I do not understand railways where the platform number for a train isn't known well in advance. It's about half hour till my next train and I still don't know what platform it goes from...
As I understand it, trains are assigned to platforms (a scarce resource at any station) on a first-come first-served basis, as they arrive on the tracks entering the station—it's why you sometimes end up sitting outside a station for a few minutes, waiting for another train to leave, freeing up a platform.
They can only really control platforms at termini, though—where the service initially departs from. And even then, arrival platforms may be reassigned.
(For real fun, try catching a train from Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh! They don't normally show the platform until 5 minutes before departure b/c the train's a shuttle running every 15 minutes, and it leaves whatever platform it's assigned on arrival.)
I ascribe the platform allocation problem to the high price of land in the centre of cities: platforms are long and wide and take up a lot of expensive real estate, so it's hard to expand old stations to meet modern capacity requirements. So rail operators make do with what they've got, inflicting unpredictability on the traveling public. Ideally railway stations would have 3x as many platforms, plus travellators to move passengers around faster. But that'd be enormously expensive.
@cstross nah. Land is just as expensive in Dutch, German, and Swiss cities. And yet they can plan what goes where, and when. This is a problem created by Brits, French, and Italians.
@cstross Deutschebahn manage it. This is Hamburg to Köln on a random Thursday in a couple of months.
They know which platform it's gonna take. Already. The Swiss and the Dutch also managed this. The time table plans the paths, even through the points at the station throat. This also allows for planning dwell time at each station.
I genuinely don't understand why other railway companies don't do the same.
It's Deutschebahn. Based on my experience of them over the past couple of years their timetables are aspirational at best. (I had one interrail trip in 2023 with about 8-10 train rides on DB where just ONE service ran to schedule.)
No cheating! Switzerland BANNED DB from operating services due to their unpunctuality disrupting Swiss trains sharing the track. It's no surprise that they can make stuff run on time. (It's also a much smaller network.)
@cstross American piping up. I take the train from New York to Boston fairly often (365km). Aspirational to me sounds pretty aspirational LOL. If the train originates in Washington (335km) it’s sometimes on time, but odds are good it’ll originate from Newport News, Virginia (650km) or even from Miami (2050km). That’s either 8 hours from New York City or 27 hours. I’ve had trains be more than four hours late pulling into New York. Knowing what track it’s coming in on is more or less impossible, in other words. Station staff sometimes doesn’t even know what track it’ll be on until it’s a few minutes out, alas.
@selgart I've caught the Acela between NYC and Boston a few times. By British standards, it's slow— it hits normal inter-city speeds for only about 20 minutes. And Britain doesn't really have EU-standard high speed rail (except for Eurostar trains to the continent). Nice seats and decent food/drink options, though.
@cstross No argument from me about our third world train system! Washington to Boston is electrified but not all that much else. It’s diesel for much of the country.
every GB train has a "booked" platform else the timetablers can't prove it works. See them on openTrainTimes and so on. However, the signallers may reallocate on the day and now instead of "platform alteration" calls causing complaints, most prefer not to show them until confirmed to make passengers sprint from the station body.
@Quixoticgeek @Charlie Stross in Italy (or at least in the parts I've traveled) platforms are known in advance and written on some timetables, but they can change at the last minutes when (not if) some train is late if the usual platform isn't available.
I believe that the platforms are shown on the station panels only when they are sure that there won't be a change from the planned platform, probably to avoid having people run from one platform to another, but that's just one possible reason I can think of.
The live data website viaggiatreno.it (in Italian only, I believe) shows both the planned platform in advance and the actual platform when known.
@valhalla @cstross last minute platform changes are a nightmare. But they are only marginally worse than a last minute sprint to the platform. When you have a 200m long train, think about how fast the average person can do 200m sprint. In normal clothes, while lugging a bag. It just makes for a bad passenger experience. Which makes people less likely to use trains.
@Quixoticgeek @Charlie Stross my experience is that you get a group of normal people in front of the station panels, when the platform is updated they all start walking at a fast pace (but not running) towards the train, and there is always plenty of time for them to reach it (i.e. if it looked last minute it's because the train was already late, and will start late from the station)
and at least this usually only involves going up and down stairs only once, while a platform change in many stations would involve going up and down stairs twice, while on a hurry, which is significantly worse
@valhalla @cstross and what about people who aren't what you call "normal"? Too often they get to watch the delayed train leave from the bridge while waiting for the lift, as the train attempts to recover some of its delay. The ticket refunds are poor consolation for this happening often.
@valhalla @cstross while I'm ranting: why do stations seem to fit the slowest lifts available, while shopping centres fit turbo ones that almost give you concussion as they stop? Which of these places has people trying to get places for timetabled events?
@mjr @valhalla @cstross its worse. A lot of stations have actually slowed their lifts down. This is for two reasons. It lowers maintenance costs, and they claim "it incentivises people to use the stairs instead".
The worst for this is Hamburg Hbf, where the lift serves 3 levels. Making for an incredibly slow experience as the lift does platform to concourse, to upper level to concourse to upper level to concourse to platform. It's taken me 30 mins to get me and my bike off the platform before.
(and no, building more railways wouldn't solve the issue, even if it was possible inside high density areas, it would just mean that more people will want to travel)
@valhalla @cstross @mjr run more trains. Any train running >50% occupancy in normal operations has no capacity to handle disruption. The sustainable future depends on us moving from cars and planes to trains. We have to build more railways, and run more trains. Those are the only opinions for a sustainable future.
@valhalla @mjr In the UK, the railway network is nearly saturated—we need to build more lines. HS2 was an attempt to build a Shinkansen network and get the high speed intercity services (which have much longer stopping distance) out from among the commuter and freight traffic. Alas, the Tories fucked it up and we're facing a decade of full trains and delays and cancellations even if Labour revive HS2 funding (snort: not this year!).
