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Stopping Pattern Category on Train destination display?

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hkstudent

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There are some threads in this forum mentioning TOC intetnionally put a shorter destination for local stoppers to avoid people taking those train to the real destination where other fast service serves.

Would it be better for UK trains to follow Mainland Europe practice, like to Germany, Austria, Netherlands, to categorise trains with stopping pattern? So, it would remove the need of having a make-up desitnation on destinatino display...

Example, Germany: S-Bahn, Regio, Regio-Express, Interregio-Express, Intercity, Intercity-Express
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_categories_in_Europe
 
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Indigo Soup

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Would it be better for UK trains to follow Mainland Europe practice, like to Germany, Austria, Netherlands, to categorise trains with stopping pattern? So, it would remove the need of having a make-up desitnation on destinatino display...
Many members of this forum (myself included) would say yes.

Many others will say no, a train is a train, and our stopping patterns are too complex anyway.

This dispute will eventually be resolved some time after the invention of personal portable teleporters renders railways totally obsolete.
 

hkstudent

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Many members of this forum (myself included) would say yes.

Many others will say no, a train is a train, and our stopping patterns are too complex anyway.

This dispute will eventually be resolved some time after the invention of personal portable teleporters renders railways totally obsolete.
Indeed. However, if stopping pattern are published, and posted at station, it would be easier to be followed.
Just like example in Osaka, Japan (Nankai Railway):
%EB%82%9C%EC%B9%B4%EC%9D%B4%EC%84%A0+%EB%85%B8%EC%84%A0%EB%8F%84.gif
 

tbtc

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In theory... but the British railway is what it is, and I'm not sure that trying to refashion it in the image of the apparently wonderful German network is going to be very easy.

Fine if you are starting from scratch but we aren't starting from scratch - we are starting from a position where there are far too many quirks to consider.

I mean, you might consider the hourly departures from Edinburgh to Plymouth to be all part of the one service. But do any of them share the same stopping pattern? They are a mix of services that sometimes start at Aberdeen/ Glasgow, sometimes stop at smaller intermediate stations like Burton/ Tamworth and sometimes extend beyond Plymouth to Penzance etc. So would these services all have the same branding? What about the fact that at the Aberdeen/Penzance ends of the route they are no faster than the ScotRail/GWR services?

Some enthusiasts clearly see things in a very binary fashion. A train is either "suburban" or "non-suburban" to them. Services are either "InterCity" or "notInterCity". A lot of the time it depends on the strange classification that BR used to have (so Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds wasn't InterCity but London - Gatwick was InterCity...).

For me, it'd be far too complicated to try to "simplify" things like this nowadays. The railway is a muddle - would you start removing some irregular local stops because they don't fit into the classification of train?

Looking round here, Northern's Leeds - Nottingham is a fairly "flagship" regional service, so a cut above their stoppers... but at the moment there's a peak stop at Normanton and there are services routed via Derby to maintain route knowledge... would you remove these two quirks because they aren't in the standard pattern and therefore we inconvenience current passengers because we are hung up on our black/white definitions?

What about TPE stopping at Rotherham and Dore (which fills gaps between the Northern services)? Would they have to run non-stop through these stations because these irregular stops don't fit into someone's neat boundaries?

Same with EMR at places like Edale.

Should Virgin abandon stations in the Trent Valley and the token Northampton service?

How do you deal with evening/Sunday services that don't follow the regular pattern (because they are accommodating the lack of "local" service along a line at those times)?

I like the idea of a simple map showing a general guide to frequencies etc - it's a shame that you can't get an equivalent to the First "Overground" map of bus routes for each main station (it may improve people's appreciation of the network to have a colour coded map showing general frequencies to key destinations - but something as neat/regimented as the Japanese image posted above would be very disruptive and may inconvenience a lot more people than it benefits.

It's a bit like the idea people have of standardising InterCity, so that you can guarantee the same level of quality/comfort on every TOC (e.g. 2+1 seats, complimentary snacks, full hot meals available at an additional cost)... it's laudable that people want to have common standards but it'd be a nightmare to try to bring together.

