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A frustrating journey home last night ... I'll let my email to First fill you in ...


There were a number of long distance traveller for Yeovil who were going to have quite a problem - this was a connection into last train of the day.   And it also meant that my bus connection at Trowbridge was missed;   I'm lucky enough to have a number of other (though much less good) ways of getting home like phoning someone up and asking for a pickup from B-o-A, or getting the 23:08 bus off Bath.

Note to posters - if this gets interesting and produces something significant in answer or comment, I may move the thread into a more public area.  If it fades as just a rant, I'll leave it in Frequent Posters as I do appreciate what a hard job the railways have.

Topic was originally started in "frequent posters" - our (only extra) board for registered and well established members.  However - as noted above - it has developed into a really interesting discussion that's worthy of a wider audience, so it's been moved ...

I suspect you'll get fobbed off with something along the lines of "we lock the doors 30 seconds before departure" therefore 15 seconds early is irrelevant as long as doors weren't locked until public departure time minus 30 seconds.

shows what a great integrated rail network with the we don't care you were with xc attitude.

Let's wait and see what response I get rather than pre-judging;   I really don't / didn't want to turn this into a "bash the train co" thread - and not until there's been a good chance for positive explanations to be given.


What I found really good - on both Manchester to Birmingham and Birmingham to Bristol legs - was announcements not only along the lines of "changed for xxx" but also "you'll find that train on platform yy and its final destination is zzz"  And that help did go beyond Arriva-operated services too ...

I didn't intend to bash them, its a well known procedure that doors lock 30 seconds before scheduled departure, therefore to me if scheduled departure is 11:00, I treat that as latest boarding as 10:59:30.

Actually just looked on FGW website and its well published on there as 40 seconds.


I understanding holding a departure even a few seconds can cause a train to miss a slot where its tight. Of course the operator causing you to miss a last connection still have responsibilities to get you to the destination.

I have noticed that on FGW services in recent weeks.  Particularly on the approach to Bristol Temple Meads and Exeter St David's.  I noticed one TM reading them off the National Rail Train Times App!

Yeah ... I know.  Perhaps it was dispatched early to avoid the danger of people who wanted to travel fisting the doors in an attempt to get on board before it left, and to avoid a health and safety problem / risk of someone getting seriously injured as they rush up to the train just as it pulls out.  So - is the 40 seconds more generous than needed, or was the dispatch started 60 seconds before timetabled departure?


I don't think it does in this case.  Nothing else reading up towards Bath at that time of night, and the train sat for 2 minutes in Westbury, before leaving there a whole minute ahead of the working timetable.  I'll bet the train operators love all this stuff being online for the public to read  ;) , and with the benefit of time to consider and hindsight too!

I think that policy is morally wrong. The depature time in the public timetable should be the moment the doors are locked, not a nanosecond before. The working timetable is timed to half-mintute intervals, so the solution in my opinion should be putting published depature time 30 secs before the actual departure time given in the working timetable. That way, the railway works with a timetable which has the doors locked 30 seconds before departure but the general public don't see that, they see the time the doors are actually locked.

Realtimetrains shows it departing at 2048 3/4, though that may mean that it actually pulled off even earlier, depending on where the point is that triggers the message that it's pulled off.

Isn't the situation for the last train of the evening supposed to be different, with more flexibility given as to holding the connection?

So presumably XC would have picked up the bill to get any passengers to the Weymouth branch to their destination, whereas the actual fault lay with FGW. Wonder whether the system for accounting for this sort of thing is sophisticated enough so that it eventually gets charged back to FGW.

This type of nonsense does give the railway a bad name though. It smacks of "stuff the passenger" - how would old or otherwise vulnerable people respond in such a situation. Or a 16 year old making a journey of that length for their own for the first time. You can see that one such experience would put people off a second journey for a very long time.

