On Jul 17, 9:56*pm, wrote:
In article
,

(Andy) wrote:
No, because you can get less trains through the station per hour. If
trains take 3 mins (20 trains per hour) to pass though a piece of line
without stopping and you add 1 1/2 mins to that (4 1/2 mins total),
you will get less trains per hour though that section (13 1/3 trains
per hour). Signalling alterations will change the calculations, but if
the line is signalled for non-stop services then stopping will always
mean less paths available.

Fewer paths anyway. The paths will still be the same size.


Actually, fewer paths available, because the stopping trains will take
1 1/2 or 2 of the fast paths. The same is seen in the Channel Tunnel,
where the base path is timed for a shuttle trains, but the Eurostars
take 2 paths; when they enter the tunnel there is a spare slot ahead
of them, when they leave the tunnel the spare slot is now behind them.
Freight through the tunnel is the other way around when they enter the
tunnel there is a spare slot behind then, but their slower speed means
a gap appears ahead of them and the gap behind disappears by the time
they leave the tunnel.

A stopping train in a section signalled for fast traffic is similar to
the freight train in the tunnel, it will run close to the preceeding
train until it makes the stop, then it will run just in front of the
next service. Unless all the trains have the same stopping pattern of
course.

Flighting of trains regains some of the last capacity, running two
trains with similar characteristics one after the other means that you
only 'spend' one lost path for the pair of trains rather than two lost
paths if they run separately with a different service inbetween.