Trains home fill up in a fairly predictable order, and being on the platform a few minutes earlier changes the journey considerably. This page tracks the exact time left until 5:40 pm, whether that is the train itself, the walk to the station, or the point work has to stop for either to happen.
Because the count reads straight from your device's clock, its accuracy rests on that clock being right, time zone included. Phones and computers normally handle this themselves, so in practice the figure here lines up with whatever time the device is already showing elsewhere on screen.
Plenty of phones, laptops and dashboards default to a 24-hour display regardless of how people around here actually talk, so 17:40 may well be the figure staring back at you even though 5:40 pm is how the same moment would be said aloud. Neither is more correct than the other.
Common questions
Will this alert me when the time arrives?
No. It is a live number rather than an alarm — nothing rings, buzzes or notifies you at zero. If you need to be interrupted at 5:40 pm, set an alarm as well and treat this page as the running total.
Is it affected by the clocks changing?
Only in the sense that your device is. When the change between GMT and BST happens at the end of March and October, the device adjusts and the countdown follows it without anything to do here.
What is 17:40 in the 12-hour clock?
That is 5:40 pm, or twenty to six in the evening if you are saying it aloud. From 13:00 onwards, subtracting twelve gives the pm figure — the same moment written three different ways.
Does the number update by itself?
Yes. It recalculates every second from your device's clock, so there is nothing to refresh or restart. Whatever is on screen is the current gap to the target time, not a figure worked out when the page first loaded.