Making up lost time

[bengley]

If I’m late I’m late. There’s padding in the timetable to make up some time. I couldn’t give a rats arse if my name is in the log for a delay.

As for linespeed I do about 5 mph below max linespeed. Where I am there’s so much traffic you don’t need to do the max as you’ll hit the red somewhere along the journey.

My priority is getting punters to their destination safely.

A minority of my colleagues at my depot like to say how great they are as they made up 5 mins by the time they terminated, however the padding allowed that lol.

Keep it as stress free as you can, worrying about keeping to time is a foolhardy way of putting undue pressure on your head. No driver has ever been sacked for going too slow.....where as........

This is a common way of thinking throughout the industry and one which will ultimately come back to bite us when one of the major benefits of mass automation is said to be improved performance and journey times because it removes the possibility for a driver's slow driving to cause delays.

 

[dctraindriver]

This is a common way of thinking throughout the industry and one which will ultimately come back to bite us when one of the major benefits of mass automation is said to be improved performance and journey times because it removes the possibility for a driver's slow driving to cause delays.

I’m not driving slow, I’m being cautious. We’re quite a few years yet away from full automation of the national rail network so I wouldn’t worry your pretty little head about that....

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

A couple of years ago I was having lunch in a GWR Pullman as we travelled over the Berks & Hants Line towards the West Country. The ride was less smooth than usual and the stewards serving were struggling a bit with the swaying train. We were late and one told us that the driver was doing his best to make up time. I’m sure he / she wouldn’t have been speeding but maybe they usually take the curves a bit below line speed and brake more gently and the driver was going a bit harder this time as we were late.

That's just the usual poor quality track geometry on the Reading-Taunton line. The route gets bashed to bits on a daily basis by the super-heavy Mendip stone trains which have to dash from loop to loop to keep ahead of the express passenger trains. The worst spots are at places such as Hungerford and Woodborough where the freights are either braking or accelerating hard and the formation gets a real pounding.

 

[Eccles1983]

This is a common way of thinking throughout the industry and one which will ultimately come back to bite us when one of the major benefits of mass automation is said to be improved performance and journey times because it removes the possibility for a driver's slow driving to cause delays.

A mistake and incident would wipe out 2 years of cautious driving savings.

And selfishly, I care more about my career and safety of the passengers over 30 seconds here or there by attempting pointless recovery braking.

 

[Dieseldriver]

This is a common way of thinking throughout the industry and one which will ultimately come back to bite us when one of the major benefits of mass automation is said to be improved performance and journey times because it removes the possibility for a driver's slow driving to cause delays.

Spoken by someone who doesn't understand what the previous poster actually said... As an analogy, if you're driving your car for several miles at 60mph but then catch up with a lorry (impossible to overtake until a dual carriageway a few miles away) doing 40mph for the last few miles, it would have been smoother, more fuel efficient (environmental factors being a massive thing now) and safer to have driven at 50mph and got closer to the lorry just at the point you were able to overtake. As a Train Driver we drive according to the conditions and route, if we are delayed en route it is not our responsibility to make that time up and nor should it be.
I highlighted a timing issue with a service a few years ago where every Driver was getting delay forms on the same section. One day I entered the section on time and, drove to the limit as aggressively as I felt confident/comfortable with. At the next station I was three minutes late... Timings are not always correct and they don't take into account the difference in performance between different units/locos.

 

[The Planner]

3 minutes? Freight or passenger? They are not normally that far out unless there is an approach controlled signal not taken into account. Freight can be wrong as timings were a lot more generic or the FOC has overloaded the train which happens more than you think.

 

[Dieseldriver]

3 minutes? Freight or passenger? They are not normally that far out unless there is an approach controlled signal not taken into account. Freight can be wrong as timings were a lot more generic or the FOC has overloaded the train which happens more than you think.

Not prepared to say where as it could give my identity away. Obviously in my case, the traction I was using wasn't performing brilliantly however, we were routinely losing a couple of minutes on that particular part of the route.

 

[dctraindriver]

3 minutes? Freight or passenger? They are not normally that far out unless there is an approach controlled signal not taken into account. Freight can be wrong as timings were a lot more generic or the FOC has overloaded the train which happens more than you think.

There’s one station on one of my routes where you leave the preceding station on time yet arrive at said station always 2 late. No approach control....

 

[Dieseldriver]

There’s one station on one of my routes where you leave the preceding station on time yet arrive at said station always 2 late. No approach control....

