Tinsley Green station near Gatwick Airport

[albertd]

Yesterday, I was tracking a late-running train between Three Bridges and East Croydon using Real Time Trains and I was surprised to notice that it was shown as passing through Tinsley Green station just south of Gatwick.

I was surprised because Tinsley Green, as a named station, only existed for under a year between September 1935 and June 1936. After that it became known as Gatwick Airport (the old airport, that is) and subsequently closed completely in 1958 when the new airport opened and with it Gatwick Racecourse station became the present Gatwick Airport station. It has by now, as far as I know, physically disappeared.

So, can anyone throw any light onto why the name is being shown on the tracking system so many decades later?

 

[tsr]

Tinsley Green is merely used as a convenient name for a berth forming a timing/tracking point on RTT. Other sites like Open Train Times do not show it (e.g. http://opentraintimes.com/schedule/W60011/2014-06-19).

The pointwork at Tinsley Green is complex enough that a comprehensive display of trains is needed in the area, so it is logical to expect the outputs from the signalling system which reach RTT to provide at least some data from train describers logging the passage of services.

 

[PermitToTravel]

Tinsley Green is merely used as a convenient name for a berth forming a timing/tracking point on RTT. Other sites like Open Train Times do not show it (e.g. http://opentraintimes.com/schedule/W60011/2014-06-19).

The pointwork at Tinsley Green is complex enough that a comprehensive display of trains is needed in the area, so it is logical to expect the outputs from the signalling system which reach RTT to provide at least some data from train describers logging the passage of services.

Tinsley Green is a timing point, and can appear on timetables, but usually doesn't.

Open Train Times, and most similar sites, only output the data in the timetable, which will not include Tinsley Green. Real Time Traiins interpolates the passing times for a train at every possible intermediate timing point, and so will show a time for every train at Tinsley Green.
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Just had a look at the Timetable Planning Rules: trains only have to be timed at Tinsley Green if they cross between lines there. I don't think any trains do this in the current timetable

 

[LowLevel]

There's various timing points on the network that don't have stations - for example Hasland, near Clay Cross (also in sectional appendix) and Kegworth, near East Mids Parkway.

 

[albertd]

Thanks folks, that is all very interesting and clears up my puzzlement.

I notice, Fahad, that RTT show numerous trains being timed at Tinsley Green, today's list is here and looks rather like every train up and down the line.

I had wondered if the appearance of the name might have had something to do with an old coal yard that used to be somewhere around there, but the answers you have given suggest otherwise. I am not even sure if the sidings even exist today and Google Earth makes it no clearer.

 

[PermitToTravel]

Thanks folks, that is all very interesting and clears up my puzzlement.

I notice, Fahad, that RTT show numerous trains being timed at Tinsley Green, today's list is here and looks rather like every train up and down the line.

I had wondered if the appearance of the name might have had something to do with an old coal yard that used to be somewhere around there, but the answers you have given suggest otherwise. I am not even sure if the sidings even exist today and Google Earth makes it no clearer.

RTT shows a time for every train at every timing point. I stated in my last post the intermediate ones are interpolated and do not come from the timetable.

At Tinsley Green today on the railway is a junction where trains can switch between the fast and slow lines. The junction is inconvenient to use as through it lines are paired by use. A train moving from the up fast to the up slow has to cross the down slow, and a train moving from the down slow to the down fast has to cross the up fast. There's no real need to ever reverse trains there rather than in Gatwick Airport station less than a mile to the north.

There's a local government district called Tinsley Green. According to Wikipedia the name has been used since the 13th century.

 

[TEW]

RTT makes estimates of the passing time for all the possible timing points and the collects the actual time passed from the Train Describer data.

 

[albertd]

Thanks once again folks. As you can tell, I am much of a novice at the subject but am interested to learn a bit in my old age.

Yes, I know about Tinsley Green as a place as I have lived within 2 miles of it for nearly 50 years, and knew a little of the history of the station, but as to the details of the tracks and the junctions - absolutely zilch.

I have been looking with interest at the track diagrams for the area on Open Train Times (a site I had not met before - now bookmarked) and I can see that it looks quite complicated there!