Could Thameslink problems be fixed by building additional sidings?

[TimG]

could sidings be built at Bermondsey and north of St Pancras so that trains could terminate there?

 

[GodAtum]

it will take a lot more then that to fix Thameslink and get travellers trust back!

 

[Bromley boy]

I’m told that sidings at Sevenoakes, unused since BR days, are being re-commissioned. Most likely for RLU 700 stabling.

 

[twpsaesneg]

could sidings be built at Bermondsey and north of St Pancras so that trains could terminate there?

We have sidings North of St Pancras... They're called "Cricklewood".
There's no physical space before then to put anything else, not that it would likely help. The increased dwell time in terminating at the low level platforms would completely bugger up everything even more!

 

[tsr]

could sidings be built at Bermondsey and north of St Pancras so that trains could terminate there?

Trains can turn around at all sorts of locations, including London Bridge, St Pancras and within the Canal Tunnels. You don't need sidings to terminate a train, and storing them is less of a problem than getting them out of the way to start with. Plus ideally you need a driver to spin them round and take them somewhere useful straight away, otherwise you've later got to a get a driver from a driver depot to remove the stock.

Even if you had sidings, you'd either not have drivers competent to actually drive into them, or if you did, you'd quickly fill them up with displaced trains.

The problems are often coming from a sheer lack of drivers being available at locations where the trains can't easily be disposed of anyway. It's virtually impossible to do anything if a train turns up at (say) London Bridge and nobody can move it forwards to a sensible place, and if the driver can't return the other way (the original pilot driver has disappeared / no hours within the duty to return the opposite direction / another train waiting immediately behind / etc.) then you're going to wait a while anyway.

Better planning is needed so that if a pilot driver becomes displaced during their duty, the main driver is able to turn the train round in good time or another driver can be sent out to take the train back in the opposite direction. Good luck with that at the moment...

 

[DPWH]

Supposing that additional sidings could help "fix" Thameslink, any solution involving infrastructure changes is going to take several months to design, construct, etc, and time is exactly what Thameslink managers don't have.

What they need is to manage the problem within the constraints of the current infrastructure and the current availability of staff.

 

[jayah]

Trains can turn around at all sorts of locations, including London Bridge, St Pancras and within the Canal Tunnels. You don't need sidings to terminate a train, and storing them is less of a problem than getting them out of the way to start with. Plus ideally you need a driver to spin them round and take them somewhere useful straight away, otherwise you've later got to a get a driver from a driver depot to remove the stock.

Even if you had sidings, you'd either not have drivers competent to actually drive into them, or if you did, you'd quickly fill them up with displaced trains.

The problems are often coming from a sheer lack of drivers being available at locations where the trains can't easily be disposed of anyway. It's virtually impossible to do anything if a train turns up at (say) London Bridge and nobody can move it forwards to a sensible place, and if the driver can't return the other way (the original pilot driver has disappeared / no hours within the duty to return the opposite direction / another train waiting immediately behind / etc.) then you're going to wait a while anyway.

Better planning is needed so that if a pilot driver becomes displaced during their duty, the main driver is able to turn the train round in good time or another driver can be sent out to take the train back in the opposite direction. Good luck with that at the moment...

They need to plan a timetable they can actually resource. Building £m of Sidings so they can cancel trains in Central London and abandon them out of the way isn't really the answer.