You should be driving aggressively and completely disobey linespeed/rules and procedures otherwise you're not giving fantastic customer service to your passengers...

 

[Tomnick]

Spoken by someone who doesn't understand what the previous poster actually said... As an analogy, if you're driving your car for several miles at 60mph but then catch up with a lorry (impossible to overtake until a dual carriageway a few miles away) doing 40mph for the last few miles, it would have been smoother, more fuel efficient (environmental factors being a massive thing now) and safer to have driven at 50mph and got closer to the lorry just at the point you were able to overtake. As a Train Driver we drive according to the conditions and route, if we are delayed en route it is not our responsibility to make that time up and nor should it be.
I highlighted a timing issue with a service a few years ago where every Driver was getting delay forms on the same section. One day I entered the section on time and, drove to the limit as aggressively as I felt confident/comfortable with. At the next station I was three minutes late... Timings are not always correct and they don't take into account the difference in performance between different units/locos.

Agreed, but...

To take the example of a route between two cities, say A and E, about 30 miles apart. Linespeed varies but is generally between 75 and 90. One particular empty stock working is booked to follow a stopper over the last bit of the route, so it makes sense to trundle along at a nice sedate pace so that you don’t catch it up quite so quickly. All is well with the world. The problem is that there are junctions along this route, so you can end up delaying something that’s booked to follow you closely as far as B where it diverges. It’s a fine balancing act!

Personally I quite enjoy the relaxed approach where possible, seeing how far I can coast when I know I’ve got time and it’s not going to affect anything else, and braking nice and gently. Conversely, I do enjoy the satisfaction of “making up time” - yes, it might only be because of the slack in the schedule which is what lets me take it easy on a good day, and it’s certainly not pushing it beyond what I’m comfortable with, but I couldn’t bring myself to take exactly the same approach regardless of how late I am!

(As I understand it, too, if that slack’s there because there’s a load of engineering and pathing allowance, if I’m 15L at one reporting point and still 15L at the next reporting point because I’ve taken the same relaxed approach that I normally would, but there’s actually a total of, say, 4 minutes of pathing time in that section, then there’ll be a 4 minute delay generated for me to explain?)

 

[gallafent]

Spoken by someone who doesn't understand what the previous poster actually said... As an analogy, if you're driving your car for several miles at 60mph but then catch up with a lorry (impossible to overtake until a dual carriageway a few miles away) doing 40mph for the last few miles, it would have been smoother, more fuel efficient (environmental factors being a massive thing now) and safer to have driven at 50mph and got closer to the lorry just at the point you were able to overtake. As a Train Driver we drive according to the conditions and route, if we are delayed en route it is not our responsibility to make that time up and nor should it be.

… and as a human train driver you're not privy to the information about how far ahead that slower service or red signal is, … and as such can't drive to the “perfect” speed profile to “just catch up with it at the right moment”. An correctly designed automated system can do that, since the entity controlling the speed of each train knows the location of every train and the state of every signal (if there are any actual lineside signals). The advantages in (amongst other things) efficiency, reduced wear-and tear, and passenger comfort (even knocking 5mph off the speed makes a train noticeably quieter and less bumpy…), will be enormous. This is of course still some way off and won't be putting anybody out of a job tomorrow!

Although it's possibly not your primary responsibility as a driver to catch up time on a late running service, it would seem seriously odd (and very poor customer service) to me if, let's say: the normal working timetable between two stops is 10 minutes; if driven according to the standard maximum acceleration and service braking profiles of the train in question, and according to the applicable line speed limits, it actually takes only 7 minutes; a driver of a train running 3 or more minutes late drives below that maximum allowed performance and fails to make up that “available” 3 minutes. Is there ever a reason not do that? As a customer of the railway I'd consider that to be reasonably unacceptable failure to attempt to deliver (recover) the service I paid to travel on! In other words, where conditions allow time to be caught up, I'd say it's the responsibility of the driver to make best efforts to catch up that time. Not doing so is deliberately reducing the quality of the service.

 

[The Planner]

Not prepared to say where as it could give my identity away. Obviously in my case, the traction I was using wasn't performing brilliantly however, we were routinely losing a couple of minutes on that particular part of the route.

There’s one station on one of my routes where you leave the preceding station on time yet arrive at said station always 2 late. No approach control....

Someone should flag it then so it can be fixed, if its routinely only 2 minutes then it isn't causing a delay in TRUST and gets lost in the unexplained ZZ category.

