That's a very good point, grahame - many thanks for the suggestion.

I have split the data to give two maps, a 'long term' one for the period 2005 - 2017 (as before) and a 'recent trend' one for the shorter period 2012 - 2017:

http://empslocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/tej202/stations.htm

It is striking how much more orange and red there is on the 'recent' map as growth rates have (generally) slowed across the country. Melksham's stunning recent growth is an honourable exception to this pattern, of course!

That's a very interesting graphic!

In a similar spirit - I've been trying to teach myself more about data visualisation, and thought I could usefully use the latest ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) data as a test case. I've put together this clickable map:

http://empslocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/tej202/stations.htm

which aims to summarise annual percentage rates of growth at UK^▸ (United Kingdom) stations since 2005 (there's a break in the data in 2004, and it looks as if the data collection methodology changed then anyway - see KGX!).

Some interesting clusters of dark blue (strong growth) stand out.

I'd welcome suggestions for how to improve the visualisation.

St Blazey looking SE towards main line?

Lovely quote! It seems a similar set of words was used in the Illustrated London News in 1863:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZuWGDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=surprise+to+the+%22metropolitan+railway%22&source=bl&ots=GT4XGPzwzN&sig=PqSziMJqBw_wLbgtXoAfVBQ_UYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic7p-SlfrXAhUHmbQKHd8SBFoQ6AEIVTAK#v=onepage&q=surprise%20to%20the%20%22metropolitan%20railway%22&f=false

I meant is 3 Newcourt! (sorry!)

Is 4 Newcourt?

6. Warrington Bank Quay

9. Digby and Sowton ?

Fascinating topic.

I heartily recommend the following book by David MacKay for a lucid, rational, numerate discussion of the issues surrounding UK^▸ (United Kingdom) national energy: http://withouthotair.com/ (and - yes - he does the sums and advocates widespread electrification....)

It really is brilliantly well written - extremely readable.

Don't know if this is relevant but I was on a TPE^▸ (Trans Pennine Express) 185 that got stuck for 4.5 hours (!) near Beattock Summit on 8th January. (good effort by staff, btw, doling out the tea and biccies to keep the punters happy.)

The brakes locked on due to cold weather (I guess some pneumatic component froze in the wrong position - would be interested in more info if anyone knows.)

So maybe (and I stress this is pure guesswork on my part) they've decided to do some mods to their fleet to stop this happening again. 

Thanks all for the prompt and interesting replies.

Pacers are rubbish but taking the *national* view I can see why we have them. (There's a stock shortage so somebody has to. Exmouth to Exeter is sufficiently short for their rubbishness not to be too much of an issue - provided they run in multiple in the peak. Barnstaple is a different story of course.)

Electrification would be wonderful - but even as a relative youngster I'm not holding my breath...

Incidentally - wouldn't it make sense for virtually all future electrification to be 25kV AC (except perhaps pockets of Southern infill)? Dual voltage units seem fairly common these days and presumably are of greater value to leaseco's on account of flexibility. So it could be under the wires to Basingstoke and then 3rd rail to Waterloo! 

 

We've had quite a few short formed trains on the Exmouth line this week, two cars vice four, and in the peak too - *groan*.

Out of interest - does anyone know the reason for this?

Thanks.

Browsing railwayeye ( http://railwayeye.blogspot.com/ ) just now I came across a link to this spendid video of home-made bamboo-built (!) rolling stock in cambodia:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=l4qttp6nDts

(footage of the vehicles in question begins at 2 min 10 sec)

 

Gosport? (the one in ruins)

Hi,

Thanks for posting the problem.

I think this can be clarified with a contingency table for the fate of all timetabled trains:

                      actually                 actually
                      runs                      cancelled

reported            A                          B
running     

reported            C                          D
cancelled

If A, B, C, D are expressed as percentages then clearly A + B + C + D = 100.

"90% of trains actually run"       =>   A + C = 90
so 10% are actually cancelled   =>   B + D = 10

"90% of reports are correct"     =>   A + D = 90

Plugging all this in, the contingency table must take the form


                      actually                 actually
                      runs                      cancelled

reported            A                          A-80
running     

reported            90-A                     90-A
cancelled


By my reckoning, "A" (the percentage of timetabled trains that are reported running and do actually run) cannot be explicitly determined from the given information, although it must lie somewhere between 80% and 90% since all probabilities must be greater than or equal to 0.

I agree with the conclusion that half of the trains which are reported cancelled do actually run. ( (90-A)% of all timetabled trains are reported cancelled but actually run. Equally (90-A)% of all timetabled trains are reported cancelled and are in fact cancelled.)

I know - I should get out more