Late running services turning back short of destination

[MichaelAMW]

Which, I think, is the correct answer. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

I disagree. The aim should be to minimise any one person's delay. My delay or your delay is not affected by whether there are lots of others involved or only a handful, so there is no logic in trying to compare the many with the few. If a train with more people on was somehow more late simply because of those extra people then you would have a point. However, an hour late is an hour late, regardless of the numbers of passengers. I know this is not a popular view but that's because of the invention of a meaningless unit of "person-hour" for delay, which means a busier train is somehow more late - if you believe that to have some validity then your point follows logically but it's a house built on sand.

 

[Skipness]

For my semi regular journeys from Whitby to the south west I have the choice of a lift by car to either Scarborough or Malton.
Experience has shown that Malton is the best bet as a result of TPE turning back at Malton. If I had to wait an hour for the following service it would have thrown out all my onward connections from York, Exeter and Par.

 

[Aictos]

I thought it was the signaller not the TOC that makes the decision to turn back short.

The decision to turn back short isn't a decision that the signaller should worry about as it's not theirs to make.

The decision to make ANY alterations to a booked service is taken by the revelate Train Service Manager in the revelate Service Delivery Centre who then gets agreement from the Senior Train Service Manager running the shift after which the Signaller/s and the Customer Information Manager are made aware of the decision.

So in this case, TPE Control would have taken the decision to turn services around at Malton with the Signallers at York and Malton? being told what the plan of action is.

Remember every decision has to account and Signallers nowadays have far less freedom then they might have done under BR.

 

[WessexEclectic]

so the first duty of a TOC is to it's customers or shareholders ?

Welcome to the jungle. We've got fun and games....

 

[deltic08]

I don't appear to be the only one to experience this sinister creeping malpractice and TPE don't appear to be the only TOC doing it. I feel an official letter of complaint to Mr Smith coming on! Thank you all for your feedback.

 

[HowardGWR]

Just to give some extra geographical balance to this thread, a similar situation occurs with hourly London Victoria (VIC) to Southampton Central (SOU) services. The down train arrives just after the hour mark at SOU and then departs again back to VIC at xx13, a typical turnaround of 11 minutes. If it is about 20 minutes late or more, it is often stopped short at Fareham and resumes its up journey from there.

This does not have to be a disaster, as the incoming GWR Cardiff to Portsmouth arrives roughly at xx04. Also the up Waterloo from Weymouth arrives at about xx58. So those pax and those from SOU can stay on platform 1 and jump on the Portsmouth which arrives at Fareham in front of the stopped-short Southern train, which is now in the siding there, awaiting its turn to restart from the up Fareham platform.

All tickety-boo, as long as the announcements and platform staff at SOU are informed in time about the stop-short decision and are alive to stopping pax from needlessly taking the lifts and stairs to the middle platform and advise them to get on the GWR instead. The other factor is if the GWR manages itself to be on time.

My experience has been that no such slick arrangements are operating and only because I was armed with live info from RTT on my tablet, on the incoming train from Weymouth, have I been able to deal with these situations.

 

[Parallel]

In GWR West-land it is common to have Great Malvern bound trains terminate short at Worcester Shrub Hill, with the next journey starting from Worcester Foregate Street. I believe this is due to limited capacity at Foregate Street due to the two single lines in use.

It is also common for Cardiff bound trains to terminate at Newport or even Bristol due to late running or Southampton/Fareham/Fratton/Barnham/Worthing southbound. I understand it southbound as trains have about 30 mins to turn around at Portsmouth Harbour but northbound, trains have 45 minutes at Cardiff and sometimes that isn’t enough! (Also probably partly due to a high volume of trains across 4 platforms so it’d have to move out of the way quickly)

 

[Taunton]

The down train arrives just after the hour mark at SOU and then departs again back to VIC at xx13 ... This does not have to be a disaster, as the incoming GWR Cardiff to Portsmouth arrives roughly at xx04. Also the up Waterloo from Weymouth arrives at about xx58.

