Doncaster Yard — Period 2 2026-27 (26 April – 23 May) report
Doncaster Yard received 473 monitored inbound services in Period 2 2026-27 — 91% arrived within 15 minutes of schedule across 459 completed arrivals, against a national freight benchmark of 90%. The -5 percentage-point move on Period 1 2026-27 (96%) warrants monitoring; the Wilson intervals sit adjacent. PRELIMINARY at T+2; FINAL re-publication at T+35 after Network Rail's batch correction.
- Edition
- v1.0 (industry review edition)
- Last updated
- 28 May 2026
- Next update
- Period 3 2026-27 — late June 2026
Headline facts and figures
Services monitored
473
Across the six Doncaster Yard TIPLOCs (DONCBDY, DONCUDF, DONCUDY, DONCDDG, DONCDCE, DONCWDY); Period 2 2026-27 (26 Apr – 23 May 2026); NROD-derived arrivals data; baseline 438 services in Period 1 2026-27; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-28
Within 15 minutes
91%
418 of 459 completed services arriving within 15 minutes of schedule (Wilson 90% interval 89%–93% given the sample size); baseline 96% [94%–97%] over 395 completed services in Period 1 2026-27 — intervals adjacent; national freight benchmark 90% over 12,042 services in Period 2 2026-27; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-28
Cancellation rate
3%
14 cancellations across 473 scheduled paths; baseline 10% (43 of 438) in Period 1 2026-27 — a material improvement on the period; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-28
Busiest operator
GB Railfreight
161 of 459 completed arrivals (35%); aggregated by operator from TRUST toc_id; Period 2 2026-27; down from 36% share in Period 1 2026-27 — effectively flat; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-28
Context
ORR publishes aggregates only; this page publishes destination-attributed terminal-level data. Material to yard planning, terminal allocation, and inland-terminal performance reviews.
What you can do with it
- Track arrivals reliability at an inland terminal, attributed by destination TIPLOC.
- Compare operator-by-operator reliability on services inbound to a single terminal.
- Cite the methodology in terminal operations and corridor reviews.
Who can use it
Inland terminal operators · Yard planners · Rail journalists
Across Period 2 2026-27, roughly 1 inbound train a day arrived at Doncaster Yard more than 15 minutes late, about 1 in 12 of 372 completed arrivals over the 28-day period, 32 late arrivals in total. The Doncaster yard sidings complex — the Belmont Down Yard and associated sidings — is a separate site from Doncaster iPort at Rossington (operated by iPort Rail, about five miles south on the M18 branch) and from Doncaster Europort/Railport at Decoy (DONCRPF, operated by Freightliner, directly on the ECML south of the station); the three sites are distinct commercial counterparties on the East Coast Main Line and their figures are not combined here. Figures are drawn from Network Rail's NROD/TRUST feed. Cancellations are reported separately below.
Operators at Doncaster-Yard-inbound
DB Cargo UK ran the most doncaster-yard-inbound services in Period 2 2026-27 (141 of 372 completed arrivals). The full per-operator reliability comparison is deferred while the v1.0 industry review edition corrections inbox remains open.
Publishing a per-operator on-time comparison for the busiest freight operators at a single destination before the launch-cohort corrections cycle closes would treat provisional attribution as settled. The table returns at v2.0 general availability. The league-table methodology documents the comparison framework; the release cadence page sets out the four exit criteria for v2.0.
Source: Gauge Intelligence NROD-derived journey data, Period 2 2026-27. Single-destination headline figures (completed arrivals, aggregate within-15-minute rate, cancellations) continue to appear in the panels above; the per-operator breakdown is the panel deferred here.
What the 15-minute threshold hides
Half of Period 2 2026-27 services arrived early — the median was 2 min ahead of timetable. The long tail the A2F binary misses: 5% of services ran +23 min or more late, and 1% arrived over +89 min late. The 15-minute A2F threshold sits at the 92th percentile — 8% of services exceeded it.
Median arrival delay is essentially unchanged on Period 1 2026-27 (-2 min then, -2 min now).
| Percentile | Arrival delay |
|---|---|
| 50th percentile (median) — A2F threshold sits at the 92th percentile | -2 min |
| 75th percentile — A2F threshold sits at the 92th percentile | +0 min |
| 85th percentile — A2F threshold sits at the 92th percentile | +7 min |
| 90th percentile — A2F threshold sits at the 92th percentile | +12 min |
| 95th percentile | +23 min |
| 99th percentile | +89 min |
372 services with confirmed terminal arrival in Period 2 2026-27. A2F is binary at 15 minutes — this distribution surfaces what the headline figure does not show. National 99th percentile across all freight operators: 95 min.