Presumably the Yeovil and Weymouth line passengers would have been asked to catch the 21:31 Portsmouth Harbour train to Westbury and then FGW to have arranged a taxi from there, with XC picking up the bill as the XC train arrived in less than the 7(?) 10 minutes minimum connection time at Temple Meads.

This situation has happened to Mrs ST several times at Cheltenham when she has arrived there on a late running XC train from the north and the last Swindon train has departed - FGW quite efficient at arranging Taxis etc to give them their full due.

The question that occurred to me reading Grahame's post is what if you have a 'Plus Bus' ticket and you arrive at a station after the last Bus has gone because the train was late? Do you have any redress then?

ST 

Edit - minimum connection time changed from initial 7 mins guess to actual 10 mins as stated in the National Timetable.     

They are definitely going to refer to the 40secs before departure rule for clising doors, meaning you needed to be at train-side by 20:46 and 20secs minimum to board a 2047 departure.

However, it still shouldn't depart until time, so 20:47:00 earliest, even if doors shut 'n locked & the RA given to the driver.

Doesn't sound as though you were there early enough to have been able to board?

With ref to delay attribution, you can guarantee that XC staff will have put their train's delay down to FGW! No doubt....

20:47:1? was the door opening time on the XC train at the long platform. (train due 20:39)

Add two minutes to each of your other times as 20:49 was the schedule, not 20:47.  Had the scheduled departure been 20:47, I would merely be sadly lamenting the lack of holding last train of the day, and not considering it to be a more serious problem of an early departure.  And indeed I probably wouldn't even have tried to make the connection, knowing it to be - as it would have been - less than minimum time.


National and online timetable enquires offer the change from the 20:39 arrival from Birmingham and beyond onto the 20:49 departure to Weymouth on journey planners, etc - it's very much an official connection and that's probably why there were a lot of people trying to make it.

Sorry, I didn't explain my point properly. In my and my wife's experience the minimum connection time works both ways. Yours was an official connection as it obeys the 10 minute rule. However, the actual arrival of the XC train was less than the 10 mins so "officially" as well as in its actuality due to its early departure, you did not make the connection and were entitled to the various recompenses.

A little while ago, my wife was accompanying a wheelchair user on an XC Cardiff to Birmingham train. The scheduled arrival at Gloucester was 20:58 with a connecting departure for Stroud at 21:21. The connection time at Gloucester is 7 mins. The XC train was 18 mins late and arrived 5 mins before departure of the Stroud train. The able bodied passengers easily made the connection, but it took 12 mins to unload the wheelchair user and cross from platform 4 to platform 1 via a not very cooperative lift, by which time the Stroud train had departed, although it was requested to be held.

Because the train had arrived less than 7 mins for the connection, FGW then provided a wheelchair accessible taxi immediately to take them straight home on that basis, as to complicate matters, there were engineering works with buses replacing all of the later trains.

ST

The 40 second rule does seem a bit excessive based on the typical dwell time at smaller stations being 30 seconds! I wonder if 40 seconds is actually what dispatch staff follow or just what they tell passengers to give a slight margin.

At Cardiff Central valley platforms they often seem to start the process about 20 seconds before departure time, which seems to work well to allow a bang-on departure.  (It's probably more like 30-40 for HSTs.) At unstaffed stations it might be a bit less, allowing a 30 second dwell to work, as there's no reaction time between dispatcher and guard, and the platform is less busy so fewer hazards to notice.

In the original example, would it have been possible to lock the doors but allow last-minute connecting passengers in through the guard's door. That way the final dispatch time would have been reduced without as much disadvantage to connecting passengers. Assuming in this specific situation they were anticipating the connection.

Before reading this thread I had considered the practise of locking the doors 40 seconds before departure time to be 'just one of those (rather irritating) things'. Now I realise it is ludicrous.

Public transport running late can be forgiven - many factors can cause delay, and even those that are within the control of the operators often have a reasonable explanation. Running early is unforgivable under anything but exceptional circumstances, because it can only be caused by deliberately leaving ahead of the published time. Once the doors are locked, the train has to all intents and purposes departed - no-one arriving in those 40 seconds will be allowed to board. It strikes me that this is an example of the rail industry failing to see things from the passengers' perspective - isn't the answer to this simple? Is it not just a matter of publishing the 'doors locked' time in the timetable, instead of the 'wheels turning' time?