Is a disaster for the (probably majority) starting their journey at Southampton, who find a train now connecting to their journey to Gatwick etc left 10 minutes before they were told to aim for.

Anyway, we are consistently told nowadays that connecting passengers are of no concern, particularly if coming from another TOC's service.

 

[dk1]

Back in the bad old Central Trains days the phrase "Just spin it at Ely" where used far too often when Norwich bound services where delayed. It was all too easy to dump them onto the Anglia Cambridge-Norwich service. These days it is pretty uncommon to resort to this even if it impedes on the return service.

 

[AndrewE]

It happens a lot on Llandudno bound trains in times of delay. They will terminate and turn at Llandudno Junction.
As it was happening so often ATW tried to stop this by making the Manchester - Llandudno - Manchester trains go Manchester - Llandudno - Llandudno Junction - Llandudno - Manchester.
By doing this if the train was running very late they would just cancel the Llandudno - Llandudno Junction shuttle part of the journey and leave Llandudno for Manchester on time.
This worked quite well as the Manchester trains could end being very late arriving at Llandudno and only had a short turnaround.

That's a very good strategy.
Of course the /v\ strategy cannot even be considered when the / and \ are one franchise, and the v is worked by a different one. Another consequence of the stupid way our railway is organised at the moment.

 

[geoffk]

The trouble in this case is that it does have a disproportionately bad impact on people heading for Seamer and Scarborough, with Scarborough in particular being quite a major destination, and with the route having no other alternative rail service at this time. If road transport isn't provided then there's the risk of the following train being crowded, and it certainly doesn't seem to be unheard of for consecutive trains to go round at Malton.

The York-Scarborough Northern service will no doubt ease the issue, but the real solution is of course finding a way of having a longer TPE turnround time at Scarborough. I know that's easier written than done.

Also avoid having the up and down trains calling at Malton's single platform three minutes apart! A different issue, I know.

 

[route:oxford]

So basically screw anybody wanting to travel to/from Scarborough with an hour+ wait for the next train?

Or, if you are travelling regularly to York, embrace it!

Instead of buying a fare to York, buy a fare to Scarboough. From Oxford I'd only be gambling around £2 on getting a full delay-repay thanks to the regular cancellation of the hourly service. Even if I never had any intention of going there.

 

[swt_passenger]

Is a disaster for the (probably majority) starting their journey at Southampton, who find a train now connecting to their journey to Gatwick etc left 10 minutes before they were told to aim for.

Anyway, we are consistently told nowadays that connecting passengers are of no concern, particularly if coming from another TOC's service.

However I’ve seen SWR staff at Southampton actively searching out passengers waiting for the Victoria service and directing them to the GWR train. With the PIS displays altered to suit, and plenty of announcements being made. I don’t think you can generalise.

 

[Edders23]

Back in the bad old Central Trains days the phrase "Just spin it at Ely" where used far too often when Norwich bound services where delayed. It was all too easy to dump them onto the Anglia Cambridge-Norwich service. These days it is pretty uncommon to resort to this even if it impedes on the return service.

ah yes central trains remember getting scammed by them several times the paperwork to claim the money back for providing replacement taxi services always seemed to mysteriously disappear. After that stopped doing rail replacement work and avoided getting scammed ever again. I believe ATW owe 10's of thousands I bet the taxi firms won't get a penny

 

[221129]

I thought it was the signaller not the TOC that makes the decision to turn back short.

No. The signaller has no say in it.

 

[SSp]

Or, if you are travelling regularly to York, embrace it!

Instead of buying a fare to York, buy a fare to Scarboough. From Oxford I'd only be gambling around £2 on getting a full delay-repay thanks to the regular cancellation of the hourly service. Even if I never had any intention of going there.

Great idea, I can think of some variants of this too

 

[Surreytraveller]

No. The signaller has no say in it.

Unless it causes a problem.

 

[pt_mad]

I was killing two hours on York station this afternoon while my wife was at St John University.

