Do direct London services actually matter?

[Grimsby town]

Yes, and look at the money they've thrown at it - two additional underground stations and loads of new connecting lines. It is impressive - and expensive!

And even then the timetable is designed so that passengers don't have to change, even when it means running two trains carrying fresh air 5min apart every hour on the Engadine line. There was an almighty fuss when the Jurafuss line through Neuchatel lost its through service to Geneva recently.

Also look at the space Zurich Hbf has to work with. Its something like a 15 track throat leading into the station. UK stations don't have anything like that and will never have the space for it. There's simply no way everything can arrive at the same time each hour at UK stations.

As Doncaster as already been mentioned, and there were opposed plans to split Cleethorpes-Manchester services there at one point, I'll use that as an example. A split Cleethorpes to Doncaster would arrive in Platform 0 and the onward service is likely to depart from platform 8. That's a significant walk. If something delays the train from Cleethorpes, its unlikely that the Doncaster portion would be held because of the knock on effect it would have on services in Doncaster, Sheffield, and Manchester. So the through service would be made significantly worse.

We're slightly different from Switzerland in that we also have a much higher population that can justify more direct services and higher frequencies meaning that connecting services are less of a requirement.

 

[Falcon1200]

When did you experience this? I've been to Switzerland many times and never experienced anything like this! On the contrary, UK practices lead to many more delayed passengers.

If trains in Switzerland are always, as you state, held for connections off late running services, does that not then guarantee importing delay into further trains, therefore delaying more passengers? Whereas not holding the connection means that only those passengers on the late inward train are affected. From my experience as a UK rail operator it does not take much for a relatively small delay to one train to snowball through the network. The least disruption to the smallest number of passengers is achieved by running the greatest number of trains on time.

An example of the UK policy; Last week I travelled on a Nottingham via Derby to Birmingham service, a busy train which served those two major cities as well as other stops en route. Unfortunately we were delayed into Birmingham by trespassers and arrived into New Street about 14 minutes late, and I missed my planned (hourly) onward service. Which trains out of New Street should have been held for connections?!!

 

[bramling]

If trains in Switzerland are always, as you state, held for connections off late running services, does that not then guarantee importing delay into further trains, therefore delaying more passengers? Whereas not holding the connection means that only those passengers on the late inward train are affected. From my experience as a UK rail operator it does not take much for a relatively small delay to one train to snowball through the network. The least disruption to the smallest number of passengers is achieved by running the greatest number of trains on time.

An example of the UK policy; Last week I travelled on a Nottingham via Derby to Birmingham service, a busy train which served those two major cities as well as other stops en route. Unfortunately we were delayed into Birmingham by trespassers and arrived into New Street about 14 minutes late, and I missed my planned (hourly) onward service. Which trains out of New Street should have been held for connections?!!

On the latter point, I think the industry looks at this the wrong way.

Quite clearly it’s not possible to hold the whole of New Street for connections. But equally, there just doesn’t seem to be much focus these days on keeping trains to time, and in particular trying to regain time when late.

It’s awful nowadays the way that a late train goes to the back of the regulating queue, even when it’s only a few minutes late. Signallers just don’t seem to be allowed to take the bigger picture.

Regaining a couple of lost minutes, or making every effort to ensure a late-running train doesn’t lose any more time, might often make all the difference with maintaining a connection. These sorts of factors just don’t seem to be taken into account at all with regulating, and it’s very much to the detriment of the end-user experience. It seems the industry is only ever interested in what can be made into a measurable, no doubt because it can then be manipulated to form the basis of someone’s performance bonus.

 

[JonathanH]

But equally, there just doesn’t seem to be much focus these days on keeping trains to time, and in particular trying to regain time when late.

Any concept of regaining time when late would appear to imply that the train schedule was padded in the first place. Most trains already run to line speed.

Clearly there are some allowances in schedules, and in many cases signallers do appear to take a wider picture, but putting a slow line train on the fast line, for example, transmits delay to other services. It isn't just about signalling though, delayed dispatch or slow door operation can also be frustrating. Making effort not to allow a delay to get worse is more realistic than actually regaining time.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Too many trains, not enough platforms. That isnt poor timetabling, that is poor specification and rinsing as much revenue as possible.

