158820
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- 1 Nov 2017
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- 242
All looked to he going fairly well on this mornings sleepers but 1s25 northbound Highlander to Inverness has just hone gone from 16L at Blair Atholl to 51L at Dalwhinnie
All looked to he going fairly well on this mornings sleepers but 1s25 northbound Highlander to Inverness has just hone gone from 16L at Blair Atholl to 51L at Dalwhinnie
Plenty of them on the highland mainline couldnt name them all. Anyway its clawed back 11 mins to 40 late.Where are the single track sections on that route?
Plenty of them on the highland mainline couldnt name them all. Anyway its clawed back 11 mins to 40 late.
Trouble with climbing? If it’s 2 73s has one died and it can’t get up to Slochd on 1 73?
Is there really any need for sleeper guards or crew to tweet the journey?
The communication needs to improve and by all means there should be a social media/front line control presence between something like 5am-Midnight.
But realistically does there need to be a presence to the point that the spotter in C6 who’s stirred in the night gets a chain by chain update on the progress of the journey?
That would fit with the 30 mins lost on the climb to Drumochter.
edit - well, it's now made it to Inverness 38 mins late!
It looks like there might have been other problems going on, the LNER HST left Inverness over an hour late and the subsequent scotrail service also late.
Apparently it is yes.Yes just seen that, looks like RTT was on a go slow!
Is it snowing up there?!
Nah, last thing I want to do in the middle of the night is start staring at a phone or tablet screen. Just makes it even more difficult to sleep.I don't want a chain by chain update. I simply think that a service that now markets and prices itself as a high end experience should, at any point throughout the journey, be able to provide me with details of any delays and revised ETAs should I want those details.
I'm not particularly bothered how they achieve this, but an internet post (of some sort) would seem be be less disruptive for passengers and crew rather than dealing with individual enquiries.
Yes just seen that, looks like RTT was on a go slow!
Is it snowing up there?!
Doesn’t look like it’s left Carrbridge. Trouble with climbing? If it’s 2 73s has one died and it can’t get up to Slochd on 1 73?
From memory the double track sections are Perth to Stanley Jnc (8 miles), Blair Atholl to Dalwhinnie (23 miles) and Culloden Viaduct into Inverness (5 miles).
And this information is readily available on RTT or National Rail for both passengers and picker-up’ers without the need for an all night twitter feed.It's useful to know whether it's late.
When I'm on the sleeper there's usually a point at 6 or 7am where I squint, half asleep, at the RTT listing for the train on my phone. If it's on time then I know I'll have to get up at the time I've already decided. If it's late I know I can reset my alarm and have a little bit more shuteye. If I'm being met by someone at my destination, I might at that point send them a message to let them know, if there's a significant delay.
Nah, last thing I want to do in the middle of the night is start staring at a phone or tablet screen. Just makes it even more difficult to sleep.
In fact I'd probably rather not know the train was late, nothing I can do about it anyway and might as well keep snoozing.
Perhaps if you don't think they provide the service you want, you could choose a different mode of transport?
Caledonian Sleeper is now both marketed and priced as a premium service. I'd expect them to take responsibility not only for informing me (should I want) of any delay but provide a little context and likelihood of any recovery or further delay (fully realising that for perfectly valid reasons this may be estimated or incomplete as the situation develops).And this information is readily available on RTT or National Rail for both passengers and picker-up’ers without the need for an all night twitter feed.
"what must be the content of their on train announcements" - so you have not been on a disrupted E*? I have and found the tweets very useful, especially when it affected other trains around me too. In at least one case, we made reasonable estimates about our likely ETA from their announcements and started making arrangements for our delay into London rather than having to wait for an on train announcement from our train crew who were probably rather busy dealing with the incident itself.I have always thought the E* guards tweets to be useless. They merely duplicate what must be the content of their on train announcements, and I’ve always thought the purpose of them tweeting was simply to make them visible to people *not* travelling as company ambassadors.
"what must be the content of their on train announcements" - so you have not been on a disrupted E*? I have and found the tweets very useful, especially when it affected other trains around me too. In at least one case, we made reasonable estimates about our likely ETA from their announcements and started making arrangements for our delay into London rather than having to wait for an on train announcement from our train crew who were probably rather busy dealing with the incident itself.
I realise that may not work quite as well on CS with fewer trains but there may be times where information from the Highlander crew may be useful to Lowlander passengers or the opposite.
Most passengers will use the hashtag for their service. They don't really care whether information comes from a TM or a passenger, but having the TMs on there can help to debunk some of the nonsense of the type seen on some forums, especially if the main account retweets them when there is a doubt.I follow most of the E* guard accounts. Most passengers won’t follow any and will likely go to the main E* account for info. How will they know @EurostarBob or whoever is one of the TMs?
I used the up Highlander last night. We arrived on time at Euston, but the pick-ups were late. Looking at the RTT feed for last night's sleepers, the schedules have so much slack in them that a train can go from early to late and back again; that doesn't need a lot of communication, and as a passenger I was only really interested in when I'd arrive in Euston.Because someone has just stirred and wonders what's going on.
You don't get notifications in the middle of the night if someone just Tweets.
Not everyone is going to be asleep.
Where are the single track sections on that route?
Do you really think so?Most passengers will use the hashtag for their service. They don't really care whether information comes from a TM or a passenger, but having the TMs on there can help to debunk some of the nonsense of the type seen on some forums, especially if the main account retweets them when there is a doubt.
This is exactly the reason why some 'oficial' info from CS is more useful than leaving people to try and work things out from RTT or whatever. CS are in the position to make a judgement about what time to put out a statement, and include in it some indication of how definite any estimated time might be.Problem is that a north bound train could be be say 80l at Crewe but it could be running 50l by Preston then 35l at Carlisle and arriving at Carstrairs OT, so if the Train manager/ conductor/ guard told everyone that the train was running 80Late at crewe it could be irrelevant by the time that the service gets to Carstairs. Their is a lot a lot of slack in the timetable plus the discretion of the signallers to alleviate or compound the delay. Other trains also use the tracks that the sleeper uses so a signaller may choose to hold a very late running sleeper in order to prevent a Scotrail service running late from Inverness.
Those who really want to know where they are will use the maps app on their phone.
If you can’t access it, it means you are in the Highlands already ...
It's on the passenger info screens in every coach. I think it is on the e-ticket too if you buy from certain vendors but I don't have a current one to check.Do you really think so?
Most passengers would be totally unaware of this, or how to find out how to find the hashtag for their service.
Which is precisely what happened on Thursday morning’s down Lowlander. We received the information in good time to make decisions as they applied to us.This is exactly the reason why some 'oficial' info from CS is more useful than leaving people to try and work things out from RTT or whatever. CS are in the position to make a judgement about what time to put out a statement, and include in it some indication of how definite any estimated time might be.
Condition 14:1 of the National Rail Conditions of Travel (NRCoT):
The key bit is that two or more tickets can be combined to make a journey i.e. a full trip. Some TOCs don't like it, so you may get a few funny staff members who seem to think you can't do this. It helps a lot if you can get an itinerary by booking through an accredited split ticketing site like TrainSplit.