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Old 19th February 2008, 01:23
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Dynamo Dynamo is offline  
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Middlesbrough
Posts: 246
When I first started on the footplate, all traincrew were issued with both Freight and Passenger timetables in their trainload form rather than what stations they were supposed to stop at etc. I haven't seen one of those for years, but in answer to the question, yes freight trains do run to a timetable, and Network Rail are often very strict about them running to time these days.

Once upon a time, if a freight train was made up and ready to depart, it would be allowed to leave its starting place at any time, even if it was a couple of hours early. These days, Network rail run a pretty strict running to time policy, so even if a train is ready to depart and there's no other trains it can get in the way of, they'll still hold the train to its booked departure. I've even known trains make up time en-route and then being put into a holding siding until its proper booked time was reached.

Thankfully, there is a way around this problem for a driver who wants an early finish, and that is to ring their own companies control, who will then ask Network Rail control if a said train can run early. This is usually the case during the hours from midnight until 5am, though it can happen at other times of the day as well.

Some freight trains lose time en-route because they have a heavier load than is usually booked, but in my experience, most delays that occur after a train leaves its starting point on time is because of unbooked signal stops. It could well be that the train that hstudent mentioned departed on time, but was then delayed by a signal stop cos of another late train which could have been either a passenger or a freight train, but its an easy cop out to blame a slow freight train.

These days, whenever a train is delayed, someone has to take the rap, and whoever does then pays the penalty in big fines by Network Rail. We as drivers are therefore asked to ring a special delay hotline if our trains are delayed for whatever reason which is out of our control. I've been told that I have saved my company quite a bit of money in the past through reporting why I was delayed and stopped network rail fining my company, and they've even reimbursed my company as well if the blame lay elseware. The blame culture on the railway really makes people sit up and take notice because the penalties are so high.

In theory, if a freight train is booked to run after a passenger train, but the passenger train is delayed, then the freight train is supposed to run in front of it. Of course this rarely happens, but my company will reap the benefits of any penalty payment, as long as the driver has reported the incident.
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