Interesting platform choice at York

[ollyrogers]

I’m back with another probably inane and easily answered question, as a layman, but I couldn’t find anything on it using search:

I was on the delayed 16:48 GC service from Kings Cross (KGX) to York (YRK) and we did a somewhat odd move on arrival at YRK, crossing in to platform 3. At the same time, an LNER heading the opposite direction came into 4; I have never seen this switch before, is it usual? With left hand running it seems odd to me as an outsider to flip them over. I make this journey a fair amount of times a year and it’s the first time I’ve seen the like.

 

[HST43257]

I’m back with another probably inane and easily answered question, as a layman, but I couldn’t find anything on it using search:

I was on the delayed 16:48 GC service from Kings Cross (KGX) to York (YRK) and we did a somewhat odd move on arrival at YRK, crossing in to platform 3. At the same time, an LNER heading the opposite direction came into 4; I have never seen this switch before, is it usual? With left hand running it seems odd to me as an outsider to flip them over. I make this journey a fair amount of times a year and it’s the first time I’ve seen the like.

To be pedantic, you mean 5 rather than 4 - 4 is Scarborough line only

3 is often used to get non-priority trains out of the way, and 5 offers plenty more step-free connections (rather than the fairly isolated 3), so plenty of southbound LNERs go there.

That being said, today was somewhat questionable (constant horrific decisions) for signalling decisions today.

 

[ollyrogers]

To be pedantic, you mean 5 rather than 4 - 4 is Scarborough line only

3 is often used to get non-priority trains out of the way, and 5 offers plenty more step-free connections (rather than the fairly isolated 3), so plenty of southbound LNERs go there.

That being said, today was somewhat questionable (constant horrific decisions) for signalling decisions today.

Very good point, well made! Thankyou for answering, that makes sense. Traksy was no help today either, I had a mini fright at Colton Junction when it showed the Leeds-bound track signals coming across our line then back toward Leeds while we barrelled on regardless.

 

[Vexed]

Very good point, well made! Thankyou for answering, that makes sense. Traksy was no help today either, I had a mini fright at Colton Junction when it showed the Leeds-bound track signals coming across our line then back toward Leeds while we barrelled on regardless.

Might be related to the signalling recontrol in the York area over Christmas which had changed the signal and route data the live signal map sites use. But as usual the changes aren't publicly available so might take a while to fix.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Dec 2024 ==

That being said, today was somewhat questionable (constant horrific decisions) for signalling decisions today.

Could be partially related to the above as they get used to the new system, the final (?) IECC workstations now recontrolled to WestCAD workstations AFAIK.

 

[ollyrogers]

I’m not too sure about that, I’m think it might be a website issue; the reason being that I like to have a nosey around Kent before my morning commute and there are a lot of odd paths down there too. Some of them it gets right every time (being on the correct side of the train at London Bridge can easily take 5 minutes off your journey at the gate) but, equally, it seems to struggle with this junction layout on the way to Victoria and thinks this is the optimum way to tackle it:

 

[Vexed]

I’m not too sure about that, I’m think it might be a website issue; the reason being that I like to have a nosey around Kent before my morning commute and there are a lot of odd paths down there too. Some of them it gets right every time (being on the correct side of the train at London Bridge can easily take 5 minutes off your journey at the gate) but, equally, it seems to struggle with this junction layout on the way to Victoria and thinks this is the optimum way to tackle it:

There's a current thread explaining some of this

Opentrain times/Signal maps technically question.

I was under the impression these sites pulled signal aspect information from CCF as they alway seem to be about a second delayed from when a singal clears on there. Looking at the the Ely area, particularly the single line at Soham there's all sorts of conflicts. Opentrain times shows most...

www.railforums.co.uk

Takno is the author of Traksy.

The S class data for routes, aspects, track circuits, LCs etc is basically a black box and what each bit relates to is worked out through trial and error. I've done a little myself and it's not very fun! I personally find signalmaps.co.uk the most reliable for routes set but they have less coverage than Traksy.

 

[Spartacus]

They're booked that way. Can't be certain but it could be something to do with the Northern being booked out of platform 1 at 45 and the XC being booked out of 5 at 44. With the high end platforms otherwise occupied that only leaves platform 3 for at GC. Then when the LNER service is booked to arrive there's a Northern booked into 1. Can't do this at the same time so the LNER goes in 5 instead with a TPE arriving in 3 after it, after the Northern has arrived. Like usual it's a "big picture" thing.

 

[takno]

Just catching up with this thread. As noted the routes and signal aspects at York were completely broken by the recontrol (as indeed were the berths in the bay platforms).

The berths have now all been fixed, and a number of other improvements made to the maps in the area. Routes and signal aspects for Yorks are working on the new version of the site.

Unfortunately it's more difficult to generate them for the old system, so the routes will be removed there for the moment. All users will be moved over to some version of the new site in a couple of months, so hopefully the impact won't be too severe.

In terms of routes elsewhere, there are a number of errors because the information to draw them accurately isn't in the public domain. There are ways to work them out, which have produced data of quite variable accuracy, and changes over time mean that the information rots over time. I do need to spend a couple of days soon working out areas where the data is more wrong than right and just removing the unhelpful routes.

Theres also a specific problem on Traksy where the route chosen defaults to the leftmost "possible" route, even when as drawn that doesn't make sense. I've not hit on a good solution to this, but will do at some point.

As regards the difference with signalmaps, the creator of the site used to have access to the documentation for areas which were undergoing changes, and I believe most of the maps on that site are of areas where he had the documentation. As i understand it, changes within Network Rail have removed that access, so sadly it's unlikely that so many new areas will appear to the same level of accuracy. The areas covered by signalmaps are fairly often amongst the better-mapped on Traksy anyway.

TL;Dr is that we're all doing our best, but if a route is unbelievable then it's probably wrong.