@valhalla @mjr They totally mis-sold it to the British public. If they'd said "we're building a shiny new Japanese-style Shinkansen network for the UK" a lot more folks would have bought into it. But instead of bigging up the product they wibbled on about the technical reasons for wanting it.
@cstross @valhalla maybe but I felt they spent too much effort wibbling about speed and modest time shaving, with not enough about the benefits of technically freeing up capacity on the bypassed lines
@mjr @cstross @valhalla trying it as "20 minutes faster to Birmingham." Somewhere famous for people not wanting to go there. They could have sold it as "Edinburgh as a day trip" "experience a day at the fringe" etc...
@MJ Ray @Charlie Stross @Quixoticgeek they would still be missing the train when they are waiting for the *two* lifts as they have to go from one platform to the other.
(my “normal” was the “average” in “think about how fast the average person can do 200m sprint” in the post I was replying to)
@valhalla @cstross the norm should be set much slower than average, else it's ableist. Anyway, most stations I use (including most late-platform-announcing ones) have two or zero lifts from entrance to platform, same as platform to platform. Birmingham New Street is an exception and probably part of why it's so hated in GB.
@valhalla @cstross I'd welcome a chance of a sprint between platforms instead of a certainty of a sprint to the platform every damned time at certain stations. This 💩 needs to stop.
@valhalla @cstross if platform alterations are that frequent, the timetablers need to retry! But yes, as then I have a 50% chance of each train, not a 20% chance of getting there within so many seconds of "normal people". I could also position myself by an easy point of return close to the platform until it's confirmed, not in the thoroughfare far away.
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Charlie Stross
in reply to Quixoticgeek • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Charlie Stross
in reply to Quixoticgeek • • •They can only really control platforms at termini, though—where the service initially departs from. And even then, arrival platforms may be reassigned.
(For real fun, try catching a train from Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh! They don't normally show the platform until 5 minutes before departure b/c the train's a shuttle running every 15 minutes, and it leaves whatever platform it's assigned on arrival.)
Charlie Stross
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Scuttlebutt
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to Scuttlebutt • • •@scuttlebutt @cstross you first.
How do we decide which ones should remain?
Quixoticgeek
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •@cstross Deutschebahn manage it. This is Hamburg to Köln on a random Thursday in a couple of months.
They know which platform it's gonna take. Already. The Swiss and the Dutch also managed this. The time table plans the paths, even through the points at the station throat. This also allows for planning dwell time at each station.
I genuinely don't understand why other railway companies don't do the same.
Charlie Stross
in reply to Quixoticgeek • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •@cstross
We can do non DB examples too...
Charlie Stross
in reply to Quixoticgeek • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Seth
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Charlie Stross
in reply to Seth • • •Seth
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Charlie Stross
in reply to Seth • • •@selgart I was mirth-struck when I first learned that CalTrain's "express" trains run at … 55mph.
That's slower than a clapped-out London tube train!
MJ Ray
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Quixoticgeek • •@Quixoticgeek @Charlie Stross in Italy (or at least in the parts I've traveled) platforms are known in advance and written on some timetables, but they can change at the last minutes when (not if) some train is late if the usual platform isn't available.
I believe that the platforms are shown on the station panels only when they are sure that there won't be a change from the planned platform, probably to avoid having people run from one platform to another, but that's just one possible reason I can think of.
The live data website viaggiatreno.it (in Italian only, I believe) shows both the planned platform in advance and the actual platform when known.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •@Charlie Stross @Quixoticgeek it's not only in Italian, you can see for yourself by selecting a station
viaggiatreno.it/infomobilita/i…
Quixoticgeek
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Quixoticgeek • •@Quixoticgeek @Charlie Stross my experience is that you get a group of normal people in front of the station panels, when the platform is updated they all start walking at a fast pace (but not running) towards the train, and there is always plenty of time for them to reach it (i.e. if it looked last minute it's because the train was already late, and will start late from the station)
and at least this usually only involves going up and down stairs only once, while a platform change in many stations would involve going up and down stairs twice, while on a hurry, which is significantly worse
MJ Ray
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to MJ Ray • • •MJ Ray
in reply to Quixoticgeek • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to MJ Ray • • •@mjr @valhalla @cstross its worse. A lot of stations have actually slowed their lifts down. This is for two reasons. It lowers maintenance costs, and they claim "it incentivises people to use the stairs instead".
The worst for this is Hamburg Hbf, where the lift serves 3 levels. Making for an incredibly slow experience as the lift does platform to concourse, to upper level to concourse to upper level to concourse to platform. It's taken me 30 mins to get me and my bike off the platform before.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Quixoticgeek • •@Quixoticgeek @Charlie Stross @MJ Ray yes, and train lines shouldn't be overcrowded, but they are
(and no, building more railways wouldn't solve the issue, even if it was possible inside high density areas, it would just mean that more people will want to travel)
Quixoticgeek
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •Charlie Stross
in reply to Quixoticgeek • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Charlie Stross
in reply to Quixoticgeek • • •MJ Ray
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to MJ Ray • • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to MJ Ray • •@MJ Ray @Charlie Stross @Quixoticgeek they would still be missing the train when they are waiting for the *two* lifts as they have to go from one platform to the other.
(my “normal” was the “average” in “think about how fast the average person can do 200m sprint” in the post I was replying to)
MJ Ray
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •MJ Ray
in reply to Quixoticgeek • • •Quixoticgeek
in reply to MJ Ray • • •@mjr @valhalla @cstross exactly.
I'd also like it so that if there is a platform change and I miss it, it's not a major issue cos theres another train in 15 minutes.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to MJ Ray • •MJ Ray
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •