Trains leaving early

[mrmartin]

This service: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y60564/2017/01/01/advanced left Stevenage 10 minutes early. I'm surprised they are allowed to do that, but definitely not complaing as I can get my last tube with less running!

What would happen if you turned up for the service and it already left?

 

[221129]

Looks like it is a set down only stop so can leave when it is ready as no one will be boarding.

 

[yorkie]

This service: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y60564/2017/01/01/advanced left Stevenage 10 minutes early. I'm surprised they are allowed to do that, but definitely not complaing as I can get my last tube with less running!

There isn't a scheduled departure from Stevenage at that time; it calls to set down only.

What would happen if you turned up for the service and it already left?

You would take the 2352, which would be the next advertised service.

 

[causton]

What would happen if you turned up for the service and it already left?

It would not be on the departure boards at Stevenage anyway, and staff may prevent you from boarding it.

On one hand, at a station in a similar situation, Watford Junction, platform staff will usually try and stop people from boarding set down only Virgin services.
On the other hand, today at Stevenage I boarded a Hull Trains set down only service (after asking the train manager!)

 

[furnessvale]

What would happen if you turned up for the service and it already left?

Assuming it is a normal pick up service (not set down only, as suggested), you do what I did at Stone one day.

You pick up the passenger information phone and speak to customer service and get them to agree that even as you speak, the booked departure time has still not arrived, even though the train certainly has, and also departed.

You then try to make an official complaint but after several weeks you lose the will to live and give up, vowing to get to the station even earlier next time.

 

[yorkie]

...You then try to make an official complaint but after several weeks....

...you escalate the matter to Transport Focus, report a franchise breach to the DfT

 

[janb]

Here is an actual example of a train leaving early, look at the Carnforth time http://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk/Home/Service?ServiceId=34293827

First day of the new timetable-itis. In this instance someone complained on twitter, but I don't know what the upshot was.

 

[BestWestern]

Assuming it is a normal pick up service (not set down only, as suggested), you do what I did at Stone one day.

You pick up the passenger information phone and speak to customer service and get them to agree that even as you speak, the booked departure time has still not arrived, even though the train certainly has, and also departed.

And demand they provide a taxi if it's the last service!?

 

[83G/84D]

Sometimes there is a difference between the WTT & public times. For example on the
31st December at Penzance the 0737 Penzance to Plymouth departed at 0735 which I was told subsequently was the advertised departure time.

 

[dk1]

Until a few years back the 23:30 Liverpool St-Norwich used to be 'set down only' at Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich, Stowmarket & Diss. What a joy it was to work. Should there be no engineering work we could arrive at least 20min early. For some long lost reason that was sadly changed & now the train often waits & waits & suffers the company of those who've been out for late drinks down the line regularly causing some sort of disturbance. Not a joy anymore :roll:

 

[the101]

Until a few years back the 23:30 Liverpool St-Norwich used to be 'set down only' at Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich, Stowmarket & Diss. What a joy it was to work. Should there be no engineering work we could arrive at least 20min early. For some long lost reason that was sadly changed & now the train often waits & waits & suffers the company of those who've been out for late drinks down the line regularly causing some sort of disturbance. Not a joy anymore :roll:

One or two of the last Virgin West Coast services of the evening from London are set-down only. The biggest gain over the booked time I have encountered was almost 40min, which at that time of night is naturally very welcome.

 

[dk1]

One or two of the last Virgin West Coast services of the evening from London are set-down only. The biggest gain over the booked time I have encountered was almost 40min, which at that time of night is naturally very welcome.

I most definatley would welcome a return to this timetabling on late night services. Train Planning please take note...

 

[The Planner]

You need to tell your TOC, not NR, nothing to do with us guv.

 

[dk1]

You need to tell your TOC, not NR, nothing to do with us guv.

Morning, I was referring to GA train planning at Colchester.

 

[greatkingrat]

One or two of the last Virgin West Coast services of the evening from London are set-down only. The biggest gain over the booked time I have encountered was almost 40min, which at that time of night is naturally very welcome.

