Saturday, 14 November 2026

83% of the 20,145 passenger trains whose arrival was recorded on Saturday, 14 November 2026 reached their destination within five minutes — an ordinary day, with the delays concentrated where they usually are.

Of 25,033 recorded runs, 621 did not run at all. Among those whose arrival reached the archive, 16,787 were within five minutes, 3,178 between five and thirty minutes down, and 180 more than half an hour — the tail that people actually remember.

“This service has been delayed by a speed restriction” was the most common explanation, given for 833 services.

Elizabeth line came closest to running to time, 98.6% of its 661 recorded arrivals; Northern had the largest cancelled share at 7.2%.

A weekend timetable, so the 25,033 recorded runs are well below a weekday's — most engineering possessions land here too, which shortens some routes and removes others entirely.

Buses on this date: 124,382 journeys followed to their destination, 69.8% on time.

The day in numbers

Every percentage among the bands is of the 20,145 trains whose arrival reached the archive — not of all 25,033, and the bands are exclusive. 4,267 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

37 operators ran passenger services on this date, from ScotRail on 2,960 runs down to LS on 2. 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 83% and 81% — 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 399 of the 621 cancellations (64.3%), across 8 distinct reasons. A run cancelled part-way along often carries no reason at all.

The longest delays

The worst of them arrived 2h 06m behind schedule — LESTLIP to Leicester, booked away at 09:20, run by West Coast Railway Co. The ten longest range from 2h 06m down to 1h 16m, and they belong to 5 operators, Northern accounting for 4. 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 04:00, when 58% of 137 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 21.

What ran

Formations were recorded for 24,182 trains on this date, made up of 2,620 individual units and 11,518 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 2,534 of the day's recorded trains from a pool of 182 units.

The average train was 5.5 vehicles long. The longest formation recorded was 24 vehicles.

Of 25,033 runs, 24,182 had a formation published (97%) — these are allocations rather than observations.

Buses

15,711 buses from 155 operators were seen on this date, across 2,671,593 position reports.

124,382 bus journeys were followed to their destination on this date. 86,833 arrived on time, 7,452 late, and 30,097 — 24% — 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 756 journeys finished more than fifteen minutes down.

By operator

Of the operators with enough journeys to compare, Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company ran closest to time (91%), and National Express furthest from it (32%).

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

Recorded live from the Darwin and TRUST feeds on 14 Nov 2026 itself. How these figures are measured · Sources and licences