Southeastern problems post timetable change

[4-SUB 4732]

If we aren't getting back to 6tph on main routes any time soon during off-peak periods, nor returning to the 22-minute timetable at peak times, then there is no good reason not to put into the timetable trains that run from 05:30 - 23:59 every day, at almost perfectly even intervals, with peak services overlaid.

Look at, for example, Abbey Wood to London. At peak times:
- xx:20 Cannon St direct
- xx:28 Luton
- xx:35 Cannon St via Lewisham
- xx:45 Cannon St direct
And repeat to 50, 58, 05, 15.

So that's a gap through Greenwich of about 8, 17, 5 minutes. 17 minute gap.

As for Bexleyheath to London. At peak:
- xx:17 Cannon St direct
- xx:25 Charing Cross direct
- xx:38 Victoria
- xx:43 Cannon St direct
And repeat to 47, 55, 08, 13.

So a gap through, say, Eltham of 8, 13, 5, 4 minutes.

The gap between Cannon Street trains is 4-26-4-26 minutes. This is ridiculous.

 

[Horizon22]

Looks like some new trains are being added after “listening to our customers” but not huge.

Timetable updates | Southeastern

www.southeasternrailway.co.uk

Additional and amended services to tackle overcrowding and reflect increased demand

From 13 February:

• An additional service will run at 0733 from Crayford to Charing Cross
• The 0709 Strood to Charing Cross will run non-stop between New Eltham to London Bridge
• What’s currently the 0854 service Tonbridge to Cannon Street will depart at 0905 and run to Charing Cross – reducing crowding on earlier trains (like the 0740 Ramsgate to Charing Cross) and making it possible to travel on this service with an off-peak ticket
• Two trains will start slightly earlier than originally timetabled (with the same arrival time in Tunbridge Wells), to help our network run with fewer delays through key junctions:
  • 0547 Hastings to Charing Cross will now start at 0543
  • 0624 Ore to Cannon Street will now start at 0621

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Looks like some new trains are being added after “listening to our customers” but not huge.

Timetable updates | Southeastern

www.southeasternrailway.co.uk

Well at least they have reacted even if its limited many other operators just do nothing or probably DfT doesn't allow them to

 

[N/100]

Looks like some new trains are being added after “listening to our customers” but not huge.

Timetable updates | Southeastern

www.southeasternrailway.co.uk

Currently a 5 minute delay on the 0547 HGS seems sufficient to put 20 extra minutes on the following Tunbridge Wells starter, so I get that change.

 

[PGAT]

And extra 12 car trains, can't complain too much

 

[brad465]

Nice to see they have perhaps at least partially learned that running something non-stop between New Eltham and London Bridge was not so much about making the service slightly faster.

 

[bramling]

Funny then how the DLR sometimes manages 20-second turnrounds, which are not timetabled as such but do happen with inward late running.

To be fair, DLR has
* no need for the operator to change ends
* a continuous ATP system so reducing the scope for human errors

Personally I don’t see a problem with drivers rushing the changing ends part, indeed “quick turnarounds” have been part of railway life for generations. However this shouldn’t extend to setting up the cab, at the point where the driver enters the cab any rushing should certainly cease.

 

[Tangent]

One of the more depressing features of the new timetable for me is the unnecessary underutilisation of Cannon Street. I am waiting for a train there to take me to London Bridge now: only thrrr rains are currently in the platform,, and only two of them are in service. There are eight or so trains booked to depart in the next hour, compared to 18 departures from Charing Cross.

Yes, City commuting took a big and ongoing hit with the pandemic; but southeastern has spent the past decade or so making Cannon Street a more attractive waypoint for passengers on their way to other parts of Central London, or travelling at off-peak times, and the improvements to Bank enhance the station's attractiveness here. Forcing passengers to head for London Bridge for a direct connection only puts unnecessary pressure on that station's capacity for easy interchange.

 

[43066]

One of the more depressing features of the new timetable for me is the unnecessary underutilisation of Cannon Street. I am waiting for a train there to take me to London Bridge now: only thrrr rains are currently in the platform,, and only two of them are in service. There are eight or so trains booked to depart in the next hour, compared to 18 departures from Charing Cross.

Yes, City commuting took a big and ongoing hit with the pandemic; but southeastern has spent the past decade or so making Cannon Street a more attractive waypoint for passengers on their way to other parts of Central London, or travelling at off-peak times, and the improvements to Bank enhance the station's attractiveness here. Forcing passengers to head for London Bridge for a direct connection only puts unnecessary pressure on that station's capacity for easy interchange.

