RealTime Trains

[1018509]

Does RealTime Trains show all train movements or are some not recorded.

What led me to ask this question is this.

Where does the Horsham Up Sidings to Christchurch go to ? There are no sidings at Christchurch yet real Time Trains say it terminates here.

 

[PHILIPE]

Royal Trains are not shewn due to confidentiality. Only people DIRECTLY involved, i e Signallers, relevant Managers etc., are told through sealed orders on a strictly "Need to Know" basis.

 

[swt_passenger]

It runs through Christchurch to Bournemouth and returns to Christchurch - sometimes when trains seem to disappear like this it is because they are engineering trains (or plant such as tampers) entering a possession, and the part of the job that takes it into the possession limits is not shown.

You might find a corresponding orphan movement that returns to Horsham from somewhere else east of Christchurch, but of course if its next move is to a completely different location you could be searching for a while.

 

[1018509]

Royal Trains are not shewn due to confidentiality. Only people DIRECTLY involved, i e Signallers, relevant Managers etc., are told through sealed orders on a strictly "Need to Know" basis.

No! - really; I am not one to grab hold of the wrong end of the stick but what is the Queen doing visiting Christchurch by secret train at 1 o'clock in the morning?

 

[yorkie]

No! - really; I am not one to grab hold of the wrong end of the stick but what is the Queen doing visiting Christchurch by secret train at 1 o'clock in the morning?

You asked two separate questions. PHILIPE answered the first question. swt_passenger answered the second

 

[1018509]

You asked two separate questions. PHILIPE answered the first question. swt_passenger answered the second

I know but my strange sense of humour got the better of me.

Thanks to all for your replies especially swt_passenger who comes to my rescue time and time again.

 

[TDK]

Realtime trains will not show adhoc STP shunts in station areas as these are requested sometimes to be carried out on an immediate basis.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

If a train is diverted en route, realtimetrains will not show the diversion.
Eg there were signalling problems at St Helens between Wigan and Huyton on Thursday 1 May.
Some Blackpool/Wigan-Liverpool trains were diverted via Golborne Jn/Earlestown to Huyton, but you will not see the times on realtimetrains.
They apparently "disappeared" at Springs Branch Jn, and magically "reappeared" at Huyton Jn.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/Y42193/2014/05/01/advanced

 

[455driver]

Realtime trains will not show adhoc STP shunts in station areas as these are requested sometimes to be carried out on an immediate basis.

It also doesnt show Q paths being activated even when they are, a couple of weeks ago I was on my way to pick up an ECS Q path and decided to look for my stock in a station (it had already been brought out of the depot by another driver) so decided to look it up on RTT but it wasnt shown as activated and was still showing as platform 6 when it was actually on platform 7.

That Q path is still showing on the system as a daily path.

edit-
This is not meant as a complaint, it can only show the paths once activated and if they dont get activated even though they are running then there isnt much that can be done about it.

 

[The Planner]

Wonder if they can find a way to show the "off booked route" times that are at the bottom of the TRUST schedule if it does get diverted?

 

[LowLevel]

Royal Trains are not shewn due to confidentiality. Only people DIRECTLY involved, i e Signallers, relevant Managers etc., are told through sealed orders on a strictly "Need to Know" basis.

I did chuckle to myself when, once upon a time, I popped into an area manager's office for a word about something and on his 'to do list' noticeboard thing was a note about 'Sort out Royal Train - Queen, 'X' station, 'x' date'

 

[Searle]

Wonder if they can find a way to show the "off booked route" times that are at the bottom of the TRUST schedule if it does get diverted?

Tom from RailMiles said he was looking to include a way of showing diverted routes in upcoming updates

 

[louis97]

Wonder if they can find a way to show the "off booked route" times that are at the bottom of the TRUST schedule if it does get diverted?

In the next major update the plan is to have a 'Between x and y' displayed in a blue information bar at the top of detailed mode. This will be able to display the locations the train is between on both the booked route and any diversion routes the train may take. I am not aware of any plan to have the TRUST times to appear - although in theory it may be possible to get any TD arrival/departure that is triggered off the booked route to appear somewhere.

 

[Muzer]

Wonder if they can find a way to show the "off booked route" times that are at the bottom of the TRUST schedule if it does get diverted?

I've spoken to Tom, and this is harder than it seems because RTT in most/many places doesn't actually "know" the route geography - so how would it know whether or not to show trains reporting at unexpected locations (which can just be ones that weren't in the timetable, for example, rather than an actual diversion)? And when trains don't report at places (which happens frequently), how would it know exactly where to place the diversion in the list of locations? I hear he is working on a solution, though.



As for trains not shown in RTT, a few very small timetabled shunts aren't displayed either, for examples ones from one platform to another, simply because they aren't in the system as there's not much point since everyone concerned knows what needs to happen.

 

[Bodie]

Can anyone tell me what the purpose of a 'Unadvertised Ordinary Passenger' is?

It says 'Runs as required' and has a 'Q' under 'act dep'

The train in question for me is the 1005 Kyle of Lochalsh to Inverness.

Of course no such train runs but why does Scotrail go to the length of getting this in the WTT. I'd love for there to be a 1005 departure. Kyle needs a mid morning departure rather then 0620 or 1205. I'd run it earlier, 0830/0900 say, but thats another matter.

Does Scotrail really think they'll be some mad rush on, so they will have to run this extra train.
Also it says it runs between Dec 2013 and 17th May 2014.
Even less likely they'd need it during the winter months!

Plus where does this unit appear from?
I don't see an another unadvertised service from Inverness.
They would have to run two units on the previous nights train from Inverness. That already has two units as far as Dingwall, so it would be six car 158 service from Inverness to Dingwall and they've got enough trouble, what with the short station platforms at Conon Bridge and Beauly when running four car 158 services!

