News

EVERY SECOND COUNTS FOR NORTHERN

24th October 2007

NORTHERN Rail has invested in new digital atomic watches for its 3,000 train and station employees to synchronise timekeeping across its network.

The watches are extremely accurate as they receive automatic updates via a radio transmitter from the UK’s new time signal at Anthorn in Cumbria. Northern Rail has chosen watches with digital readings rather than clockface settings, which are used by other train operators, because they show the time to the nearest second.

This is because seconds can be crucial to making sure that Northern Rail’s 2,500 daily trains - which make Northern Rail the biggest train operator in Britain - keep their time slots on an increasingly congested rail network.

The right time for a train is to leave at the very start of the minute, for example at 16:30:00, rather than 16:30:59.

Northern Rail has improved significantly the number of its trains arriving on time. Over the last 12 months an average of 88% of services have arrived on time, up from 83% when Northern started operating in December 2004.

The watches are updated automatically, which means that when people across Britain are changing their clocks this Sunday when British Summer Time ends, Northern Rail employees won’t have to make any changes.

Rob Warnes, Performance and Planning Director, Northern Rail, said: “Our employees were previously using their own watches which they updated by checking with the speaking clock. The new watches are a big advantage because they are updated automatically.

“A delay of just a few seconds at the start of a journey can mean that train is late arriving at its destination, and that can cause delays to other services. The new watches will mean everyone involved in running our trains is working to exactly the same time, which should help us improve our already good punctuality record.”