Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018

SECR263 said:

Apologies. I was referring to the fact that all the rotating stands on each platform which held the pre 20 May timetables have all been physically removed. The spaces now stack disabled access ramps so if we had working TT's they could not know be displayed.

Click to expand...

The timetable racks are about 3 metres away on the side of the information / staff kiosks.

There are further racks on the main concourse upstairs, and if the racks are empty, there are always staff around to ask for info (platforms at East Croydon are basically required to be staffed at all times when used by passengers).

Those wheelchair ramp holders are actually one of the few consistently good things about the refurbishment works, from an operational point of view.

jon0844 said:

Almost every train on GN is now marked Thameslink (and in many cases the data on coach length is now missing). Moorgate trains are still Great Northern so you could argue that GN services are running well and it's all the fault of Thameslink!

Click to expand...

This is clearly the case at Welwyn North where it is Great Northern trains that are generally running, and Thameslink that are not. Given that many of the problems are apparently related to driver training, have TL and GN now got separate driver pools?

SECR263 said:

Apologies. I was referring to the fact that all the rotating stands on each platform which held the pre 20 May timetables have all been physically removed. The spaces now stack disabled access ramps so if we had working TT's they could not know be displayed.

Click to expand...

The company doesn't want timetables displayed anyway. They told us this before the new timetable came in and I'm sure they've said so at other times over the years since they came in. My station ran out of timetables only for a request to be met with 'we don't have any, we're waiting for a reprint'. Not that it matters at the moment anyway.

Staff on the front line are taking a disgusting amount of abuse from the public, with half a dozen known personally to me having gone sick because of it, a couple of which have been reduced to tears on the platform. I can understand people being upset that their train, or any train isn't running, but to take it out on the frontline staff is abhorrent. The blame for this lies with GTR upper management, the DfT, and government.
Of course, the company has utter contempt for its staff - some of us have been able to see that from the day they took over. The latest sign of this is a 'gift box' being delivered to busier stations from HR. They include nothing of any use to staff other than a small bundle of delay repay cards and a bundle of vouchers for a coffee shop. Neither of which will go very far. But the most flippant part of this box is a 'thank you' card which tells us how they appreciate our efforts. Complete nonsense. The higher management and HR have got zero regard for frontline staff - they never have and they never will.
What staff really need is information and that is what they aren't getting. Multiple times a shift trains appear with no information on any system as to where it's calling. We get e-mailed about other trains, multiple of which, that all state different things. Most of the time these e-mails come through after the train has finished it's journey - not just departed your station, but actually terminated. We constantly get e-mails about trains that are 15 minutes late, for example, after it has terminated. What good is that?! Trains are cancelled which run and trains which are actually cancelled are showing as running.
Honestly, if your app has got scant information then the staff at the station have probably got the same.

Frontline staff are often having to guess which trains are running and where they are stopping and then when the latest doesn't happen they get abuse instead. They get no support from control and very little from their direct management (for instance, I know of two busy stations where both managers were interviewing today, instead of helping their staff take some of the grief. These should have been cancelled and rearranged for a later date).

The latest nonsense from the TOC is a brief that's gone out today stating that it'll be mid-July before we see improvements. Speaking to drivers, DIs and driver management, this is another lie. The company have just plucked a date out of thin air. If this is sorted by Christmas I'll be very, very surprised.

Any rail plan posters are down, but timetables must be kept up as it would be a fail on a station check. I guess giving out printed timetables would be silly right now though, unless a disclaimer was added about it being a work of fiction.

Fred26 said:

The company doesn't want timetables displayed anyway. They told us this before the new timetable came in and I'm sure they've said so at other times over the years since they came in. My station ran out of timetables only for a request to be met with 'we don't have any, we're waiting for a reprint'. Not that it matters at the moment anyway.

Click to expand...

In theory the reason for the new timetables not being displayed was that there were insufficient copies to just hand out in that way. The fact that the print run was still insufficient shows how few managed to be printed. On the TL front, has obviously been superseded by the sheer chaos meaning that none of the timetables are anything other than optimistic. The Southern and GX services shown in the timetables are still broadly running as planned, or with extra rather than fewer stops.

(The position of the East Croydon leaflet racks was changed a while back and, as it happens, was nothing to do with that anyway.)

Staff on the front line are taking a disgusting amount of abuse from the public, with half a dozen known personally to me having gone sick because of it, a couple of which have been reduced to tears on the platform. I can understand people being upset that their train, or any train isn't running, but to take it out on the frontline staff is abhorrent. The blame for this lies with GTR upper management, the DfT, and government.

