Disruption - running fast to make up time

[Sirius]

There was political drama about Scotrail “skip-stopping” a few years ago and the practice was discouraged and significantly reduced.

All that happened on many routes is they ran ECS to the destination.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

LNER and CrossCountry may have had hard times recently but they hardly seem to do that - in fact LNER I can't recall skip stopping!

 

[gazzaa2]

It drives me mad on Merseyrail that if a train is even 5-10 minutes late, they just skip stops.

 

[Falcon1200]

There was political drama about Scotrail “skip-stopping” a few years ago

For which, until I retired also some years ago, I was sometimes responsible. But such decisions were always made with the sole aim of restoring the service as quickly as possible and thereby disrupting as few passengers as possible, not as some liked to think because we enjoyed messing people about.

All that happened on many routes is they ran ECS to the destination

Unintended consequences when politicians interfere with the railway......

 

[matt_world2004]

I've seen the tfl rail skip stops when the train is running as much as four minutes late which is a bit ridiculous it got to Paddington 15 minutes early.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Unintended consequences when politicians interfere with thew railway......

Not even politicians. Senior managers who haven't worked their way up through the ranks interfering also have this effect.

 

[Jimini]

The West Anglia stoppers are always affected by this as well. Hard luck if you’re at the likes of Waltham X, Enfield Lock, Brimsdown etc.

That said, it’s a two track railway with airport expresses etc. to contend with, so must be a nightmare to manage.

 

[Kite159]

The West Anglia stoppers are always affected by this as well. Hard luck if you’re at the likes of Waltham X, Enfield Lock, Brimsdown etc.

That said, it’s a two track railway with airport expresses etc. to contend with, so must be a nightmare to manage.

At least the 720s are a bit more nippy than the older 317s so have a better chance to making back some smaller delays.

LNER and CrossCountry may have had hard times recently but they hardly seem to do that - in fact LNER I can't recall skip stopping!

I've seen XC at times of large delays skipping Reading. LNER are quite good at running the token trains (Skipton/Bradford FS), even when over an hour late into Leeds.

 

[RJ]

When I used East Dulwich pre-covid they often used to knock the stops out between Tulse Hill and London Bridge. Train left East Croydon 8 minutes late? Cancel those stops.

What stumped me was these trains would never actually make up any time vs doing the booked calls because of conflictions and clashes with the Overground, begging the question of what the point was.

 

[ChewChewTrain]

I've seen XC at times of large delays skipping Reading.

Particularly tempting because of the dogleg, I suppose. Northbound, I assume the decision would always be taken before leaving Basingstoke so that passengers for Reading could (albeit reluctantly) alight. And one would hope that passengers at Reading would be told to catch the GWR Oxford fast before the XC service was due, at least if they were lucky enough to have arrived at Reading by then.

Southbound would be even more fun, given that there are no other fast services to Basingstoke. I don’t suppose that trying to get people to Tilehurst or Reading West for a special stop there would make things any easier.

 

[matt_world2004]

Elizabeth line skipped Southall today in an apparent attempt to make up one minute of lost time

Realtime Trains | 2332 London Paddington to Hayes & Harlington | 14/11/2022

Real-time train running information for 2332 departure from London Paddington to Hayes & Harlington on 14/11/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[30907]

Elizabeth line skipped Southall today in an apparent attempt to make up one minute of lost time

Realtime Trains | 2332 London Paddington to Hayes & Harlington | 14/11/2022

Real-time train running information for 2332 departure from London Paddington to Hayes & Harlington on 14/11/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

It was running early (-1), not late so that won't be the reason.

 

[Horizon22]

Skip-stopping / running fast / running non-stop is a very common tool for any controller to get things running in order again.

If you don't try and regulate the service and let the delays run out all the time, you'll never make up much time for most of the day. Of course there are a huge range of variables; is there any engineering/performance/planning time in the schedule? How much time does it have at the turnaround? Have other services already run fast? What is the crew situation like? Are crew due breaks? Has their relief been delayed? Is there an identical service right behind this one? How much time would it make up? Are hub stations being served? Are there any known connections? How might the train get regulated from here if it runs as booked? If the situation becomes prolonged you can run into a serious issue with driver displacement and that makes the whole situation even worse.

