It would not leave early if there was a chance of leaving somebody behind.
That "D" is for #5 only, I believe.
Well, no, not exactly. Again, look at the timetable. It shows some kind of squiggly mark which shows Benson as being what is called a "flag stop". That is a time honoured railroad term which means a train stops only if somebody is getting on or off. But flag stops, too, are at a definate time, it has no relationship to leaving early. Benson is not nearly close enough to Los Angeles to be a" discharge only" stop.
I understand the "D" since the train is only discharging passengers. What about the few station stops that are designated with "L"? I've seen this mostly on the NE corridor. For example, #67 has an "L" stop at New Carollton at 6:45AM and all northbound Acela Express trains have an "L" at Providence, RI. The trains probably only leave a few minutes early, but it must be wise to not cut it too close to the scheduled departure time since those trains *do* pick up passengers, correct?
This is just a theory; with the recent time change and a newly built website, is it possible that if a train was actually running 15 minutes late that it could be calculated and displayed as being 45 minutes early? This is just a thought, but worse glitches have existed with computer systems.
As I understand it, at stops with an L (like PVD), the train can depart early - but not more than a short time before the time shown. (I think it is something like 5 minutes before.)
Train 8 does not receive passengers in Milwaukee or Glenview (nor does 7 discharge passengers at those stops).
Acela that I was on last week left PVD about 10 minutes early so perhaps it is 10 mins? Of course then it got stuck behind the MBTA train that was so heavy with AU Gathering participants that it was moving very slowly :lol:
I can understand the 'D-discharge only' and the 'R-receive only'......but what is the purpose of the 'L-may leave up to 5 minutes early if all station work is done'?
Does Metra go to MKE? Once we left a guy behind at MKE and he somehow beat us to Chicago. He had stepped off to smoke and didn't reboard. He caught another train and was on the platform to meet the rest of his party. I remember because they were freaking out a little bit that he'd been left behind. I can't recall though if #8 was delayed a bit at all.
Ok..yes, I see that in the timetable. Then, I have another question regarding "flag stops". As I understand them, if no one is planned on boarding and no one is planned on getting off the train at that stop; the train can go through the stop without actually stopping? So, it would just bypass Benson on that given day. But, what if someone buys a ticket say 20-30 min before the train gets there. You can buy on the website I assume at anytime and if I lived in a small town with flagstops, how is the conductor notified that someone bought a ticket 20 min ago to board at that stop? I might be standing at the station just to watch it go by. Given the poor time reporting of train status on the website, how can they expect to get an electonic message to that train from the website indicating a passenger is now awaitnig to board?
In the case of 67 in WAS, it's only a 10 minute run into Washington where many people are ending their journey - in that case it's an arrival 5 minutes early. It also gives the crew 5 more minutes to complete the swap from electric to P42 for the continued run south. Since there is frequent MARC and Metro service from NCR into the city, there's never anyone to board there (unless I'm making a points run, then I have to get on and quickly track down a crew member to lift my ticket before arrival). Every time they're amazed that I bought a ticket for NRC-WAS, so I have the feeling that there are very, very few boardings there.
