£150 per minute when Late!

[Simon Poole]

Today i was coming back from Sheffield, the 1854 to Plymouth was 20 Minutes late and missed the connection at Birmingham back to Rugeley (Lucky the Playmouth train arrived at 2024 and the 2017 to Rugeley Trent Valley was held up becuase of the Plymouth Train)

While on the train, my brother went to ask the train conductor if any chance they could hold up the 2017 to Rugeley Trent Valley, the anwser was no but due to an intresting reason

If an train is late it's cost £150 pounds per minute and lose money

 

[starrymarkb]

Today i was coming back from Sheffield, the 1854 to Plymouth was 20 Minutes late and missed the connection at Birmingham back to Rugeley (Lucky the Playmouth train arrived at 2024 and the 2017 to Rugeley Trent Valley was held up becuase of the Plymouth Train)

While on the train, my brother went to ask the train conductor if any chance they could hold up the 2017 to Rugeley Trent Valley, the anwser was no but due to an intresting reason

If an train is late it's cost £150 pounds per minute and lose money

Yep, and IIRC that's per minute it causes to other trains as well.

 

[Lampshade]

And it's fare evasion that pushes ticket prices up? Hmm...

 

[yorkie]

Today i was coming back from Sheffield, the 1854 to Plymouth was 20 Minutes late and missed the connection at Birmingham back to Rugeley (Lucky the Playmouth train arrived at 2024 and the 2017 to Rugeley Trent Valley was held up becuase of the Plymouth Train)

You say it "missed the connection", you then appear to say that it made the connection, this is confusing. However it does appear the connection was made, due to the 2017 BHM-RGL train leaving at 2030.

Had the connection been missed you would have been delayed by 1 hour so able to claim compensation accordingly (but at a lot lower rate )

I see the train departed BHM 13 mins late but arrived RGL only 5 late!

 

[NSEFAN]

I see the train departed BHM 13 mins late but arrived RGL only 5 late!

I see the recovery time is coming into play here!

 

[First class]

Firstly, it is UP TO £150 per minute.

IRRC, Merseyrail is charged £45 per minute for delays WITHIN THEIR CONTROL.

 

[The Planner]

I see the recovery time is coming into play here!

Probably not, if it went on time there was likely to be something in front of it so the Rugeley was padded out to keep the headway. If that train isnt there it gains time, also I bet the dwells at all the intermediates were shorter than booked too. I might have a gander at that one later.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Firstly, it is UP TO £150 per minute.

IRRC, Merseyrail is charged £45 per minute for delays WITHIN THEIR CONTROL.

Indeed it is varied by region/line according to importance. The Brighton Mainline is £150 per minute of delay. The Midland Mainline atleast as far as Bedford is £100pm I think. The delay is attributed to a company and that company pays the 'fine'.

For example, a Northern Rail service breaks down just outside Liverpool Lime Street (1 hr late arrival at Liverpool) and holds up a Virgin Trains service (55 minutes delay) and a London Midland service (25 minutes), Northern would have to pay for 140 minutes of delay.

Northern allow services to depart upto five minutes late to keep connections (I think if the delay is five minutes or less they don't get charged as they are considered on time).

 

[Metroland]

It's nothing new, this has been going on since privatisation.

Essentially, for every delay reason, there is a code, plus a responsible manager. Hopefully every minute is accounted for, certain every one is queried. With 24,000 trains running per day that's a big job.

It's not quite as simple as that, as you get TOC on TOC delay.

For example, a train gets stopped by a track circuit failure in Bristol, causing it 15 minutes worth of delay, and 28 other services. So the total minutes of delay is 420 minutes, possibly payable at £50-£100 per minute, lets say £80. So that's £33,600. Although the exact framework for compensation is more complex, and as you can imagine political at times and need an army of management to deal with.

Then those 28 services, affect other services, say by delay on single lines, stopping trains running slow ahead of fast trains, or trains taking up other platforms. So, lets say another 2000 minutes worth of delay is caused. Then those trains, delay other trains and so on.

This is why there is so many single track redoubling schemes going on.

You can quickly end up with delays with 10,000 -100,000 minutes of more and bills of millions, in fact some bridge bashes on busy main lines have ended up with third parties like hauliers with court actions for bills of £1 million or more.

