Most amount of late trains in a row (aka SWR haven't run a train on time yet)

[.n] · 11 Sep 2017

So as a little bit of fun I'm trying to see if anyone else has had this happen to them (possibly a Southern commuter?)

I am on an amazing streak of trains that have yet to be on time - every single SWR train I have travelled on since the start of the franchise (including the blocade) has failed to arrive at my destination on time [based on the published timetable and the station clock].

Out of curiosity I am wondering to myself how long this can last (I never kept track of this during SWT days, and certainly have had whole weeks where this has happened in the past). The only (to me) mildly amusing aspect of this current run is that it does to that for me the new franchise has failed to deliver me to my destination on time (which ties in nicely with the fact that all the GWR services I've taken recently in the past year have also failed to arrive on time)!

Please note that for these purposes, anything later than the published time counts as late - its not a delay replay question, its also not a complaint per se, though I may send an email to the new MD when the streak ends (probably tonight on the way home, now I've posted about it)

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sjoh · 11 Sep 2017

[.n];3123814 said:
Please note that for these purposes, anything later than the published time counts as late - its not a delay replay question, its also not a complaint per se, though I may send an email to the new MD when the streak ends (probably tonight on the way home, now I've posted about it)

It sounds like it certainly is a Delay replay question!

rebmcr · 11 Sep 2017

[.n];3123814 said:
failed to arrive at my destination on time [based on the published timetable and the station clock].

What metric are you using to determine 'late'? There is a grace period of (I believe) 5mins before it is normally regarded as such.

Wombat · 11 Sep 2017

rebmcr said:
What metric are you using to determine 'late'? There is a grace period of (I believe) 5mins before it is normally regarded as such.

That depends on who is doing the regarding! Within the railway bubble late = "scheduled arrival time plus five minutes" or whatever, and for the rest of us late = "not on time, early or cancelled". I mean, if a passenger stated that a train was late and was assured that it's not late because the DfT and TOCs have redefined the meaning of the word, I suspect that their perceived customer service experience would be suboptimal.

My morning train is reliably late (using the human definition of the word, rather than the corporate) during the winter months, unless it skips stations which doesn't really count. I understand why, but I do wish they'd set a timetable that reflects the achievable reality rather than persist with an unconvincing fabrication.

rebmcr · 11 Sep 2017

WombatDeath said:
Within the railway bubble [...] for the rest of us

For the record, I'm not in the rail industry. :)

WombatDeath said:
My morning train is reliably late (using the human definition of the word, rather than the corporate) during the winter months, unless it skips stations which doesn't really count. I understand why, but I do wish they'd set a timetable that reflects the achievable reality rather than persist with an unconvincing fabrication.

Agree 100% with that!

ComUtoR · 11 Sep 2017

There is a difference between late and PPM. In all and every single case the train is late if well, it arrives late.

Even saying that your now a bit late to the party as the industry is moving away from PPM and moving to RTR.

Don't worry, you can accuse them of padding when they increase the timings.

[.n] · 11 Sep 2017

rebmcr said:
What metric are you using to determine 'late'? There is a grace period of (I believe) 5mins before it is normally regarded as such.

As this is essentially for my purposes a bit of fun - the metric I am using is does not arrive at (or before) the published time in the timetable booklet. After all in my current timetable book, there is a separate timing note re. 5 minute adjustments for a leaf fall period

Generally speaking I have my own normal metric of train is not late if in London direction it is within 10 minutes of published arrival (otherwise you'd go crazy with late trains!). Going away from London my metric is must be within 5 minutes of published arrival (as connections this way are far more critical to me, so I can't "afford" late trains).

6Gman · 11 Sep 2017

I wonder how much of an overlap there is between the people who complain if their train arrives 15 seconds late and those who complain if the doors of their departing trains close 20 seconds before booked departure time?

Lockwood · 11 Sep 2017

WombatDeath said:
for the rest of us late = "[...] early

Minitrue note plusgood doublespeak.

Andrewlong · 11 Sep 2017

What are these late trains down to? Is it something within the direct control of SWR or not eg infrastructure related?

3141 · 11 Sep 2017

I don't travel regularly, but I've been on four journeys since SWR took over and they've all arrived on time.

