Examples of services which might benefit from being Clockface

[GordonT]

Morecambe-Lancaster with occasional journeys to Leeds "enjoys" a horrible quasi-40 minute frequency. The journey time from Morecambe to Lancaster is 10 minutes. I wonder if a very resource inefficient but easier to remember mainly hourly pattern would actually generate more custom perhaps stepped up to 30 minutes at "peak" times? Any examples of other services of this sort?

 

[55018ballymoss]

I imagine one of the problems is with the route between Lancaster station and Morecambe South Junction as flighting the Morecambe local service depends on the service on the WCML as the crossovers at Lancaster station and at Morecambe South Junction are relatively slow c.20mph and it is difficult to plan around the long distance traffic through Lancaster.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I imagine one of the problems is with the route between Lancaster station and Morecambe South Junction as flighting the Morecambe local service depends on the service on the WCML as the crossovers at Lancaster station and at Morecambe South Junction are relatively slow c.20mph and it is difficult to plan around the long distance traffic through Lancaster.

The WCML is mostly clockface, so pathing an hourly clockface Morecambe service would likely be easier.

 

[55018ballymoss]

I agree, an hourly service would be easy to plan as it is mostly clock face, however the OP was wanting to improve on the current roughly every 40 minute frequency currently offered.
Improving the service to every half hour would require sharp turnarounds at both ends and rely on paths for the short distance on the WCML. As the long distance expresses are flighted together to create margins for long distance freight each hour, I imagine it is extremely difficult to find clock face departures for the Morecambe branch every half hour.

 

[D6975]

One place where the introduction of a clockface timetable has been a negative is the IOW. The old 20/40 offered nice 'safe' connections at the Pierhead. The new 30/30 with only alternate trains going down the pier has created rather tight connections onto/off the ferry. For pax not going to/from the ferry it is however an improvement.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One place where the introduction of a clockface timetable has been a negative is the IOW. The old 20/40 offered nice 'safe' connections at the Pierhead. The new 30/30 with only alternate trains going down the pier has created rather tight connections onto/off the ferry. For pax not going to/from the ferry it is however an improvement.

To be fair 20/40 is clockface. All the term means is "the same minutes past each hour, every hour" (give or take stuff like peak extras and overnight).

 

[Llandudno]

The north Wales coastal services could do with being made clockface, the current timetable is a dog’s breakfast!

 

[Bletchleyite]

The north Wales coastal services could do with being made clockface, the current timetable is a dog’s breakfast!

Agreed, it's an utter mess and unnecessarily so. It was close to clockface when it was first introduced, but it's been faffed with far too much.

 

[Basil Jet]

The obvious two would be St Albans Abbey and Southminster.. although the 40 minute headways on the Southminster branch go quite well with the 20 minute headways on the Southend Victoria branch, so changing the former to 30 minute headways would probably require changing the Southend branch to 15 minute headways, as well as whatever work the single-track branch would need.

The Sheringham Branch is an odd one, it comes so close to being hourly but is just slightly all over the place. Maybe a pair of battery trains would have the acceleration to call at every station hourly.

 

[devon_belle]

The Heart of Wessex line would benefit from some regularity.

 

[calopez]

For me... the Greenford branch (with tighter connections onto the eastbound Elizabeth line at West Ealing), and local stations between Marylebone and High Wycombe.

 

[Grecian 1998]

The Heart of Wessex line would benefit from some regularity.

The Heart of Wessex has become a much more regular service since May. The timetable is now a fairly consistent 2 hourly service with extras, rather than the previous sporadic timetable which had some 3 hour gaps.

An hourly timetable isn't possible over the whole route without additional passing facilities - IIRC @zwk500 has advised this would need to be a dynamic loop at Maiden Newton.

 

[devon_belle]

An hourly timetable isn't possible over the whole route without additional passing facilities - IIRC @zwk500 has advised this would need to be a dynamic loop at Maiden Newton.

Yeah, I'd read that on this forum. Infrastructure improvements to achieve clockface hourly services aren't totally out of the question though. E.g. the Axminster dynamic loop. Glad to hear HoW is better since May, though.

 

[GordonT]

Inverness to Aberdeen is another of these vaguely two-hourly services end-to-end supplemented by short workings at either end but overall a bit of a mish-mash. Presumably it would need some Swiss-style creativity and further investment to produce a straight hourly service?

 

[zwk500]

The Heart of Wessex has become a much more regular service since May. The timetable is now a fairly consistent 2 hourly service with extras, rather than the previous sporadic timetable which had some 3 hour gaps.

An hourly timetable isn't possible over the whole route without additional passing facilities - IIRC @zwk500 has advised this would need to be a dynamic loop at Maiden Newton.

A dynamic loop is the most obvious thing it would need, but there are other ways you can package up improvements that might get away without it. In total you'd need to reduce transit times on each single line section by 2-3 minutes per train, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to allow trains to enter the loops quicker, as well as to lengthen the loops (i.e. shorten the single line sections).

However you could also do it with better performing trains, less stops per schedule, or by speeding up the general linespeeds. NSTR would almost certainly need to be replaced in some way.

 

[dk1]

The Sheringham Branch is an odd one, it comes so close to being hourly but is just slightly all over the place. Maybe a pair of battery trains would have the acceleration to call at every station hourly.

It’s the disparity with time taken on the northern half of the branch compared with the south although the better 755 acceleration has not been taken into account. During peak times trains need to call at all stations which causes the problem. If however special stop orders (SSOs) are added at times of disruption to connecting services, we still manage to recover the time lost so it can be done. Seems like train planning prefer the padding in the timetable. I’m not sure battery trains could out run the Stadlers especially a 4-car with no isolated engines in the power pack.