Great Western Coffee Shop

From Journey check this morning:



"So will it run or will it not?"  ... My understanding is that it WILL run, but that the train being used is different to the normal one for that service.

Different unit under a different headcode (9M97 instead of 2M97) using the same path.

Indeed ... which should make very little difference to intending passengers.   Except that intending passengers through Journey Check get a "train cancelled" message, which they just might (  ;D ) take as meaning that there's no train running at that time.   Posted under "Smoke and Mirrors" as an information system failure where the rail industry makes a hash of providing the right information to the prospective customer.

A week or so before Christmas, a freight train failure in Cornwall caused the cancellation of a couple of XC services and the very late running of a couple of GWR services IIRC. I recall an automated announcement for one of the cancellations ('We are sorry to announce the ..... has been cancelled'), followed almost immediately by an announcement for the imminent arrival of what was apparently the same train (but running under a 1Znn headcode having started from Plymouth). We had a number of very confused/worried pax enquiring 'is it running or not?'

Now that the system is automated, there is little scope for human intervention - although thankfully in my example, a member of the platform staff put out an extra announcement to clarify the situation.

Running under a different headcode because there is a 153 in the consist which are banned from Platform 3 at Salisbury.

Problem with Journeycheck is the original train is shown as cancelled in one section and reinstated in the "Other Train Service Updates" section.

So, basically the software needs to have a "substitute train" feature added?

I wonder that it could not be shown to the public under "Train Formation Updates" instead.

Of course. I was talking about how the system knows internally that that's what happened.