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Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018
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Interestingly, tickets from Higham and Strood are valid on HS1 to St Pancras and onward to normal terminals like Charing Cross at no extra charge. This easement is in place until Sunday 10th June at present. See the Southeastern website for further details.
Do Javelins ever stop at Higham? If not, is there an operational reason why they can't (eg lack of platform staff)?
frediculous
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They have stopped once (i.e. maximum of a day) in the past when the on-platform screens broke so DOO Networkers could not stop. This was all when it was only SE calling there.
Rather than risking the trains tonight I ended up driving to Peterborough. When I checked the trains back from PBO this morning there was meant to be a 2254 service which would've been perfect. At about lunchtime it vanished. It then reappeared on the journey planner at about 7pm, but looking at Realtime Trains it was actually cancelled.
I'm so glad I don't have to commute everyday and only have to use the trains once or twice a week - there's no way I'd consider moving to a job in London with this level of service. What used to be a line with reasonably reliable times and gaps between trains has become a lottery. I had to go to London earlier this week and had 3 hours delay in total. At least the peak services in the morning seem reliable according to RTT, but I have a 9am meeting near Liverpool Street next Thursday and I'm tempted to drive to somewhere like Bishop's Stortford for AGA, or Barnet for the Tube, if the service doesn't improve. As other people have pointed out, this performance is what's being achieved with no major incidents occurring. If there's an OHL failure or a broken down train next week it could get even worse
Someone seems to have set up a spoof TL Twitter account too, introducing a bit of comedy to the problems. Maybe it's my juvenile sense of humour, but I found it quite amusing: https://twitter.com/TLRai1UK
I'm so glad I don't have to commute everyday and only have to use the trains once or twice a week - there's no way I'd consider moving to a job in London with this level of service. What used to be a line with reasonably reliable times and gaps between trains has become a lottery. I had to go to London earlier this week and had 3 hours delay in total. At least the peak services in the morning seem reliable according to RTT, but I have a 9am meeting near Liverpool Street next Thursday and I'm tempted to drive to somewhere like Bishop's Stortford for AGA, or Barnet for the Tube, if the service doesn't improve. As other people have pointed out, this performance is what's being achieved with no major incidents occurring. If there's an OHL failure or a broken down train next week it could get even worse
Someone seems to have set up a spoof TL Twitter account too, introducing a bit of comedy to the problems. Maybe it's my juvenile sense of humour, but I found it quite amusing: https://twitter.com/TLRai1UK
tsr
Established Member
A bus is running a limited-stop 0004 Brighton-Bedford service tonight. Arriving at Bedford at 0400 (ish).
A Seaford & District double decker for at least part of the journey, since you’re wondering...
A Seaford & District double decker for at least part of the journey, since you’re wondering...
Dunnyrail
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Does that 10 Billion fully include costs for Councils to maintain local roads (I doubt it as there is little maintenance on local roads just look at all the pot holes) also do not forget policing the roads and finally repairing people damaged by the road network?
My thoughts are the other way round as it is generally thought that Heavy Lorries barely cover 1/3 of their Road costs.
The ticket acceptance issue highlights a problem with HS1 which is that there's a perception that you need a special ticket to set foot on it, even in snail's pace third rail land. I suspect that some of the information put out by SE adds to this confusion.
No it doesn't, because people in the UK can't grasp the concept of externalised costs or unintended consequences, or think that because they don't directly see them, they don't exist.
Motoring is cheap, because the damaging side effects are paid for by society.
The Box Photter
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I agree that Blackfriars isn't a great interchange station if you're trying to go from Platform 1 to Platform 3 or 4. I suspect that the reason there's only exits and entrances at either end is because it's built on a bridge over the thames. I understand the idea was that the Wimbledon line trains would arrive on Platform 3, passengers would then step off and walk straight over to Platform 2 to continue their journey north through the core. Since there would be 24 tph, they'd only have to wait a couple of minutes for their train to Farringdon or St Pancras and most connections would be a short walk across a single platform from one train to another.
Unfortunately, the Wimpledon MP stuck his oar in and demaded that his constituents shouldn't be forced to endure the hardship of a five metre walk across a plaftorm to complete their journeys. Thus, the whole Blackfriars rebuild was rendered largely unnecessary. They only had to slew the through tracks and switch the bay platforms from the east side to the west side in order to accommodate terminating Wimbledon trains.
Bishopstone
Established Member
After 08.49 there’s a 90 minute gap in Thameslink services from Bedford.
There are 4tph in the original timetable, and should be 2tph under today’s iteration of the emergency timetable.
What’s the situation at Higham, today, which reports no live departures of either trains or replacement buses?
There are 4tph in the original timetable, and should be 2tph under today’s iteration of the emergency timetable.
What’s the situation at Higham, today, which reports no live departures of either trains or replacement buses?
