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I'm amazed at the specificity of some excuses. I got "a road vehicle colliding with a bridge earlier on this train's journey", and (forgot the actual text) "a

I'm amazed at the specificity of some excuses. I got "a road vehicle colliding with a bridge earlier on this train's journey", and (forgot the actual text) "a bicycle on the rail earlier on this train's journey".

DominikPeters 4y ago
Here you can browse the list of all reasons: https://scotrail.datasette.io/scotrail?sql=++++select+Transcription%2C+mp3+from+announcements+where%0D%0A++++++++Category+%3D+%27Reason%27 https://scotrail.datasette.io/scotrail?sql=++++select+Transc...
- abliefern 4y ago
  Thank God they differentiate between "A fire near the railway involving gas cylinders" and "A fire near the railway suspected to involve gas cylinders" how else would I be able to sleep at night.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    This sort of things is even 'funnier' when you realise that there must have been a whole discussion on this specific issue in one or several meetings.
  - jjp 4y ago
    I wonder how much of the message is for train and station staff, like Inspector Sands, as much as for passengers.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    First one I got was "overcrowding because of a rugby match", they also have overcrowding because of a marathon, a football match, a sporting event, a concert and just general overcrowding and overcrowding because there's not enough cars as usual.
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
I have to wonder how they devised the list to be recorded. Perhaps they have a list of every reason a train has ever been delayed and they used that.
avianlyric 4y ago
Some interesting research, which I think TfL did, basically says that people are more understanding of delays etc if they’re given the actual reason why a delay occurred. After all you’re much more likely to forgive ScotRail for getting home late if you’re told your train was delayed due to someone leaving a bike on the track, than you’re if you’re told nothing. A lack of explanation just comes across as either indifference to your situation, or incompetence. Neither is a good look.
- benj111 4y ago
  Unless the reason is leaves on the line, or the wrong kind of snow.
  - avianlyric 4y ago
    Leaves are surprisingly tricky. Trains mulch them into a hard slippery varnish on the rails, which is then extremely difficult to remove (current best methods involve industrial lasers). The slippery varnish substantially reduces breaking performance, and increases breaking distances. That in turn means all of your safety margins vanish, and it’s no longer possible to operate trains at full speed, and at normal follow distances. All of that in turn means delays on an individual train basis, but also lower network capacity. Given that most of the UKs commuter rail operates at 80%+ capacity (basically the limit, before minor failures consistently result in catastrophic cascading failures), the result is that leaves on the rails is actually a pretty serious problem that’s tricky to solve.
    - benj111 4y ago
      What about some kind of shovel or air blower to remove the leaves before they compress. I don't deny it's an issue. But it happens every year. It's like having trains that can't run when it rains.
      - avianlyric 4y ago
        You would have to equip every train with that system, leaf fall during Autumn in the UK is surprisingly high, so cleaning once a day wouldn't even be close to good enough. Many councils increase their street cleaning 4x just to deal with leaves. Not to mention that wet leaves are surprisingly heavy and sticky, so you might need a pretty complicated system to reliably remove leaves on a train moving at full line speed. At the end of the day, leaves cause issues for about four weeks out of every year. That makes it tricky to justify adding thousands of pounds of specialised equipment to every train, just to deal with four weeks. Of course, you could find a solution to all these things, and have far more reliable trains. But the cost would be high, and it would require our government to actually want reliable public transport. So far, all the evidence suggests our government is only interested in subsiding private vehicles, because public transport "doesn't return a profit".

DominikPeters 4y ago

Here you can browse the list of all reasons: https://scotrail.datasette.io/scotrail?sql=++++select+Transcription%2C+mp3+from+announcements+where%0D%0A++++++++Category+%3D+%27Reason%27 https://scotrail.datasette.io/scotrail?sql=++++select+Transc...

abliefern 4y ago
Thank God they differentiate between "A fire near the railway involving gas cylinders" and "A fire near the railway suspected to involve gas cylinders" how else would I be able to sleep at night.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  This sort of things is even 'funnier' when you realise that there must have been a whole discussion on this specific issue in one or several meetings.
- jjp 4y ago
  I wonder how much of the message is for train and station staff, like Inspector Sands, as much as for passengers.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  First one I got was "overcrowding because of a rugby match", they also have overcrowding because of a marathon, a football match, a sporting event, a concert and just general overcrowding and overcrowding because there's not enough cars as usual.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

I have to wonder how they devised the list to be recorded. Perhaps they have a list of every reason a train has ever been delayed and they used that.

avianlyric 4y ago

Some interesting research, which I think TfL did, basically says that people are more understanding of delays etc if they’re given the actual reason why a delay occurred. After all you’re much more likely to forgive ScotRail for getting home late if you’re told your train was delayed due to someone leaving a bike on the track, than you’re if you’re told nothing. A lack of explanation just comes across as either indifference to your situation, or incompetence. Neither is a good look.

benj111 4y ago
Unless the reason is leaves on the line, or the wrong kind of snow.
- avianlyric 4y ago
  Leaves are surprisingly tricky. Trains mulch them into a hard slippery varnish on the rails, which is then extremely difficult to remove (current best methods involve industrial lasers). The slippery varnish substantially reduces breaking performance, and increases breaking distances. That in turn means all of your safety margins vanish, and it’s no longer possible to operate trains at full speed, and at normal follow distances. All of that in turn means delays on an individual train basis, but also lower network capacity. Given that most of the UKs commuter rail operates at 80%+ capacity (basically the limit, before minor failures consistently result in catastrophic cascading failures), the result is that leaves on the rails is actually a pretty serious problem that’s tricky to solve.
  - benj111 4y ago
    What about some kind of shovel or air blower to remove the leaves before they compress. I don't deny it's an issue. But it happens every year. It's like having trains that can't run when it rains.
    - avianlyric 4y ago
      You would have to equip every train with that system, leaf fall during Autumn in the UK is surprisingly high, so cleaning once a day wouldn't even be close to good enough. Many councils increase their street cleaning 4x just to deal with leaves. Not to mention that wet leaves are surprisingly heavy and sticky, so you might need a pretty complicated system to reliably remove leaves on a train moving at full line speed. At the end of the day, leaves cause issues for about four weeks out of every year. That makes it tricky to justify adding thousands of pounds of specialised equipment to every train, just to deal with four weeks. Of course, you could find a solution to all these things, and have far more reliable trains. But the cost would be high, and it would require our government to actually want reliable public transport. So far, all the evidence suggests our government is only interested in subsiding private vehicles, because public transport "doesn't return a profit".