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Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018
- Thread starter blakey1152
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bramling
Veteran Member
Not yet - it would be daft to bite
the feeding hand and all that. Much more convenient for both DFT and GTR to passively blame Network Rail.
I suspect there’s a lot that will come out over time though.
Agent_Squash
Established Member
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Maybe just send Grayling and Horton in? They'll probably fit in quite well.
Interestingly there are a considerable number of services today, especially the Luton-Rainhams, today coming through the core from the north and terminating in Platform 1 at Blackfriars.
Is this a new tactic by GTR to run more trains on the routes the drivers know?
Is this a new tactic by GTR to run more trains on the routes the drivers know?
Teflon Lettuce
Established Member
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how on earth have TL services become so bad that there are huge gaps on the BedPan section? there's no way that can be due to lack of route knowledge surely?
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
An incredibly good question - living in SAC , and dropped daughter to LAP by car (for the bus) , as the service just does not look like you can rely on it at the moment , even for a simple midday journey. Must be some issues with the driver relocation trek from Bedford to Luton and SAC.
£10 million, paid in advance
Source: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2018/the-timetable-change-accepting-the-blame/
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Failed Unit
Established Member
Thanks for this. Agree best £10M ever. Also backs up my view they have no incentive to fix this mess. It will be a long summer.
Bishopstone
Established Member
I’ve noticed a number of ex-Rainham services, running to time, lose 10-15 minutes at or around the Dartford station call. Is this a driver change location where (per Finsbury Park) the relief is sometimes not ready to take over the train?
Chris999999
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So by accepting £10M the Dft have given Govia Thameslink an incentive to run as few trains as possible before October. This can be classed as a complete success. Bonuses and awards will no doubt be given to senior management in both the Dft and Govia for their achievements.
The £10m was for 2 years (16-17 and 17-18) so £5m p.a.
£5m very well spent for the current year to September and virtually zero incentive to worry about the short term but to sort everything for September when they get hit...
Failed Unit
Established Member
I hope this comes back to haunt DFT. GTR had no incentive to make sure this worked. They knew no matter how bad it was they were untouchable.
They are yet again basically sticking 2 fingers up at us passengers.
MrCub
Member
I have to go to an event in London tomorrow. I will be travelling from Luton and I want to get to the event in west London at 0930ish. When do you think I should set off?
Teflon Lettuce
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if I were you I'd get the Green Line 757
Failed Unit
Established Member
I tend to use as a rule. 1 hour before I would set off pre new timetable.
MrCub
Member
if I were you I'd get the Green Line 757
If I thought I could get there without being ill, it would be tempting
MrCub
Member
I was worried that was going to be the suggestion. Well that's a needless early start. Might put in for Delay Repay now...
That’s my rule of thumb at the moment as well, if I absolutely have to be there by a set time.
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.
Credit where credit is due.
Bornin1980s
Member
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- 4 Apr 2017
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Sorry about the late reply, but thank you all. I haven't actually booked my ticket yet (I know, I am running dangerously late). Looks like I would have to book to take the tube to Victoria. After that, the final leg of the journey will actually be on Southern, a notorious franchise in itself. Does anyone know if that service is reliable?
Also, would a ticket for the tube plus Southern journey also be valid on Thameslink, should that service improve?
N
No. It’s because the new roster will have been done on the basis that all drivers signed the required routes, and so drivers with BedPan knowledge may now not be rostered on, or rostered to a different route, whilst no driver is available for the BedPan work.
No. It’s because the new roster will have been done on the basis that all drivers signed the required routes, and so drivers with BedPan knowledge may now not be rostered on, or rostered to a different route, whilst no driver is available for the BedPan work.
Quietly brilliant. The new timetable was delivered smoothly, has improved things and is broadly positive.
tsr
Established Member
Broadly speaking, I think the lack of publicity compared with Thameslink says a lot.
Generally, it's working, with only the overcrowding spilling over from other routes causing major discomfort. As, if and when TL settles down and takes its fair share of passengers, a lot of the delays caused by special stop orders should decrease too.
There are some tweaks which need to be made - I sense more trains from East Croydon need to call at Balham, for example - but this can always be looked at in future, provided enough people are proven to want this sort of thing (nb. that is obviously not the only issue arising!).
Yes I was beginning to wonder where you had got to Table 52!
Frankly I'm not convinced that the infrastructure is that wonderful. The article on Thameslink 2000 in the January 1992 issue of the Railway magazine, which I happened to come across when clearing out the loft (a long ongoing job but I am up to September 1994 as I read and then box up my collection of RM's) told of four platforms under Kings Cross (but we only got two at St Pancras), four through platforms at Blackfriars, but we only got two through platforms there, wonderful new trains with trolley service, grouped into Flyer Metro for longer/shorter distance, etc etc. i.e infrastructure which would help to provide some resilience. Whether or not it will all work as it is, we will have to wait and see. But the fact that the bay platforms at Blackfriars aren't accessible from London Bridge is already casing a problem with the Horsham to Blackfriarses which are having to be diverted via Tulse Hill. Then there's the no tables/no armrests class 700 units where yes, they tell you when there is a free toilet, but you dare not use it for fear that your haemorrhoids will explode after being bounced around whilst sitting on a concrete seat for God knows how long. How much extra would it have cost to provide full access to the bay platforms at Blackfriars, or better still four through platforms accessible from all lines, and maybe a third platform at St Pancras, based as an additional percentage of the total £6.5 billion cost of the upgrade? And maybe providing 4 car units as rolling stock so that they can better be accommodated in sidings which aren't long enough for 12 car trains, and so that a complete train doesn't have to be taken out of service when a few carriages are covered in graffiti (not that that matters too much at the moment as there isn't anybody available to drive them.
Mind you, my bet is that all this is going to pale into insignificance in a year or two if/when we come out of the EU and have to set up border controls.
Failed Unit
Established Member
Is the revised timetable (which GTR refuse to publish) actually real now
For example
0657 and 0727 Cambridge- London haven’t ran at all this week. Are the formally withdrawn.
Leave a nice big rush hour gap for many people on a route all drivers will know. (So I assume it is lack of traction knowledge cancelling them)
For example
0657 and 0727 Cambridge- London haven’t ran at all this week. Are the formally withdrawn.
Leave a nice big rush hour gap for many people on a route all drivers will know. (So I assume it is lack of traction knowledge cancelling them)
The 0727 ran today and I think on Monday as well, though they were not advertised until a few minutes before the train left Cambridge.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/O08445/2018/06/13/advanced
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/O07570/2018/06/11/advanced
Failed Unit
Established Member
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.
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