Which to be fair to them they did do. Whether or not any passengers were told they had is a different matter of course (I'm no apologist for this farce, far from it)
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Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018
- Thread starter blakey1152
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Which to be fair to them they did do. Whether or not any passengers were told they had is a different matter of course (I'm no apologist for this farce, far from it)
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R
RailUK Forums
Well I got my train from Bedford this morning at 08.18 and all good. I change at St.Albans and I got there at 08.55 ish . Chaos , 09.00 Rainham delayed to 09.11. The board's were showing a 09.07 Sutton , ok I think I will get that to West Hampstead and the board say's it is running ontime. No train comes at 09.07 , but one turn's up at the platform at 09.09 , I get on , find out it is not the 09.07 to Sutton so get off. A 09.22 and 09.30 showing cancelled and next Sutton is 09.56. Passenger's are shouting at staff , other pax shouting at pax telling them to leave staff alone. The staff member I asked question's of decided to disappear, said he would be back , never saw him again. Eventually another staff member came out and announced the 09.26. to Gatwick would now serve all station's to St. Pancras then run as normal.
Gerald Fiennes
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One week of this now, so time for a Plan B. Let's channel "Operation Princess", when the railway had also overpromised what it could do with the resources it had: what do you all think should now be done?
Here's a starting point:
In six months time, once TSGN can show that the fleet and staff compliments are 100% up to strength, switch the current timetable back on again.
Here's a starting point:
- Make a realistic estimate of total fleet size that is now available for traffic on TL services each day (guesstimate 85% of full requirement)
- Do. for drivers with full route knowledge and passed out on the 700s (guesstimate just 80%).
- So the train plan must take these numbers as a given. Then:
- suspend all TL trains running onto GN and revert back to last week's GN mainline and Moorgate line timetable (which will save some train crew immediately and solve some of the short turn rounds)
- Horsham/Rainham services to stay, but be turned round at Kentish Town. Astonishingly, the Rainham services (when they run) seem to have got through N. Kent Jnc. quite well....
- Thin back TL trunk via LBG by at least two trains per hour.
- Thin back TL 'branch' via EPH by at least two trains an hour (eg. one off the Catford Loop the other off the BFR to Beckenham route?)
- Keep the rest of the SN core structure (eg. less Redhills) as now practically impossible to change much.
In six months time, once TSGN can show that the fleet and staff compliments are 100% up to strength, switch the current timetable back on again.
Silver Cobra
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NorthKent1989
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No thanks we don’t want the Thameslink service to Rainham, we want Thameslink gone it’ll only be a matter of time before an issue creeps up at NKE the only reason why it’s doing well at the moment is because the trains move over that Junction quite slowly and cautiously every time I’ve been on it at both directions.
If it’s to be kept then curtail at Dartford or Gravesend or reroute it via Elephant & Castle, to Denmark Hill (or Herne Hill & Beckenham Junction) to Bromley South then all stops to Rainham if they insist on running it there.
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bramling
Veteran Member
I'm not sure where you've got the bit about poor relation from - I don't really care what happens on the other parts of Thameslink. Indeed, if St. Albans and Harpenden were to get an enhancement that can only mean a reduction in Thameslink services to/from GN, which as far as I am concerned is a good thing. Based on what we've seen this week it's also pretty much inevitable.
As for being careful what I wish for, at the moment I've more or less abandoned the train service anyway, so essentially it can't get any worse than it now is. GN has been declining for some time now, first the weekend service became so unreliable as to be unusable, now the service has basically melted away. Anyone who thinks this is just teething troubles is deluded - the infrastructure simply can't reliably handle what is being asked of it, and at the same time deliver a dependable service for locations which are only seeing 2tph.
Remember this week hasn't actually seen much go wrong, apart from one train (sort of) taking a wrong signal at Blackfriars this morning. What do we think will happen when wires come down somewhere or there's a big failure at East Croydon?
tsr
Established Member
There have been several faults and failures over the last week which actually have added quite major challenges, including massive signalling issues, trespassers and so on. The fact these have gone largely unnoticed even on this forum, in comparison with the resourcing issues, is an indication that perhaps we are so close, yet so far. (In other words, if someone had been organised enough to put in place the correct stock and driver resources from day one, the service recovery plans would probably have worked reasonably well!)
