Great Western Coffee Shop

Under "Significant disruption" on Journey Checker ...


Surprising thing to report widely as "Significant disruption", or is there something I don't know?

I do like to see train reporting numbers - as a programmer, it's a valuable unique key rather than having to work out that the 07:04 from Westbury and the 07:20 from Melksham are actually the same thing!

Although not as unique as one might hope (http://www.opentraintimes.com/schedule/search?term=2j15&date=Sunday+17+February+2013)...

When issues are entered, staff are given the option of making the report public via JourneyCheck or just private on TyrellCheck.  I assume this message was intended to be private...!

A few years ago I was lucky enough to be shown around Reading Panel Box and I talked to one of the signalmen about reporting numbers.  At that time the trains from Waterloo were class 1 trains and they had two trains in the space of 20 minutes at the end of the morning rush hour which were both 1C13.  One was from terminating from Waterloo, the other was from Paddington to Weston-super-Mare.

You'll note though that, as far as is humanly possible, trains with the same reporting number are either separated widely geographically or temporally.

For TRUST reporting purposes, each train is actually allocated a ten-character identifier which includes the reporting number with various other bits and pieces of extra information including codes relating to the originating area, originating time, date, type of train... This will identify a train uniquely within a time period of one month.

Train reporting numbers (aka headcodes [slightly wrongly]) aren't completely unique. are only used for timetabling and aren't (really) used on the operating railway in their current form. This is why there can be an overlap between different operators. There shouldn't be an overlap between RSIDs.

As inspector_blakey says, trains are assigned a ten-character number, which is unique over around a 3 month period^{(citation needed, memory iffy)}, so for example the PNZ-PAD sleeper tonight is:
Train reporting number: 1A40
Headcode: 1276
Train ID: 851A40M724

A London Victoria to Brighton service tomorrow has the same TRN... but a different Train ID.

Close, but not quite correct. Firstly, "reporting number" and "headcode" are used interchangeably on the operating railway to refer to the same thing, which is 1A40. In the example above, 1276 is most definitely not the headcode. Actually I have no idea what it is, unless it's derived from the number you see printed on the bottom of a seat reservation tag, in which case it's purely commercial (ticketing, seat reservations etc) and has absolutely no currency in terms of train operations.

For the sake of completeness, the ten-character ID is made up as follows:

Characters 1 and 2
Every railway location in the country used as a timing point (stations, junctions, sidings...) is allocated a five-digit number called, for reasons no-one has been able to explain to me, a Stanox. As a very coarse rule of thumb, Stanox numbers count up as you go down the country geopgraphically, NW-SE, with the lowest at Thurso and the highest at Dollands Moor. Characters 1 and 2 of the ten-character ID are the first two digits of the Stanox of the location at which the train originates.

Characters 3 - 6
Headcode/reporting number.

Character 7
A character denoting the type of train: M is used for passenger trains, with other letters/numbers used for different trains depending on whether they're passenger or freight, working timetable or short-term planned etc/

Character 8
A letter or number that denotes the scheduled starting time of the train. Every letter and number is used over the course of the day, although the way in which they are allocated isn't 100% logical as some refer to 60 min time periods and others to 30 min intervals, starts off counting 0 - 6, then A - Z, then 7 - 9. In the case of 1A40 the 7 refers to an originating time of 2100 - 2159.

Characters 9 and 10
The date on which the train originates (with a leading zero if it's a single digit), so the example above refers to a train originating on 24 Feb.

From this it will therefore be apparent that, assuming the timetable stays the same, a given ten-digit ID will uniquely identify a train within a period of one month, not three. This is overkill however, as the principal use of the ten-character codes is for identifying trains in TRUST, which only holds data for 9 days before it is archived.


I'm not sure what you mean by this but I would argue that that statement is very wrong: I can tell you've never set foot in a signalling centre. The four character headcodes are the basic currency in signal boxes, signalling centres and route controls: you're unlikely to hear ops staff (signallers, controllers, train crews) refer to a train by anything other than its headcode. Although there will in some cases be multiple trains running on the network with a given headcode on one day, great care is taken to separate these geographically and temporally to avoid any possible confusion.

I used to think the first part of 'STANOX' stood for STAtion Number, but you also have the 9-characted STANME codes which are alpha based and not numeric, so the 'N' must stand for something else!

I did ask our TOPS/TRUST guru who knows everything about the system, has years of experience and runs training sessions at head office, but even he didn't know how the Stanox/Stanme nomenclature came about!

STANOX.

Perhaps STA for Station, NO for Number, and the X to denote the plural. Maybe some reason why it was decided STANOS was not acceptable. Could simply be that STANOX sounds more technical.

From the Railway Group Standards website.
Stanox = TOPS Location Code. A five digit number representing a TOPS location.