I appreciate it's annoying and inconvenient if every train you catch is late, but to what extent can anyone think that there being a new franchisee is responsible. Over 99% of the people providing the service are the same as with SWT, and the trains are the same (plus a couple of class 707s).

FGW_DID · 12 Sep 2017

Perhaps you should be hired as an advisor to the railways, obviously you have never been late for anything, ever!

theironroad · 12 Sep 2017

3141 said:
I don't travel regularly, but I've been on four journeys since SWR took over and they've all arrived on time.

I appreciate it's annoying and inconvenient if every train you catch is late, but to what extent can anyone think that there being a new franchisee is responsible. Over 99% of the people providing the service are the same as with SWT, and the trains are the same (plus a couple of class 707s).

Pretty much all the delays since 20/8 have been infrastructure issues, mainly signalling problems or rail quality problems. All of these are network rail issues.

I've seen plenty of tweets and other nonsense laying all the blame at swr and their performance since taking over from swt, and while they are the front man for passenger issues, they've have pretty much nothing to do with the performance issues which have beset the area recently.

I will say that if 4/4 of your trains have been on time since swr, you're probably in the minority as performance for the last few weeks has been pretty dire as delays are pretty much a daily reality and some delays (e.g.last sat pm) have been pretty spectacular.

Chris M · 12 Sep 2017

The actual question asked by the OP appears to be rather different than what those replying here seem to be complaining about.
The OP asked (paraphrased) "What is the largest number of consecutive late trains you have experienced?"
They then clarified "late" to mean "did not arrive later than the time arrival time listed in the public timetable". Given that the public timetable is published to the 1 minute resolution I think it is reasonable state that a train scheduled to arrive at 09:00 is on time if it actually arrives at or before 09:00:59 by this definition.
They have further made it clear that this is not a formal complaint (about SWR or anyone else), they are not seeking delay repay or any other form of compensation, it is a trivia(ish) question inspired by a personal observation.

I think my record will be on the order of 3 or 4, but then I have never commuted by National Rail. My experience of SWR is that half of their trains I have caught have been late - however this is based on a sample size of just 2 - Waterloo to Reading (arrived about 6 minutes late) and Waterloo to Chiswick (on time, although I think the inbound service to Waterloo was late this not by an amount sufficient to delay the departure).

[.n] · 12 Sep 2017

Chris M said:
The actual question asked by the OP appears to be rather different than what those replying here seem to be complaining about.
The OP asked (paraphrased) "What is the largest number of consecutive late trains you have experienced?"
They then clarified "late" to mean "did not arrive later than the time arrival time listed in the public timetable". Given that the public timetable is published to the 1 minute resolution I think it is reasonable state that a train scheduled to arrive at 09:00 is on time if it actually arrives at or before 09:00:59 by this definition.
They have further made it clear that this is not a formal complaint (about SWR or anyone else), they are not seeking delay repay or any other form of compensation, it is a trivia(ish) question inspired by a personal observation.
.

Yes - this ^

Its because of the franchise changeover, that I have been keeping a record that is more detailed than normal.

Deafdoggie · 12 Sep 2017

WombatDeath said:
I do wish they'd set a timetable that reflects the achievable reality rather than persist with an unconvincing fabrication.

I used to catch a London Midland train which was always late. I know only 5-10 mins, but it does beg the question, why not timetable it 5-10 mins later?

I never did catch it on time at all. I know, that 5-10 mins isn't much, but why bother with a timetable if that is the attitude? If a train is late everytime, surly it is the timetable that is wrong?

Clip · 12 Sep 2017

Deafdoggie said:
I used to catch a London Midland train which was always late. I know only 5-10 mins, but it does beg the question, why not timetable it 5-10 mins later?

I never did catch it on time at all. I know, that 5-10 mins isn't much, but why bother with a timetable if that is the attitude? If a train is late everytime, surly it is the timetable that is wrong?

LM has to do a timetable that will suit the sections of track it will have to share with other TOCs. Its not as simple as moving it 5-10 minutes later

al78 · 12 Sep 2017

FGW_DID said:
Perhaps you should be hired as an advisor to the railways, obviously you have never been late for anything, ever!

