Winter timetable change - GB vs continental Europe

[Mizter T]

In Britain, the new winter timetable takes effect on Sunday 8 December,
as per:
<http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/3828.aspx>

Meanwhile on continental Europe it kicks in a week later on Sunday 15
December, so says Mr Seat 61:
<http://www.seat61.com/news.htm>

I thought we in GB were following the pan-European timetable change
dates / periods these days?

[iMark]

Post by Mizter T
In Britain, the new winter timetable takes effect on Sunday 8 December,
<http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/3828.aspx>
Meanwhile on continental Europe it kicks in a week later on Sunday 15
<http://www.seat61.com/news.htm>
I thought we in GB were following the pan-European timetable change
dates / periods these days?

I don't know who ever came up with the idea to have timetable changes
mid december. All I know is that it causes a lot of annoying chaos for
people that want to book journeys in advance for the Christmas holidays.
A much better date would be the last weekend in September, around three
months before Christmas.

[Arthur Figgis]

Post by iMark

Post by Mizter T
In Britain, the new winter timetable takes effect on Sunday 8 December,
<http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/3828.aspx>
Meanwhile on continental Europe it kicks in a week later on Sunday 15
<http://www.seat61.com/news.htm>
I thought we in GB were following the pan-European timetable change
dates / periods these days?

I don't know who ever came up with the idea to have timetable changes
mid december. All I know is that it causes a lot of annoying chaos for
people that want to book journeys in advance for the Christmas holidays.
A much better date would be the last weekend in September, around three
months before Christmas.

Did anything come of this?:

<quote>
Staff representatives at Deutsche Bahn's passenger business have
proposed to the DB AG board that the date of Europe's annual timetable
change should revert to the end of October, arguing that the decision in
2002 to move the annual revision to the second weekend in December has
not been successful.

One of the major criticisms of the current arrangement is that having
the timetable change so close to the Christmas and New Year holiday
period makes it difficult for passengers to book advance tickets and
reservations on the internet more than six weeks ahead. The staff
representatives are also concerned that drivers and train crew have
little warning of when they will be expected to work over the holiday
period.
</quote>

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/policy/single-view/view/december-timetable-change-date-questioned.html

[Mizter T]

Post by Arthur Figgis

Post by iMark

Post by Mizter T
In Britain, the new winter timetable takes effect on Sunday 8 December,
<http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/3828.aspx>
Meanwhile on continental Europe it kicks in a week later on Sunday 15
<http://www.seat61.com/news.htm>
I thought we in GB were following the pan-European timetable change
dates / periods these days?

I don't know who ever came up with the idea to have timetable changes
mid december. All I know is that it causes a lot of annoying chaos for
people that want to book journeys in advance for the Christmas holidays.
A much better date would be the last weekend in September, around three
months before Christmas.

<quote>
Staff representatives at Deutsche Bahn's passenger business have
proposed to the DB AG board that the date of Europe's annual timetable
change should revert to the end of October, arguing that the decision in
2002 to move the annual revision to the second weekend in December has
not been successful.
One of the major criticisms of the current arrangement is that having
the timetable change so close to the Christmas and New Year holiday
period makes it difficult for passengers to book advance tickets and
reservations on the internet more than six weeks ahead. The staff
representatives are also concerned that drivers and train crew have
little warning of when they will be expected to work over the holiday
period.
</quote>
<http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/policy/single-view/view/december-timetable-change-date-questioned.html>

I rather hope something does come of it - I've been frustrated by the
inability to book rail travel for the festive period a number of times,
though now I know to look at the Seat 61 website for at least Mr Smith
publicises when tickets are likely to be released, and furthermore
updates on which operators and routes are running late to the (already
tardy) schedule.

Meanwhile, BA, easyjet, Ryanair et al will all quite happily sell you
tickets for travel over the Christmas season in the middle of the summer.

[David Jackman]

Post by Mizter T
Meanwhile, BA, easyjet, Ryanair et al will all quite happily sell you
tickets for travel over the Christmas season in the middle of the summer.

This year I booked a flight for Christmas way back in January,

I'm currently on my third change of reservation ...

(The first change was to return a couple of hours earlier because of the
cancellation of last flight back; the others have been timing changes of a
few minutes either way).

