Great Western Coffee Shop

The 0712 TAU to PAD departed 36 late this morning and is running non-stop to Bristol to make up time and achieve it's booked 0830 departure time from BRI.  Fair enough, but a 30 minute dash means it's just arrived into BRI 5 mins early and 11 minutes before it's booked departure time.  In the meantime, NLS passengers have seen it run through ahead of time. 

Is there no flexibility to reinstate stops en route, particularly when the following service is late, and will have inadequate capacity to sweep up all those aiming for the 0712?  It's a difficult one to justify to waiting passengers that their train is not stopping to make up time when it has just run through early.  It's not the first time this has happened either.

 

How would you get the stop order to the driver?

Aren't the train cabs radio connected to the signallers these days?   And the signallers to control?

Are the radios allowed to be used for anything other than "safety critical" communications - ie an All Stop order?

Not sure NR would be too happy about that, if their safety-critical signallers are asked to pass on operational instructions!

Stop orders usually passed by station staff...but if running non-stop....

Once the decision was made to run non-stop it wouldn't have been possible to amend it.

There would certainly not be any communication with the driver via GSM-R.

Another example of the fragmented railway and the disconnect between the wheel and rail.

In BR days control could contact the signalman to stop the train and pass any message to the driver.

Is there a signal at the end of NLS station which could have been kept at Danger the driver would then have to contact the signalman and could be told that the stops had been reinstated.?

Also isn't GWR in contact with the guard who could also contact the driver?

I thought about whether they could bring the train to a controlled halt but by the time they have done that and the driver has contacted the signaller I suspect the train would be running late again.

Lesser evil and greater good to run non-stop to Bristol.

Not forgetting the performance statistics of having only part cancellation at intermediate stations, and an on time arrival at final destination.

Cold comfort though for John R and countless other folk from Bridgwater, Highbridge, Weston-super-Mare, Worle, Nailsea and Yatton.

Still got held up at Ealing and arrived Pad 10 minutes late.

... not necessarily in that particular order.  And not forgetting 'countless other folk' from Weston Milton, either.   ;) :D ;D

.............nail hit on head.

The text message I received from GWR at 07:37 this morning stated:


 ::)

Agreed - but why that is so, I find incomprehensible.  :o


Yes - there are such signals, beyond the ends of both the 'up' and 'down' platforms.

(We don't enjoy the luxury of 'relief lines' down here, eightf48544  ;) )

It probably would have been possible to amend it.  Control would contact the TM by mobile who would then be able to inform the driver.  However, in reality, control working out that the train would in fact get there in time for the NLS stop, getting permission from NR to reinstate the stop, phoning the TM and the TM contacting the driver, would take too much time to do.  However, Control could do better when it comes to predicting how much time a train will recover en-route and such situations arise out of their decisions being overly cautious sometimes.

As regards the performance figures comments, as BNM said, removing those calls (accepting the NLS one could've been retained), meant an on time departure of a popular train from Bristol, Bath, Chippenham, Swindon, Didcot and Reading, and also meant there was no risk of the next working of that set (11:00 PAD-BRI) also being delayed as a knock on.  It's fair to say that most of the time these decisions aren't purely made with the thoughts of punctuality statistics solely in mind!

Many thanks for your detailed insight post here, IndustryInsider.  ;)

Also, if the GSM-R radio is tied yup giving the driver non-urgent instructions, how would an emergency all-stop order get through at the same time? Slim chance, but it would eventually happen!

GSM-R is more than just two-way communication though. If it's being used to talk to a signaller for non-emergency reasons an 'all stop' message can still be transmitted or received.

Still doesn't mean GSM-R should be used for train running amendments from TOC control though.

If that were to be wanted then I suspect a separate discrete system would need to be fitted. Something similar to the ACARS system fitted to commercial airliners, which allows airline ground staff to communicate with pilots, separate from ATC.

There would still be seconds delay I suspect if the driver was concentrating on listening to Control. Could be the difference....

Believe me, you don't miss a GSM-R emergency broadcast no matter what you're doing in the cab!

Isn't ACARS a text system rather than voice? I'm not sure a driver would be able to use that effectively. Don't forget a commercial aircraft has a pilot flying and a pilot not flying at all times so there's greater ability to handle messages too.

I had Allways thought that GSM-R was in essence a mobile system that uses cells like a phone does so it should be able to receive a text message whilst making a call ?

Please feel free to let me know if I am wrong  ;D

I'm sure that the driver can be reached (as a last resort the Guard could enter the cab with a message.  It is just that under normal circumstances I expect that he can't be distracted whilst driving. 

That's not going to be easy on an HST.

Presumably partly because it only springs into life when there is an emergency and not filled with general "chatter".

I expect that would be easier than it would be for a guard to get into the cab of a class 91 on a moving IC225, which is also a High Speed Train (or is the MTU engine so big you cannot walk past it even with ear defenders?). The IC125 I've driven on OpenBVE (a train simulator game) has a buzzer system though, so I assume the guard could buzz the driver to tell him/her to stop at the next station (in fact, come to think of it that must be how the driver knows if somebody wants to alight at a request stop, so to reinstate station calls the guard could simply buzz the code that means stop at the request stop).

Yes, driver-guard communication is fitted and in an emergency the guard could walk through the engine room - space around the engine isn't a problem (there's more room there than there is past the cooler group area), but it is rather loud so not ideal!

Having squeezed my generous frame through a Class 31 and 37 engine room dead and stationary, I would hate to think what a Class 43 would be like at full pelt.  There's likely to be some pretty hot bits too...   
... in the dark!

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere there's an issue with walking through a Class 43 power car due to the fire suppression system installed.