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Not everything- the 0752 didn’t.WGC has had a shocking service this morning. Everything advertised has run! This must be the first reliable morning since the new timetable came in.
Not everything- the 0752 didn’t.WGC has had a shocking service this morning. Everything advertised has run! This must be the first reliable morning since the new timetable came in.
And the 5.55 HAT-KGX didn't (5.52? WGC)Not everything- the 0752 didn’t.
That is good for planning ahead.
Speaking to others that use the line that is their biggest frustration with this whole shambles you just don’t know. You leave home and check on the journey planner. Then half way to the station they cancel the train you were walking to get. Or like in these examples. You check and they are not running so you go for a slow train instead. Only to find out later it ran.
We are simple creatures- tell us what is running or not the day before. Then keep it the same. This last minute addition is as bad to be honest as the cancellations. “Look at what you could have won” you drove because you expected the train to be cancelled- it wasn’t.
Last night they had the same train up twice. The 1822 WGC - London Kings cross. As “Delayed” and on time. How did they manage that?
Hopefully it will continue.They've had that today. One new timetable and one amended timetable. One will likely have no platform allocated and may be the same time or +/- a minute or two.
There was a gap in service (no train on boards or apps) and then in rolled the train running as normal. Since 0700 every northbound service has run so far.
The seats are terrible though...Hopefully it will continue.
Master stroke by GTR. Most bitching is about the timetable now. Normally. “Why did they tell us for weeks to plan ahead and they didn’t do that themselves.” Followed by “these seats are uncomfortable”. Hopefully soon we can focus on the cheap seats on the 700s.
The seats are terrible though...
Joking aside, I agree with what you say. Lowering people's expectations by being ground down over the course of nearly a month already now. Chaos is the new norm.Of course they are, but at the moment people are thankful to get on a train they don’t care about comfort. Any train heading in the right direction. GTR has turned the desire to get a train as the main focus if they removed all the seats and ran the full timetable this would be considered as a successful implementation.
Very very effective journey on TL today. Got to East Croydon on time & there was a Peterborough service on Pl 1 running late. TL train left and flew through to London Bridge then swiftly into the core and up to St Pancras early. TL train then quickly dispatched into the Canal Tunnels. I had time for a tea before I checked into Eurostar.
Credit where credit is due.
Given the relative thinness of Thameslink train movements, for now - eg Brighton-Cambridge has been two or three a day, should be one an hour, and is planned to be two an hour from December - then the lateness of what does run is quite a worry, isn’t it?
There’s plenty of examples on RTTT where trains have picked up late running in one area and the core has then transmitted it to the other side,
When you say "transmitted it to the other side" you make it sound like something unusual has happened, but it's just what happens with late trains anywhere - if they are late early in their journey they are likely to be late later in their journey.
Where the effect of funneling services through the core might become significant would be where it unusually magnified the late-running, or had a disproportionate knock-on effect to other services trying to get through the core at the same time. Do we have any convincing evidence of this being a major problem?
And in any case, the concentration of trains trying to get through the core is not really so different from what happens at any terminus station - a great number of services converging at one point.
It feels to me like there's something of an over-emphasis on the unusual nature of having trains running through the core. It's not really so different from what happens at a terminus station - just that the trains don't reverse direction in order to get out again. As has been pointed out throughout this thread, it's a solution to the problem of a lack of terminus capacity in London.
'Running through the core' is also, in effect, what pretty much every tube line does.
We know what the basic current problem is: lack of drivers. I don't see how we can come to any meaningful conclusions about how anything else is working until that rather major issue has been resolved, and the new timetable is operating with the number of drivers it was designed with. Once that's the case we can look at other factors. My prediction is that after perhaps a rather extended period of disruption, things will settle down a lot, there will be some tweaks and adjustments, and the new timetable will turn out to work ok. And a lot of the comments being made here will in hindsight look like hyperbole.
When you say "transmitted it to the other side" you make it sound like something unusual has happened, but it's just what happens with late trains anywhere - if they are late early in their journey they are likely to be late later in their journey.
Where the effect of funneling services through the core might become significant would be where it unusually magnified the late-running, or had a disproportionate knock-on effect to other services trying to get through the core at the same time. Do we have any convincing evidence of this being a major problem?
And in any case, the concentration of trains trying to get through the core is not really so different from what happens at any terminus station - a great number of services converging at one point.
It feels to me like there's something of an over-emphasis on the unusual nature of having trains running through the core. It's not really so different from what happens at a terminus station - just that the trains don't reverse direction in order to get out again. As has been pointed out throughout this thread, it's a solution to the problem of a lack of terminus capacity in London.
'Running through the core' is also, in effect, what pretty much every tube line does.
We know what the basic current problem is: lack of drivers. I don't see how we can come to any meaningful conclusions about how anything else is working until that rather major issue has been resolved, and the new timetable is operating with the number of drivers it was designed with. Once that's the case we can look at other factors. My prediction is that after perhaps a rather extended period of disruption, things will settle down a lot, there will be some tweaks and adjustments, and the new timetable will turn out to work ok. And a lot of the comments being made here will in hindsight look like hyperbole.
In terms of timekeeping GN was in free fall ever since GTR took over. I think it is the worse of the area. Definitely worse than Thameslink. So maybe Southern should be worried about GN trains importing delays if / when they get the drivers sorted out.
I remember in November Gn down at 30% within 5 minutes. It was painful. (But still better than now).
We've been 'fortunate' since the new timetable came in as I don't think there's been any major infrastructure issues (e.g wires down at Alexander Palace) or person hit by a train.
Such issues will be magnified to a far greater degree issues on both sides of the core being transmitted to the other side.
There’s a slight difference between the core and a Tube line - namely that the latter does not have varying stopping patterns outside the central area. So a train running 10 late and out of path will probably remain so. On the big railway that train could then get stuck behind a stopping service and end up 25 late. That is a big and important difference, which your analysis misses completely.
Also Tube services tend to be rather more frequent, so a train running late probably doesn’t matter to the passenger as long as the headways are balanced and reasonable, much harder to achieve with a 2tph service especially if you’re trying to put things back on time. It’s worth noting that some branch Tube stations have or have had notoriously erratic services - before the shuttle was implemented Mill Hill East could go for an hour without a train, the Rayners Lane branch of the Picc is known for long gaps during disruption, and wasn’t a certain MP elected on a platform of sorting out the Wimbledon branch?!
Yup I get the differences between the Thameslink core and tube lines. I was more making the point that it's not unusual to have an arrangement where you move large numbers of people towards or away from the centre of the city using trains that continue right through.
But on a terminus-station arrangement, the same as you describe above can happen - an inbound service is ten mins late, meaning that the outbound service it forms is also ten mins late, and gets stuck behind a stopping service, ending up 25 mins late.
Interesting you should mention that.There are a lot more options there though, which can help matters. Eg. there will be turnaround time for the late train, which may get it back on time. Or the stopper can be delayed leaving until after the fast. Such options aren't available with the Thameslink core.
For example, I've long thought it is rather crazy that the 'final' plan is 6tph on the two-track section betwewn Hitchin and Cambridge - two stoppers, two semi-fast and two fasts, when the time difference between a fast and a stopper on this section is almost 20 minutes (particularly in the up direction, where there is no crossover until after Hitchin), and there is nowhere to overtake. Once - if ever - all these trains are running, I think it is all too obvious this is going to be a major cause of delays. At the very least passing loops should have been put in (near Royston, probably) to alleviate problems.
Before Thameslink, the signallers at Kings Cross and Cambridge had the ability to use their good judgement to hold the stopper back if it would be in the way of the fast. This flexibility is basically lost now, certainly in the down direction.
Yup I get the differences between the Thameslink core and tube lines. I was more making the point that it's not unusual to have an arrangement where you move large numbers of people towards or away from the centre of the city using trains that continue right through.
But on a terminus-station arrangement, the same as you describe above can happen - an inbound service is ten mins late, meaning that the outbound service it forms is also ten mins late, and gets stuck behind a stopping service, ending up 25 mins late.