NIMBY Timetable

A set of tooling for converting real-world timetables to timings for NIMBY Rails.

The output is designed for NIMBY's "Fixed Departure" mode, where all times are relative to the departure time from the first stop. The departure time from the first stop is set to 00:01:00. If you desire a different first stop departure time (to have a train arrive in the platform earlier without a separate order that gets it there), you can input the times from this tool, then input the new time for the first stop and use Shift-Enter / Shift-click apply to modify all other timings to match.

Realtime Trains (RTT) Parser

This will read a set of train timings from a page on realtimetrains.co.uk. Note that the URL must be the train, not a station.

RTT URL: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:Y03156/2025-06-16/detailed

2A90 14:36 MAN - CRE
Manchester Piccadilly [MAN]              9   00:01:00       SL
Mauldeth Road [MAU]                          00:08:00
Burnage [BNA]                                00:10:00
East Didsbury [EDY]                          00:12:00
Gatley [GTY]                                 00:14:30
Heald Green [HDG]                        2   00:17:30            <½>
Manchester Airport [MIA]                 2A  00:26:00
Styal [SYA]                                  00:30:30
Wilmslow [WML]                           2   00:41:30
Alderley Edge [ALD]                      2   00:45:00
Holmes Chapel [HCH]                          00:53:00
Sandbach [SDB]                           1   00:57:30       FL   [1]
 Crewe Signal Ce154                           01/02/00           (1)
Crewe [CRE]                              1

London Underground (LUL) Parser

This will take a set of copy-pasted times for a train from the London Underground working timetable PDFs: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/working-timetables

The parser will deal with the data being presented with some unusual line breaks when copy-pasted (particularly for fractional minute timings).

When copying times, the stations aren't known (as they are on the far left of the page), so stations are simply denoted S01, S02, ... in sequence.

Input timetable:
1 9 55
1 9 59
20 031
2
20 051
2
20 091
2
20 131
2
20b221
2
22

LUL 19:55
S01                                          00:01:00
S02                                          00:05:00
S03                                          00:09:30
S04                                          00:11:30
S05                                          00:15:30
S06                                          00:19:30
S07

Internal details

There are four key internal data structures:

• Timetable
• Location
• NimbyTimetable
• NimbyLocation

The non-NIMBY structures contain real world clockface timings - so a train departing its first stop at 16:00:00 is stored as that. The NIMBY structures contain relative timings, setting the departure time from the first stop as 00:01:00.

Terminology in the data structures derives from the data structures used in the UK's national network timetable system.

Timetable

A Timetable is a list of locations a train visits in sequence. It contains:

• locations: list[Location]: containing an ordered sequence of locations the train visits.
• td: str: a free text field containing an identifier for the train.

A Timetable can be converted to NimbyTimetable by calling timetable.to_nimby_timetable().

Location

A Location describes a station or passing point that a train visits. It contains:

• name: str: The name of the location.
• arrival_time: datetime | None: The time the train arrives at the location. This field is not used.
• departure_time: datetime | None: The time a train departs or passes a location.
• platform: str | None: The platform the train calls at. Cosmetic.
• is_pass: bool: Whether the train stops at (False) or passes (True) the location. Affects the formatting of the times in the timetable display.
• path: str | None: The track the train arrives on.
• line: str | None: The track the train departs on.
• path_allowance: str | None: The extra time allowed between this location and the next one due to timetabled conflicting moves.
• eng_allowance: str | None: The extra time allowed between this location and the next one to account for potential engineering work or temporary speed restrictions.
• perf_allowance: str | None: The extra time allowed between this location and the next one to account for day-to-day late running.

Note that the allowance fields are free text fields, so they can display the raw allowance values from the data source, e.g. 1 or 2½.

NimbyTimetable

A NimbyTimetable is a list of locations a train visits in sequence like a Timetable, but in relative times. It contains:

• locations: list[NimbyLocation]: containing an ordered sequence of locations the train visits.

A NimbyTimetable can be created from a Timetable by calling timetable.to_nimby_timetable(). When this is done, the locations are transformed as follows:

• The first Location is transformed to a NimbyLocation with a relative departure time of initial_minutes_offset minutes, defaulting to 1 minute
• For each subsequent Location, transform it to a NimbyLocation:
  • If the Location has is_pass set:
    • If none of path, line, or the three allowance fields are set:
      • Skip the Location
  • If the Location has a departure_time:
    • Compute the time difference between the first Location's departure time and the current Location's departure time, add initial_minutes_offset, and set that as the NimbyLocation's departure time

Locations that have is_pass set but one of the path, line, or allowance fields set are included in the NimbyTimetable to help the user see important routing or timing information.

NimbyLocation

A NimbyLocation describes a station or passing point that a train visits like a Location, using relative times. It contains:

• name: str: The name of the location.
• departure: timedelta | None: The relative time a train departs or passes a location.
• platform: str | None: The platform the train calls at. Cosmetic.
• is_pass: bool: Whether the train stops at (False) or passes (True) the location. Affects the formatting of the times in the timetable display.
• path: str | None: The track the train arrives on.
• line: str | None: The track the train departs on.
• path_allowance: str | None: The extra time allowed between this location and the next one due to timetabled conflicting moves.
• eng_allowance: str | None: The extra time allowed between this location and the next one to account for potential engineering work or temporary speed restrictions.
• perf_allowance: str | None: The extra time allowed between this location and the next one to account for day-to-day late running.

When str(nimby_location) is called, a formatted output is generated for display. The formatting is:

• name, padded to 40 characters
• platform, padded to 3 characters, if set
• departure, formatted as below
• path, padded to 3 characters, if set
• line, padded to 3 characters, if set
• eng_allowance, path_allowance, and perf_allowance, formatted as below

The time is formatted as follows:

• If is_pass is False, the separator is :
• Otherwise, the separator is / and the time is indented by a space
• The time is then formatted as hh:mm:ss or hh/mm/ss

The allowances are formatted as follows:

• If eng_allowance is set, it is formatted like [1]
• If path_allowance is set, it is formatted as (1)
• If perf_allowance is set, it is formatted as <1>
• The values are displayed in the order given above