Some trains regularly late

Since 8 May I've been checking every train I intend to use, noting the ealiest it ever departs and the latest it ever arrives at its destination. This is particularly important when another service must be caught in order to continue the tour.

One of the sites I use is brtimes.com where I find the minimum time to change trains at each station. This varies from 2 minutes to 15 minutes and I can only assume this ignores any time needed to walk the length of the train. Train lengths vary enormously, from 1 to 11 coaches on my tour, and I allow half a minute to walk one coach.

Taking published change times and my calculated walking times together I must allow from 6 minutes to 24 minutes to change trains. Sadly the four fastest happen to be at four of my hotels, SHR, BIF, CNR and INV, so I'll never be changing trains there.

This leads me to a problem I discovered this week. Two of the services I'll use on 10 June run regularly so late that I've had to reschedule.  The STP to SHF, which includes the scenic bit near Bamford, is 7 minutes late making the connection unlikely to be achieved and the LDS to CAR, which includes the scenic bit near Settle, is up to 12 minutes late so totally misses my connection to LAN.

Below, from realtimetrains.co.uk , is how it ran on 28 May, only 7 minutes late but I would have missed my planned connection.

I've now booked my seat on a later train to LAN - with restaurant.

31 May

Today decided to add two more trains to my "most likely will be very late" list so I've booked a seat on a PLY to BRI train later than originally planned. 

The SWA to SHR train on the Heart of Wales line is also one I may have to take later than planned, but reservations are not really necessary on this service, even though it's only one coach.

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