GTR cancellations including not operating from Victoria until 10th Jan

[Class 466]

Horsham is already connected to London by two Thameslink trains an hour too as well as the two Southern services so I'm sure it would be tolerable to have one of those four trains an hour from Horsham travel up the Dorking line instead.

Gatwick Airport definitely doesn't need that one extra train an hour to have an adequate connection to London, especially given the several Brighton Main Line services an hour that also call there plus up to four Gatwick Express services an hour on top.......

There's currently no Gatwick Express service, There hasn't been 4tph GX from Gatwick to Victoria since December 2019 in fact. Horsham already has its 1tph up via Dorking, it doesn't need a second one. the route via Gatwick is far more popular and serves busier places. Horsham, Crawley, Three Bridges & Gatwick will only have the Arun Valley services to Clapham & Victoria - everything else is Thameslink or going to London Bridge.

 

[30907]

This train is not shown at www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/simple/gb-nr:VIC/2022-01-13/0900

That's because it was planned to start from LBG and presumably diverted at the last minute. RTT cannot show "actual" times where there is no "planned" time.

 

[Paul Kelly]

RTT cannot show "actual" times where there is no "planned" time.

I think it could; it just doesn't - presumably makes it simpler internally for it not to show times at locations that aren't on the planned route.

 

[Surreytraveller]

oh I know!
my quote was to query what relevance an average absence rate for recycling operatives has for drivers, train planners, maintenance and resourcing staff in GTR.

The driver unavailability rate is much higher than 5%. I have heard a figure of not far off 50% just before Christmas, although that includes all reasons such as annual leave, drivers off track for various reasons as well as covid

 

[Bald Rick]

I have heard a figure of not far off 50% just before Christmas, although that includes all reasons such as annual leave, drivers off track for various reasons as well as covid

not that high. But high!

 

[Capvermell]

There was a train from Victoria to Littlehampton this morning at 0914!

I wonder if this was diverted from London bridge for some reason.

There was a 9.17am from London Bridge to Littlehampton according to www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/simple/gb-nr:LBG/to/gb-nr:LIT/2022-01-13/0900 but if you saw this when at London Victoria perhaps was there was a platform departure board signing error of some kind?

 

[Surreytraveller]

This train is not shown at www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/simple/gb-nr:VIC/2022-01-13/0900

Well, it didn't run from London Bridge

Realtime Trains - 1H14 0933 East Croydon to Littlehampton

Realtime Trains is an independent source of live realtime running information for the Great British railway network.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Probably just not in the system as running from Victoria

 

[ComUtoR]

It takes 5 minutes longer (20 minutes instead of 15 minutes) to run as a stopping passenger service instead of non stop

The problem, of course, is that 5 minutes is a very long time on the Railway. If that 5 minutes means that a member of Traincrew is unable to make a connection to another service, make a pass train, or cause a knock on effect to another crew diagram, etc. then the the rest of the dominoes would fall like a house of cards. Checkmate, game Over.

The other problem, of course, is that extra 5 minutes will impact the trains pathway and again cause a knock on effect.

This :

Only 5% of staff currently absent due to Omicron according to yesterday's news item at ww.letsrecycle.com/news/omicron-pushes-absence-rates-to-near-5-larac-finds/

Doesn't equate to this :

I really don't see why 5% of rail staff absent to provide the regular timetabled service couldn't have been covered by staff not off sick being offered overtime to work longer hours or on normal rest days or leave days.

It's a false equivalence. However, 5% is still a strong number and will equate to a high number of staff. The Railway is suffering like every other industry in that there just isn't enough flex in the staffing levels to cater for such a high number of staff. You need to, of course, remember that COVID will also be affecting those with an ability to cover the work. I would happily come in and work overtime (for a grand) but working on a leave day isn't allowed and the long term effect of working leave days is that problems are just kicked down the road. Longer hours are also restricted because many turns (specifically at our place) are already at the maximum. We are already at the limit of what we work each day.

it probably takes pretty persistent repeated sickness absence in the rail industry to incur disciplinary action.

Absolutely, our terms and conditions are fantastic. If I go sick twice in 13 weeks I will get disciplined. Those terms are superb by comparison.

Or may be COVID staff absences are higher because travelling on trains in to Central London presents a much higher risk of COVID infection than other forms of employment?

Higher than some, lower than others. Statistics and risk ranking of various employment can be found on the ONS [Office of National Statistics] *website.








