Trains skipping stations when they are less than 5 minutes late

[43066]

I was on a late running train recently that was announced would be missing out a couple of stops. One of the stops was required by a wheelchair user who had arranged for assistance to meet her there. However she now had to detrain at what was all intents and purposes a foreign station to her. She needed a ramp to enable her to get off the train, so staff were required to help. We sat there for 20 minutes before anyone turned up. Staff apologising because they had to explain to the large numbers of people detraining the reason and telling them their next available service. The train eventually departed 28 minutes after the initial message it was missing stops. Had the train carried on and called as booked, the resulatant delay would have been far less than the decision to run it fast.

Unfortunately that’s what can happen. The other solution - which may be quicker - is to overcarry the wheelchair user to the next stopping point so that they can then double back. Only a tiny % of trains have wheelchair users on board, and skipping stops saves time and reduces overall delay far more than these problems occur.

Similarly if a lift breaks down it may be necessary to take the person to the next stop along the line where a lift does work, and then they can double back.

I'm not sure what you're asking for. For every time someone refers to people with disabilities to add a qualification that it doesn't apply to everyone with a disability? I think we can all work that out. It would lead to some very convoluted sentances otherwise.

You appear to be referring to a very small subset of disabled people, those who are unable to travel independently.

Thst wasn't the point I was making. I was talking about where a disabled passenger does know that their own station and, where relevant, the trains used is accessible, and so is contrnt to operate independently.

Whatvare you suggesting? That somone who do not consider they require assistance should nevertheless book it, five days a week all year for getting to and from work, just in case a train skips a stop? That is a very poor use of resources and would take staff away from those who really need help.

If someone isn’t able to cope with disruption (whether it’s stop skipping, a fatality, a train breakdown etc.) they should consider carefully whether they are actually able to travel independently. If they are not, they should travel when accompanied, or book assistance. Surely that is obvious?

What are you suggesting? That there should be no attempt at service recovery just on the off chance someone who is severely impaired enough not to be able to adapt to a change of stopping patterns, yet is also travelling unannounced and unaccompanied, might be travelling?

I would hope all concerned, passengers and staff, would regard it as just what you do as a member of society, to help ensure the disabled person was supported appropriately to get home.

“I would hope” isn’t going to help much if it’s a DOO train at an unmanned non accessible station.

Why do you insist on defending the indefensible with the railway every single time?

I’m not, but you’re not actually addressing the points I’m making, and just moaning for the sake of it. Ironically de-staffing makes things considerably worse for many of those who rely on assistance, yet you and others advocate for it, so please don’t pretend you’re remotely concerned about the plight of those unable to travel independently!

Too often the railway fails with even very basic customer service. Too often it’s the “Carol Beer” experience. Yet you think it’s acceptable. Why?

Perhaps in your view, but in my experience the opinions of “enthusiasts” who lack perspective and enjoy moaning for the sake of it aren’t representative. If you don’t like the railway - and judging by your endless complaining about it, you really don’t - other methods of transport are available.

I think most people would regard trains calling at all stations they are advertised as doing to be a very minimum service expectation.

And the vast majority of trains do but sometimes in the real world things go wrong and it’s necessary to recover the service.

Spmetimes it works. Only yesterday a morning Hounslow roundabout service picked up a 22 minute delay at Barnes station for some reason, where I was diverted past it, it made all the stops around the loop, with the following service hard behind, but then ran nonstop back to Waterloo, picking up the entire delay. keeping the next diagram intact, having effectively lost the inward service anyway, and with another right behind, that makes sense. Nonstop at Clapham Jc on the Windsor lines must be something of a novelty.

Sometimes it really can be the best solution.

 

[Bikeman78]

There’s two reasons that I can see from having used that service regularly. First, the door cycle time on the Desiros is incredibly slow, which extends dwell times significantly. Second is inconsistent (but deteriorating) train crew performance: some guards are slow to release doors and drivers from the James May/milkfloat school of driving. There is considerable variation, even on the same day/same conditions.

Even with the extra three minutes added to the timetable between Reading and Staines since WorstGroup took over - a habit brought over from FGW that doesn’t address the core issue and just encourages ever more sloppy operating - trains still routinely arrive at Staines late.

The point to point timings were all reviewed for the rewrite in 2004. I recall the slam door units often had to wait time. It seems bizarre that they would put even more slack in. Liverpool Street to Shenfield and Liverpool Street to Hertford East both have pretty tight schedules and yet, in my experience at least, they usually run within two minutes of schedule and skip stopping is rare.

