Northern give every conductor a watch
 

It was in Tuesday's Metro paper that Northern were giving conductors sychronised watches to ensure trains don't leave stations late.

Wouldn't sychronised station clocks be better?

Its about time too !

I may be wrong but I'd guess that the clocks and the watches will both be synchronised. That'd certainly make sense anyway.

Adam

I beleve that they are Radio Controlled, Rainhill have one of the clocks and is quite impresive it tells you the type pof moon and tempiture as well but doent tell you where th train is thogh.

"I was once told that the railway had it's own time"

But why would you want to know the temperature or type of moon? Unless of course you where a werewolf, but I don't think there are many of them who use public transport.

Adam

Thats the Railway for you !

This has happened quite alot recently. First Capital Connect has just issued all its traincrew with company branded Rugby watches. They receive a radio signal (60 KHz IIRC) and automatically synchronise several times during the early hours of the morning with the signals from either Rugby or Frankfurt. If you want to you can force the watch to synchronise any time, and the process takes several minutes. The master clock is atomic, so the watches effectively have an accuracy of 1 second in 6 million years, so they ought to be good enough for our timekeeping !

I've never liked digital watches so I prefer to wear my own analogue one, which is a Casio Waveceptor.

Over here all the clocks look the same, but only some of them are synchronised. Oddly enough the ones that are have a cursor which stays illuminated, whilst the ones which aren't have a flashing cursor. (Just a bit of trivia)

The Sation Staff have been given Multi Tool which is abit like a swiss army knife with Northern branding on them.

The Money for these things could be better Spent on New Trains !

No, John. Keep the staff happy with new widgits and toys, and the trains will run on time.

You can give the staff all the gadgets you like!

BUT, if the public won't get on the train before the customary kissy kissy hug hug then the conductor can't close the doors. The more this happens at stations the later the trains gonna get and no amount of fancy watches is gonna sort that out.

Les

I think British Standard Time started with the coming of railways. Before that uk only used local time. Time had to be standardised for train timetables to make sense.

Yeh i know what you mean Ithats probaly on of the reasons for Ticket Gates !

That reminds me...I once stopped at Haywards Heath and a despatcher came running up to me. He was laughing and told me that I had driven away from a previous station with a family's luggage, but not the family !

Apparently they had loaded all their stuff onto the train, then walked away from the train to do the kissy-kissy thing with their friends. :rolleyes:

When I'd checked the CCTV monitors they were clear, as they only show 6 feet to the side of the train, so I'd shut the doors and departed.

I'm pleased to say that the outcome was a happy one in the end, as we unloaded the bags off my train at HH, and once the family was reunited with their stuff they got the faster service to Victoria which overtook me.

I accept that the actions (or inactions) of the public can affect timekeeping but in my area delays can often be attributed to the work methods adopted by the railways themselves.
I have asked this question before and didn't really get an answer so here goes:
Why can't drivers release the doors when the train has stopped instead of waiting for the conductor?
I have lost count of the number of times that I have had to wait, often for several minutes while the conductor returns to the rear cab to release the doors. I can appreciate that special monitoring equipment is required before a driver can safely close the doors but surely he/she could be allowed to open them.

You haven't specified which stock you're talking about, so obviously I can only talk in general terms, as each case of traction and company operating procedure may be different. Under normal conditions there's no reason why the driver can't give a door release so long as he is certain that the whole train is on the platform. If it isn't then he/she can sometimes put up SDO (selective door opening).

Unfortunately some of the latest stock (eg 375 & 377s) has GPS to tell the train where it is, and since it knows how long every platform on the network is the computer won't allow the driver to release any doors if they are over the track.

The trouble with this is that if the GPS doesn't have a current 'fix' then the driver has to inititiate an override, and this takes several minutes. GPS was originally designed to be used out in the open (such as at sea and in deserts) and isn't really suited to the railway where cuttings, tunnels and steel structures block the very short wavelength signals.

I'm always disappointed that on these occasions where passengers are waiting several minutes for the doors to be released there NEVER seems to be any PA announcement from either the guard or the driver to let us know what is happening. It's very unprofessional IMHO as it is just asking for someone to pull an Egress handle, which would make the traincrews job more difficult and delay the train even further.

Thanks for that, John. I should have realised that there wouldn't be a simple answer to any question involving the railways.:)
The trains I have most experience of are the Class 175 DMU's of Arriva Trains Wales. I don't think there are any technical complications because the conductor is able to release the doors as soon as they reach the rear cab......the delays are caused by him/her actually getting there :confused: Meanwhile the driver sits there patiently, trying not to make eye contact with the frustrated passengers waiting to board his/her train.:D

Good point. I have never heard such an announcement in my area. Fortunately (for Arriva) passengers have got used to these delays and don't think there is anything unusual.

hmmm

I thoght the 175's would have had Door controls for the gaurd from some of the passenger doors like on 158's , Mersyrail 507/8's and Arriva Trains Wales 150's and i think the 170's have these controls as well.

Would make sense if the MAnufratures added these as Standard but if you Look in the cab of say a 142 unit you can see were the Door Buttons have been taken away.