 

[bengley]

Spoken by someone who doesn't understand what the previous poster actually said... As an analogy, if you're driving your car for several miles at 60mph but then catch up with a lorry (impossible to overtake until a dual carriageway a few miles away) doing 40mph for the last few miles, it would have been smoother, more fuel efficient (environmental factors being a massive thing now) and safer to have driven at 50mph and got closer to the lorry just at the point you were able to overtake. As a Train Driver we drive according to the conditions and route, if we are delayed en route it is not our responsibility to make that time up and nor should it be.
I highlighted a timing issue with a service a few years ago where every Driver was getting delay forms on the same section. One day I entered the section on time and, drove to the limit as aggressively as I felt confident/comfortable with. At the next station I was three minutes late... Timings are not always correct and they don't take into account the difference in performance between different units/locos.

I didn't misunderstand. I drive more slowly and under linespeed too where I know I'm going to catch something up. Where I have greens and I don't know if I might catch something up, I'll drive to linespeed. That's how I was taught to drive.

I don't disagree with dctraindriver - I was simply pointing out a lot of people (not just drivers) in the industry 'don't care' about whether they're on time or not. I personally do care!

 

[Dieseldriver]

I didn't misunderstand. I drive more slowly and under linespeed too where I know I'm going to catch something up. Where I have greens and I don't know if I might catch something up, I'll drive to linespeed. That's how I was taught to drive.

I don't disagree with dctraindriver - I was simply pointing out a lot of people (not just drivers) in the industry 'don't care' about whether they're on time or not. I personally do care!

Fair enough, it's easy to get overly defensive on this forum on account of the armchair experts so I think I misunderstood you.

 

[ComUtoR]

Someone should flag it then so it can be fixed, if its routinely only 2 minutes then it isn't causing a delay in TRUST and gets lost in the unexplained ZZ category.

Who would you flag it up to ?

I've had similar conversations with my Manager and similar conversations to more senior Managers. We have places where you will never be on time. I know you have discussed before about Sectional timings and how they are created, unit performance calculations, WTT/GBTT etc etc but it is seriously frustrating when you are permanently late at some locations (and there are many) and the default response from Managers are very dismissive.

 

[The Planner]

Its a shame they aren't interested, and I doubt you can raise it to the bobby either.

 

[bengley]

Who would you flag it up to ?

I've had similar conversations with my Manager and similar conversations to more senior Managers. We have places where you will never be on time. I know you have discussed before about Sectional timings and how they are created, unit performance calculations, WTT/GBTT etc etc but it is seriously frustrating when you are permanently late at some locations (and there are many) and the default response from Managers are very dismissive.

We had one of those places from May until December, where you got 2 minutes between departing Dewsbury and departing Batley. It's impossible - I think I managed it once and that was where the doors were closed bang on 30 seconds before at Dewsbury and I had a very strong unit. Even then, I was departing Batley about 45 seconds into the second minute - so getting on for a minute late.

This has now been rectified and you get 3 minutes, so I guess someone noticed it!

 

[Wychwood93]

Someone should flag it then so it can be fixed, if its routinely only 2 minutes then it isn't causing a delay in TRUST and gets lost in the unexplained ZZ category.

IIRC the cumulative ZZ delays are down to Network Rail (the taxpayer). Is it still the same? There are a hell of a lot of them!

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

We had one of those places from May until December, where you got 2 minutes between departing Dewsbury and departing Batley. It's impossible - I think I managed it once and that was where the doors were closed bang on 30 seconds before at Dewsbury and I had a very strong unit. Even then, I was departing Batley about 45 seconds into the second minute - so getting on for a minute late.

This has now been rectified and you get 3 minutes, so I guess someone noticed it!

If you don't mind me asking - do your company's schedule cards show working times or public times?

 

[Llama]

Ours are WTT with a coded letter shown in the time on the schedule for any differentials between WTT and the public timetable. There is a key on the bottom -
W/X/Y/Z for advertised arrival time 1/2/3/4 mins later,
P/Q/R for advertised departure time 1/2/3 mins earlier,
N for stops not advertised.

I haven't noticed a schedule card with any of those codes on for years now though.

 

[bengley]

If you don't mind me asking - do your company's schedule cards show working times or public times?

WTT for drivers and WTT and public (in brackets) for guards

 

[185]

Arrive at destination late?

That doesn't happen. Just little bits of paper handed to the traincrew, covered in 30+ station names that you ain't gonna call at and BOOM!

...back on time. Minus any passengers, but hey, we're on time