Trivia: Your earliest arrival

[pnepaul]

Seeing we have had a thread on the longest delay, I will start on the opposite.

Sometime in the mid-90s ( I can't remember when!), I was traveling on a Saturday from Euston to Preston, it was non-stop. As we approached Preston, the train manager informed us that due to planned engineering work not taking place, we were arriving 30 minutes early.

 

[Intercity_225]

Seeing we have had a thread on the longest delay, I will start on the opposite.

Sometime in the mid-90s ( I can't remember when!), I was traveling on a Saturday from Euston to Preston, it was non-stop. As we approached Preston, the train manager informed us that due to planned engineering work not taking place, we were arriving 30 minutes early.

The 23:33 Kings Cross - Leeds regularly arrives into Leeds 30-35 minutes early.

Realtime Trains | 1D36 2333 London Kings Cross to Leeds | 25/04/2025

Real-time train running information for 1D36 2333 departure from London Kings Cross to Leeds on 25/04/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Vexed]

The last southbound Lumo can run quite early as well, though normally not as much as last Thursday night! (36 early)

Realtime Trains | 1958 Edinburgh to London Kings Cross | 01/05/2025

Real-time train running information for 1958 departure from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross on 01/05/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[dan4291]

The 1958 Lumo Edinburgh-Kings Cross has loads of engineering allowance built in just in case it's pathed in the Slow lines but if it's not, then combined with a set down only stop at Stevenage, regularly gets in very early, 50 minutes is the record I think.

Realtime Trains | 1E88 1958 Edinburgh to London Kings Cross | 01/05/2025

Real-time train running information for 1E88 1958 departure from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross on 01/05/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

EDIT: Vexed beat me to it!

 

[MerlinRail 804]

Wow that is certainly a lot of engineering allowances happening there!
Does freight count because there’s probably quite a few contenders for that?

 

[LickeyIncliner]

The southbound Lowlander must deserve a mention for often arriving at Euston 40+ minutes ahead of the advertised arrival time

 

[londonbridge]

From my (admittedly vague) memory my record is somewhere around 25minutes, it was a football trip, Wolves on a Friday night, IIRC left Wolves around 10:55 and was due Euston 01:20, arrived just before 01:00

 

[Statto]

The Sleepers can often arrive early (& depart early when they're only stopping to set down), the Northbound Highlander Sleeper arrived at Crewe 30 minutes early a few weeks ago

 

[Kite159]

The Inverness portion of the sleeper can arrive early if the LNER service its booked to pass in one of the loops between Carrbridge & Inverness is delayed or cancelled.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I've arrived at Criccieth 8 minutes early, but that was on a replacement minibus that skipped directly from Welshpool to Barmouth.

The earliest a train I'm on has arrived at my destination was 4 minutes early at Wigan North Western on an ex-Liverpool stopper (they always arrive early).

 

[InvHst]

The Inverness portion of the sleeper can arrive early if the LNER service its booked to pass in one of the loops between Carrbridge & Inverness is delayed or cancelled.

If it's running too early they put it in a loop somewhere as passengers complained on the too early arrival

 

[aftv]

I once arrived 6 or 7 minutes early into London Victoria on the first Up 1C** of the day. Admittedly it was New Year's Day so it was a Sunday timetable.

 

[westernpunk]

back in the 70s the 1130 and 1330 pad to pz were quite often 25 mins early at ex st davids

 

[Rescars]

Presumably a number of overnight trains (are scheduled to) arrive early the night the clocks go back?

 

[dk1]

Back in the day the 23:30 Liverpool St to Norwich was sensibly set down only at all stations and was a joy to work. With added possible engineering allowance an arrival up to 30min early was not uncommon.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Presumably a number of overnight trains (are scheduled to) arrive early the night the clocks go back?

Saturday night there are almost no overnight trains, and the convention for those that run is to adjust the schedule so they run 60 mins ‘early’ from the 0159-0100 clock change.

 

[Silver Cobra]

The southbound Lowlander must deserve a mention for often arriving at Euston 40+ minutes ahead of the advertised arrival time

My personal experience with the southbound Lowlander in 2016 was us arriving into Euston around an hour ahead of schedule. This worked nicely for me to get an early train from Paddington to Bristol for onward travel to Weston-Super-Mare.

 

[Hophead]

Back in the 1980s, one of the first trains of the day on a Sunday into Kings Cross started out in Hull. This was given 1 hour and 40 minutes to get from Peterborough to London (in case of engineering works). We didn't have realtime trains back in the day, but early arrivals in the region of 30-40 minutes or more must have been common.

 

[Ecmlleeds]

The 23:33 Kings Cross - Leeds regularly arrives into Leeds 30-35 minutes early.

Realtime Trains | 1D36 2333 London Kings Cross to Leeds | 25/04/2025

Real-time train running information for 1D36 2333 departure from London Kings Cross to Leeds on 25/04/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

I think 42 early is my record working 1D36!

 

[zero]

The last southbound Lumo can run quite early as well, though normally not as much as last Thursday night! (36 early)

Realtime Trains | 1958 Edinburgh to London Kings Cross | 01/05/2025

Real-time train running information for 1958 departure from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross on 01/05/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Realtime Trains | 5Y88 0126 London Kings Cross to Ferme Park Recp. | 02/05/2025

Real-time train running information for 5Y88 0126 departure from London Kings Cross to Ferme Park Recp. on 02/05/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Does the driver get to go home an hour early too?

 

[miklcct]

There were occasionally Overground Mildmay line trains during disruption which ended up significantly early throughout the journey.

It is rare but can happen sometimes. The following service, which was scheduled to run from Richmond but started short from Willesden Junction because it couldn't arrive Richmond on time, ran around 5 minutes early all the way to Stratford to recover the service.

Realtime Trains | 2N42 1534½ Willesden Junction to Stratford (London) | 01/05/2025

Real-time train running information for 2N42 1534½ departure from Willesden Junction to Stratford (London) on 01/05/2025. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

In the past I saw services which ran 20 minutes ahead of schedule!

 

[Vexed]

There were occasionally Overground Mildmay line trains during disruption which ended up significantly early throughout the journey.

Very interesting to see this on National Rail / Network Rail infrastructure (passenger at least!). I guess there's very few places this can physically happen with path conflicts. I would hazard a guess early running is only allowed on London Overground, Underground trains on NR owned rail and maybe Merseyrail and Sheffield SuperTram? I assume for GBR owned / DfT contracted TOCs it's a big no no.

 

[Kite159]

Some Sunday morning London bound trains on SWR can get into Waterloo 10+ minutes ahead of schedule due to having engineering allowances built into the timetable in the event of a 2 track railway.

Likewise on the WCML when the timetable is written for a 2 track railway but the stopper the Avanti is meant to be following to London either is cancelled, running late or the Avanti 'beat' it to Milton Keynes and goes first

 

[miklcct]

Very interesting to see this on National Rail / Network Rail infrastructure (passenger at least!). I guess there's very few places this can physically happen with path conflicts. I would hazard a guess early running is only allowed on London Overground, Underground trains on NR owned rail and maybe Merseyrail and Sheffield SuperTram? I assume for GBR owned / DfT contracted TOCs it's a big no no.

It happened on Thameslink in the core as well. Occasionally during disruption a stopper ran fast before London, and entered the core early, so it had to depart early to avoid blocking the core.

 

[Bevan Price]

Many years ago I was waiting at Preston for a Scotland yo Manchester & Liverpool service. Diverted via Settle & Carlisle line, I was rather surprised when it arrived in Preston about one hour early on its revised schedule. (And yes, we did have to wait over an hour before we were allowed to depart)