Inaccurate platform clocks

[3141]

The attached photo, taken at Manchester Airport on 11 August, shows platform clocks showing times that differ by 24 seconds. This seems enough to have the potential for a passenger who misses a train to complain about early departure, or early closing of the doors, though whether you'd succeed is uncertain.

 

[Bayum]

Would there even be a case if they missed the train but 24 seconds?

 

[WelshBluebird]

Would there even be a case if they missed the train but 24 seconds?

I have certainly made some connections with just seconds to spare, where due to delays my connection time was cut from what should have been comfortable to barely making it.

 

[mallard]

Considering that it sometimes takes a little while (I've experienced more than 2 minutes) for doors to be released after a train arrives, that train doors can be locked well before departure (the "40 seconds" that they claim can easily be doubled) and that trains can sometimes depart 30 seconds or more "early" compared to the station clock, even a 5-minute connection with all trains running on time can be difficult to impossible to achieve at times. 24 seconds could very easily make the difference between catching and missing a train.

Of course, good luck claiming any sort of compensation when you miss a 2-hourly connection due to the doors opening late and the train leaving slightly early...

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Would there even be a case if they missed the train but 24 seconds?

I've known people to complain about trains leaving three seconds early.

 

[Clip]

When we had the old clickity clack clocks at The Cross they would sometimes shuffle out by hours. Not much you could do till they reset themselves.

 

[smilerish]

Does anyone here know how the clocks are (supposed to be!) kept in sync?

Is it NTP based, or something unique to the railways?

 

[fowler9]

The ones on Platform 2 at Liverpool South Parkway are out by about by over 30 mins and have been for ages, the PIS doesn't work either.

 

[40129]

The Joyce of Whitchurch clock above the concourse at Liverpool Lime St (LIV) has been 3 minutes slow for at least four years

 

[causton]

Does anyone here know how the clocks are (supposed to be!) kept in sync?

Is it NTP based, or something unique to the railways?

Do you really want to know?

The main clock on the concourse we have is set by... the precise method of turning it on at three seconds to midnight and then it turns on and starts counting from 00:00:00.

Only on the railway would you have a clock that you cannot change the time

That is fairly unique though, many get their time from the computer/server in charge which I presume uses NTP to keep the time correct.

 

[driver9000]

Manchester Airport clocks have been wrong for well over 12 months and no two clocks on the station show the same time. Some are hours out.

 

[trainophile]

Presumably the guards or dispatchers don't use the station platform clocks to set the train on its way?

 

[Llanigraham]

Does it really matter?

 

[Wookiee]

The multitude of clocks on the various PIS on the new bridge at East Croydon all show different times, as do the departures boards. Depending on which one you look at, your train could leave up to a minute and a half early, which would be a little annoying. Fortunately, it's East Croydon, so everything is at least a minute and a half late leaving anyway.

 

[Wookiee]

Does it really matter?

Not if you don't give a toss about passengers missing trains they ought to have caught.

 

[notlob.divad]

There is pretty much no excuse for having inaccurate time information in the modern computer age. (Or at least all clocks in a system being accurate to the nearest second)

Getting stuff syncronised to 1000ths of seconds with the atomic clock, that is where the difficulties come in.

I am not happy leaving any of the multi-point display systems I work on without regular and accurate time information. IMO It should be a matter of pride and a sign of a job well done for anyone working on systems like this.

 

[syorksdeano]

Sheffield have sorted their problem out with screens showing the incorrect time.... It's called black tape

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Does anyone here know how the clocks are (supposed to be!) kept in sync?

Is it NTP based, or something unique to the railways?

I believe it depends on when the clocks were fitted, what alterations have been made since, and what systems and hardware are available locally. In other words, everything from a manual entry at a local level to a data feed from a central control centre.

Presumably the guards or dispatchers don't use the station platform clocks to set the train on its way?

I would expect Guards use a train company supplied wristwatch where possible, as it would allow constant timekeeping over their entire journey.

