Schedule Padding and Trainset Utilization

Now, on four of those nights we were joined by a TV crew who were filming a documentary about how the railway copes with winter weather. They filmed us digging out points by hand in horizontal driving snow and zero visibility. They filmed from the cab of the snowplough engine as it patrolled the line in the pitch black night to prevent drifts. Then they went away to film the guys in Operations Control making decisions about where best to deploy resources and what sort of service to run in the morning.

To date this documentry has not been shown on TV. I suspect that's because they're simply not interested in portraying an efficient rail industry with competent, hard working employees.

" said:

The SVR doesn't always have that many paths free - the morning peak would be fine - later might get trickier - and a scheduled regular commuter service would have to become the focus of the timetable every day.

Even on Table C (departure from either end every 40 minutes), it's still something like 3 free paths an hour between Kidder and Bewdley! The rest of the line is another matter entirely, of course...

I located the other programme that I was referring to. It was a 2015 BBC production called "The Trouble with our Trains"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmblcN-SwmY

Yep, as I suspected (see my post somewhere above). Also a very good documentary IMHO. The thing to remember though is that "the trouble" they're talking about is with the underlying management and structure, which is indeed wanting in many respects. The actual day-to-day operation is actually generally quite good, certainly for a railway of its size and service intensity.

Yeah, no seats is really going to go down well with passengers. Only the shortest of commuter journeys will be sensible without seats. BART and the DC Metro compare more with the London Underground, which, having longitudinal seating, is already quite good with capacity. They can't remove the longitudinal seats because most London Underground seating actually hides equipment. This system don't have public timetables (with the exception of the Amersham and Chesham branches of the Metropolitan Line, unless these have now gone too), so there's no issue of having to run trains to a timetable.

Maybe someone needs to think outside the box. If congestion is a major issue one could try operating fewer trains, but increasing total capacity by removing all the seats. Both BART and the DC Metro are hybrid rapid transit/commuter rail that have generally reached their peak period capacity limits. Seat removal has been implemented in both.

" said:

Yep, as I suspected (see my post somewhere above). Also a very good documentary IMHO. The thing to remember though is that "the trouble" they're talking about is with the underlying management and structure, which is indeed wanting in many respects. The actual day-to-day operation is actually generally quite good, certainly for a railway of its size and service intensity.

Usually if the management and planning are bad, there isn't much the operations folks can do to compensate.

Maybe someone needs to think outside the box. If congestion is a major issue one could try operating fewer trains, but increasing total capacity by removing all the seats. Both BART and the DC Metro are hybrid rapid transit/commuter rail that have generally reached their peak period capacity limits. Seat removal has been implemented in both.

Usually if the management and planning are bad, there isn't much the operations folks can do to compensate.

Maybe someone needs to think outside the box. If congestion is a major issue one could try operating fewer trains, but increasing total capacity by removing all the seats. Both BART and the DC Metro are hybrid rapid transit/commuter rail that have generally reached their peak period capacity limits. Seat removal has been implemented in both.

Local services out of Kings Cross are operated by Thameslink (using the 'Great Northern' brand on these routes), and they have posters illustrating alternative routes available when the service is disrupted. The maps can be found on the website. The general map is the same no matter which station you click...