Make no mistake though: I am not saying the new timetable rollout has gone well, nor that it could ever have been perfect in its current format.
Southern diagrams now try to prevent crew and trains swapping between mainline and metro routes and this does seem to be working reasonably well. It’s a shame, then, that SE are clearly not sharing that aim!
The new timetable has enough padding for the inherent, frustrating minor delays (1-2mins here and there) of the old timetable to be pretty much eliminated. However, the timings are now quite rigid, it seems. So you might have a more realistic amount of time to call at each station and get through each bit of railway, but if you stray over that, you’re straight onto service recovery - ie. “short notice alterations”...
GTR have been arranging VTEC ticket acceptance, including for a large chunk of today.
As for the “someone must have a brain” thing, the controllers definitely do. But anyone can be overwhelmed with situations like the new timetable. This means all the local demand may be looked at less critically.
I can categorically state that decisions to skip stops have virtually no relationship whatsoever to the owner of the company. The only exception would be if there were demands from an extremely high level of management to ban the skipping of certain stations. This would be an unlikely exercise, so far as I can see...
Although granted there haven’t been any major rail infrastructure calamities this week, I’m not sure that an entire week of seemingly every other train waiting at Finsbury Park for 10-15 minutes and then maybe having a 50/50 chance of being cancelled outright isn’t in itself worse in terms of hostile challenges to smooth running anyway. Who knows how it would be doing if the prep work actually, well, existed.
Thankfully I've not had to travel into London since Monday morning so I've missed much of this week's debacle.
The current shambles simply cannot continue. I don't have experience of the other parts of GTR but as far as the GN network is concerned they really need to introduce an emergency timetable asap, putting the majority of services back into Kings Cross, rather than sending them through the core.
The current shambles simply cannot continue. I don't have experience of the other parts of GTR but as far as the GN network is concerned they really need to introduce an emergency timetable asap, putting the majority of services back into Kings Cross, rather than sending them through the core.
Failed Unit
Established Member
They are - tomorrow. Just trying to fob it off as engineering work.
Roy Badami
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So, tomorrow's timetable seems to have all Cambridge/Peterborough trains terminating at Kings Cross, and all Horsham trains terminating at London Bridge.
Dry run for a weekday emergency timetable? Or is that just wishful thinking....
Not all of those Horsham "trains" run through to London Bridge! Some terminate at, or start from, Three Bridges and run via the A264. One can only assume that there is some very localised "engineering work" at about 7 a.m and 10 p.m.
6 of the 18 Cambridge to Brighton ran today, and a 7th got as far as Finsbury Park. Which is...err...better than yesterday.
I saw that last one at 2154 was listed as 'delayed' on the boards at Cambridge for a good 30 minutes after it was meant to depart - then vanished. Helpful.
(Meanwhile I was lucky enough to catch the 2208 to Ely as somehow it managed to lose 15 minutes between Shepreth Branch Jn and Cambridge platform. Very odd - especially as the train I was on from Liverpool St went through the junction well after it but still got to Cambridge well before).
As for the weekend 'emergency engineering work' - after a week of 'operating incidents' GTR apparently just want to treat its passengers with an ever increasing amount of contempt. Clearly we're at the stage when they are just outright lying to all of us.
I saw that last one at 2154 was listed as 'delayed' on the boards at Cambridge for a good 30 minutes after it was meant to depart - then vanished. Helpful.
(Meanwhile I was lucky enough to catch the 2208 to Ely as somehow it managed to lose 15 minutes between Shepreth Branch Jn and Cambridge platform. Very odd - especially as the train I was on from Liverpool St went through the junction well after it but still got to Cambridge well before).