Speaking from personal experience, I can vouch for the fact that 40 seconds seems like a very long time when you are standing on a platform, having arrived in time (according to the timetable and the station clock) to catch your train, only to be told that the doors are locked and you can't get on.

Virgin Trains operate a "boarding gates are closed two minutes before departure" policy at London Euston.  This isn't advertised very well in advance of arriving at the station, IMO.

I've travelled over 1165 miles in the last three days.  Nearly every train departed at least one station before the advertised time.  On one Scotrail service, I could still see people running up the stairs as we pulled away thirty seconds before the advertised time.

I don't understand why the timetable can't show the doors/boarding gate locked time.  It would simplify things, rather than having different policies around the national network.

You've used very different wording to me, but the bit in bold in particular sound like what I was saying above.

It's somewhat off topic, but this whole business of "what time is in the timetable?" is an interesting one.  I agree with the view that it should be the final boarding time, as whether it then takes 5, 20, 30, 40 or 120 seconds to prepare the train for the wheels to actually start rolling is an internal rail operation thing of no consequence to the travelling passenger.   This isn't a unique thing to the rail industry - take a large ferry or a plane and you'll be told the time it leaves, but you'll need to arrive at the boarding / control point rather earlier.

There is, I suppose, a counterargument that says that stating actual leaving time gives the traveller a very visible indicator of whether he's on time, whereas a gate / door closing time isn't obvious to the traveller already on board, and there would be lots of people thinking that the service is running late.

Just a reminder - my grouch on Friday was about arriving on the platform before the public timetabled departure time, and yet just seeing the tail lights of the train already disappearing off the end of the platform.  And in answer to an earlier poster - Yes, I believe it did strand a number of vulnerable young travellers.

I think that is a second or third order problem, compared with being forbidden to board a train which you reasonably believe you have arrived in time to catch - especially true if your ticket is only valid on that train!

Sorry for not acknowledging that you'd already made the same point, Rhydgaled.

I think the public TT should show the doors closed time, while the working TT can have the departure time - and tie the punctuality stats to the latter.

I agree. At the very least this should be the case for "last train" departures.

I think it's worth separating the issues surrounding the early departure from the fact that a number of passengers missed connections on a low frequency train service, and last of the day for some destinations.

It is true that some fleet-of-foot passengers may have made the connection had it not left a few seconds early, but the reality is that for most passengers two minutes is not enough time to make a safe connection between platforms at Bristol. Indeed, some less able-bodied passengers may require the full ten minutes recommended connection time just to get between the two trains. So, should the connection have been held until all passengers had boarded?

I have heard it said by certain members of rail staff that FGW do not generally hold connections (one even said "there's no such thing as a connection"), and this may be true as a default position. But my experience as a regular passenger is that connections are frequently held, sometimes for substantial durations in the case of a last train of the day, and regardless of the operator of the late running train. It requires the identification of customer needs, and communication between staff on the late-running train, a control centre, and the platform staff at the connecting station. Connections cannot always be arranged for genuine operational reasons, and I accept this, but it can often be done and I have been a beneficiary on many occasions over the years (particularly at Westbury, Bath and Bristol TM).

Unfortunately the requisite communication sometimes fails, usually when the customer service staff on the late running train do not seek to establish whether some of their passengers have connections at risk (some staff do, some don't). Other points of failure include the on-train staff being unable to make contact with the control centre because of phone signal issues or being busy with other duties, or the message not getting through to the relevant platform staff in sufficient time to hold the train.

Because of this lack of consistency, I now make a point of going to find the train manager/guard/conductor if I have an important connection at risk, and ask if a request can be made to hold the connection. They are usually pleased to try and help where they can. It would be interesting to know if there are any formal policies or procedures in place - maybe railway staff who frequent the forum can advise?

