NSEFAN
Established Member
I can't speak for operating practices as I don't work on the railway, but I would guess that "slickening up" dispatch without making it less safe will be difficult, at least without the use of better PTI detection systems to give a faster indication that its safe to depart. There seems to be a perception that staff are more likely to lose their jobs or get prosecuted these days if a passenger comes to harm, and nobody in their right mind wants to goto prison. Hence just telling staff to get a move on won't necessarily go down well.Minimise station dwell times (review door opening/closing/despatch procedures) - and train the staff and the passengers to play their parts!
maximise acceleration with new trains,
optimise stopping patterns
Path trains without backside-covering padding so that junctions and platforms are not blocked by trains just "waiting time"
Use permissive block where it will allow a second train into a platform when one would not otherwise be available
plus...
tweak the infrastructure where it constrains capacity (eliminate single lead junctions, etc.)
put in low-tech intermediate block sections where train headways are impacted by long signal sections
p.s. should have also said keeping on top of maintenance to ensure no loss of capacity due to train, points and signal failures!
On the timetabling side, the schedule needs padding to make it reliable. The Swiss railway is held up as a bastion of smooth operation and yet this is because their network is not so close to capacity and schedules are padded to make them reliable. Taking out the padding gives you a railway which only works if nothing ever goes wrong and passengers behave themselves. In a way, there's no point adding more "capacity" if you end up causing a much larger number of people to get stuck on broken/delayed trains when it all goes wrong. Without any recovery time, the number of people affected by a problem will keep on growing and getting worse. This is already the case where XC services affected in the Edinburgh area cause knock on effects around Exeter, for example.