As for the weekend 'emergency engineering work' - after a week of 'operating incidents' GTR apparently just want to treat its passengers with an ever increasing amount of contempt. Clearly we're at the stage when they are just outright lying to all of us.
Roy Badami
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All they said was that there was engineering work this weekend, and that they are running a modified timetable this weekend. They didn't actually say that the two facts were related
whoosh
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My apologies, but if only you knew the true figure, your socks would've launched across the room from laughing so hard. Mine just have.
"Just 80%"!!!
*Wipes away tears of laughter*
bramling
Veteran Member
It does sound extremely dubious. Is this the first anyone’s heard of any engineering works for this weekend?
With the rest of Thameslink seemingly running, any engineering work would presumably be the Canal tunnels. Strange how two brand new tunnels suddenly would need a bank holiday closure especially when they’ve sat unused for years.
Can anyone elaborate on what these mysterious engineering works actually are?
It does seem like someone knows the weekend will be another meltdown, and they don’t want the added fiasco of families ending up in Brighton with no return service, bearing in mind the GTR shambles on the last bank holiday if my memory is right!
Deckchairs being rearranged springs to mind...
The long-term GN service should be hourly Peterborough/Horsham and Peterborough/ KX, hourly Cambridge/Brighton and Cambridge/KX. That would please everyone, and I’m sure that’s what will eventually be seen - hopefully with 365s on the KX services!
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All they said was that there was engineering work this weekend, and that they are running a modified timetable this weekend. They didn't actually say that the two facts were related
Yes, that actually appears to be true. However, something that is deliberately designed to mislead people like this still counts as a 'lie' in my book. A shame they haven't been quite so clever in working out how to run a railway as they're being in misleading their passengers.
I've managed to miss most of the chaos this week - certainly got off more lightly than most. But if you start lying to my face, however cleverly, that's crossing a line that you will have a good deal of trouble getting back from. For me, that's a whole level worse than gross incompetence.
bramling
Veteran Member
Seems almost like desperation. RailSham2020 couldn’t even finish its first week before throwing in the towel. The bank holiday publicity would have been hurrendous - “family stranded in Brighton after GTR cancels all its new services”. (I presume no one goes for a day out in the other “exciting new destination” of Horsham?!)
I can't see any significant engineering work listed on the GTR network for this weekend on nationalrail.co.uk.
I got an email from GTR earlier detailing the engineering work this weekend. Hardly earth shattering and barely warrants a mention. Further down the email it tells me that they're introducing new timeables that will be phased in between May and July and that I should check regularly before I travel as drivers and trains will be redeployed to increase the number of services and despite their best efforts some cancellations and delays might occur.
No hint of an apology for the shambles of a service passengers have had to endure this week.....
I got an email from GTR earlier detailing the engineering work this weekend. Hardly earth shattering and barely warrants a mention. Further down the email it tells me that they're introducing new timeables that will be phased in between May and July and that I should check regularly before I travel as drivers and trains will be redeployed to increase the number of services and despite their best efforts some cancellations and delays might occur.
No hint of an apology for the shambles of a service passengers have had to endure this week.....
I went there once - about five years ago - while doing a Southern DaySave. The only thing I remember is that the HMV there had a couple of DVDs I'd been trying to track down for a while, which cheered me up somewhat on a fairly grim and wet day. But on looking it up just now, it appears that the HMV there closed three years ago, so I doubt I'll feel the need to go again
Roy Badami
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Maybe the good people of Horsham fancy a day out in the "exciting new destination" of Peterborough?
From what I can tell from the statistics for the Peterborough-Horsham services there is one bright side - at least when the trains do run they generally aren't very late. Of course, when you're only running half the trains that are meant to run that's not much comfort. Glad I didn't have to go to London today, based on this data!
My personal experience has been one of irritation, rather than massive disruption. Of two trips to London this week (Monday and Wednesday) both worked out ok, but more due to luck than anything else. On the way up to London on Monday I managed to board a train that was apparently cancelled according to platform announcements and the Thamelink app, although no one had told the driver. He stopped to let people on - turned out it was the very delayed 0739 to Kings Cross. Sharing a coach with only about 6 other people at about 8:30am was a novel experience, though probably not the most efficient use of rolling stock.
