number of trains per hour

[alan]

hey all

just wondered if anyone could shed any light on why often trains between stations are so close?

This thought came to me when I found out that between Derby and Long Eaton 3 trains per hour are available -however all of them depart between XX.10 and XX.22 with the next not being till 10past the next hour. While I can understand how small stations need to be given second priority to larger stations a "fast" non stopping cross country service to Nottingham (via Long Eaton) leaves Derby at XX:40 but appears to take 25minuets (as does the XX:10). Surely if cross country insist on only having one train stopping per hour (as their franchise states) it should be the xx:40 train? Is their a reason this doesn't happen?

hope this isn't too much of a ramble but it just seems odd!

 

[MCR247]

But it dosent work that simple. some trains come from Cardiff, and chances are their TT & Paths wouldnt work if they were to do that. Although on second thoughts, what your saying would be logical. Nuff said

 

[tbtc]

There was a similar thing with Cross Country at Chesterfield. They run two trains an hour *though* Chesterfield, but only one train per hour stopped, fair enough. However, the one that stopped was the one that ran within five minutes of the hourly Midland Mainline/ EMT service, meaning the two trains an hour from Chesterfield to Derby were within a few minutes of each other...

 

[MCR247]

At Nottingham, you have the xx35 norwich train (via Grantham) and the xx45 or something Skeggy train, whicgh sometimes goes via Grantham

 

[me123]

In reality, the services will run as two separate regular services which just happen to depart on that section closely together. Perhaps there could be scope to retime services to give a more regular timetable for that part of the route, but often it will be constrained by capacity at either end, flighting in other paths, connections...

This isn't uncommon, though. A lot of places have this scenario. Fife had it for a long time, a few local Glasgow services have it to a lesser extent, Virgin used to have it, and it's more common down South because of the denser network and, hence, more bottlenecks.

 

[O L Leigh]

So you evenly space them between Derby and Long Eaton so you get a train every 20 minutes only for someone elsewhere on the network to complain that their 2 trains per hour are now coming a XX12 and XX26 (for example).

These are long-distance cross country services. Therefore it is going to be hard to make them fit a certain pattern because they have to fit in with lots of other services elsewhere on the network while still providing a sensible frequency and journey time. Therefore they are not going to be as evenly spaced as a short-distance commuter service operating over a self-contained route.

O L Leigh

 

[jopsuk]

The in other places, you'll get services on the same route that alternate between "Stopping" and "semi-fast" or even "fast" services. These can be timetabled to be an even time apart at one end, but not the other end- Cambridge-Liverpool street services are a good example of this.

 

[Asriel]

I live in Long Eaton and the downgrading of its service since the demise of Central Trains is really annoying. We used to get both the Cardiff and Birmingham to Nottingham trains stopping giving a regular half hourly service to local destinations like Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham. Now we just get the Birmingham train and a clapped out 153 following it 15min later.

I can understand them wanting to speed the Cardiff service up and make more of an "intercity" type service but both the Cardiff and Birmingham trains take the same amount of time to travel between Derby and Nottingham and have to slow to 10mph to cross Trent Junction just outside the station.