NR Week Sat-Fri ?

[ComUtoR]

Just a quickie. Is there any reason why Network Rail "weeks" run Saturday-Friday ?

Cheers as always

 

[alxndr]

More context needed I think, I can think of a few different Network Rail "weeks" that aren't.

 

[The Planner]

Engineering weeks I assume?

 

[D6975]

A ‘proper’ week is Sunday-Saturday. Given that engineering works usually run over a weekend, it makes sense for Sat and Sun to be together rather than at opposite ends of the week. This I suspect is the reason.

 

[yorkie]

A ‘proper’ week is Sunday-Saturday.

In what context?

For railway timetables?

Given that engineering works usually run over a weekend, it makes sense for Sat and Sun to be together rather than at opposite ends of the week. This I suspect is the reason.

In almost every other context I can think of, it also makes sense for Saturday & Sunday to be together.

I always think of a week starting on a Monday; for me it would make no sense for a week to start on a Sunday.

 

[Horizon22]

In what context?

For railway timetables?

The "railway week". So rostering and engineering works as some examples. For instance, the period end (4 weeks) is a Saturday.

 

[swt_passenger]

In what context?

For railway timetables?


In almost every other context I can think of, it also makes sense for Saturday & Sunday to be together.

I always think of a week starting on a Monday; for me it would make no sense for a week to start on a Sunday.

UK and European standard is Monday to Sunday according to various Google sources, but they say in North America it’s Sun to Saturday.

 

[D6975]

Historically, in the UK , Sunday has always been the first day of the week, just as 1 Jan is the first day of the year.

 

[ComUtoR]

More context needed I think

Planning; I think.

Engineering weeks I assume?

TBH I'm not 100% sure but it's week 30 starting tomorrow if that helps.

 

[richw]

The "railway week". So rostering and engineering works as some examples. For instance, the period end (4 weeks) is a Saturday.

Same on the buses. Bus weeks have always started on Sundays.
In fact thinking back every company I’ve worked for that’s done hourly pay has been Sunday- Saturday. It makes it easiest for payroll cut off to be Saturday night, for Monday morning payroll processing

 

[ASharpe]

I work for a big retailer and our weeks start on Saturday. I found it odd for a few weeks but now it just seems perfectly logical.

Because 1st of Jan will be on a Saturday next year we go from week 53 to 1 and two odd weeks in a row means extra effort for my team to keep things in sync (not as a bad as clock change though).

 

[XAM2175]

No, a proper week is Monday to Sunday.

Many organisations might run theirs as Sunday to Saturday for all sorts of valid reasons, but it doesn't change the proper week.

In fact thinking back every company I’ve worked for that’s done hourly pay has been Sunday- Saturday. It makes it easiest for payroll cut off to be Saturday night, for Monday morning payroll processing

I spent quite a few years getting paid weekly and the payroll week was Monday to Sunday. Timesheets were due by noon on Monday and pay was issued on Thursday.

 

[snowball]

Historically, in the UK , Sunday has always been the first day of the week, just as 1 Jan is the first day of the year.

It comes from the Old Testament. God supposedly created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. But this was a Jewish account so the seventh day was Saturday.

When I was very young the Radio Times coverage ran from Sunday to Saturday.

The start of the year in England was not firmly established as 1st Jan until the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1752. Before that, the year was treated for some purposes as beginning on 25 March.

 

[pdeaves]

Engineering, etc. does Saturday-Friday. Accounting does Sunday-Saturday (one reason why franchise changes are usually very early Sunday morning). It creates 'interesting' times accounting for weekend possessions!

 

[Ediswan]

ISO 8601 numbered weeks run Mon-Sun. ISO 8601 is "Data elements and interchange formats - Information interchange - Representation of dates and times."

 

[30907]

The public timetable changed the other way decades ago, from Monday start to Sunday start - made operational sense.

 

[Ediswan]

The public timetable changed the other way decades ago, from Monday start to Sunday start - made operational sense.

In what way did the public timetable change ?

The published public timetable: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/the-timetable/electronic-national-rail-timetable/ still starts with Mon-Fri and ends with Sun.

 

[The DJ]

Historically, in the UK , Sunday has always been the first day of the week, just as 1 Jan is the first day of the year.

Definitely not a churchgoer myself but The Bible would disagree. The Creator supposedly worked Monday to Saturday and chilled out on the Sunday, the Sabbath.

 

[Mojo]

I agree with others that real week runs from Monday to Sunday.

Used to be a bugbear of mine that for most purposes in railway that weeks are Sun - Sat when I was on rostered annual leave if the Sunday at the end of your leave wasn’t your rest day - who wants to come back to work midway through a weekend?!

 

[AlbertBeale]

I agree with others that real week runs from Monday to Sunday.

Used to be a bugbear of mine that for most purposes in railway that weeks are Sun - Sat when I was on rostered annual leave if the Sunday at the end of your leave wasn’t your rest day - who wants to come back to work midway through a weekend?!