It's easier for Virgin to do that as there are also LM services to cater for intermediate journeys.

However for AGA, they will have franchise obligations to provide a service for people travelling Colchester - Ipswich, or Manningtree - Norwich, not just people starting in London.

 

[notverydeep]

Something that has vexed me over the years are posters saying something like. "train doors will be closed 30 seconds before the departure time". In my view the public timetable time should represent the end of the last second when a passenger may expect to board.

So if the train is advertised as say, the 08:25, then a passenger's expectation should be, "I may pass through the doors at 08:24:59 (rugby clock time), but would not normally be able to at 08:25:00".

In this case, the dispatch process would begin with either the doors closing chimes starting or 'CD' indicator illuminated at 08:25:00 as these mark the beginning of the phase where a passenger should not board. If however, the train needs to depart (wheel start / working timetable depart time) at 08:25:00 to make the path work and the dispatch takes 30 seconds from the start of the door chimes, then the public time should be 08:24, so that the above passenger expectation can still be true.

I do work in the rail industry, but not in a directly operational role. I still get fairly annoyed when a train on which I travel on as a passenger is pulling away with 10 seconds before the public timetable time (it doesn't happen often). To my colleagues that passengers should just turn up earlier, I reply, well if you want happier passengers, make the timetable say the time you want them to be on board by, not 30 seconds after!

 

[furnessvale]

The way this thread is going it would appear that passengers are just a damned nuisance, getting in the way of everybody getting home early.

 

[43096]

Something that has vexed me over the years are posters saying something like. "train doors will be closed 30 seconds before the departure time". In my view the public timetable time should represent the end of the last second when a passenger may expect to board.



So if the train is advertised as say, the 08:25, then a passenger's expectation should be, "I may pass through the doors at 08:24:59 (rugby clock time), but would not normally be able to at 08:25:00".

The other way of looking at it is that departure time means exactly that - the time the train leaves. So you need to be there sooner than that to catch it.

 

[Segedunum]

I had a TPE service (the 2109 from York to Newcastle on the 27th of Dec) leave a few seconds after 2107 much to my surprise as both the WTT and PTT had it as 2109. However it had arrived at 2100 having followed a diversionary route versus the usual 2107 arrival so I can imagine it was part down to that and part down to the guard announcing it as the 2108, which it hasn't been since pre May 2016. That said, i didn't note any passengers missing it.

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

 

[najaB]

Something that has vexed me over the years are posters saying something like. "train doors will be closed 30 seconds before the departure time". In my view the public timetable time should represent the end of the last second when a passenger may expect to board.

The other way of looking at it is that departure time means exactly that - the time the train leaves. So you need to be there sooner than that to catch it.

This has been discussed several times in the recent past and I don't think consensus was ever reached, so I've no reason to believe it will be this time either.

 

[JN114]

So time the train a minute later and people end up arriving a minute later, and so on as infinatum until trains don't ever leave.

Conditions of Travel quite clearly say you should be on the platform in reasonable time (I think it gives a figure, but my memory isn't what it was) beforehand.

Also, while I guess strictly true, it's only a breach of franchise as much as a fail to call, or cancellation, or PPM failure. Don't expect to see merseyrail being stripped of their franchise because an eager guard ding dinged 2 minutes early at Birkenhead. It's treated like any other cancellation/fail to call in my office - I have in the past sent taxis to a station to cover an early departing train.

 

[Deepgreen]

My regular morning train, the 0819 from Betchworth to Redhill, is now shown on RTT as departing at 0818 (both GBTT and WTT times the same), but the public timetable (issued by GWR) shows the departure as being at 0819. Some recent trains have left at 0818 but this morning's waited until 0819. This suggests that some crews are unaware of the change, if it actually exists and is not an error in RTT. I hope the change is intended, as it makes the 'connection' to the 0831 to Victoria at Redhill easier to achieve.

Can anyone tell me if the train is now officially re-timed to 0818?

Thanks.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

This has been discussed several times in the recent past and I don't think consensus was ever reached, so I've no reason to believe it will be this time either.

