Because it wasn't a valid connection? Seriously?Because the passengers shouldn't have been trying to board...
Who was trying to do the latter? And who was suggesting that's okay?It is a hustle alarm in the sense of 'This door is about to shut so hurry up and get out of the way'.
It doesn't mean 'Run from the other side of the platform and try to jump on.'
This is what gets me. Many above go on about Crewe connecting time being "10 minutes", and if the train is due only 9 minutes beforehand that justifies slamming the door in people's faces for this desperation of being on time. But Crewe is a big station and the 10 minutes allows for getting over from the far side. In this case that wasn't happening, the train was on the other side of the island platform, a 20-second walk across. But of course the first train had been late, probably by about 8 minutes.Because it would mean the Virgin service would need to arrive into Crewe earlier, and it's almost always late when I see it.
This is what gets me. Many above go on about Crewe connecting time being "10 minutes", and if the train is due only 9 minutes beforehand that justifies slamming the door in people's faces for this desperation of being on time.
No, because it was time for it to depart and the dispatch procedure had been started. The validity of the connection doesn't matter.Because it wasn't a valid connection? Seriously?
The OP stated that they were trying to make the cross-platform connection in a hurry. At the very least they would have been jogging, and quite probably running.Who was trying to do the latter? And who was suggesting that's okay?
This is what gets me. Many above go on about Crewe connecting time being "10 minutes", and if the train is due only 9 minutes beforehand that justifies slamming the door in people's faces for this desperation of being on time. But Crewe is a big station and the 10 minutes allows for getting over from the far side. In this case that wasn't happening, the train was on the other side of the island platform, a 20-second walk across. But of course the first train had been late, probably by about 8 minutes.
Now all of those who write above that the departing train must leave absolutely to the second, because punctuality is the first priority have completely glossed over that the first train was notably late. If it had been on time, no problem with the connection. But it wasn't. The overall impression is that being late due to the railway's own internal convenience such as putting in a TSR, a signal failure, staff reporting late, whatever, is all perfectly OK and part of life. But to have to wait a minute for a significant number of paying passengers - never.
And that attitude is part of why the general public, and thus the government who represent them, have long found rail attitudes tedious and not really wanting to support them.
There have been a few exceptions. Gerry Fiennes, much missed railway General Manager, of course in his book had the better attitude. There was an identical situation he wrote of witnessing at Reading, a tardy stream of connecting passengers slowly boarding a connecting express to Paddington. Did he say "slam the doors in their faces and get away"? Of course not, he said to the platform inspector "blow your whistle at them", to which came the humorous reply "Sir, one does not blow the whistle at passengers from Newbury". As ever, Fiennes had it right, and the current set of management procedures has it all wrong. I wonder if whoever wrote the EMT dispatch procedure has ever read Fiennes' book. Or even heard of him?
Many above go on about Crewe connecting time being "10 minutes", and if the train is due only 9 minutes beforehand that justifies slamming the door in people's faces for this desperation of being on time.
The dispatch procedure isn't instantaneous. It can involve closing anything between 2 and 20 doors and checking they are ok, that takes time. If for the sake of argument it takes 30 seconds and some people come running out of nowhere 15 seconds into that procedure then they have probably missed the train. It sucks for them but at some point the train has got to go. I've not seen both sides of the story in this incident but in my experience these arguments usually have the passenger saying the door was slammed in their face and the train crew saying that the passenger was trying to board after the dispatch procedure had begun.
They could reopen but if that costs another 30 seconds then someone else running a couple of minutes late tries to join during the second one (and it happens, trust me on that one) do you release a second time? What if someone tries to join on the third dispatch? Do you stay there forever or do you try to leave as close to your timetabled departure as possible?
The minimum connection is a bit of a red herring, as it has no impact on safe despatch. But it is relevant in this case because the OP was moaning that "EMT are rubbish" for not holding the connection. The simple fact is that this train was not an advertised connection; the advertised connection was the train one hour later. And at somewhere like Crewe there will always be a train that departs within a few minutes of another train that someone, somewhere, thinks should be held for a minute to allow them to board.
As for "slamming the door in people's faces", despatch is not an instantaneous process. If the passenger hears the doors closing alarm and sees the doors close in their face then it is likely that the despatch started at least 30 seconds beforehand. There's a good chance it had started before the passengers had even left the other train.
And we all know that when passengers hear the whistle or the doors closing alarm they make a mad dash for the train, throwing themselves at the closing doors, and when they don't manage it they then whine it was "slammed" in their face. It wasn't. When they heard the doors closing alarm they had already missed the train.