 

[Llanigraham]

Not if you don't give a toss about passengers missing trains they ought to have caught.

What?

We are talking about a 24, yes Twenty Four, second discrepancy between 2 clocks. No, repeat, no trains are timed that accurately!!

:roll::roll::roll::roll::roll:

 

[Spankthemonkey]

Audley End up platform near lifts, clock is always out from clock neighbouring departure screen by anything from 5 to 50 seconds.

 

[MikeWM]

Cambridge Platform 4/5 clock has been running fast for a month or so now - every time I look it is a few more seconds fast than the last time I checked. Today it was about a minute fast.

All the other clocks on the station are accurate (to within a second or so, at least) so no idea why just this one is going wrong.

 

[mirodo]

I would expect Guards use a train company supplied wristwatch where possible, as it would allow constant timekeeping over their entire journey.

A standard “Railway Time” to avoid the confusion of the local time being different depending on where you are? It’ll never catch on!

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

One point not yet made is that the two clocks illustrated in the OP are of different styles and I suspect the clock on the left is a "Metrolink" clock while that on the right is a "National Rail" clock. Of course this does not excuse the discrepancy between the two but could well indicate that these particular clocks are receiving their signals from different sources.

As for how guards keep time the correct practice should be to go off their railway issued wristwatch which receives a standardised signal. If the station clocks are obviously slow then it may be sensible to allow for that when dispatching but if different clocks on the station are showing different times anyway, and the guard will almost certainly not have sight of all of them, then the wristwatch has to be the default timekeeper.

Just to complicate things some station clocks may receive their signal independently but their actual location can make them susceptible to interference if the signal is received by radio. This could well be the case at Manchester Airport where airborne planes could disrupt the signal. Anyone who has a radio controlled watch will be aware that the synchronising signal is normally sent just once a day so any failure to receive the signal during the few minutes it is being broadcast can lead to the watch not being updated. In theory modern electronics should allow any clock to keep steady time for considerable periods but experience shows this is not the case. For fixed clocks there might be issues with the power supply particularly where OHLE exists which also happens to be the case at Manchester Airport station.

It's all rather disappointing really.

 

[embers25]

Travel from Exeter to Waterloo and you'll pass through at least 4 different station clock time zones that can differ by up to 3 minutes depending on the day for some reason! Also I always find clocks on stations in the north to be slower than southern ones by up to 2 minutes. My watch is set to Pinhoe station time which rarely agrees with Exeter St Davids but usually is pretty close to GMT.

 

[LAX54]

The clocks in our PSB differ by about 15 seconds or so from one clock to the next, but, we have had issues ever since they moved the Atomic Clock from Rugby, or wherever it was !

 

[DelW]

I have several radio-corrected clocks and watches, and in the south of England signal reception definitely became worse after the transmitter was switched from Rugby to Cumbria in 2007. Both at home and at work I often have to move a clock to a windowsill to get it to pick up the signal.

Without signal reception some of them gain a minute or more a week, while others keep time much better.

 

[DelW]

A standard “Railway Time” to avoid the confusion of the local time being different depending on where you are? It’ll never catch on!

If Mr Grayling succeeds in his latest madcap scheme to devolve local railway control to the Northern Powerhouse (or whatever it's called this week), I will expect northern stations to show Manchester or Leeds time instead of GMT

 

[sd0733]

I noticed the Mancheste Airport clocks last when I was up there, every clock around the station seems to show a different time! Some are hours out, when people are just back from holiday probably not the most useful having clocks all over theweekend place when your trying to readjust to English time.

Nuneaton had a problem a year or so ago with the board on platform 2, something was wrong with that particular screen and it got faster and faster. Eventually the clock part of the screen got covered over with a taped on bin bag. Better no clock than a wrong one!!

 

[WelshBluebird]

Does it really matter?

If it causes a passenger to miss a connection that they should have (just) been able to get, then yes it does matter.

 

[Strat-tastic]

That's nothing. At my local station P1 and P2 clocks differ by a full 24 hours!