Intercity Turnarounds

[MerlinRail 804]

What are the procedures/steps to turnarounds of intercity services at major terminus stations, such as Paddington, Euston, Manchester Piccadilly, etc.?
What are the timescales to these steps and what factors do they depend on (such as no. of coaches or passengers expected)?

 

[jfollows]

What are the procedures/steps to turnarounds of intercity services at major terminus stations, such as Paddington, Euston, Manchester Piccadilly, etc.?
What are the timescales to these steps and what factors do they depend on (such as no. of coaches or passengers expected)?

I think it’s all in https://www.networkrail.co.uk/industry-and-commercial/information-for-operators/operational-rules/ but you may have to search a bit.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

I think it’s all in https://www.networkrail.co.uk/industry-and-commercial/information-for-operators/operational-rules/ but you may have to search a bit.

All the Timetable Planning Rules will give you is a minimum time value for some (not all) routes.

The usual procedures are what you’d expect:
- Detrain customers
- Traincrew secure train (if required)
- Cleaning staff go through emptying bins, general tidying etc
- On board catering is restocked / trolley replaced etc (if required)
- Inbound crew hand over to outbound crew (if face-to-face relief)
- Reservations system set up / paper reservations placed (“carding”)
- Customer boarding commences for outbound departure

Many things depend on the type of rolling stock and length of turnround. In the past HSTs often shut down their leading power car on arrival to minimise noise & fumes; this was mandatory at Euston due to the enclosed platforms (and HSTs could not draw up to the buffers, as they had to stop with the rear power car still in the open air.) Paddington and Kings Cross had shore supply jumpers by the buffer stops which would be connected to the front power car to allow it to be shut down and maintain ETS etc. Obviously if the turnround was short then this wouldn’t be done.

 

[43066]

Paddington and Kings Cross had shore supply jumpers by the buffer stops which would be connected to the front power car to allow it to be shut down and maintain ETS etc. Obviously if the turnround was short then this wouldn’t be done.

Not sure the extent to which shore supplies were used for HSTs in recent years, if at all (there are some fascinating historical photos however).

At my operator ETS would generally be run from the opposite power car to the one being driven from, so that the London end power car could be shut down immediately upon arrival into London, with the train continuing to be supplied by the country end. The next driver would then start the buffer end power car and move the ETS to it before departing north.

 

[nw1]

I have some CWNs from the 80s and there did seem to be an (unwritten?) rule that IC services had to have a greater-than-30-min turnaround, whether HST or conventional loco-hauled. The shortest turnarounds seemed to be around 32 or 33 mins.

I get the impression from some recent threads that some now have shorter turnarounds than this, presumably due to more restricted platform capacity following the introduction of more intensive services in the past 20 years or so.

 

[800001]

I have some CWNs from the 80s and there did seem to be an (unwritten?) rule that IC services had to have a greater-than-30-min turnaround, whether HST or conventional loco-hauled. The shortest turnarounds seemed to be around 32 or 33 mins.

I get the impression from some recent threads that some now have shorter turnarounds than this, presumably due to more restricted platform capacity following the introduction of more intensive services in the past 20 years or so.

At Kings Cross most services from Leeds have 33 minutes before they depart back to Leeds.

 

[mangyiscute]

There are certainly current intercity services at most of the major London termini which have 20 mins turnaround, which works fine when on time but leaves very little resilience to delays

 

[MCR247]

There are (or were) some EMRs booked to turn round at St Pancras in 11 minutes, which from a boarding passenger perspective, was about as fun as you’d expect. Especially with how the EMR platforms at St Pancras are run..

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

The shortest ‘intercity’ turnarounds permitted at Paddington are 10 mins (from Oxford), but this is the exception rather than the rule. Usually turnarounds are between 15-35 mins with some longer instances to suit the diagramming arrangements. Paddington is probably one of the more pressing examples of ‘we need more platforms’.

 

[dk1]

Intercity services at Liverpool St were usually around 40mins but in times of disruption they should be out in as little as 8mins.

 

[mangyiscute]

Paddington is probably one of the more pressing examples of ‘we need more platforms’.

Which should've been sorted out by moving basically all of the local services to run into the elizabeth line core, meaning platforms 10-14 can be used by more gwr services - dunno if this has been timetabled in yet but you'd hope it happens soon.
It is a bit awkward getting a train from say platform 11 over to the fast lines however.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Which should've been sorted out by moving basically all of the local services to run into the elizabeth line core, meaning platforms 10-14 can be used by more gwr services - dunno if this has been timetabled in yet but you'd hope it happens soon.
It is a bit awkward getting a train from say platform 11 over to the fast lines however.

That is the problem - the current layout is designed for P10-14 to feed the relief lines. You can get into all platforms from the Up Main at Ladbroke Grove but a departure from 12 or 14 does not have a natural ‘ARS-friendly’ route to the Down Main. You need to go down line 4 and need about 6 mins gap in Up traffic to get across at Portobello Junction, which just isn’t possible much of the time. In the past the solution was to run RL to Acton West (which happened regularly, planned and unplanned) but the Elizabeth line has put paid to that. So in reality, when you also remove platforms 6/7 which are HEX-exclusive platforms, GWR have 9 platforms from which they manage to operate 15 departures in the peak hour, plus arrivals and shunts, with a station throat without any grade separation. It’s quite a feat of planning and more still of operation.