Click to expand...

I definitely feel your pain with this one and it's hard to know what the general public are meant to do. If nothing changes by complaining through the required procedure, unfortunately some passengers will take it out on anybody they see. It's horrendous, although to a certain extent I can see why people are at the end of their tether. Goodness only knows what it will be like if nothing has changed in a month and a half.

Of course, the company has utter contempt for its staff - some of us have been able to see that from the day they took over. The latest sign of this is a 'gift box' being delivered to busier stations from HR. They include nothing of any use to staff other than a small bundle of delay repay cards and a bundle of vouchers for a coffee shop. Neither of which will go very far. But the most flippant part of this box is a 'thank you' card which tells us how they appreciate our efforts. Complete nonsense. The higher management and HR have got zero regard for frontline staff - they never have and they never will.

Click to expand...

Those DR cards should be distributed anyway. They've existed for long enough. I keep a handful on me when on duty. Fortunately most people don't need them anyway, as all the regulars seem to have the web address imprinted in their minds!

What staff really need is information and that is what they aren't getting. Multiple times a shift trains appear with no information on any system as to where it's calling. We get e-mailed about other trains, multiple of which, that all state different things.

Click to expand...

Some of the duplicate info is gradually getting removed, but it's still an issue, and it's causing a lot of aggravation when announcements don't tally up with reality, etc. Many people been pushing for "one version of the truth" to be sent and to be monitored at all times, which should have happened from the year dot, but the truth is that there's so much going on that the duty managers don't always have time to keep it in check, and some have less front-line understanding than others. It's grim to have to say it's a work in progress, but...

Most of the time these e-mails come through after the train has finished it's journey - not just departed your station, but actually terminated.

Click to expand...

Often a sign of Control being overwhelmed. Not all those messages are automatic. Some are manually added to the list and then the list of trains is sent when they're ready. I wouldn't want to be on the desk concerned at the moment!

The latest nonsense from the TOC is a brief that's gone out today stating that it'll be mid-July before we see improvements. Speaking to drivers, DIs and driver management, this is another lie. The company have just plucked a date out of thin air. If this is sorted by Christmas I'll be very, very surprised.

Click to expand...

It is a bit "thin air", but at the same time, I wouldn't be confident they could even draw up a sketchy plan if they'd chosen a date the next couple of weeks, whereas a month and a half might just be time to even out the service frequencies of an emergency timetable (which I think is the goal being aimed for).

The stark reality hits home when you think that if TL/GN have a month and a half to wait just for an emergency timetable - what jobs are lost and how much is poured down the drain in the mean time? What will the frontline station staff be faced with? How on earth can the next rollout begin in time? Etc. etc.

Is anyone able to Understand why specifically the Gatwick to Bedford service has collapsed so badly.

There was a perfectly viable Three Bridges to Bedford service operating before the May change that had a full complement of Drivers. Albeit with one change that trains now go through London Bridge rather than Tulse Hill. Since January they have gradually increased the number going through London Bridge as well so I would expect that many of the existing drivers are qualified on that route who drive it but at least it could go through Tulse Hill still

So why is the plan less than 50% of the normal service and it is riddled with daily cancellations meaning probably about 30-40% actually run.

Nice one, if they say it'll be like this until mid-July, I'm assuming that means somewhere around mid-August, so let's be fair and call it two months of Arlesey basically having one morning rush-hour train for it and all the surrounding towns and villages, and then pot luck about when the train or trains if they're feeling generous will be coming back — and even after that it'll be a "revised timetable," not the original timetable plan (and that was a measly 2 tph anyway). Definitely worth the 5 grand!

Anyway, how late are they saying they got this handed to them? Apparently they can't have it sorted almost three months later; are they still planning to blame Network Rail then?

This is really a refusal to issue timetables. When I downloaded the national pdf timetable about a week before the start, all the Thameslink tables were missing. Many would like to see what the actual service specification was. All you can now see is the "revised", which the service is being fraudulently measured against.

It's not as if the service plan is any different to what was envisaged for some time. Someone needs to ask Grayling to challenge Horton on what advanced work they had done on driver numbers for each service group, and putting them in place for the generally-known game plan, and what the extras needed at final resolution were, and why, because I believe the answer will be "not a lot different".

And to add to the fun, no information on the screens at St Pancras or Finsbury Park (FPK) this evening. Well, that’s unfair. FPK had two trains on the list at 1850ish, one of them still 80 mins away.