On Wednesday I went to London early afternoon, saw the train I wanted was cancelled (the 1348 to Horsham) before leaving home, and hoped the next train was running. Headed home later in the evening from Kings Cross as very little was running from the Blackfriars/St Pancras line and was delayed by a previous broken down train. Stops were added as it'd caught up with the previous delayed Peterborough train. Only 1 delay repay claim for 4 journeys, so not too bad.
Luckily I've not had to travel in the high peak yet, so haven't experienced any overcrowding, but the pictures I've seen don't look pleasant. What really gets to me is the poor communication from GTR - blaming everything on an "operational incident" doesn't tell passengers anything. I'd have expected the number of cancelled trains to go down as the week went on, but that clearly isn't the case. The regular commuters must be a bit peeved (to put it mildly).
My personal experience has been one of irritation, rather than massive disruption. Of two trips to London this week (Monday and Wednesday) both worked out ok, but more due to luck than anything else. On the way up to London on Monday I managed to board a train that was apparently cancelled according to platform announcements and the Thamelink app, although no one had told the driver. He stopped to let people on - turned out it was the very delayed 0739 to Kings Cross. Sharing a coach with only about 6 other people at about 8:30am was a novel experience, though probably not the most efficient use of rolling stock.
On Wednesday I went to London early afternoon, saw the train I wanted was cancelled (the 1348 to Horsham) before leaving home, and hoped the next train was running. Headed home later in the evening from Kings Cross as very little was running from the Blackfriars/St Pancras line and was delayed by a previous broken down train. Stops were added as it'd caught up with the previous delayed Peterborough train. Only 1 delay repay claim for 4 journeys, so not too bad.
Luckily I've not had to travel in the high peak yet, so haven't experienced any overcrowding, but the pictures I've seen don't look pleasant. What really gets to me is the poor communication from GTR - blaming everything on an "operational incident" doesn't tell passengers anything. I'd have expected the number of cancelled trains to go down as the week went on, but that clearly isn't the case. The regular commuters must be a bit peeved (to put it mildly).
Advert a few months back for a train planning assistant based in London was advertised with a salary of £20-22K.
Pretty poor for a job in Central London.
Another 'exciting' opportunity to join their PR team was advertised without mention of salary to drive through the 2020 vision.
I remember thinking at the time what an awful organization GTR must be given they appear to value propaganda merchants more highly than valuable operational expertise.
Rather like the humble German foot soldier caught up in the Josef Geobbels fiction which thankfully led to the demise of the propaganda machine. Half truths and manipulation of the facts is what these people live on.
The rest of us simply want a train to get us to work on time. Come the revolution justice will prevail.
Pretty poor for a job in Central London.
Another 'exciting' opportunity to join their PR team was advertised without mention of salary to drive through the 2020 vision.
I remember thinking at the time what an awful organization GTR must be given they appear to value propaganda merchants more highly than valuable operational expertise.
Rather like the humble German foot soldier caught up in the Josef Geobbels fiction which thankfully led to the demise of the propaganda machine. Half truths and manipulation of the facts is what these people live on.
The rest of us simply want a train to get us to work on time. Come the revolution justice will prevail.
OFFDN
Member
From speaking to those who work in the train planning team, this week has been absolute hell for them. All of the senior team and planners have worked through the night every day, stayed late, worked at home in the evenings, etc just to get something for this weekend. There have been some real monumental efforts from them to produce plans, the sad thing being of course that they’re being blamed and slated for this even though it’s not the planners fault.