The delays caused by the Hatfield rail disruption was the biggest number I know of, and I forget what the total was, but it was millions of minutes and led to the bankruptcy of Railtrack.

The skill of the railway operating staff is:

1: To identify and repair the fault, or solve the problem, within the framework of the rules and regulations.

2: To minimise direct delay

3: To minimise indirect delay.

Staff that do not minimise delay or cause delay are likely to end up out of a job or demoted.

 

[nedchester]

Suppose it keeps a few accountants in jobs on the modern railway.........

 

[blacknight]

Its a :-x world of PPM (public performance measure) TOCs very keen on it another tick in the box on next months poster, sadly public dont think measure counts for much when they are left standing on platform staring at tail lights disappearing of another missed connection.

 

[nedchester]

Firstly, it is UP TO £150 per minute.

IRRC, Merseyrail is charged £45 per minute for delays WITHIN THEIR CONTROL.

Seems bizarre within Merseyrail as in most cases delays with Merseyrail will just delay other Merseyrail trains!!!

Will explain why if a train is more than a few minutes late say at Hooton heading to Liverpool Merseyrail will throw off the passengers at Hooton to wait for the train behind and then run the late train non stop to Liverpool where it will be on time. Bingo, no delay minutes as the train is no longer late!

Meanwhile the passengers have had to wait extra time at Hooton!!! Oh and if the train is running to Liverpool anyhow why not allow passengers for Liverpool to stay on the train as it is going there anyhow?

 

[GB]

I believe delay penalties only come into effect once it reaches 3 or more minutes. So if a train was late departing a station by 1 or 2 minutes this will not be flagged up.

Alot of delay minutes get written off at the end of the year also.

 

[yorkie]

Essentially, for every delay reason, there is a code, plus a responsible manager. Hopefully every minute is accounted for, certain every one is queried. With 24,000 trains running per day that's a big job.

Indeed. It's one of the jobs that really shouldn't exist. It contributes nothing to the railways overall. It's one of the reasons why the railways has many extra costs that simply should not exist.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Alot of delay minutes get written off at the end of the year also.

How do they do that? Do they just aggregate it between each party and then only swap money about on the remaining minutes?

What I mean is, if party A has caused 1000 delay minutes and party B has caused 750 delay minutes, then do they just treat that as charging party A for the 250 minutes and leave it at that?

 

[Metroland]

Suppose it keeps a few accountants in jobs on the modern railway.........

It certainly led to an increase in management and operating cost after privatisation, a good deal of risk aversion, and a blame culture.

The system is very good at identifying issues, although I'd ague most of the issues are probably known by any decent railwayman worth his salt - such as poor condition of equipment, technical improvements that can be made, poor locations of signals and lack of running lines and so on.

The idea was to inject a lot of accountability into the railway, it's certainly done that, but at the expense of overall cohesion. You can imagine, fingers are pointed because of a signal fault, because say a cable was in poor condition because of a contractor, but fingers are also pointed back because the traffic regulation was poor, a NR issue, or the TOC didn't have it's trains/drivers in the right place. Communication is everything.

Performance issues really do affect profits, and you have bizarre situations were compensation is paid for improvements to the railway!

All significant delays trigger meetings between management, big delays trigger inquires, where staff will be grilled round a table or in private.

 

[GB]

Not sure of the specific process but your example seems right.

 

[Metroland]

I believe delay penalties only come into effect once it reaches 3 or more minutes. So if a train was late departing a station by 1 or 2 minutes this will not be flagged up.

Alot of delay minutes get written off at the end of the year also.

I might be wrong but I think it's 2 minutes (it was in my time and area), certainly if a train loses that sort of time between timing points, the running controllers will ring the controlling signal box to find out why, and depending on the explanation the TOC to query the train crew as you will probably know. This is one of the reasons why a busy IECC workstation or panel will get 200-300 calls per shift.

Delay attribution is a major part of the modern railway, and yes some minutes are written off, but I think NR pick up most of the tab for 'unexplained delay'

 

[The Planner]

I believe delay penalties only come into effect once it reaches 3 or more minutes.

Its 3 on most lines, some others such as the WCML have dropped to 2 now.

 

[Metroland]

Sounds right, thanks for the clarity.