 

[Urban Gateline]

There’s two reasons that I can see from having used that service regularly. First, the door cycle time on the Desiros is incredibly slow, which extends dwell times significantly. Second is inconsistent (but deteriorating) train crew performance: some guards are slow to release doors and drivers from the James May/milkfloat school of driving. There is considerable variation, even on the same day/same conditions.

Even with the extra three minutes added to the timetable between Reading and Staines since WorstGroup took over - a habit brought over from FGW that doesn’t address the core issue and just encourages ever more sloppy operating - trains still routinely arrive at Staines late.

Much of the time it is due to the level crossings as mentioned before, I work that line as a Guard and the approach to Wokingham is always painfully slow, not only is the line speed through the station slow but much of the time the train is approaching a red signal which doesn't clear until more or less the train stops, so you lose time easily with defensive drivers. Some of it just has much too tight timings like between Winnersh Triangle and Winnersh, giving just 2mins between those and 3mins between Virginia Water and Egham, so it's nearly impossible to get a right time departure on the UP at Egham unless all the signals are cleared with no restrictive aspects (which is rarely the case with all the level crossings!)

I've not seen a Reading service amended when less than 10mins late to be honest but it can be due to a host of things as crew changes take place at Staines, if a crew member is late on their break and only minimum break time in their schedule then their next train goes out late, it also impacts other trains on the Windsor lines too when they are held for these late running trains to pass (such as at Barnes and Virginia Water) so much of the amendments are done to minimise the knock on effect of the initial delay.

 

[davews]

Nonstop at Clapham Jc on the Windsor lines must be something of a novelty.

It happens! Once when there were delays and they were doing skipping stations on the spur of the moment I had to change at Staines, Richmond and then Barnes before I found one which still stopped at CJ! At least I got a full one hour delay repay for my journey to Banstead.

 

[43096]

It happens! Once when there were delays and they were doing skipping stations on the spur of the moment I had to change at Staines, Richmond and then Barnes before I found one which still stopped at CJ! At least I got a full one hour delay repay for my journey to Banstead.

There's been several times in a morning when an up Reading has run fast Staines to Waterloo as a result of delays amassed between Reading and Staines. It's great if you want Waterloo, as half the punters leave the train at Staines as they want Feltham/Richmond/Clapham. That said they have been known to run Reading-Staines-Waterloo which is pretty pointless; might just as well run it ECS.

 

[Bikeman78]

There's been several times in a morning when an up Reading has run fast Staines to Waterloo as a result of delays amassed between Reading and Staines. It's great if you want Waterloo, as half the punters leave the train at Staines as they want Feltham/Richmond/Clapham. That said they have been known to run Reading-Staines-Waterloo which is pretty pointless; might just as well run it ECS.

If it is 10 or more late then it will be behind the train from Windsor so the next train for intermediate stations will be the next train from Reading.

 

[norbitonflyer]

They only care about getting people from each station to Waterloo.

Sometimes it appears they only care about getting the train and crew to the terminus

I was on a late running train recently that was announced would be missing out a couple of stops. One of the stops was required by a wheelchair user who had arranged for assistance to meet her there. However she now had to detrain at what was all intents and purposes a foreign station to her. She needed a ramp to enable her to get off the train, so staff were required to help. We sat there for 20 minutes before anyone turned up. Staff apologising because they had to explain to the large numbers of people detraining the reason and telling them their next available service. The train eventually departed 28 minutes after the initial message it was missing stops. Had the train carried on and called as booked, the resulatant delay would have been far less than the decision to run it fast.

The skip stopping was presumably an ad hoc decision. Once it was realised the decision would resukt in an even graeter delay it shoudl have been rescidned, and (at least) the stop the wheelchair user was to use reinstated.
I have seen a similar situation, where transgerring a wheelchair user at Waterloo from a train that had just had a skip stop order to a following one (already ready to start on an adjacent platform) took over ten minutes (finding staff, find and deploying two different types of ramp, etc) ended up delaying both trains by far more than simply reinstating the wheelchair user's stop.
Staff on the ground must be allowed to report such issues back to Control, rather than treat them as dictators who must be obeyed without question.