The agreed international standard for "week numbering" and so on - eg for publishing diaries - has the week Mon-Sun. Week 1 in any year is defined as the first period of 7 consecutive days starting on a Monday of which at least 4 are in the year concerned. So, eg, if 2022 starts on a Saturday, Week 1 of 2022 is the 7-day period starting on Monday 3 Jan. Depending on what day of the week a year starts on (and also depending on whether it's a Leap Year), you have some years which officially have a Week 53. There are many other fun facts which flow from this - such as the fact that for a week-to-an-opening diary, you always need at least 53 double-page spreads, but one year in every 28 (when it's a Leap Year starting on a Sunday) you need 54 spreads - though that year will be a "52-Week" year.

 

[Adrian Barr]

it's week 30 starting tomorrow if that helps.

For the engineering weeks, it makes sense for all the weekend engineering trains / worksites for any particular weekend to be in the same week for planning purposes. A train can go out to site Saturday night, and come back Sunday or Monday morning, and both trains will be in "week 30" or whatever week it is. Engineering trains departing yards on Friday nights are considered to be part of that weekend, so the cut-off between weeks is possibly more like lunchtime on a Friday! I suppose you could achieve the same thing by having the week start on a Monday lunchtime, so this doesn't fully explain it, but it is probably to fit in with the dark and mysterious planning processes for engineering works, either current or historical.

With multiple weeks of engineering trains in different stages of planning at the same time, there will be trains with the same headcodes running in different weeks, so a reference to "6B01 week 30" or some other headcode needs to be unambiguous. Possession trains usually keep the same headcode to and from site, so if "6B01 week 30" is cancelled or amended, it will refer to an out-and-back working to a particular worksite. There will be a "ballast circular" (or whatever they are officially called now) published with all the engineering trains for that week in it, which would be a lot more complicated if trains were frequently going to a worksite in one week and coming back in the next. There is a sort of divide between "weekend" (going to site between Friday night and Sunday night) and "midweek" (Monday to Thursday night) possession trains. In general, midweek jobs (apart from blockades) are usually simpler with less time on site, such as rail drops or topping up ballast, which might have some bearing on starting the planning weeks with the more complicated weekend jobs.

 

[D6975]

Definitely not a churchgoer myself but The Bible would disagree. The Creator supposedly worked Monday to Saturday and chilled out on the Sunday, the Sabbath.

No he didn't - see post 13

 

[The DJ]

I stand corrected

 

[AlbertBeale]

It comes from the Old Testament. God supposedly created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. But this was a Jewish account so the seventh day was Saturday.

When I was very young the Radio Times coverage ran from Sunday to Saturday.

The start of the year in England was not firmly established as 1st Jan until the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1752. Before that, the year was treated for some purposes as beginning on 25 March.

I'm pretty sure that when I was young, Radio Times ran from Saturday to Friday!

 

[richw]

I'm pretty sure that when I was young, Radio Times ran from Saturday to Friday!

All of the stand alone TV mags still do

 

[Mcr Warrior]

When I was very young the Radio Times coverage ran from Sunday to Saturday.

It did indeed. Changed from Sunday to Saturday, to Saturday to Friday, in October 1960, resulting in two different week's editions covering programming for Saturday 8th October 1960.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Definitely not a churchgoer myself but The Bible would disagree. The Creator supposedly worked Monday to Saturday and chilled out on the Sunday, the Sabbath.

The Jewish faith has Saturday as the Sabbath as it is the seventh day of the week, on which God rested. The Christian church adopted Sunday as its holy day as a weekly celebration of the Resurrection. Traditionally both faiths consider Sunday to be the first day of the week. However for many secular purposes it is inconvenient for the weekend to be split between different weeks.

 

[Stigy]

In what context?

For railway timetables?


In almost every other context I can think of, it also makes sense for Saturday & Sunday to be together.

I always think of a week starting on a Monday; for me it would make no sense for a week to start on a Sunday.

I’m the opposite, always start on a Sunday, but when I think about it, that doesn’t really make sense I guess. I guess it’s because technically weeks do start on a Sunday as opposed to a Monday?

 

[43096]

Definitely not a churchgoer myself but The Bible would disagree. The Creator supposedly worked Monday to Saturday and chilled out on the Sunday, the Sabbath.

The other way of looking at it is that Saturday and Sunday are called the weekend, so they are at the end of the week. So Sunday can't be the first day of the week as it's not the weekend then.

 

[JamesT]

The Jewish faith has Saturday as the Sabbath as it is the seventh day of the week, on which God rested. The Christian church adopted Sunday as its holy day as a weekly celebration of the Resurrection. Traditionally both faiths consider Sunday to be the first day of the week. However for many secular purposes it is inconvenient for the weekend to be split between different weeks.

Weeks in term at Oxford University start on Sundays. Though that’s probably not surprising given the religious nature of the founding of many of the constituent colleges.