@wnd random question for you: any idea why the UK has a Taktfahr-style timetable in some regions but not others?
Most countries have it everywhere or nowhere. UK bit of an outlier
https://proto.propexum.com/expo/?data=2025-05-07/taktness#x=-1.4610&y=54.1849&z=6.3956
@ApAlun i see what you're saying but Germany has a very similar population distribution¹ to the UK yet has a clockface timetable almost everywhere. Similarly France has lots of towns with suburbs that look like British towns but they almost never have clockface timetables
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social
as understand it, the way the GB timetabling process works is that at the start of long-term plan (LTP) development, operators bid for paths in the timetable. Under the current arrangement franchised Train Operating Companies (TOCs) are guaranteed a number of paths per, say, hour for morning and evening peak*. These are then deconflicted if possible. 1/n
* this is an approximation, and it is more complicated than this, but you get the gist
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social so what I think you see here is, where you have an operator who is running regional/metro services you will tend to have higher frequency Taktfahrstile operations.
You also have long(er) distance IC type services that operate a timetable more related to few stops but often with a less regulated Takt. For example, LNER will run services that will having different calling patterns and stops.
2/n
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social Where a train on the ECML will stop SVG, PBO, RET, or not, head to EDB, or LDS, stop at NCL, or even Harrogate almost on a whim
...as does, say EMR, Avanti, and GWR...
Then you add something the XC into the mix and it gets mess.
My guess is what you are seeing is a pattern of Takt for local services, jazzed with a mixture of mixed calling patterns for IC layered with stuff like XC
3/n
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social It might then be interesting to repeat this by operator. I *guess* you will find that GTR, XR and Southern are quite Taktstile while XC, LNER and Avanti aren't. Northern and TPE probably swing both ways.
4/n
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social here is a visualisation of aggregated train activity (departure from origin, arrival, departure, terminate at destination) count for stations in the British timetable. You might also see some places outside the UK...
I picked 10 minutes because when I did this in 5 minute slices there is a big set of activities on the hour and half hour.
I should probably re-cut this by operator to illustrate the point discussed here...
5/n
@wnd I'll try to split it by TOC today if I have that data and get a chance. But my hunch is that it is a geographic split rather than a TOC one
FWIW the map only considers headways between trains with the exact same stopping patterns because different countries have very different opinions about what a "route" is and it was the only way of making it comparable
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social you can't decouple geography and operator. But it would be interesting to see.
Based on the timetable I can look at arrival and departure times at route segments between stations by operator. I'm not sure how that would map to operations in different countries though.
@wnd i wasn't intending on decoupling geography and operator but now you're telling me that i can't do that it is all i want to do
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social please carry on. I am being confusing here. There are some operators that are very geographic specific (GTR, Southern, Great Northern, C2C), there are some that are mixed (EMR, ScotRail) and some that aren't (LNER, Avanti, XC) and some with a ridiculous range (Northern).
Apologies for being confusing. Please do this, it will be interesting.
@wnd I'll catch up with your debate this evening, for now I can contribute this which is not quite a perfect list of TOCs but it ain't bad
it doesn't feel as simple as "short distance gets takt and long distance does not"
NB: my data is a bit out of date. Island Line apparently has since decided to go back to a French-style timetable ... despite spending £1m on a passing loop so they didn't need to do that https://iwobserver.co.uk/swr-confirms-changes-to-island-line-timetable/
@wnd liverpool-manchester-leeds-york is very urban, as is leeds-sheffield-nottingham-leicester. so TPE and Northern should be clockfacey by your reckoning.
Southern, Southeastern and Thameslink outside their ultra-urban core are going through swathes of empty fields and are more inter-cityish by my reckoning
population map attached :)
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social I think you have confused me for someone else. I have never said population distribution is related to Taktstile. Unless you are interested in population data from 1875.
I would argue there is a clear under provision of service in the North urban belt and Midlands*
* in fact this is one of the conclusions from a talk I gave on Thursday at #LeedsDigi25
@wnd I thought your position was that long distance services would not follow a takt and that urban ones would?
i don't know how to define an intercity service other than eyeballing a population plot
... if you gave that talk on Thursday does that mean that you caused the postponement? :)
@wnd but it does have to do with population distribution because you wouldn't have limited calling points unless there was limited population? there may be some truth in that it is based on the 1837 population but dear old Dr Beeching did update that a little
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social This is a common misconception. The 1963 Reshaping of the British Railway reform* was focused on changing the railway for freight operations rather than passenger services. At which point passenger numbers were only a secondary, or even tertiary, concern.
* also known as the Beeching reform or cuts
@wnd @bovine3dom @pglux.bsky.social The Reshaping of British Railways report actually covered both the passenger and the freight railway - I have my copy open in front of me as I write. The list of passenger services to be withdrawn was over 5 sides long, with 50 entries per side.
1/2
@wnd @bovine3dom @pglux.bsky.social Map 1 was "Density of Passenger Traffic", Map 2 was "Distribution of Passenger Traffic Station Receipts", Map 9 was "Proposed withdrawal of Passenger Train Services", Map 9A was the same for the London area, and Map 10 was "Proposed Modification of passenger train services".
2/2
@ApAlun FWIW Will is our local internet celebrity because he reproduced those maps with ORR data :)
@ApAlun While it is clear you disagree with my thoughts here and my hot-take that the primary focus of the 1963 report was on the reconfiguration of the rail network to support freight operations.
While I did read the report some time ago and could be wrong, I'm not sure I care. What do I know is that it is no longer 1963, or even 1971, and therefore see no benefit continuing this discussion. YMMV
@wnd the hottest take i see is that UK railways north of London are no longer in 1963
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_73
i would argue that they are stuck in 1962
@wnd @bovine3dom In reply to Oliver's view that Beeching resulted in changes to the British passenger rail network you wrote "The 1963 Reshaping of British Railway reform was focused on changing the railway for freight operations rather than passenger services. At which point passsenger numbers were only a secondary, or even tertiary, concern". It is easy to prove that Oliver was in fact correct that the report had a major impact on passenger services and that your statement was wrong.
1/4
@wnd @bovine3dom All you have to do is to go back to the report itself. Thanks to Railway Archive it is online https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=13 , as are the maps https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=35 .
2/4
@wnd @bovine3dom It is easiest to go straight to the summary on pages 57-60. It proposed 15 actions, the first 6 of which are about passenger services. Action 1 was "Discontinuance of many stopping passenger services" and Action 3 was "Closure of a high proportion of the total number of small stations to passenger traffic" - I have attached scans of the relevant pages.
3/4
@wnd i see your 500m and raise you 25m
had a real "huh" moment when i realised how empty many UK town centres were
@wnd that's how you end up with gares des betteraves 🍷🥖
@bovine3dom @ApAlun @pglux.bsky.social FWIW here are watershed maps for the North and Midland with a population of 16.3M and London and the South East with a population of 19.3M.
This shows shortest-path walking routes from Output Area centres to railway stations in an 80km radius centred on a population centre for these two regions.
@wnd the first image should have zero trains because, um, potholes
@wnd ha. do you know if your talk is available online anywhere? i am not corporate enough to understand the leeds digital festival website
Oliver Blanthorn
ApAlun 🏴
Will Deakin
