Great Western Coffee Shop

I hate slack. Others do, others don't.

But when I read that the W&S first train made up 30 mins, I was surprised!

Is this the most amount of slack in the UK?

Does anyone know what the worst is? I would guess the XC from Penzance to Dundee must have a lot...

Get over it  :)

I think it's more due to the crap path that WSMR have rather than booked padding time.

But yeah, slack is here to stay however much we dislike it. As Liam says, get over it.

Wrexham & Shropshire timings do have a lot of slack between Banbury and London, because there is effectively nowhere for trains to overtake on the Chiltern route, so W&S speeds are affected by what's running in front of them.

I gather there are discussions going on between Network Rail, Chiltern and W&S about the possibility of putting in some loops to allow overtaking and add flexibility - there is space between the existing tracks at several stations, as there used to be through lines for expresses all along the GC & GW joint route.

Virgin are also using/going to use the line for the rest of the year for Voyager-operated diversions, to keep some sort of service running out of Euston when Rugby or Milton Keynes are blockaded for further West Coast upgrade work, but any new loops will come too late for them. The extra signal sections Chiltern has added in recent years are really paying off now in capacity terms.

The slack Btline is referring to is the slack between Tame Bridge Parkway and Banbury - which really is as a result of the crap pathing around Birmingham available...

But there's plenty south of Banbury too and that train on the first day was assisted by that too. Any time cuts are far more likely on the Chiltern Line proper than around Birmingham, so long as W&S has to use convoluted routing through the West Midlands.

Just a small comment but what has the Wrexham & Shropshire got to do First Great Western ::)

It has relevance to Banbury, and has been discussed on the forum before (link below.)
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=2361.msg17674#msg17674

As well as Lee's comment it also shows the busmen of First how to run a railway.

Slack aquaints to cowardice by the DfT after the experience of Hatfield and Railtrack.s general incompetance and the resulting drop in performance, they decreed like Mussolini that the trains should run on time.

However whereas BR could run a train non stop from Bath to Reading in 40 minutes the current indfrastructure is so poor both signals and track that such a timing is considered unworkable today. So odd minutes creep into the running times. this leads to complancency on the part of the staff at stations despatching trains, signalmen, we can hold him he's plenty of slack. As for the poor drivers it must be terribly boring just ambling  along trying not to run early.

So the whole thing becomes counterproductive.

If the railway is to work it must be run briskly so that everyone is on their toes and keeps the system moving even if it does mean blowing whistles at gentlemen from Newbury changing trains at Reading. (Gerry Fienes "I tried to run a Railway" still one the finest railway books ever written)

It seems to be only virgin, and the odd other new franchise operator who seem intrested in pushing for faster trains. 

Who's behind Virgin? Chris Green, enough said. A railwayman not a busman.

Trust me, you wouldn't make comments like that if you knew some of the grief we get if we despatch even a minute late without good reason.  I'll remember to put "He's got plenty of slack" down as a reason on my delay sheet next time and see what response I get from control   ::)  Don't worry though, I have a spare violin to play for those poor drivers who turn up early  ;D

Here's some questions.

1.  Have you ever been in a signal box?  Yes they make the odd mistake (as in 'they really should have let that other one go there' etc.), but please realise that your train is not the only one under their control, and having visited both Bristol & Exeter Signal Panels, there is a lot going on, and a lot of decisions of course take account of knock-on effects and reducing delays of other services too.

2.  The complacent despatch staff.  Is it a case of everyone is on board and they are sitting twiddling their thumbs, or could it possibly be because they are having to run down the platform encouraging passengers to use both doors to a coach (that one still baffles me), put cigarettes out, assisting with disabled passengers on/off trains, answering incoming passengers questions who are far too busy to wait for the train to be despatched, ensuring that all of your HST doors are closed so we don't have to declare an emergency and bring your train to a halt later on, which of course puts our job in jeapardy?

