Train formations on the Internet

[Johnny Lewis]

Hi. Are there any websites out there that give train formations on a particular service?

I'm travelling from Liverpool to London today and would obviously prefer an 11 coach Pendolino to a 9 coach one.

Realtimetrains seems to give everything but the unit number and Opentraintimes also does not seem to have this information.

Is such information made available anywhere to the public?

Thanks if anyone can help.

 

[tcm1106]

In a word, no.

This comes up on a virtually weekly basis.

 

[Trainfan344]

Bit late, but in future try tweeting the train companies involved

 

[Qwerty133]

Bit late, but in future try tweeting the train companies involved

Unless it's CrossCountry as you have more chance of winning the lottery than getting a response from them on twitter.

 

[Johnny Lewis]

Sorry for asking this question - I do read the forums fairly regularly but I'd not been able to find a definitive answer.

It's surprising that Realtimetrains DOESN'T provide this info though, as it seems to provide everything else, and the train schedule is FAR more detailed than that shown in TPS or TRUST.

 

[bb21]

You'll need to have access to TRUST or some other internal industry software for this information. You can always try asking in the sticky TOPS request thread.

 

[The Planner]

Sorry for asking this question - I do read the forums fairly regularly but I'd not been able to find a definitive answer.

It's surprising that Realtimetrains DOESN'T provide this info though, as it seems to provide everything else, and the train schedule is FAR more detailed than that shown in TPS or TRUST.

How is it more detailed than TPS? Most of the data is fed from that so it isnt showing anything different.

 

[greatkingrat]

The schedules on Realtimetrains appear to be more detailed because it uses estimated times for passing points.

For example, in the working timetable ECML fast trains will have times given for Finsbury Park, Alexandra Palace and Potters Bar as these are mandatory timing points. RTT will also show times at places like Hornsey and New Barnet, but these are only estimated times based on the distances between stations.

 

[Muzer]

Indeed. This does make the data a lot more useful for, well, real-time purposes

And yeah, as far as I'm aware, the reason is simply that this data is not available as open data. If we want it, we'll have to lobby the government that put in laws requiring TOCs to release it, or else lobby ATOC directly (there's not much chance in getting anywhere there, I'd expect).

 

[DarloRich]

How is it more detailed than TPS? Most of the data is fed from that so it isnt showing anything different.

it isn't any different - it is just presented in a more accessible manner

 

[peter166]

Virgin 9 car & 11 car Pendolino and 5 & 10 car Voyager diagrams are available from a file on the Virgin Trains Yahoo Group.
Alternatively I could email them to you.