Northern Rail timetables from the 14th of September 2020 until the 12th of December 2020

[Bletchleyite]

Where are you seeing that?

I wasn't, sorry, I was getting confused.

 

[WesternLancer]

I suppose % of services is misleading even if it's accurate. If we take the Leeds to Bradford stopper as an example, that only takes 26 minutes and only stops at a few stations so should it be treated as 1 service in the statistics exactly the same as Leeds to Chester taking over 2 hours and calling at three times as many stations?

Maybe the government should force rail operators to display at every station what proportion of services are operating, unless it's 100%?

it's disingenuous to say the least (well it will be marketing 'spin') - you could run 100% of your trains non stop and say you were running 100% of services but that's no use to the stations no longer stopped at....

I imagine Barry Doe takes a dim view, as I recall he's a mathematician!

 

[Ianno87]

I suppose % of services is misleading even if it's accurate. If we take the Leeds to Bradford stopper as an example, that only takes 26 minutes and only stops at a few stations so should it be treated as 1 service in the statistics exactly the same as Leeds to Chester taking over 2 hours and calling at three times as many stations?

Maybe the government should force rail operators to display at every station what proportion of services are operating, unless it's 100%?

Will the government be paying the operators to work that out for every single station, rather than % of services which is much quicker to work out?

 

[peters]

Will the government be paying the operators to work that out for every single station, rather than % of services which is much quicker to work out?

You do realise it won't be a man sat at a table with a notepad, pen, set of timetables and calculator? They'll have all the information in a database, it's just a question of someone writing a script, exporting the outcome as a CSV (for every station) and using mail merge so that information can be pulled on to posters, much easier than creating posters for engineering works on different lines!

Anyway, I was under the impression the government has said 100% of services should have been operating since July and it's up to operators to make up excuses for why they aren't doing that. Note I only suggested for stations where 100% of services aren't running.

 

[Ianno87]

You do realise it won't be a man sat at a table with a notepad, pen, set of timetables and calculator? They'll have all the information in a database, it's just a question of someone writing a script, exporting the outcome as a CSV (for every station) and using mail merge so that information can be pulled on to posters, much easier than creating posters for engineering works on different lines!

No, it very much will be a graduate sat at a desk counting trains for an hour or so from an Excel export of the timetable train list.

There are far more valuable uses of the skills of people coding then some unnecessarily granular statistics.

 

[WesternLancer]

You do realise it won't be a man sat at a table with a notepad, pen, set of timetables and calculator? They'll have all the information in a database, it's just a question of someone writing a script, exporting the outcome as a CSV (for every station) and using mail merge so that information can be pulled on to posters, much easier than creating posters for engineering works on different lines!

Anyway, I was under the impression the government has said 100% of services should have been operating since July and it's up to operators to make up excuses for why they aren't doing that. Note I only suggested for stations where 100% of services aren't running.

Yes
Tho if it's anywhere like where I work somewhere there will be someone senior asking for the data to be reconfigured in various ways so the marketing team can quote the best looking headline figure in whatever press release or tweet they send out!

 

[Andy Pacer]

I think mathematics is not a subject required for working in the rail industry.

For months EMR have been running an '80% timetable' which apparently is what 2 trains every 3 hours calculates out as nowadays.

They claim to be getting to 97% service in September so that will be interesting!

 

[WesternLancer]

They claim to be getting to 97% service in September so that will be interesting!

No doubt by new year it will be 110%

The sort of figures released by what I recall one journalist skeptically calling the 'Department for Imaginary Statistics'

Probably redeployed from work on soviet tractor production figures....

 

[Baxenden Bank]

No, it very much will be a graduate sat at a desk counting trains for an hour or so from an Excel export of the timetable train list.

There are far more valuable uses of the skills of people coding then some unnecessarily granular statistics.

A graduate!!!!!

Basic CSE maths should do the trick. How many trains now into how many trains before.

 

[peters]

No, it very much will be a graduate sat at a desk counting trains for an hour or so from an Excel export of the timetable train list.

There are far more valuable uses of the skills of people coding then some unnecessarily granular statistics.

Schools teach coding now and have done for a number of years so presuming the graduate is a 21/22 year old they probably know how to write a basic computer program even if they are a History graduate! If 87 was your year of birth then remember people over 10 years younger than you learned things relating to computing in secondary school which you wouldn't have learned unless you studied it at university.