For me, it'd only work in a "Metro" network where you have clear distinctions - the SWT approach of having "white", "blue" and "red" to differentiate fast/ medium/ slow services seemed to work (but there was no guarantee that stock wouldn't end up on the wrong "colour").
 

hkstudent

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In theory... but the British railway is what it is, and I'm not sure that trying to refashion it in the image of the apparently wonderful German network is going to be very easy.

Fine if you are starting from scratch but we aren't starting from scratch - we are starting from a position where there are far too many quirks to consider.

I mean, you might consider the hourly departures from Edinburgh to Plymouth to be all part of the one service. But do any of them share the same stopping pattern? They are a mix of services that sometimes start at Aberdeen/ Glasgow, sometimes stop at smaller intermediate stations like Burton/ Tamworth and sometimes extend beyond Plymouth to Penzance etc. So would these services all have the same branding? What about the fact that at the Aberdeen/Penzance ends of the route they are no faster than the ScotRail/GWR services?

Some enthusiasts clearly see things in a very binary fashion. A train is either "suburban" or "non-suburban" to them. Services are either "InterCity" or "notInterCity". A lot of the time it depends on the strange classification that BR used to have (so Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds wasn't InterCity but London - Gatwick was InterCity...).

For me, it'd be far too complicated to try to "simplify" things like this nowadays. The railway is a muddle - would you start removing some irregular local stops because they don't fit into the classification of train?

Looking round here, Northern's Leeds - Nottingham is a fairly "flagship" regional service, so a cut above their stoppers... but at the moment there's a peak stop at Normanton and there are services routed via Derby to maintain route knowledge... would you remove these two quirks because they aren't in the standard pattern and therefore we inconvenience current passengers because we are hung up on our black/white definitions?

What about TPE stopping at Rotherham and Dore (which fills gaps between the Northern services)? Would they have to run non-stop through these stations because these irregular stops don't fit into someone's neat boundaries?

Same with EMR at places like Edale.

Should Virgin abandon stations in the Trent Valley and the token Northampton service?

How do you deal with evening/Sunday services that don't follow the regular pattern (because they are accommodating the lack of "local" service along a line at those times)?

I like the idea of a simple map showing a general guide to frequencies etc - it's a shame that you can't get an equivalent to the First "Overground" map of bus routes for each main station (it may improve people's appreciation of the network to have a colour coded map showing general frequencies to key destinations - but something as neat/regimented as the Japanese image posted above would be very disruptive and may inconvenience a lot more people than it benefits.

It's a bit like the idea people have of standardising InterCity, so that you can guarantee the same level of quality/comfort on every TOC (e.g. 2+1 seats, complimentary snacks, full hot meals available at an additional cost)... it's laudable that people want to have common standards but it'd be a nightmare to try to bring together.

For me, it'd only work in a "Metro" network where you have clear distinctions - the SWT approach of having "white", "blue" and "red" to differentiate fast/ medium/ slow services seemed to work (but there was no guarantee that stock wouldn't end up on the wrong "colour").
Actually categorisation of trains can also help differentiate price class of each train,
cheapest on local all stopping trains, and premium to be paid on intercity services, upon the level of comforts of the carriage.
Price differentiation by TOC seems not the best way, as local service TOC may also provide premium seating trains, but cannot charge more due to price scale constraint...
 

Shaw S Hunter

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Having neat regular stopping patterns, as per "Takt" timetables, depends very much on being able to physically separate the different categories of trains in the busiest (urban) areas. Alternatively keep the overall speed differences relatively small and allow overtaking with interchange at key points on the network. Neither approach is much in evidence here and so we have what we have. It would require significant political will to change this. In the meantime, for example, the Castlefield corridor timetable collapses on a near daily basis.
 