I don't deny that there are no doubt lazy staff working for FGW/XC/SWT/whoever, but the same goes for every industry/company, and mass generalisations of signalmen/despatch staff as part of the reasoning for 'slack' is poor form IMO.  Many of us work damn hard to make sure our trains get out on-time, and there are plenty of factors (some I am not prepared to voice in public) that could be corrected to keep things moving quicker.

My personal opinion, I would rather there was less slack, or at least 'Slack reduction' targets to get things more efficient, as a happy public makes our life a lot easier!

Yep many on the Central divison of the Southern.

And yep we weren't perfect, I got a right bollocking for not ensuring a particular Victoria Brighton went right line at East Croydon to ensure it went Quarry. We Gloucester Road kept it moving and routed it on the wrong line through East Croydon as we had a down ex london Bridge crossing the junction and didn't want to delay teh ex Victoria. Assumming it could cross at South Croydon and go quarry line from there. Only to discover too late that South Croydon's crossover was out of use. So it ran Redhill behind the stopper and was quite late into Brighton.

Ironic because I was in the box  on a punctuality drive and had we stopped it at Selhurst to let the London Bridge through it would have gone quarry and probably with a bit of wellie from the driver been roughly on time in Brighton because there was a culture of making up time if possible.

Also we stopped the job at Sutton one morning terminating an Epsom Downs train in platform 4 to run it back to Town. On controls instruction I might add. On setting the road right acoss the East Junction to the Hackbridge line, the box couldn't get the point signal detection it was a frosty morning and the signal wires had contracted so the detector didn't aline.

Fortunately we had resident S&T technians around who quickly sorted it out with a hammer. But we still had at least 4 late trains outside the station to be sorted out so I know how one thing can lead to another.

I don't where I saw it but there was a letter I think in one of the magazines that pointed out, how if there is too much slack in the timetable plus the late time measurement it makes regulation at junctions very difficult if a train can arrive  at anytime in  a 30 minute slot,   depending on how it's running that day and yet still be on time. So does the signalman hold all trains across the junction for up to 30 minutes or risk running them across and maybe checking the fast. If there's little or no slack then it's either on time or late and the signalman can regulate accordingly to minimise the delays.

So yep SDA I know what goes on. All our commuters did try and get on at the front and we had to blow whistles at them but by and large they were prety slick and they closed the doors behind them so even at Sutton we could do 30 second stops.

But in those days we answered to one ultimate boss the Divisional Manager. The Central was always better than the South Western and South Eastern and all the other Regions. Except when I worked on the South Western when that was the best.  Some places carried this to the  extreme in Sheffield you were either Midland or Great Central. We regarded the Western as snobs.

Also I didn't use the word lazy I used complancency which is different. Even though we ran a pretty tight ship we used to get complacent because everything worked well that's when things slipped and then the whipped was cracked.

I don't see how you can run a railway when signalmen drivers and station staff all work for different bosses.

I blame Tom Windsor who thought you could run the railway by having very tight contracts and that the timetable was sacrosant and trains would run at the time stated and not in the order stated. Hence the stopper in front of late running fast.

I believe the first train in has to follow a Stratford to London service making many stops. So if it's on time it has no slack. But if, running late, it presents itself at Banbury at an opportune moment, it can recover a fair amount of time just by virtue of now having a clear run.

Now that is what I call reinventing the wheel

That of course depends on how you define slack - what we're actually talking about is that it is stuck behind a train making a string of intermediate stops - and taking 10 minutes longer (one hour 25mins), as a result, than most other Chiltern Banbury-London trains, which typically make two or three calls.

It rather begs the question of who allocated the paths this way round, especially when Chiltern and W&S are effectively the same company anyway. But if there was a loop at Bicester North, then W&S could overtake and press on. Even without higher speed limits, which are also being looked at, Chiltern's 7.44 from Banbury runs non-stop to Marylebone in one hour nine minutes, which is 12 minutes better than that 08.33 W&S departure from Banbury manages.

