Poor connection timings

[woodenhead]

The station for many years was painted anti youth pink, they have just recently repainted it anti vandal black.

[Edwin_m]

Agree with Beast above - the change from the terminal platforms at Man Picc to 13/14 is a hassle. If you decide to do so, use the footbridge on the southern end of the station which gives direct access to 13/14, rather than going through the forecourt. There are ticket checks at the entrance to 13/14, conducted by a security company, not rail staff, so have the ticket ready - the checks are perfunctory, so anything that looks vaguely like a rail ticket will work, but it is probably better to have the right one.

Just to be clear, for the last six months or so the ticket check has been on the footbridge that links the platforms near their eastern ends, near the entrance to the high level "lounge", and also on the various routes leading from the councourse to the travelator that also leads to this lounge.  This works better than the previous location on the walkways between the lounge and the actual platforms 13 and 14, because there are more checkers and the areas they operate in are a bit less congested. 

 

The stopping trains on the CLC line leave Oxford Road just after the EMT and TPE fasts, so they can get to Liverpool just ahead of the next one.  Although I don't think it's an official connection, it's usually possible to get the slow from either of these trains if you're quick over the bridge, and even if the fast is a few minutes late the slow will probably still follow it.  If it doesn't then the fast ends up being a lot later!

[TheSignalEngineer]

Thanks, Great Central.  I had already thought that iit would be better to stay with Virgin into Piccadilly as there are more trains from there to Oxford Road than there are from Stockport but I'm reassured by what you say about Stockport station.  According to NRE it would be Northern Rail that conveys me forward to ManOx and thence to Urmston. 

 

Chris

 

Edit - Jonathan, you are quite right.  It's only a Routemaster but it will do fine!

 

The Virgin will arrive in one of the middle platforms, 5 iirc and the Occie Road departs from 14 - it's a fair walk when time is tight, up stairs / escalator too, and if the ticket barriers are in full swing at the top of 13/14 you need to add more time so only do this if you miss the Stockport connection.

 

I would use Stockport if on time. Virgin will normally arrive on P3, I don't know your journey details but as it's Northern Trains it will probably be the Hazel Grove - Preston which should be off the same platform. The only other place it can go from is P4.

 

To save the trek from P2 to P5 at Oxford Road, check if your incoming train stops at Deansgate. I think all Urmston trains do and it is a same platform change.

 

Optimum position at Picc for getting from a Virgin train to P14 is to be 6 coaches from the front. This should put you by the steps to the footbridge.

 

There is a bus from Stockport which goes past the show, but it's a bit of a PITA of a trip, and probably no quicker than using two trains and the shuttle bus.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Many years ago when on holiday in St Ives I decided to try to do the remaining GWR Cornish Branches in one day. I bought a local transport guide and asked about fares at the old station. When the Railman there found out I worked for BR he gave me a duplicated sheet which gave a list of connections which happened but weren't in the timetable. It seemed that the local staff took advantage of the slack timings to maximise the possible journeys, to the extent of one station telling me that if a connection was missed in the timetable by up to 5 minutes to phone them in advance and it could be "arranged".

[Bert Cheese]

Portsmouth Harbour!

 

Try getting from Eastleigh to the Isle of Wight....most trains at arrive at PH 15 minutes after the FastCat has gone, leaving you with a 45 minute wait for the next one.

 

There is sod all to do except get a cup of tea or go for a pint in The Ship Anson while you wait...being a Greene King outlet the latter has not much to offer either.

 

Coming back is not much better, though you can buy a half decent beer coat in Ryde to ease the pain

[great central]

 

Who ever designed - and authorised - the timetables, should be made to explain their rationale to the hundreds of commutors that are fighting with the useless access stairs whilst they can hear their connection pulling away. An extra minute or two won't make much difference; over ten minutes are wasted at Horsham due to inadaquate signalling on the Arun valley line split.

 

I would say that the dispatch staff who signal right away in the full knowledge there are people rushing from platform 5 should be made to explain their actions, but the other week one did dispatch an Arun valley service whilst people were rushing from a late running Southern train to Brighton. As the train departed he was left surrounded by a number of very angry people pointing out that an extra 30 seconds wait would not have caused any extra disruption to the notoriously unreliable Arun valley services.

 

As a guard, not on the above services but same considerations exist, those 30 seconds can turn into a couple of minutes. Wait for one person then another appears, then another, and another................................

At a lot of locations I have to self dispatch, same applies to despatchers though. If I'm late away I'll likely get a phone call about lost time somewhere. It all comes up on the controllers screens and they need a reason, delays=money. Also, because a driver has to wait for my signal to start if we're late away he's got try to get that time back, not always that easy with the OTMR and TPWS to worry about as well. My delay can also impact on other services as well causing the delay cost being much higher. 