Very well said, B&Hcommuter.

As far as the staff are concerned, there's too much emphasis on not getting delay minutes attributed to you, and too much emphasis on blowing whistles too early and trains leaving early as a result.  For example, with the connection in question, had the platform staff received a request from control then it would have been held, but they would be reluctant to hold it off their own back in case they get clobbered for delay minutes.

Dispatch wise, 40-seconds to start the door closure procedure on a Voyager or a HST is probably about right in terms of the train departing (i.e. wheels moving) at the right time, but if a DOO Turbo does that at a remote location then the train can be on the move 30 seconds early - sitting there with the doors shut and locked waiting departure time is just another kick in the teeth for any passengers who wanted that train.

So a bit of common sense needs to be applied - platform staff should not have to risk castigation when they spot a train likely to have connecting passengers on it and decide to hold it for a few seconds without authority (I'm talking seconds rather than minutes).  And rather than a blanket 40-second policy, the time it takes to dispatch each and every type of train should be taken into account.  Giving permission to lock/close the doors 40 seconds in advance for HST's/Voyagers, 30 seconds for other non-DOO units, 20 seconds for platform staff dispatched DOO services and 15 seconds for driver dispatched DOO services would, in most cases, result in the wheels moving at the prescribed time.

As it is, once again the railway industry upsets its passengers for little reason other than the largely fake financial world of train delay attribution and that leads to circumstances as described by Graham in the original post.

Perhaps there should be a penalty for departing early? If it was set at around 20 times the penalty for departing late, it would be about right IMHO.

This has indeed generated some significant discussion, which I feel is worth sharing more widely.   So I'm going to move it from our "Frequent Posters" area to a public area later this evening.   I don't think there's anything posted that our 'regulars' might want to edit, and you were all pre-alerted to the possibility, so I don't think I've any need to p.m. everyone and wait for further clearance?

I'm going to suggest that door closing probably started 40 seconds before the scheduled departure time, and the train actually left some 20 seconds before scheduled.  Looking at a couple of 150 dispatches since, it's taken around 18 seconds from whistles to wheels rolling.  However, had door closing started 20 seconds before scheduled departure on Friday, I suspect the train would have left around 60 seconds late as fitter passengers held the door for those a few seconds behind them; agreed, II - 90 seconds (or perhaps one sixtieth of the time to the next train) shouldn't lead to a worry of castigation.


Looking at Real Time Trains, it reported that the train sat in Westbury when it got there for 2 minutes, and left there on time according to the public timetable, which is one minute early according to the working timetable.  I think I've read that train stats are compiled based on final destination arrivals, so that the extra 60 seconds in Bristol would have cost nothing.  And it would have saved an awful lot of face, turned a lot of customers into thankful ambassadors, and reduced one heck of a taxi bill which I suspect someone may have ended up with.

Hindsight is - of course - marvellous stuff, and we cannot expect staff to have crystal balls.   I have to agree with the thread's sentiment that seems to be (a) public timetable time should be last boarding time, (b) there should be a service etiquette from management that says "if people are running for a train, think 'customer' and let 'em get it" and (c) think before you dispatch the very last service.


I understand that First Bus drivers can loose their jobs for leaving more than a certain amount early.   No matter how late they are, it doesn't seem too much of a problem as they'll still stop for a fag break mid-route.  But that story (http://www.wellho.net/mouth/4181_Grumbling-about-trains-Buses-can-be-far-worse-.html) is for another day.

You may recall I had similar troubles grahame regarding my journey to South Wales and connecting from a late running FGW Service into an Arriva Trains Wales service. The ATW left from the opposite platform at Cardiff Central the moment I stepped on the platform. The next service being in an hour, I ended up taking a taxi at ^20 odd to get to my destination.

