London Bridge - new timetable during reconstruction works commencing 5th January 2015

[Bishopstone]

Last week of the current timetable, and into my last six weeks as a regular railway commuter.

London Bridge is nicely sorted, and the 18.23 Eastbourne departed right time.

Arrived Lewes eleven late, without explanation or apology en route. Seaford connection (19.31) obviously broken.

The next Seaford train is the 19.59, which didn't turn-up until 20.06 and was then held for the Down Victoria, which (you've guessed it) was running about 12 minutes late. No explanation or apology for the late running of the branch service, either.

No sign of Wi-Fi coming to Lewes station, with which I could use my extended dwell time more productively and at less personal cost. Another franchise commitment quietly abandoned?

Again, there were no specific infrastructure or weather problems tonight, as far as I'm aware. Just a steady deterioration in timekeeping as the peak progressed.

I'm glad to be getting out of this for a bit. They'll replace the Thameslink 377s and 387s with 700s and tell people not to worry, because although there are fewer seats per unit there will be more trains. Then they'll discover the timetable doesn't work, and suddenly there won't be more trains....

 

[berneyarms]

Last week of the current timetable, and into my last six weeks as a regular railway commuter.

London Bridge is nicely sorted, and the 18.23 Eastbourne departed right time.

Arrived Lewes eleven late, without explanation or apology en route. Seaford connection (19.31) obviously broken.

The next Seaford train is the 19.59, which didn't turn-up until 20.06 and was then held for the Down Victoria, which (you've guessed it) was running about 12 minutes late. No explanation or apology for the late running of the branch service, either.

No sign of Wi-Fi coming to Lewes station, with which I could use my extended dwell time more productively and at less personal cost. Another franchise commitment quietly abandoned?

Again, there were no specific infrastructure or weather problems tonight, as far as I'm aware. Just a steady deterioration in timekeeping as the peak progressed.

I'm glad to be getting out of this for a bit. They'll replace the Thameslink 377s and 387s with 700s and tell people not to worry, because although there are fewer seats per unit there will be more trains. Then they'll discover the timetable doesn't work, and suddenly there won't be more trains....

Presumably the principal reason that your Seaford connection off the 18:23 is never held in the event of your first train being late is due to the fact that there is another train following right behind it from Brighton to Newhaven Harbour, that then continues to make that vital trip to Newhaven Marine?

 

[ScotGG]

Another terrible morning and evening through London Bridge for Southeastern users. It's not getting the publicity Southern got earlier in the year but its a mess many days now. Not much chance of improvements until 2018 I suppose.

Was the weekend works which saw closure of Cannon Street, Charing Cross and London Bridge related to issues today?

 

[infobleep]

Another terrible morning and evening through London Bridge for Southeastern users. It's not getting the publicity Southern got earlier in the year but its a mess many days now. Not much chance of improvements until 2018 I suppose.

Was the weekend works which saw closure of Cannon Street, Charing Cross and London Bridge related to issues today?

Wonder why it's not getting the publicity?

 

[TimG]

Another terrible morning and evening through London Bridge for Southeastern users. It's not getting the publicity Southern got earlier in the year but its a mess many days now. Not much chance of improvements until 2018 I suppose.

Was the weekend works which saw closure of Cannon Street, Charing Cross and London Bridge related to issues today?

Rubbish on the Thameslink trains to Brighton today, barely a train on time all day!

 

[ScotGG]

Wonder why it's not getting the publicity?

Possibly as the infamous photo of people jumping barriers and reports of crushing (which turned out to be exaggerated) were a lot more 'sexy' for the media like the Standard to report and stick on the front page.

Having 6 months of very poor PPM figures and a load of people at platforms in a less dramatic manner is less likely to make the news I suppose. But still very poor to have 25 mins gaps on the Greenwich line from 5-7pm.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Rubbish on the Thameslink trains to Brighton today, barely a train on time all day!

yep - just checked the PPM stats and pretty awful for TSGN as well. Most routes 40-57% serving London Bridge. Southeastern not much different - 54% for peak Kent coastal trains and 55% for peak suburban routes.

