Network Rail faces fine of £24m over 13.7m late trips

[Nawdic]

About 13.7 million journeys on long distance trains were late or cancelled last year and NR faces a £24m fine if this is not put right soon.
...
It should reach on time targets of 92% from 2013/14

Discuss.

[Pilot]

Once again, NR getting blamed for something that isn't there fault

[Dave]

Well I would say in the main that most late running services are down to infrastructure problems, so in fact yes it is the fault of Network Rail.

[GurraJG]

Just out of curiosity, how late does a train have to be for it to be considered "late". 1 minute? 5? 10?

[Griff]

Just out of curiosity, how late does a train have to be for it to be considered "late". 1 minute? 5? 10?

For it to be considered 'late', and fines applied, I believe it has to be 10 minutes late.

[Ameecher]

Just out of curiosity, how late does a train have to be for it to be considered "late". 1 minute? 5? 10?

For it to be considered 'late', and fines applied, I believe it has to be 10 minutes late.

10 minutes if an intercity service. 5 for everything else.

[Geo Ghost]

I think a fine is silly.
£24million? So hang on.. let's get this straight.

A number of services are late, so they fine NR, who are not always to blame, £24m because of it.
Taking that much away from them where they could have used it to actually improve things and avoid delays? Is it just me, or does that seem incredibly backwards working?

Dave - I still don't think NR are the only ones to blame. Like you said, most might be down to them such as engineering works and such related to infrastructure. However, for things such as industrial/passenger action, train malfunctions and break downs, extreme weather, and things like trees falling on the line.. Well, NR can't be blamed for that

[JamieLei]

Just out of curiosity, how late does a train have to be for it to be considered "late". 1 minute? 5? 10?

For it to be considered 'late', and fines applied, I believe it has to be 10 minutes late.

10 minutes if an intercity service. 5 for everything else.

Aren't they going to change this soon though, and the whole methodology of how its measured? (ie, at intermediate stations too, rather than just the final one which encourages TOCs to pad out the timetable between the penultimate and final stops).

PISes seem to be a bit inconsistent with how they view 'lateness' (I know it's not official). Some will allow trains to be several minutes late and still mark them as 'on time', while others will show the delay even after 1 minute.

[Badger]

Just out of curiosity, how late does a train have to be for it to be considered "late". 1 minute? 5? 10?

Anything more than 2 minutes needs attributing to a reason. The TOCs and Network Rail are constantly exchanging delay minutes like currency.

[Dave]

Just out of curiosity, how late does a train have to be for it to be considered "late". 1 minute? 5? 10?

Anything more than 2 minutes needs attributing to a reason. The TOCs and Network Rail are constantly exchanging delay minutes like currency.

The delay attributor jobs are very well paid and I keep considering applying. I love the way that everyone denies all knowledge and then someone has to come in to make a decision.

[GurraJG]

Just out of curiosity, how late does a train have to be for it to be considered "late". 1 minute? 5? 10?

Anything more than 2 minutes needs attributing to a reason. The TOCs and Network Rail are constantly exchanging delay minutes like currency.

The delay attributor jobs are very well paid and I keep considering applying. I love the way that everyone denies all knowledge and then someone has to come in to make a decision.

Someone actually gets paid to come up with excuses as to why trains run late?

[Dave]

Someone actually gets paid to come up with excuses as to why trains run late?

Not quite, but obviously delay minutes are not desirable and all TOC/FOCs as well as NR employ delay attributors to try and shift the blame.

So say your train into Liv St is delayed by 25 minutes due to a train fault; GA's DAs will try and find something else to attribute it to - such as that coincidental Track Circuit Failure near Liverpool Street. I suppose sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

That's an extreme example anyway, most of the time the stuff is fairly obvious.

[Badger]

It'd get thrown back GA, unless it's a useless DA! As Dave rightly states, it is pretty well paid though.

[Dave]

It'd get thrown back GA, unless it's a useless DA! As Dave rightly states, it is pretty well paid though.

Which is why whenever I see one advertised I always get excited, then always never apply haha.

[MjD]

Someone actually gets paid to come up with excuses as to why trains run late?

Not quite, the get paid to investigate as to who is to blame for the delay, Drivers are the ones who record whether there train is running late and I know FirstGroup use delay slips which that driver fills out on a daily basis with different codes for different delays.

[Kevo00]

Someone actually gets paid to come up with excuses as to why trains run late?

Not quite, the get paid to investigate as to who is to blame for the delay, Drivers are the ones who record whether there train is running late and I know FirstGroup use delay slips which that driver fills out on a daily basis with different codes for different delays.

Now that's what I call a transaction cost.

[Pilot]

Just out of curiosity, how late does a train have to be for it to be considered "late". 1 minute? 5? 10?

Anything more than 2 minutes needs attributing to a reason. The TOCs and Network Rail are constantly exchanging delay minutes like currency.

And don't I know it, my mums Partner, works as a TPer at NR in Leeds is constantly whinging about the Delays that his team are given. He is always trying to get rid.

[JamieLei]

More info: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9288268 ... ealed.html

Norman Baker, the local transport minister, is ready to compel them to reveal internal data, showing the proportion of trains which arrive less than a minute.

“We are determined to get the best possible deal for passengers by enabling them to hold the rail industry to account and to encourage them to work harder to deliver even better results,” Mr Baker said.

This bit intrigues me though:

However Mr Baker has gone further by demanding the industry reveal what is known within the industry as “right time” performance figures, which previously were only used internally.

As in the figures that were measured to the nearest half a minute at each timing point?

[MjD]

PISes seem to be a bit inconsistent with how they view 'lateness' (I know it's not official). Some will allow trains to be several minutes late and still mark them as 'on time', while others will show the delay even after 1 minute.

Totally missed this earlier, the reason for this is most probably due to discrepancies between the passenger timetable shown on PISes and the working timetable that the trains run to. I know for a fact there are many trains that I work that are late according to passenger timetables yet they are actually bang on time. Obviously there are still trains that say on time yet they are clearly late due to the PISes not working properly.

In that news story

To drive passenger satisfaction higher, train companies and Network Rail should focus on running trains to the timetable – not just at the final destination, but at intermediate stations too."

Would love to see how they could implement that into statistics as a train could go from being late to on time to late to on time again over the course of a journey. Of course this will probably never happen as late running stats would rocket up and this would look bad on the industry as a whole.

[Jacko]

To drive passenger satisfaction higher, train companies and Network Rail should focus on running trains to the timetable – not just at the final destination, but at intermediate stations too."

Would love to see how they could implement that into statistics as a train could go from being late to on time to late to on time again over the course of a journey. Of course this will probably never happen as late running stats would rocket up and this would look bad on the industry as a whole.

Its called late trains skipping past small stations. I have been a victim of that a number of times
although that is mostly the decision making of the TOC's rather than NR.