Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
Travel & transport from BBC stories as at 19:15 28 Mar 2024
* Easter getaways hit by travel disruption
- How do I renew my UK passport and what is the 10-year rule?
- Passengers pleaded with knifeman during attack
- Family anger at sentence on fatal crash driver, 19
- Easter travel warning as millions set to hit roads
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 02/06/24 - Summer Timetable starts
17/08/24 - Bus to Imber
27/09/25 - 200 years of passenger trains

On this day
28th Mar (1988)
Formal end to carrying coffins by BR (link)

Train RunningCancelled
17:48 Reading to Gatwick Airport
17:54 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
17:57 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street
18:03 London Paddington to Penzance
18:08 London Paddington to Frome
Additional 18:25 Shalford to Reading
18:36 London Paddington to Plymouth
18:37 Westbury to Swindon
18:51 Filton Abbey Wood to Bristol Temple Meads
18:55 Bedwyn to Newbury
19:23 Reading to Gatwick Airport
19:24 Newbury to Bedwyn
19:33 London Paddington to Worcester Shrub Hill
19:55 Bedwyn to Newbury
20:13 Swindon to Westbury
20:16 Frome to Westbury
20:49 Newbury to Bedwyn
20:56 Worcester Foregate Street to London Paddington
21:16 Bedwyn to Newbury
21:53 Newbury to Bedwyn
22:25 Bedwyn to Newbury
22:47 Newbury to Bedwyn
Short Run
15:03 London Paddington to Penzance
16:19 Carmarthen to London Paddington
16:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central
16:35 London Paddington to Plymouth
16:50 Plymouth to London Paddington
17:03 London Paddington to Penzance
17:30 London Paddington to Taunton
17:36 London Paddington to Plymouth
17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury
17:59 Gatwick Airport to Reading
18:18 Newbury to London Paddington
18:19 Reading to Gatwick Airport
18:29 Gatwick Airport to Reading
18:54 Reading to Gatwick Airport
18:59 Gatwick Airport to Reading
19:04 Paignton to London Paddington
19:06 London Paddington to Bedwyn
19:29 Gatwick Airport to Reading
20:03 London Paddington to Plymouth
20:42 Bedwyn to London Paddington
Delayed
13:59 Cardiff Central to Penzance
14:15 Penzance to London Paddington
16:03 London Paddington to Penzance
16:15 Penzance to London Paddington
Additional 17:17 Exeter St Davids to Penzance
Additional 17:26 Castle Cary to Penzance
17:29 Gatwick Airport to Reading
An additional train service has been planned to operate as shown 18:25 Shalford to Reading
19:04 London Paddington to Plymouth
19:59 Gatwick Airport to Reading
etc
PollsOpen and recent polls
Closed 2024-03-25 Easter Escape - to where?
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
March 28, 2024, 19:16:57 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[133] West Wiltshire Bus Changes April 2024
[132] would you like your own LIVE train station departure board?
[53] Return of the BRUTE?
[44] If not HS2 to Manchester, how will traffic be carried?
[41] Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption el...
[32] Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the...
 
News: the Great Western Coffee Shop ... keeping you up to date with travel around the South West
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: Default connection time?  (Read 3321 times)
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40690



View Profile WWW Email
« on: October 06, 2018, 08:31:15 »

Has the default connection time changed?   I always understood it was 5 minutes unless otherwise noted, but staff at Chippenham this morning assure me the standard is 7 minutes.   Apparently that's to allow for late running trains and for passengers to change platforms.

I still think it was mean to close the doors of the Bristol train as the passengers from Melksham ran across the platform.  Not an official connection maybe, but it would have been a nice 5 second gesture to save 7 people half an hour.. Bit of a one-off this morning as the "Melksham Flyer" has been re-timetabled later than usual. On a regular timetable Saturday, it would have been a connection fair and square!
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
stuving
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 7156


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2018, 10:17:08 »

Has the default connection time changed?   I always understood it was 5 minutes unless otherwise noted, but staff at Chippenham this morning assure me the standard is 7 minutes.   Apparently that's to allow for late running trains and for passengers to change platforms.

Having just looked in a current GWR (Great Western Railway) timetable (T10, as it happens), I find "the standard 5 minute allowance" is still there.
Logged
paul7575
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 5316


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2018, 10:43:21 »

Has the default connection time changed?   I always understood it was 5 minutes unless otherwise noted, but staff at Chippenham this morning assure me the standard is 7 minutes.   Apparently that's to allow for late running trains and for passengers to change platforms.

Having just looked in a current GWR (Great Western Railway) timetable (T10, as it happens), I find "the standard 5 minute allowance" is still there.
Staff making up their own rules? Whatever next...

Paul
Logged
eightonedee
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 1532



View Profile
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2018, 14:20:02 »

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's a shame the timetables as a whole are not set so that all likely interchanges have at least the minimum connection time between them.
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40690



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2018, 18:04:03 »

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's a shame the timetables as a whole are not set so that all likely interchanges have at least the minimum connection time between them.

