Trivia: Less obvious stations on a through route where passenger services terminate/start

transmanche · 20 Jan 2020

Dr_Paul said:
There's a Guildford to Newcastle service that leaves the former at 0601 in the morning, with a return service that arrives at 1851. I would have thought that starting and finishing it at Portsmouth would have made more sense.

Guildford is hardly a small place though. And it's not exactly unusual for trains to terminate there - at a rough guess, over 100 trains terminate there every day.

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Kite159 · 20 Jan 2020

Glenn1969 said:
Stockport. Does anything other than the Denton line parly train terminate there?

There is a couple Chester - Stockport services in the morning peak, a Stoke - Stockport service late at night, plus a late night terminator from Piccadilly.

Used to get a rough two hourly terminator on Sundays from Southport (with the other one carrying on to Chester)

urpert · 20 Jan 2020

30907 said:
Going back earlier, Holmwood was a regular turnround point - I suppose it was slightly busier than Ockley and Warnham, or maybe there wasn't space at Dorking.

Sadly, no longer timetabled. Shortlands was another similar oddity, now replaced by Bromley South. And I'm fairly sure there was one train that terminated at St Mary Cray in the 60s.
Lots of other seemingly random termini in pre-rationalisation days could be explained by the presence of crossovers or berthing sidings.

There are also the southbound TL workings that terminate at Elephant then bounce via the siding at Herne Hill. Not sure if there are still any Bellingham starters/terminators?

A Challenge · 20 Jan 2020

There are Kentish Town terminators, rather frequent but still seems strange.

transmanche · 20 Jan 2020

A Challenge said:
There are Kentish Town terminators, rather frequent but still seems strange.

Aren't they just services from Orpington that used to work to Blackfriars or City Thameslink, but now continue through to Kentish Town as it's too disruptive to have services scheduled to terminate in the 'core'?

GLC · 20 Jan 2020

Crosshill on the Cathcart Circle has a service which begins from there at 1520 on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays only.

HSP 2 · 20 Jan 2020

How about this one. Maryport 0548 to Barrow in Furness 0741. No return working.

30909 · 21 Jan 2020

Dr_Paul said:
There's a Guildford to Newcastle service that leaves the former at 0601 in the morning, with a return service that arrives at 1851. I would have thought that starting and finishing it at Portsmouth would have made more sense.

FelixtheCat said:
Good luck finding the paths for it...

transmanche said:
Guildford is hardly a small place though. And it's not exactly unusual for trains to terminate there - at a rough guess, over 100 trains terminate there every day.

There's a path for it to - from Guildford on the Direct runs ECS from - to Eastleigh via Botley Fareham & Havant not unreasonable to suggest either Portsmouth Harbour or Portsmouth & Southsea terminate.
Another starter on the Direct not yet mentioned is 2P16 06:11 from Petersfield arrives ECS starting from Southampton Central at 05:01.
Another starting oddity is 2P92 06:40 Hilsea to Waterloo via the Direct runs ECS from Portsmouth and Southsea.

Dr Hoo · 21 Jan 2020

scrapy said:
Chinley always seems an odd place to terminate a service.

RTT doesn’t seem to throw up any weekday terminators at Chinley. When is “always”?

A Challenge · 21 Jan 2020

Monday to Friday only there's an 0648 Chinley to Manchester Piccadilly, and an 1819 Manchester Piccadilly to Chinley. Links for tomorrow.

Esker-pades · 21 Jan 2020

30909 said:
There's a path for it to - from Guildford on the Direct runs ECS from - to Eastleigh via Botley Fareham & Havant not unreasonable to suggest either Portsmouth Harbour or Portsmouth & Southsea terminate.
Another starter on the Direct not yet mentioned is 2P16 06:11 from Petersfield arrives ECS starting from Southampton Central at 05:01.
Another starting oddity is 2P92 06:40 Hilsea to Waterloo via the Direct runs ECS from Portsmouth and Southsea.

22 minute dwell at Guildford. Everyone going to Portsmouth can already board the 19:05, and that departs before the ECS.

But, let's keep going. We have 16 minutes of pathing down to Havant. We'd need another 2/3 to allow it behind 1T57 at Portcreek.

You run out of platforms at Portsmouth Harbour quite quickly. You may well be able to use P1 at 20:26, and you'd have to be out 15 minutes later (must be before the 20:45). I'm not sure if that's sufficient turnaround for a long-distance service.

Portsmouth & Southsea? You can't use P4 until 20:24, and P3 is occupied from 20:23. So that's not going to happen.

I honestly don't know what the point is of this though. The path is absolutely awful, and it gets very tight once one gets into Portsmouth.

30909 · 21 Jan 2020

FelixtheCat said:
22 minute dwell at Guildford. Everyone going to Portsmouth can already board the 19:05, and that departs before the ECS.

