Random Transport Chatter

[YNM]

Indeed, Japanese trains are very punctual. I generally put it down to:

• obsession with getting it down to the second;
• very punitive punishments when staff get the small things wrong;
• very high levels of maintenance and staffing (to the level that seems utterly costly for a western company); and
• very co-operative passengers that don't run into doors at last minute, or cause delays.

Isn't "running to the doors at last minute" what it says when it concerns Japanese passengers ? Also, what about the whole "cramming" thing ?

I also wonder what more staffing really does, or how much staffing is considered costly. Here we have lots of staff, mostly as "guards" (we have "guards" at ticket area, ticket barrier, track crossing, platform, not to mention within the train carriages. Sometimes there's an actual what you'd call "guard", and sometimes there's two people at the cab). Does having more guards/staff really helps ?

... Difficult to do on a network which has too many services to actually function properly in some areas.

The Schedule might not be the issue, certainly in the UK, trains are scheduled in such a way that they should be able to work on paper - whether this works in practice is a different story. It could be your signallers are too slow clearing a train through, it could be that there is a temporary speed restriction somewhere, forcing the train to run at a speed slower that it's timetable, it could be the platform staff take too long the dispatch the train, or the crowds take too long to board the train. There are so many variables, especially with Passenger trains.

... Platform staff taking too long to dispatch & crowds taking too long to board are timetabling issues. If these are causing trains to run late then obviously the timetable is not realistic - more time needs to be added in for station calls ...

In the film I posted it mentions about "recovery time", how they were common in steam eras. Would it help reintroducing them ?

[Ameecher]

You then get in to the issue of Performance vs Capacity. Stick too many spare minutes in on a train route and suddenly there isn't room to run another service. No one quite believes it but most of the UK's mainlines are crammed to bursting and you really can't get a meaningful path along it. Even out in the sticks at the north end of the WCML all the passenger trains are crammed through in the first 20-25 minutes of the hour to give freight 35 minutes to negotiate Shap, that has a knock-on effect further down the line, just build a crawler lane up each side of the summit and you could make much better use of the capacity...

The current WCML timetable is built Manchester Piccadilly, I gather the Northern/TPE May 18 TT is written around Manchester Airport because there just aren't enough platforms there to accommodate it all.

[Badger]

Oh I'm really looking forward to the May '18 timetable change, lots of fun new services and routes that won't have been diagrammed properly

[Redirect Left]

Oh I'm really looking forward to the May '18 timetable change, lots of fun new services and routes that won't have been diagrammed properly

I'm not. We'll have chaos giving out information from trains on the routes that have one on one off routes like Slaithwaite. No one I have spoken to likes the change, and no one seems to understand why. There have been meetings to discuss it, all of which I've been told had overwhelmingly negative feedback but its still going ahead.

woo, railways.

[Ameecher]

Oh I'm really looking forward to the May '18 timetable change, lots of fun new services and routes that won't have been diagrammed properly

I wouldn't be so sure about the services actually appearing in the timetable, let alone the diagrams being worked out! There's a lot of work to be done yet...

[YNM]

You then get in to the issue of Performance vs Capacity. Stick too many spare minutes in on a train route and suddenly there isn't room to run another service. No one quite believes it but most of the UK's mainlines are crammed to bursting and you really can't get a meaningful path along it. Even out in the sticks at the north end of the WCML all the passenger trains are crammed through in the first 20-25 minutes of the hour to give freight 35 minutes to negotiate Shap, that has a knock-on effect further down the line, just build a crawler lane up each side of the summit and you could make much better use of the capacity...

I guess there's simply one thing that allows Japanese punctuality :

Infrastructure.

The mentioned line simply have no freight running. It doesn't even share tracks with other services at all, apart from the rapid/semi-rapid/"local" variation. IMHO this is actually the biggest difference - their network is more than a victorian relic (heheh). They also use automatic train operation on the line. I try to see for other mainline railways and it turns out they mostly do the same really.

So, yeah. I don't think you can have the same on mainline railways in the UK (or anywhere else, really) over one night. That'd need lots of hours of Network Rail works, negotiation with trade unions, simplifying the franchises etc. Not even TfL got them exactly smooth (I guess their 36 tph turns out to be only 33 or something, not sure about now).

[Pilot]

Even out in the sticks at the north end of the WCML all the passenger trains are crammed through in the first 20-25 minutes of the hour to give freight 35 minutes to negotiate Shap, that has a knock-on effect further down the line, just build a crawler lane up each side of the summit and you could make much better use of the capacity...

It's a Shame there isn't a flyover at Farington Jn to get over to the Slow lines there, so that trains could run via the Settle and Carlisle, and Clitheroe, then onto the WCML just south of Preston. If that was possible, I'm sure the S+C would have become the Crawler lanes.

their network is more than a victorian relic (heheh).

Ours is far more than a Victorian Relic, it's constantly being upgraded, junctions are being rebuilt to better suit the current system, such as the recent works at Norton Bridge to build a flyover there (New Layout is like this), or the same at Hitchin. We've also got massive re-signalling and electrification projects going on, allowing us to run more trains, or have faster accelerating, larger trains (Old versus "New"), and not to mention that HS2 is joining the party soon.

