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Booking engines telling passengers to change from HSTs to Sprinters?

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No.
I regularly travel Euston to Caersws and could change at Birminghsm Int, B'ham New St or Wolverhampton, however if I change at B'ham Int I can guarantee to get a seat, but I can't at the other stops!


But surely if your train which starts at International is started at New Street due to a delay inbound you've missed your train, whereas if you stay on board.....

I must agree depends on the circumstances and the individual, their knowledge of the railways -station layouts etc, the information available at the time of travel on their phone etc... so they can make an informed decision.
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Not always.

Similarly, if they were travelling from Oxford to Larbert and had swapped to The Highand Chieftain at York. They have a choice of changing services at Waverley or at Falkirk Grahmston.

This is a more difficult one. Do you stay on the Chieftain and change at Falkirk, or follow the National Rail guidance of changing at Waverley?

For me, it would depend on the weather. Falkirk is generally a miserable and desperate place to change trains, but on a glorious July or August day it would be quite tolerable to stand for 6 minutes on the platform waiting for a connection - at other times of year I would change at Waverley.

Weird you would pick that one as I've never been north of Edinburgh but my late Grandfather was born in Carron in the Parish of Larbert & I want to go, so would definitely have to be Falkirk :D
 
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TheNewNo2

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Surely you would want to travel as close to your destination on your first train? If the terminus (or furthest interchange) of that first train will provide 'more' train departures to your end destination, you are much closer to home to deal with any delays or cancellations caused elsewhere.

It really depends on direction of travel, especially if you change from long distance to local stock.

For instance, in the hypothetical Paddington to Paignton service, an HST is better than a Sprinter, so you want to change as close to Paignton as possible.

In the reverse direction, again, an HST is preferable to a Sprinter, so you get on the HST as quick as you can.

I apply the same logic with by Bristol to Nottingham trip - do the majority on the 22x/HST, only use the 170 for Derby to Nottingham (or perhaps Tamworth for same platform interchange). The same works in reverse. At all costs avoid being one of the masses changing at Birmingham.

My general logic is to extend the distance travelled on the fast service and minimise time on the stoppers.
 

D6975

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It really depends on direction of travel, especially if you change from long distance to local stock.

For instance, in the hypothetical Paddington to Paignton service, an HST is better than a Sprinter, so you want to change as close to Paignton as possible.

In the reverse direction, again, an HST is preferable to a Sprinter, so you get on the HST as quick as you can.

I apply the same logic with by Bristol to Nottingham trip - do the majority on the 22x/HST, only use the 170 for Derby to Nottingham (or perhaps Tamworth for same platform interchange). The same works in reverse. At all costs avoid being one of the masses changing at Birmingham.

My general logic is to extend the distance travelled on the fast service and minimise time on the stoppers.

And using a Paignton example again, if you stay on the stopper from Paignton as far as Exeter, it's quite possible that the train you would have picked up at Newton goes sailing past you while you are in the platform at Dawlish Warren.
 

Llanigraham

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But surely if your train which starts at International is started at New Street due to a delay inbound you've missed your train, whereas if you stay on board.....

Then I catch one of the very frequent trains to New St and catch it there!
 

Haywain

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At risk of being shot down for getting this wrong, I have always believed that unless otherwise directed byselected journey preferences, the journey planners will give you the shortest journey (by time) combined with the shortest waiting time between trains (subject to suitable connection times). I could be wrong.
 

Paul Kelly

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At risk of being shot down for getting this wrong, I have always believed that unless otherwise directed byselected journey preferences, the journey planners will give you the shortest journey (by time) combined with the shortest waiting time between trains (subject to suitable connection times). I could be wrong.
Some of them do, I think, but they all seem to be slightly different in cases where the different possible change stations have equal interchange status.

The Larbert example posted above is a very good example of a different effect, though. Leaving York on the 1355 service to Inverness, changing at Edinburgh gives you a 14-minute connection time whereas changing at Falkirk Grahamston gives you 7 minutes (plus 40 minutes more to enjoy the East Coast HST). But no journey planner will ever offer you the change at Falkirk (if they comply with ATOC's journey planner code of practice), because Falkirk Grahamston has only "medium" interchange status whilst Edinburgh is a large interchange, meaning that changing at Edinburgh must always be preferred (and all trains from Falkirk to Larbert originate in Edinburgh).

I have to say, I wonder if things like this artificially reduce loadings on the rare through trains beyond places like Edinburgh.
 
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