On metro services, if you have a sit down, you have a backlog of maybe 2,3,4 trains behind it. The priority is to get things moving. If you can run the train fast from C-F, and whilst obviously an inconvenience to passengers wanting D or E, if they have another service(s) stuck behind in the rear that will call all stations C-F, the impact will be minimal.

This is all part of any good controller's knowledge and there are probably principles that the TOC provides for control staff about consideration for when alterations (of which running fast is just one element) should be made. Always a hard balance between what is operationally possible and what is good for passengers alhough don't forget that what be bad for a group of passengers now, might be better for a larger group of passengers later. For instance, running a train fast in the contra-peak direction. Each scenario at each location, at each time of day, for each TOC is going to be different and require varied response. Disruption is inevitable and the quicker, clearer and more direct the response, the better the overall outcome is for all the passengers.

It was running early (-1), not late so that won't be the reason.

That sounds like it was a specific station issue - off the top of my head it could be lighting issues, DOO issues, staffing issues, some sort of unsafe situation, emergency services attendance etc.

 

[jamesst]

It drives me mad on Merseyrail that if a train is even 5-10 minutes late, they just skip stops.

Countary to popular belief Merseyrail has a lot of pinch points esp in the underground sections. One delayed train can -& has- easily cause multiple delays across the network. Better to inconvenience one set of passengers than a hell of a lot more.

 

[gazzaa2]

Countary to popular belief Merseyrail has a lot of pinch points esp in the underground sections. One delayed train can -& has- easily cause multiple delays across the network. Better to inconvenience one set of passengers than a hell of a lot more.

I can understand it but it's annoying when you're in a rush/need to be somewhere and you get on a train that's only running 5 minutes late and it's announced it'll be missing your stop.

Then if whatever has caused that delay on your train causes a delay on the next one and it happens again. Makes the whole service unreliable.

 

[Purple Train]

Elizabeth line skipped Southall today in an apparent attempt to make up one minute of lost time

Realtime Trains | 2332 London Paddington to Hayes & Harlington | 14/11/2022

Real-time train running information for 2332 departure from London Paddington to Hayes & Harlington on 14/11/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I've noticed with EL services that they occasionally show as having passed a station (as it does in the detailed version of the link you sent) despite having called. I don't know if the relative timings in your example would make that a likely possibility, or whether there were circumstances that led to it actually skipping Southall, such as lighting issues or construction work. But I've seen it happen before.

 

[Kite159]

I've noticed with EL services that they occasionally show as having passed a station (as it does in the detailed version of the link you sent) despite having called. I don't know if the relative timings in your example would make that a likely possibility, or whether there were circumstances that led to it actually skipping Southall, such as lighting issues or construction work. But I've seen it happen before.

Unless it was a train fault, as the next train called at Southall without issue a couple minutes later heading in the Maidenhead direction.

But then what sort of train fault would allow a train to call at all the other stations but not Southall? Maybe the driver stopped just over the platform signal which confuses the system to think it didn't stop there? [Similar to the old LNER HSTs at Inverkeithing and a couple other stations where RTT reports the train as "not stopping" but when it does]

 

[william.martin]

Had one at Tipton a few weeks ago, I was waiting for my train to New Street however a TFW 158 had a problem and had to de-train at Tipton making the platform very crowded. They moved the 158 into the old mail line resulting in my train arriving 30 mins late, as a consequence my train was gave no choice but to skip all of the stations between Tipton and New Street (it was meant to be all stops) before terminating early there( instead of continuing to Walsall.) The mornings disruption could still be felt later in the day, this is due too an extreme backlog of trains filling the line right the way from Tipton all the way back to Wolverhampton in the lines most busy hours.

 

[Purple Train]

But then what sort of train fault would allow a train to call at all the other stations but not Southall? Maybe the driver stopped just over the platform signal which confuses the system to think it didn't stop there? [Similar to the old LNER HSTs at Inverkeithing and a couple other stations where RTT reports the train as "not stopping" but when it does]

I don't think that's the usual reason - I've seen it happen at EL stations where there is no possibility of the train stopping over a signal. I've always presumed that it's due to the relatively short dwell times.