Irrelevant.

FGW_DID · 12 Sep 2017

al78 said:
Irrelevant.

How about "bollocks"?

whilst I appreciate this is a railway forum, you would think they were the only public service ever to run late!

[.n] · 14 Sep 2017

So still not managed one yet, thought might be lucky yesterday when I got the SWR branded train, but still a fail

Though I did enjoy the big new SWR map on the train that doesn't have Winchester as a stop - would make my journey quicker if we didn't stop there

dcsprior · 14 Sep 2017

I don't know about my record when considering all trains I've been on, but my record for northbound GatEx trains must be in the high single figures. It's one of the few services where I do actually notice even the smallest delay, as they're charging a premium price for an eyecatchingly-round fast journey time (similarly the Flying Scotsman).

Sent from my C6603 using Tapatalk

Crossover · 14 Sep 2017

I don't know the direct answer to the question, but I will see I am often surprised when TPE run to time (especially when they arrive RT at one of my local stations as they always seen to develop delays over the Pennines!)

As for SWR, I have only taken 3 of their trains since the new franchise. The first was spot on time (Reading to Yeovil Jn), the second was around 20L at destination (Yeovil Jn to Exeter) thanks to awaiting single lines (very fickle line I realise now!) and the third would have appeared to be on time to the average punter watching the boards at the likes of Basingstoke or Waterloo arrivals, but for a number of us, we were an hour late (Exeter to Waterloo) due to an incident around Axminster causing us to be restarted in the path of the train an hour later from Salisbury

fairysdad · 14 Sep 2017

[.n];3127318 said:
Though I did enjoy the big new SWR map on the train that doesn't have Winchester as a stop - would make my journey quicker if we didn't stop there

Maybe that's why there's the 'Weymouth via Winchester' announcements

[.n] · 15 Sep 2017

fairysdad said:
Maybe that's why there's the 'Weymouth via Winchester' announcements

Of course if I believed every rumour that's because SWR will be running Weymouth via Portsmouth as well

Andrewlong · 15 Sep 2017

Have you ever flown especially on a low-cost airline from say Gatwick? When I have flown, it's always about 20 minutes late getting into the air. It could be late leaving the stand, or delayed waiting for a slot to get into main runway to take off.

Miraculously enough, that 20 minutes is always made up.

Funny you don't many airline passengers complaining about leaving late but there are plenty who catch trains who do. Why?

Clip · 15 Sep 2017

Andrewlong said:
Have you ever flown especially on a low-cost airline from say Gatwick? When I have flown, it's always about 20 minutes late getting into the air. It could be late leaving the stand, or delayed waiting for a slot to get into main runway to take off.

Miraculously enough, that 20 minutes is always made up.

Funny you don't many airline passengers complaining about leaving late but there are plenty who catch trains who do. Why?

I'm guessing that a lot of them will be holiday makers and are happy enough to be off on their jollys somewhere to actually care.

Of course when its your daily commute then you actually do care because timekeeping is important to keep a roof over your head

stevetay3 · 15 Sep 2017

Welcome to the world of First group,high fares late trains no information what so ever,staff all vanish when things go badly wrong.Who ever gave them the south west frenchise needs sacking.

fairysdad · 16 Sep 2017

Andrewlong said:
Funny you don't many airline passengers complaining about leaving late but there are plenty who catch trains who do. Why?

Quite possibly because it's not just the leaving late, but the arriving late.

Deafdoggie · 16 Sep 2017

Clip said:
LM has to do a timetable that will suit the sections of track it will have to share with other TOCs. Its not as simple as moving it 5-10 minutes later

I get that, but it is a Sunday morning train, so not much else about, and there is gap 10-15 mins later, where it runs anyway!

TheManBehind · 17 Sep 2017

stevetay3 said:
Welcome to the world of First group,high fares late trains no information what so ever,staff all vanish when things go badly wrong.Who ever gave them the south west frenchise needs sacking.

They've been in charge about 3 weeks, and I doubt anything but the branding has changed in any meaningful capacity. All those complaints were levelled at SWT when Stagecoach ran it!

Most amount of late trains in a row (aka SWR haven't run a train on time yet)

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