Asymmetric services - good or bad?

[nw1]

I note at the moment that the diagramming on the Southampton area local services (discussed previously) is as follows:

Winchester-SOU
SOU-Portsmouth and Southsea
Portsmouth and Southsea-SOU
SOU-Bournemouth
Bournemouth-Winchester
(repeat)

This diagramming, involving interworking, makes absolute sense as it's the most efficient use of the stock. Anything else and you'd need extra units and perhaps need to shunt units to and from the sidings.

However the 'up' service from Bournemouth is advertised as a through Winchester service. Thus, it's asymmetric.

Question: should the up service be advertised as through, or should it be advertised as two separate services (Bournemouth-SOU and SOU-Winchester, which just so happen to be formed of the same unit) so that the timetable is symmetric?

Maybe it's just me but I would expect asymmetric services to be confusing to the passenger, and a passenger would expect services to be essentially the same in both directions. On the other hand, advertising it as a through service lets passengers know that through journeys can be made (in one direction only).

But perhaps it's just the way that my mind works and I just inherently prefer symmetrical train services whereby a given service has the same calling pattern and origin/destination in both directions.

 

[Whisky Papa]

I would tend to agree with your preference. I've had a couple of examples during my days as Northern station staff, which didn't cause major issues but were clearly annoying to the occasional passengers involved. Both have long since been resolved, incidentally.

On the Marple line from Manchester Piccadilly, Ashburys, Belle Vue and Ryder Brow were served off-peak by an hourly all-stops service to Marple, so occasionally passengers would quite reasonably catch the train from Ryder Brow to the next station of Reddish North where I worked. However, from Reddish North, the two inbound services each hour were non-stop to Piccadilly, as the three stations en-route were served inbound by a train that ran non-stop from Romiley to Ryder Brow. The only way to return was to travel into Piccadilly and alight from the outbound service: although it was only about a five minute layover at Piccadilly, it was not an option that went down well.

The other asymmetric service was at Todmorden briefly, the additional train per hour that was added in May 2014, prior to it running through to Blackburn once the Todmorden Curve was completed. This ran through to Wigan Wallgate via Bolton, but coming from Wigan it used the Atherton line. I thus found two confused pensioners out for a ride on the platform at Todmorden one afternoon, who were desperately unhappy to discover that they would have to change at Salford Crescent to return to Atherton. They were even less happy when I pointed out their free Greater Manchester passes weren't valid in West Yorkshire!

 

[Kilopylae]

You could imitate what buses do and advertise it at Bournemouth as "Southampton then Winchester".

 

[baza585]

You could imitate what buses do and advertise it at Bournemouth as "Southampton then Winchester".

Possibly. As this service gets overtaken at Eastleigh by the faster service behind it, that makes some sense.

Not sure the PIS will cope with that though.

For many years passengers on this line only had a 2 digit route code displayed and they seemed to cope!!

 

[BeijingDave]

I think I am right in saying that until recently Carstairs had a TPE service from Manchester to Glasgow, but not in the other direction.

So it was possible to travel directly from Manchester to Carstairs without changing, but not return.

If one looks hard enough, there are always quite a few of these examples around the network. Somewhat annoying, but probably don't have much impact on people's lives.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I think I am right in saying that until recently Carstairs had a TPE service from Manchester to Glasgow, but not in the other direction.

So it was possible to travel directly from Manchester to Carstairs without changing, but not return.

Indeed. Current timetable allows direct midweek travel from Manchester to/from Carstairs, albeit no same day return is possible, without first travelling "wrong way" on the return leg, either to Motherwell / Glasgow Central / Haymarket or Edinburgh Waverley.

 

[Mainline421]

Question: should the up service be advertised as through, or should it be advertised as two separate services (Bournemouth-SOU and SOU-Winchester, which just so happen to be formed of the same unit) so that the timetable is symmetric?

No I imagine enough people travel from Bournemouth to Eastleigh for it to be useful.

The real question is why it's not advertised as a through service from Portsmouth? This would be much better for intermediate stations, and it appears to only wait 12 minutes at Southampton.