Slack

[whole diary]

[Electric train]

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^▸ (Wrexham and Shropshire (Open Access Operator)) 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^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) & GW^▸ (Great Western) joint route.

Now that is what I call reinventing the wheel

[willc]

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.

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^▸ (Wrexham and Shropshire (Open Access Operator)) 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.

[John R]

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.

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^▸ (Wrexham and Shropshire (Open Access Operator)) 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^» (Network Rail - home page) 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.

[12hoursunday]

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

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

[12hoursunday]

However whereas BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) 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.

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!

[Chris from Nailsea]

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

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. 

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

Chris became Chief Operating Officer on 1 February 2008, having been Managing Director, Virgin Trains since 31 August 2007. He had previously been Managing Director, Virgin CrossCountry from May 2003, following over two years as MD of Wales & West / Wales & Borders, where he was Operations Director from 1997. Chris joined British Rail from school in 1981 and has wide experience in railway operations in Scotland, Wales, the West Country and South East.

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

Chris Green was Chairman of Virgin Trains until his retirement in 2005 and has 40 years of railway experience in various director level roles. As well as previously being British Rail^s Managing Director of Network SouthEast and Intercity, he has also held the position of Chief Executive of English Heritage and was a non-executive director of Eurotunnel.

[eightf48544]

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

[Super Guard]

Without wanting to wander off-topic, I heard a rather crazy story from one of the temp summer workers of XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)).

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^▸ (Human Resources) 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.

[IndustryInsider]

Just to re-ignite this topic; does anyone know of any other FGW^▸ (First Great Western) 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...

[eightf48544]

Just to re-ignite this topic; does anyone know of any other FGW^▸ (First Great Western) 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.

[Tim]

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

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

i saw Chris Gibb a few years ago in the FC^‡(resolve) section of a VXC^▸ (Virgin Cross Country - former franchise) 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.

[Btline]

I'm always confused by people complaining about "padding" or "slack", like their favourite train is the only one on the track.  There are lots of other trains out there that all have to tie in with each other. The running time is how long it takes to get from A to B while interacting with all the other trains on the track, not the time it takes to get from A to B running flat out while the signaller gives priority to only one service.  Certain posters on here seem to think that the world is all about them! 

The analogy is that I can drive to work in 20 minutes at 3 am, but it takes longer at 9 am. Should this be something to complain about?

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^▸ (Train Operating Company) has to pay less delay minutes.

Have you ever travelled on XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))/VXC^▸ (Virgin Cross Country - former franchise)? 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.

[devon_metro]

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..  

[Btline]

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^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) - 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^▸ (Train Operating Company) to make up a few minutes so they arrive 9.9 mins late (on time).

[Btline]

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.