Trivia: Most ponderous service?

[paolo]

Which service spends the biggest proportion of its overall duration, on passenger stops?*

* For the tie breaker, this is using scheduled timings rather than public timetable.

 

[alex17595]

I guess the cardiff bay shuttle spends more time stationary than moving.

 

[krus_aragon]

I guess the cardiff bay shuttle spends more time stationary than moving.

Going by the working timetable, it's stopped exactly half of the time. (3min journey, 3min turnaround before returning, )

 

[yorkie]

I guess the cardiff bay shuttle spends more time stationary than moving.

but surely the question was a "service" not the whole diagram (which would consist of multiple services)?

 

[paolo]

but surely the question was a "service" not the whole diagram (which would consist of multiple services)?

Indeed

 

[D6975]

During some periods of the timetable, some Crosscountry services on Sundays spend ages stationary at TM, Cheltenham and New St and end up running in the path of what would normally be the service 1 hour behind it by the time they leave New St.

The last but one Blackpool-York of the day sits at Leeds for 24 minutes before proceding to York.

 

[TEW]

Guildford-Ascot services have a 60 minute run time. However they have a 13 minute dwell at Aldershot and 4 minute dwell at Camberley, so 17 minutes out of 60 are spent at a stop.

 

[Tomnick]

A similar ratio - 1P79, 19:53 Corby to St Pancras, has a total of 29' dwell in its 92' journey, most of it at Kettering.

 

[yorkie]

The last but one Blackpool-York of the day sits at Leeds for 24 minutes before proceding to York.

But out of a total working timetable schedule of 198 minutes, it's only booked to sit for 34 minutes (as you say 24 of those at Leeds), so the proportion isn't that big, at 17%. Still infuriating when you're on it though, but any passengers for York can change onto TPE (and get to York at the time you'd otherwise only be at Cross Gates) if you're lucky with the connection.

It's not happened to me but I heard someone claim that passengers have been booted off at Leeds before and told to wait out in the cold. I've never heard of that happening on any other service (except, of course, due to a train fault or similar).

 

[TheWalrus]

London Waterloo - Poole?

 

[Parallel]

The "local" FGW services that operate to/from Weymouth*/Westbury/Frome/Warminster/Bristol TM/Bristol Parkway/Gloucester/Cheltenham/Worcester SH/ Worcester FS/Great Malvern (So many origins/termini ) Can have a very long dwell time at Bristol TM (20 mins) and Westbury or Gloucester if applicable. I haven't gone through every service to see which has the longest as they all do vary.

Quite ironic really seeing as the Cardiff - Portsmouth service arguably doesn't have enough dwell time, and therefore can't catch up very well in times of delays.

Also worth noting that The Heart Of Wessex is a single line with passing loops, so there is usually more waiting for trains at either Castle Cary, Yeovil Pen Mill, Maiden Newton or Dorchester West...

 

[krus_aragon]

Drifting back down to Cardiff Bay, the Sundays only 2B24 0854 Cardiff Central to Cardiff Bay arrives at 0903 (WTT), after a three minute layover to change ends at Queen St. That's stopped for exactly 1/3 of it's schedule, but is unlikely to be considered ponderous by most passengers.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The 1323 Newcastle - Glasgow Central spends 1.5 minutes at each of its 17 intermediate stops, except Carlisle where it waits for 27 minutes. That's 51 minutes waiting time, but it is a total journey time of just under four hours.

 

[Busaholic]

When the Bromley North to Grove Park shuttle ran every half hour instead of every twenty minutes the crew must have really resented having to break from their nap/reading the newspaper/playing cards.

 

[D6975]

A similar ratio - 1P79, 19:53 Corby to St Pancras, has a total of 29' dwell in its 92' journey, most of it at Kettering.

Similarly the 16:36 Derby - St Pancras does pretty much the same thing, 23 mins at Kettering.

 

[anti-pacer]

Why do trains have to have such long dwell times?

As a passenger, I would find it mighty annoying to travel from New Pudsey to York, and having to spend 24 minutes in Leeds on that service.

I'm guessing the whole journey without that would be less than an hour.

 

[najaB]

Why do trains have to have such long dwell times?

My guess is shorter-distance services have pathing time - e.g. waiting for a single line section to clear, and longer-distance services have recovery time built in e.g. there's a lot of places that a London to Aberdeen or Penzance to Edinburgh service can get delayed.