But, let's keep going. We have 16 minutes of pathing down to Havant. We'd need another 2/3 to allow it behind 1T57 at Portcreek.

You run out of platforms at Portsmouth Harbour quite quickly. You may well be able to use P1 at 20:26, and you'd have to be out 15 minutes later (must be before the 20:45). I'm not sure if that's sufficient turnaround for a long-distance service.

Portsmouth & Southsea? You can't use P4 until 20:24, and P3 is occupied from 20:23. So that's not going to happen.

I honestly don't know what the point is of this though. The path is absolutely awful, and it gets very tight once one gets into Portsmouth.

I can accept all your observations but they assume that the rest of the timetable is sacrosanct and that nothing else should change. My comments were based purely on the existence of a path (in either direction) at least as far as Havant, so here's an idea if there is a commercial case, pick up/set down only at Havant and Fareham as "gateways" to Portsmouth better than shifting all that fresh air too I assume, for route knowledge?

rower40 · 21 Jan 2020

Southend Airport. The 0435 from Liverpool Street terminates here, and it continues empty to Southend Vic. Similarly at the other end of the day - an empty train comes out of Southend Vic Carriage sidings, and enters passenger service at Southend Airport at 2359.

Ianno87 · 21 Jan 2020

Kite159 said:
There is a couple Chester - Stockport services in the morning peak, a Stoke - Stockport service late at night, plus a late night terminator from Piccadilly.

Used to get a rough two hourly terminator on Sundays from Southport (with the other one carrying on to Chester)

For a brief period post-December 2008 the current 0835 Manchester-Euston Pendolino started from Stockport as no ECS path could be found to get the stock in (a path was eventuallt found)

30909 said:
I can accept all your observations but they assume that the rest of the timetable is sacrosanct and that nothing else should change.

The rest of the timetable is probably more useful to far more people.

rower40 · 21 Jan 2020

Also, in no particular order:
Woodgrange Park
Beaconsfield
South Gyle
Ashfield (Glasgow) - esp during Engineering Works that reduce Queen Street platform capacity

Esker-pades · 21 Jan 2020

30909 said:
I can accept all your observations but they assume that the rest of the timetable is sacrosanct and that nothing else should change. My comments were based purely on the existence of a path (in either direction) at least as far as Havant, so here's an idea if there is a commercial case, pick up/set down only at Havant and Fareham as "gateways" to Portsmouth better than shifting all that fresh air too I assume, for route knowledge?

If you genuinely want to start tinkering with services in and out of Waterloo around the peaks, good luck to you.

The Albion · 21 Jan 2020

Tring.

urpert · 21 Jan 2020

The Albion said:
Tring.

You rang?

Kite159 · 21 Jan 2020

rower40 said:
Southend Airport. The 0435 from Liverpool Street terminates here, and it continues empty to Southend Vic. Similarly at the other end of the day - an empty train comes out of Southend Vic Carriage sidings, and enters passenger service at Southend Airport at 2359.

Isn't that the one which runs non-stop from Liverpool Street/Stratford?

daodao · 22 Jan 2020

Glenn1969 said:
Stockport. Does anything other than the Denton line parly train terminate there?

Kite159 said:
There is a couple Chester - Stockport services in the morning peak, a Stoke - Stockport service late at night, plus a late night terminator from Piccadilly.

Used to get a rough two hourly terminator on Sundays from Southport (with the other one carrying on to Chester)

There are also a couple of Stockport-Chester services in the evening peak (Mon-Fri) that are supposed to start there, but when I tried to use the 1718 from Stockport last June, it was cancelled, and I ended up claiming Delay Repay from Northern Fail.

30909 · 22 Jan 2020

FelixtheCat said:
If you genuinely want to start tinkering with services in and out of Waterloo around the peaks, good luck to you.

I think you may be missing my point, if there is a path, carrying passengers through from my alternative suggestion of Portsmouth (yes it may conflict with Waterloo and Coastway Services) or Fareham/Havant should not impact on peak travel at Waterloo as the train diverges from that route at Guildford after a layover of 5 minutes in the morning. There are 22 minutes at Guildford in the evening, it even has a total of 16 minutes pathing allowances between Guildford and Havant. There seems to be slack built in to the southbound schedule as I appreciate it can lose a lot of time on the journey ex Newcastle.

Esker-pades · 22 Jan 2020

30909 said:
I think you may be missing my point, if there is a path, carrying passengers through from my alternative suggestion of Portsmouth (yes it may conflict with Waterloo and Coastway Services) or Fareham/Havant should not impact on peak travel at Waterloo as the train diverges from that route at Guildford after a layover of 5 minutes in the morning. There are 22 minutes at Guildford in the evening, it even has a total of 16 minutes pathing allowances between Guildford and Havant. There seems to be slack built in to the southbound schedule as I appreciate it can lose a lot of time on the journey ex Newcastle.

