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No complete Thameslink timetable available?

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SAPhil

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I usually download the pdf of the full timetable to keep on my Tablet/Phone but it seems that only the individual routes are now available. Anyone know if this is a new policy or just an oversight?
 
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I usually download the pdf of the full timetable to keep on my Tablet/Phone but it seems that only the individual routes are now available. Anyone know if this is a new policy or just an oversight?

It is policy: From Thameslink - "A decision was made earlier this year no longer to produce printed versions of the composite ‘All Thameslink services’ and ‘All Great Northern Services’ timetables. The reason for these timetables being discontinued is a combination of the high unit cost of production and the low take up, with the majority of customers preferring to check timetables on line and / or to carry pocket-sized timetables."

The local rail user groups are meeting Thameslink next week to 'debate' this decision. In particular, some journeys (eg Flitwick to Elstree) are no longer covered by a single booklet.
 

SAPhil

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Thanks for the info. I can understand they might not wish to print them but I don't see that a downloadable pdf is going to cost that much!
 

Philip C

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It is policy: From Thameslink - "A decision was made earlier this year no longer to produce printed versions of the composite ‘All Thameslink services’ and ‘All Great Northern Services’ timetables. The reason for these timetables being discontinued is a combination of the high unit cost of production and the low take up, with the majority of customers preferring to check timetables on line and / or to carry pocket-sized timetables."

The local rail user groups are meeting Thameslink next week to 'debate' this decision. In particular, some journeys (eg Flitwick to Elstree) are no longer covered by a single booklet.

Remember that this is the same management team that requires the collection of no less than thirty-one leaflets to cover the Southern operation. This then equips you for a very difficult cross-referencing task to discover best options in the case of the endemic cancellation and delay operation which they habitually oversee. It is difficult enough to negotiate connections at Hampden Park/Eastbourne during late running; steering a logical course between, say Burgess Hill and Hastings, is well nigh impossible! Until there is a complete change in attitude to customer service in all its aspects, and from the top down, this operator will not regain the esteem it had in the nineteen seventies and before.

By comparison the timetable offer of Southeastern is very practical whilst SWT's offering is excellent. Why GTR cannot match either of these totally escapes me.
 

Deepgreen

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12 Jun 2013
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Remember that this is the same management team that requires the collection of no less than thirty-one leaflets to cover the Southern operation. This then equips you for a very difficult cross-referencing task to discover best options in the case of the endemic cancellation and delay operation which they habitually oversee. It is difficult enough to negotiate connections at Hampden Park/Eastbourne during late running; steering a logical course between, say Burgess Hill and Hastings, is well nigh impossible! Until there is a complete change in attitude to customer service in all its aspects, and from the top down, this operator will not regain the esteem it had in the nineteen seventies and before.

By comparison the timetable offer of Southeastern is very practical whilst SWT's offering is excellent. Why GTR cannot match either of these totally escapes me.

Sorry - I am confused. The operator did not exist until privatisation - i.e. after the mid-1990s.
 

Philip C

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Sorry - I am confused. The operator did not exist until privatisation - i.e. after the mid-1990s.

You are, of course, correct.

My mind wandered to the beginning of the end of a quality operation on the Brighton Line which, in my opinion, began at the time of the 1978 timetable change. (You may remember the shambles which attended the attempt to interwork Victoria - Coastway West, Brighton and Coastway East services. Curtains disappeared from second class carriages about the same time and now each year seems to plumb new depths!)

To be fair British Rail oversaw the early stages of the decline, the current operator has simply, but effectively, continued the decline. The esteem belonged to the 'good old days' and to the Brighton Line itself. Nowadays any fool organisation can bid to wreck the remains (no buffet trolley, strip out any vestige of comfort in the seating, con tourists onto the GA trains, withhold usable timetable information, the list goes on and I've yet to use the word 'guard').

I used to enjoy a trip up to town; now I never use Southern for the journey. The much derided Southeastern seems now to be in better hands (at least on the mainlines).
 
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