 

[Bald Rick]

Problems on SE side are down to a points failure at Lewisham, nothing to do with the the weekends work. Would have been difficult regardless of what state London Bridge is in.

Southern / GTR issues due to a points failure at Selhurst this morning, and the well known crew shortages. The latter is a problem in itself but also makes any other incident worse as it is more difficult to recover.

 

[ScotGG]

Thanks for the reply. Even if not directly related, The LB work does seem to have reduced resilience with less passenger capacity now on some lines through London Bridge in the evening peak. Hopefully some class 319s get to SE soon to make more 10/12 car Networkers in the peaks.

I wonder what the management of SE and Southern are making of the problems? I know SE have been asking for more stock. Both have seen some very poor PPM figures this past few months. If they have 2 more years of this can anyone see anything serious happening - walking away perhaps? A long shot but years of failing targets must have some effect?

 

[Deepgreen]

Second successive morning of misery through East Croydon (not related to the London Bridge works, but having an impact there). Yesterday was a signal failure between EC and Norwood Junction, whereas today was a signal failure at Purley Oaks - I know because I saw the NR gang by the line there (6 watching and one working, with what looked like glue in a gun from my view sat opposite the gang!). I have now changed my commute from London Bridge to Victoria (as from yesterday), but my journey has become worse rather than better so far!

 

[RichJF]

I knew this would happen right from the beginning! They'll iron out & radically improve the London Bridge situation; however the creaking, failing older parts of the network won't be able to keep up to the new expected high frequency timetables.

East Croydon I suspect will become a major source of headaches in the future thanks to the poor signalling (P4/5 & P2/3) & the bottleneck of Windmill Bridge.

 

[Chrisgr31]

and the well known crew shortages. The latter is a problem in itself but also makes any other incident worse as it is more difficult to recover.

Whats happening with this? Is it a physical shortage of crew as I thought they had a fair few in training or is it the crew rosters mean they are not in the right place at the right time?

 

[physics34]

imagine the delays today if the full thameslink 2018 timetable was in operation! Delays wouldve spread amssively to north of the river too!

 

[southern442]

imagine the delays today if the full thameslink 2018 timetable was in operation! Delays wouldve spread amssively to north of the river too!

The s*** really hit the fan today. At some stations, only a couple of trains showed to be running when in fact the ones that weren't running did run and the ones that were supposed to run either didn't or were delayed. East Croydon was absolute chaos, not far off from being at a complete standstill. Pretty much all of the main network was running quite poorly. If the Thameslink Programme had been finished and a problem like this was served up, there would be severe delays on the ECML and MML, to vital arteries to the whole UK network. At it's worst, if there was a problem that was worse than today (such as Battersea-gate last year) a good proportion of the UK would be affected. Perhaps DafT could have a little re-think and realize that East Croydon and this area needs to be sorted before they can have hopes of a decent service running.

 

[ScotGG]

Southeastern felt left out and decided to start to fall apart from 6pm too.

 

[Bishopstone]

Presumably the principal reason that your Seaford connection off the 18:23 is never held in the event of your first train being late is due to the fact that there is another train following right behind it from Brighton to Newhaven Harbour, that then continues to make that vital trip to Newhaven Marine?

Yes. Obviously, the best time to run a Parliamentary train, to a station nobody can use, is at the tail end of the evening peak.

 

[Deepgreen]

The s*** really hit the fan today. Some stations, only a couple of trains showed to be running when in fact the ones that weren't running did run and the ones that were supposed to run either didn't or were delayed. East Croydon was absolute chaos, not far off being a complete standstill. Pretty much all of the London-South network was running quite poorly, and, if Thameslink was running to its full today, there would be severe delays on the ECML and MML, to vital arteries to the whole UK network. At it's worst, if there was a problem worse than today (such as Battersea-gate last year) a good proportion of the UK would be affected. Perhaps DafT could have a little re-think and realise that East Croydon and this area needs to be sorted before they can have hopes of a decent service running.

Sorry - but this is really hard to understand, given the amount of typos. In essence, however, the knock-on effects of even a small operational problem (and this morning's was seemingly way more than that), are hugely magnified by the enforced lack of resilience possible under the current 'efficient' regime.

