On Dec 6, 5:39*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 6 Dec 2008, pedan3 wrote:
Took the slow train from Paddington to Reading and back today (thus
saving money by using Freedom Pass to maximum extent).

On the way back, the train information display in the main hall at
Reading showed the train terminating at Ealing Broadway, as did the
dot matrix indicators on the platforms.

On a different display screen, which I almost missed, was the
information that all such trains are shown as terminating at Ealing
Broadway, but "of course" (in the words of the second display panel)
they run to Paddington.

The point is that a slow train is a really bad way to get to Paddington,
but if you advertise it as a Paddington train, some people who aren't
fully on the ball will take it to do just that, and then be very
disappointed about how slow it is. Thus, it's advertised as running to the
last stop before Paddington, so such people won't get on it.

You get this on the ECML too, with slow trains from Cambridge being
advertised as going to Finsbury Park and so on.

It is a bit weird, but i think it's a good idea. Ideally, the details for
on the display should show it going to Paddington, but use Ealing Broadway
as the headline destination - this is what the displays on the ECML do.

The problem is the lack of consistency and the potential for
confusion. Instead of a fake destination, it would probably be better
to find a consistent way of showing that a train will be overtaken by
at least one other.

If you know that your train to Potters Bar is the 1406 to Cambridge,
you might well ignore the departure to Foxton (which no one has heard
of) shown on the display at Kings Cross.

On 6 Dec, 17:49, MIG wrote:
If you know that your train to Potters Bar is the 1406 to Cambridge,
you might well ignore the departure to Foxton (which no one has heard
of) shown on the display at Kings Cross.

Conversely if you get on the train to "Foxton" and the driver
announces on the PA that it's the train to Cambridge, it might take a
moment or two wondering what's going on.

(which has happened to me)

U

MIG wrote:
The problem is the lack of consistency and the potential for
confusion. Instead of a fake destination, it would probably be better
to find a consistent way of showing that a train will be overtaken by
at least one other.

Yes. There should be a better way than lying.

In the old days, you got a painted board with all the stops on in one
go, so you knew at a glance which were the slow trains - but not whether
the next train would be any quicker.

I can think of at least two better options:
1. SLOW or FAST in the abbreviated display
2. Colour code trains that get overtaken

Colin McKenzie


--
No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at the
population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as walking.
Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org.

On 7 Dec, 12:17, Colin McKenzie wrote:
MIG wrote:
I can think of at least two better options:
1. SLOW or FAST in the abbreviated display
2. Colour code trains that get overtaken

Paddington's summary departure boards have a special column marked
"Fast Reading" where an asterisk appears. I don't know if there's an
equivalent at Reading, or indeed anywhere else in the country.
Paddington also has "Heathrow Airport" and "Heathrow via Hayes &
Harlington" to differentiate fast and slow services, and the same is
done at Heathrow.

U

On Dec 7, 12:58*pm, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 7 Dec, 12:17, Colin McKenzie wrote:

MIG wrote:
I can think of at least two better options:
1. SLOW or FAST in the abbreviated display
2. Colour code trains that get overtaken

Paddington's summary departure boards have a special column marked
"Fast Reading" where an asterisk appears. I don't know if there's an
equivalent at Reading, or indeed anywhere else in the country.
Paddington also has "Heathrow Airport" and "Heathrow via Hayes &
Harlington" to differentiate fast and slow services, and the same is
done at Heathrow.

U

I prefer Colin's (not my) option 2 as being generalisable. If colours
aren't possible, maybe an "OV" or something.

The "fast" thing does work at Paddington (and I can't remember seeing
it anywhere else either) but that's a fairly limited situation.

"Fast" is relative. Down my way I've heard the "fast" used to mean
"not calling at Deptford".

There's a whole load of fake destinations used on the south eastern
where the overtaking tends to involve totally different routes, and
the confusion could be solved by comprehensive use of route codes,
instead of which they are being abolished (but that's several other
threads).

"MIG" wrote in message
...
On Dec 7, 12:58 pm, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 7 Dec, 12:17, Colin McKenzie wrote:

MIG wrote:
I can think of at least two better options:
1. SLOW or FAST in the abbreviated display
2. Colour code trains that get overtaken

Paddington's summary departure boards have a special column marked
"Fast Reading" where an asterisk appears. I don't know if there's an
equivalent at Reading, or indeed anywhere else in the country.
Paddington also has "Heathrow Airport" and "Heathrow via Hayes &
Harlington" to differentiate fast and slow services, and the same is
done at Heathrow.

U

I prefer Colin's (not my) option 2 as being generalisable. If colours
aren't possible, maybe an "OV" or something.

The "fast" thing does work at Paddington (and I can't remember seeing
it anywhere else either) but that's a fairly limited situation.

"Fast" is relative. Down my way I've heard the "fast" used to mean
"not calling at Deptford".

There's a whole load of fake destinations used on the south eastern
where the overtaking tends to involve totally different routes, and
the confusion could be solved by comprehensive use of route codes,
instead of which they are being abolished (but that's several other
threads).

------------

Not colour please. Bad for the colour blind.

