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Southeast People - Length of Train Displays

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whhistle

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Hello

I say "south-east people" as I would assume SWT display this a lot. However on the electronic boards, what does it say to inform you how many carriages there are on a particular train?

Thanks
 
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iphone76

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The system on Greater Anglia is variable. Sometimes it lets you know how long the train will be, othertimes it doesn't. On a few trains, it even lets you know where the carriages containing first class will be.

Recently, I have not seen this information displayed/spoken - perhaps once or twice since the franchised changed from NXEA.
 

heart-of-wessex

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Or at terminals it would sometimes say x carriages furthest from the ticket barriers at platform x for when a unit at the blocks is detached/locked out.

Thameslink is hit and miss, twice I've gone from St Helier on a Sunday and it says formed of 8 coaches, so I go to the back so I'm closer to the stairs at Wimbledon. On both times, a 4 car 319 showed up instead. I don't know if it just reads 8 cars because it's booked to be 2 x 319?
 

Southern

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Or at terminals it would sometimes say x carriages furthest from the ticket barriers at platform x for when a unit at the blocks is detached/locked out.

Thameslink is hit and miss, twice I've gone from St Helier on a Sunday and it says formed of 8 coaches, so I go to the back so I'm closer to the stairs at Wimbledon. On both times, a 4 car 319 showed up instead. I don't know if it just reads 8 cars because it's booked to be 2 x 319?

Probably a mistake. Never known anything on the Wimbledon Loop to be longer than 4 cars on a Sunday.
 

pemma

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It's not just in the South as Merseyrail put 3/6 cars next to the destination on their displays.
 
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heart-of-wessex

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Probably a mistake. Never known anything on the Wimbledon Loop to be longer than 4 cars on a Sunday.

Could be yes, in fact thinking about it, the last time I went out of St Helier earlier this year on a Sunday, it was another 4 car 319, an ex-Brighton Express 319/2. That time, the PIS said nothing about 4 or 8 cars.

Surprisingly, it was full and standing too, could have done with 8 cars! :lol:
 

pendolino

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Hello

I say "south-east people" as I would assume SWT display this a lot. However on the electronic boards, what does it say to inform you how many carriages there are on a particular train?

Thanks

'Southern service. Formed of X carriages'

That'll be on Southern, obviously.
 

Schnellzug

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Do the automated announcements (on SWT, at any rate) work off of TOPS, since, if a train is worked by a 450 rather than a 444, they do (usually) say "This train is formed of four coaches" rather than five? So do they refer to what actual stock is working that train?
 

swt_passenger

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Do the automated announcements (on SWT, at any rate) work off of TOPS, since, if a train is worked by a 450 rather than a 444, they do (usually) say "This train is formed of four coaches" rather than five? So do they refer to what actual stock is working that train?

I believe so. At every SWT station I use, I'd say nearly all services have the train length correctly shown on the PIS displays, whichever TOC runs them, ie at Southampton it shows train length info for any permutation from an FGW 153, through 3 or 4 car 377s from SN, up to an SWT 12 car train. It must be dealt with using live running info, because it is highly unusual to have the 'wrong length' of train appear compared to the PIS.

XC service formations are usually displayed correctly as well, ie as well as 4,5,8,9,10 car lengths they'll put up the coach letters in the right order as well, with comments such as 'bikes in coach D' assuming XC have set the unit up in TRUST correctly.
 

Electrostar

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My local Southeastern station's dot matrix displays tend to scroll the information on weekdays (but not at weekends) after the calling points of the service. Unfortunately if the countdown minute changes the scrolling text reverts to the first calling point and you have to wait for all of them to scroll through again
 

mister-sparky

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Southeastern ones display the number of coaches most of the time, during the day anyways. not sure about late evenings.
 
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First Great Western's new system on Thames Valley routes says: "Please Note: Formed of x coaches" after scrolling through the list of stops and telling you it's operated by FGW.

This is really useful as the number of coaches can vary from 2 to 6 at any given time! However you still get the hard-core Southall people cramming into the first carriage no matter how long the train is at Ealing Broadway....

Is there anywhere in the country where the display shows "This train is formed of 1 coach" (e.g. for a 153). I've not seen that yet!
 

heart-of-wessex

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Is there anywhere in the country where the display shows "This train is formed of 1 coach" (e.g. for a 153). I've not seen that yet!

It has shown it once at my shack at Trowbridge, and it might show it at Westbury too. Seen it on the Swindon service with a 153 on and, of course, is announced as formed of 1 coach..sounds funny that!
 

Tom

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I believe so. At every SWT station I use, I'd say nearly all services have the train length correctly shown on the PIS displays, whichever TOC runs them, ie at Southampton it shows train length info for any permutation from an FGW 153, through 3 or 4 car 377s from SN, up to an SWT 12 car train. It must be dealt with using live running info, because it is highly unusual to have the 'wrong length' of train appear compared to the PIS.
Normally automatic assuming everything runs as booked, any differences are manual.

XC service formations are usually displayed correctly as well, ie as well as 4,5,8,9,10 car lengths they'll put up the coach letters in the right order as well, with comments such as 'bikes in coach D' assuming XC have set the unit up in TRUST correctly.

Is done manually. For northbound workings, Bournemouth set it up all the way up as far as the CIS system will let them (normally, Manchester but nothing talks to each other... so I imagine Reading set it up there too)
 

jopsuk

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Greater Anglia is certainly a bit sporadic- though it may follow some sort of pattern. Surely it can't be too hard to do it for all trains- as said, they're booked for particular formations, and disruption can be handled manually anyway.

At Cambridge though in the mornings the 12-car trains are displayed as "1st class 1st, 5th and 9th carriage"
 

whhistle

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Thanks for the replies.

It was more to see what various TOC's call the seating areas, IE coaches, cars, carrages... et al.
 
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