 

[Bishopstone]

imagine the delays today if the full thameslink 2018 timetable was in operation! Delays wouldve spread amssively to north of the river too!

'Sorry: stray dog on the line at Tadworth. Your key Cambridge commuter train is cancelled. Please go away and use Greater Anglia from Liverpool Street.'

I still say they should have built two sub-surface terminal stations somewhere in the vicinity of City Thameslink. One facing north and the other south. Then joined them with a travelator for when Auntie Doris from Harpenden wants to go and see her niece in Hassocks.

 

[Minstral25]

Can anyone tell me what happened to cause the awful chaos tonight. Barely a train being sent through to Redhill meant 4 hour journeys home for many. No explanation except signal failure this morning.

There were tweets that Police were called to both London Bridge and Victoria to calm frustrated passengers desperate to get home, stuck in queueing systems.

Evening peak from London Bridge has not seen a train arrive on time in Redhill for around 3 months now but tonight was another level of chaos. Have GOVIA just given up?

 

[FOH]

I wish they would give up. What on earth is going on this week. It's like all the good work has been undone. Watching the madness this evening of a train being advertised, everyone crowding around the closed doors, then eventually cancelled as there was no driver. Insania

 

[Deepgreen]

Ridiculous chaos again yesterday evening - the late-running 1632 Victoria to Tonbridge was 4 cars (as rostered) but had to accommodate a huge number of passengers who wanted the first train out!

This morning saw the pain continue, despite Southern trying to claim things would be more or less OK - the 0831 Redhill to Victoria (ex-Horsham) was cancelled owing to what RTT described as "a planning error"(!), and subsequent trains coupling at Redhill seemed to suffer significant delays for no apparent (or announced) reason. Southern's web site now simultaneously carries an apology for yesterday (including the claim that today should be OK), while also stating that congestion at East Croydon is causing severe delays! Farcical.

 

[RichJF]

The decisions by the signallers don't help either: The 18:26 London Bridge to Horsham was delayed leaving East Croydon & arrived at Purley the same time following TL train left East Croydon. By the time it left Purley the TL train was approaching the station too via platform 2.

Then the signaller decided to hold the non-stop, on time TL service to allow the perenially late Horsham service to pass Stoat's Nest first. Thus you had THREE delayed trains travelling down to Redhill (including the heavily delayed Vic-Horsham), stopping at every signal as the Horsham called at Coulsdon & Merstham & the trains started to back up.

Thus, at Redhill two earlier trains blocked platform 2, the Horsham blocked platform 3 & the TL arrived on platform 1! Some passengers were confused as the TL train departed first anyway. Why couldn't control hold a slower train at Stoat's Nest, let the fast train past & out of the way & a spare platform at Redhill, rather than causing more congestion back up the line?

Beats me!

 

[Bald Rick]

This morning saw the pain continue, despite Southern trying to claim things would be more or less OK - the 0831 Redhill to Victoria (ex-Horsham) was cancelled owing to what RTT described as "a planning error"(!),

"Planning error" is code for "train crew not rostered." Technically correct, as either it was a rostering error (unlikely) or a lack of train crew generally, which you could argue is an incorrect long term resource plan.


Yesterday was the after effects of the earlier signalling* failure. Quite why the service wasn't recovered by the evening peak is another matter.

* actually it wasn't signalling that caused the failure. It was equipment connected to the third rail system that failed, but it manifested itself as a signalling failure (and a damaged rail). Another reason why OLE is better!

Today's issues on the Horsham line are caused by a (different) failure of the third rail system.

 

[87015]

An entire matter called GTR from top to bottom...

 

[swt_passenger]

I was wondering, as we approach the first anniversary, if the thread title is really still appropriate?

The 5th Jan 2015 timetable date was as a result of the original major platform closures, presumably that timetable did eventually settle down.

We are now discussing the Dec 2015 totally re-written timetable.

I see that Yorkie did change the title on the first page, perhaps it now just needs to be something along the lines of "London Bridge - effects of reconstruction on the timetable"

 

[Bald Rick]

The decisions by the signallers don't help either: The 18:26 London Bridge to Horsham was delayed leaving East Croydon & arrived at Purley the same time following TL train left East Croydon. By the time it left Purley the TL train was approaching the station too via platform 2.