Indeed - it remains a vexed question. I was shocked to find recently that Virgin now states that train doors will be locked TWO MINUTES before departure. One wonders what regulation exists for the seemingly arbitrary door closure margins set by different TOCs.

 

[Phil.]

The way this thread is going it would appear that passengers are just a damned nuisance, getting in the way of everybody getting home early.

But they are....

 

[louis97]

Can anyone tell me if the train is now officially re-timed to 0818?

Thanks.

Live Departure boards and Journey Planners both say 0818, so i'd say so.

 

[Deepgreen]

Live Departure boards and Journey Planners both say 0818, so i'd say so.

Thanks - but how are you able to see Live Departure Boards for an 0819/0819 train now?

 

[louis97]

Thanks - but how are you able to see Live Departure Boards for an 0819/0819 train now?

Internal railway systems.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

Living in Southern-land, the issue of trains being early at intermediate stations rarely arises but it has happened to me twice now elsewhere.

The first was an early morning Eurostar service that pulled out of St Pancras quite a few minutes early - I presume that their computer systems tell them when all booked passengers have checked in, so they can get away with this? (Didn't stop it arriving 10 minutes late at Calais Frethun though...) That said, can they tell with 100% certainty that all checked-in passengers have actually boarded and are not lingering in the loo, coffee shop etc?

The other, more mundanely was a South Eastern Charing Cross-bound service at London Bridge. Indicator said depart 09.44; it actually closed doors and left at 09.42. As the following service was booked to leave the same platform at 09.46, I presume they take a pragmatic view. I think Victoria-bound trains at Clapham Junction are similarly allowed to leave early, but I could be wrong.

 

[notverydeep]

So time the train a minute later and people end up arriving a minute later, and so on as infinatum until trains don't ever leave.

Conditions of Travel quite clearly say you should be on the platform in reasonable time (I think it gives a figure, but my memory isn't what it was) beforehand.

I wasn't really suggesting changing the underlying Working Timetable, merely suggesting a way of deriving public advertised times from it that would allow a consistent expectation about the public time to be communicated to passengers. Essentially, take the working time and round the public time down by a maximum of a minute, as long as the difference accommodates the planned dispatch process as per these examples:

Working time of 08:25:30 would give a public time of 08:25:00
Working time of 08:25:00 would give a public time of 08:24:00

This way trains could operate as now, but passenger would always be able to board until the clock ticks over to the publicly advertised time.

Strangely, the Conditions of Travelhttp://www.nationalrail.co.uk/Conditions%20of%20Travel%202016.pdf don't appear to have anything to say about this issue. Or at least I couldn't find any reference to it searching for several different words I thought might point to the relevant clause - I'll admit that I didn't read all the way through.

In any case, I would say that if the railway industry thought that the Conditions of Carriage were a suitable way of communicating expectations to the public, then we wouldn't be communicating at all. I haven't read Amazon's or any other internet retailer's terms and conditions despite ticking the box and I'm sure you have loads more interesting things to do than that too... If I stood outside King's Cross for an hour and asked 100 passengers and found one (non crank or member of staff) that had heard of the conditions of travel, let alone read them, I would be astonished.

Of course it would still be good advice to get to a platform in reasonable time, though what would be reasonable would presumably vary with train type. For example, I find that 10 seconds is ample time to get from ticket gates through the nearest train door before the chimes on my train to work at platform 2 of Welwyn Garden City, but would expect to get to an infrequent long distance service at a less familiar station up to 10 minutes before.

Additionally, being able to give passengers a consistent understanding of what the timetable means may even improve the safety of our industry's staff on stations. I would bet that the number of assaults on platform or gate-line staff that had their origin in a train missed by a few seconds in this manner will not be zero.

 

[The Planner]

Public times are always whole minutes anyway and normally round down so you can depart earlier than WTT if that is on a half minute.

 

[87015]

I expect this will develop in future franchise bids. For the new Overground concession, an early departure on TRUST is a ppm* failure regardless of what else the train does time wise.

*It's not actually PPM, but it's the TfL reporting equivalent