Yes
Tho if it's anywhere like where I work somewhere there will be someone senior asking for the data to be reconfigured in various ways so the marketing team can quote the best looking headline figure in whatever press release or tweet they send out!

Perhaps:
Number of weekend services running: 100%
Number of weekday services running: 85%
Average of the above: 95% (instead of the daily average of 89%)?

 

[Ianno87]

A graduate!!!!!

Basic CSE maths should do the trick. How many trains now into how many trains before.

Graduate = Someone newish still learning about the business where going through familiarising themselves with the timetable is a good learning exercise.

Schools teach coding now and have done for a number of years so presuming the graduate is a 21/22 year old they probably know how to write a basic computer program even if they are a History graduate! If 87 was your year of birth then remember people over 10 years younger than you learned things relating to computing in secondary school which you wouldn't have learned unless you studied it at university.

Still quicker and easier just to count some trains from a spreadsheet.

 

[peters]

Still quicker and easier just to count some trains from a spreadsheet.

For 280 stations when some stations have more than one line serving them? Just use the macro feature in Excel to remove redundant data and get left with a list of stations, usual number of weekly services and actual number of weekly services, then write a formula of =SUM(B3/B2)*100, copy the formula down to cover all rows and job done in less than 10 minutes or if you've used the same macro before job done in less than 3 minutes!

 

[Ianno87]

For 280 stations when some stations have more than one line serving them? Just use the macro feature in Excel to remove redundant data and get left with a list of stations, usual number of weekly services and actual number of weekly services, then write a formula of =SUM(B3/B2)*100, copy the formula down to cover all rows and job done in less than 10 minutes or if you've used the same macro before job done in less than 3 minutes!

You'd have to write a Macro first, starting from a PIF or a CIF (in CSV format) which lists every train and stopping pattern and working down from that. Couple of days work to write such a macro from scratch at least, and half a day to de-bug.

All for some stats only a few people actually care about.


Alternatively, just spend an hour counting trains to give a headline figure for a press release. Better use of taxpayers' money.

 

[Tetchytyke]

0522 from Skipton goes back as the 0648 from Lancaster
(what we believe is an incorrect listing of 0941 from Lancaster due to the May to December schedule not being deleted, if that was to run there needs to be a train from Skipton at 0750-0800ish)

Do you think the 0648 is incorrectly listed, or the 0941? If the 0648 doesn't run there's no viable commuter train into Leeds (for whatever commuters there are)

 

[janb]

Do you think the 0648 is incorrectly listed, or the 0941? If the 0648 doesn't run there's no viable commuter train into Leeds (for whatever commuters there are)

The 0941.

The 0648 LAN is the return working of the 0522 SKI.

 

[30907]

No. The Skipton/Leeds operation as per the 14th September timetable,
0522 from Skipton goes back as the 0648 from Lancaster
(what we believe is an incorrect listing of 0941 from Lancaster due to the May to December schedule not being deleted, if that was to run there needs to be a train from Skipton at 0750-0800ish)
0856 from Skipton goes back as the 1046 from Lancaster (will this train actually go to/from Morecambe as it currently does? We'll find out)
1253 from Skipton goes back as the 1432 from Morecambe
1726 from Leeds goes back as the 2007 from Morecambe

Current Covid operation,
0522 from Skipton goes back as the 0648 from Lancaster
0856 from Skipton goes back as the 1033 from Morecambe
1458 from Skipton goes through to Morecambe, does 1638 Morecambe to Lancaster, 1715 Lancaster to Morecambe, then goes back at 1731 from Morecambe
2000 from Skipton goes back as the 2131 from Lancaster

So as Zooty says losing the 1622 and 1715 Lancaster to Morecambe. The kids will have to wait till 1643.

Apart from the Morecambe shuttles issue, that is a better (less worse!) balanced timetable - only a 4 hour gap mid-day instead of 6

 

[Eloise]

Graduate = Someone newish still learning about the business where going through familiarising themselves with the timetable is a good learning exercise.



Still quicker and easier just to count some trains from a spreadsheet.

This is true, a lot of these things are done manually. No other way. Each request is different.