 

[infobleep]

No sure as I don't travel from Reading often enough. But it's quite common to be delayed from Weybridge at Virginia Water waiting for the Reading to pass. It's not usually more than a minute or 2 but they're timetabled 5 minutes apart so given the long layover at Reading you wouldn't really expect it to happen that often. The up Weybridge will then often delay the up Windsor at Staines by a couple of minutes.

It is heavily wooded next to the line in a lot of places so leaf fall season will be an issue despite some recent efforts at cutting back. Looking at Recent Train Times the last month looks to have been pretty good but Wokingham & Sunningdale seem to feature disproportionately as places where delays occur which suggests the level crossing at those stations may be an issue.

Do they have a leaf fall timetable or account for it all year round?

And this service is one that regularly skips stops. Generally those between Surbiton and Waterloo, but still.. the amount of times I've been left stranded for over an hour at Surbiton just trying to get to Wimbledon thanks to swr skip stopping every single train is unacceptable. They only care about getting people from each station to Waterloo.

Everything else exists because it's convenient to stop each train at multiple points otherwise it wouldn't

I've never been stuck at Surbiton for an hour. Under such circumstances, I would expect them to allow you to travel via London Waterloo but if they keep running trains fast as the hour progresses, rather than deciding to do this from the very start, you nay not be allowed to do this or even think, you will be able to get to your destination on the next train, before that one is skip-stopped.

I am reminded of South West Trains saying they were going to implement disruption practices, so that the same people were not disrupted every time. I wasn't sure how this would work in practice. Needless to say, during disruption they continued to skip all stations between Surbiton and London Waterloo. Maybe that is the best solution but if so, why the statement about not disrupting the same people?

 

[swr444]

No sure as I don't travel from Reading often enough. But it's quite common to be delayed from Weybridge at Virginia Water waiting for the Reading to pass. It's not usually more than a minute or 2 but they're timetabled 5 minutes apart so given the long layover at Reading you wouldn't really expect it to happen that often. The up Weybridge will then often delay the up Windsor at Staines by a couple of minutes.

It is heavily wooded next to the line in a lot of places so leaf fall season will be an issue despite some recent efforts at cutting back. Looking at Recent Train Times the last month looks to have been pretty good but Wokingham & Sunningdale seem to feature disproportionately as places where delays occur which suggests the level crossing at those stations may be an issue.

trains are tightly scheduled between winnersh and wokingham (drivers have to come into wokingham at 15mph due to the approach controlled signal protecting the level crossing and junction, which doesn't seem necessary being approach controlled as it's 30mph through the station anyway). the same between ascot and sunningdale, you get 3 1/2 min to get there, open get pax on and off and close the doors. it is not enough time for a station that has a high footfall. Not to mention the amount of times i've been held at a red outside Ascot on the up because the signaller has been in sleepy mode.

Much of the time it is due to the level crossings as mentioned before, I work that line as a Guard and the approach to Wokingham is always painfully slow, not only is the line speed through the station slow but much of the time the train is approaching a red signal which doesn't clear until more or less the train stops, so you lose time easily with defensive drivers. Some of it just has much too tight timings like between Winnersh Triangle and Winnersh, giving just 2mins between those and 3mins between Virginia Water and Egham, so it's nearly impossible to get a right time departure on the UP at Egham unless all the signals are cleared with no restrictive aspects (which is rarely the case with all the level crossings!)

I've not seen a Reading service amended when less than 10mins late to be honest but it can be due to a host of things as crew changes take place at Staines, if a crew member is late on their break and only minimum break time in their schedule then their next train goes out late, it also impacts other trains on the Windsor lines too when they are held for these late running trains to pass (such as at Barnes and Virginia Water) so much of the amendments are done to minimise the knock on effect of the initial delay.

VIR to EGH is actually 4mins but the paper timetable only shows the arrival time and not the departure, if you go on RTT you can see that on the GBTT it has the departure as 54/04. But yes, it's still not enough time if the crossings aren't down and the platform can be very busy at Egham.

 

[Siemens Staines]

Do they have a leaf fall timetable or account for it all year round?

There used to be a leaf fall timetable on the Readings, but SWR switched to permanently using the leaf fall timetable in February 2023. I believe this was to allow more time for the Desiro door times. On the non leaf fall timetable, a down service would arrive at Reading a few minutes before the previous up turn departed, but the delays on 450 operated services led to conflicts on the alternate half hours when a late arriving down train had to cross a departing up train at Reading. On the leaf fall timetable, that is currently permanent, the up train always departs first. When the vast majority of Reading trains were 458 operated, this problem did not arise to the same extent. Now 450s are once again in the minority due to being used to replace 458/5s on routes that cannot be operated by 455s, it may revert back, or it may be banked as a permanent alteration.