 

[Mark62]

Sheffield to Huddersfield . It's such a painful journey especially after Penistone.

 

[causton]

Indeed, I would have loved a dwell time on the train I'm currently on, because a freight train was late at Lockerbie we're now 10 minutes late on the approach to Euston! This also means the train behind us is late as it's had to wait for us to pass etc...

 

[leightonbd]

Maybe not as a percentage of time, but for aggregate dwell time the up Aberdeen sleeper 1B16/ 1M16 must be a contender. I calculate 94 mins stationary out of 604 mins between departure from Aberdeen and arrival at Euston. It beats the other sleepers by virtue of a longer wait at Edinburgh.

 

[Tomnick]

Sheffield to Huddersfield . It's such a painful journey especially after Penistone.

Slow, perhaps, but no excessive dwell.

Similarly the 16:36 Derby - St Pancras does pretty much the same thing, 23 mins at Kettering.

Indeed, after 1P64's gone, 1P69 has a long dwell to drop roughly into the next hourly path, and each subsequent Down arrival has both a long layover at Corby and a long dwell at Kettering to keep that pattern. I've never really looked into it enough to establish why the pattern through the rest of the day, with each Down arrival returning south after a minimum turnaround. Either way, 1P69's overall journey time is longer so the extended Kettering call is smaller as a proportion!

 

[dk1]

Sheffield to Huddersfield . It's such a painful journey especially after Penistone.

One of my favourite journeys that. Too short in my opinion.

 

[30907]

Why do trains have to have such long dwell times?

As a passenger, I would find it mighty annoying to travel from New Pudsey to York, and having to spend 24 minutes in Leeds on that service.

I'm guessing the whole journey without that would be less than an hour.

In this case, it runs in the regular interval as far as Leeds but then fits with the hourly service pattern East of Leeds in the evening.
Presumably the 158 is required in York to take up a working next day, otherwise it would terminate at Leeds and the following service, 2150 Huddersfield, run through.

 

[Crossover]

It seems they no longer run any just from Newcraighall to Haymarket, but I was on one a few months ago (which was going to Haymarket in order for it to go to depot), but it followed these rough timings with a similar layover in Waverley!
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/G99740/2015/01/24/advanced

 

[Johnuk123]

Why do trains have to have such long dwell times?

As a passenger, I would find it mighty annoying to travel from New Pudsey to York, and having to spend 24 minutes in Leeds on that service.

I'm guessing the whole journey without that would be less than an hour.

Simply waiting for a suitable path I would imagine.

 

[paolo]

If we ignore a pretty much one off London Overground service, then this *might* be the top ranked by ratio...

Weekdays 19:35 Littlehampton to Bognor Regis. 29 Minutes duration, 15 minutes of which is parked up at Barnham, along with a mere 30 seconds at Ford. At 53.5%, it is scheduled to spend more time stopped than moving.

LITTLEHAMPTON 19:35:00
FORD 19:38:30 19:39:00
BARNHAM 19:43:00 19:58:00
BOGNOR REGIS 20:04:00

 

[D6975]

Sometimes these things do have an advantage though. The 16:36 Derby-St Pancras is very slow, but you can get some pretty good advance fares on it compared to other services around that time. The undesirability of travelling on it is obviously something of which EMT are very aware.

 

[Kite159]

If we ignore a pretty much one off London Overground service, then this *might* be the top ranked by ratio...

Weekdays 19:35 Littlehampton to Bognor Regis. 29 Minutes duration, 15 minutes of which is parked up at Barnham, along with a mere 30 seconds at Ford. At 53.5%, it is scheduled to spend more time stopped than moving.

LITTLEHAMPTON 19:35:00
FORD 19:38:30 19:39:00
BARNHAM 19:43:00 19:58:00
BOGNOR REGIS 20:04:00

Waiting for a Portsmouth or Southampton bound train from Brighton so passengers can connect down to Bognor?

 

[Hyphen]

Sometimes these things do have an advantage though. The 16:36 Derby-St Pancras is very slow, but you can get some pretty good advance fares on it compared to other services around that time. The undesirability of travelling on it is obviously something of which EMT are very aware.

Or maybe it's the other way round? Maybe the undesirability of it stops people buying the advances, meaning the lower tiers just never sell out (or sell much more slowly)?