This is coming from someone who has spent an afternoon doing just such a task for a Freedom of Information request!

 

[Ken H]

It's certainly an improvement, but there are still some gaps.

There's a later train from Carlisle thank goodness. Interesting that they've gone for the one that leaves Appleby towards Leeds at 20:55, rather than the one that's around 2 hours before, but it does seem to get passengers when I've been on it. Hopefully they'll have the connecting late services at Leeds for when it gets in !

For Lancaster, there's the 20:30 to get back to Leeds which is good as it's the one I usually get.

There appears to be nothing to replicate the 10:24 from Leeds towards Lancaster. I suppose being Northern they had to screw it up somehow.

bit of a worry that a lot of the saturday trains are Skipton-Carlisle only. That is peak leisure travel day.

 

[30907]

bit of a worry that a lot of the saturday trains are Skipton-Carlisle only. That is peak leisure travel day.

Yes, but it's the full service, unlike SX - and there are plenty of other (higher capacity) trains East of Skipton.

 

[yorksrob]

bit of a worry that a lot of the saturday trains are Skipton-Carlisle only. That is peak leisure travel day.

Well, it's not ideal.

At least we'll have a train back after 18:00.

 

[158756]

Manchester service from Burnley and Accrington remains at one train every 3 hours. As far as I'm concerned the route has effectively ceased, the gaps are just too long to compete with the convenience of car or bus.

 

[peters]

You'd have to write a Macro first, starting from a PIF or a CIF (in CSV format) which lists every train and stopping pattern and working down from that. Couple of days work to write such a macro from scratch at least, and half a day to de-bug.

All for some stats only a few people actually care about.


Alternatively, just spend an hour counting trains to give a headline figure for a press release. Better use of taxpayers' money.

Marcos, like raw computer code, only needs to be written from scratch once and most of the time you can search for something similar online and adapt it for your needs, so you don't even need to write it from scratch the first time.

Better use of taxpayers money is to pay for enough drivers to run all the services they are supposed to. However, given that isn't going to happen they need publiclise how many trains are running from each station at the earliest opportunity, so their customer service team, social media team, ticket office staff and conductors don't answer thousands of questions about the missing services everyday!

 

[Halish Railway]

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned before, however, the oddball Skipton to Leeds express train has made its way back into the timetable. Given the withdrawal of the withdrawal of the 321s and 322s this service will most likely be operated by a 331.

Realtime Trains - 2T90 1256 Skipton to Leeds

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[yorksrob]

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned before, however, the oddball Skipton to Leeds express train has made its way back into the timetable. Given the withdrawal of the withdrawal of the 321s and 322s this service will most likely be operated by a 331.

Realtime Trains - 2T90 1256 Skipton to Leeds

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

It's pointless without a full service to Lancaster.

 

[Halish Railway]

It's pointless without a full service to Lancaster.

Really that service is just an ECS movement converted into a service, sort of like a repositioning cruise.

Also, would I be right in thinking that the services from beyond Skipton are terminating at Skipton because of the platform 0 works at Leeds that reduce platform space as their was a similar arrangement pre-Covid.

 

[yorksrob]

Really that service is just an ECS movement converted into a service, sort of like a repositioning cruise.

Also, would I be right in thinking that the services from beyond Skipton are terminating at Skipton because of the platform 0 works at Leeds that reduce platform space as their was a similar arrangement pre-Covid.

I suppose it's better to have people on it in that case.

The platform works can't account for the large gaps in the service from Skipton. Changing trains wouldn't be such an issue if the connections were where the through trains would ordinarily be. The lack of anything from Leeds in the 10:19 slot is a real problem.

 

[30907]

The platform works can't account for the large gaps in the service from Skipton. Changing trains wouldn't be such an issue if the connections were where the through trains would ordinarily be. The lack of anything from Leeds in the 10:19 slot is a real problem.

They account for the gaps vetween Skipton and Leeds in the regular timetable.
The Lancaster issue is a straight reduction in service.

 

[yorksrob]

The Lancaster issue is a straight reduction in service.

It needs to be reversed.

 

[route101]

Is the Sheffield to York via Pontefract running on the 12th of September?

 

[robbeech]

Is the Sheffield to York via Pontefract running on the 12th of September?

Doesn’t appear to be. These start on the 14th by the looks of things.