Northbound trains from KX were very late due to a fatality near Stevenage. TPE services from Leeds were also 15-20 late. Within an hour of each other a Scarborough train was announced it was not going to Seamer and Scarborough but turning back at Malton and a Newcastle was not calling at Durham, Chester-Le-Street and Newcastle as it was turning back at Darlington.

Is this acceptable as in the case of Scarborough passengers they only have one service per hour?

Its acceptable but whether an alternative has to be provided for Scarborough and Seamer bound passengers will be in the TPE passenger charter.

Let says for example, the passenger charter says that if the next train is more than 90 mins after the original train you should have been on, an alternative will be provided. Then another train service an hour later would be acceptable, and then customers claim delay repay.

Some tocs have in their passenger charter that alternatives will be provided after 61 minutes now.

Some tocs still have no alternative unless more than 2 hours to the next train.

Whether it would be better if every Toc just adhered to the same rules as per passenger charter that's another debate. But the existing Tocs have theirs agreed until the franchises expire and they are usually negotiated or amended at that time. Might end up being mentioned as part of the government rail franchising review?

 

[CMS]

Deleted

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Or, if you are travelling regularly to York, embrace it!

Instead of buying a fare to York, buy a fare to Scarboough. From Oxford I'd only be gambling around £2 on getting a full delay-repay thanks to the regular cancellation of the hourly service. Even if I never had any intention of going there.

The downside, long-term, is that the planning department see the large amount of delay repay claims as a result of the Scarborough issue, so they fix the timetable to avoid the turnbacks... so people stop using the trick you describe and just book to York. As a result, there's an apparent decline in use of Scarborough even with the improved timetable which cost the TOC an extra unit... so they revert to the old way. This causes the trickery to resume, and so on. A vicious circle of subterfuge and misunderstanding!

 

[Aictos]

Unless it causes a problem.

Doesn't matter, the final decision is ALWAYS that of control regardless of what the signaller thinks, their main concern is running trains safely and not running the actual train service as that is the main concern of control and never may they cross!

 

[Sunset route]

I thought it was the signaller not the TOC that makes the decision to turn back short.

No. The signaller has no say in it.

I haven’t turned a train back short of destination, but within the last month I have terminated a train short of destination and used another to get passengers onward to their destination without controls authority. We had a failed train blocking the main line and I had a terminal station nearly full of departing trains waiting to go but couldn’t with more rush hour arrivals approaching. It was a case of use the infrastructure to the best i could without leaving trains stranded between stations and it worked.

 

[Bevan Price]

I wonder what might happen if enough passengers refused to accept a decision to terminate their train short of destination, by remaining on the train & blocking the doors from closing ?
Yes, the police might be called, but by the time they arrived, the delay could be more than if the train had been allowed to proceed to its final destination.

 

[bramling]

However, on Thameslink it's skip-stop heaven, primarily because of lack of turnbacks on MML and strong customer flows to St Albans, Luton Airport and Luton.

Another flaw of the Thameslink network - pretty much all the reversing facilities on the Midland side are scheduled to be used intensively. The only realistic place to turn back a late northbound service is via Cricklewood sidings, which isn't much use.

At least the GN side does have some turnback opportunities - Letchworth sidings on the Cambridge route, and on the Peterborough side it's feasible to reverse in platforms at Biggleswade and St Neots.

One thing I never used to see, now I see it all the time is Bakerloo line tubes turning in platform 1 instead of the centre siding at Wealdstone. Does anyone know how this works? Is it as if LUL is a TOC and their service managers request this to reduce a gap in the service, perhaps so the train can present at Queen's Park at the right time?

I'm not sure whose decision it is (I'd think it's the NR signaller if they're monitoring the service, but presumably the LU controller could request), however this isn't anything new - the practice of "going off the platform" has been happening there for years. It occasionally happens at Queen's Park too, although that's LU territory.

 

[dk1]

I wonder what might happen if enough passengers refused to accept a decision to terminate their train short of destination, by remaining on the train & blocking the doors from closing ?
Yes, the police might be called, but by the time they arrived, the delay could be more than if the train had been allowed to proceed to its final destination.