The Box Photter
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Sorry. But I just don't see the need for HS2 when we can't even get the basiscs of railway operations right under the current political and operational regime. The money should be spent on ensuring that existing services operate with maximum efficiency, viz:
OHLE that doesn't snap at the merest puff of wind
3rd rail that operates under all weather conditions
Trains with decent seats
Trains that are all capable of coupling up to other trains when the need arises
A pool of sufficiently trained drivers for each route, with spare capacity to cover holidays/weekends
Robert Symonds
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- 28 May 2018
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I have known high speeds to stop at Higham in the past.I never understood why it was not included in the route as it would of made very little difference in run time.Maybe there is another reason, because at present it really should be stopping at Higham and not a ridiculous bus service.I might contact south eastern and ask them why this is not happening.My guess would be they haven’t been told to do so.
Huh? The Horsham trains are terminating at London Bridge today. Brighton to Bedford running through.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W68491/2018/06/02/advanced
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W68493/2018/06/02/advanced
Strange, they are spinning the brightons as well, the 10:04 and the 11:35 are going from P4 and nothing in between (according to station staff)
No, that is a 90 minute gap in the service because they *aren't* spinning it at London Bridge - two trains cancelled earlier means a moving gap in the service.
0626 and 0658 from Brighton cancelled this morning.
Well there's still a high speed minibus parked outside Gravesend station so I assume the Higham shuttle service is still running. Is that an SE initiative?
Robert Symonds
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From what journey planning is telling me, there are no more Thameslink trains running today.Only bus service from Higham.
OwenB
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I know there had been talk of an emergency timetable, but at what point does the government/DfT actually step in and do something?
I've been relatively unscathed, coming from Hatfield very early morning (6-6.30ish depending on what's running) and picking my way around disappeared trains, but the rush hour slightly later and coming in from further north (Stevenage and Hitchin sound particularly badly hit, as major stations).
There doesn't particularly seem to be any end in sight, with the mood being 'fingers crossed, it might get slightly better by the end of the month'.
What happens next?
I've been relatively unscathed, coming from Hatfield very early morning (6-6.30ish depending on what's running) and picking my way around disappeared trains, but the rush hour slightly later and coming in from further north (Stevenage and Hitchin sound particularly badly hit, as major stations).
There doesn't particularly seem to be any end in sight, with the mood being 'fingers crossed, it might get slightly better by the end of the month'.
What happens next?
Robert Symonds
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Well I asked the question about the high speed.
Southern
Member
Assume the cancellation of the Victoria - Reigate service is to free up units for the longer trains heading to Tattenham for the Derby?? Surprising to see the latter service is running with just one short formation, a 6vice8 according to the Southern service updates page 
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Minstral25
Established Member
The entire service along the Redhill route has been cancelled and replaced by a shuttle service between Horsham and London Bridge. So that's a normal busy 6 trains per hour service replaced by just 2 trains. Luckily by chance SE are running some services from Redhill but that doesn't help rest of the Redhill route. Now around half of the Horsham to London Bridge shuttles have been cancelled so we are down to basically hourly service (on a 6 trains per hour route)
Reigate to Victoria being cut out by Southern means that a bus to Redhill and then almost no service to London. Southern blame this on Engineering work which is obviously a bare faced lie as GWR trains are still getting through, unless anyone can tell me what engineering is happening?
Reigate to Victoria being cut out by Southern means that a bus to Redhill and then almost no service to London. Southern blame this on Engineering work which is obviously a bare faced lie as GWR trains are still getting through, unless anyone can tell me what engineering is happening?
tsr
Established Member
Due to a shortage of available 377s, units from the Reigate circuits have indeed been redeployed to Derby Day services. I won’t endorse or criticise that publicly. It is a difficult decision, as previous years have highlighted just how volatile the crowd control on the Tattenham Corner + Epsom Downs branches can be. Nonetheless, it makes for a poor GTR service frequency via Redhill, as above.
(There are 2 Southern rail replacement buses per hour Reigate-Redhill & vice versa, plus the usual GWR services.)
(There are 2 Southern rail replacement buses per hour Reigate-Redhill & vice versa, plus the usual GWR services.)
Minstral25
Established Member
Then without doubt they should not have cancelled every other service through Redhill.
Ah, thank you (and thank you for your excellent site, it's been very useful to me in the past)
I was wrong because I'd downloaded the OSI list from https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/out-of-station-interchanges , a spreadsheet which rather unhelpfully lists it as being from Blackfriars NR to "Same NLC OSI" and I'd missed it. I'll edit my post to remove the incorrect statement.
Sleepy
Established Member
Why don't twitter teams ever get decent ticket training from TOC 'S ?! Even National Rail phone enquiries was never this bad !Thameslink's incompetent Twitter team are still spouting crap, telling someone that a London Thameslink ticket isn't valid to Farringdon and that they need a London Terminals ticket.
Thanks to the mysterious disappearance of the Rainham services, looks like there was likely (a very reasonable!) 58 minute gap in today's northbound service through London Bridge between 15:08 and 16:06. I was travelling south at the time and there were a number of passengers on P2 and Blackfriars and P5 at London Bridge with looks on their faces of what I can only describe as shocked confusion.
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Southern
Member
Certainly going to be a fun evening for the returning derby crowds as coupled with a points failure at Sutton earlier, the 1625 Victoria - Horsham has failed at Sutton P2. So far, there's been no arrival/departure from Epsom Downs since 1709 - next Victoria service is the 1839.
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