Great Northern Disruption Today (17/02)

[sefton]

Great Northern horribly disrupted today, and I know they don't give a damn for their customers, but today seemed to reach a new low

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...17/1400-1630?stp=WVS&show=pax-calls&order=wtt

Unless I am mistaken, the badly delayed 15:22, which was preceded by two cancelled trains, arrives at Finsbury Park 42 minutes late at 16:03 and was cancelled there rather than going on to Peterborough.

Meanwhile Great Northern decide to add a train to the schedule and start it from Finsbury Park, presumably to compensate for the previously cancelled trains to Peterborough - but hilariously they set that additional train off at 15:58, five minutes before delayed 15:22 arrives!

And so the customers on the 15:22 who have already been horribly delayed from the two previous cancellations and the delay to the 15:22 now have another hour to wait on Finsbury Park platform.

Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?

Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery?

Performance targets coming before customers?

Or just having fun playing with their toy train set going "choo choo"?

 

[bramling]

Great Northern horribly disrupted today, and I know they don't give a damn for their customers, but today seemed to reach a new low

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...17/1400-1630?stp=WVS&show=pax-calls&order=wtt

Unless I am mistaken, the badly delayed 15:22, which was preceded by two cancelled trains, arrives at Finsbury Park 42 minutes late at 16:03 and was cancelled there rather than going on to Peterborough.

Meanwhile Great Northern decide to add a train to the schedule and start it from Finsbury Park, presumably to compensate for the previously cancelled trains to Peterborough - but hilariously they set that additional train off at 15:58, five minutes before delayed 15:22 arrives!

And so the customers on the 15:22 who have already been horribly delayed from the two previous cancellations and the delay to the 15:22 now have another hour to wait on Finsbury Park platform.

Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?

Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery?

Performance targets coming before customers?

Or just having fun playing with their toy train set going "choo choo"?

I suspect left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing will be the correct answer.

In reality all of the above will be determined by what the driver duties do. In a perfect world you’d make the core train into the Finsbury Park starter, however if the driver to go north had previously been diverted into King’s Cross and told to make that his own train then that wouldn’t have been readily feasible.

No doubt this is all a function of the continuing abundance of Finsbury Park crew reliefs. However these reliefs do offer opportunities for making up delays without having to resort to missing stops, so it’s swings and roundabouts really.

I shall resist from making a comment that these issues wouldn’t have arisen under the pre-Thameslink setup.

 

[MikeWM]

The service was broken early this morning by a signal failure at Hatfield. Almost 12 hours after it was fixed, the service is still a complete mess - everything that is running seems to be 20+ minutes late or cancelled, including the train I’m currently sitting on.

They are becoming quite legendary for their complete inability to recover the service after any disruption whatever.

Not helped by the information at Cambridge for this delayed train. Platform 1. Then platform changed to platform 4, even though 1 is free. Then five minutes later back to 1 again. Maybe it amused someone to try to reenact the scene from Mr Hulot’s Holiday, but the 100+ passengers waiting for a delayed train were certainly not pleased at wandering the station like fools.

 

[30907]

Not doing well, and yes, driver changes at FPK (and I suspect too-"efficient" diagramming) are evidently an issue!
Deciding to run a 1524 FPK departure with a fresh set and crew was probably correct, because the priority is to deal with passengers heading away from London and stations north, not the small subset of passengers (the OP among them?) who were travelling from south of Three Bridges to north of Hitchin.

Why it left 34 late isn't obvious, and it may not have been predictable, but once the unit has reached the platform at FPK the die is cast - move the set and you don't have a relief driver for the Horsham when it arrives anyway.
Though if RTT is to be believed, the Horsham set then blocked platform 7, delaying the next service through the core considerably. If that's the case (and it's a guess made from partial information) then the original decision may have been flawed.

PS I've been working on loco and crew diagrams for my steam-era model railway, and am learning from incidents like these not to be too "clever..."

 

[choochoochoo]

I'm sure it wouldn't have been that bad if drivers were still able to sign multiple routes and traction, rather than the de-skilling that is now in place post December 2019 timetable.

It's frustrating waiting at a platform seeing a train you could've driven 2 months ago stuck at Finsbury Park because you're not allowed to drive it now.

 

[sefton]

Deciding to run a 1524 FPK departure with a fresh set and crew was probably correct, because the priority is to deal with passengers heading away from London and stations north, not the small subset of passengers (the OP among them?) who were travelling from south of Three Bridges to north of Hitchin.

Running a train to take customers heading north from London is sensible.

Starting that service from Finsbury Park is stupid because damn all people get on there - they are mostly getting on at St Pancras and the Thameslink stations.

And timing that service so it leaves 5 minutes before all those severely delayed customers arrive - really?

As I said before, people playing with their toy train sets with no regard for customers.

 

[bramling]

Running a train to take customers heading north from London is sensible.

Starting that service from Finsbury Park is stupid because damn all people get on there - they are mostly getting on at St Pancras and the Thameslink stations.

This is the problem with the current setup - the service will have started from Finsbury Park because it was diverted into King's Cross. From an operational point of view it makes sense, but from a customer point of view it's a bell-end because of the customers now being used to going from St. Pancras.

However, take away the Finsbury Park crew reliefs and diverting into King's Cross becomes *much* more of a problem because a southbound train could have a Southern Region driver on it who basically will need to get off south of the river. The northbound GN service is then at the mercy of whatever happens to be coming north, which could well be nothing.

Then add a further problem that lateness can't be recovered by turning short if the driver is booked to go to the destination, so bye bye intermediate stops!

And timing that service so it leaves 5 minutes before all those severely delayed customers arrive - really?

I suspect it wasn't done like that on purpose.

As I said before, people playing with their toy train sets with no regard for customers.

Welcome to ThamesLink/!

These through services to exciting destinations simply don't work well the moment there's the very slightest hint of a problem.

 

[30907]

Running a train to take customers heading north from London is sensible.

Starting that service from Finsbury Park is stupid because damn all people get on there - they are mostly getting on at St Pancras and the Thameslink stations.

And timing that service so it leaves 5 minutes before all those severely delayed customers arrive - really?

As I said before, people playing with their toy train sets with no regard for customers.

As I said before, if the train is at FPK and doesn't leave when scheduled at 1524, you have to send it off ASAP otherwise you delay everything else more.
I presume you were on the train from Horsham and travelling to beyond Hitchin?

 

[jon0844]

I was told some drivers were late for their PNBs due to all the delays, and around that time of day there were drivers finishing and new ones starting. By all accounts the service was messed up all morning and afternoon and big apology notices went up at my station this morning that said they were doing repair work overnight.

 

[ashkeba]

I was told some drivers were late for their PNBs due to all the delays, [...]

Late for their Potential New Boyfriends?