Couple of points here. Firstly, I think it's unreasonable to expect NR to invest in infrastructure improvements immediately a speculative Open Access operator starts up. I suspect changes will only come on the Chiltern Line because they will benefit Chiltern too.

Secondly, the W&S stock is restricted on the Banbury line to a lower line speed (or at least in several places) because it is loco+coaches rather than lighter dmus, which goes some way to explain the differential between Chiltern and W&S timings between Marylebone and Banbury.

I think your getting your Chris's mixed up. The Chris who is MD of Virgin Trains (or Chief Operating Officer as M.D's now seem to be known as) go'es by the surname of GIBB who once upon a time worked for National Express another well known bus company.  ::)


I dunno ??? ??? ???

What you fail to grasp though is that under British Rail there was 1 per hour Bristol to Paddington 1 per hour Swansea/Cardiff to Paddington 4 per day Cheltenham to Paddington and hardly any freight. So you had running through Swindon 2 passenger trains per hour with an extra one every couple of hours and the odd ballast train. Today we have 2 per hour from Bristol 2 per hour from Cardiff 1 per hour for most of the day from Cheltenham, plus the numerous freight companies who run their trains. Add all this together and you will find that the railway is now quite full and with the best will in the world you are only able to run so much at any one time. So I wonder if it would be any better if good ole BR was still about today. Doubt it very much, probally wouldn't be here at all, the way the BR board were running it to the ground during the years prior to privatisation!

Thanks, 12hoursunday, from yet another Chris!

Details of Chris Gibb's career on the railways are available at http://www.virgintrainsmediaroom.com/index.cfm?articleid=563


He is not to be confused with Chris Green, whose career on the railways is covered at http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/1324.aspx#Chris

Although Chris Green left Virgin in 2005 he is still the man behind the Pendelinos.

Without wanting to wander off-topic, I heard a rather crazy story from one of the temp summer workers of XC.

Apparently, under Virgin they were not allowed staff travel passes, as they were temps.  The staff member met/spoke with Chris Green for some reason on his travels, who thought it was disgraceful and personally wrote to Virgin HR to get them to issue passes.  The staff member then received a letter from HR saying that contrary to what Mr. Green had promised they were unable to fulfill his request as it was company policy  ::)

Although now XC have reviewed the 'policy' and now issue them I am pleased to add.

Just to re-ignite this topic; does anyone know of any other FGW service that has this much slack in the current timetable - with the possible exception of the sleeper?

21:38 Oxford-Paddington (FX)

First it sits at Didcot Parkway for 12 minutes. Then at Reading it waits for 20 minutes. Then finally at Slough it has a little rest for 15 minutes.

That's 47 minutes of sitting about, and with a couple of extra minutes here and there, the total padding is 50 minutes. The train takes 2h 22m to reach its destination at an average speed of just over 25mph! I appreciate that nobody in their right mind would be on it for the whole journey (except for the poor driver!), but still...

One could suggest that it is basiclly a stock working presumably it serves most stations, so could be considered an Oxford Didcot stopper with faster connection to London from Didcot and similarly a Didcot to Reading stopper with faster conection from Reading. Although why it waits 15 minutes at Slough  has got me beat.

i saw Chris Gibb a few years ago in the FC section of a VXC Vomiter.  The coach was overcrowded and although he was busy working on his paperwork Chris gave up his seat to a fare-paying passenger (who had to be persuaded quite hard to take it from him - he ended up telling the passenger that it was "his train" and that she was therefore "his customer" and therefore welcome to his seat.  He ended up standing from Carlisle to about Wolverhampton but he earnt my respect.

I can see your point, but we don't want "priority" necessarily. In many cases, there are no other services to interact with - it is just so the TOC has to pay less delay minutes.

Have you ever travelled on XC/VXC? You speed along until a junction - have to wait for ages (and XC trains normally have priority!). Then you still arrive at the station a lot earlier than the scheduled arrival. But the scheduled departure is yonks after the scheduled arrival!

