In the franchising process the DfT lays down the sort of timetable it expects bidders to bid for, and ove the years this has involved getting more and more trains on to an infrastructure that has seen minimal provision of additional facilities. Debate in these forums has shewn very clearly how the Trans-Pennine route appears to be at its limits of capacity, with relatively small perturbations being able to upset the timetable quite dramatically, and debate has also questioned the wisdom of running more and more small trains rather than fewer and longer trains at somewhat greater intervals, given the limits of the infrastructure. My question is how far running a system at near-maximum capacity is now affecting performance on other main lines too.
Yesterday I made a return trip from York to London. Both trains were, as usual, late, even though there were no technical problems and as far as I could see the only TSR in force was an 80 on the up line at Bawtry. The 0738 from York was an HST, booked to arrive in King's Cross at 0737 (public) or 0735 (WTT). This train appears to be allowed 8 extra minutes on top of the point-to-point times, as 4 minutes for engineering, 3 minutes for pathing, and 1 minute for performance, and then there are th 2 extra minutes between the WTT and the PTT arrivals in King's Cross — a total of 10 minutes. Despite all this, it was 3¼ minutes late on the public time. The train was very severely slowed before Doncaster station, brought to a near-stand outside Grantham, and the same again outside Peterborough, all apparently on account of late-running other services. Then came very severe signals at Knebworth and then following a local service making the killer stop at Welwyn North as far as Digswell. Still not the end: dead slow outside Finsbury Park and a crawl right up to the buffers at the terminus, and these delays too seemed to be down to other trains running late. Indeed, there seemed to be delays from conflicts at almost ever possible location except Hambleton North Jn and Newark Crossing! (As for Hambleton, I watched a 75-mph Leeds-Hull train leave York just in front of an on-time 125-mph XC service, which went out on single yellow and had to follow the DMU to Hambleton ...)
Northbound I was on the 17:30 from King's Cross, this time electric and with 4 minutes engineering allowance, 1½ minutes pathing allowances, and 1 minute for performance, 6½ minutes in all. Yet we were 5 minutes late into York. This time it was down to catching moderate siganls at Huntingdon, but then after a lengthy slow approach being brought to a stand for 2 minutes at Fletton followed by a slow approach to Peterborough. A normal run followed as far as Chaloners Whin, where it was signals again to a near-stand at Holgate Bridge, apparently to allow a DMU to leave the station as we of course were by then approaching out of path.
All the delays on both services seemed to be down to congestion on the line caused by other services running by a small amount out of the planned paths. Just as on the Trans-Pennine route, it seems that small amounts of lateness cannot be absorbed. Are there simply too many trains for the network to operate reliably, given that in this country we cannot match Japanese standards? If we want so many (and more!) trains, do we need urgent investment in more facilities at strategic locations? Or do we just struggle on trying to get a quart out of a pint jug?
Yesterday I made a return trip from York to London. Both trains were, as usual, late, even though there were no technical problems and as far as I could see the only TSR in force was an 80 on the up line at Bawtry. The 0738 from York was an HST, booked to arrive in King's Cross at 0737 (public) or 0735 (WTT). This train appears to be allowed 8 extra minutes on top of the point-to-point times, as 4 minutes for engineering, 3 minutes for pathing, and 1 minute for performance, and then there are th 2 extra minutes between the WTT and the PTT arrivals in King's Cross — a total of 10 minutes. Despite all this, it was 3¼ minutes late on the public time. The train was very severely slowed before Doncaster station, brought to a near-stand outside Grantham, and the same again outside Peterborough, all apparently on account of late-running other services. Then came very severe signals at Knebworth and then following a local service making the killer stop at Welwyn North as far as Digswell. Still not the end: dead slow outside Finsbury Park and a crawl right up to the buffers at the terminus, and these delays too seemed to be down to other trains running late. Indeed, there seemed to be delays from conflicts at almost ever possible location except Hambleton North Jn and Newark Crossing! (As for Hambleton, I watched a 75-mph Leeds-Hull train leave York just in front of an on-time 125-mph XC service, which went out on single yellow and had to follow the DMU to Hambleton ...)
Northbound I was on the 17:30 from King's Cross, this time electric and with 4 minutes engineering allowance, 1½ minutes pathing allowances, and 1 minute for performance, 6½ minutes in all. Yet we were 5 minutes late into York. This time it was down to catching moderate siganls at Huntingdon, but then after a lengthy slow approach being brought to a stand for 2 minutes at Fletton followed by a slow approach to Peterborough. A normal run followed as far as Chaloners Whin, where it was signals again to a near-stand at Holgate Bridge, apparently to allow a DMU to leave the station as we of course were by then approaching out of path.
All the delays on both services seemed to be down to congestion on the line caused by other services running by a small amount out of the planned paths. Just as on the Trans-Pennine route, it seems that small amounts of lateness cannot be absorbed. Are there simply too many trains for the network to operate reliably, given that in this country we cannot match Japanese standards? If we want so many (and more!) trains, do we need urgent investment in more facilities at strategic locations? Or do we just struggle on trying to get a quart out of a pint jug?