Every train gets its own page
Search above for a headcode (the four-character code like 1A24 that
identifies a train on the network), a planning ID, or simply where a train starts and
ends. Every service on the timetable has a page here, and every page has an address you
can bookmark or send to someone.
- The booked timetable — every calling point with its scheduled times
and platform, for any date the timetable covers. Not just today: a train running next
week has a page before it has ever moved.
- Live times on top of it, once the train is running: expected and
actual times at each stop, platform changes, and the operator's own reason when it is
delayed or cancelled.
- The route on a map, drawn along the track the train actually takes
rather than a straight line between stations.
- A detailed view for the passing timing points — the junctions and
loops a train runs through without stopping, which is where most of what happens to a
train actually happens.
What the detailed view adds
Switching to the detailed view shows the working timetable — the
version the railway runs to, rather than the version printed for passengers. Most of
a train's life happens at places it never stops, and this is where you can see it.
- Passing times at junctions, loops and signal boxes. A long-distance
train typically has several times as many timing points as station stops, and they
are what determine whether it is actually running to plan.
- Half minutes. Working times are kept to thirty seconds, shown as 11:15½. Public times are always whole minutes, so a train booked to pass at
11:15½ and one booked at 11:15 are half a minute apart in the plan even though no
passenger-facing display could tell them apart.
- Allowances — deliberate padding written into the schedule.
Engineering allowance covers works, pathing allowance covers waiting for a slower
train ahead, and performance allowance is recovery time to absorb small delays. A
train that looks slow between two points is often carrying one of these rather than
going slowly.
- Line and path codes, naming which track the train is booked over
where there is more than one — fast or slow lines, a particular platform road, or a
specific route through a junction.
The train itself is described too, decoded from the timetable's own codes: what kind
of service it is, what is meant to be working it, the speed it is timed at, and
whether reservations apply. A schedule reading express passenger, electric
multiple unit, 100 mph, standard class only tells you a great deal about a train
before it has moved.