Avanti - 4 days away timetable not confirmed & hidden cancellation messages

[185]

Bit of contrary information on National Rail Enquiries, which appears to apply to several Avanti services, not just the one below. There is some engineering work taking place south of Milton Keynes I think.

National Rail Enq, journey planners & sales outlets have shown a train for weeks at 2309. Recent days a well hidden "travel alert" on page 2, hidden where information normally tells you things like wear a mask or a lift is broke... now says "THIS AVANTI SERVICE WILL NOT RUN". Makes matters worse being the last train of the night.

Messing round with a major route timetable just 4 days before is bad enough, but not being able to properly cancel a cancelled service is rather astounding. Seems to be a worrying recent trend of what is acceptable in terms of operators choosing to run or not within days of a service departing, and how they notify passengers.

 

[tpjm]

A lot of the problems at the moment are to do with industry-wide late bidding/responses for STP variations which is a direct result of the COVID situation last year.

More detail here

 

[Horizon22]

It probably hasn't been intended to run for some time, but this service probably slipped through the cracks when uploaded STP varations and hasn't been outright cancelled yet. I've seen plenty of "anomalies" that are normally picked up by staff normally a few days out, but often on the day itself. But yes, it's not an all ideal for people planning travel.

 

[185]

More detail here

I did see the thread, and which mentions 4 weeks before - this is 4 days before.. seen places near the South Africa / Zim border with more definitive timetables.

It probably hasn't been intended to run for some time, but this service probably slipped through the cracks when uploaded STP varations and hasn't been outright cancelled yet.

There's quite a few trains by the looks of it, Avanti mentioned it was due to NR not finalising the paths. People with jobs can't rely on decisions (still not) being made under 4 days - it's the last train of the night.

An update.
Four weeks before Good Friday, the trains were showing on NRE.
Ten days before "THIS AVANTI SERVICE WILL NOT RUN" appeared in notes.
Three days before, Avanti said these trains are DEFINITELY not running.
At 7pm on the day, those not running messages was still showing.
At 8pm someone deleted the messages off journey planners.
At 2030 and 2130 the two non running trains departed Euston.
You cannot write this. It must be Easter if things are being reborn.