And the 20 minute booked dwell at Plymouth.
Bedwyn turbo maybe, however freight is by far more difficult, if a freight has firm rights there isn't much you can do if changes will not allow you to meet them.
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Stopper allowed out first
- Thread starter Old Yard Dog
- Start date
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
also change a freight in one place and it becomes a clash somewhere else
irish_rail
Established Member
True , but the B and H stone trains are reasonably self contained. I'm sure something could be done.
OK, well let's look at it from Bedwyn to Plymouth ARRIVAL (so no recovery time), 26 late passing Bedwyn, down to 12 late arriving Plymouth. That's 14 minutes saved, not bad. Also, if 1C93 hadn't been held at Newbury then 1c94 would have followed it throughout and been at least 40 odd late into Plymouth. So a very good decision by either the controller or signaller that decided 1c94 should overtake.
14 minutes is very good, however nearly all of it was down to allowances, SRTs which are inflated (which is not the norm), and faster than booked dwell times. So it isn't that impressive, nor what I would describe as being able to "make up" time in the way I think was being suggested. Yes for that particular train it was able to, but only because of its own specific circumstances. Although as you rightfully mention it is an example of good regulation, something you don't see much of anymore unfortunately.
irish_rail
Established Member
Having travelled on the train as a passenger for part of its journey, I would slightly dispute your assertion that it wasn't down to driving performance. I can atest to the fact there was some very hard driving and quick station approaches.
However I very much agree with your second point, good regulation was very common years ago, but seems to be slowly dying out, presumably at Network rails behest?
Am only going on the data on RTT, although it is certainly possible that quick station approaches could have helped with those station dwell times (something RTT won't nessessarly give a true impression of).
I think the size of some of the workstations these days combined with the lack of proper training to signallers on how to actually regulate certainly don't help matters. The trouble is often delays caused by poor regulation typically get covered up by another incident, or are subthreshold so don't get investigated. Therefore the majority of the time no lessons are learnt.
irish_rail
Established Member
100 percent this is my experience as a driver.
Unfortunately, the trains frequently trip over each other on this route. As mentioned above, if the stopper goes up late, it comes back late when then delays the down TfW train and so the cycle continues. It should get better in June when the WMT run the opposite half hour to TfW.
The 1230 is one of the few remaining hours where a unit detaches off the down and then immediately attaches to the up. The up train could run on time without the attachment but that might cause over crowding. I have no idea how busy that train is.
Back in HST days, I had a few one hour, 53 minute runs from Cardiff to Paddington, about 10 minutes faster than scheduled. Coincidentally, that is the same as the standard schedule now with an IET.
Last edited:
Agreed. Generally regulation at Shrewsbury is good, there is a regulation statement in place, the odd misjudgement is made.
Should be better from June anyway with the departures to Birmingham more spread out.
Statto
Established Member
Manchester Oxford Road to Liverpool Lime Street via the CLC is bad for this too, if the express is delayed by a few minutes, signalers will let the stopper go first even if the express has just arrived at the platform at Oxford Road, signalers then route the stopper into the Glazebrook loop to allow the express to overtake
Falcon1200
Established Member
One person's poor regulation is another's good; In the OP example, passengers on the Shrewsbury starter, and joining en route, would have been pleased their train was on time, whereas those on the further delayed Holyhead train were no doubt disgruntled. The key factor should be minimising overall delay and therefore disadvantaging the least number of passengers. But it is, as I said earlier, an inexact science, and when Train A is delayed by Train B, Train A's passengers, crew, and quite often different TOC from Train B, will inevitably not be pleased. In NR Control we used to reckon that if we got a similar number of regulating complaints from all our TOCs, we were being as fair as we could to everyone!
185
Established Member
- Joined
- 29 Aug 2010
- Messages
- 5,013
Tis a regular thing now holding TfW at Wolves so they can be turned back right (*) time at Birmingham.
I would say the issues with prioritising trains are a serious problem in the WM area and the nonsense unworkable timetables (Inc Shrewsbury stopper turnaround time) need to go asap. Service should extend somewhere, both at the south end beyond New St AND the north end (Wrexham, Chester?) of the route.
* nothing is right time out of New St
Extending north end won’t happen. Shrewsbury - Wrexham Chester is already near capacity due to the crazy long signalling sections Shrewsbury - Wrexham and then the single line between Wrexham and Chester. If that gets sorted then it’s much more likely that liverpool-Chester would get extended through to Cardiff than WMT getting any of the paths. To add to this, WMT would then need to go through crew training which is expensive.
People have suggested it gets extended to Crewe before and runs an hourly Crewe stopper instead of TFW’s every other hour stopper. There were good reasons put forward again as to why that would be highly unlikely to happen.
As for south I’m not so sure what could be done there. It uses the bay platform at Newstreet though so shouldn’t be a huge issue.
To be honest that sounds a bit tight in a busy station such as New Street!
That in itself is indicative of poor decision making - there should always be a contingency reserve.
This is precisely the sort of case I point to when someone suggests using portion-working rather than using proper length trains. It may save a few pennies to tailor the length of the train to precisely the number of passengers onboard, but it creates extra potential for disruption.