Bald Rick

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This has a place for some services, namely those on a common pattern and to a reasonable frequency - in my view at least half hourly. There was a very protracted argument about this for Thameslink, given there are (nearly) standard stopping patterns. Unfortunately logic lost.
 

si404

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While these are irregular, peak-only, workings, the Metropolitan line has fast, semi-fast and all-station services and mentions the stopping pattern on all services.

But then, whether a fast or semi-fast stops at Wembley Park or not excepted, the patterns are consistent (in part as defined by physical constraints) and so it's not complicated.
 

tbtc

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Actually categorisation of trains can also help differentiate price class of each train,
cheapest on local all stopping trains, and premium to be paid on intercity services, upon the level of comforts of the carriage.
Price differentiation by TOC seems not the best way, as local service TOC may also provide premium seating trains, but cannot charge more due to price scale constraint...

The "price differentiation" argument is similar but different - at least you can clearly categorise which services are run by which TOC (other than hair splitting about sub-brands like TSGN, or occasional examples of stock "on hire" from other TOCs, I suppose). So London to Bedford could be different between Thameslink or EMR because a train is clearly run by one TOC or the other. Fair enough.

But how you differentiate between services within the one TOC is a whole other story - for all people on here like the idea of "Take" and the Germanic words/concepts, our railway is just too messy - there are too many examples of services that have a different stopping pattern at rush hour or where a long distance service picks up some "local" stops first thing in the day/ evenings/ Sundays - services where patterns are different to accommodate potential engineering or to maintain route knowledge or a random freight service - e.g. there was one Northern service from Leeds to Nottingham that had to run via the "Old Road" (through Darnall/ Woodhouse) between Sheffield and Chesterfield because there wasn't a path through Dronfield at that time of day (or for route knowledge, I can't remember)... but as that wouldn't stop at Dronfield then it wouldn't fit into a black/white pattern.

Maybe if we were starting from scratch we'd have everything nice and neatly accounted for, separate stock, separate infrastructure for different types of service, great. But we're not in that position. And it's not always a good idea for things to be separate. There are benefits to ensuring that evening/Sunday services can be viable by inserting some "local" stops into a longer distance service to serve two markets (even on the London Underground - look at Turnham Green on the Piccadilly - should those stops be removed because they aren't in the nice neat pattern?) - there are times when it's efficient to have "slow" and "fast" services interworking (or the same kind of stock running more than one type of service) - there are times where a line on one side of a city can have a regular service but some of the departures come from a variety of places on the other side of the city, without it particularly mattering to passengers - or would we be better getting into a situation where stopping patterns are created to suit train planners rather than passengers?
 

Clip

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Actually categorisation of trains can also help differentiate price class of each train,
cheapest on local all stopping trains, and premium to be paid on intercity services

But already you have price differences with those intercity trains that take longer to get somewhere having the cheapest tier/availability of advances and those that are quicker having less. So it already happens and its a bit of a mess still
 

hkstudent

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The "price differentiation" argument is similar but different - at least you can clearly categorise which services are run by which TOC (other than hair splitting about sub-brands like TSGN, or occasional examples of stock "on hire" from other TOCs, I suppose). So London to Bedford could be different between Thameslink or EMR because a train is clearly run by one TOC or the other. Fair enough.

But how you differentiate between services within the one TOC is a whole other story - for all people on here like the idea of "Take" and the Germanic words/concepts, our railway is just too messy - there are too many examples of services that have a different stopping pattern at rush hour or where a long distance service picks up some "local" stops first thing in the day/ evenings/ Sundays - services where patterns are different to accommodate potential engineering or to maintain route knowledge or a random freight service - e.g. there was one Northern service from Leeds to Nottingham that had to run via the "Old Road" (through Darnall/ Woodhouse) between Sheffield and Chesterfield because there wasn't a path through Dronfield at that time of day (or for route knowledge, I can't remember)... but as that wouldn't stop at Dronfield then it wouldn't fit into a black/white pattern.

