) for a 9-car that was starting there. Two members of station staff went along the section of platform to the left of the entrance checking tickets to make sure customers standing there were in First, then one walked further down as good as pushing people beyond the footbridge.

Only - yes, you guessed it - the train was in reverse formation. And even more annoyingly, all of the station info boards (both on the platform and on the concourse) correctly showed the formation, as did RTT, so many of the passengers had worked it out, but were not allowed to behave accordingly. And what happened in the end was that the need to depart as quickly as possible led to First effectively being declassified and the forward two coaches going pretty much empty.

Sadly the lesson we took from that is not to trust station control or platform staff. And they wonder why it often seems no one listens to them.

 

[Andy Pacer]

When I was at Crewe yesterday a 10 car Evero arrived for Euston, signs said it was a 5 car, and the graphic showed 10 cars, but only 5 of them had letters on. Then the train arrived showing 'this train is not in service' on the carriage displays...

 

[route101]

Noticed at Carlisle, the screens were showing the Avanti to Glasgow as reverse formation, the service was running the right way around.

 

[Andy Pacer]

Noticed at Carlisle, the screens were showing the Avanti to Glasgow as reverse formation, the service was running the right way around.

Did it say "Train in reverse formation" or were the letters just the wrong way round?

 

[route101]

Did it say "Train in reverse formation" or were the letters just the wrong way round?

No, just the letters wrong way.

 

[Andy Pacer]

No, just the letters wrong way.

Ive noticed at Avanti stations they tend to put on the signs the reverse formation message, one recent one at Stockport even had a smiley face!

 

[43096]

Yet if I go to Switzerland the screens are always, without fail, correct for the train formation. So it can be done.

 

[Deepgreen]

Essentially, the more detailed information that is provided, the more there is to go wrong.

 

[Oxfordblues]

Even if the displays are correct 90% of the time, that still means they're unreliable.

 

[kkong]

I was once waiting on a very busy platform at Dundee for a train to Glasgow. The automatic announcements and screen said the train was “formed of one carriage”.

I have seen the 1-car formation on the departure boards at Dundee a few times (always for HSTs).

I can't recall seeing it at any other station in Scotland.

So I'm curious why this seems to affect Dundee.

 

[DelW]

I've seen this on GWR at Reading too, with trains arriving with coaches in a different order from that shown on platform screens and in audio announcements. It causes a lot of hurried scurrying up and down the platform. Especially so if it's a 2x5 set that's arrived in the wrong order, as pax ending up in the wrong unit may have to wait until Taunton an hour and a quarter later to find their assigned seat.

 

[D1537]

LNER often have this issue with 2x5 Azumas, where one unit is the opposite way round from the other, so you end up with the completely unintuitive ABCDE-MKHGF or EDCBA-FGHKM. I've seen station PIS displays get one of the units wrong a number of times. For some reason when a wrong-way-round 5-car is on its own, they seem to get it correct.

There's one out today in fact. No info on whether the PIS are getting it correct...

1D22 1603 KGX-LDS

 

[Matthew5689]

Crosscountry seem to report their formations pretty reliably as far as I've experienced between Basingstoke and Bournemouth UNTIL there's a double set. Quite often you can see bizarre inconsistencies between stations and their own varying departure boards, as mentioned by the original post here, but the most confusion occurs when sets are locked out of use. Typically when a unit fails, and is then attached to the next service, or when there is a lack of crew, one portion of the double set is locked out but that information doesn't seem to be passed on correctly. When you're advised by station staff that the rear set is out of use before arrival, only for it to be the opposite, this causes notable delays as passengers end up in completely the wrong place

 

[Sheridan]

TfW services at Birmingham International are especially confusing. It’ll often show four coaches and then say something like ‘front four for Aberystwyth, rear two for Pwllheli’, despite the fact that it’s the front portion at Birmingham which will go to Pwllheli and the rear to Aberystwyth. And it’ll often say all this even when it’s actually a 2-car.

It always seems to be right at Birmingham New Street, on the same
journey!

 

[Thames99]

At Reading I've a 15 coach train shown on boards going, I think to South Wales, with announcements to the same effect. This was a train that was going to divide at some point and the announcement mentioned stations where you need to be in the 'correct' ten coach section for certain stations. When it arrived it was ten coaches long. No idea what sequence of letters was shown.

Something similar was mentioned on another thread and it was suggested that when a five coach train is replaced with ten they can end up adding the two together.

 

[Parallel]

I have seen the 1-car formation on the departure boards at Dundee a few times (always for HSTs).

I can't recall seeing it at any other station in Scotland.

So I'm curious why this seems to affect Dundee.

I’ve seen this before at Montrose too, it was also an HST. I saw the same at Truro when GWR were operating HSTs, it must be a bug in the system that has the wrong formation information for certain formations/rakes.

 

[jamieh27]

There has been a few glitches with GWR with train formations some services showing trains formed of 1 coach when they haven't got Class 153s, when the trains are actually 150s, 158s and 175s and in the past Castle Sets.

 

[pbear]

I was once waiting on a very busy platform at Dundee for a train to Glasgow. The automatic announcements and screen said the train was “formed of one carriage”. There were lots of concerned grumblings about if there’d be room for everyone… In rolled a 5+2 HST! Then at Glasgow, the return working to Aberdeen, formed of the same 5+2 HST was being advertised as a 6 carriage train!

It was one particular set causing this problem last year, used to see it right down the line from Aberdeen to Glasgow. Seems to be fixed now.

 

[wellhouse]

Transpennine 802s seem to be often displayed on platform departure screens as having two First Class coaches rather than one for some reason

 

[RT4038]

Yet if I go to Switzerland the screens are always, without fail, correct for the train formation. So it can be done.

Maybe because in Switzerland they have Swiss people operating the system, for (mainly) Swiss passengers, all of whom have the Swiss culture, whereas in Britain....... We are who we are.

 

[py_megapixel]

Transpennine 802s seem to be often displayed on platform departure screens as having two First Class coaches rather than one for some reason

Don't they have one-and-a-half like other operators?

I think the displays show any carriage which has any first class accommodation as first class, even if only half is first and the other half is standard

 

[TUC]

Not a wrong formation, but am I only one who gets confused when a train reverses direction at a station as to whether the displayed configuration is one for the direction upon arrival or departure?

 

[wellhouse]

.

Don't they have one-and-a-half like other operators?

I think the displays show any carriage which has any first class accommodation as first class, even if only half is first and the other half is standard

TPE Class 802/2s have First Class seating only on Coach E

 

[Merle Haggard]

Station screens at Avanti seem to be changed for no discernible reason but the latest (orange) ones show train formation by letter with one end having a point. Don't think for a moment that the pointy end is the front, or - if you're travelling first - you'll have to annoy the people in nine coaches trying to get to a seat.
The screens at Milton Keynes on the Down don't (or at least didn't) show whether it's a 9 or 11 car Pendo, which makes a difference because they both stop with the front in the same place.