David

[Roland Perry]

I've been frustrated by the inability to book rail travel for the
festive period a number of times, though now I know to look at the Seat
61 website for at least Mr Smith publicises when tickets are likely to
be released, and furthermore updates on which operators and routes are
running late to the (already tardy) schedule.
Meanwhile, BA, easyjet, Ryanair et al will all quite happily sell you
tickets for travel over the Christmas season in the middle of the summer.

That's because they know that the airports they use will always be
available (modulo extreme weather, which they have procedures for).
Maintenance is not allowed to interrupt the schedule, unlike the
railways.

[Clank]

Post by Roland Perry

I've been frustrated by the inability to book rail travel for the

festive period a number of times, though now I know to look at the Seat

61 website for at least Mr Smith publicises when tickets are likely to

be released, and furthermore updates on which operators and routes
are >running late to the (already tardy) schedule.

Meanwhile, BA, easyjet, Ryanair et al will all quite happily sell you

tickets for travel over the Christmas season in the middle of the >summer.

That's because they know that the airports they use will always be
available (modulo extreme weather, which they have procedures for).
Maintenance is not allowed to interrupt the schedule, unlike the railways.

It's also because basically it's not true; airline timetables are 'subject
to change' in a way that railway timetables are not, with services
appearing or disappearing at the whim of the airlines (or the whim of
whoever they've flogged their slots to - I'm looking at you, FlyMaybe.)


It's easy to sell tickets a year in advance for a service if your
commitment to running it is "we kind of hope so, as long as it's still
convenient for us at the time."

[Theo Markettos]

Post by Clank
It's also because basically it's not true; airline timetables are 'subject
to change' in a way that railway timetables are not, with services
appearing or disappearing at the whim of the airlines (or the whim of
whoever they've flogged their slots to - I'm looking at you, FlyMaybe.)

That isn't a bad idea... on popular routes, sell advance tickets on the
'somewhere between 10am and noon' for September 2014. Exact times will
follow later, and you have the option to refund your ticket if the times are
more than XX minutes from the time you specified. At least you can book the
whole holiday now, rather than playing pot-luck that you'll bag an advance
fare 9 months after booking your air ticket.

Post by Clank
It's easy to sell tickets a year in advance for a service if your
commitment to running it is "we kind of hope so, as long as it's still
convenient for us at the time."

At least in UK/DE/etc there probably will be a train within an hour or two,
it just won't know the exact time so far ahead. It's not as if a
destination will stop being served completely.

On the timetables question, I never understood the June/December dates.
Most countries have some kind of seasonal flows, for example more tourists
using trains in the summer or more business travellers in the winter. The
exact meaning of 'summer' varies between countries (May-Sep for
package-tour-land, August for France, midsummer for Sweden) but it seems
like June-December suits none of them.

Theo

[Rink]

"Theo Markettos" schreef ...

Post by Theo Markettos
On the timetables question, I never understood the June/December dates.
Most countries have some kind of seasonal flows, for example more tourists
using trains in the summer or more business travellers in the winter. The
exact meaning of 'summer' varies between countries (May-Sep for
package-tour-land, August for France, midsummer for Sweden) but it seems
like June-December suits none of them.
Theo

I think it's more logical to change the timetables with the dates
summertime -> wintertime (last weekend in october) and
wintertime -> summertime (last weekend in march).

Rink

[Roland Perry]

In message
<1561293292401314291.729264clank75-***@reader443.eternal-septe
mber.org>, at 20:16:09 on Thu, 19 Sep 2013, Clank

airline timetables are 'subject to change' in a way that railway
timetables are not, with services appearing or disappearing at the whim
of the airlines

It's very unusual for whole airline routes to disappear after they've
taken bookings, there's generally 'managed decline' - most recently with
BMIbaby. But I agree that individual flights can sometimes get changed,
especially the 'connecting' flights from smaller US airports to their
hubs which can move by ten minutes in way or the other with surprising
regularity. (In the UK, if you know a train is going to be ten minutes
late, you just run it ten minutes late).

Despite a lot of airline travel I've not experienced any rescheduling of
European bookings though, just a couple of flights cancelled at the last
minute, both of which I suspected was because of low bookings (aka
"operational reasons") [And both Amsterdam KLM flights].

[Neil Williams]

Post by Roland Perry
Despite a lot of airline travel I've not experienced any rescheduling of
European bookings though, just a couple of flights cancelled at the last
minute, both of which I suspected was because of low bookings (aka
"operational reasons") [And both Amsterdam KLM flights].

