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Horizontal printed timetable layout

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Western 52

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Looking through some old timetable leaflets, I was reminded that back in the 70s British Rail often used a horizontal format for these, where each row was a separate train, rather than each column. See the attached image, taken from the 1976 / 1977 timetable leaflet for the Rhymney Valley Line. Of course, we read from left to right, so in a sense this format was logical, but I've not seen it used for many years now. Why was this format used, and why / when was it discontinued? Would it make any sense to use it again, or is the vertical column layout too well established?

img157.jpg
 
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RT4038

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The Midland Red bus company also did their timetables like this in the late 70s, following the Market Analysis Project.

I think this timetable presentation was in response to frequent complaints by ordinary users that timetables were unreadable and not understandable.

The information is no different to a timetable in vertical format. My own immediate opinion is that I don't like it, but on reflection I suspect that is because I am more used to the vertical format over the last 60 years! When I have had to use timetables in the horizontal format, I have got used to them quite quickly and then not noticed any difference.
 

pdeaves

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I've never seen that format before so this looked rather odd to me. It's fundamentally not difficult to follow, though I suspect in regular use it would be easy to read down for 'time at next station' by mistake simply because we are used to vertical format.
 

py_megapixel

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Could someone possibly explain what the 'A', 'B' and bizarre triple-headed arrow symbols down the left hand side mean, and what 'A', 'B', 'C' 'f' and 'x' next to the times mean?
 

Baxenden Bank

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I prefer the traditional format ie trains shown in a column. Perhaps it is simply what I am used to. I remember well the Merseytravel editions mentioned by @Bletchleyite and never got the hang of them, but it could simply have been because I referred to them only infrequently.

I have no research to support it but my suspicion would be that the people who claim they cannot understand a column timetable would also claim not to understand a row timetable either. They probably closely overlap the group who can not / will not understand the 24-hour clock. The issue is one of familiarity and a willingness to learn.

Kenya, despite having been properly trained decades ago, have chosen to use row timetables for their recently launched services. This may be a Chinese influence as the operating company for their new standard gauge line is Chinese. The commuter services are operated by Kenya Railways however.

Examples attached:
1962 Mombasa - Nairobi timetable
2020 Nairobi Commuter timetable
2018 Mombassa - Nairobi SGR timetable
 

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Gloster

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Could someone possibly explain what the 'A', 'B' and bizarre triple-headed arrow symbols down the left hand side mean, and what 'A', 'B', 'C' 'f' and 'x' next to the times mean?

These would have been explained in the footnotes. In those days the footnotes were more likely to be on the same page (‘at the foot’), rather than somewhere over a fold, which means turning backward and forward to check things. (That is my, albeit limited, experience.)
 

67thave

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I've never seen that format before so this looked rather odd to me. It's fundamentally not difficult to follow, though I suspect in regular use it would be easy to read down for 'time at next station' by mistake simply because we are used to vertical format.
I was surprised to actually see the vertical layout used for local bus services once I began collecting timetables from the UK! In the USA, local transit services almost entirely use a horizontal format, though mainline trains and intercity buses use a vertical layout.
 

RT4038

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Could someone possibly explain what the 'A', 'B' and bizarre triple-headed arrow symbols down the left hand side mean, and what 'A', 'B', 'C' 'f' and 'x' next to the times mean?

The triple headed arrow was a standard symbol (at that time) for Bank Holidays excepted
Taking a guess, A meant Monday to Friday only, B Saturday only. C Summer dates, f arrive 0559, x request stop

That one is interesting, using the "read down then up" layout which I don't think the UK ever used but is common for "train pairs" on the mainland e.g. night trains where there's only one each way.

I think some tables in 'Bradshaw's' (and by extension company timetables) might have used this format in the past as a space saving device where service was sparse [not having to print two banks of station names].
 
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mailbyrail

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The 1850 Bradshaw (reprint unfortunately) has Tables headed 'Down' heading away from London (or any other route) alongside tables headed 'UP' in standard railway convention but the columns of times alongside are in accordance with the heading as well, meaning you read train times down the column in the first instance, and up the column in the other. The same applies in much later European Bradshaws which squeeze in as many routes as possible on each page with just one block of stations shown for trains in both direction on many routes.