I take it the website isn't 100% accurate all the time, as I see the same train 1H81 departing Kyle at 0845 on Fri 09 May and Sat 10th even though the Friday departed had a Thursday night arrival but no Friday night arrival to form the Saturday departure.

One last thing regarding real train times website. If it says a service is cancelled is that final?

Thanks

Bodie

 

[Muzer]

Can anyone tell me what the purpose of a 'Unadvertised Ordinary Passenger' is?

'Unadvertised' as far as I'm aware usually means it's not shown on regular timetables/is not a regularly advertised service. You usually get this with charters/railtours.

'Ordinary passenger' is just used to distinguish from 'express passenger' (and other types) I believe.

It says 'Runs as required' and has a 'Q' under 'act dep'

The train in question for me is the 1005 Kyle of Lochalsh to Inverness.

Of course no such train runs but why does Scotrail go to the length of getting this in the WTT. I'd love for there to be a 1005 departure. Kyle needs a mid morning departure rather then 0620 or 1205. I'd run it earlier, 0830/0900 say, but thats another matter.

Does Scotrail really think they'll be some mad rush on, so they will have to run this extra train.
Also it says it runs between Dec 2013 and 17th May 2014.
Even less likely they'd need it during the winter months!

Plus where does this unit appear from?
I don't see an another unadvertised service from Inverness.
They would have to run two units on the previous nights train from Inverness. That already has two units as far as Dingwall, so it would be six car 158 service from Inverness to Dingwall and they've got enough trouble, what with the short station platforms at Conon Bridge and Beauly when running four car 158 services!

I've honestly no idea. Seems rather odd that they'd have such a path and not use it. I expect there must be a good reason.

I take it the website isn't 100% accurate all the time, as I see the same train 1H81 departing Kyle at 0845 on Fri 09 May and Sat 10th even though the Friday departed had a Thursday night arrival but no Friday night arrival to form the Saturday departure.

I don't know about the case in question, but the site can only be as reliable as the data provided to it from the Network Rail feeds.

One last thing regarding real train times website. If it says a service is cancelled is that final?

Thanks

Bodie

I was at one of Tom's talks that went into quite a bit of detail on this subject - basically, there are three different systems used on the rail network for cancellation - only one of them is open data, and this is the one RTT uses. It is also usually used in an optimistic way - so if there's any chance of a train actually running, they usually won't cancel it through this system, as apparently it's rather difficult for TOCs to "uncancel" a train cancelled in this manner. So, yes, it's pretty final in this regard, moreso than the systems that some PISes use.

 

[LowLevel]

Wonder if they can find a way to show the "off booked route" times that are at the bottom of the TRUST schedule if it does get diverted?

TRUST itself makes you ponder at times chucking up random 'diverted via' messages on the lineup which were patently rubbish - one I can think of was 1Nxx XC services at Leicester showing diverted via Loughboro despite going round the curve to Syston South.

 

[Ebore]

The train in question for me is the 1005 Kyle of Lochalsh to Inverness.

Of course no such train runs but why does Scotrail go to the length of getting this in the WTT. I'd love for there to be a 1005 departure. Kyle needs a mid morning departure rather then 0620 or 1205. I'd run it earlier, 0830/0900 say, but thats another matter.

Does Scotrail really think they'll be some mad rush on, so they will have to run this extra train.
Also it says it runs between Dec 2013 and 17th May 2014.
Even less likely they'd need it during the winter months!

Plus where does this unit appear from?
I don't see an another unadvertised service from Inverness.
They would have to run two units on the previous nights train from Inverness. That already has two units as far as Dingwall, so it would be six car 158 service from Inverness to Dingwall and they've got enough trouble, what with the short station platforms at Conon Bridge and Beauly when running four car 158 services!

I suspect this may be a hangover from the Stromferry bypass closure and Scotrail ran an additional early morning service from Inverness: https://www.scotrail.co.uk/fb/content/additional-service-plockton-high-school-pupils. Presumably this would have been the return service and the path has remained in the system.

I take it the website isn't 100% accurate all the time, as I see the same train 1H81 departing Kyle at 0845 on Fri 09 May and Sat 10th even though the Friday departed had a Thursday night arrival but no Friday night arrival to form the Saturday departure.

The Thursday night arrival/Friday morning departure are part of this Royal Scotsman journey (this week anyway). I would imagine the Saturday morning departure is part of another journey and probably won't run this week.

 

[Bodie]

Of course Ebore! - Why didn't I think of that?!
They did indeed run extra train for the kids going to the high school when the rocks came down and blocked the A890.

Just trying to rack my brains as to when all that was? - It wasn't last year, early 2012 if i'm not mistaken. Hold on...
Aye my memory didn't fail me. Quick Google search says rock fall happened Christmas 2011. It was closed for a good few months.

Crikey that's two years now and it's still in the system!!!

Thanks to everyone for their help, i'm getting a hang of RTT now.

Bodie

 

[duffers2324]

Why does Real Time Trains or Open Train Times not show pathed for 170 or anything like that for eg 2J44-1527-Glasgow Queen St-Falkirk Grahamston service was a 170 but has this at the top for timing load

Timings

Class 150/153/155/156 DMU at 75 mph

 

[The Planner]

Because it probably isnt timed as a 170.

 

[Poggs]

Because it probably isnt timed as a 170.

That's completely correct - the "Class 170" timing load has a maximum speed of 100mph, and the "Class 150, 155 or 156" has a maximum speed of 75mph.

It's come up time and time again, but "timing load" isn't the *booked* stock.

 

[duffers2324]

Thanks guys for the replies had a funny feeling it might have been something like that