Train Delayed, Stops Cancelled, Train Arrives Early!

[dmacw]

Just scanning the live arrivals boards for Reading and I saw the following. The 19.09 London Waterloo to Reading was delayed en route and was made non stop from Ascot to Reading. It left Ascot 20 minutes late and arrived into Reading at 20.45, which was 2 minutes early. Surely this comes under 'having a laugh at the passengers expense' late running into early running. I would be fuming if I was intending to board at say Wokingham and found this out.

 

[OxtedL]

In all fairness, if it were running to time it would probably have still arrived at Reading early, if you get my drift.

But yes.

Although 20 minutes is what can only be described as a small miracle.

 

[Aictos]

It still meant that the return journey ran on time though, TOCs just don't cancel stops on their services for the sake of it - no doubt there was a number of reasons for it.

 

[GB]

How many stops did it "miss" between Ascot and Reading? Surely the fact it was made a non stop was the reason it was early at Reading?

 

[Minilad]

Just scanning the live arrivals boards for Reading and I saw the following. The 19.09 London Waterloo to Reading was delayed en route and was made non stop from Ascot to Reading. It left Ascot 20 minutes late and arrived into Reading at 20.45, which was 2 minutes early. Surely this comes under 'having a laugh at the passengers expense' late running into early running. I would be fuming if I was intending to board at say Wokingham and found this out.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

 

[OxtedL]

What do you mean by that?

I'm sure the train was probably... shall I say "not full to capacity" ... anyway, so I doubt the needs of the many come into it.

 

[dmacw]

Surely the fact it was made a non stop was the reason it was early at Reading?

Stops should be cancelled to ensure at best it arrives on time, not early! Maybe SWT should have done some calculations before cancelling the stops?

 

[Schnellzug]

Well, i make it they're half-hourly between Ascot & Reading on a Sunday evening, so if it was 20 mins late there'd have been the next 10 mins behind, theoretically, and it probably was only scheduled for 15 minutes turnround or something like that at reading.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Stops should be cancelled to ensure at best it arrives on time, not early! Maybe SWT should have done some calculations before cancelling the stops?

hang on, we're talking about 2 minutes early, not 20. There's probably that much buffer built into the schedule in any case.

 

[GB]

Stops should be cancelled to ensure at best it arrives on time, not early! Maybe SWT should have done some calculations before cancelling the stops?

...any number of things can affect an arrival time when trains are running out of course. Perhaps if it had stopped at a station before reading it would have arrived 2 or more minutes late!

 

[Eagle]

What do you mean by that?

I'm sure the train was probably... shall I say "not full to capacity" ... anyway, so I doubt the needs of the many come into it.

"The many" include those waiting for the service that the unit went on to form; and in fact due to knock-on effects when trains run out of schedule, particularly in such a busy area as SW London, "the many" could refer to potentially a dozen or so services this evening.

 

[Minilad]

"The many" include those waiting for the service that the unit went on to form; and in fact due to knock-on effects when trains run out of schedule, particularly in such a busy area as SW London, "the many" could refer to potentially a dozen or so services this evening.

Thanks, was just about to say that. As well as any crewing difficulties it may cause

 

[richw]

Bare in mind engineering works at Reading today may mean a tight window for the train to arrive and depart again,
At Reading today (i was there from 1015 till about 1100, so observations based on those times) only platforms 8,9 and 10 were in use a long with the 4a/b for the juice line for SWT, being released for arrivals departures by the maintenance teams

 

[OxtedL]

I entirely see the points being made, I was merely taking a swing at passenger loadings. In particular, passenger loadings on a service I have never used or indeed will ever use. Ah well.

I completely agree with the points about turnaround though, I know what Reading gets like when anything goes wrong or there is engineering works etc in platforms 4A and 4B.

 

[yorkie]

I would be fuming if I was intending to board at say Wokingham and found this out.

Fuming over a 10 minute wait for the next train? That seems a little harsh. Also, if someone had got to Wokingham just before this train was due, they would have got an earlier FGW service.

And the reason it made up so much time is not just due to missing out stations, but for some unknown reason it is scheduled to take a whopping 13 minutes to get from Bracknell to Wokingham, which is more than double the time of the following and preceding services. This timing requires the speed of a typical milk float. The engineering work may have something to do with the train being given such a slow path, it appears to be timed to wait at the junction for several minutes to allow an FGW service to get ahead.

 

[Lampshade]

It left Ascot 20 minutes late... 10 minutes before the next one was due to arrive, hardly a major inconvenience, they're all all-stops services after all.

 

[313103]

Its called PPM. Which does not work in the favour of the passenger or the member of staff either on the station or the train as they have to take the flack.

Arriving 2 mins early is nothing new in the modern railway especially with the amount of PADDING services have nowadays.

 

[dmacw]

Its called PPM. Which does not work in the favour of the passenger or the member of staff either on the station or the train as they have to take the flack.

Arriving 2 mins early is nothing new in the modern railway especially with the amount of PADDING services have nowadays.

What would the penalty to SWT be in terms of PPM? Train on time?

The way I see it is, yes it only arrived 2 minutes early, but still stops were cancelled. Take the passenger at Earley for example, they have to wait 30 minutes even though the train sailed through on time.

 

[richw]

Shirly, the big problem would be for those intending to leave the train at the stations it should have stopped at but didn't! If I'd been on it and got up to disembark only to see my station flying past, I'd have pulled the alarm!

A friend of mine many years ago was on the last stopping train from Manchester to Crewe intending to get off at Alderley Edge. But the driver forgot the Alderley stop! He 'pulled the cord' and the train made an unscheduled stop at Chelford (the next station) enabling him to catch a train going back to Alderley.

Would they not of been advised of this change of service and to change trains at ascot?

 

[87015]

Its called PPM. Which does not work in the favour of the passenger or the member of staff either on the station or the train as they have to take the flack.

It should have still failed PPM for missing a stop.
Unless SWT were very naughty and didn't declare it as a PPM failure, because Trust won't show fail to calls in its performance summary so they have to be put in to the figures manually.

 

[Harlesden]

FCC make the claim that such a situation - train missing out scheduled stops - still counts as a cancellation so running in this way is of no benefit to the operator in a statistical sense

 

[GB]

FCC make the claim that such a situation - train missing out scheduled stops - still counts as a cancellation so running in this way is of no benefit to the operator in a statistical sense

It does if it ensures the return working is on time through out. Better to have one PPM failure than two.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Shirly, the big problem would be for those intending to leave the train at the stations it should have stopped at but didn't! If I'd been on it and got up to disembark only to see my station flying past, I'd have pulled the alarm!....

A change to the schedule would be announced onboard the train and at all the stations it is to stop at before that change. There should be no need to pull the emergency alarm for a 'missed station' in this situation.

....A friend of mine many years ago was on the last stopping train from Manchester to Crewe intending to get off at Alderley Edge. But the driver forgot the Alderley stop! He 'pulled the cord' and the train made an unscheduled stop at Chelford (the next station) enabling him to catch a train going back to Alderley.

It is a different situation (although hardly an emergency) if the train was still scheduled to call there.

 

[LondonJohn]

What happens if you have a ticket valid for a specific TOC that misses out stops to make up time and the stop you wanted to get out on is missed.

Would you have to wait for the next train operated by the named TOC or get on the next train to serve your destination ?