How many coaches will my train have, and how full is it?

Justin Clarke-Salt

Knowing whether you’re waiting for a four-coach or a nine-coach train changes where you stand on the platform, so the app tries to tell you - but only when it can do so honestly.

The coach count

When the operator publishes the length of a train, the app shows it on the train’s row and in its details. Many operators do, and for those trains nothing has changed.

Some operators don’t publish it for all of their trains. In particular, GWR doesn’t seem to report length for the great majority of its services, and Avanti West Coast for all of them.

Booked train length (version 1.10.1)

For four operators the app now falls back to the length the train is booked to be in the timetable:

  • GWR
  • East Midlands Railway
  • Avanti West Coast
  • Greater Anglia

This appears in the train details sheet as a grey row reading either “Formation planned for today: 5 coaches”, when the operator has published that day’s plan, or “Scheduled formation: 9 coaches (May 2026 timetable)”, when only the base timetable is available.

A few things to know about it:

  • Live data always wins. If the operator does report a length for a particular train, that’s what you see, and the booked figure is never shown alongside it.
  • It’s in the details sheet only. Matching a live train to its timetable entry needs the time it left its first station, and only the details lookup provides that. The main board, widgets, watch and Live Activity can’t show it.
  • No guesses. If the app can’t match a train confidently, it shows nothing rather than a number that might belong to a different train.
  • Only those four operators. Others either publish their lengths live already, or don’t provide the timetable data needed.
  • Timetables change. The bundled data covers the current timetable period, up to the December 2026 timetable change, and is refreshed with app updates. If it goes stale, the row disappears rather than showing the wrong figure.

How full each coach is

Where the operator publishes it, the train details show a small bar and a percentage on each coach in the formation diagram, so you can head for the emptier end. At the moment only Southeastern and the Elizabeth line publish this. Some of them only report it for the train that’s actually at the platform, so if your train hasn’t reported yet the app shows how full each coach was when it left its last stop, and says so underneath.