ECML Disruption - Saturday 27th December

[Suraggu]

It's just that no one has a clue what is running when or what tickets they can use, thanks to the useless information.

The EC website has all information about amended services and connections to London including
Bus from Stevenage to Luton Airport Parkway for Thameslink to London.
Trains from Peterborough to Cambridge for Greater Anglia services to London Liverpool Street.
Tube or bus to London or Train from Finsbury Park to Moorgate.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
If anyone needs any help I'm at work and Il do my best to assist.

 

[Tom B]

To add to the hassle, several GN services are shown as cancelled due to staff shortages. Not helpful when you're already running a restricted service... Honestly!!

Will FPK be able to cope with numbers when an EC set full and standing arrives? I can see the exit subway getting clogged up very quickly and I don't know of any other exits?

 

[TUC]

The EC website has all information about amended services and connections to London including
Bus from Stevenage to Luton Airport Parkway for Thameslink to London.
Trains from Peterborough to Cambridge for Greater Anglia services to London Liverpool Street.
Tube or bus to London or Train from Finsbury Park to Moorgate.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
If anyone needs any help I'm at work and Il do my best to assist.

Thanks. It's not the staff in the TOCs who are trying to deal with this who I'm having a go at. It's frustration at the inadequacies of the information placed on the NRE website

 

[Suraggu]

From 1100 Their is a half hourly service with trains terminating at Finsbury Park. These are AngloScots or NCL terminators. With 3 exceptions states below.
All West Riding services are on the hour from PBO starting with 1103 PBO -LDS with the exception of 1930, 2030 & 2200 FPK -Leeds.

 

[Andyh82]

This is a disaster if true. The EC website had been advising passengers to have reservations this weekend and most services were fully booked shortly after the fares became available. There's going to be a lot of unhappy passengers, including me, who took the time to actually plan ahead.

On occasions like this I think East Coast should give 100% refunds to every single passenger as everyone is going to be disrupted in some way and it would be better customer service than having to spend weeks defining how many minutes each customer was delayed and whether they lost their seat reservation or not, plus many will be delayed significantly waiting for the tube which will effect the overall journey.

With the very significant delay payments they are going to get from Network Rail I'm sure they will be still up on the deal.

 

[crewmeal]

Why on earth didn't they just shut the network down for a period of 5 days and advertise it back in the summer like Virgin/NR did? I bet this shambles won't be documented on the next series of 'All aboard: East Coast Trains!

 

[Andyh82]

I wouldn't like to be at Peterborough when a full set from Scotland or Newcastle arrives. The options seem to be either the all stations GN service or waiting 30 mins for the Leeds to Finsbury Park service which will already be full itself.

Then of course what happens when they all try to get on the tube?

Are East Coast providing buses from Peterborough to London as well, if not, it'd be a good idea if they did.

 

[yorksrob]

No escape on the South Coast either.

Tree on the line at Three Oaks.

Screwed up my plans anyway.

 

[Bald Rick]

No escape on the South Coast either.

Tree on the line at Three Oaks.

Screwed up my plans anyway.

Driver and guard sorted that an hour ago.

 

[Ploughman]

The questions I would like to know the answer to.
What work was being done on the various worksites in the possession?
What was the actual work being done that has over run?
Did all the other worksites finish on time?

 

[21C101]

Then of course what happens when they all try to get on the tube?

THere is also a special service to Moorgate running from Welwyn/Hertford via Finsbury Park so together with the Picc and Vic lines Finsbury ought to be able to cope

 

[Andyh82]

Doesn't look like it is going well

The 0928 FPK to PBO was cancelled, the 0941 was sat awaiting a driver and ended up leaving 41 mins late.

According to Twitter, FPK has apparently now been closed due to overcrowding

 

[yorksrob]

Driver and guard sorted that an hour ago.

Good work in that case.

 

[lincolnshire]

The questions I would like to know the answer to.
What work was being done on the various worksites in the possession?
What was the actual work being done that has over run?
Did all the other worksites finish on time?

As well as the above will Mark Carne be going to tender his resignation for the Kings Cross and elsewhere cock ups as he is the leader of the organisation responsible for the chaos and bad planning? thats what people usually call for if its a Government Minster.

Wonder how many staff will have there bonus docked for this too.

Its also another one of the problems associated with using contractors to carry out work if the contractor has failed to provide enough staff as some will most probably be agency staff who might have failed to turn up or gone on a better paid job instead leaving planned jobs short of staff to carry out the work.

We will never get the truth, just some fairy story as to what happened and hope we all go away and forget about it till it happens again at Easter when there will be more planned work.

 

[Bald Rick]

The questions I would like to know the answer to.
What work was being done on the various worksites in the possession?
What was the actual work being done that has over run?
Did all the other worksites finish on time?

1) lots. 2 separate bridge jobs. 2 big track renewals. Heavy track maintenance. OLE upgrades. OLE maintenance. new OLE at canal tunnels. Power supply upgrades at 2 sites. Depot work at Hornsey.

2) one of the above

3) yes.

 

[Andyh82]

East Coast have now tweeted advising passengers not to travel due to overcrowding at Finsbury Park. Passengers are queuing in the subway and out into the car park

Whoever signed off using Finsbury Park instead of Kings Cross as the sole alternative to handle the same number of passengers, should probably be receiving his P45. They should have provided coaches from Kings Cross to Peterborough as well.