...

Beats me!

In defence of signallers and control, (and often I will criticise them, but not in public). When you have a service in a complete mess like last night, there are so many variables, so many options and so many decisions that could be taken, it is impossible to get them all right. The signaller at Three Bridges controlling your particular train would have had at least another 8 or 9 in his / her area of control to worry about at the same time, and would have been fully occupied just keeping things moving.

Added to this it was day 2 of the new timetable, lots of new headcodes etc, and no amount of briefing in advance would have been able to help the signaller be absolutely sure which trains have what stopping pattern etc., experience takes time to build.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I see that Yorkie did change the title on the first page, perhaps it now just needs to be something along the lines of "London Bridge - effects of reconstruction on the timetable"

Agreed, given that most of the discussion recently has had very little to do with London Bridge, perhaps it should be retitled "what caused today's problems on the GoVia network?"

 

[telstarbox]

imagine the delays today if the full thameslink 2018 timetable was in operation! Delays wouldve spread amssively to north of the river too!

That's literally the whole point of the upgrade work... to provide more capacity and resilience.

Hopefully Bald Rick can confirm, but aren't there still going to be turnback facilities at London Bridge and St Pancras to allow services to run north and south of the core following disruption?

 

[tsr]

"Planning error" is code for "train crew not rostered." Technically correct, as either it was a rostering error (unlikely) or a lack of train crew generally, which you could argue is an incorrect long term resource plan.


Yesterday was the after effects of the earlier signalling* failure. Quite why the service wasn't recovered by the evening peak is another matter.

* actually it wasn't signalling that caused the failure. It was equipment connected to the third rail system that failed, but it manifested itself as a signalling failure (and a damaged rail). Another reason why OLE is better!

Today's issues on the Horsham line are caused by a (different) failure of the third rail system.

The issue with the cancelled trains from the Horsham area in this morning's peak was twofold. Firstly there were problems and subsequent confusion with resourcing traincrew at Horsham, very early in the morning. Then there was a further problem with rostering at Barnham. This is aside from the wobbly with the traction current at Littlehaven.

Yesterday was as much about the massive queue of trains to, from and within London Victoria in the afternoon as it was the closure of the Up Fast at Purley Oaks. I know the latter pretty much led to the former, but I have very, very rarely ever seen anything quite like the queue yesterday. Whatever happened at Victoria was patently absurd (and I really don't think it was NR's fault, effectively - Southern do have bigger crewing issues exacerbating the whole thing, which of themselves are so complex and subject to so much internal wrangling that I'd prefer to not comment on here).

As for the OHLE being better, I'm afraid I was stuck on the ECML last week with the wires vs train vs Friday in the Alnmouth area, and that was yet more evidence that both systems are able to fail spectacularly and cause mass headaches. My train was nigh-on 90mins late, which is actually worse than many of the individual delays to services on the Southern network yesterday, and I wasn't on the only one like that.

In defence of signallers and control, (and often I will criticise them, but not in public). When you have a service in a complete mess like last night, there are so many variables, so many options and so many decisions that could be taken, it is impossible to get them all right. The signaller at Three Bridges controlling your particular train would have had at least another 8 or 9 in his / her area of control to worry about at the same time, and would have been fully occupied just keeping things moving.

Added to this it was day 2 of the new timetable, lots of new headcodes etc, and no amount of briefing in advance would have been able to help the signaller be absolutely sure which trains have what stopping pattern etc., experience takes time to build.

You're spot on with the new timetable point. There have been some very odd signalling and train running decisions which I've personally flagged up in the last couple of days - not unsafe, of course, but just potentially inefficient. I can only put it down to unfamiliarity with the timetable. This I can understand; however, I'm pleased to say staff at major stations do appear to have had better briefings.

That's literally the whole point of the upgrade work... to provide more capacity and resilience.

Hopefully Bald Rick can confirm, but aren't there still going to be turnback facilities at London Bridge and St Pancras to allow services to run north and south of the core following disruption?