NorthKent1989 said:

Greenwich is important in terms of touristy value (or words to that effect) with Greenwich Park, the Cutty Sark, The Queens House, the Market, the university, the o2 centre/The Air Line, good bus links to other parts of South London, river services etc, I don’t mean to sound snobbish so please don’t think that I am, after all you could just as easily use Blackheath or Maze Hill for Greenwich Park, depending on which entrance your using on that occasion.

You do raise good points about usage at stations though an they’re pretty high numbers, and surprisingly not far behind Greenwich, certainly higher than Maze Hill right? Crayford isn’t far behind either in terms of usage if i am correct?

Click to expand...

Fair point about Greenwich's tourist attractions. Although Sidcup is generally a pleasant place to live and has a few historic places (and the station can claim fame as the place where Mick Jagger first bumped into Keith Richards- although some say it was Dartford), it's certainly not a destination in the same way. Although I'm not sure that visitors will be too bothered by the current issues with the Rainham - Luton service.

Crayford's figure was 1.54 million. I haven't yet checked Maze Hill. Deptford was surprisingly low (just over a million).

DVD said:

Fair point about Greenwich's tourist attractions. Although Sidcup is generally a pleasant place to live and has a few historic places (and the station can claim fame as the place where Mick Jagger first bumped into Keith Richards- although some say it was Dartford), it's certainly not a destination in the same way. Although I'm not sure that visitors will be too bothered by the current issues with the Rainham - Luton service.

Crayford's figure was 1.54 million. I haven't yet checked Maze Hill. Deptford was surprisingly low (just over a million).

Click to expand...

I've heard that the station where the Rolling stones were born was indeed Dartford Mick Jagger went to Dartford Grammar also.

Sidcup is also the nearest station to Queen Mary's hospital I always forget that hospital exists.

DELETED POST...

It seems to have sorted itself out now..

Hoping to catch the 1254 train from Peterborough to Gatwick Airport tomorrow

Minstral25 said:

Is anyone able to Understand why specifically the Gatwick to Bedford service has collapsed so badly.

There was a perfectly viable Three Bridges to Bedford service operating before the May change that had a full complement of Drivers. Albeit with one change that trains now go through London Bridge rather than Tulse Hill. Since January they have gradually increased the number going through London Bridge as well so I would expect that many of the existing drivers are qualified on that route who drive it but at least it could go through Tulse Hill still

So why is the plan less than 50% of the normal service and it is riddled with daily cancellations meaning probably about 30-40% actually run.

Click to expand...

There must be something about the way the peak service operates and how they have rostered drivers.

Through the middle of the day there is no problem with this route - eg only 1435 cancelled from Bedford to Gatwick between 1035 and 1535 (ie pretty much the period it operated in the last timetable). Of course, in the previous timetable, after about 1600, Bedford services started running off to a myriad of Southeastern locations.

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sea...18/06/06/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

Does that mean that they are simply favouring Littlehampton, East Grinstead and Brighton over Redhill in the evening peak with the scarce trained driver resource they have?

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sea...18/06/06/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

PS - What would be deemed a success for the "promise" from the Secretary of State? It seems a bit vague.

https://www.blunt4reigate.com/news/constituency-blog-rail-chaos-update-undertakings

• To review the GTR 2018 timetable [to Redhill] in view of its betrayal of Southern Rail’s 2014 promise it would improve.

Click to expand...

Is Mr Grayling going to personally intervene to make Victoria to Brighton trains stop at Redhill every half hour? Even if he did it wouldn't resolve the fact that people at the other Redhill route stations don't have trains to Brighton in the morning peak that they used to have.

This morning the Kings Lynn train was advertised as calling additionally at Letchworth at 0704 and was also shown as on time on the platform screens. It was on time however the train went through without stopping! The next service due 0715 (the 0712 from Baldock) was showing as on time until 0713 when we were told it would be 30 minutes late. there was a 0734 from Kings Lynn that was very full then the 0750 from Royston full before it arrived at Letchworth. the 0715 then started from Letchworth sidings at 0803 and ran non-stop to Kings Cross - the rear unit was almost empty as most passengers had crammed onto the 0750. Interestingly the 0715 is showing in RTT as cancelled throughout.
I have heard that GTR have now cancelled all driver training so presumably means the problems will continue even longer.

philjo said:

I have heard that GTR have now cancelled all driver training so presumably means the problems will continue even longer.