*also available if you search this forum.

 

[Capvermell]

There's currently no Gatwick Express service, There hasn't been 4tph GX from Gatwick to Victoria since December 2019 in fact. Horsham already has its 1tph up via Dorking, it doesn't need a second one. the route via Gatwick is far more popular and serves busier places. Horsham, Crawley, Three Bridges & Gatwick will only have the Arun Valley services to Clapham & Victoria - everything else is Thameslink or going to London Bridge.

Well actually services were always half hourly for an hour and a half on weekdays from Horsham to Dorking pre pandemic and still were in the morning but not the evening in the post pandemic/lockdown timetable for reasons not logically ever explained to anyone by Southern/GoVia train planners or senior management.

But anyway I'm not asking for 2 trains an hour from Dorking to Horsham as being essential at any time but they are I think helpful to people on weekdays by making short local journeys to work in the morning and evening practical when a delay of an hour would seem very disproportionate to a journey time of only 20 or 30 minutes and might well make the difference between being able to use public transport and a rail passenger feeling they have to get a car to make such a journey.

But coming back to this Saturday timetable currently in force minorly amended (this week and last week) to provide a very early morning service from Horsham but still no evening service at all, of any kind, on weekdays the single thing I'm calling for and have been for quite some years is for hourly evening services on the line on Saturday to bring it in line with the minimum provided by Southern on Saturday almost everywhere else on their network where the train terminates or originates in Central London. Having said that I would probably settle for a once every 2 hourly service on both Saturday and Sunday all day as a better alternative from Dorking to Horsham than hourly on a Saturday but only till just after 5pm southbound and no trains on Sunday. I'm not calling for two trains an hour from Dorking to Horsham but just pointing out that surely one train an hour is feasible given the plethora of trains running on the Brighton Main Line and to Horsham and beyond (but then only as Southern and not Thameslink services) on the line from Three Bridges to the south coast. Also more people would undoubtedly use the Mole Valley corridor train service to connect at Leatherhead, Guildford and Sutton if there was a once an hour through service via Horsham and Dorking from the south coast rather than the current ludicrous situation on the regular time table of a connecting time northbound at Horsham to Dorking of up to 58 minutes.

 

[Capvermell]

The problem, of course, is that 5 minutes is a very long time on the Railway. If that 5 minutes means that a member of Traincrew is unable to make a connection to another service, make a pass train, or cause a knock on effect to another crew diagram, etc. then the the rest of the dominoes would fall like a house of cards. Checkmate, game Over.

This is almost certainly not true on the Mole Valley line where once an hour trains normally spend 31 minutes doing nothing in Platform 1 at Horsham before heading back to London, although that has been trimmed back on the current services from London Bridge to only 22 minutes showing just how much slack there is in the current timetable.

The other problem, of course, is that extra 5 minutes will impact the trains pathway and again cause a knock on effect.

Again not true from Dorking to Horsham where there are no other trains needing to get through due to the infrequency of the services on this section of line, especially not with the late evening service I am proposing that would have been the first train to travel on the line for four and a half hours. Yes that time gap is still useful because when people are out in London for the evening they don't want to become back until at least 10.55pm if not the 11.25pm available on a weekday in the regular timetable.

 

[ComUtoR]

This is almost certainly not true on the Mole Valley line where once an hour trains normally spend 31 minutes doing nothing in Platform 1 at Horsham before heading back to London, although that has been trimmed back on the current services from London Bridge to only 22 minutes showing just how much slack there is in the current timetable.

Lets say, for an example, that the Driver/OBS/Guard/Person of interest, requires a PNB.
Lets say, for an example, that the PNB point has a 5 minute walking time and there is a 20 minutes PNB allowance. A 31 minute turn around just slides into the diagram. An additional 5 minutes will break that diagram.

It isn't just about slack.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Lets say, for an example, that the Driver/OBS/Guard/Person of interest, requires a PNB.
Lets say, for an example, that the PNB point has a 5 minute walking time and there is a 20 minutes PNB allowance. A 31 minute turn around just slides into the diagram. An additional 5 minutes will break that diagram.

It isn't just about slack.

And if that allowance is a pass train that they relieve further down the line, that's not a case of a train going 5 minutes late if a driver is five minutes late on their break, as they will be in the wrong location to relieve the train!

 

[Peregrine 4903]

I'm sure it would be of interest to most of us if you could be more specific.

I can't sadly.