I've had a booking shift by 5 minutes on EZY, the upshot of which was to
mark the whole booking (10 single legs) disrupted, usefully allowing me to
refund a few I didn't want. I think they fixed that bug now...

Neil

[Roland Perry]

In message
<901046540401356171.457536wensleydale-***@news.individual.
net>, at 07:51:44 on Fri, 20 Sep 2013, Neil Williams

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Roland Perry
Despite a lot of airline travel I've not experienced any rescheduling of
European bookings though, just a couple of flights cancelled at the last
minute, both of which I suspected was because of low bookings (aka
"operational reasons") [And both Amsterdam KLM flights].

I've had a booking shift by 5 minutes on EZY, the upshot of which was to
mark the whole booking (10 single legs) disrupted, usefully allowing me to
refund a few I didn't want. I think they fixed that bug now...

I've had low-cost flights where their "working timetable" has clearly
been shifted forward by 5-10 minutes, because they were in a bigger
hurry than usual to board and push back early. The public timetable
stays the same.

[Neil Williams]

Post by Roland Perry
I've had low-cost flights where their "working timetable" has clearly
been shifted forward by 5-10 minutes, because they were in a bigger hurry
than usual to board and push back early. The public timetable stays the same.

Often to avoid the effects of strong headwinds (not a problem that can hit
the railway in the same way) making them an hour late by the end of the
day.

Neil

[Sam Wilson]

Post by Roland Perry
Despite a lot of airline travel I've not experienced any rescheduling of
European bookings though, just a couple of flights cancelled at the last
minute, both of which I suspected was because of low bookings (aka
"operational reasons") [And both Amsterdam KLM flights].

I have, and I think I've mentioned this before. easyJet
Edinburgh-Stansted, 5-hour layover, Ryanair Stansted-Trieste. Ryanair
brought their flight forward by, I think, 3.5 hours. The fact that the
eJ flight was an hour late leaving Edinburgh caused some concern, but
then the incoming Ryanair was 40+ minutes late.

Sam

[Arthur Figgis]

Post by Mizter T
Meanwhile, BA, easyjet, Ryanair et al will all quite happily sell you
tickets for travel over the Christmas season in the middle of the summer.

But will Ryanair sell you tickets for travel over the Christmas which is
in December...

[Roland Perry]

In message <***@brightview.co.uk>, at
18:40:22 on Fri, 20 Sep 2013, Arthur Figgis

Post by Arthur Figgis

Post by Mizter T
Meanwhile, BA, easyjet, Ryanair et al will all quite happily sell you
tickets for travel over the Christmas season in the middle of the summer.

But will Ryanair sell you tickets for travel over the Christmas which
is in December...

Christmas is in the middle of the Summer in the Southern Hemisphere, but
Ryanair doesn't have any long haul flights.

[tim......]

Post by Roland Perry

Post by Arthur Figgis

Post by Mizter T
Meanwhile, BA, easyjet, Ryanair et al will all quite happily sell you
tickets for travel over the Christmas season in the middle of the summer.

But will Ryanair sell you tickets for travel over the Christmas which is
in December...

Christmas is in the middle of the Summer in the Southern Hemisphere, but
Ryanair doesn't have any long haul flights.

Yet!

tim

[Roland Perry]

Post by Roland Perry
Ryanair doesn't have any long haul flights.

In 2007 they said they'd have transatlantic flights in four years, last
week they said "by 2017", which co-incidentally is also 4 years away...

[Jeremy Double]

Post by Roland Perry

Post by Roland Perry
Ryanair doesn't have any long haul flights.

In 2007 they said they'd have transatlantic flights in four years, last
week they said "by 2017", which co-incidentally is also 4 years away...

They've previously made at least one unsuccessful attempt to get control of
Aer Lingus, which operates transatlantic flights...

[David D S]

Post by Arthur Figgis

Post by Mizter T
Meanwhile, BA, easyjet, Ryanair et al will all quite
happily sell you tickets for travel over the Christmas
season in the middle of the summer.

But will Ryanair sell you tickets for travel over the
Christmas which is in December...

Given what we see in shops, aren't these all merging into
an almost perpetual Christmas?

[Theo Markettos]

Post by David D S
Given what we see in shops, aren't these all merging into
an almost perpetual Christmas?

Always Christmas but never winter, to misquote CS Lewis?

Theo