I get the frustration when you miss a train by seconds, it's happened to us all, but that is just one of those things. You play the game on a tight unofficial connection and sometimes you lose.
So you are telling us that the modern, 21st Century railway is quite incapable of handling a 9 minute cross-platform connection, and expects all their customers in a significant traffic flow to hang around for 69 minutes for such a connection, possibly doubling their journey time.The simple fact is that this train was not an advertised connection; the advertised connection was the train one hour later.
So you are telling us that the modern, 21st Century railway is quite incapable of handling a 9 minute cross-platform connection
It doesn't matter if it's the 19th, 20th or 21st century - if one train is scheduled to arrive at x:00 and the other leaves at x:09 sometimes you'll make the connection, other times you won't.So you are telling us that the modern, 21st Century railway is quite incapable of handling a 9 minute cross-platform connection, and expects all their customers in a significant traffic flow to hang around for 69 minutes for such a connection, possibly doubling their journey time.
Sometimes it is possible, sometimes it is not. It's a long journey from Glasgow to Crewe and there's lots of opportunity to pick up delay, and it's not easy to fix them all.The fact that the inbound train is apparently "regularly late" without the faintest thing ever having been done about it is a bit of a pointer to this attitude.
Unless we develop a proper national Taktfahrplan that accepts that many journeys will only ever be possible by means of connections and aims to make those connections as pain-free as possible -- unlike the British way of doing things.At a busy interchange there will always be trains leaving within a few minutes of each other, and someone will always be stuck on a platform for the sake of a few minutes. Delay a train for them and it'll just be a different person on a different platform.
The only way that will work is slowing down lots of journeys by adding a lot of padding to the timetables. The journey times between stations isn't a regular multiple of minutes.Unless we develop a proper national Taktfahrplan that accepts that many journeys will only ever be possible by means of connections and aims to make those connections as pain-free as possible -- unlike the British way of doing things.
An enormous amount of work has been done by Jonathan Tyler, amongst and with others, to shew just how it might be made to work. And of course it could never be an overnight job. As the Swiss experience shews, infrastructure improvement works need to be targeted on those points/lines where the Taktfahrplan demands them, not just at improving times between, say, London and Edinburgh or London and Glasgow.The only way that will work is slowing down lots of journeys by adding a lot of padding to the timetables. The journey times between stations isn't a regular multiple of minutes.
Actually the ARRIVAL time of the Scotland service is xx58, so it is a 9 minute connection.It's actually only six minutes (xx01 arrival, xx07 departure)
99 times out of 100 this will be a cross platform connectionand it may or may not be a cross-platform connection (in this case it sort of is, depending on where on the VTWC train you're sitting), there's no guarantee,
The connection time at Crewe could easily be lowered. An able bodied person can walk from one end of Crewe station (platform 12) to the other (platforms 1-2) in 5-6 minutes. Thus adding a couple of minutes padding would give an 8 minute connection time making the one we are discussing a valid connection.therefore they have to work on the assumption it'll take the full ten minutes.
Not necessary. A couple of minutes should be sufficient.In which case we move the xx07 Derby train to xx12, to meet the minimum connection.
2 minutes later see above. Anyway, in practice the train regular waits outside Derby for a few minutes, so we can probably compress the schedule by a couple of minutes, and still make the same arrival time at Derby.That means it gets into Derby five minutes later,
Not it doesnt ! As discussed above we can probably provide a better connection at Crewe and still reach Derby at the currently scheduled time (xx26)which means it misses connections at Derby for Nottingham and Birmingham New Street.
At a busy interchange there will always be trains leaving within a few minutes of each other, and someone will always be stuck on a platform for the sake of a few minutes. Delay a train for them and it'll just be a different person on a different platform.
Basing connection times on what an 'able bodied' person who is familiar with the station can theoretically manage is a recipe for lots of complaints about missed connections.The connection time at Crewe could easily be lowered. An able bodied person...
If the facts don't support your contention, just change the facts....making the one we are discussing a valid connection.
....99 times out of 100 this will be a cross platform connection....
....The connection time at Crewe could easily be lowered. An able bodied person can walk from one end of Crewe station (platform 12) to the other (platforms 1-2) in 5-6 minutes. Thus adding a couple of minutes padding would give an 8 minute connection time making the one we are discussing a valid connection....
....As a regular traveller on this route the commonest cause of delays is extended dwell times at stations caused by the large numbers of passengers detraining and embarking from a single class 153. Increasing the capacity (156 or 153 x 2) would thus improve reliability....