They both already have a number of terminal platforms and in the case of London Bridge you will hopefully have at least a bit of spare capacity there... but I take it you mean crossovers on through lines? I will leave it to others to fully explain track capacity with those, however my understanding is that there is some flexibility for turnbacks, but not necessarily terribly practical ones.



If I may add the following, even if we're agreed it is away from the thread title: 2W38 has failed at Coulsdon South and been stuck for some time on the Up line. This is causing disruption for TL to/from Three Bridges and for Southern. Best check carefully tonight... and unfortunately it looks like info from Southern Control is not getting through to everyone as it should either, from what I've heard, due to technical faults there.

 

[Deepgreen]

The issue with the cancelled trains from the Horsham area in this morning's peak was twofold. Firstly there were problems and subsequent confusion with resourcing traincrew at Horsham, very early in the morning. Then there was a further problem with rostering at Barnham. This is aside from the wobbly with the traction current at Littlehaven.

Yesterday was as much about the massive queue of trains to, from and within London Victoria in the afternoon as it was the closure of the Up Fast at Purley Oaks. I know the latter pretty much led to the former, but I have very, very rarely ever seen anything quite like the queue yesterday. Whatever happened at Victoria was patently absurd (and I really don't think it was NR's fault, effectively - Southern do have bigger crewing issues exacerbating the whole thing, which of themselves are so complex and subject to so much internal wrangling that I'd prefer to not comment on here).

As for the OHLE being better, I'm afraid I was stuck on the ECML last week with the wires vs train vs Friday in the Alnmouth area, and that was yet more evidence that both systems are able to fail spectacularly and cause mass headaches. My train was nigh-on 90mins late, which is actually worse than many of the individual delays to services on the Southern network yesterday, and I wasn't on the only one like that.



You're spot on with the new timetable point. There have been some very odd signalling and train running decisions which I've personally flagged up in the last couple of days - not unsafe, of course, but just potentially inefficient. I can only put it down to unfamiliarity with the timetable. This I can understand; however, I'm pleased to say staff at major stations do appear to have had better briefings.



They both already have a number of terminal platforms and in the case of London Bridge you will hopefully have at least a bit of spare capacity there... but I take it you mean crossovers on through lines? I will leave it to others to fully explain track capacity with those, however my understanding is that there is some flexibility for turnbacks, but not necessarily terribly practical ones.



If I may add the following, even if we're agreed it is away from the thread title: 2W38 has failed at Coulsdon South and been stuck for some time on the Up line. This is causing disruption for TL to/from Three Bridges and for Southern. Best check carefully tonight... and unfortunately it looks like info from Southern Control is not getting through to everyone as it should either, from what I've heard, due to technical faults there.

The whole sorry saga seems to indicate a near-complete 'meltdown' of the railway management regime - a new timetable that may or may not work, a lack of crews, an inability to roster the available crews properly, communications failures within and outwith the management sphere, train failures (we were told in Southern's blurb that the recent 377 refurb. programme had led to the trains being "like new"), increasing NR infrastructure failures and poor recovery plans. All this during a spell of very benign weather too (i.e. no frost, freezing rain or snow by mid-December)!

Edit - RTT shows 5W38 has left Coulsdon South for Bedford 83 late! Multiple cancellations to/from Redhill yet again! National Rail's web site claims that delays of up to 20 minutes are expected - quite how a train blocking the line for over 80 minutes leaves delays of up to 20 is anyone's guess!

 

[southern442]

Sorry - but this is really hard to understand, given the amount of typos. In essence, however, the knock-on effects of even a small operational problem (and this morning's was seemingly way more than that), are hugely magnified by the enforced lack of resilience possible under the current 'efficient' regime.

I've just realized how bad the grammar is in that post - I will try to correct the various typos and make it easier to read.

I didn't get the train this morning so I didn't sample the delights of today's disruption - however I'm presuming that the problems were due to incidents in the Clapham Junction and Balham areas, and if this is the case, there is/was still some disruption knocking around tonight.

 

[Bishopstone]

I noticed a few Thameslink services skip-stopping at the southern end of the Brighton Mainline tonight, in both directions. This is something I watch for, as I've long had concerns that pressure to present trains on time through the core will disadvantage places such as Hassocks, with back-to-back skip-stopping as service recovery is implemented.