On Dec 7, 2:46*pm, "Graham Harrison"
wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message

...
On Dec 7, 12:58 pm, Mr Thant
wrote:

On 7 Dec, 12:17, Colin McKenzie wrote:

MIG wrote:
I can think of at least two better options:
1. SLOW or FAST in the abbreviated display
2. Colour code trains that get overtaken

Paddington's summary departure boards have a special column marked
"Fast Reading" where an asterisk appears. I don't know if there's an
equivalent at Reading, or indeed anywhere else in the country.
Paddington also has "Heathrow Airport" and "Heathrow via Hayes &
Harlington" to differentiate fast and slow services, and the same is
done at Heathrow.

U

I prefer Colin's (not my) option 2 as being generalisable. *If colours
aren't possible, maybe an "OV" or something.

The "fast" thing does work at Paddington (and I can't remember seeing
it anywhere else either) but that's a fairly limited situation.

"Fast" is relative. *Down my way I've heard the "fast" used to mean
"not calling at Deptford".

There's a whole load of fake destinations used on the south eastern
where the overtaking tends to involve totally different routes, and
the confusion could be solved by comprehensive use of route codes,
instead of which they are being abolished (but that's several other
threads).

------------

Not colour please. * Bad for the colour blind.

My favourite would be consistent and comprehensive use of two-digit
codes for routes and stopping patterns, which for some reason have
been deemed to be unnecessary due to irrelevant "improvements" in PIS.

The underlying problem is that the decisions have been made by people
who don't understand the difference between being able to find out
where trains go and being able to quickly identify the right train
when you already know where they go.

On Sun, 7 Dec 2008, MIG wrote:

On Dec 7, 2:46*pm, "Graham Harrison"
wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message

...
On Dec 7, 12:58 pm, Mr Thant
wrote:

On 7 Dec, 12:17, Colin McKenzie wrote:

MIG wrote:
I can think of at least two better options:
1. SLOW or FAST in the abbreviated display
2. Colour code trains that get overtaken

Paddington's summary departure boards have a special column marked
"Fast Reading" where an asterisk appears. I don't know if there's an
equivalent at Reading, or indeed anywhere else in the country.
Paddington also has "Heathrow Airport" and "Heathrow via Hayes &
Harlington" to differentiate fast and slow services, and the same is
done at Heathrow.

I prefer Colin's (not my) option 2 as being generalisable. *If colours
aren't possible, maybe an "OV" or something.

'OV'? Meaning what?

There's a whole load of fake destinations used on the south eastern
where the overtaking tends to involve totally different routes, and the
confusion could be solved by comprehensive use of route codes, instead
of which they are being abolished (but that's several other threads).

My favourite would be consistent and comprehensive use of two-digit
codes for routes and stopping patterns, which for some reason have been
deemed to be unnecessary due to irrelevant "improvements" in PIS.

Codes which would be of absolutely no use to the vast majority of people,
though? Or could they be made generally understood? I was about to mouth
off about how this was pointless elitism, but then i thought about buses,
and how those are identified by numbers, and still manage to be popular
with non-elitists. How do you see this code system working?

Would it be enough to establish a controlled vocabulary for describing
kinds of stopping patterns - some or all of 'fast', 'slow', 'local',
'stopping', 'express', 'flyer', 'metro', and whatever else you can think
of - and giving them well-defined meanings which were consistent across
the country and over time (controlled by NR or the DfT rather than the
ToCs, i assume), then applying them everywhere. So in our original
example, when Mr Pedan3 strolled into Reading, he would have seen a sign
saying something like:

1945 Paddington SLOW
Calling at Maidenhead, Taplow, Marlow, Barlow and Farlow, and every other
bloody place between here and Timbuktu
Arrives Paddington 2239 (tomorrow)

And would instantly have known that (a) he could take this train to
Paddington but that (b) he would be wiser not to.

And how about having a stop written in italics, or brackets, or lowercase,
if there's another train (or sensible combination of trains) which will
get you there faster?

How do Switzerland and Germany approach this problem?

The underlying problem is that the decisions have been made by people
who don't understand the difference between being able to find out where
trains go and being able to quickly identify the right train when you
already know where they go.

I'd say the fundamental problem was the idea that giving a final
destination is enough to identify where a train goes - that's why, in the
non-lying scheme, people get confused between fast and slow trains. The
lying scheme fixes this by lying about the final destination, but isn't
the answer to add the missing information to the description of the train?

tom

--
The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution
hasn't started yet. -- Alan Kay

On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 05:42:48 -0800 (PST), MIG
wrote:


"Fast" is relative. Down my way I've heard the "fast" used to mean
"not calling at Deptford".

On the Southern, "fast" and "not calling at" were interchangeable -
"This train is fast from New Cross to Lewisham"
"This train does not call at St. Johns"

Both used indiscriminately.

--
Bill Hayles

http://billnot.com

"Colin McKenzie" wrote in message
et...
MIG wrote:
The problem is the lack of consistency and the potential for
confusion. Instead of a fake destination, it would probably be
better
to find a consistent way of showing that a train will be overtaken
by
at least one other.

Yes. There should be a better way than lying.

In the old days, you got a painted board with all the stops on in
one go, so you knew at a glance which were the slow trains - but not
whether the next train would be any quicker.

I can think of at least two better options:
1. SLOW or FAST in the abbreviated display
2. Colour code trains that get overtaken


How about a panel next to the main display which reads along the lines
of "Next train for quickest arrival at Paddington is: xx.xx plat y"
This would need to be larger than the normal display to ensure
passengers see it first, and perhaps with a footnote that other
earlier trains run but will arrive after the recommended train.