The 22 minute wait at Guildford in the evening is because there isn't a clear path before then without impeading other passenger services. The 16 minutes of pathing allowances is to make sure it doesn't run into the back of other passenger services, not slack to help it make up time.

If you start earlier, you run into the back of 2P91 pretty quickly. That means you effectively take up 1P59's slot at Haslemere. Once at Havant, you impead on 1C95, which in turn shunts 1P59 back (again). You then end up in a situation where 4 trains (1T57 at Portcreek Junction) have to be shunted back to include this once-per-day additional train. You'd have no platforms at Portsmouth Harbour, a 15 minute turnaround at Southsea (that's going to be reliable(!)).

It's 7pm, and peak time services from London are rammed, and yet you want to mess a load of them up to include this far less busy service.

RichJF · 22 Jan 2020

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W40466/2020-01-22/detailed

0744 Flitwick to Three Bridges.
Train comes off the depot & then runs ECS to Flitwick where the service begins. I think it's the only one to do this.

Mike99 · 22 Jan 2020

FelixtheCat said:
The 22 minute wait at Guildford in the evening is because there isn't a clear path before then without impeading other passenger services. The 16 minutes of pathing allowances is to make sure it doesn't run into the back of other passenger services, not slack to help it make up time.

If you start earlier, you run into the back of 2P91 pretty quickly. That means you effectively take up 1P59's slot at Haslemere. Once at Havant, you impead on 1C95, which in turn shunts 1P59 back (again). You then end up in a situation where 4 trains (1T57 at Portcreek Junction) have to be shunted back to include this once-per-day additional train. You'd have no platforms at Portsmouth Harbour, a 15 minute turnaround at Southsea (that's going to be reliable(!)).

It's 7pm, and peak time services from London are rammed, and yet you want to mess a load of them up to include this far less busy service.

Excellent and correct reply, additionally as we know it is also killing several birds with one stone, route retention XC crews for weekend diverts away from the direct Winchester line between Southampton and Basingstoke, and onto Reading, and gets the stock back via the Botley line to Eastleigh depot.

ValleyLines142 · 22 Jan 2020

Mike99 said:
I think this used to arrive from Northam depot ECS, but I notice from RTT that it now arrives ECS from Bournemouth Depot

I believe there's also the 0640 Hilsea to Waterloo service (2P92).

DaveN · 23 Jan 2020

urpert said:
There are also the southbound TL workings that terminate at Elephant then bounce via the siding at Herne Hill. Not sure if there are still any Bellingham starters/terminators?

The Elephant terminators/starters went with the May 18 timetable recast.

RichJF said:
0744 Flitwick to Three Bridges.
Train comes off the depot & then runs ECS to Flitwick where the service begins. I think it's the only one to do this.

Yes it is.

DaveN · 23 Jan 2020

transmanche said:
Aren't they just services from Orpington that used to work to Blackfriars or City Thameslink, but now continue through to Kentish Town as it's too disruptive to have services scheduled to terminate in the 'core'?

Sort of... They are the non-peak version of the peak only Luton to Orpington services.
The old City Thameslink services were peak only.

30909 · 23 Jan 2020

FelixtheCat said:
The 22 minute wait at Guildford in the evening is because there isn't a clear path before then without impeading other passenger services. The 16 minutes of pathing allowances is to make sure it doesn't run into the back of other passenger services, not slack to help it make up time.

If you start earlier, you run into the back of 2P91 pretty quickly. That means you effectively take up 1P59's slot at Haslemere. Once at Havant, you impead on 1C95, which in turn shunts 1P59 back (again). You then end up in a situation where 4 trains (1T57 at Portcreek Junction) have to be shunted back to include this once-per-day additional train. You'd have no platforms at Portsmouth Harbour, a 15 minute turnaround at Southsea (that's going to be reliable(!)).

It's 7pm, and peak time services from London are rammed, and yet you want to mess a load of them up to include this far less busy service.

Mike99 said:
Excellent and correct reply, additionally as we know it is also killing several birds with one stone, route retention XC crews for weekend diverts away from the direct Winchester line between Southampton and Basingstoke, and onto Reading, and gets the stock back via the Botley line to Eastleigh depot.

Thank you for your full and knowledgeable replies I appreciate the congestion of the peak as I travel that route regularly, and had understood the value for route retention. I also previously wrote "if there is a commercial case" it just irks a little seeing all that "fresh air" moving the best part of 57 miles each way to Eastleigh

Par · 23 Jan 2020

Don’t Rochdale and Stalybridge both satisfy this criteria?

Islineclear3_1 · 23 Jan 2020

Hove.

Brighton-Hove shuttles

Trivia: Less obvious stations on a through route where passenger services terminate/start

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