Another thing to remember, the network is far busier than it has ever been, despite a lot less track than the Victorian era, so we're obviously doing something right

I guess their 36 tph turns out to be only 33 or something, not sure about now

I assume you've watched that Video by Geoff Marshall on YouTube? Interestingly enough, that was done on the Victoria Line, which is Automatic Operation, so even computers can't get it right

[Pyoro]

Going by kilometers German railway network has been steadily shrinking since WW1. From 58000kms to 38000kms (obviously there was also some territorial loses involved, but they aren't the deciding factor here). Amusingly enough it's still one of the densest networks in the world.

If something new is build, it's usually high speed connections, or some junction, or some local capacity increase near a large city. Some new local line is super-rare though ^^

[YNM]

Ours is far more than a Victorian Relic, it's constantly being upgraded, junctions are being rebuilt to better suit the current system, such as the recent works at Norton Bridge to build a flyover there (New Layout is like this), or the same at Hitchin. We've also got massive re-signalling and electrification projects going on, allowing us to run more trains, or have faster accelerating, larger trains (Old versus "New"), and not to mention that HS2 is joining the party soon.

Another thing to remember, the network is far busier than it has ever been, despite a lot less track than the Victorian era, so we're obviously doing something right

Hehe, yes I know. But they're just done now. Obviously more work is needed...

I guess their 36 tph turns out to be only 33 or something, not sure about now

I assume you've watched that Video by Geoff Marshall on YouTube? Interestingly enough, that was done on the Victoria Line, which is Automatic Operation, so even computers can't get it right

I thought the "driver" still needs to press the "go" button I think ?

[Gwyd]

The driver has to not squish the passengers with the doors, then press go. Really it's dwell times slowing us down.

[Pilot]

The driver has to not squish the passengers with the doors, then press go. Really it's dwell times slowing us down.

That is one thing that confuses me about the Tube, the amount of people who run at the train whilst the doors are closing, instead of simply waiting the 90 seconds or so for the next one.

[Pyoro]

And everybody getting into the carriages nearest to the stairs instead of spreading out.


Passenger transportation would be so much easier with cooperating passengers ^^

[Gwyd]

Well the new Thameslink 700s and SWT SWR 707s detect where the busiest parts of the train are. I think something similar is proposed for the tube. This could help if this info is sent to stations.

[Ameecher]

Ours is far more than a Victorian Relic, it's constantly being upgraded, junctions are being rebuilt to better suit the current system, such as the recent works at Norton Bridge to build a flyover there (New Layout is like this), or the same at Hitchin. We've also got massive re-signalling and electrification projects going on, allowing us to run more trains, or have faster accelerating, larger trains (Old versus "New"), and not to mention that HS2 is joining the party soon.

Only Colwich left to have each of the major branches of the WCML grade separated. After that you can think about Wolves to Stafford and hope that whoever gets involved with the Crewe Hub work comes up with a design that actually makes good use of all of that trackwork because currently there's lots of it but it's not particularly useful!

[Redirect Left]

The driver has to not squish the passengers with the doors, then press go. Really it's dwell times slowing us down.

That is one thing that confuses me about the Tube, the amount of people who run at the train whilst the doors are closing, instead of simply waiting the 90 seconds or so for the next one.

I notice that everytime i'm in London. People running around as if those 90 seconds are the most important 90 seconds of their life.

[Gwyd]

I think making it as obvious as possible as to when the next train is could help to reduce this.

[Redirect Left]

I think making it as obvious as possible as to when the next train is could help to reduce this.

The tube has displays on platforms stating when the next one is due, or at least the ones I've been to in the centre of London do.

[Gwyd]

I guess people just don't look at them when running

[Chris]

The wait for the next tube is quite often 3-4 minutes. If you can make the tube that's there then why would you wait for the next one? (There is a difference between running for the tube that's on the platform and getting on before the doors are closing and wedging your foot in the door to delay everyone)

Plus there are often times when the tube is fairly infrequent - I've had to wait more than 10 minutes for a bakerloo once, and there are numerous lines with multiple termini and of you miss that train you might have to wait for 4 more trains

[JamieLei]

And economically, there's simply a much higher number of train travelers there (both relative and absolute), so train companies can and must afford systems they otherwise can't. Likewise, cities like Tokyo would practically collapse if the trains weren't punctual - when you have stations running express trains every few minutes, you can't just have regular five minute delays. So they basically also have no other choice but the make sure everything runs smoothly.

So honestly I don't think you can really just go into any Western country and say "let's do it like the Japanese", because conditions are completely different. Both for the people involved and the economic landscape. But even if money weren't a concern, it still wouldn't be easy, as the attitude would nonetheless be too different ^^

That's a really really important point. Who has the most reliable trains in Britain? South West Trains (as they were called when I knew the stats), with almost 200,000 miles running per technical incident on some classes. Because if one breaks down at Clapham Junction in the morning peak, you've buggered your day's services. So it makes financial sense to throw the kitchen sink at maintenance.