One final thing on this, for those not in the know, most phone calls are recorded on the railways, the real time situation is monitored by many people as is also recorded, as well as most outputs from any significant signalling interlocking.

Covering up delay is a very risky game and covering up safety issues will result in being fired. I've seen the ways some preserved railways are operated, and it's a million miles apart from how the national network is operated, and is certainly not a fly by night operation with very serious consequences.

 

[shinkansen1966]

This business of delayed compensation merry-go-round money between TOCs and Network Rail should be transparent. After all, it was created by politicians after the broke up BR. Public money goes into the network.

Just how many people are involved in this business of allocating delay minutes ? Jeez, we're looking for cuts in bureaucracy.

Many years, my FGW train was 3.5 hours late in Paddington. Cause of delay: cable damage. I asked FGW to tell me how much money Railtrack (back then) paid FGW in compensation for the delay to our train. They wouldn't tell me, merely saying they promptly paid compensation to which we entitled.

 

[The Planner]

About 150 for the entire country, not all at the same time as it is shift based.

 

[shinkansen1966]

About 150 for the entire country, not all at the same time as it is shift based.

150 x (say) 25,000 in salaries and NI. That's nearly £4 million pa just on deciding who's to pay for a late train. And then all the money that goes back and fourth. Is this really best way to run things for the benefit public ?

The late Robert Adley MP described BR privatisation as a 'poll tax on wheels'. If you listen carefully, you can hear him turning in his... :roll:

 

[TDK]

The delay costs vary depending on line and time of day, if a train is 10minutes late and does not delay anything else the companay asaik are not charged, most of it balances up, Network Rail delays are paid by Network rail to the TOC's, so a broken rail for instance would be an NR delay, some are neutral, for example a fatality ot weather related delays. It is a money merry go round and as a driver it is annoying when you get a please explain form for 2 minutes lost btween 2 points with 80 minutes delay slapped on to the company due to knock on. If all delays were reported by Train Crew to their control it would make for an easier life.

 

[Sir_Clagalot]

The delay isnt always obvious to the train crews, unless you are waiting at a junction when you know there is another train about that should be passed just before you arrive, but then comes rattling past after you should have passed that point.
Getting stopped in unusual places usually tells you that there is a problem! Route knowledge on the crews comes into it, they know where they are likely to be held etc

 

[CarterUSM]

Delay attribution is a major part of the modern railway, and yes some minutes are written off, but I think NR pick up most of the tab for 'unexplained delay'

To me, delay attribution comes across as almost the most important part of the modern railway, if the amount of delay investigator posts and harrassment from them is anything to go by, but as someone else said, a quick call to control is pretty helpful. Is delay money ever exchanged between a TOC and NR though? A traincrew manager once told me it was like a sliding marker that moved back and forth every hour.

 

[Metroland]

Certainly in the signalling grade it was everything, the phones ring most of the day asking questions about why X lost X time between A and B. Sometimes it's spotted on CCF or someone sticks their hand up.

The aim was to get through the shift without getting any codes allocated to you for poor regulation or forgetting to clear signals. Or when it all went wrong, say a big points failure, or train failure, you didn't lock yourself up, and get trains blocking other ones, or fail to tell someone a message which would lead to further problems, such as not getting handsignalmen in place, techs to the right location, and so on.

Running a railway is of course a real team effort, it was also annoying when some people slacked, and let the side down.

Below, is the delay attribution guide, with the list of codes. It is also a demonstration of the things that can go wrong, and what a effort 95% plus timekeeping is. These appear in the TRUST reporting line up for a train, between running points, with incident number and minutes delayed:

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/dag-Feb_09.pdf

 

[TGV]

That's a bargain. It costs E* about £400 per minute.

 

[MCR247]

Is that why when I'm at St Pancras they are always so early?

 

[Aictos]

FCC to my knowledge introduced a delay attribution hotline for train crew to use to report any delays directly thus ensuring any delays were quickly and correctly dealt with, it's also useful for manned stations to use to advise why a service departed late which could be any number of reasons from waiting for the start signal to display a proceed signal to waiting traincrew to a door problem to a passenger incident, it really could be anything causing delay to a service and as I had to explain to a passenger it was either they joined the train and it left late causing delay to the 100 or so passengers waiting for the train further down the line or wait 10 minutes and get the next train which called at exactly the same stations.