Great Northern received reports from a train driver of a possible defect to the track at Old Street.
The report by the driver of 2V39 said that they saw a “reflection in their headlights” when departing from Old Street, and 5E15 confirmed it.Can any driver here say what it's like to go over a cracked or broken rail, what sort of sound or feeling there might be that indicates there's something wrong with the rail?
Everything has to be diverted into Kings Cross and run back out ECS to FPK when Moorgate’s shut.
All Class 2’s have been held back from Sussex + Hertford, as there wasn’t platform capacity with the Moorgate closure (which has since reopened afaik), as the 717’s are having visibility issues with reversing at Drayton Park.
There’s also an issue with OHL tripping on the Up Slow between Finsbury Park and Kings Cross.
CCF is not a pretty sight at the moment...
GN are struggling from a lack of drivers today, which has been exacerbated by drivers being displaced due to this disruption, but Control’s doing a pretty good job with trying to fix it - balancing what they can.I get that but I can’t ever remember the service being thinned out to that extent.
Control do a fantastic job, for lack of credit they’re given...I dread to think how bad things would be if control weren’t doing a good job...
GTR have operated this franchise for almost FIVE years. They were short of drivers on day 1 and claim they’ve been operating the largest driver recruitment programme in railway history. Given this I don’t understand how after all this time they are still short of drivers.
Isn't the problem that the network is now run so intensively, that when disruption hits, you quickly run out of people as they are stuck in the wrong place, have worked too long and need a break, a relief has been missed and redeployed elsewhere, literally hundreds of reasons ...
In a period of disruption at my work the other day, its amazing how quickly all the spares have been deployed to various places, and control room are ringing round to find out who can go where now.
If the public want to pay the fares associated with having a large number of staff literally drinking tea awaiting a problem, I am sure TOCs and unions will be happy to oblige ....
This is true however GTR told us there was a shortage of train crew. If it was train crew in the wrong position then that's different and they wouldn't normally call out shortage of train crew as an additional reason.
We've had to put up with shortage of train crew as a reason for cancellation for five years....
Another ShambolicSaturday/ with the departure board for Hitchin showing eight cancellations in the next two hours alone.
Did GTR not say they had sufficient drivers to run this timetable?
I've not travelled into London today but I will be travelling tomorrow. Sundays are usually worse than Saturdays when it comes to shortage of drivers so it doesn't bode well....
Everything has to be diverted into Kings Cross and run back out ECS to FPK when Moorgate’s shut.
All Class 2’s have been held back from Sussex + Hertford, as there wasn’t platform capacity with the Moorgate closure (which has since reopened afaik), as the 717’s are having visibility issues with reversing at Drayton Park.
There’s also an issue with OHL tripping on the Up Slow between Finsbury Park and Kings Cross.
CCF is not a pretty sight at the moment...
2059 points at Drayton Park are signed out of use in reverse, until an indeterminate point (haha!) in the future, so that hampers any reversal moves at Drayton Park too.Not being able to reverse at Drayton Park seems a bit cras. Relying on King’s Cross for both NCL and TL core diversions in times of disruption seems ambitious!
The 717s really have been appalling specified in terms of signal sighting! Order first, check sighting second...,
I've not travelled into London today but I will be travelling tomorrow. Sundays are usually worse than Saturdays when it comes to shortage of drivers so it doesn't bode well....
Did GTR not say they had sufficient drivers to run this timetable?