"Open Train Times" website - detailed train times online at last!

It should be borne in mind that people might be keen to find out what is going on because promoters and operators are not sufficently open about their plans.

 

I thought that was the problem Mr. Shuttleworth was highlighting. Throughout the booking period WCRC will now get customers "pestering" them with questions based on information from this new site that is liable to change. Not sure pestering is quite the right word but I'm sure most will see the point.

Potential extra workload for all promoters - unless I've misunderstood, of course.

Chris

 

Re: Diesel will not be on the back.

Maybe it's because southerners arnt used to being shouted at.

:loco:

 

I've tried to make the limitations as clear as possible, and the majority of people using the site have read the disclaimer and understand. Just to give you some background information - the full timetable each week is ~500Mb, and daily updates to it can be anything between 1 and 100 megabytes. That is an awful lot of change, but when you consider that if a schedule has a single alteration, the whole schedule will be amended, it's not surprising.

If anyone has suggestions as to how I can help reduce the perceived/feared load on tour operators, please drop me an email directly... if you don't tell me, I can't do anything about it!


Peter
opentraintimes.com

 

Hi Peter,

Welcome to the forum - and thanks for posting.

I think the website is a really useful resource, as long as users understand its limitations. The website obviously isn't updated in "real time", only once a day and a day is a long time in railway operations.

Richard

 

It will improve soon. I'm hoping to get a VSTP feed in place in the next week or so, but that will only be for trains planned via VSTP... and after that, real-time movement information in a couple of months once I scale up what I already have.

 

And this is the problem with a single source of information being used by 3 disparate bodies.

To the tour organisers and stock providers it is a tool to reserve a path and resources so that any operating changes (e.g. weather conditions) can be quickly identified and alternative arrangements put in hand so that the proposed working goes ahead as near as possible to the original requirement.

To the travellers it is used to confirm details so that any accommodation / connecting trains / supporting travel arrangements can be made with a degree of certainty that reduces the possibility of lost deposits and wasted days off - especially when working life makes such arrangements difficult to arrange or change at short notice.

To the linesiding / photography fraternity who simply want to be in the right place at the right time for the master shot but knowing this depends on relating times to locations especially where the sun is lower in the sky at this time of the year.

Whilst I feel that some posters show less respect than others all need to appreciate that TRUST, TOPS and other computer systems are only TOOLS - and only as good as the source data input. I - among many - appreciate that James has better things to do than monitor forums and are consequently grateful for his few but valued postings which give us a picture of the problems he faces trying to operate the WCRC programme - and unnecessary phone calls are not helpful in solving them.

Can posters simply accept that anything on computers should be taken as a guide - and not "the word of the Lord" and use their own knowledge to work out details for themselves. In cases of trains over Shap or the S&C we all know that you can only get a small number of locations if chasing trains and the available opportunitities will depend on your start point. Thus find your start point - wait until the train arrives - take your photographs then carry on to your next location.
In many cases someone near to you will be in contact with someonbe on the train - or at another location - and this real-time data is better than computer data.

Sadly I fear we are now in a generation where many let the computer provide the data and forget the initial source of knowledge - our selves.

 

Well said, Fred.

 

Peter, I am going to send you a private email with further details that are not for public disclosure, but there are a lot of problems already arising from this amount of proprietary information being publically available.

Regards.

 

Ben, what do you mean by this phrase please?

 

...not in the public domain. Not for public disclosure.

I'm not going to get drawn into a public debate about this. I just want folks to know that I have some serious concerns about this site.

 

looks like railtour times are now being omited just checked 2 in March/April that were on open train times and have now disappeared including the Red Rose 21st April

Neil

 

Having had a quick look it appears that West Coast operations have been removed with none of their tours shown, while DBS charters are still there. Does that mean West Coast have objected to the timings being on the site (yet they are still on uksteam!?). I see no reason why this should be the case once timings have been finalised and released by the tour operator, although the timings on there for the Red Rose were still "in development" I guess so I can understand why tour companies would not want those being public knowledge until they send out their tickets with the final schedule. Once timings are released though, why should the detailed times not be available on Open train times?

Looks to be the beginning of the end for what was a good idea and took a lot of effort to set up.

 

Actually RE my previous post: From earlier discussions in this thread and that for the CME, possibly one reason is that the site gives an indication of whether a diesel will be on the back of a train? eg. You "know" there will be no diesel when a 5Zxx move is shown going into Paddington for example, and then there is a 1Zxx move to the tour destination and then an 0Zxx move to Southall from the same platform. Possibly operators are concerned that if it appears the diesel will be on the rear of the train for the whole tour it will affect their bookings, while at the same time passengers will complain if the diesel is left on while Opentraintimes showed it as being detached at the stops.

 

Ok, possible senior moment time.
When someone posts a link to info from this site I can read it, but when I try to search the OTT site I get told that I need to download a programme (MIME) to be able to open it.
Should I neeed to do this, or am I just missing something simple ??
Thanks in advance
(ps I'm on Windows XP)

 

I hate to rain down with reality, but didn't a recent survey show that the majority of the users on here didn't really care if the diesel is left on the back, if it resulted in an on-time train?

I could be completely wrong here (I usually am) but looking at the demographic of our passengers, I can’t imagine more than a few are going to sit and analyze the OTT website for any LE Diesel moves that may or may not be associated with a specific tour.

Wasn’t OTT a Chris Tarent show that aired on late-night TV in the 80’s? An adult Tizwas if I remember correctly….

 

Then why are you whinging about this sort of data being available then?

 

Who's whinging?

 

Erm, you?

 

I was making a statement and I stick by it. I had some serious concerns about some of the data that was being displayed on the OTT site.

I couldn’t care less if someone started a site that entitled “VT trains with 47773 on the back” – I would be one of the first to provide updates!

My concerns were discussed with Peter (OTT) like adults and a resolution was found. End of story.

I didn’t think I was whining – I apologise to all who took it that way!