Terminating Services

[Gary Lee]

Hi, I am developing a system in c# and Winforms to display the location of trains similar to TRAKSY.UK and OPENTRAINTIMES. This is purely for fun (ok i'm sad).

When a train terminates, e.g 2B60 at Huddersfield, it becomes a new service. In this case 2B25 to Sheffield. How to I find out what the new service is going to be?

Thanks

Gary

[Gaelan Steele]

If you’re looking at a CIF-format timetable, these are the “associations”. Here’s the relevant line:

AANY39274C904792212122305191111100NPSHDRSFLD TO P

Breaking this down:
AAN: new association
Y39274: UID of the first train (2B60, the 1535 from Sheffield)
C90479: UID of the second train (2B25, the 1712 from Huddersfield)
221212: start date (Dec 12, 2022)
230519: end date (May 19, 2023)
1111100: weekdays this association is valid on (M-F, not weekends)
NP: type of association - NP presumably stands for “next/previous", there’s also JJ and VV for trains joining/dividing
S: date indicator (used to handle the edge case of associations with over-midnight services)
HDRSFLD: the place where the association happens (here, Huddersfield)
two spaces: not entirely sure what these are for, the docs call them “location suffixes” but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them used
T: “diagram type”, apparently always T
O: operating use only (can also be “P” for associations that are documented for passenger use - I believe these are always of type JJ or VV)
many spaces: reserved for future expansion
P: STP indicator, as with standard CIF entries

If you’re looking at the JSON timetable provided by Network Rail, there should be something similar, albeit in a pre-parsed format. Not sure if there’s any way to get association data from Darwin and the like.

Best wishes,
Gaelan

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[Evelyn Snow]

Hi Gary

Nowt wrong with recreational rail data!

The schedule contains associations, which link two services together at a
particular common location within their schedules; "NP" associations indicate
that a train forming the "main" service is intended to next run the
"associated" service.

https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php?title=Association_Records

Evelyn

2023-04-27T12:29:05-0700 Gary Lee <tigge...@gmail.com>:

[Peter Hicks]

Note: associations are only provided for areas with automatic code insertion (ACI) and similar systems.

Associations are inferred in another system called POINTA, available through LINX which isn't generally available yet, but probably will soon through the Rail Data Marketplace.

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openraildata-talk/088505D2-EC93-4668-91EE-3ABFBBB2D0D9%40canishe.com.

[Evelyn Snow]

Much more descriptive than my explanation!

Darwin does include NP associations, and can indicate cancellation/deletion of
these in real time, though I'm not sure whether the extra complexity would be
worthwhile if the goal is tracking all trains and not just passenger trains

Evelyn

2023-04-27T22:07:16+0100 Gaelan Steele <g...@canishe.com>:

[Gary Lee]

Thanks for that Gaelen. Very helpful.

Is there any way to get the Train UID without looking up the schedule in the CIF?

Thanks

Gary

[Gaelan Steele]

That depends - where are you getting the rest of your timetable data from?

Best wishes,

Gaelan

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openraildata-talk/01705dfb-13cf-47f5-93e9-80a21cd673b3n%40googlegroups.com.

[Stuart Gordon]

 POINTA has its problems, as does WACI or TAP, but has anyone had a go at producing one? Be interesting to see if it's possible to infer, detect or predict associations on the planned or realtime timetable?

[Peter Hicks (Poggs)]

> On 30 Apr 2023, at 12:03, Stuart Gordon <stuartg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> POINTA has its problems, as does WACI or TAP, but has anyone had a go at producing one? Be interesting to see if it's possible to infer, detect or predict associations on the planned or realtime timetable?

That’s what POINTA does - infer associations from the working timetable, and it has a lot of business rules and configuration for various locations to do that.

The only way I see you could improve it would be to get rolling stock diagram data from TOCs to correct any associations that POINTA (or another system) couldn’t infer, but those would be fairly low in number.


Peter

[Guido Eco]

POINTA is only required where TOCs have not provided associations as part of the the timetable process.

The only way I see you could improve this would be to get TOCs to provide correct associations as part of the LTP and STP timetable planning process.

G

[Deek]

Hi Peter,

Would you know if POINTA is available yet via rail data marketplace, if it is, is it only via LINX? I know this is a fairly old post, so I am hoping sufficient time has elapsed? 

Many thanks in advance. 

Derek. 

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[Peter Hicks]

Hi Derek

On Thursday, 30 July 2026 at 16:31, Deek <derek....@gmail.com> wrote:

Would you know if POINTA is available yet via rail data marketplace, if it is, is it only via LINX? I know this is a fairly old post, so I am hoping sufficient time has elapsed?

It isn't available yet, but I have a feeling it might be available in the coming months.

Peter

[Deek]

Peter, 

many thanks. 

Derek