 

[Southern Dvr]

Enormous savings being made by the Omicron timetable as there is no rest day working required at the moment. Reading elsewhere that ASLEF have terminated their RDW agreement at another TOC makes me wonder whether this may have been pre-emptive action by GTR.

 

[infobleep]

That's quite obviously logically not the case as the whole reason the Christmas Week timetable was rolled over was mainly because Omicron absences meant there weren't enough train crew (drivers, guards and supervisors) available to run the normal service that was running in the week before xmas. There wasn't just a shortage of train planning staff due to Omicron infection in Christmas Week and/or in the first week of the New Year.

So they absolutely couldn't run the train timetable in effect in the week before Christmas in the New Year (as previously planned) due to the lack of train drivers and train supervisors as otherwise they would have simply returned to the normal pre Christmas weekday timetable that was automatically scheduled in the system to take effect from 4th January onwards.

Even accepting all of that and the need to re-roster crews (which also had to happen to run on the Christmas Week timetable for another week) surely after a couple of weeks (say on January 17th) they could have returned to the full COVID lockdown period timetable of 2020 that was a much more sensible timetable to cover weekday evenings and also accommodated the lack of train crew.

As the 2020 lockdown timetable and associated routing diagrams were clearly all on file it can't have been that massive a task to simply reuse most of that information to reintroduce the main lockdown timetable.

If they don't have the planners then they would have had to just cancel services on the day,. This the timetable pre Chrostmas would have been in place but on the day services would have been cancelled as they wouldn't have been able to redesign it, like they haven't been able to do now.

 

[Surreytraveller]

If they don't have the planners then they would have had to just cancel services on the day,. This the timetable pre Chrostmas would have been in place but on the day services would have been cancelled as they wouldn't have been able to redesign it, like they haven't been able to do now.

If you ran the service like that, it would be chaos. That's why the engineering works plan was carried over. There's no way the situation would have been manageable using the pre-Christmas timetable

 

[Peregrine 4903]

If they don't have the planners then they would have had to just cancel services on the day,. This the timetable pre Chrostmas would have been in place but on the day services would have been cancelled as they wouldn't have been able to redesign it, like they haven't been able to do now.

While I do somewhat agree with this, doing this you are also putting unspeakable amounts of pressure on the already overstretched control teams.

 

[paul1609]

The traffic was never at these stations before March 2020 and is never going to be there. You could have used SDO like plenty of other stations successfully do across the Southern network but i guess with non gangwayed stock isn't allowed.

The 171s selective door opening is operated by door deselect operated by the conductor.
The conductor has to be at the rearmost door to be opened. If there's no gangways the conductor can't walk down the train. It's the same reason why Marshlink can only be 1 x 2 car or 1 x4car. If it was 2 x 2 car the conductor would need to be in the rear unit to despatch a down train at Rye and then in the front unit on arrival at Winchelsea or Three Oaks the next stop.
On the Uckfield line the busiest stations are Crowborough and Uckfield towards the end of the line.

 

[infobleep]

Southern is unique in being able to run all routes out of London Bridge with a 4 track line for long distance services, it was chance that Victoria was closed for engineering until the 3rd so a revised timetable was in place that matched crew availability, I guess Victoria drivers were being used as spare cover at other London depots. Otherwise they would presumably have implemented a Saturday service with multiple short notice cancellations. Also the timetable changed in mid-December to reinstate some services notably Gatwick Express so an emergency timetable had to be worked up from the new base timetable including interactions with adjoining TOCs and altered freight services.

Indeed regarding short notice cancellations. That was kind of my point. They would have had to have short notice cancellations from the base timetable.

 

[Craig1122]

Anything I've missed?

Just scheduling rolling stock can be complicated in itself:

Stabling has to be carefully planned. For example if you have an 8 coach siding you can't park a 12 coach in it.

Some units will need to go back to depot, as opposed to just a stabling point. For example they may develop a fault during the day or may require routine servicing. Much like a car you have time and/or mileage related service items. There will be a point at which you can't run in service if you exceed that. So you don't want a unit that's nearly out of miles to end the day at Littlehampton rather than Selhurst it that means you can't use it in the morning. You also want to schedule in routine tasks like train wash as well as toilet emptying.

To enable all this crews are allocated a particular unit at start of service, it's not a case of just take anything that's in the car park! If you've got a depot where trains are 'blocked in' then you need to make sure they're assigned to leave in the correct order in the morning.

