Platform Lengths

[Chris]

Is there a complete source of platform lengths available, which I'm missing at the moment?

I've downloaded the Train Planning Reference Data (PIF), but the vast majority of platform lengths are unspecified here. They're all available in the Sections Appendices - but that's not the easiest format to work with! I imagine NESA would be more complete - but that doesn't seem to be open data, yet. Have I missed something here, or are the sectional appendices my only option?

[Peter Hicks]

Hi Chris

The Sectional Appendix lists platform lengths and that's your best source.  If it's not "Open Data" and that's an issue for you, your best bet might be to email Network Rail and ask them to either release the Sectional Appendix under a suitably open licence, or ask them to supply a set of platform lengths data under FoI.

Or, did you mean "it's not Open Data" because it's not in an easy-to-reuse electronic format? (PDFs being hard to reuse)

Peter

On Wed, 16 Sep 2015 at 21:15 Chris <chris.t...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there a complete source of platform lengths available, which I'm missing at the moment?

I've downloaded the Train Planning Reference Data (PIF), but the vast majority of platform lengths are unspecified here. They're all available in the Sections Appendices - but that's not the easiest format to work with! I imagine NESA would be more complete - but that doesn't seem to be open data, yet. Have I missed something here, or are the sectional appendices my only option?

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[chris.t...@gmail.com]

Hi Peter,

Thanks. I understood from a couple of pages that the (pdf) sectional appendix files were generated from a system called NESA - which may store the information in more accessible formats - but NESA is not yet publicly accessible. Perhaps I've misunderstood something, but that's by the by.

I have an email of another reply which doesn't seem to have appeared here, which suggested the timetable planning rules. These have the data in a much more accessible format, which I can hopefully work with. Link: http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/3741.aspx

Thanks both for your help.

[Peter Hicks]

Hi Chris

On 17 Sep 2015, at 09:29, chris.t...@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks. I understood from a couple of pages that the (pdf) sectional appendix files were generated from a system called NESA - which may store the information in more accessible formats - but NESA is not yet publicly accessible. Perhaps I've misunderstood something, but that's by the by.

I have an email of another reply which doesn't seem to have appeared here, which suggested the timetable planning rules. These have the data in a much more accessible format, which I can hopefully work with. Link: http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/3741.aspx

NESA is the ‘live’ system which, as you say, isn’t accessible to the public.  I have access, and there’s not much in there that’s ‘private and not for publication’.

The Sectional Appendix snapshots, produced when the Periodical Operating Notice (PON) is published, have a table of platform lengths.  In the London North Eastern SA, they’re in a table like this:

You could probably convert the PDF in to a Word document and extract the table, or just copy and paste the data out in to an ‘open’ format.

Peter

[Chris Maddock]

Hi Peter,

That was my first port of call - but unfortunately that table doesn't seem to be included in all the appendices? e.g it doesn't seem to be in Western or Anglia - I haven't checked them all.

The Timetable Planning Rules seems to be a more standardised format however, which contains the information.

Cheers,
Chris

[petermount]

An alternative for those of us that don't use Windows, the pdftohtml utility does a reasonable job as well. Some things don't go right but it gets most done. I tend to find it's easier to extract the info from an html table, & it handles the graphics easier as well.

For example, I just run it against the Kent/Sussex PDF using the following - in an empty directory!

pdftohtml -c ~/Downloads/kent\ sussex\ wessex\ sectional\ appendix.pdf kent.html

I've put the output up at http://rail.area51.onl/kent/ so as long as you know which page number it's on it's pretty easy to extract the info.

NB: I'll leave that there for a while/until I need the space.

Peter

On Thursday, 17 September 2015 09:45:40 UTC+1, Peter Hicks wrote:

[Chris Maddock]

Great minds Peter! That was exactly my plan (as a windows user..).

Just to add, with things I've done before, I've used the -xml option, which I found easier to parse - and it gives you coordinates of the corner of each cell. 

I'll be trying both to see what works best here.

Cheers,

Chris

[Where-in-Sussex]

A note of caution if using platform lengths to derive number of coaches: whilst on paper it is correct, the TOCs have various safety/technical issues which means what's in the Sectional Appendix isn't necessarily what they will use: for example; Pevensey and Westham Platform 2 is a 6 car, but only 5 will open on a Southern train, because the other platform is a 5 car and "it might confuse the guards".  Pevensey Bay and Normans Bay were both listed as 4 car the last time I checked, but only 3 cars will open on a 377, because of the stopping mark in relation to the platform starting signal.  The platforms in the opposite direction are also 4 cars but only 3 open, presumably because of the reason given for Westham (I'm not entirely sure if that's correct, but it was a reasonably high up manager, responsible for station safety and compliance in the TOC who told me....).

As an aside, Pevensey and Westham P2 even has a beacon in the track, but still only 5 open.  The platform actually takes 6.5 coaches, and the ticket office is positioned such that an 8 car train always has people trying to get in coach 6, because it stops at the most popular boarding point.... but that's another (boring) story of my years as a signalman there!

[Chris Maddock]

Thank you - I'm aware the data will only be a starting point, but a starting point is better than nothing! The data would need to be manually annotated afterwards.