So, with my heart in my mouth, I arrived at Euston last night to get
the 2040 to New Street. I'd checked the live departures stuff from
Nice on Tuesday and it still showed all the trains doing what you'd
expect given the engineering work, and then again yesterday morning
when I found that (on the face of it) the XX40s were running while the
XX10s weren't. And indeed, when I got to Euston and enquired, the
XX10s had been subsumed into the XX04s to Manchester. Idly
speculating about what happens to seat reservations, I thanked
whatever for the 50/50 decision to use the 2040 rather than the 2010,
bought some food, and waited for the train, scheduled to take 89
minutes to BHM.

I didn't believe the timing, of course: the train I got down to Euston
the previous Wednesday was supposed to take 90 minutes, but ``missed
its path'' between Coventry and Rugby and arrived 12 down.

But yesterday the train ran quickly to Milton Keynes, then very
quickly indeed as far as the Rugby area, where it slowed to a crawl
but nonetheless made Coventry on time and International about 3
minutes late. It then took over twenty minutes from International to
New Street, arriving at 2223 (scheduled, according to the little
screen in the train manager's office, 2219) and then presumably
forming a rather late onward service to Wolverhampton, as it was
supposed to leave New Street at 2213.

Some of the time was lost in running very slowly from Marston Green
onwards, the rest in moving one block at a time from Adderley Park
through Proof House.

There was no scheduled work (and no sign of any emergency work) and
although Proof House is very busy, it was on the other hand past ten
o'clock at night, when almost all the clockface schedules have reduced
in frequency.

So, is it just that Virgin and National Rail simply don't care, or is
there a reason why paths for trains arriving on time at Coventry can't
be assured through the Birmingham area at a quiet time of day? And
either way, how does this bode for the high-frequency timetable (or
``the best news Chiltern Railways have had in years'', as one might
call it).

ian

i.g.batten wrote:

> the previous Wednesday was supposed to take 90 minutes, but ``missed
> its path'' between Coventry and Rugby and arrived 12 down.

> ``the best news Chiltern Railways have had in years'',

Completely off topic to your travel woes, a small point but I notice you
never use quotation marks (") in your posts....

<i.g.batten> wrote
>
> But yesterday the train ran quickly to Milton Keynes, then very
> quickly indeed as far as the Rugby area, where it slowed to a crawl
> but nonetheless made Coventry on time and International about 3
> minutes late. It then took over twenty minutes from International to
> New Street, arriving at 2223 (scheduled, according to the little
> screen in the train manager's office, 2219) and then presumably
> forming a rather late onward service to Wolverhampton, as it was
> supposed to leave New Street at 2213.
>
> Some of the time was lost in running very slowly from Marston Green
> onwards, the rest in moving one block at a time from Adderley Park
> through Proof House.
>
Sounds as though you'd caught up with the 2100 Northampton to Birmingham,
which was probably running several minutes late. Passengers in an express no
doubt expect a late-running stopping train to be looped out of their way;
passengers in a slightly late local train hope that it won't be further
delayed to let an express through.

Peter

On Aug 28, 8:38 am, Phil Richards <philrichar>
wrote:
> i.g.bat...@batten.eu.org wrote:
> > the previous Wednesday was supposed to take 90 minutes, but ``missed
> > its path'' between Coventry and Rugby and arrived 12 down.
> > ``the best news Chiltern Railways have had in years'',
>
> Completely off topic to your travel woes, a small point but I notice you
> never use quotation marks (") in your posts....
>
He's possibly a LaTeX user. Much like you'll sometimes find :wq in
documents written by vi users, you'll sometimes find `` '' and things
like $x^2$ in documents written by LaTeX users.

Tim.

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:38:00 +0100 someone who may be "Peter Masson"
<peter.masson1> wrote this:-

>Passengers in an express no
>doubt expect a late-running stopping train to be looped out of their way;
>passengers in a slightly late local train hope that it won't be further
>delayed to let an express through.