 

[Surreytraveller]

When I used East Dulwich pre-covid they often used to knock the stops out between Tulse Hill and London Bridge. Train left East Croydon 8 minutes late? Cancel those stops.

What stumped me was these trains would never actually make up any time vs doing the booked calls because of conflictions and clashes with the Overground, begging the question of what the point was.

They might not make up time, but it stopped them losing more time.

 

[matt_world2004]

I've noticed with EL services that they occasionally show as having passed a station (as it does in the detailed version of the link you sent) despite having called. I don't know if the relative timings in your example would make that a likely possibility, or whether there were circumstances that led to it actually skipping Southall, such as lighting issues or construction work. But I've seen it happen before.

I've had Elizabeth line services skip stops with as little as four minutes of delays. A few have definitely left Heathrow 4 minutes late and skipped all the intermediate stops between Heathrow and Paddington, getting there 15 minutes early

 

[Falcon1200]

A few have definitely left Heathrow 4 minutes late and skipped all the intermediate stops between Heathrow and Paddington, getting there 15 minutes early

What happened at Paddington, did the trains stand until their booked departure time and so delay everything behind them?

 

[matt_world2004]

What happened at Paddington, did the trains stand until their booked departure time and so delay everything behind them?

I don't know. Everything it's happened I've been at Hayes. Seen the train go flying past me with passengers on board. Checked real time trains and it's skipped every stop to Paddington arriving 15 minutes early

 

[Purple Train]

I don't know. Everything it's happened I've been at Hayes. Seen the train go flying past me with passengers on board. Checked real time trains and it's skipped every stop to Paddington arriving 15 minutes early

Far-fetched suggestion: could it have run express due to a cancelled Heathrow Express?

 

[skyhigh]

I don't know. Everything it's happened I've been at Hayes. Seen the train go flying past me with passengers on board. Checked real time trains and it's skipped every stop to Paddington arriving 15 minutes early

Are you certain you were looking at the right train? You claimed that they skipped a stop to make up a minute of delay in post 41 - which to be honest was nonsense.

 

[matt_world2004]

Are you certain you were looking at the right train? You claimed that they skipped a stop to make up a minute of delay in post 41 - which to be honest was nonsense.

No I'm talking about separate incidents..I didn't witness the 1 minute skip stopping at Southall (except seeing the train come in at Hayes)

 

[Horizon22]

I don't know. Everything it's happened I've been at Hayes. Seen the train go flying past me with passengers on board. Checked real time trains and it's skipped every stop to Paddington arriving 15 minutes early

Seems odd, normally it's 10+ late before a decision is mader to run fast to Heathrow. There's a very high penalty to MTR for not serving Heathrow versus say, terminating the train at Hayes.

Far-fetched suggestion: could it have run express due to a cancelled Heathrow Express?

Unrelated as they are different operators serving slightly different demand.

 

[RJ]

One part of the network where you might get a good skip stop is on Thameslink - once I got a train that was non-stop London Bridge to Brighton on a Sunday which was pretty swish, progress only impeded by a confliction at Wivelsfield. There were so, so many announcements made and an extended dwell at London Bridge yet loads of people stayed on the train. Quite a few looked perplexed as we sailed through East Croydon and more than a few suitcase wielding people definitely missed their flight from Gatwick - maybe some of them weren’t English speakers. It was a fast ride but nothing near the London to Brighton in 36 minutes speed run. The train came from the GN side and was over an hour late.

It’s not unknown for trains to stop at Gatwick only either.

 

[Wychwood93]

Way back in 2013 my wife and myself were going down to Weymouth for the day. We had the 1034 from Christchurch and ended up on the somewhat late 1024 from Bournemouth - non-stop to Weymouth. After being 33 late from Bournemouth we were 22 late into Weymouth. 37m 55s for the journey - my notebook, in the loft, may indicate a reason for the delay. A good skip-stop!

 

[Bald Rick]

One part of the network where you might get a good skip stop is on Thameslink

Indeed, it is one of life’s pleasures to correctly anticipate Control making an all stations St Albans starter run non stop to St P.