The other main problem is that slack leads to slack operations (despatch etc.). Quite often, punctuality stays the same/ is made worse.

It has it's benefits - when you arrive early at an absurd hour, you can announce to your colleagues that you arrived 30 minutes early, and then the Managers will download your car to check for speeding or excessive acceleration/braking...

Maybe not..  :D

Take a look at the Cotswold line. Slack increases almost every timetable change, no improvement in punctuality.

And in my experience, if the train has slack later on, there is less urgency in despatching it on time (which often leads to delays).

About XC - yes they do allow time at certain busy junctions (where they can't path the train perfectly). But the problem is that even when there is no "scheduled" delay, the trains are always waiting forever at stations! If you tightened up operations, shaved off a few minutes here and there, substantial time savings could be made for longer distance passengers.

You may say that the slack helps if the train is delayed by (say) 30 mins. But a train that late will only get later, as it will get stuck at many pinch points/ behind a slower service. So the slack is not that useful! It only helps the TOCs to make up a few minutes so they arrive 9.9 mins late (on time).

I am only commenting on what I experience. And when I talk about despatch - it's not just about waving a train off, it's the arrival of train crew as well, etc.

I make sure my trains are rolling at :00seconds whether they are here for 1 minute or 10...  >:(

Not true. The East customer panel minutes give the following performance stats mid-January:

^   P10 best recorded:      93.87%

^   December 2008 timetable uplift (P11 to date)
^   Outer Thames Valley:      91.67%   
^   Inner Thames Valley:      97.00%
^   Cotswolds:         93.81%

The latter figure was about 64 per cent in January last year and I would have to say my own experiences recently would tend to bear out a 90 per cent-plus figure, which reflects credit on FGW and Network Rail staff, never mind the slack - performance generally on the route is far, far better.

The only up side of the 8.52 from Malvern being Turbo-ised is that its punctuality is first class now, indeed it is usually early into Oxford (32 or 33 minutes running time from Moreton being typical) and coupled on to the second set - when it's there - before the booked arrival of 10.27, thanks to the superior acceleration from station stops. And that 97 per cent for inner-suburban is up with Chiltern's figures.

The punctuality of the train has also been given a boost due to the tight turnaround at Great Malvern. It nearly always left Malvern late as a HST, running the risk of losing its path.

In the 15 minutes from arrival at 08:37 at Great Malvern to departure at 08:52 the train has to shunt the mile to Malvern Wells and the driver has to change ends and drive back to Gt. Malvern. That is virtually impossible in a HST in 15 minutes due to the length of the train and all the tests that have to be carried out in the cab before departure. In a Turbo it's pretty much 'master key out, walk 70 metres, master key in and off you go'. That may well have been a factor in the decision to choose that train to be replaced by a Turbo?

My post-redoubling Cotswold Line Timetable suggestion of a couple of weeks ago took that sort of thing into account, with the minimum turnaround of a HST at Great Malvern being 23 minutes.

What is the difference between slack and prudent timetabling? Since the December change, the Cardiff - Portsmouth trains sit in Southampton for about 5 mins in each direction, and now seem to nearly always leave as timetabled. Presumably that has benefits to all operations at Southampton, and SWT, XC and Southern see service reliability increase as well...

Paul

A very interesting question.

Whilst waitng 5 minutes at Southampton may get FGW trains leaving on time but may also deny SWT or XC of a path through the station because you could have 2 trains standing for 2 minutes each using that platform within the 5 minutes. Assumming the signals allow a train to occuppy the platform a minute after the previous departure.

It's one of the problems at Reading that the platform entrance signals are so far away that it takes a stopped train a couple of minutes to pull into the sation after the departure of the previous train.

The Up Relief from Tilehurst  is particualrly bad where if the junction is in use you are held right out at Cow Lane where it can be 3 or 4 minutes before the train gets into the platform.

in answer to Paul's question I believe the key word for train running in general should be brisk. So it's quick despatch, good acceleration, max speed,  hard braking, short station stops. Just like we used to run the Southern Sububan services during my time on the region.