This is what so many just don't realise. On the continent there are many junction stations, often serving quite small settlements, which nevertheless have a separate platform for use by trains on each route diverging from the node with additional tracks between the junction(s) and station to enhance the resilience. Then add in our lack of grade separation at important junctions or the number of junctions simplified to a single "ladder" connection or the number of two track routes trying to support a mix of local stopping trains and faster longer distance trains (let's not even think about freight!) and it's no wonder the timetables appear to fall apart so quickly. We need more tracks!

 

[baz962]

On the latter point, I think the industry looks at this the wrong way.

Quite clearly it’s not possible to hold the whole of New Street for connections. But equally, there just doesn’t seem to be much focus these days on keeping trains to time, and in particular trying to regain time when late.

It’s awful nowadays the way that a late train goes to the back of the regulating queue, even when it’s only a few minutes late. Signallers just don’t seem to be allowed to take the bigger picture.

Regaining a couple of lost minutes, or making every effort to ensure a late-running train doesn’t lose any more time, might often make all the difference with maintaining a connection. These sorts of factors just don’t seem to be taken into account at all with regulating, and it’s very much to the detriment of the end-user experience. It seems the industry is only ever interested in what can be made into a measurable, no doubt because it can then be manipulated to form the basis of someone’s performance bonus.

I don't believe that late trains always go to the back. I have lost count of the times I have been held up for late trains , especially Cross Country at Sheffield and Derby.

 

[dk1]

None whatsoever. In all my years in and being onbolved with controls and their decisions, not once have i seen or heard of one that was done to have an effect on finacial compensation.

Exactly as I understand things. For some reason those outside the industry consider these financial implications more important than is actually the case for some reason.

 

[Russel]

Countries where connections are taken seriously timetable them into opposite sides of the same island with a reasonably short gap from arrival to departure, and make them wait if the inbound train is late.

This rarely happens in the UK.

From experience, Northern have held the Windermere train at Oxenholme a few times when I've been making the journey if the connecting Avanti from London is delayed.

That said, I do agree with you, the above example is very much the exception to the rule I find!

 

[JKF]

Hasn’t a lot of the post-Covid travel growth been leisure travel? Direct trains are more appealing for this, particularly if travelling as a family with luggage and getting yourself set up on a table with card games, food etc. Upping the whole show halfway through a journey, getting the entourage through lifts/subways and so on is one of those things that might make you want to take the car instead.

 

[Jim the Jim]

The Swiss rail network is considerably smaller than the British one, which presumably means the scope for cascading delays as a result of holding connections is not so large.

 

[Backroom_boy]

This is what so many just don't realise. On the continent there are many junction stations, often serving quite small settlements, which nevertheless have a separate platform for use by trains on each route diverging from the node with additional tracks between the junction(s) and station to enhance the resilience.

Yes; the only place I have experienced connections being held in the UK is where there is a self contained branch with its own platform connecting with a 'mainline'; connections aren't going to be held if they block a route or a through platform (am sure there are exceptions)

 

[Harpo]

Poor timetabling? Just not true, our timetabling is generally very good.

Depends which quality aspects are being measured.

If it’s about the stuff that train planners take care of, technical standards, skilful use of capacity, being error and conflict free, etc., then yes it’s good.

If it’s about the core service spec micromanaged from DfT downwards, timetables often are not simple, customer-centric, reliably network forming, highly resilient to perturbation or adequately resourced.

The myriad of very small non-identical trains stuffing up New Street, Oxford Road, etc., demonstrate terrible timetable resourcing.

 

[JonathanH]

If it’s about the core service spec micromanaged from DfT downwards, timetables often are not simple, customer-centric, reliably network forming, highly resilient to perturbation or adequately resourced as the myriad of very small trains stuffing up New Street, Oxford Road, etc., demonstrate.

Isn't the 'myriad of very small trains' a function of exactly what this thread has morphed into? The provision of trains to multiple destinations that don't require connections to be made. In the same way as we might ask which destinations don't need their current through trains from London, we can ask which destinations don't need their though trains from Birmingham or Manchester.

 

[J-2739]

The Swiss rail network is considerably smaller than the British one, which presumably means the scope for cascading delays as a result of holding connections is not so large.

But the Swiss network is interconnected with at least four very different railway networks, so there is also that to consider.

 

[Bald Rick]

Hasn’t a lot of the post-Covid travel growth been leisure travel?

Short distance leisure travel, yes. Although that trend is reversing now.