To give a fairly comprehensive example from about ten years ago when I was a 'trolly dolly'.

I'm waiting at Newport (SW) for my train back to Nottingham. It's held at Newport due to a Cardiff-Manchester service waiting on a connection from London, it runs 5 minutes in front of mine from Cardiff. The london has been delayed by signalling problems in the Reading area. Anyway we leave Newport about ten minutes down, by the time we get to Cheltenham, we've lost our slot on the line to Brum, so following something else we're not as quick as we could be. Then we hit the Birmingham suburbs, following stopping Centro services much of the way into New Street. We arrived in Nottingham nearly 30 minutes late, after a quick turnround at Derby got us a few minutes back.

[The Stationmaster]

just phone your control and say we are late cos we are late?

 

don't ever tell em to much in the first instance

Alas it doesn't work much like that nowadays Mickey as the industry of 'delay attrribution' has been a growth area since privatisation.  Not so much the old job of sorting what went wrong and why then trying to get it right for the future but a new one of working who out who caused what and sending them a bill (minutes = money, back in the 1990s the concern I worked for was on £100 per minute lost or gained out of booked path).

[big jim]

i got a please explain for 5 late into grayrigg a couple of weeks ago which caused umpteen delays to following services, on it again on monday i had the same delay between the 2 timing points, i rang control to say i reconed there was a problem in the timings as i was going line speed all the way and didnt hang about into the loop, seemed strange that the same train had the same delay on 2 days

 

next thing while sat in the loop the GSM-R went off and carlisle box rang me asking if "i'd had a problem as i'd lost 5 mins" after a bit of a chat with him he concluded that there may indeed be a problem with the timings and he would get NR to look at them

[Peter Kazmierczak]

The needs of passengers/customers/travellers/clients/users/stakeholders (or whatever they're called nowadays), seems to have been lost in all this.....

[The Stationmaster]

i got a please explain for 5 late into grayrigg a couple of weeks ago which caused umpteen delays to following services, on it again on monday i had the same delay between the 2 timing points, i rang control to say i reconed there was a problem in the timings as i was going line speed all the way and didnt hang about into the loop, seemed strange that the same train had the same delay on 2 days

 

next thing while sat in the loop the GSM-R went off and carlisle box rang me asking if "i'd had a problem as i'd lost 5 mins" after a bit of a chat with him he concluded that there may indeed be a problem with the timings and he would get NR to look at them

It's as much down to your employer as it might be down to NR Jim - the timings will be entered by your employer and accepted by NR when the path is accepted and agreed.  And the timings used should be those that were originally issued by NR or agreed with them.  If you are consistently losing time the likely causes are either a dodgy loco (sounds unlikely from what you say), or an overloaded train (i.e. to many tonnes trailing load for the timing speed - which should be very easy to check), or someone has been working a timing fiddle to path your train where no path existed if the correct timings/load had been used.

 

All in all it should be very easy to bottom the cause once you've confirmed that you were running at linespeed.

[big jim]

Personally i can think of a few reasons why the log train loses time between the 2 points, the primary one being speeds into and out of the loops involved, 15mph out of one and 10 into the other which with a 1300ft train can take a while.

 

colas' policy is 10mph over the magnet before the signal which i think should (and could safely be) raised to 15mph, the signal at grayrigg is the one i think causes the problem as you have to pass over it the magnet at 10mph and the signal is approach release (which of course dont exist!) with the release point about 30m beyond the magnet so you go 10 over it then, as the signal is on a rising gradient you have to power up towards the signal to pass over the block joint to release the signal or you will come to a stop, kind of contradicts the "defensive driving policy" but it has to be done even if you pass over the magnet at 10mph with no brake in as the speed is lost very quickly

 

Then to add to the delays the loop is 10mph in and along, the run between the signal release and loop as about 500m or so so you are crawling along there at 10mph or you have to open it up, getting to about 20 before having to brake to get into the loop!

 

I like to think im on the ball when it comes to working out where delays are incured and have indeed suggested to NR and our lot where the delay may be coming from before they actually called me about it, i think the other thing is im actually interested in the workings of the job, Not just "no knowledge" when asked to explain!

[mike morley]

In the days of Southern Region/NSE there used to be a notorious evening rush-hour "connection" at Woking where my train to Aldershot was timed to depart at exactly the same time as the train I'd got on at Clapham arrived on the adjacent line.

 

If you tried it the legitimate way - onto the platform, over the footbridge and down to the other platform - you had no chance.  Your only hope was that both trains were slam-door stock (this was the era when they were first starting to be phased out) and that they pulled up with doors opposite each other.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing the first time I watched a dozen or so people exit the train on the wrong side.  By the end of the week I was joining them.

