I work for Network Rail in Britain in an office producing the time table. We will produce a working time table that sets down the times for every passenger and ECS working and some light engine moves. Freight trains are often put into suplements as thier running can fluctuate between production of the time table and it coming into effect. For the Scottish zone the Working Time Table is 2 A4 size books about 300 ish pages each, then there is the sectional appendics with sectional speed limits signaling systems, length of passing loops and milages. Again a very thick book. I read once on the Trains web site that the WTT for an American railroad does not lay down the times that trains should run. Well what is in an American WTT and if they dont contain the times of regular trains where are these times laid down?
We’re not ignoring you. I don’t really understand the question, but I think the short answer is we don’t have what you describe.
I am about to offer a very lame answer…
I suspect that freight trains in the USA relies on availible crew hours.
Amtrack (Similar to your old Intercity) in the NEC runs on a schedule as some long haul trains do.
We generaly don’t run freight trains on any real schedual. Amtrak and commuter trains do and they publish scheduals. Freight may have set times that they operate like local x has a start time of y, but these are not public information (at least not provided to the public by the RRs). Time sensitive stuff will have a cut-off time for getting out on the road, like UPS, but again the RRs don’t make this info available to the general public in timetables.
It boils down to a difference in methods of operation. In the UK, train operations are based on a very detailed operating (working) timetable as described above with just about everything on a schedule, including freights. In North America, the operating timetables show number of tracks, location and length of sidings, allowable speeds, etc. Passenger train times are shown in areas where they operate but freight trains do not operate on a fixed schedule. The dispatcher arranges for operation of unscheduled (extra) trains through use of train orders in the past and currently through use of track warrants or Centralized Traffic Control.
Perhaps the dispatchers in our midst can fill us in on this and correct my probable errors.
Thanks for a bit more info on the topic, but i still find it a bit difficult to grasp how a vast railroad can be run without a time table in the British sense. Horses for courses though, there is no doubt that the way an American railway is run is vastly different to our side of the pond.
Here in the states we call it an Employee Time Table. In times past they did show scheduled trains, passengers, through freights and locals, all other movements not found were run as extras. With the railroads I’m somewhat familiar with, Southern Pacific and now Union Pacific, the practiced of scheduling through freights and locals per ETT ended sometime during the 1960s I think. After that only passenger trains were listed in ETTs, all other trains, both freights and local ran as extras under Forum 19 authority, train orders. There are experts on this subject, hopefully one of them will jumb in with more complete information.
As an example of what is in an ETT today, I’ll use Union Pacific Railroad’s Roseville Area ETT No 2, dated Sunday, August 15, 1999. Within this ETT on the first page is an index to Subdivisions and Industrial leads. The pages include an index of all stations in the Roseville area. Then comes the meat, a page or pages on each subdivision. At the end is a system map, next a Continental Time Conversion Cart along with a Table of Train Speeds.
Each Subdivision section has a table listing mile post, Rule 6.3, Control Points, Station Names, Station numbers and last Siding length. Also at the top of this chart is the Radio Channel used.
Next is section S1-01 which list the limits for Main Track Authority. Followed by section S1-02 which is a Maximum Speed Table by mile post. Then comes section S1-03 which is titled "Other Speed Restrictions, next section S1-04 titled “Main Track Designations”
S1-05 is set aside for Milepost Equations; S1-06 is titled "DTC Block Limits; fo
A lot of trains are just “run as they come,” meaning that the dispatcher will know a train’s location and set crew-change/call times, as well as the estimated departure time, but it will not have an exact time for departure on any given day.
I think it’s due to the great distances involved in trains vs. Britain. A train coming from 1000 miles away is going to have a lot of possible delays, so a scheduled run for a late train would make all other trains wait for it, also making them late. It’s much simpler to just let a train run from a certain point to another point, rather than counting on it being on time.