 

[Failed Unit]

Short distance leisure travel, yes. Although that trend is reversing now.

What is the definition of that.- journeys of around 30 minutes? Certainly overcrowding and cancellations may be reversing that trend. I have noticed trains at the weekend are about the same loading and the commuters are going up. but one of a different thread. This is of course not scientific- for example I rarely travel into Loncon on Monday or Friday.

 

[duffield]

Hasn’t a lot of the post-Covid travel growth been leisure travel? Direct trains are more appealing for this, particularly if travelling as a family with luggage and getting yourself set up on a table with card games, food etc. Upping the whole show halfway through a journey, getting the entourage through lifts/subways and so on is one of those things that might make you want to take the car instead.

Also direct trains are more than just appealing for some people with reduced mobility, particularly wheelchair users; they can make the difference between a reasonably practical and straightforward journey, and a very stressful and difficult journey, when assistance and wheelchair space booking is required.
If your local connecting service misses the connection to the London train, you've then got to consider things like accessible toilet facilities during the lengthy wait at the connection station, the wheelchair space on the next train not being available, and not having booked assistance at the London end of the journey. You may end up having to abandon your journey.

As a mobile fast moving unencumbered passenger myself who often makes journeys involving five to ten different services it's easy to lose sight of just how beneficial or even essential direct services are to some categories of passenger. Even a simple and reliable connection can be very difficult for them.

And of course I recognise that not every station can have direct trains to London, Birmingham, Manchester etc. but I do think there is a public service case to be made for some of the (e.g.) once every two hour type direct services from places like Wrexham and Shrewsbury to London (for example) even if the loadings are a little on the sparse side and they are not strictly financially viable, given that various other services are subsidised.

 

[Trainbike46]

To what extent does Switzerland's example work because of timetable padding, and do e.g. the Netherlands and Belgium generally hold connections or try to run frequent enough services that a wait of over half an hour's rare?

NS does hold connections at times, especially near the end of the day when a missed connection could strand someone.

However, the vast majority of services are run at frequencies of 2 tph or more, with many lines at 4 tph or 6 tph,

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Feb 2025 ==

And then not only is the inbound train, its passengers and crew, delayed, so is the outbound train; And any trains it conflicts with throughout its journey, and any it crosses if single lines are involved, and any into which it in turn connects, assuming (as no doubt happens in Switzerland) they are held too. Resulting in far more delayed trains, and therefore passengers, than would otherwise be the case.

Except of course that Switzerland has fewer delays than other countries - presumably because the majority of their focus is on avoiding a delay occuring in the first place, completely sidestepping the issue

The side effect is that huge numbers of passengers are delayed, across the entire network, rather than those on one train who miss a connection.

In practice that isn't what happens in places that hold trains for connections.

 

[30907]

But the Swiss network is interconnected with at least four very different railway networks, so there is also that to consider.

Indeed - and their response to delays from Germany (the only one operating over seriously long distances) is to terminate DB's trains at Basel.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In practice that isn't what happens in places that hold trains for connections.

It did happen on 1990s DB if they were having a bad weekend.

It happens rather less on SBB because they design for resilience.

 

[Starmill]

What is the definition of that.- journeys of around 30 minutes? Certainly overcrowding and cancellations may be reversing that trend. I have noticed trains at the weekend are about the same loading and the commuters are going up. but one of a different thread. This is of course not scientific- for example I rarely travel into Loncon on Monday or Friday.

This sort of thing is usually driven externally by interest rates, employment rates, payroll taxes and above all real wage growth and "animal spirits".

If the service which the short-distance leisure travel is complementary to is perceived as no longer being affordable, such as a cinema ticket, a weekend meal out, or a day of city centre shopping, then the need to travel obviously gets replaced along with it in favour of a day watching Netflix and a pizza takeaway (choose your own weekend home-based activities!)

 

[Andover]

And then not only is the inbound train, its passengers and crew, delayed, so is the outbound train; And any trains it conflicts with throughout its journey, and any it crosses if single lines are involved, and any into which it in turn connects, assuming (as no doubt happens in Switzerland) they are held too. Resulting in far more delayed trains, and therefore passengers, than would otherwise be the case.



The side effect is that huge numbers of passengers are delayed, across the entire network, rather than those on one train who miss a connection.