It raises the question whether the use of the now standard terms 'Down' and 'Up' result from the layout of the timetable. There's no other logical explanation why lines were designated that way, except possibly from London to the South Coast.
 

LSWR Cavalier

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I thought down was always going from London, Stranraer would be down from Glasgow etc
Not sure about Liverpool & Manchester or Glasgow & Edinburgh
 

Gloster

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I have always understood that Up and Down was an early example of a standard system, being from each railway’s main centre, this being London in many cases. I think that the Midland Railway saw Down as being from Derby and some of the Welsh lines had Down as the same as downhill.
 

PeterC

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That one is interesting, using the "read down then up" layout which I don't think the UK ever used but is common for "train pairs" on the mainland e.g. night trains where there's only one each way.
I am sure that I have seen that used by British coach companies in the 60s.
 
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Here's part of a rather battered leaflet timetable from the very early years of Dublin Area Rapid Transit; it uses the horizontal layout but is also unusual in being a seven-day timetable and in using colour coding to indicate which days a given train operates on:

IMG_20201122_113654425.jpg

CIÉ also used the "read down then up" format at one stage, though before my time - see this example for the Dublin-Rosslare route in the 1973 timetable.
 
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That's part of an advert - the timetable had lots of these; I count nine of them on the leaflet, and none of them are CIÉ ads either. (This is probably another feature that's a little unusual for a modern British/Irish timetable.) The brand name "New Dublin Gas" dates it somewhat - I think it was abandoned in the late 1980s, but I can't pin it down. (Curiously, there's no sign of a date anywhere on the timetable, but I'd say it dates from not too long after the inception of DART in 1984).

The gas company's predecessor, the Alliance & Dublin Consumers' Gas Company, did have an industrial railway for a while, but they got rid of it comparatively early - and they were certainly never involved in passenger transport.:)
 

Taunton

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It raises the question whether the use of the now standard terms 'Down' and 'Up' result from the layout of the timetable. There's no other logical explanation why lines were designated that way, except possibly from London to the South Coast.
It was a long tradition that pre-dated the railways, to be Down going away from London, and Up towards it. Stagecoaches used the expression - the novel "Tom Brown's Schooldays", set at Rugby School in the 1820s, gives some marvellous extended descriptions of what stagecoach travel from London to Rugby was like (along what is now the A5 road), and refers to "Down Coaches" and "Up Coaches". It comes over in the book that schoolboys in the 1820s were as knowledgeable about the operation of stagecoaches at the time (including the book's author Thomas Hughes) as they much later were about railways during Ian Allan's heyday.
 

6Gman

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I have always understood that Up and Down was an early example of a standard system, being from each railway’s main centre, this being London in many cases. I think that the Midland Railway saw Down as being from Derby and some of the Welsh lines had Down as the same as downhill.
This is correct. The Lancashire & Yorkshire (using Manchester as its base) throws up some interesting examples. Same with mileposts - ponder some of them in the Merseyrail routes north of Liverpool.
 

Baxenden Bank

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That one is interesting, using the "read down then up" layout which I don't think the UK ever used but is common for "train pairs" on the mainland e.g. night trains where there's only one each way.
Down and up does make sense where there is a very limited range of services, so long as it is clearly marked. It saves space as otherwise you may end up with a long bank of stations, repeated below for the return direction, with lots of white space to the right of the page. Alternatively you end up with a long thin timetable rather like a 'big shop' supermarket receipt. The 1962 Kenya example is for a pair of trains in each direction and has clear arrows for each direction. Placing the destinations in the centre, between the directions, also makes it more clear.

As an aside, the through train from Mombassa (Kenya) to Kampala (Uganda) was spread over three days and had to be separated into several sections. It departed Mombasa at 1500 Monday, made 98 intermediate stops and arrived in Kampala at 1615 Wednesday, with an onward connection to Kasese departing at 1800 Wednesday and arriving 1200 Thursday. Of an epic nature similar to the Trans-Siberian experience.

Now a timetable worst nightmare - use of the horizontal style but read left to right for services in one direction, then right to left for services in the opposite direction. I can't remember seeing one but I guess someone has produced one somewhere. Some countries read from bottom right and right to left across the page but the same would apply when they were reading the left to right text - just not what they are used to.
 
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