Trivia - timetable padding

[berneyarms]

This train departed Penhelig 26m late but arrived at its destination 3 minutes early, two hours later.

Realtime Trains - 1655 Machynlleth to Pwllheli

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

What other examples do you know of where the timetable padding is so extreme that this would be possible?

You need to look at it in detailed mode to compare with the working timetable to understand the reasons why this happened rather than the simple mode. See below.

Realtime Trains - 2J19 1655 Machynlleth to Pwllheli

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

On any long single track route, where trains cross with several trains going in the opposite direction along the journey, there will always be additional time added to the standard station stop time to allow for the possibility that one of the trains may be a little late. If you didn't have that, the timetable would self-destruct over the course of the day with constant late running of services and the delays would just keep adding up.

On the Cambrian Coast line that train passed other services at Tywyn and Harlech, where there were scheduled dwells of 5.5 and 7.5 minutes respectively. In both cases the other trains were already in the stations when this train arrived, and it was able to just make quick stops instead. The rest of the savings probably arose due to not making request stops as suggested above.

This specific example is not "padding".

 

[Kite159]

Not padding as such (more loose timing) but last Saturday I saw a Reading - Redhill service depart Reading something like 15 minutes late, by the time it got to Guildford it departed ~ 7 minutes late, and was 1 minute early on arrival into Redhill.

 

[Watershed]

Not padding as such (more loose timing) but last Saturday I saw a Reading - Redhill service depart Reading something like 15 minutes late, by the time it got to Guildford it departed ~ 7 minutes late, and was 1 minute early on arrival into Redhill.

I think those stoppers have a fair dwell at Guildford to allow them to be overtaken by the fasts.

 

[Deafdoggie]

That makes complete sense if/when rounding WTT timings from half minutes to the nearest whole minute for the public timetable. Doesn't quite explain the rationale for why Stockport -> Piccadilly in one direction invariably seems to take several minutes longer than in the other direction.

It used to be called "charter minutes" and BR started it. Many journeys have extra minutes in the public timetable between the last stop and the terminus. Originally BR paid what is now Delay Repay on the trains delay-not the passengers. So adding a few extra minutes in the timetable could mean a train wasn't delayed (enough.) Many of these minutes have simply never been removed since.

I forget the exact details now, but I was once on a late Cambrian coast train, which manged to pull back nearly a 30 min delay. Basically it's timed to run at a steady speed to reach the next loop to meet the train coming the other way. Being late, we'd already passed it earlier in a different loop & were now free to run at full line speed, which we did.

 

[MotCO]

Are extra minutes also included in the timetable to allow for slower running during leaf fall season or icy weather?

 

[zwk500]

Are extra minutes also included in the timetable to allow for slower running during leaf fall season or icy weather?

In leaf fall final arrival times are often offset by up to 5 minutes to account for it. Icy weather less so.

 

[The Planner]

It used to be called "charter minutes" and BR started it. Many journeys have extra minutes in the public timetable between the last stop and the terminus. Originally BR paid what is now Delay Repay on the trains delay-not the passengers. So adding a few extra minutes in the timetable could mean a train wasn't delayed (enough.) Many of these minutes have simply never been removed since.

I forget the exact details now, but I was once on a late Cambrian coast train, which manged to pull back nearly a 30 min delay. Basically it's timed to run at a steady speed to reach the next loop to meet the train coming the other way. Being late, we'd already passed it earlier in a different loop & were now free to run at full line speed, which we did.

I would be surprised at that example, the normal process would just to have an extended dwell at the loop/station. It isn't good practice to path out a train like that.

Are extra minutes also included in the timetable to allow for slower running during leaf fall season or icy weather?

You often get bespoke timetables to cater for leaf fall.