Baseline (Period 1 2026-27): median -2 min, p99 +72 min. Period-on-period median shift +0 min.
ORR's Freight rail usage and performance release publishes by Network Rail region and route, not by operator. This page publishes by operator and corridor.
Cancellation rate
In Period 2 2026-27, 5% of scheduled services were cancelled (24 of 476) — above the national mean of 4%; FOC traction, crew, and terminal decisions accounted for the largest share.
Cancellations are down 5.50 percentage points on Period 1 2026-27 (11% then, 5% now). The largest shifts in the responsible-party split are reported in the table below.
| Scheduled or activated paths | 476 |
| Cancelled (post-activation + pre-activation) | 24 |
| Cancellation rate | 5% 4%–7% |
| National cancellation rate (all freight) | 4% |
Attribution
| Responsible party | Cancellations | Share of cancelled |
|---|---|---|
| Network Rail infrastructure and possessions | 5 | 21% |
| FOC traction, crew, and terminal decisions | 19 | 79% |
| Third party | 0 | 0% |
| Unattributed | 0 | 0% |
Cancellation rate in Period 1 2026-27 was 11% across 439 scheduled paths. The current period is down 5.50 percentage points on Period 1 2026-27.
Source: NROD/TRUST activation feed and BPLAN scheduled paths, Period 2 2026-27. Cancellation rate = (post-activation + pre-activation cancellations) ÷ scheduled or activated paths. Pre-activation cancellations are TRUST CANCEL messages on schedules that never activated; post-activation cancellations have an activation and a CANCEL event. The bracketed range beside the headline rate is the 90% confidence range on the cancellation proportion given the sample size. Cause attribution uses the responsible-party mapping of the recorded cancellation reason code; see delay-attribution methodology.
What this report doesn't yet carry
Three blocks routinely carried on more mature period reports remain absent, and the gap is disclosed rather than papered over:
- SPC process-behaviour chart. The terminal has nine weekly A2F points across Period 1 and Period 2 2026-27 combined. The signal rules require eight before a stability or anomaly claim can be made — the threshold is now met; the chart enters as a candidate from Period 3 2026-27 once the baseline survives one more period without composition change.
- Median-polish operator-by-week matrix. The operator mix across weekly cells is below the minimum-journeys threshold for a stable row-by-column decomposition at this baseline depth, so the matrix degenerates and no decomposition is published.
- Compositional delay-reason breakdown. Network Rail's Historic Delay Attribution feed for Period 2 2026-27 has not been imported at the as-of date of this report. Raw percentage-share comparison is misleading when shares are constrained to sum to 100% — an increase in any one cause forces a decrease in another — so the block is suppressed rather than substituted with a naked share. See the delay-attribution methodology.
Each of these unlocks as baseline depth grows. The weekly SPC threshold is met from Period 3 2026-27; the operator-by-week matrix and DAPR breakdown become candidates as the trailing window deepens through 2026-27.
Methodology & sources
All figures derive from Network Rail's NROD TRUST feed, processed via the Gauge Intelligence ingest pipeline. Period definitions, A2F (Arrival to Fifteen), the Wilson 90% interval, daily anomaly rules, cross-view reconciliation, and delay attribution are documented at:
Data window — period boundaries and the data-as-of cutoff
League tables — cross-view reconciliation across the four analytical views
Anomaly detection — daily A2F SPC rules
Delay attribution — DAPR cause-code breakdown
Forecasting — prediction intervals and possession-exposure estimates
Three further reads sit behind the commercial licence: a Schedule 8 net-position figure netting the FOC-to-Network-Rail differential against payments the other way; a full DAPR breakdown attributing each cause-code's contribution by sample weight; and a Schedule 4 possession-exposure read tracing how planned blockades intersect terminal-bound path allocation. None is yet substantively informative at Doncaster Yard's current baseline depth — the period count that suppresses the SPC chart above leaves each licensed read with too few points to anchor. The licensed access page sets out the methodology behind each.
Revisions
No revisions to date.
A revision restates a published figure because the upstream data changed, typically a Network Rail delay-attribution refresh. The minor tier is corrected in the next release; cells affected carry an (r) flag. The intermediate tier triggers immediate amendment with an (r) flag. The wholesale tier is flagged at the top of the page and notified directly to operators and rail journalists subscribed to revision alerts.
Corrections
No corrections to date.
A correction fixes an error in the published output: an arithmetic slip, a typo, a mis-rendered chart. Revisions are different; they restate a figure because the upstream data changed. The distinction matters because corrections never silently rewrite a published number.