Click to expand...

Why would they do this?

One other question. Have the Thameslink problems now jeoparised any hope of Windmill Bridge Junction being remodelled in the near future because the risk simply can't be taken to have further disruption on the route despite the long term gain?

I appreciate it is high on the priority list but to tell people there will be more disruption may be politically very difficult.

JaJaWa said:

Why would they do this?

Click to expand...

I guess because if they are training they are not really driving trains, cancelling it means they can drive routes they know and means the trainers can drive trains?

There may be a difference between training new drivers and training existing ones. They're waiting to train new people (many existing GTR staff) so I'm guessing they are delaying that to focus on getting existing drivers fully up to speed with route knowledge.

I might be wrong but that could make sense.

Genuine question (I'm a passenger with no specialist rail knowledge - thankfully not a regular passenger on Thameslink!) - given that this new timetable seems to have failed so badly, why are GTR not rolling back to the previous timetable until such time as they can be prove they can work the new one successfully?

Has this been foisted by Network Rail and dependent on other timetable changes by interleaving TOCs on ECML, MML and Southeastern?

Or would a cynical view be appropriate that this is a case of some managerial willy-wavers who can't admit that their pet multi-billion pound project has failed at the first hurdle?

If TL commuters are now going to have to put up with this until July/August how many will end up losing their jobs and livelihood due to not being able to attend work reliably at a set time?

Yes it affects other TOCs' timetables. So if TL revert, the other operators have to revert too.

tsr is a good poster.
We are lucky to have him on here

Realistically I don’t think they can roll back to the previous timetable because of the knock on effects to EMT, VTEC, South Eastern, SWR etc.

I fear it’s going to be a long summer for passengers on GTR. I suspect this shambles is going to go on for months.

londiscape said:

Genuine question (I'm a passenger with no specialist rail knowledge - thankfully not a regular passenger on Thameslink!) - given that this new timetable seems to have failed so badly, why are GTR not rolling back to the previous timetable until such time as they can be prove they can work the new one successfully?

Has this been foisted by Network Rail and dependent on other timetable changes by interleaving TOCs on ECML, MML and Southeastern?

Or would a cynical view be appropriate that this is a case of some managerial willy-wavers who can't admit that their pet multi-billion pound project has failed at the first hurdle?

If TL commuters are now going to have to put up with this until July/August how many will end up losing their jobs and livelihood due to not being able to attend work reliably at a set time?

Click to expand...

They can't go back to a previous timetable because everything else has changed around it, not least Southern with which the Thameslink timetable is integrated. Also some stations have no service other than Thameslink as they are no longer served by Great Northern or Southern.

A proper emergency timetable rather than unbalanced cancellations would be a better step.

Hadders said:

Realistically I don’t think they can roll back to the previous timetable because of the knock on effects to EMT, VTEC, South Eastern, SWR etc.

I fear it’s going to be a long summer for passengers on GTR. I suspect this shambles is going to go on for months.

Click to expand...

At present looks like the current situation will continue until 15th July when a proper temporary timetable is scheduled to be introduced - what that will look like is anyone's guess though at the moment!

News this evening - Delay Repay can definitely be claimed against any train shown on the RailPlan2020.com website timetables, even if there is an "unadvertised cancellation" on the day.

jon0844 said:

There may be a difference between training new drivers and training existing ones. They're waiting to train new people (many existing GTR staff) so I'm guessing they are delaying that to focus on getting existing drivers fully up to speed with route knowledge.

I might be wrong but that could make sense.

Click to expand...

You're absolutely correct, for the most part anyway.

The focus is on making sure all training resources are delivering the new route knowledge.

Obviously it had been known for many years that there was an aspiration for 24tph throughout the TL Core (one day, in a land far far away). Many of the driver trainers have been released to be pilot drivers through the Core with only a week or two to go, so the bulk of new driver training has ceased with minimal notice to prospective trainees.

Realistically, the need to train up drivers on the Core route for a high frequency service was known about for a very long time, even if the exact branches off the mainline (and then the exact service frequencies) were not known as soon. The bulk of the delays and disruptions to the TL services "on the day" has been down to a lack of training through Central London, although there have also been misbalanced drivers meaning trains could not be driven or piloted [route conducted] north or south of London.

If, for some reason, drivers could not be released soon enough to learn all of the Core between its reopening (in full, through London Bridge High Level) and the new timetable in mid-May, then these calculations should have been known well enough in advance to make sure that there were lots of pilot resources available. As it is, they were released at short notice and then stretched to the absolute limit.