I'm somebody who regularly holds my "branchline" train to connect with mainline services out of Kings Cross. I don't need a manager from a bygone age to tell me that its okay to do that, I'm capable of making my own decisions based on whether I think it's in the best interests or not. On the other hand I've also shut my doors on time as the mainline service is rolling in, in the full knowledge that a handful of passengers with tons of luggage will have to wait for the next service, the reason? Because it will significantly delay my train to get them and their luggage onboard.This is what gets me. Many above go on about Crewe connecting time being "10 minutes", and if the train is due only 9 minutes beforehand that justifies slamming the door in people's faces for this desperation of being on time. But Crewe is a big station and the 10 minutes allows for getting over from the far side. In this case that wasn't happening, the train was on the other side of the island platform, a 20-second walk across. But of course the first train had been late, probably by about 8 minutes.
Now all of those who write above that the departing train must leave absolutely to the second, because punctuality is the first priority have completely glossed over that the first train was notably late. If it had been on time, no problem with the connection. But it wasn't. The overall impression is that being late due to the railway's own internal convenience such as putting in a TSR, a signal failure, staff reporting late, whatever, is all perfectly OK and part of life. But to have to wait a minute for a significant number of paying passengers - never.
And that attitude is part of why the general public, and thus the government who represent them, have long found rail attitudes tedious and not really wanting to support them.
There have been a few exceptions. Gerry Fiennes, much missed railway General Manager, of course in his book had the better attitude. There was an identical situation he wrote of witnessing at Reading, a tardy stream of connecting passengers slowly boarding a connecting express to Paddington. Did he say "slam the doors in their faces and get away"? Of course not, he said to the platform inspector "blow your whistle at them", to which came the humorous reply "Sir, one does not blow the whistle at passengers from Newbury". As ever, Fiennes had it right, and the current set of management procedures has it all wrong. I wonder if whoever wrote the EMT dispatch procedure has ever read Fiennes' book. Or even heard of him?
This is what gets me. Many above go on about Crewe connecting time being "10 minutes", and if the train is due only 9 minutes beforehand that justifies slamming the door in people's faces for this desperation of being on time. But Crewe is a big station and the 10 minutes allows for getting over from the far side. In this case that wasn't happening, the train was on the other side of the island platform, a 20-second walk across. But of course the first train had been late, probably by about 8 minutes.
Now all of those who write above that the departing train must leave absolutely to the second, because punctuality is the first priority have completely glossed over that the first train was notably late. If it had been on time, no problem with the connection. But it wasn't. The overall impression is that being late due to the railway's own internal convenience such as putting in a TSR, a signal failure, staff reporting late, whatever, is all perfectly OK and part of life. But to have to wait a minute for a significant number of paying passengers - never.
And that attitude is part of why the general public, and thus the government who represent them, have long found rail attitudes tedious and not really wanting to support them.
There have been a few exceptions. Gerry Fiennes, much missed railway General Manager, of course in his book had the better attitude. There was an identical situation he wrote of witnessing at Reading, a tardy stream of connecting passengers slowly boarding a connecting express to Paddington. Did he say "slam the doors in their faces and get away"? Of course not, he said to the platform inspector "blow your whistle at them", to which came the humorous reply "Sir, one does not blow the whistle at passengers from Newbury". As ever, Fiennes had it right, and the current set of management procedures has it all wrong. I wonder if whoever wrote the EMT dispatch procedure has ever read Fiennes' book. Or even heard of him?
This question has been asked several times now, but seems to be being ignored since it would spoil a good rant/dig at the railway.Or, to summarise, why should the hundreds of people on the train be delayed for one person who is late?
Or, to summarise, why should the hundreds of people on the train be delayed for one person who is late?
Quite, despite all the bluster and bluff of it being horrifically overcrowded I left Crewe with 10 on and arrived into Derby with just under 40 on. I've never left anybody behind on that route even at peak times.You've not seen the loadings on the Crewe - Derby trains I take it?
Or, to summarise, why should the hundreds of people on the train be delayed for one person who is late?
Only if you can guarantee that none of those 500 people are then subject to a subsequent delay. That three minutes could mean that 50 of the people then miss a bus or another train....so it is better to delay a train of 500 people by three minutes if it saves a single person an hour.
Only if you can guarantee that none of those 500 people are then subject to a subsequent delay. That three minutes could mean that 50 of the people then miss a bus or another train.
Last Friday my train to Edinburgh was six minutes down leaving Crewe, but was 29 minutes down by the time it got to Haymarket.
So they were right not to delay the train to wait for the passengers off the late train....which is why generally keeping trains to time is a good thing.