I am told the reason for the weekend’s timetable is two fold-
1. The ongoing lack of resources to cover the train service meant they had to thin the service and reduce the number of routes that clearly a lot of drivers have not yet signed off (Canal Tunnels, London Bridge HL)
2. Because NR offered the May 18 timetable change so late, GTR only bid the train service alterations for this weekend a few weeks ago. Consequently NR only processed this and ‘offered’ it back to GTR last week, meaning GTR did not finish processing it until this week. At that point it’s far too late to produce a train plan for their stock and crew, especially for a bank holiday Monday which is a significant amount of work and normally takes weeks (I.e you’ve missed roster deadlines for amended driver turns or additional drivers, you’re too late to bid anything else or subsequent changes to NR)
I think the reasoning ‘NR engineering work’ and ‘operational incident’ are wrong and do not reflect the real reason. That said, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue to say ‘reduced service to meet the number of available drivers and to reflect the fact that NR offered the weekend plus bank holiday trains back to the TOC far too late for them to produce an efficient and resourceful plan’.
I am told the reason for the weekend’s timetable is two fold-
1. The ongoing lack of resources to cover the train service meant they had to thin the service and reduce the number of routes that clearly a lot of drivers have not yet signed off (Canal Tunnels, London Bridge HL)
2. Because NR offered the May 18 timetable change so late, GTR only bid the train service alterations for this weekend a few weeks ago. Consequently NR only processed this and ‘offered’ it back to GTR last week, meaning GTR did not finish processing it until this week. At that point it’s far too late to produce a train plan for their stock and crew, especially for a bank holiday Monday which is a significant amount of work and normally takes weeks (I.e you’ve missed roster deadlines for amended driver turns or additional drivers, you’re too late to bid anything else or subsequent changes to NR)
I think the reasoning ‘NR engineering work’ and ‘operational incident’ are wrong and do not reflect the real reason. That said, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue to say ‘reduced service to meet the number of available drivers and to reflect the fact that NR offered the weekend plus bank holiday trains back to the TOC far too late for them to produce an efficient and resourceful plan’.
I would have thought that such position required someone with a maths PhD (or equivalent) - it is essentially a complex mathematical problem to which the optimum solution must be found. But they're surely losing so much money through present inefficiencies that doubling or trebling planners' wages wouldn't really compare.
Spartacus
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It needs people who’s brain works in a certain way, how exactly depends on what their specific job will be, I’ve met people who would be terrific LTP planners, but not great STP ones, and vice-versa.
It makes me wonder if they’ve pitched it at a level designed to appeal to NR staff in MK once travel benefits are factored in? I know one operator who substantially dropped their offers when it was announced the three previous train planning centres were closing. They were close to one and as few wanted to go to MK they took advantage of the situation.
It makes me wonder if they’ve pitched it at a level designed to appeal to NR staff in MK once travel benefits are factored in? I know one operator who substantially dropped their offers when it was announced the three previous train planning centres were closing. They were close to one and as few wanted to go to MK they took advantage of the situation.
Failed Unit
Established Member
This statement on rail plan 2020 is deliberately trying to mislead.
Yes as others have said they have engineering work this weekend. Early morning/ late evening.
If you look at a journey planner right now you have no clue that is / isn’t running.
Yes as others have said they have engineering work this weekend. Early morning/ late evening.
If you look at a journey planner right now you have no clue that is / isn’t running.
Silver Cobra
Member
Looks like you can't even trust the departure boards at stations for today. Stood at Arlesey right now, it lists the same service as I screencaptured last night running, which allegedly includes stops at Welwyn Garden City, Potters Bar and Alexandra Palace. From what I can see on RTT and the timetable on RailPlan2020, this is not going to be the case. So I will feel sorry for anyone who boards a Peterborough - Kings Cross service today hoping to alight at one of those three stations, and then finds they shoot straight past that station.
**EDIT: Looks like the 365s are making a return to the Peterborough services for today. The 0704 departure is formed of a pair of 365s.
Also, as I suspected, we ran straight through to Finsbury Park, and didn't call at the three aforementioned stations.
**EDIT: Looks like the 365s are making a return to the Peterborough services for today. The 0704 departure is formed of a pair of 365s.
Also, as I suspected, we ran straight through to Finsbury Park, and didn't call at the three aforementioned stations.
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