Maybe if we were starting from scratch we'd have everything nice and neatly accounted for, separate stock, separate infrastructure for different types of service, great. But we're not in that position. And it's not always a good idea for things to be separate. There are benefits to ensuring that evening/Sunday services can be viable by inserting some "local" stops into a longer distance service to serve two markets (even on the London Underground - look at Turnham Green on the Piccadilly - should those stops be removed because they aren't in the nice neat pattern?) - there are times when it's efficient to have "slow" and "fast" services interworking (or the same kind of stock running more than one type of service) - there are times where a line on one side of a city can have a regular service but some of the departures come from a variety of places on the other side of the city, without it particularly mattering to passengers - or would we be better getting into a situation where stopping patterns are created to suit train planners rather than passengers?
Well, EMR is doing a good job, by livery of Intercity, Regional and Electric. Price differentiation by the class on trains (differentiated by apperance on livery and destination monitor) may work.
Of course, there are something so called Commuting/Peak Semi-Fast or Express service, which call at some local stops to pick up commuters.
Making timetable neater do benefit both regular and irregular passengers by easy to read timetable.
 

tbtc

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Making timetable neater do benefit both regular and irregular passengers by easy to read timetable.

It also means that presumably we'd have to stop the situation where EMR/TPE stop serving "Hope Valley" stations like Dore/ Edale - I'm sure the passengers stuck on a slow Northern stopper instead wouldn't be too happy that the timetable was now "neater".

As I've said, if you were starting from scratch then, sure, it'd make sense to try to split things up properly - but at the moment we have a lot of examples of irregular stopping patterns to suit periods of lower demand/ peak extras/ lack of other services on the line - I'm sure it'd be great for some of the people on the Forum who want to impose Germanic practices on the UK railway but outside of the London/ Liverpool/ Birmingham/ Glasgow "metro" operations, there aren't many services that have exactly the same stopping pattern for every journey.
 

py_megapixel

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In an ideal world yes. But that's unlikely to happen.
A good interim solution would possibly be something which looks like this
XXXXXXXXXXXX
then continuing to YYYYYYY
where Y is the final destination, and X is the furthest destination where one would logically use that service

For example, for the Crewe to Liverpool stoppers:

Manchester Picc
then continuing to Liverpool Lime St
 

Bletchleyite

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No, that'd be awful. Some longer distance bus services do this by way of a workaround to the EU tachograph rules by making it look like a string of connecting services rather than one service. However, it causes no end of confusion.

There aren't many stations now that don't have proper PIS showing time, destination and calling points. Short of implementing a fully consistent Takt where Regional trains call at A, B, C, D and E, Inter-Regional ones at A, B, D and E and IC at A and E only (say), the best way of doing it would just be to expand that to all stations. There are not many left to go. Then a glance at the front of the train is just a confirmation that there's not a mistake.
 

Bletchleyite

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Indeed. However, if stopping pattern are published, and posted at station, it would be easier to be followed.

Virgin Trains publish something like that (as they do operate an almost fully consistent clockface timetable) and long have done.

Northern...well, it needs a kick to sort out the mess it laughably calls a timetable.
 

Bletchleyite

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It also means that presumably we'd have to stop the situation where EMR/TPE stop serving "Hope Valley" stations like Dore/ Edale - I'm sure the passengers stuck on a slow Northern stopper instead wouldn't be too happy that the timetable was now "neater".

Far, far better that there is a consistent, planned and reliable connection every hour of service than a couple of direct trains a day, in my view.

Regarding price differentiation, I'm less of a fan of that. It's cheaper to provide long distance capacity on a fast train than a slow one, as that requires less rolling stock overall. Where you make the regional trains artificially cheap you end up with overcrowding - see the LNR Trent Valley services or RBs and REs on a weekend on Deutsche Bahn (prior to the abolition of the Wochenendticket). I prefer the Swiss approach that everything costs the same but the pattern is consistent to enable connections.

Having said that, I do support keeping local commuters off IC services, as that causes poor use of capacity. Making PTE-area zonal tickets not valid on these is a good way to achieve this, as if you really want to you can just pay the extra for a point to point ticket, but most people won't (witness the success of the "bag tax").
 
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