When presented with the choice of a late running local train or a
following on time express I know that whichever one I pick will be
the wrong choice. If I get the local train it will be put in the
loop. If I get the express then not only will it stop several times
behind the local train but the local train will not be put in the
loop. Either way I will arrive a few minutes later then I could
have. Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy:-)

On Aug 28, 10:23 am, David Hansen <SENDdavidNOhS>
wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:38:00 +0100 someone who may be "Peter Masson"
> <petermass> wrote this:-
>> When presented with the choice of a late running local train or a
> following on time express I know that whichever one I pick will be
> the wrong choice. If I get the local train it will be put in the
> loop. If I get the express then not only will it stop several times
> behind the local train but the local train will not be put in the
> loop. Either way I will arrive a few minutes later then I could
> have. Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy:-)
>
> --
>   David Hansen, Edinburgh
>  I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents mehttp://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54



Funny how people alway whinge about rail travel. You seldom hear of
the positive side, the the early arrivals into Euston. I travel from
the West Midlands to London 3 times a week and looking at past stats,
88.7% oy my journeys have been on time or early.

It also seems the OP is oblivious to the level of traffic on the
Coventry-Bham corridor on a normal weekday, never mind the extra
trains running through the area with the Trent Valley shut. All it
needs is one train to be a few minutes late and it goes haywire, and
those in control do the best they can.

Be thankful that the work at Rugby over the bank holiday was completed
on time. A Pendolino, late or on time, is far more desireable than a
crappy old bus dragged up by Fraser Eagle.

google wrote:
> On Aug 28, 8:38 am, Phil Richards <philrichar>
> wrote:
>>i.g.bat...@batten.eu.org wrote:
>>>the previous Wednesday was supposed to take 90 minutes, but ``missed
>>>its path'' between Coventry and Rugby and arrived 12 down.
>>>``the best news Chiltern Railways have had in years'',
>>Completely off topic to your travel woes, a small point but I notice you
>>never use quotation marks (") in your posts....
>>
> He's possibly a LaTeX user. Much like you'll sometimes find :wq in
> documents written by vi users, you'll sometimes find `` '' and things
> like $x^2$ in documents written by LaTeX users.

Hey I resemble that comment!

Robin
(writing a document in LaTeX)

> He's possibly a LaTeX user.

Guilty. ``...'' does quotation marks properly in LaTeX, so for the
past twenty-two years I've been using it in everything I type. It
used to look better in plain text: in recent years the apostrophe
character has changed from being an acute accent, as it was in older X
fonts, to being vertical, as it is in most modern monospace fonts.
The other give away of LaTeX users is using - when they want a hyphen
(as in Beeching's attempt to make the railways cost-effective), --
when they want an en-dash (as in the failure of the modernisation
plan, 1955--1962) and --- when they --- as they tend to --- want an em-
dash to set off a parenthetical clause or a slightly less formal
alternative to a colon.

Word and its ilk don't do a bad job of ``smart quotes'' --- they by
and large will allow you to type "what he said" and typeset it
correctly. They actually do a better of job distinguishing between
single quotes (the closing character in `like this') and apostrophes
(don't they?) than LaTeX typically does: they are different
characters, even if they aren't always different glyphs, and LaTeX
users tend not to get that right. Word does a shockingly bad job of
getting dashes right.

ian


http://www.1000timesno.net/?p=261

http://apostropheatrophy.com/

> Funny how people alway whinge about rail travel.  You seldom hear of
> the positive side, the the early arrivals into Euston. I travel from
> the West Midlands to London 3 times a week and looking at past stats,
> 88.7% oy my journeys have been on time or early.

Hardly surprising: there's huge padding of timings before the terminus
of the service, so that the PPM and Season Ticket Compensation regimes
don't kick in. If you travelled from the West Midlands to Watford
Junction or Milton Keynes you'd be a great deal less sanguine.
Similarly, trains from Euston do very well to Wolverhampton, less well
to Birmingham.

>
> It also seems the OP is oblivious to the level of traffic on the
> Coventry-Bham corridor on a normal weekday,

Obviously, living in South West Birmingham and commuting to the
Adderley Park area for ten years and then the NEC area for ten years I
have no knowledge of the line. My comment about being able to
recognise Marston Green and Adderley Park in the dark from a moving
train confirms this. Do I need to provide an essay on the relative
merits of the 1912 LNWR, the 1932 LMS and the 1938 LMS proposals as
well?

