Esker-pades
Established Member
Seems like outrage over nothing
Exactly. It isn't false information: it's useful to prevent people going on a 1 hour round trip, for a journey that could be done in 8 minutes.
Seems like outrage over nothing
I don't see why it is particularly confusing, if you are driving round the M25, you just see signs for the next routeing point, so if you are joining at the M23, you see Heathrow (M4, M1) or Dartford (M20, M11). This approach seems to work for the roads, and is readily understood, so why not the railway?
For many years, slow trains to Cambridge were shown with a destination of Foxton (on the departure boards), presumably to encourage people to take the fasts or semifasts. The train itself showed Cambridge as a destination, as indeed did the information screens at Finsbury Park and beyond. Trains never actually terminated at Foxton - it would have been difficult for them to do so.
Slows to Peterborough, conversely, always showed Peterborough as a destination, both on the departure boards and the train itself (despite the fact that trains did a couple of times a day, terminate at Huntingdon).
That was because the xx:06 slow to Cambridge was overtaken by the xx:15 fast at Hatfield, which got to Cambridge a long time before the stopper eventually did! In the opposite direction the stopper would be shown as terminating at Finsbury Park at Cambridge, but then as a Kings Cross train from Foxton onwards. I'd imagine that slow Peterborough trains were still shown as going to Peterborough because there were no Great Northern trains which would overtake them en route, and an intercity service arriving first wouldn't be much good to anyone with a WAGN/FCC only ticket!
I thought that with the May timetable (and the interim timetable as well), KGX trains to Cambridge would no longer be overtaken, so you should always get on the first one. Is this not the case?This still happens. But the slow services are advertised all the way through to Cambridge/Cambridge North, which confuses the large raft of tourists who jump on the stopper, ignoring the XX:12/42 Flyer.
I thought that with the May timetable (and the interim timetable as well), KGX trains to Cambridge would no longer be overtaken, so you should always get on the first one. Is this not the case?
Seems like outrage over nothing
If only we still had a "like" button!You must be new here.
Cathcart Circle:
Glasgow Central Arrival/Departure boards: Cathcart
Pollokshields East/West and onwards: Glasgow Central
Class 314: Cathcart Circle via Maxwell Park/Mount Florida
Class 380: Cathcart Circle
What does determine when a circular service changes its advertised destination. You'd think that it's when a journey is faster getting another service but sometimes they seem to change. For example on the Kingston loop, at Wimbledon it will be advertised as Richmond although on board it will say "Richmond via strawberry hill", either way wouldn't it be faster to go to Clapham and change if you were going to Richmond
Just so long as we don't move to the Parisian approach of "mission" codes (at least I don't find "take the ECCO, ICAR, IDIL or EBON train" particularly memorable)
Thanks for explaining. Is there a list of all the codes - I've Googled it but can't find it. How would intending passengers know what the code is?There is a one to one correspondence between the first letter of the headcode and the final destination, though it is not generally (if ever) the same letter.
The only one I remember off the top of my head is Q for Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy. That is one that really could have done with being M to allow for headcodes like MIKY and MINI, given the destination.
The second letter is a calling pattern and the third and fourth have no special meaning beyond attempting to make the combination pronounceable.
Thanks for explaining. Is there a list of all the codes - I've Googled it but can't find it. How would intending passengers know what the code is?
In practice passengers use station displays rather than headcodes to determine whether the train is the one they want to take.Thanks for explaining. Is there a list of all the codes - I've Googled it but can't find it. How would intending passengers know what the code is?
I've seen on buses before something like "AAA then BBB" with the "then BBB" being much smaller. Doing that would reassure you the trains match, while highlighting it's not the fastest way to BBB (especially if that format was consistent - e.g. a "then BBB" means you'll get there but it will take a whilePersonally I think the best solution to the dilemma is to advertise trains as 'circular via X and Y'. That way you can give meaningful information about the route, and since people are going to expect a 'via' to change en route as the train passes through stations, it's going to be less confusing to passengers when that information changes during a train's journey.
But one thing that I think really needs to happen is to make sure that at any given station, the displayed destination is consistent between the online, platform, and on-board indicators.
Up here in the northeast, it's not used on buses to show it's a slower service - but just to break it up into sections.I've seen on buses before something like "AAA then BBB" with the "then BBB" being much smaller. Doing that would reassure you the trains match, while highlighting it's not the fastest way to BBB (especially if that format was consistent - e.g. a "then BBB" means you'll get there but it will take a while