They'd end up back where they started eventually or banged up. Wouldn't be wise to object.

 

[Sunset route]

I wonder what might happen if enough passengers refused to accept a decision to terminate their train short of destination, by remaining on the train & blocking the doors from closing ?
Yes, the police might be called, but by the time they arrived, the delay could be more than if the train had been allowed to proceed to its final destination.

I my case it was easy as the train I terminated short was one station from the terminus but with easy access to depot to clear the line and the following train was only a few signal sections behind and was going through. The other option was to allow the first train through and strand the second train for nearly an hour as it turned out, for lack of terminal platforms. My way they all got home within a few minutes of their expected arrival time.

 

[Bevan Price]

They'd end up back where they started eventually or banged up. Wouldn't be wise to object.

But the train could not move if passengers were blocking the doorway. Of course, people would move if/when the police arrived and told them to move -- but at some locations, it would possibly take the police an hour or more to get there....... and some courts tend to look unfavourably at organisations that have a history of poor treatment of customers.

 

[PHILIPE]

I wonder what might happen if enough passengers refused to accept a decision to terminate their train short of destination, by remaining on the train & blocking the doors from closing ?
Yes, the police might be called, but by the time they arrived, the delay could be more than if the train had been allowed to proceed to its final destination.

It has happened. Possibly in Central days prior to LM taking the franchise over, an evening peak from Birmingham to Hereford regularly ran late and there was a habit of terminating it at Ledbury to ensure it's return working was back on time. People had to leave the train and wait (only a small shelter) in wind, cold and snow for the next train an hour later (not quite in practice due to their being late already.
However, one night and apparently orchestrated by the regulars the next time it happened, the passengers refused to leave the train and eventually the police were called. They were outnumbered so the passengers stood their ground until the train was allowed to carry on to Hereford. They never tried to terminate it at Ledbury again, however late it was.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Doesn't matter, the final decision is ALWAYS that of control regardless of what the signaller thinks, their main concern is running trains safely and not running the actual train service as that is the main concern of control and never may they cross!

Unless the signaller brings something to the attention of Control they weren't aware of, or they hadn't realised. Or is it preferable to notice someone is about to balls something up, and keep your mouth shut and let things pan out? For instance, the signaller may be aware of an unscheduled conflicting move, or a unit berthed on the stops of a bay platform preventing the turnback move.

 

[Aictos]

Unless the signaller brings something to the attention of Control they weren't aware of, or they hadn't realised. Or is it preferable to notice someone is about to balls something up, and keep your mouth shut and let things pan out? For instance, the signaller may be aware of an unscheduled conflicting move, or a unit berthed on the stops of a bay platform preventing the turnback move.

The signaller can always ask if they see a issue what control would like them to do within reason, this is why 2 way communications is important between the two and also staff on the ground for example a few years ago I know that on Sundays for example unless it clashed (not usually) the booked workings into Platform 3 at Hertford were signalled into Platform 2 instead as it had a higher entrance speed resulting in a better turnaround time.

Now as far as I am aware this was suggested to the signaller who then asked control for the alteration to go ahead which it always did.

I haven’t turned a train back short of destination, but within the last month I have terminated a train short of destination and used another to get passengers onward to their destination without controls authority. We had a failed train blocking the main line and I had a terminal station nearly full of departing trains waiting to go but couldn’t with more rush hour arrivals approaching. It was a case of use the infrastructure to the best i could without leaving trains stranded between stations and it worked.

A very rare action and not very common simply because if it did result in a delay then the signaller would have to face the music.

Granted you did what you thought was best but majority of the times the signaller doesn't have the freedom to do what they think is best.

At least the GN side does have some turnback opportunities - Letchworth sidings on the Cambridge route, and on the Peterborough side it's feasible to reverse in platforms at Biggleswade and St Neots.

You can always turnback at Finsbury Park, Alexandra Palace, Gordon Hill, Welwyn Garden City, Hertford North, Potters Bar, Hitchin, Huntingdon, Royston, Stevenage too as they all have the facility to do so and have done so both in times of engineering works and disruption.