This is one of the reasons why it has been so obvious to a number of other posters on this thread that somebody, somewhere, did not release the unpalatable truth that there were insufficient drivers to take trains through the middle of London, let alone the bits in the Home Counties. This calculation would, by crewing standards, have been relatively simple and should have been prepared long before the winter just gone, when London Bridge became fully operational.

farleigh said:

tsr is a good poster.
We are lucky to have him on here

Click to expand...

*Bows and scrapes* I do my best!

Hadders said:

Realistically I don’t think they can roll back to the previous timetable because of the knock on effects to EMT, VTEC, South Eastern, SWR etc.

I fear it’s going to be a long summer for passengers on GTR. I suspect this shambles is going to go on for months.

Click to expand...

The satire in the Guardian was probably about right. They'll implement the May timetable by December, and the December timetable will throw its own challenges.

JonathanH said:

They can't go back to a previous timetable because everything else has changed around it, not least Southern with which the Thameslink timetable is integrated. Also some stations have no service other than Thameslink as they are no longer served by Great Northern or Southern.

A proper emergency timetable rather than unbalanced cancellations would be a better step.

Click to expand...

You are quite right once again. Thanks also for previously explaining the Redhill route issues (I think it was you!).

The additional stops on Southern services are becoming more structured, so some places are basically temporarily returning to a Southern service.

The timings are such that you can only presently really reduce Thameslink by frequency rather than introduce new calling patterns, with all the timing issues and congestion that could cause.

Skimble19 said:

At present looks like the current situation will continue until 15th July when a proper temporary timetable is scheduled to be introduced - what that will look like is anyone's guess though at the moment!

Click to expand...

And of course to prepare such a timetable, they need to work out the drivers and units available. By mid-July, there will be a different number of drivers available on each route. One wonders just how restrictive an emergency timetable will have to be, in order to have even vague certainty about services running...

Skimble19 said:

At present looks like the current situation will continue until 15th July when a proper temporary timetable is scheduled to be introduced - what that will look like is anyone's guess though at the moment!

Click to expand...

The extent of this RailSham is unbelievable to be honest - this was always going to be a fiasco, but the extent it has failed has blown me out of the water.

There are various campaigns now being formed to ditch GN’s flirtation with Thameslink - the brand is now completely worse than toxic in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. A friend of mine has been handing out some flyers at my local station explaining the whole situation, and suggesting people lobby their MP to scale back the extent of GN services going through the core. I think the Thameslink dream is dead now in its proposed form.

GTR and the rest have made it quite en easy sell along the lines of “before you had a reliable Great Northern service, now you have an inherently unreliable Thameslink service and look at the unfolding shambles”.

It might be dead in the short term but we've not had the chance to see how it runs when it has the intended number of drivers. The issues were always about delays and how it messes up everything, for other more unexpected and unpredictable reasons.

I suppose the closest we have is a 9xxx train blocking everything at FPK and forcing trains to reverse and losing 20-30 minutes with all the residual delays that brings with it.

Nothing happening now is proof of the timetable being a mistake in itself. It's the fact it wasn't delayed that has caused the problems.

I disagree. Even if it had worked perfectly people would still be complaining. Why? Not because they don't want improved services, but for masses of people both on the north side and the south side the new timetable arrogantly threw away direct trains between numerous places that had been set in stone for decades with some nonsense PR that you'd be able to go across London without using the Underground (which an enhanced service would have done anyway) and get to new places direct despite them taking twice as long as they did.

The great failure of Thameslink 3000 is nobody having decided what it was actually for. After how long it was finally approved then the money spent and yet there were still "consultations" about routes and last minute changes to them late last year? It's a complete farce.

If the point of it was a high capacity tube-like route through the core, fine - decide some fixed routes that will feed into it with suitable turnaround capacity that aren't a ridiculous distance away. Instead what we've ended up with is a sham of "oh god, we've got to send all these trains somewhere"

But then if it was about maximising use of capactity through London you wouldn't dream of putting 8 car trains through those narrow platformed stations and turning them into interchange stations, surely? Oh wait.

Are we perhaps in the realms of 'emergency rosters' where due to the late release of timings and consequent late publishing of diagrams it may not have been possible to agree rosters matching the new diagrams - leading to drivers still booking on and off as per the previous roster)?

If so this situation would probably continue for an 8 week period - taking us up to the 'mid-July' date previously quoted.