Yesterday I made a journey with a connection at Norwood Junction. I didn't look at the itinerary in detail until I needed to change. Then I noticed that the schedule allowed just two minutes to change (from a north-bound Thameslink to a Southern service to Epsom). The Thameslink train was 2 minutes late so I missed it. However given the fact Thameslink and Southern trains are usually pretty long (8 or 10 carriages) and Norwood Junction has 6 platforms in use (well 5, really) and this interchange requires using the subway this seems an unrealistically short connection time.
I thought this must have been the National Rail app making a mistake but I checked and the station does indeed have a 2 minute minimum connection time so in theory it was a valid connection. However with train doors typically closing 30 seconds before departure in practice there is 90 seconds and I can't imagine this is going to be enough even with the trains running bang to time most of the time, it's quite a busy station.
I suppose it means I can claim Delay Repay but I imagine this must happen a lot and it seems strange to me to have such a short connection time in comparison with other station. I don't think 2 minutes could be achieved unless it's a connection onto the other face of the same platform (which it wasn't). How are these figures arrived at?
I thought this must have been the National Rail app making a mistake but I checked and the station does indeed have a 2 minute minimum connection time so in theory it was a valid connection. However with train doors typically closing 30 seconds before departure in practice there is 90 seconds and I can't imagine this is going to be enough even with the trains running bang to time most of the time, it's quite a busy station.
I suppose it means I can claim Delay Repay but I imagine this must happen a lot and it seems strange to me to have such a short connection time in comparison with other station. I don't think 2 minutes could be achieved unless it's a connection onto the other face of the same platform (which it wasn't). How are these figures arrived at?