Gerry Fiennes in his book I Tried to Run a Railway has an interesting description of turning a train around on the Shenfield electrics at Liverpool Street in 5 minutes.

He also has an interesting comment of GW working when Gerneral Manger WR about Reading. He was on platform 5 with a London Express which was being held for a late running Newbury connection. The passengers were strolling over so he said to the Inspector "Blow your whistle to move them along." To which the Inspector replied "We don't blow whistles at passengers from Newbury sir."

Having waiting time at the station reduces capacity at the station and lengthens journey times for longer distant passengers.


I agree with this statement. Slack does not help in this respect.

And, in my experience, having a train waiting for 5 minutes at a station does not guarantee departure on time!

It also allows for recovery. If every station prior to Southampton was busy, with a few less able passengers boarding, that 5 minutes would soon get eaten into.

Fact is, its not going to change, unless Network Rail charge less for delay minutes!

Another interesting example:

Up local stoppers from Oxford in the previous timetable where scheduled to leave at xx.21, six minutes after the AXC xx.15 service to Bournemouth. This was quite often late by a few minutes - the AXC service was allowed up to 8 mins lateness and it would still precede the stopper.

The stopper provided a six minute connection at Didcot for Bristol and the West. Whenever the AXC train was a few minutes late, the connection at Didcot was missed. Particularly a problem in the  evening peak, when 60+ passengers would change at Didcot for Swindon, Bath etc.

In the current timetable, the stoppers leave at xx.07, with the AXC service following at xx.16. Its now very rare for connections at Didcot to be missed. The stopper sits at Didcot for 10 mins to allow the AXC service to pass, then resumes its journey, more or less in the old path.

There is a similar arrangement in the down direction.

The result is that passengers changing at Didcot are very happy. The connections work very well, you just have to be at Oxford a bit earlier. The downside is that connections out of the AXC service are worse - you have to wait 22 mins at Oxford for a connection to Didcot, rather than than 6 minutes as in the previous timetable.

For passengers travelling on the stopper from Oxford beyond Didcot, there appears to be 10 mins of slack at Didcot - the same applies in the down direction.

So, one group of passengers are see an improved service, and another (smaller) group see a worsening. However, punctuality has improved enormously, so both groups see some improvement, albeit at the expense of increased journey times.

The message seems to be that introducing slack can benefit passengers. Reliability is often more highly valued than speed.

A very interesting analysis, but I would suggest that the problem of the Oxford following or proceeding  the XC is more of a timetabling/timekeeping problem more than artificially introduced slack although the 10 minute wait at Didcot could be considered too long.

Conventional wisdom would be that a stopper follows a fast especially from somewhere like Oxford where the stopper is a startup. By putting the stopper in front of the XC suggests that there is an addmission that there is not much faith in the XC arriving at Oxford ontime, to allow the stopper to follow and still make the Westbound connection at Didcot.

At somewhere like Oxford where the XC and stopper use the same platform it ought to be possible to time the stopper to leave 5 minutes after the fast. Similarly in the Up direction it ought to be possible to time the stopper to arrive 5 minutes in front of the fast.

It requires discipline to run the railways as I say briskly. Plus blowing whistles loudly at passengers!

Having a 10 minute stop over at Didcot on every train is far from ideal. There are quite a few through journeys from Oxford to Cholsey and Goring that now take much longer than they have previously, and as 'Oxman' points out connections from XC trains from the north for Didcot are now poor - but then again they are more robust as how often was the XC late enough to mean the stopper left first? The westbound connections at Didcot are quite important for journeys from Oxford and it is good that they are now more robust.

I guess that it's a case of swings and roundabouts - with such a traffic intensive route, you are never going to tick all the aspirational boxes that would provide a great service for all.

Vitually all the peak time morning services from West Wilts to the North of Bristol are diabolical.

