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I’m seeing this more and more on the National Rail website, for example an Elizabeth line service was marked as five minutes late because of a late running train in front, there was no late train in front, why not give us the real reason?
I’m seeing this more and more on the National Rail website, for example an Elizabeth line service was marked as five minutes late because of a late running train in front, there was no late train in front, why not give us the real reason?
Just because there wasn’t a late running train in front at the time you looked, doesn’t mean there wasn’t one earlier in the train’s journey. Or on the previous journey which caused it to be late on current journey…
"Stopped out of course at Stafford to de-train party of nuns from Scotland over-carried from Crewe!"
Which is allegedly a genuine control log entry quoted at a friend's funeral, when a very senior LMR man living at Stafford realised that his Burns Night party was missing the essential ingredient, and this (normally) non-stop train was the only option...
[edit: it might have been for a new year's eve party when my late friend, the Deputy Chief Controller and his mates would probably have had a fair bit of time on their hands during the later half of the night shift...)
Not exactly false but 'shortage of train crew' is extremely common on Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern and it makes you wonder why GTR has not done anything about this in their > 10 years of existence... it's as fake as a real excuse can get.
Not exactly false but 'shortage of train crew' is extremely common on Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern and it makes you wonder why GTR has not done anything about this in their > 10 years of existence... it's as fake as a real excuse can get.
Cancelled due to a shortage of money from the DfT (GTR being under a DfT management contract since 2014)
That reminds me on a GWR service I was on recently from Worcestershire Parkway towards London and the guard announced there was no catering "due to it being unprofitable"!
Or Avanti's favourite "Cancelled due to a problem at the depot" - Real meaning we don't have any staff this Sunday because they all phoned in sick with a hangover.
I’m seeing this more and more on the National Rail website, for example an Elizabeth line service was marked as five minutes late because of a late running train in front, there was no late train in front, why not give us the real reason?
Because information controllers are not going to go and trawl back hours and hours to identify true root cause. If a GWR or GA service delays an Elizabeth line train at a junction, that might have been delayed for some reason in South Wales or Norfolk. Which might have been delayed by a TFW or an EMR service. Which might have been delayed by a freight and so on... And then you'd have to work out why that all happened in the first place.
Also there may have been a late train in front (Elizabeth line services between Reading - Slough can get delayed by a GWR 387 Thames Valley service which then crosses onto the Up Main or a freight train now in a loop), but no longer is.
Delay reasons are not the same as pure delay attributions.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Not exactly false but 'shortage of train crew' is extremely common on Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern and it makes you wonder why GTR has not done anything about this in their > 10 years of existence... it's as fake as a real excuse can get.
Not fake if its true. You might not like the fact that it is the case, but if trains are cancelled as there are not enough drivers available on the day, it's still true.
That reminds me on a GWR service I was on recently from Worcestershire Parkway towards London and the guard announced there was no catering "due to it being unprofitable"!
I have noticed this too. I've speed "speed restriction" when there's been no speed restriction on the route all day long, and recently when on a CrossCountry train the reason was because of "passengers causing a disturbance on this train" even though the whole delay was caused by waiting for a train crew member at Bournemouth because of signalling problems on the route.
"To the Traffic Manager.
British Rail, Southern Region.
Dear sir, Every morning my train is
11 minutes late. This is infuriating.
This morning I took a later train, this also was 11 minutes late.
This also is infuriating.
Why don't you re-time all your trains to arrive 11 minutes late, then they would all be on time?
Yours faithfully,
Reginald Iolanthe Perrin."
I've worked in train planning and even I think this has a certain logic to it!
Couldn't run because a 150 or 156 ended up on a 100mph diagram? Wouldn't rule that out as true. I don't think they are allowed to put 150s and 156s out on the WCML services south of Lancaster any more as it makes a mess of the timetable. But if that's all they had you could at least run Barrow to Lancaster.
Thanks.
Thinking about it, I had misunderstood 'replaced by a slower train' (i.e., as you say replaced by a slower type of train on the diagram) to mean 'replaced by a slower service' but could never see a replacement, slower service.
Couldn't run because a 150 or 156 ended up on a 100mph diagram? Wouldn't rule that out as true. I don't think they are allowed to put 150s and 156s out on the WCML services south of Lancaster any more as it makes a mess of the timetable. But if that's all they had you could at least run Barrow to Lancaster.
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