There is a place for portion working, but that place is Machynlleth, Crianlarich, or Georgemas Junction (a thing of the past in the case of the latter). Regular uncoupling on busier routes is asking for trouble.
Not that 1I14 can be considered "unbusy" between Holyhead and Shrewsbury. A couple of years ago it was the most frequently overcrowded train TfW had.
Portion working isn’t always for tailoring train length, though. It may be the only viable way of getting a through service to more than one destination when only one path is available in a congested area.
The Planner
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 15 Apr 2008
- Messages
- 16,004
Standard value is 4 and New St doesn't have a specific value any greater.
That doesn't apply in this case though.
Even still, there must be a high chance of delays at a complex station like New Street so it would make sense for a reliability point of view to make it longer. For example, is there another route it could interwork with which would provide a more robust (say) 20 min turnaround?
At London terminals you'll rarely get 5 min turnarounds: the philosophy at London appears to be that interworking is preferable to tight turnarounds.
Last edited:
There is however it isn't designed to allow for making up small delays on every section of line.
This changes in the June timetable with longer turnarounds at New Street with shorter turnarounds at Shrewsbury. Issue with interworking is you risk spreading delay to route otherwise unaffected by an incident. The 35 minute turnaround at Shrewsbury I suspect more than makes up for the 5 minute turnaround at New Street.
Last edited:
The Planner
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 15 Apr 2008
- Messages
- 16,004
You run out of platforms very quickly at New St if you do that. As the West Mids is widely electrified, what are you going to interwork with? Hereford?
The exact same thing happened with those services when I was last at Shrewsbury back around October. The previous WMT had been cancelled and the Holyhead was a few minutes late arriving, so there were a lot of people at Shrewsbury anxiously trying to work out which train was going to actually go out first and no-one seemed to know. I punted on the WMT and was 'lucky' that it did indeed go first, but I felt a little guilty about having told a confused lady it was probably best to take the ATW as she was going to Birmingham International, when as I found out later that it didn't actually get there and terminated short at BHM due to losing loads more time from being stuck behind the WMT.
It does seem to be badly planned to have only 6 minutes between these trains when the earlier one has come a very long way, *and* needs to attach carriages, *and* needs to go out first.
ThameslinkUser
Member
I most definitely wouldn't call it rare given the amount of stock that has been disposed of in certain regions (Southern for example)
That's true, I'd forgotten how little is still diesel at New Street these days.
My comment was based on various CWNs I have from 1981 to 2013 (plus 1967, though that is a long time ago) so admittedly it's based on pre-Covid times. In these, there's the occasional suburban with a 6-min turnaround but that seems to be the lowest.
Interworking is done a lot at London terminals though, so there appears to be no widespread view that it's bad practice. However I take @The Planner's point about lack of other diesel services - still instinctively had it in my head (without thinking properly) that Hednesford/Rugeley was diesel... shows what era I last spent much time at New Street I guess!
Last edited:
Sometimes you have no choice, but avoiding it is not a bad thing. I don't think London Terminals are a fair comparison here, a good chunk of London termini are served by one main route. New Street is serving a number which diverge there so avoiding interworking serves more benefit here.Interworking is done a lot at London terminals though, so there appears to be no widespread view that it's bad practice. However I take @The Planner's point about lack of other diesel services - still instinctively had it in my head that Hednesford/Rugeley was diesel... shows what era I last spent much time at New Street I guess!
Think of New Street more like Brighton, where there is typically no interworking between each of the three sides (to Lewes, Hove and Preston Park). Interworking Hereford with Shrewsbury would leave you with a crossing movement in the throat, like you would at Brighton if Seaford trains ran through to Littlehampton.
I see what you mean, there is some sign of that at London terminals which you have 2 main routes (e.g. at Waterloo, interworking between the main and Windsor routes, while it exists it is somewhat limited).
GalaxyDog
Member
Having had former colleagues working at Shrewsbury, this was a semi regular thing. The gambit was that indeed if the TFW was late the WMT stopper would be allowed out first but then the WMT would be lopOed at Wolverhampton by the TFW to get it back ahead of WMT. It sounds like on this occasion that this was the plan and then something else snagged the TFW service at Wolverhampton.
However often it would be the reversal - WMT stopper would be held regardless of upto ten mins awaiting the TFW to come through and leave first.
However often it would be the reversal - WMT stopper would be held regardless of upto ten mins awaiting the TFW to come through and leave first.
Murray J
Member
that's interesting because the only time i've experienced something similar to this the exact opposite occurred - specifically involving a late running Portsmouth-London train and a Haslemere stopper about a week ago. the Portsmouth service was running 18L by the time it reached Haslemere. Instead of putting the stopper in front of it they held it until after the express although it ended up running 10 minutes late in the process. The benefit to this though was that the Portsmouth service was able to skip intermediate stops between Haslemere and Guildford + Woking as the Haslemere service also stopped at all those stops.
Realtime Trains | 2P30 1010 Haslemere to London Waterloo | 17/04/2024
Real-time train running information for 2P30 1010 departure from Haslemere to London Waterloo on 17/04/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.
www.realtimetrains.co.uk
Realtime Trains | 1P28 0903 Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo | 17/04/2024
Real-time train running information for 1P28 0903 departure from Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo on 17/04/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.
www.realtimetrains.co.uk