Plymouth - Penzance Express (29/7/13)

[whole diary]

[LiskeardRich]

Looks like the 1755 Plymouth to Penzance is trying to be an express train tonight.

17:55 Plymouth to Penzance due 19:54 This train has been delayed from Plymouth and is now 35 minutes late.
This train will no longer call at Saltash, Liskeard, Bodmin Parkway, Lostwithiel, St Austell, Redruth and Camborne.
This is due to a broken down train. To find out whether this will impact your journey and to get alternative options, please check www.nationalrail.co.uk or call National Rail Enquiries on 0845 7 484950 (24 hours). For the latest rail travel news, why not follow us on Twitter @FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

17:55 18:30 Plymouth 
18:04 Not Stopping Saltash 
18:20 Not Stopping Liskeard 
18:32 Not Stopping Bodmin Parkway 
18:37 Not Stopping Lostwithiel 
18:45 19:20 Par 
18:53 Not Stopping St Austell 
19:10 19:45 Truro 
19:23 Not Stopping Redruth 
19:29 Not Stopping Camborne 
19:36 20:11 Hayle 
19:42 20:17 St Erth 
19:54 20:29 Penzance 

[bobm]

One thing that annoys me about JourneyCheck, it assumes if a train leaves 35 minutes late it will arrive at its destination 35 minutes late - despite skipping stops.  In this particular case it was actually 40 minutes late by the time it left Par, pulled it back to 36 by Truro and arrived at Penzance only 29 minutes late.

[grahame]

One thing that annoys me about JourneyCheck, it assumes if a train leaves 35 minutes late it will arrive at its destination 35 minutes late - despite skipping stops.  ....

But on the other hand, extra stops can be inserted and if the train starts on time it will arrive on time. A Penzance to Plymouth service the other day made extra stops at St Germans, Keyham, Dockyard and Devonport ... and was still forecast to be on time into Plymouth.

We are still in the early days of documenting and forecasting delays in these systems ... the human mind is still much more likely to come up with a sensible forecast that the computers.

[Super Guard]

The system Train Crew use to monitor rosters/annual leave and also train services, take data from TRUST^▸ (Train Running System TOPS).  As the journey progresses and delays happen / time is made up, it adjusts the expected arrival times as it passes a booked waypoint, so it is possible to be more accurate.

It is far from perfect though and it doesn't account for station time being shorter than booked, for example if a service is running 30 late and has 15 minutes booked in Plymouth, it will still assume the train will sit for the 15 minutes, whereas it will more likely be 3 or 4 maximum and leave 18 late.

[JayMac]

The system of advising delays is a long way from perfect.

My own observations show that when a train is reported as delayed, by say 7 minutes, I can confidently predict that it will be wheels rolling 10 minutes after the scheduled departure time.

Whenever I see a CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) showing a delay of x minutes, I always mentally add 3 minutes. Not once have I seen a delayed service depart at the number of minutes down as displayed on CIS.

Sometimes, just occasionally, the CIS does correct itself, but only when the train is rolling into the platform or after folk have boarded.