Whose Call is it ?

[ivanhoe]

I was on the 20.48 Virgin trains from Liverpool last night catching a connection at Nuneaton to Leicester.

There was an incident on the train that meant that it was delayed at Stafford by 15 minutes. This meant that the connecting train to Leicester was at risk. Sure enough, VT got in four minutes after the Cross Country Train had left to Leicester.

I was speaking to the VT Train Manager who had contacted his Control and he was told that Cross Country would not hold the train.

Therefore it was left to London Midland Staff at Nuneaton to sort out taxis for 15 passengers to Leicester. Fairplay to London Midland Staff for doing it pretty quickly but I wonder why they could not hold the Cross Country Train at Nuneaton ?

Does anybody know who has the authority to hold a train,given that we were talking about 6 minutes in total and it was the last train to Leicester ?

Many thanks

 

[Daniel]

Authority to hold the train comes from control. Station staff are not authorised, themselves, to delay a train. If a driver/train manager delays a train, the delay can be attributed to them.

Only if it is a booked connection can it be held by the driver/station staff.


I think

 

[John @ home]

Only if it is a booked connection can it be held by the driver/station staff.


I think

Liverpool Lime Street 2048 - 2215 Nuneaton 2226 - 2253 Leicester is an advertised connection but, in today's fragmented railway, I doubt if that gives the station staff of one company (London Midland at Nuneaton) the authority to delay a second company's train (2226 ex Nuneaton is CrossCountry) due to late running of a third company's service (2048 ex Liverpool Lime Street is Virgin).

Just another cost of failure caused by the way in which John Major's government privatised the railways.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

Authority to hold the train comes from control. Station staff are not authorised, themselves, to delay a train. If a driver/train manager delays a train, the delay can be attributed to them.

Only if it is a booked connection can it be held by the driver/station staff.


I think

Yes and No. You are correct in saying that the only person who can authorise a train to be held is the control centre of the TOC whose train is to be held, and even then it is normally only the Duty Manager who can authorise it, not just one of the normal controllers. It isn't always the case that holds are refused. Due to a set swap yesterday evening at Piccadilly, I ended up going towards Leeds with a man and his young child who should have been on the Cleethorpes train to Doncaster to connect to Peterborough. Now there was no connection at Leeds for Peterborough that evening. So after consultation with control and a look at his original booking, by changing at Leeds he could get to Doncaster 3 mins after the last Peterborough train which he should have been on anyway. A few phone calls later and control rung me back to say that East Coast had agreed to hold the last Peterborough train to wait for this chap from Leeds. In the end it all worked out fine apparently as the train from Leeds arrived a few mins early therefore only delaying the EC train 2 mins.

Guards / Drivers / Station Staff do not have any authority at all to hold trains for connections - advertised or otherwise - without the express prior permission of control. I know from experience the inquiry and boll***ings that can result, even for causing a minute or two of delay!

 

[johnb]

Given that station staff are unlikely to know the knock-on effects of a particular 5 minute delay (might be nothing, but might mean missing a slot on a single line, getting pathed behind a stopper, turning up an hour and a half late and missing the return working), it's a Good Thing that they're no longer allowed to hold trains and get in serious trouble if they do so.

As KWVR45 says, control duty managers do have the ability to hold trains for connections if it's appropriate and won't cause knock-on problems. Whether XC control refused to hold & wait for Virgin in Ivanhoe's case for good reasons, or just because they couldn't be bothered, is another question...

 

[ivanhoe]

Thanks everybody for your responses.
Positives out of this are the actions of VT and its Train manager &
Actions of the London Midland Staff for sorting out taxis very quickly

I was travelling onto Loughborough but sadly missed a connection at 23.08 by 2 minutes.
Next train was just after midnight.

To compound an interesting journey, Id just seen the Reds lose against Arsenal!

 

[Old Timer]

Just another cost of failure caused by the way in which John Major's government privatised the railways.

Privatised 2 years under Major and 12 years under Labour.

 

[thelem]

Privatised 2 years under Major and 12 years under Labour.

Those 2 years are very important though, because that's when the industry structure of local TOCs running on nationally maintained track was defined (whether that is a good structure or not is a discussion for a different thread though).

 

[HSTfan!!!]

Being a member of platform staff, holding connections is a hard call, where it's a matter of seconds - one minute more often than not we'll do out best to hold something unofficially (don't usually get queried over a single minutes delay in my experience) - it's less hassle for us at the end of the day, but holds officially have to be granted by control, which more often than not is a no (not always though - i've seen a train held for about 45mins before) - which doesn't help anybody unfortunately - and guess who gets the **** for it. What a lot of people don't understand is during the day, is that it's not fair on people on the train being held who may also have connections to make.

 

[thefab444]

Those 2 years are very important though, because that's when the industry structure of local TOCs running on nationally maintained track was defined (whether that is a good structure or not is a discussion for a different thread though).

Indeed, although it's worth pointing out that Major himself did not favour the system that was actually introduced (IIRC he wanted to go back to the Big Four, or something similar), which was pioneered by our good friends HM Treasury.

 

[royaloak]

Privatised 2 years under Major and 12 years under Labour.

But when Labour get into power they are going to re-nationalise the railways, it is in their manifesto!
I mean they wouldnt lie to us would they :roll:

 

[ChrisTheRef]

Oi, enough politics

I've always fancied doing that last train from LIV to EUS in First. It stops everywhere and I'd imagine it's pretty empty, especially first class.

 

[ivanhoe]

Oi, enough politics

I've always fancied doing that last train from LIV to EUS in First. It stops everywhere and I'd imagine it's pretty empty, especially first class.

Just make sure you do it when Liverpool are not playing a London Team. Nice 3 hour ride getting in 23.45. In the old days you probably could have got the midnight sleeper back!