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Meanwhile over in Essex..................:

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1375946_10200873376412629_745336728_n.jpg)

(And yes, I was on that train and it did leave that early! The 7 minute early arrival into SOV is unfortunately also accurate! >:( >:( )

I think those early morning departures are from stations that have no pick up at that time, only set down.

A very interesting discussion that's covered early running, train door closure time, holding the last train of the day, attribution of lateness ... which merits being available to all readers and not just regular posters. So ... topic moved from our "frequent poster" board to public display. 

An early arrival is of no obvious immediate concern to passengers. At the terminal station it is even to be expected, due to PPM being based only on the last stop hence the public timetable often has quite a bit of padding before the final stop to boost PPM. Departing early however is wrong, I think I can agree with the comment that penalties for leaving early should be higher than penalties for delays.

In fact, I think a delay of five minutes or less (a delay longer than 5 minutes would make a connection impossible without a waiting room, by my definition of connection) is less of a concern to me than departing just seconds before the scheduled public departure time.

It is interesting that this discussion was triggered by remarks made by John Watt Conservative MP for Slough at the time of privatisation. To the effect taht connections would NOT be held on the new super efficient privatised railway.

He missed he whole point of teh railways that they are an interconnecting network. The trouble is the "bean counters" aren't clever enough to work out that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole and good easy connections are the life blood of the railways.

I have a super piece of video taken at Mannheim of an ICE and an IC running into the station side by side to give a cross platform interchange. No defnesive driving here the IC overtakes the ICe and still stops.

 However in the same situation at Newton Abbot, I've known trains for the Paigton branch to be held for
 Cross-Country connections in the event of late running.
 So does each station have a different policy for holding connections, or is it down to the attitude of the person
 despatching the train ? 

There are specific rules at certain stations, and specific rules with certain trains - particularly when it's the last connection of the night.  Staff can then hold that train without having to bother contacting 'control' for permission.  At other stations it seems to vary from how the staff are trained.  Reading staff often have no qualms sending a Turbo off more than 15 seconds early giving permission to close the doors the standard 40 seconds before, wheraes Slough are generally excellent and don't blow the whistle on a Turbo until 15 seconds before at the earliest.

You'll never get TOC agreement to b) simply because of delay attribution minutes. Also - if you hold for the first pax changing trains, where do you stop holding - for that guy who can't run as fast maybe? It's not workable for these reasons

Trying for the same connection again tonight. 

Once again, the Cross Country service was delayed into Parkway and then before the stations on the way in to Bristol by a late running stopper from Gloucester and beyond; tonight it arrived around 2.5 minutes after the last Weymouth was due to leave - and indeed a dash to platform 7 revealed just an empty track.

As the Weymouth had gone from the board so only those of us "in the know" knew which platform to dash to, the group was smaller ... only five people at the top of the steps, slightly hopeful that we might just make the train.

No complaint about the Weymouth leaving early tonight - I simply don't know.  No staff around on platform 7 to ask either, so no chance of being fed incorrect information either.  So no repeat of my questions to FGW.   Still not very clever in terms of impressing the customer, especially those of us who know it will probably sit at Westbury for 3 or 4 minutes, but that's another story.

Edit to match real time trains closer.  My timepiece was only indicating to the minute, and I was far more concerned to make rapid progress than stop and observe signage!

According to Real Time Trains, the Weymouth service departed one minute late at 2050.  The Cross Country service arrived at 2051^, just over ten minutes late.

Just to add a bit of a twist to the whole story...

Have any of you considered those already on the train?  I don't know, their connections could depend on leaving on time...

And I'm not taking sides on this story, I can understand where all of you are coming from.  But the same way that you missed the train because it couldn't be held for a few seconds, somebody else could miss the last train somewhere else because of it (whether it's an official connection or not).  You would be surprised how a few seconds here can account for a few minutes there!

I was once asked to justify a minute delay (yes, 1 minute) to a Paignton to Paddington service.  Apparently that minute caused delays to another 27 trains...