The classic is if you don^t make the 0724 Trowbridge Parkway then there is little point catching the 0744 to Great Malvern which normally arrives in BTM ahead of the 0829 timetable and doesn^t depart until 0841. You can be sat there for 15 min. Arrival Filton 0848. I will have left home at approx 0735 to do this journey.

We then come to the next service at 0800 to Cardiff, due in BTM 0840 (read 0837) depart 0854, where the hell does that come from, everyone now has to swap platforms to get the 67^s from Taunton, arrival 0857.

I can therefore leave home almost 15 min later to do the journey in almost the same amount of time AND change trains en-route.

Compare that with the Filton Trowbridge evening service on the Cardiff Pompey, d xx09 a xx53, approx 40 min, the best part of 20 min difference in the peak, and this on a 35 mile journey.

If the DafT have any prospect for West Wilts to be part of the Greater Bristol metro system then I pray that this is sorted.

Mornings on the Pompy-Cardiff route as a whole are very poorly timed.  Its not just your journey, Bath-Cardiff (which I do occasionally) is very poor.  There ought to be a train that leaves at about 8am and arrives at about 9am, but there isn't.  I can get to central London from Bath by 9:30 by leaving on the 7:42 9arriving Padd 9:15 and then a Dash to the Tube - mind you it used to arrive Padd at 9:05!).  To arrive in Cardiff by the same time I leave Bath at 7:34 which is rediculous considering Cardiff is much closer and their is an approximately 1/2 hourly service to Both Cardiff and London from Bath.

The main thing about dispatch IMO is making sure the driver is in the cab and not chatting on their mobile on the platform ;)

Well, presumably the crew that brought the train in are in the staff room on a break before their next working.

On the subject of slack, I used the Brizzle-Paddington line last weekend and the train arrived at Paddington over 5 minutes early, in just 24 minutes from Reading. On the return the train was 10 minutes late leaving Reading due to engine problems and we were informed the train would not exceed 100mph as a result. Even then, it was only 6 minutes late into Bristol. I suspect this might be a result of the fines incurred for late running.

Typically down services ex Padd wait 3 minutes at Swindon, a couple at Chippenham, maybe 3 minutes at Bath Spa, and still roll into Temple Meads 4 minutes early.

Late night and weekend services tend to have more time built into the journey so that NR can take last minute possessions at various points, such as main line between Reading and Slough.

Not FGW related, but some of the XC services from Bristol - Birmingham N S have a "catch up" time because of the congestion in Birmingham New Street. Sometimes you can go straight through into Birmingham N S, other times, painfully slow stop, start, stop, start running is the order of the day! :-X

Funny you mention that as I saw a XC service from Birmingham NS to Stanstead Airport, left about Birmingham about 15 late and arrive Stanstead about 3 early.

My manager travelled down to Bristol Temple Meads from Manchester Piccadilly via Birmingham New Street today - train arrived at Birmingham 10 minutes late, but left on time (and thus arrived in Bristol on time) due to the useful 20 minutes 'padding' in the XC timetable at Birmingham!

 ::)

SO to that note....do we agree that until any changes to infrastructure are made to birmingham new street... that padding is indeed a good thing?

A very interesting question. my initial thought is no because slack leads to slackness.

However, I do think that more analysis is needed as to why say XC feel they need 20 minutes slack at Birmingham New Street similarly the excessive station stops on the Cotswold line.

Is it just  lack of infrastructure and/or failures, or is it mixture of excessive TSRs, train failures (loss of engine hence speed),  bad regulation at junctions, late starts, poor station work?

Unless this very detailed analysis is done then  adding slack helps keep trains seemingly punctual but doesn't actually solve the original problem which is; why do trains run late? Until you know the cause of delays for almost every train then adding slack is an easy option.

It's also relatively easy to do and does improve TOCs punctuality statistics, however ,I don't believe it's the way to run an efficient railway. Features of which I feel is to get people from A to B in the shortest possible time, on time, every time and with a seat!