> never mind the extra
> trains running through the area with the Trent Valley shut.

A good point. Although hardly a major factor at 2210, I would think,
as compared to the paths used by the 10-minute commuter services in
the peak hours.


> All it
> needs is one train to be a few minutes late and it goes haywire, and
> those in control do the best they can.

They can only do what they can do within the constraints of the
resources available.

>
> Be thankful that the work at Rugby over the bank holiday was completed
> on time.

Silly old me, taking it for granted that engineers would do their work
on time. Tony Miles had less faith than me.

ian

On Aug 28, 7:02 am, i.g.bat...@batten.eu.org wrote:

> New Street, arriving at 2223 (scheduled, according to the little
> screen in the train manager's office, 2219)

So let me get this right.

You are whingeing about a train that is 4 minutes late ?

> So, is it just that Virgin and National Rail simply don't care, or is
> there a reason why paths for trains arriving on time at Coventry can't
> be assured through the Birmingham area at a quiet time of day?


NR in herited this from BR via Railtrack.

BNS has always been like that. It was like that in the 1980s when I
lived in Coventry. Evenings were the worst to approach New St - it was
either less often perfectly all on time or more often signal-to-sgnal
for every train. And Stechford into New St abiut the worst approach of
the lot.

On Aug 28, 3:38 pm, D7666 <d7> wrote:
> On Aug 28, 7:02 am, i.g.bat...@batten.eu.org wrote:
>
> > New Street, arriving at 2223 (scheduled, according to the little
> > screen in the train manager's office, 2219)

Typo: it was scheduled 2209. 1hr29 from 2040.

>
> So let me get this right.
>
> You are whingeing about a train that is 4 minutes late ?

14.

Mind you, after living in Japan for a month, 4 minutes doesn't seem
reasonable either.

>
> > So, is it just that Virgin and National Rail simply don't care, or is
> > there a reason why paths for trains arriving on time at Coventry can't
> > be assured through the Birmingham area at a quiet time of day?
>
> NR in herited this from BR via Railtrack.

So let's get this straight. NR and RT have spent 7 billion pounds on
the WCML, but it's still reasonable to blame the legacy they
inherited?

ian

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:24:44 -0700 (PDT), i.g.batten
wrote:

> Word does a shockingly bad job of getting dashes right.

In MS-Word you can set substitutions for "--" and "---" to
particular characters in the set. You have to know when to use em
and en dashes obviously.

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:34:43 -0700 (PDT), i.g.batten
wrote:

> Mind you, after living in Japan for a month, 4 minutes doesn't seem
> reasonable either.

I suspect in Japan they don't employ people on the railway who take
it for granted that trains are often late.

On Aug 28, 4:57 pm, Chris Game <chrisg> wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:24:44 -0700 (PDT), i.g.bat...@batten.eu.org
> wrote:
>
> > Word does a shockingly bad job of getting dashes right.
>
> In MS-Word you can set substitutions for "--" and "---" to
> particular characters in the set. You have to know when to use em
> and en dashes obviously.

And they are, I accept, harder to automate than ``...'' (although if
you regard space-dash-space as always being an em-dash and number-dash-
number as always being an en-dash it's a start).

But some years ago I had to edit a Word document and complained about
this problem, at which point someone suggested using substitutions in
the manner you describe. My memory is that it worked provided I
didn't change typeface, but the en- and em- dashes weren't in
consistent places between different typefaces, especially those from
different foundries. I _think_ they were consistent within a
typeface (ie the em-dash in helvetica bold italic was in the same
place as in helvetica condensed) but I think sometimes not even that
was right.

ian

On Aug 28, 5:00 pm, Chris Game <chrisg> wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:34:43 -0700 (PDT), i.g.bat...@batten.eu.org
> wrote:
>
> > Mind you, after living in Japan for a month, 4 minutes doesn't seem
> > reasonable either.
>
> I suspect in Japan they don't employ people on the railway who take
> it for granted that trains are often late.

Quite so.

ian