West Hampstead 2020 summer MF timetable submitted

Hi David,

Appears that your freight workings have a passing time rather than a depart time at locations they should be held at. Using work around of holding them when they call in. Only up to 0352 but its the case with all of them. Lovely TT tho, I really enjoy the W Hampstead ones!

mfloyd in post 127517 said:

Hi David,

Appears that your freight workings have a passing time rather than a depart time at locations they should be held at. Using work around of holding them when they call in. Only up to 0352 but its the case with all of them. Lovely TT tho, I really enjoy the W Hampstead ones!

This was a bit of a deliberate decision with the objective of expediting early running, however point taken about the phones ringing in! I’m happy to throw this one out to the floor, if the general feeling is this is undesirable then I’m certainly up for changing it. I’ve tended to do same with ECS passenger moves too.

The downside of using a passing time is where the booked departure time is more than 15 minutes away as you don't get the wait until booked time option. This can lead to multiple phone calls.

Although this isn't an ARS simulation the other side effect on those simulations is the risk that ARS will set a route early unless you have intervened in some way.

Suspect you will have mixed views on this - although my personal preference is not to have passing time ticked and maybe use set down only to increase the chance of the train being ready sooner. However, not a show stopper and I sometimes will just amend the timetable if I want to hold an early train.

Thanks for the WTT.

Perhaps I'm just a bit too perfectionist on this!

DavidSplett in post 127565 said:

Perhaps I'm just a bit too perfectionist on this!

In that case theres no need for any discussion about Freight Schedules - NR only used arr/dep for a stopping location, so to be perfect thats all there should be.

If a freight does phone up to depart early, the signaller takes the risk by letting it go early, in most cases stops are planned for a reason that may not be noticeable within the immediate area of control

DavidSplett in post 127565 said:

Perhaps I'm just a bit too perfectionist on this!

In that case theres no need for any discussion about Freight Schedules - NR only used arr/dep for a stopping location, so to be perfect thats all there should be.

If a freight does phone up to depart early, the signaller takes the risk by letting it go early, in most cases stops are planned for a reason that may not be noticeable within the immediate area of control

Reading through the timetable writing tutorial, it does seem to imply that the XX:XX XX/XX notation is the “correct” format for this, but someone upthread commented that this would cause issues on an ARS sim. I wonder if Geoff et al could give some “official” thoughts on this?

DavidSplett in post 127588 said:

Reading through the timetable writing tutorial, it does seem to imply that the XX:XX XX/XX notation is the “correct” format for this, but someone upthread commented that this would cause issues on an ARS sim. I wonder if Geoff et al could give some “official” thoughts on this?

It isn't official, but it's relatively common.

Ultimately, it's up to you as the TT writer to make the decision on how to show it. Either way, some users will be editing the timetables- either to force a phone call when they've looped a train, or to prevent the train stopping if they've given it a clear run.

My understanding, subject to any correction, is:
* In easy mode a freight will enter on time, in any mode it will depart early from a timing point but will stop first?
* For a class 3 or class 5 ECS the sim will make a random decision whether it will run early or not, with the signaller having to rely on TRTS where provided?

Is my understanding on the right lines?

DavidSplett in post 127602 said:

My understanding, subject to any correction, is:
* In easy mode a freight will enter on time, in any mode it will depart early from a timing point but will stop first?
* For a class 3 or class 5 ECS the sim will make a random decision whether it will run early or not, with the signaller having to rely on TRTS where provided?

Is my understanding on the right lines?

As far as I can remember, Cl. 0/1/2/5 wait for time while other classes are free to roll whenever any other limiting factors (joins/splits/crew changes/dwell times etc.) have played out. The waiting for time for the Cl. 0/1/2/5 can be over-ridden by checking the "set-down only" box but that only gives the core code permission to start the train early. Even with the box checked, the train may still be held until booked time on a random but comparatively rare basis. Cl.3/4/6/7/8 may also be held until due time on the same random basis even though they are not definitively held until due time. I can't off the top of my head remember what happens to Cl. 9 now as some passenger services carry those headcodes.

Like you mentioned earlier, it is all about personal preference. I much prefer the defined stop and start times for freights rather than the ticked passing time which does not provide enough control for me. On non-ARS sims if you wish to let a freight run with the start and stop listed you can go into F2, go to the train's TT and set the current/next location to the location after the stop after which the train rolls on quite merrily with no signaller intervention. You can also do that with late running passenger services if you wish to take the Control decision to skip stops to get the train back to time. Can't remember whether that works under ARS.

For ARS:
- If a departure time is marked as passing then any wait for time rules will be ignored, subject to usual regulation strategies. Thus, if a train is scheduled to be looped, and the departure time from the loop is a passing time, and it's scheduled to be passed by another train, and both are on time, then theoretically the looped train will be held for the other to pass.

GeoffM in post 127611 said:

For ARS:
- If a departure time is marked as passing then any wait for time rules will be ignored, subject to usual regulation strategies. Thus, if a train is scheduled to be looped, and the departure time from the loop is a passing time, and it's scheduled to be passed by another train, and both are on time, then theoretically the looped train will be held for the other to pass.

Provided of course the overtaking train has already appeared on a train describer somewhere by the time ARS starts thinking about setting the route out of the loop. So loops situated shortly beyond a sim fringe are a bit critical in that regard and wouldn't necessarily work well with passing times for the overtaken train.

<snip>
I can’t see what purpose that would serve, as no driver is going to just sit on a clear signal. There’s the crew change tickbox to cover the particular scenario when a train would have to wait time for that reason, and it’s presence in the timetable allows the signaller to make an informed choice.