Indeed - though there are issues that make that very difficult to achieve.  The current timetable does reasonably well having been tuned (GWR (Great Western Railway)) and nagged (Community inputs) into that shape over the years.  But when trains change because of engineering, there seems to be no time for tuning, and when we age we're told "too late" or "it's just for a few days".  Apparently, where there were 3 major possessions in 2012, there are 40 in 2018 (hope I have those figures right) and no-one's got the resource to do more than come up with a basic service - so what if a 2 hourly bus leaves 5 minutes before the usually-connecting train arrives?

We've had this worry over 50 days of no daytime service this year on the TransWilts, but the much bigger worry is the 2019 timetable which has connection and timing issues all over it.  Frankly, thank goodness it's not coming in month 1 2019 and probably not month 5 - may be month 9 or 12 or even 17.  As that gives a chance to at least correct the drafts which have all the SLC (Service Level Commitment) service slapped into them, and conform, but they're a disconnected setup where connections are random rather than a true network.
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
hassaanhc
Full Member
***
Posts: 79


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2018, 22:01:58 »

When the 2tph Paddington to Hayes & Harlington service transferred from GWR (Great Western Railway) to TfL» (Transport for London - about), they retimed the service slightly by departing 1 minute later and adding public timetable padding before arrival at Hayes. This broke the connection at Hayes & Harlington with the next GWR trains going further west! * The minimum connection time at Hayes & Harlington is 4 minutes, which used to be met in most hours. But now the public timetables only show a 1-3 minute difference between the TfL arrival and the GWR departure Sad
Logged
rogerw
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1336



View Profile
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2018, 21:19:53 »

Another case at Westbury tonight where a connection was broken with passengers still changing platforms. The 1857 Paddington to Plymouth was delayed at Thingley by the (very) late running Frome to Cheltenham service. It arrived 5 mins late at 2036 into platform 1 as booked.  The train manager then took 30 secs to release the doors.  The connecting Bristol service was from platform 3 and left on time at 2038 while passengers were still changing platforms and coming up the stairs. I was in the centre of the Plymouth train and just made the connection. If I had had heavy luggage I would not have.
Again this raises issues. As platform 2 was unoccupied, why wasn't the Plymouth service routed into that platform to give a cross platform change.  Failing that why was not the departure of the Bristol service delayed by a few minutes to ensure that everyone made the connection.  The time would probably be made up by Bristol in any case.  Those who didn't make it had their journey delayed by over 40 minutes as the following Portsmouth - Cardiff serviec is running 13 minutes late.  Rant over
Logged

I like to travel.  It lets me feel I'm getting somewhere.
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40690



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #7 on: October 09, 2018, 00:51:35 »

... Failing that why was not the departure of the Bristol service delayed by a few minutes to ensure that everyone made the connection.  The time would probably be made up by Bristol in any case.  Those who didn't make it had their journey delayed by over 40 minutes as the following Portsmouth - Cardiff serviec is running 13 minutes late.  Rant over

There are 6 minutes of pathing allowance on this train prior to arrival in Bristol, 5 of which are between Freshford and Bath Spa. It had a three minute station stop at Bradford-on-Avon and left there late as a result, yet left Bath Spa early according to the working timetable (see attachment to this post).  Unless it was blocking something else between Westbury and Bradford-on-Avon / Bradford Junction, it could have waited an extra minute or two.

I have had incidents like this explained to me as "the way it's done" and "part of the system" as well as - more justified "it will hold something else up" or "less bad than the delay to other passengers on the train".    If it happens frequently because it's "part of the system", then perhaps the system should be looked at to consider / optimise passenger journeys rather than train's timekeeping.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2018, 00:57:47 by grahame » Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
Louis94
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 446


View Profile
« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2018, 11:11:12 »


There are 6 minutes of pathing allowance on this train prior to arrival in Bristol, 5 of which are between Freshford and Bath Spa. It had a three minute station stop at Bradford-on-Avon and left there late as a result, yet left Bath Spa early according to the working timetable (see attachment to this post).  Unless it was blocking something else between Westbury and Bradford-on-Avon / Bradford Junction, it could have waited an extra minute or two.


That three minute stop at Bradford-on-Avon was most likely nothing of the sort, almost definitely in this case as there is no way the train could of left Bradford nearly 2 minutes late and only left Avoncliff 30 seconds late. There is no way to identify an accurate departure time from Bradford-upon-Avon when a train stops at Avoncliff as there is no means of a train reporting again until the train has arrived and departed Avoncliff. The reported departure time at Bradford-upon-Avon is based on if the train had not stopped at Avoncliff, obviously with a stop at Avoncliff the train will take longer to get to the next reporting point and therefore the dwell at Bradford will look longer.
Logged
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules (email link to report). Forum hosted by Well House Consultants

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page