South West Trains not holding connections

[embers25]

The 1739 arrival from Portsmouth into Salisbury is running 15 minutes late. Despite knowing the 1753 to Exeter would have to wait for 10 minutes at Tisbury loop anyway due to a late running train the other way, do they hold the 1753 connection....no it pulls out as the 1739 pulls in. I understand we don't hold connections any more but that was utterly pointless. Just like most evenings when the cancel the 1635 and 1746 from Exeter. Do they hold the 1625 and 1725 until 1635 and 1746, no they let them go as far as Pinhoe where they then wait until pretty much the time of the cancelled trains due to late running westbound services. Leaving those at St Davids and Central to wait 50 or 40 minutes respectively for no reason. I get not holding connections but in all these cases it just makes no sense and doesn't save precious delay minutes.

 

[embers25]

The 17:39 being the GWR service from Portsmouth?

From looking at RTT, the 17:53 to Exeter doesn't wait at Tisbury loop, the Waterloo bound service waits at the loop, so by holding that connection you will be delaying the next Waterloo bound service

The 1753 did today as the train the other way was late. I agree it shouldn't but they knew it would and more often than not does due to late running eastbound trains thus time of day. It would have caused no extra delays at all.

 

[BestWestern]

IIRC, the Exeter connection will be ensured if the inbound GWR is up to ten minutes late. A phone call is expected, to alert Salisbury staff who will then ensure that passengers make it across and board. If the delay is more than ten minutes, the road will be given and the connection deemed missed. The matter has been considered at management level, and a policy was agreed!

 

[PHILIPE]

The moral of the story used to be:-

Don't delay lots of passengers for the benefit of a few.

It#s just hard lines, I'm afraid.

 

[30907]

I came to the same conclusion as embers25 on the basis of the RTT data.

Holding the Exeter until after the GW had left would have been a very clever piece of regulating in the specific circumstances.

It is, though, a counter-intuitive one.
I take it that a signaller (or whoever) would default to
- getting a train away right time
- prioritising a RT train over a late running one
- prioritising a late running London bound service over a Down
and therefore might decide not to risk the clever option, not least with a half-hourly service as far as Yeovil (not Pinhoe, of course).

Or (given that the particular combination of latenesses can't be that frequent) they may simply not have made the connection (if you'll excuse the pun) in the first place.

 

[PHILIPE]

In many instances, trains are not held unless it is the last service of the day. Just wondering if anybody knows if SWT have a connection policy.

 

[AlterEgo]

The moderators won't read every post in every thread. If there is something particularly egregious please use the report function (

) on the post to bring it to their attention.

If everything that was factually incorrect was deleted on this board we would have a very empty forum!

 

[Searle]

Am I right in thinking that the 1753 (1L49) was due to wait at Tisbury loop because the opposite direction service (1L64) was already running 10 minutes late? If so, this is where the problem is. I would imagine that if 1L49 was planned in the timetable to wait for 10 minutes then it'd be a different matter, but as the signallers have to deal with a lot of trains in a short amount of time, they probably didn't realise that 1L49 would be delayed whilst waiting for 1L64 further down the line. It's easy for you to notice this whilst on your phone, but it's a different story for the signallers who are also dealing with a lot else.

I don't know any specifics of the lines around there, or the platforms at Salisbury, but that's my thoughts as an outsider

 

[bb21]

If everything that was factually incorrect was deleted on this board we would have a very empty forum!

I have removed all "factually incorrect" posts and associated replies as the OP demanded.

Unfortunately with it goes the majority of the discussion, but if it keeps people happy...

 

[LBSCR Times]

At least by 1L49 being on time, it meant that 1L64 didn't have to wait in the Loop at Tisbury, and thus made up time, with the consequent connections maintained at Salisbury.