Friday, 16 October 2026

88% of the 21,682 passenger trains whose arrival was recorded on Friday, 16 October 2026 reached their destination within five minutes — an ordinary day, with the delays concentrated where they usually are.

Of 25,850 recorded runs, 601 did not run at all. Among those whose arrival reached the archive, 19,035 were within five minutes, 2,502 between five and thirty minutes down, and 145 more than half an hour — the tail that people actually remember.

“This service has been delayed by a late running train being in front of this one” was the most common explanation, given for 731 services.

Heathrow Express came closest to running to time, 99.3% of its 152 recorded arrivals; Thameslink had the largest cancelled share at 8.2%.

Friday carries the heaviest long-distance loading of the week, and it is the day on which a late-afternoon problem has the fewest spare paths to recover into.

Buses on this date: 138,209 journeys followed to their destination, 71.3% on time.

The day in numbers

Every percentage among the bands is of the 21,682 trains whose arrival reached the archive — not of all 25,850, and the bands are exclusive. 3,567 trains ran without an arrival time being recorded, and nothing is claimed about how punctual those were. Delay is judged at the destination, a stricter test than the industry's own measure and not comparable with it.

By operator

38 operators ran passenger services on this date, from ScotRail on 2,991 runs down to TY on 4. Ordered by volume, not performance — any heading re-sorts it.

“On time” is of each operator's recorded arrivals; “incl. cancelled” counts a cancellation as a failure, which is what the industry's own measure does. Across the whole day they read 88% and 85% — why both are published, what each hides, and how the sort treats a small operator.

Why trains were late

8 different reasons were given for delay on this date, each reproduced in the operator's own words.

Why trains were cancelled

A reason reached the archive for 344 of the 601 cancellations (57.2%), across 8 distinct reasons. A run cancelled part-way along often carries no reason at all.

The longest delays

The worst of them arrived 1h 46m behind schedule — Holyhead to London Euston, booked away at 14:48, run by Avanti West Coast. The ten longest range from 1h 46m down to 1h 01m, and they belong to 8 operators, Avanti West Coast accounting for 2. What a delay on that scale usually means.

Through the day

Booked departures by hour, with the share that arrived within five minutes. Punctuality was weakest at 00:00, when 65% of 114 arrived within five minutes.

The filled part of each bar is the share of that hour's booked departures that arrived within five minutes. The quietest was 02:00 with 13.

What ran

Formations were recorded for 26,589 trains on this date, made up of 2,880 individual units and 12,716 separate vehicles. These figures cover the services an allocation was published for, not every train that ran.

25 different classes of train appeared, which is the signature of a full weekday — the long-distance fleets, the regional diesel units and the suburban electrics all working at once.

The most-used class was the 377, allocated to 3,205 of the day's recorded trains from a pool of 218 units.

The average train was 5.6 vehicles long. The longest formation recorded was 16 vehicles.

Of 25,850 runs, 26,589 had a formation published (103%) — these are allocations rather than observations.

Buses

17,733 buses from 190 operators were seen on this date, across 3,132,988 position reports.

138,209 bus journeys were followed to their destination on this date. 98,609 arrived on time, 8,764 late, and 30,836 — 22% — arrived ahead of schedule.

Early arrivals are normal rather than exceptional. Bus running times carry enough slack to survive traffic, and it is concentrated in the last leg, so a clear run simply finishes sooner than booked.

The average arrival was 0 minutes late, and 939 journeys finished more than fifteen minutes down.

By operator

Of the operators with enough journeys to compare, Uni-Link ran closest to time (89%), and National Express furthest from it (31%).

Our figures, not the regulator's — why buses run early, the current league.

Recorded live from the Darwin and TRUST feeds on 16 Oct 2026 itself. How these figures are measured · Sources and licences