I'm here hoping for some more sense than I have had from Northern. On two occasions recently (these are the only two that I know about) the Northern app has shown trains as running on time which never actually departed their origin station. Their green tracking icon moves along the line and they have even shown as running 2-3 minutes late at different stages. At some point then the system appears to wake up, the train pops up as cancelled having never actually departed in the first place. I wouldn't have thought this was possible if I hadn't seen it twice now with my own eyes. Clearly it renders the app utterly useless. Does anyone know if this is specific to the Northern app or as they are all taking the feed from the same place, is it a national issue? Does that mean all online tracking resources (including Realtimetrains) are essentially useless?
Northern have essentially told me that it is dependent on a controller sending an update when they become aware that a train is not moving. On both occasions then said controller/s have waited 30 minutes or more before sending an update at which point the train shows as cancelled. This doesn't explain how, up to that point, the train can be seen moving along the route. They are effectively running phantom trains which presents all sort of serious issues and as I say seems to render the whole principle of real time tracking completely useless.
Northern have essentially told me that it is dependent on a controller sending an update when they become aware that a train is not moving. On both occasions then said controller/s have waited 30 minutes or more before sending an update at which point the train shows as cancelled. This doesn't explain how, up to that point, the train can be seen moving along the route. They are effectively running phantom trains which presents all sort of serious issues and as I say seems to render the whole principle of real time tracking completely useless.