So I can see why TOCs do it, especialy as they are punished for late running.

I believe in Virgin's time a trial was held to give the Aberdeen Penzance priority at choke points like Birmingham even if was out of path. I understand this led to a dramatic increase in on time arrivals at Penzance. With little knock on effect to other services. Of course with the current system, knock on effects are counted against the TOC causing them so it's easier to have one train running very late rather than get it through and possibly back near to time than possibly delay several other trains a few minutes each.

Basically if you want an efficient railway, bring back the "Fat Controller" who is in charge of everything between that happens between the boundary fences.

 

You've answered your own question. It's a way of improving statistics that costs nothing, so of course it's first choice for TOCs and government alike.

Unfortunately not. As long as the statistics look good, then everything is fine with the railways in the eyes of the people who matter, who don't travel by train.

We've got record punctuality remember, with more trains running on time* than since records began**!

* on time means arriving at their final destination less than 10 minutes late, never mind if you were over an hour late at Birmingham, your train was "on time" reaching Aberdeen.
** records began in 1995, no-one had a clue what was going on during the previous 165 years.

On FGW 10 minutes is the 'on time' mark for High Speed Services - including the Cotswold Line - and Cardiff-Portsmouth, for all other service groups it is five minutes.

In regards to stats or just in general?  ;D ;D

BR kept very extensive puntuality stats these were reported to BR HQ every day. There were even league tables for the various regions and divisons within the regions.

On the Southern it was 3 minutes and your late. Any train that persistantly ran late would be thoroughly analysed and either instructions given to give it priority or in some case for it to retimed to fit in better, but only by a few minutes. But then again the Southern ran trains on lines with 25 yard overlaps from signals and could get trains across junctions within a minute or so of each other.

Funny, because according to the government and TOC's, there were no records before 1995.....

I think the long dwell on certain XC services at New St is more to do with ensuring the 2 tph on the different 'legs' of the service are as near as possible half an hour apart, eg New St - Man Picc requires the trains from either Bristol or Bournemouth to be half an hour apart on leaving New St; New St - Reading needs trains from Man Picc or Newcastle to be coordinated.  Presumably to get rid of the waiting times too many trains would have to be completely retimed from their start point, which might not fit in with other operator's services?

Paul

I imagine there is an element of the issue as discussed above, that it basically helps to create a clock face timetable,with trains departing exactly half hour apart etc. 

I often wonder if Virgin has of maintained the franchise.... and indeed a lot more of their operation princess services....would the network have had much shorter journey times?  Even 10 mins shaved off would have been a bonus.

I must admit, XC's 20 minute padding at New Street IS required. (it's not really padding - it is to path efficiently at New Street)

The real solution is to remove the bottleneck of 12 tracks converging to just 4 before the platforms.

If all XC's trains were given priority, LM services would be thrown into turmoil.

Much of the slack at Birmingham is due to DafT's dismantling of the original Cross Country journey patterns so that the timings on the individual legs no longer match up.  Originally the Bristols went to Newcastle, the Readings to Manchester & the Plymouths and Bournemouths alternately to Glasgow and Edinburgh.  There was also a Brum - Manchester working.  Long layovers in New Street were rare.  The current arrangement cannot help the capacity problems at this location.

What sort of timescales have been given to altering the setup to reduce the bottleneck at Brum?

I think similar layovers at New St have been in the timetable for years, (I was a regular Newcastle - Plymouth traveller in 1972!) and the recent changes to the XC network don't appear to have made it any worse, they've just moved the dwell time to and from different routes. 

Previous timetables show the Bournemouth to North East & Scotland always had the long delay (about 18 mins) but now they all go to Man Picc it is much reduced.

I think it's still mainly down to national pathing problems, it is just too difficult to shuffle every service in the country to make the stops shorter. Anyway, with all the extra changing at New St, presumably 3 min stops would not be long enough?

Paul

None. The gov think that constructing a new station building will be sufficient.