No, if the delay was sufficient, which normally means anything more than a handful of minutes, the passengers of the original train would be delayed by one Takt (this of course matters somewhat less if the Takt is some fraction of an hour). The question lies in determining what is sufficient - and I'll gladly yield to others here, and hopefully to some clever computer - as long as you have already determined ensuring connections is worthwhile in principle.

If you really were looking for a system where connection are held over considerably longer delays, parts of Eastern Europe would be a better choice - which works to a degree, but it's only true it can sometimes result in a leisurely pace.

 

[najaB]

The Swiss respectfully disagree.

Being able to regularly hold connections without it having a huge downstream impact means one of two things: either there's masses of padding/slack in the timetables, or you aren't sweating the assets and there is capacity going spare.

Neither of these is true in the UK. Discussion of if they should be is probably worty of a thread of its own since it would either require a reduction in service provision or an increase in operational costs.

 

[Trainbike46]

Being able to regularly hold connections without it having a huge downstream impact means one of two things: either there's masses of padding/slack in the timetables, or you aren't sweating the assets and there is capacity going spare.

Neither of these is true in the UK. Discussion of if they should be is probably worty of a thread of its own since it would either require a reduction in service provision or an increase in operational costs.

Over the last year, more than 93% of trains in Switzerland arrived within 3 minutes of the scheduled arrival time; They definitely aren't squeezing as many trains through limited infrastructure as the UK (or the Netherlands) do. Where trains are held in that situation, we're talking about a few minutes (2/3) in most cases, which many trains in the UK make up during their journey anyway. If a train is 10/20/30 minutes late, you wouldn't hold connections, but simply let people connect into the next service in the taktfahrplan.

Holding connections in the UK would be useful in some cases, and connections should hold more weight in timetabling than they currently do. The key is to limit the journey time impact of connecting versus a direct train.

Going back to the Doncaster example upthread; you would only ever hold one or a few trains - those that passengers would miss if the departed exactly on time, but that passengers would make if they waited up to about 3ish minutes longer.

For the london connection at Doncaster, someone pointed out they run every 15 minutes, so the impact isn't that big if you have to wait for the next one.

So why does the difference between Selby (direct) and Goole in passenger numbers exist?
Some reasons it could be:
- Some inherent difference between Selby and Goole (e.g. how many people want to go to London)
- Fares (Goole more expensive?)
- Journey time (The change at Doncaster is 18 minutes - pretty much the longest possible with a 15 minute frequency)

Some of these could be fixed whether there are direct trains or not, and I think we should look to fix them

 

[Bletchleyite]

Being able to regularly hold connections without it having a huge downstream impact means one of two things: either there's masses of padding/slack in the timetables, or you aren't sweating the assets and there is capacity going spare

Actually it means both of those things. And they're both key tenets of professional railway operations.

Typical of the UK to see the price of everything and the value of nothing, though.

 

[Bald Rick]

Over the last year, more than 93% of trains in Switzerland arrived within 3 minutes of the scheduled arrival time

Thanks for that, interesting stat. Is that to 2m59sec, or 3min 59sec?

Have a guess at the GB network equivalent figure (to 2m59sec, as recorded at every station call)

 

[najaB]

Actually it means both of those things. And they're both key tenets of professional railway operations.

Some might disagree. It's easy to make something work when you have massive amounts of resources to throw at it.

It takes considerably more skill to do so in a resource-constrained environment.

Typical of the UK to see the price of everything and the value of nothing, though.

Easy to say when you don't have competing demands on those limited resources.

 

[Trainbike46]

Thanks for that, interesting stat. Is that to 2m59sec, or 3min 59sec?

2m59 sec, every cancelled train counts as one that is late, with more detail available here

Have a guess at the GB network equivalent figure (to 2m59sec, as recorded at every station call)

My guess would be around 85%, but really not sure

 

[Bald Rick]

My guess would be around 85%, but really not sure

Spotters badge sir! 84.7%

 

[stevieinselby]

When did you experience this? I've been to Switzerland many times and never experienced anything like this! On the contrary, UK practices lead to many more delayed passengers.

It generally isn't a problem in Switzerland because they have a lot more slack/padding in their timetabling, meaning that it's relatively rare for those kinds of delays of develop in the first place. If we adopted that same practice on our much more intensively used network then it would mean significantly reduced capacity and extended journey times (at least until we upgraded the network to counter that. So for a very long time...), which would hardly be a good way to attract and retain passengers.