 

My next door neighbour at the time worked in a station ticket office somewhere on Southern Region (Can't remember where) and when I asked him who devised the timetables and decided what constituted an acceptable connection he grinned broadly and told me what connection it was had prompted the question.  I gathered that particular connection was legendary.

[big jim]

The needs of passengers/customers/travellers/clients/users/stakeholders (or whatever they're called nowadays), seems to have been lost in all this.....

this is how it should be done......

 

from the chiltern railways timetable

 

At certain times a shuttle train runs between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury. It will normally wait for late running trains from London and High Wycombe, unless this will cause knock-on delays to other trains on the single line between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury. If we are unable to hold the shuttle, please go to the ticket office, where we will arrange alternative transport. If the office is closed, passenger help points are on platforms 2 and 3.

[RJS1977]

I've always been quite impressed with the way FGW/ATW deal with delays to main line trains at Swansea and potential missed connections.

 

As a rule ATW will normally hold a Pembroke Dock train for up to 10 minutes at Swansea - beyond that it starts messing up passing a return service at Tenby. That said it can be a bit disconcerting to pass the service you've just missed at Llandore because they couldn't hold it at Swansea any longer!

 

But they're usually pretty on the ball in terms of getting passengers for stations to Carmarthen on to the next train and arranging taxis from Carmarthen for anyone traveling further (as the road is more direct than the railway at least some of the lost time gets made up depending on how many intermediate stations are needed).

 

On the odd occasion it's happened to me the taxi driver's even been known to make an unscheduled stop outside Pentlepoir Post Office to save me having to walk up from Saundersfoot station (if I'm the only passenger for Saundersfoot and he's got others for Tenby, it saves everyone time by him doing that, even though it's not strictly allowed!).

[RJS1977]

In the days of Southern Region/NSE there used to be a notorious evening rush-hour "connection" at Woking where my train to Aldershot was timed to depart at exactly the same time as the train I'd got on at Clapham arrived on the adjacent line.

 

If you tried it the legitimate way - onto the platform, over the footbridge and down to the other platform - you had no chance.  Your only hope was that both trains were slam-door stock (this was the era when they were first starting to be phased out) and that they pulled up with doors opposite each other.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing the first time I watched a dozen or so people exit the train on the wrong side.  By the end of the week I was joining them.

 

My next door neighbour at the time worked in a station ticket office somewhere on Southern Region (Can't remember where) and when I asked him who devised the timetables and decided what constituted an acceptable connection he grinned broadly and told me what connection it was had prompted the question.  I gathered that particular connection was legendary.

I remember seeing this on a film once (think it was Hancock's "The Rebel") - didn't know it happened in real life though!

[NXEA!]

In the days of Southern Region/NSE there used to be a notorious evening rush-hour "connection" at Woking where my train to Aldershot was timed to depart at exactly the same time as the train I'd got on at Clapham arrived on the adjacent line.

 

If you tried it the legitimate way - onto the platform, over the footbridge and down to the other platform - you had no chance.  Your only hope was that both trains were slam-door stock (this was the era when they were first starting to be phased out) and that they pulled up with doors opposite each other.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing the first time I watched a dozen or so people exit the train on the wrong side.  By the end of the week I was joining them.

 

My next door neighbour at the time worked in a station ticket office somewhere on Southern Region (Can't remember where) and when I asked him who devised the timetables and decided what constituted an acceptable connection he grinned broadly and told me what connection it was had prompted the question.  I gathered that particular connection was legendary.

This gave me a laugh! Thanks for sharing that one.  

 

A connection close to me is the Sudbury line connections onto the GEML services at Marks Tey. There is a 4 minute connection from the incoming Sudbury to the departing Liverpool Street, generally very slick even if it is over a footbridge, and they're very good at holding connections for trains from London, up to 20 minutes delay! The problem is on a Saturday, when the branch is 153 operated. The 153's are bloody sh*te at moving compared to a 156, so much so that they've lost two minutes by the time they roll into Marks Tey at xx.47. There's generally a little slack in the GEML timetable, so on a lot of occasions you get off the 153 at xx.47, and as soon as you're at the top of the footbridge a pair of 360's merrily rolls in generally just before the clock turns xx.48, resulting in a mad rush of 70 or so passengers, elderly and kids too trying their best to nip over the footbridge, and by the time everybody's over and on the London train, it's generally left a minute or 2 down which then has to be recouped somewhere along the way. The solution to this? Use a bloody 156 on Saturday's. They have used a 156 on a Saturday before, so it can be done!