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Why do we (still) have a public and an internal railway timetable with different times in them?

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My answer


But WHY still maintain two timetables? If they did just one timetable, would this allow them more time to tailor and tune it better in the time saved?

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It isn't the only place that the public billed and industry planned times are different - broadcasting is another where depending on the outlet they can deviate by as much as five minutes in the 'late' direction but also two minutes in the 'early'.

Interesting.  Why?    Is it to allow headline times to be published such as "The Ten O'Clock" when it really leave a minute later, or to allow something to be described as "and every hour until" when in reality the odd one is varied fro freight / stock type / need to allow a bit longer on station duties for a train that's heaving.   But yet I see none of these applying at Warminster late at night ...

In the case of the BBC, time for more self-advertising?

This has of course absolutely nothing to do with railways, but... ;)

In the case of the BBC, sometimes shows will over-run by a few seconds, or indeed minutes in some cases (especially ive shows), but they won't over-run enough to make a big deal out of it. For instance:

During the week I am not averse to watching "Outside Source" on the BBC News Channel between 2100 and 2200. Although the BBC News Channel also carries the 10 o'clock news, I tend to change to BBC1 at that point because the local news appears at the end of the show, whilst it doesn't on the News Channel.

The News Channel almost always runs a countdown sequence to the news at the top of the hour, involving an extended version of the news signature tune plus a countdown by seconds to the exact time of 2200. If they don't run that countdown, but just the news signature tune, you can rest assured that BBC1 is running late and the "10 o'clock news" will be starting at a few seconds past the hour.

If it is something more substantial (eg a live sport item "getting crucial" so the powers that be decide to stick with it), then an announcement will be made to say that the news or any other following programme is running late.

Not totally unlike, in fact, what happens on the railway -

"the 1918 service to Chittening Platform is delayed by 8 minutes" translates to "at the moment we think the train will be 8 minutes late."

"the 1918 service to Chittening Platform is delayed" translates to "we don't know what time its going to turn up either"

In some cases it is just to avoid an odd time because the programme has been produced to a non-standard length, or to maintain at least apparently a junction with a channel in the same family, or conversely to make a junction awkward with a competitor. With channels containing advertising it can be to smooth the amount out every clock-hour to conform to the rules. However, some are generally 'wrong' for example the start of the One Show on BBC One is always a bit before 7pm.

The internal transmission schedule is produced to the second, especially important for channels with regional / national variations.

It's also very hard to hit hard deadlines on a live programme. You may have allowed for 2'30" for that interview but if they talk for more (or even less) then it can be quite hard to make the time up if the rest of the programme is made up of pre-recorded elements.

When I worked in live TV I often tried to finish with the Weather/market updates/summary of the headlines - all things that can be of variable length with a capable presenter. Sometimes things just don't work out and Presentation have to run a trail or promo.

Other times it might just be the difficulty of trying to co-ordinate all the regional programmes and them all finishing at the same time. Similar challenges with News 24 (as it was when I worked there) and BBC World overnight coming together as well as regional opts and advertising breaks on the latter.

No idea about the One Show though.

There's another way in which broadcasting and running railways are similar in their need to publish timetables - they both need to notify changes.

About 10-15 years ago I came across a paper from BBC Engineering, about work to integrate sources of programme schedules and late changes. The idea was to drive all the systems - Ceefax, Freeview EPG, web site, on-screen messages, and continuity announcements - from one master source. I'm not sure if social media had come in then, though I don't think they are much used even now. Ceefax of course has gone.

I don't know how much was done on that, but judging by tonight not much. I was expecting the 10 pm news might be delayed, but there was no information being put out via any medium. Well, I suppose it was all in sync, anyway! (The programme timing data that drives PVRs when recording was I suspect present; I have a feeling that's separate from the EPG itself.)

The same idea of a single source is as important - perhaps more so - for other kinds of information too. It was the Lewisham "mass detrainment" incident that made me think this is something the railways need. With so many passengers looking at social media, and with information also available via drivers' tannoys, on-line, and even (in that case) news media, I think it is vital to put out the same message on all of them, and update it in sync too. While taking sensible decisions quickly enough was key learning point no.1, telling the passengers about it immediately - and with no confusion and contradictions - must be no. 2.