A list of STANOXES can be found here: http://deaves47.zxq.net/CRS/CRS0.htm and somebody has already asked NR: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/stanme_codes

NR make an updated list of Stanoces*/Stanmes available at https://datafeeds.networkrail.co.uk/ (https://datafeeds.networkrail.co.uk/).

*Yes, that is the plural that seems to be used generally

Yes and no... ;)

That may well be the case in the operating railway, but is not the case within timetabling.

I'm afraid in this instance you are incorrect. The headcode forms part of the RSID, made up from the ATOC operator code, so for the above example, it is GW1276.

Thanks for the info, certainly never knew that before.

There I am certainly wrong, I got myself in a pickle it seems. Original post modified suitably.

Well, if what you've just said is correct then I think this may be an example of different functions within the rail industry using different terminology. An operator will never, never refer to the RSID as a headcode for the very simple reason that is isn't one. A headcode is exactly that: a code that was carried on the front end (head) of a train, originally to indicate to signallers what type of train it was and/or where it was going. Go far enough back and the headcode was indicated by lamps or discs in a particular position on the front of the locomotive. Later on these were replaced with the four-character headcode system which was displayed on the front of trains until the 1970s. At this point the practice was stopped, in large measure because signallers were much more concentrated in "panel" boxes than they used to be and wouldn't see most (or indeed any) of the trains under their control: because they weren't seeing the trains there wasn't much point in showing the headcode on the front, and the headcode blind equipment was a bit of a pain to maintain. Headcodes (1A40 etc) are now displayed instead on a train describer in every signal box that indicates to the signaller the location of the trains under their control at that moment.

I still stand by my assertion that the four digits of the RSID are most definitely not the headcode, at least by a unanimous opinion amongst the staff who actually run the trains and therefore ought to know, and that whoever is telling you that is using the term incorrectly; it's possible this is common practice with timetabling but in fact having spent a fair bit of time with train planners I've never heard them use the RSID in any context at all, and they have certainly never referred to the four digits therein as a headcode. Even if timetabling staff are doing this, it's absolutely not technically correct to do so.

I am telling you definitively that is what a headcode is within timetabling. I'm afraid you are wrong in this instance. If you wish to find out more I'd suggest you talk to ATOC/Network Rail, perhaps Tom Cairns, Peter Higgs or, if you feel brave Rockshore.

An example of the RSID being used is retail with Virgin Trains. (Which probably means retail with thetrainline too - though I cannot back up that assertion).

All of the head codes I have come across and still do are in the 1A23 2B45 etc formate I have never come across head codes without the second digit  being a letter

This site is useful http://headcodes.info/index.php  (http://headcodes.info/index.php)

EBrown, like I said it's possible that some timetabling departments call the RSID a headcode, but in my opinion they do so in error. It is simply not correct to state "definitively" that the digits of the RSID are the headcode because in the real world of the operating railway that's just not true.

However, I only work in operations for one of the biggest rail companies in the UK, all of whose briefing and training materials refer to headcodes exclusively as the 1A23 working timetable number. I obviously can't be expected to know as much on the subject as amateur internet armchair experts.

You cannot accept you are wrong can you? Here are the facts:
Your opinion is wrong
It is definitive. It's in the ATOC/NR data feeds - go get them yourself and check, or check with one of the names/company I've provided.

I'm well aware of who you are and for whom you work. I don't care.
Personal attacks are banned on this forum, need I remind you of that, since you so quickly publicly remind me?

I know I started this thread - but I'm getting rather tired of the back and forth which I hadn't meant to start, and I suspect others may feel a bit uncomfortable too. It's sad to see an argument over semantics and naming bringing people to loggerheads;  I'm locking the thread.

Personally, I think of a "headcode" as the thing that used to be on the front of many trains, and you still see occasionally - it consists of a digit, a letter and 2 digits.   I saw a reference to "2M11" the other day ...

---

and from http://www.atoc.org/clientfiles/File/RSPDocuments/20070801.pdf

"RSID is used by NRS (New Reservation System) ^ it is in the format aa (TOC Id), nnnn (Train number derived from Headcode field), nn (portion number). This field will be populated downstream and will not appear in CIF files from TSDB."

And also

"Headcode, Size 4, Format A"

At about 7pm, we saw activities from a login that resulted in the deletion of large numbers of posts. My apologies to our other 1292 members not involved at the loss of service ... the word "removed" for half of the conversation in various places wasn't clever, making the threads look less useful and rather silly.

Update at 22:26 - posts restored

In order to maintain continuity across the forum (and I hate attempts rewriting history too), I have restored the posts that were amended to their form before an automated script was run against them earlier this evening. You will find that their "updated at" timestamps show the time that the script ran - but that's a much smaller issue than leaving holes!  Sorry about the disruption.