You also need to match up train length with infrastructure. No good running 12 coaches if you've only got 8 coach platforms. Similar with splitting and joining, you can't join 2 x 8 coach trains.

After you've done all that it needs to match with the crew diagrams so you haven't scheduled anyone to take a train they're not qualified to operate.

Sometimes I think it's a miracle anything manages to run at all as so many parts of three puzzle have to come together!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Lets say, for an example, that the Driver/OBS/Guard/Person of interest, requires a PNB.
Lets say, for an example, that the PNB point has a 5 minute walking time and there is a 20 minutes PNB allowance. A 31 minute turn around just slides into the diagram. An additional 5 minutes will break that diagram.

It isn't just about slack.

Nailed it there - and 20 mins is not a lot of time to "chillax" and do essential cab break purposes on a busy commuter line in often dark , wet and so on conditions. These breaks are essential. (says he whose NHS employee wife who has just done 10 hours of almost solid duty , with just a 10 min comfort and tea break) ...

You mention the monitering of train crew and other "absence" - even in the days of the supposedly inefficient BR , there was something called MfA or "Managing for Attendance" - taken pretty seriously.

 

[infobleep]

Im If you ran the service like that, it would be chaos. That's why the engineering works plan was carried over. There's no way the situation would have been manageable using the pre-Christmas timetable

I'm talking about if no engineering works had taken place. Hypothetical situation to make a point.

After all, if they couldn't do much to amend the engineering timetable, they wouldn't have been able to do much to amend the pre-Christmas timetable had it still been in force.

Thus it's not solely about the fact they are running fewer services but that fewer services had been timetabled. Had more services been timetabled, maybe more could have run and if not they would have been cancelled on the day, as there wasn't enough planner to amend any timetable, let alone one coming off the back of an engineering works timetable.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Jan 2022 ==

While I do somewhat agree with this, doing this you are also putting unspeakable amounts of pressure on the already overstretched control teams.

But what choice would they have? They don't have enough planners to amend the timetable due to staff sickness issues.

 

[Surreytraveller]

But what choice would they have? They don't have enough planners to amend the timetable due to staff sickness issues.

And Control have their own sickness levels, and if they're there finishing off the planners jobs, they cannot do their own job of running the day to day service

 

[ComUtoR]

You mention the monitering of train crew and other "absence" - even in the days of the supposedly inefficient BR , there was something called MfA or "Managing for Attendance" - taken pretty seriously.

It still exists. But, you know, well, it takes a lot for disciplinary action to take place ..................................................................

 

[infobleep]

And Control have their own sickness levels, and if they're there finishing off the planners jobs, they cannot do their own job of running the day to day service

Which begs the question, what would have happened and where they lucky to have had the engineering timescale in place?

 

[ashkeba]

Lets say, for an example, that the Driver/OBS/Guard/Person of interest, requires a PNB.
Lets say, for an example, that the PNB point has a 5 minute walking time and there is a 20 minutes PNB allowance.

20 minutes seems like a long time to eat a Pea Nut Butter.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Jan 2022 ==

Well, it didn't run from London Bridge

Realtime Trains - 1H14 0933 East Croydon to Littlehampton

Realtime Trains is an independent source of live realtime running information for the Great British railway network.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Probably just not in the system as running from Victoria

In system as planned to run from London Bridge and actually ran from Victoria: http://charlwoodhouse.co.uk/rail/liverail/train/25916759/13/01/22

 

[Paul Kelly]

In system as planned to run from London Bridge and actually ran from Victoria: http://charlwoodhouse.co.uk/rail/liverail/train/25916759/13/01/22

That's a nice clear layout and I wasn't aware of that site - thanks for the link. Just a pity it's rather slow when looking at the summary of departures from a station. Very fast to look at details of an individual train though.

 

[Surreytraveller]

I don't know what they're playing at, but it appears Southern are going back to Victoria tomorrow. Not quite sure how well that's going to go

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I don't know what they're playing at, but it appears Southern are going back to Victoria tomorrow. Not quite sure how well that's going to go

Suppose that services to/from Victoria have to re-commence some time. Certainly be interesting to hear how this all goes, if indeed it does!

 

[Class 466]

I don't know what they're playing at, but it appears Southern are going back to Victoria tomorrow. Not quite sure how well that's going to go

Weekends aren’t being altered restrospectively to divert trains away from Victoria it would seem. (Apart from those when it was shut anyway)