Manchester Airport Platform 2 - Display info

[All platforms]

Visited Manchester Airport quite a few times yesterday whilst ticking off the stations bewtween Piccadilly and the Airport. Topped and tailed by the once a day each way at Ardwick.

I was there 4 separate times when the 2x3 TPE sets visited hourly and despite them all stopping within a metre or so of each other from the buffers on P2a the displays showed 3 different variations on which Platform variant was being used.

They were all originally timetabled to use P2b (i think) for both arrival and departure which in itself is odd given that you couldnt fit that much of a longer train into the whole of the platform. But is arrival on P2a and departure on P2b for this length of train too confusing to be used like that

The first 2 were showing as a platform alteration to P2 which makes sense as to differentiate between a and b is not logical given that it uses most of the whole available platform.

The third one rolled in and out showing as P2a and the fourth as P2b. Given that they were the same size train and stopped at pretty much the same distance from the buffers the logical part of my brain is having a "does not compute" moment.

Can any one shed any light on how/why this can happen - Thanks

 

[Watershed]

Visited Manchester Airport quite a few times yesterday whilst ticking off the stations bewtween Piccadilly and the Airport. Topped and tailed by the once a day each way at Ardwick.

I was there 4 separate times when the 2x3 TPE sets visited hourly and despite them all stopping within a metre or so of each other from the buffers on P2a the displays showed 3 different variations on which Platform variant was being used.

They were all originally timetabled to use P2b (i think) for both arrival and departure which in itself is odd given that you couldnt fit that much of a longer train into the whole of the platform. But is arrival on P2a and departure on P2b for this length of train too confusing to be used like that

The first 2 were showing as a platform alteration to P2 which makes sense as to differentiate between a and b is not logical given that it uses most of the whole available platform.

The third one rolled in and out showing as P2a and the fourth as P2b. Given that they were the same size train and stopped at pretty much the same distance from the buffers the logical part of my brain is having a "does not compute" moment.

Can any one shed any light on how/why this can happen - Thanks

It will be down to the platform that the train was planned to use (which has to be a defined A or B end, it can't be a whole platform), then being overriden by data from the signalling system.

You're correct, the Manchester Airport platforms are approx 200m long, so if you have a double 185 in the platform, there's only about 50m remaining in the platform.

In theory, that would be enough for a class 150/156 (or similar) to go on top, but the signalling system doesn't allow 'double docking' if the train at the buffers is more than 4 coaches long. So if a double 185 is in the platform then nothing else will be going on top.