 

[davews]

An example from this morning, from Journey Check:
09:09 Reading to London Waterloo due 10:37 will no longer call at Earley, Winnersh Triangle, Winnersh, Martins Heron and Longcross.
It will be starting late from Reading and is expected to be 5 minutes late.
This is due to waiting for a member of traincrew.

This is a very popular train from Martins Heron, I don't think those waiting on the platform would be amused having to wait another half hour. In the event it left Reading 9 minutes late but had totally made up time when it had got to Ascot so no need to skip Longcross or maybe even Martins Heron.

 

[pompeyfan]

An example from this morning, from Journey Check:
09:09 Reading to London Waterloo due 10:37 will no longer call at Earley, Winnersh Triangle, Winnersh, Martins Heron and Longcross.
It will be starting late from Reading and is expected to be 5 minutes late.
This is due to waiting for a member of traincrew.

This is a very popular train from Martins Heron, I don't think those waiting on the platform would be amused having to wait another half hour. In the event it left Reading 9 minutes late but had totally made up time when it had got to Ascot so no need to skip Longcross or maybe even Martins Heron.

SWR are advertising for Train Services Managers currently (at Basingstoke) if you could do a better job?

 

[Bikeman78]

SWR are advertising for Train Services Managers currently (at Basingstoke) if you could do a better job?

What a bizarre response. Is it really unreasonable to expect a half hourly service to run as booked when it is only nine minutes late? I've been on plenty of trains way more than nine minutes late.

Curiously the 0913 arrival stepped up to form the 0909 departure with the 0843 arrival forming the 0939. I would expect all Reading trains to be the same crew in and out so perhaps there was a fault with the 450s which was subsequently rectified.

 

[MasterPhillips]

If a service isn’t resilient enough to deal with a 9 minute delay then clearly the timetable/diagrams need to be changed to better deal with this. 9 minutes is hardly an abnormal amount of delay.

 

[Falcon1200]

9 minutes is hardly an abnormal amount of delay.

But such a delay can have massive repercussions in areas where trains run 2 minutes apart, and/or there are single line sections at some point in the journey. If nothing is done to recover the service delays can escalate to a point where part or full cancellations, rather than skipping stations, become the only way to restore the timetable to anything like normality.

 

[MasterPhillips]

But such a delay can have massive repercussions in areas where trains run 2 minutes apart, and/or there are single line sections at some point in the journey. If nothing is done to recover the service delays can escalate to a point where part or full cancellations, rather than skipping stations, become the only way to restore the timetable to anything like normality.

True, however on a journey that is 1 hour 20 minutes end to end and runs every half an hour, a 9 minute delay should be able to be accommodated. Try justifying skip-stopping when 9 minutes late to a customer.

 

[LBMPSB]

True, however on a journey that is 1 hour 20 minutes end to end and runs every half an hour, a 9 minute delay should be able to be accommodated. Try justifying skip-stopping when 9 minutes late to a customer.

For a nine minute delay, then delaying that passenger for 30 minutes if the next half hourly services is on time. I have had it where I have had to detrain because a train is going to miss my stop. The next train behind is 15 mins late and they run that one fast too, decanting those who want intermediate stops. Now on a crowded platform of people being delayed because of service recovery, I was eventually get to my destination 1 hour 20 mins later than what I should have been when I board the first train which was right time. So basically the TOCs are ignoring those passengers that are already travelling and delayed, just so that those passengers that might travel later get a right time departure train. No thought about those they delay further.

 

[Falcon1200]

a 9 minute delay should be able to be accommodated.

That would require every train in that service to have (at least) a 15 minute turnround at each end, and even that would not guarantee an on-time return journey as the 9 minute late service is very likely to lose more time, having lost its path.

For a nine minute delay, then delaying that passenger for 30 minutes if the next half hourly services is on time.

Actually of course a 21 minute delay, and that also assumes, as above, that the 9 minute late train continues to run with that delay, rather than losing more time en route - As it almost certainly will if nothing is done to restore the service as quickly as possible, to benefit the majority of passengers.