According to Real Time Trains, 15 seconds early into Weymouth, with a couple of stops along the way being extended by a minute from working timetable schedules.   A few minutes of recovery time built into the schedule there, exactly as there should be to make up for any delays incurred and get back on time.  No way of knowing whether the train was being gently driven or not - the Knorr-Bremse driver advise system (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=12184.0) I saw demonstrated a few months ago would make it hard to spot gentle driving, but I don't think FGW have it yet, and such system has a lot to be said for it in terms of fuel saving and customer perception where trains arrive on time (rather than early).

Not fancying being over 2 hours later home than planned, I detrained at Bradford-on-Avon off the 21:23 Portsmouth Harbour train from Bristol (RTT says it left 135 seconds late) and took a taxi ... rather than awaiting the late bus from Trowbridge.

The original query / issue was about the train leaving early last Friday, and I would contend that others should not depend for connections on a train being early, so I suspect that consideration should not be applied to the first case.  In my view, trains should not leave early and I'm awaiting an answer as to why;  good reason may modify my view.

For last night, yes, I believe I have considered further onward connections (and other services) to the very best of my ability, but that is limited by the data to hand, and I have no real cause for complaint - just to groan.   Beyond Westbury, there are single line and West of England main line considerations, but there are 2 or 3 minutes in hand on the schedule.   The bus 'connection' I wanted in Trowbridge is actually very crisp and more than 3 minutes late off BRI would probably miss - and Temple Meads has more on offer that Trowbridge for a wait!    Should the connection which the journey planner / ticket sites gave me actually make the connection next time (failed 2 out of 2 so far!), I've for a mental note to observe the loading and the demeanour as people leave the train along the way.

Early departures is one thing, especially on turbos where door control is with the driver.  But what REALLY gets my goat is the removal of platform details from the screens at Paddington 2mins or more before the train leaves.

The number of times I have stood looking at a train in the platform wondering if it is the train I need with no information available.

Please, explain why this is necessary?!

And therein lies the stupidity of delay attribution.  That one minute delay probably didn't cause delay to another 27 trains, it's just that as soon as it happened all the other operators and Network Rail jumped on it to justify other delays.  Hence why managers get jumpy about station delays as a one minute delay can easily be 'the reason' for an hour worth of delays.  It usually isn't, but the money still exchanges hands.



It's no more that 2 minutes, sometimes less if the train is late boarding, and it's because it reduces the number of people rushing like mad for a train.  This can cause accidents as people sprint from the concourse or run down the steps, and will cause delay to the departure of the train - especially when Reading commuters are heading home from London arriving in Paddington in a constant flow.  I used to see it all the time.  People still run now of course, but nowhere near as many. 

What might be sensible (but would need a software alteration I imagine) is for the train to be removed from the departure screens as it is now, but remain on the departure screens on the platforms until closer to the departure time, so that the situation you describe above would be resolved and if you were in a close enough position to make the train.  That might be worth suggesting as a trial?

That sounds very sensible

Interesting there was abit on about Bristol in the Channel 5 tonght, showed the 40 second clock and some disgruntled would be passengers who were caught out by the clsoing of the doors.

I tend to agree that the public time should be door close time WTT time can then be 30 seconds later.

If the working timetable were 30 seconds behind the public one, the whole "door closing time" issue could be solved, couldn't it.  And it's so much easier to tell people the time they need to be on board rather than leave them to make the calculation.

Where
* A train leaves on time (and doesn't pull our early)
* Passengers are late because they cut it fine on their walk to the station
* There's another one along in half an hour to all destinations and connections
* The staff explain the situation to passengers left behind truthfully
then under current rules fair enough.

Where
* A train actually leaves early
* Passengers miss it because of a late running connection (an "official" one, suggested by the National Rail timetable planner)
* There isn's another one until the next morning
* Blame is attributed to another company when the root cause is a habitually late local train (it was 9 minutes late last night again according to RTT - thats 3 / 3 times that I have gathered evidence for)
that strikes me as being customer unfriendly almost beyond belief.