 

[petersi]

East Coast have now tweeted advising passengers not to travel due to overcrowding at Finsbury Park. Passengers are queuing in the subway and out into the car park



Whoever signed off using Finsbury Park instead of Kings Cross as the sole alternative to handle the same number of passengers, should probably be receiving his P45. They should have provided coaches from Kings Cross to Peterborough as well.

18 months ago it was not unusually for Sunday services to terminate at Finsbury Park

Some of the problems are to do with staffing so trains are in the platforms longer than they need to be.

It's easy to make judgements in hind site

 

[ChathillMan]

On a more lighthearted note Finsbury Park auto corrected to "Funsbury Park" in a text to a friend.

 

[amcluesent]

#KingsCrossTrains omnishambles, Met Police taking control

 

[ushawk]

East Coast have now tweeted advising passengers not to travel due to overcrowding at Finsbury Park. Passengers are queuing in the subway and out into the car park

Whoever signed off using Finsbury Park instead of Kings Cross as the sole alternative to handle the same number of passengers, should probably be receiving his P45. They should have provided coaches from Kings Cross to Peterborough as well.

Its the closest station on a direct tube line - simple as that. Also, there just wouldnt be enough coaches to run a replacement service for that many people for that distance. If Finsbury Park wasnt being used, then you would just have the same situation at Peterborough and Stevenage - simple as that. You would also then get chaos at Kings Cross for buses, which would then cause road disruption there. You will also get all Great Northern services being filled up at Peterborough, arriving at Finsbury Park and then having the same scenario.

In fact, as soon as pax realise they can avoid using a bus and take a GN from Finsbury Park to Peterborough, they would all just use that again - so you solve nothing. Saying someone should be sacked for that is just stupid. If anyone is to be in hot water, then its whoever has caused the works to overrun, unless there has been an accident of course.

Simply, there is no way around it, when a busy terminal gets shut like KGX - you will get this overcrowding wherever the service will then stop. People expecting there to not be any crowding are in dreamland.

It might be worth just holding any new arrivals outside, clearing the station, then letting people in to get the trains in the station, close the entrance off again, then let arriving trains in and let those passengers off - then repeat. Trains will be delayed and there will be crowding, but its a safer and controlled way.

 

[Hadders]

GN running 4 carriage trains! The 1106 from Stevenage full and standing on arrival - most passengers unable to board.

 

[21C101]

There are only four an hour to/from Moorgate nominally.

Unfortunately the following have been cancelled/ heavily delayed

10.24 finsbury Park to Moorgate - cancelled
10.54 Finsbury Park to Moorgate - 31 mins late
11.09 Finsbury Park to Moorgate - cancelled
11.24 Finsbury Park to Moorgate - cancelled


So thats an approx 45 min gap in services to Moorgate which accounts for the chaos at Finsbury Park. Please tell me its not down to insufficient drivers........

I would have thought running at least eight an hour to Moorgate would have been better (turning back the extra 4 at Bowes Park), with pax directed cross platform to Moorgate at Finsbury and able to cross platform change at Highbury and Islington to the Vic line.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Should twitter be 'abandoned' in cases such as this. It can only cope with short messages so it is incapable of delivering the information passengers actually need i.e. precise details of revised arrangements.

A simple tweet confirming this and directing people to an accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date website (i.e. not NRE) is what is needed? Someone (or several people at each TOC) constantly replying to a gazillion abusive tweets is not an effective use of limited staff resources.

What would Gerard Finnes have done yesterday afternoon once the scale of the problem was apparent?

How many NR / TOC senior management, including directors and CEO's came into the office yesterday afternoon?

 

[Rich McLean]

A queuing system should of been set up at Finsbury park but I appreciated staff more than likely weren't available to make this happen

 

[21C101]

What would Gerard Finnes have done yesterday afternoon once the scale of the problem was apparent?

Diverted everything into Broad Street.

 

[PHILIPE]

There seems to be a failure on three counts:-

(1) - The Incident itself
(2) - How it's being managed
(3) - Communication

 

[ushawk]

Finsbury Park closed until further notice.

Effectively, there is pretty much no route up North at present with the WCML being shut, routes out of Paddington heavily disrupted due to more late running work and EMT arent accepting anyones tickets.

Best advice to give is simply to try again tomorrow.

 

[21C101]

Finsbury Park closed until further notice.

Effectively, there is pretty much no route up North at present with the WCML being shut, routes out of Paddington heavily disrupted due to more late running work and EMT arent accepting anyones tickets.

Best advice to give is simply to try again tomorrow.

Or go to Marylebone, get a train to Birmingham Moor St, walk to New St and get an onward train from there. National rail shows two trains an hour, on time until further nortce.

 

[ushawk]

Or go to Marylebone, get a train to Birmingham Moor St, walk to New St and get an onward train from there. National rail shows two trains an hour, on time until further nortce.

Forgot that route, although its already going to be incredibly busy because of the WCML closure.

 

[Furrball]

A friend made it down but has now been stuck on Finsbury Park for 45 minutes unable to leave the station.