(It was used heavily over the weekend just gone!) Point taken generally. To be fair it wasn’t so very long ago that CST used to close early Saturdays and all day on Sundays.

It has always been a relatively obscure station in the scheme of London terminals. It might have seven platforms but the (essentially two track + 15mph curve) layout in/out of it is incredibly awkward and slow from a capacity perspective.

Very few passengers will be forced to head to London Bridge from CST, as opposed to those who would arrive at London Bridge anyway. Few people start from the immediate CST locale, and the links that get you to/from there from elsewhere in London are generally harder than for the main CHX/LBG route.

 

[ScotGG]

They've tinkered again but its still generally dismal with long gaps along various lines with extensive service gaps the like of which havn't been seen for 40 years and probably longer.

And 70 per cent ridership now takes us back to about 2010 numbers when the service was far better.

 

[Stephen42]

One of the more depressing features of the new timetable for me is the unnecessary underutilisation of Cannon Street. I am waiting for a train there to take me to London Bridge now: only thrrr rains are currently in the platform,, and only two of them are in service. There are eight or so trains booked to depart in the next hour, compared to 18 departures from Charing Cross.

Yes, City commuting took a big and ongoing hit with the pandemic; but southeastern has spent the past decade or so making Cannon Street a more attractive waypoint for passengers on their way to other parts of Central London, or travelling at off-peak times, and the improvements to Bank enhance the station's attractiveness here. Forcing passengers to head for London Bridge for a direct connection only puts unnecessary pressure on that station's capacity for easy interchange.

It's not massively new, Cannon Street only had 8 off peak departures per hour in the previous timetable. There's very few services that could be redirected without introducing crossing moves at either Parks Bridge or Lewisham, the not via Lewisham Sidcup line service being the only exception.

What is new is that the peak frequency drops off much quicker. If at Cannon Street an hour earlier there would have been 12 departures, another hour earlier there are 19. Cannon Street also sees more splitting to reduce overall vehicle mileage as it has the platform availability to do so.

 

[Class 466]

And extra 12 car trains, can't complain too much

They have however failed to mention that the well loaded (now very busy) 1605 St Pancras to Dover was halved from 12 to 6 cars. Can only think that in Making an additional Morning Service 12 cars this one has been cut back to balance the costs… or “improve performance because it doesn’t have to split at Ashford”

 

[Edsmith]

One of the more depressing features of the new timetable for me is the unnecessary underutilisation of Cannon Street. I am waiting for a train there to take me to London Bridge now: only thrrr rains are currently in the platform,, and only two of them are in service. There are eight or so trains booked to depart in the next hour, compared to 18 departures from Charing Cross.

Yes, City commuting took a big and ongoing hit with the pandemic; but southeastern has spent the past decade or so making Cannon Street a more attractive waypoint for passengers on their way to other parts of Central London, or travelling at off-peak times, and the improvements to Bank enhance the station's attractiveness here. Forcing passengers to head for London Bridge for a direct connection only puts unnecessary pressure on that station's capacity for easy interchange.

Even pre pandemic Cannon Street always seemed very quiet off peak, I would have thought the present 8tph was more than adequate for demand?

 

[CFRAIL]

I'm sure the stock is used to strengthen a later service now..

They have however failed to mention that the well loaded (now very busy) 1605 St Pancras to Dover was halved from 12 to 6 cars. Can only think that in Making an additional Morning Service 12 cars this one has been cut back to balance the costs… or “improve performance because it doesn’t have to split at Ashford”

 

[Class 466]

I'm sure the stock is used to strengthen a later service now..

There's no additional evening strengthening on HS1 just the one morning train

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It's not massively new, Cannon Street only had 8 off peak departures per hour in the previous timetable. There's very few services that could be redirected without introducing crossing moves at either Parks Bridge or Lewisham, the not via Lewisham Sidcup line service being the only exception.

NR has spent big money renewing Parks Bridge and Lewisham Jcn the latter only at Christmas to make "your journeys more reliable over these critical jcns". However, they now are used far less with this timetable despite being renewed to reduce the failure rate to improve deliverability of the previous timetable. OK they will still have limited use but the railway invests large sums to provide reliable infrastructure like this and it will only get that money back by providing services that people what to use but if it continues to believe that PPM is all that is needed to deliver increased revenue its not going to work.

 

[ComUtoR]

NR has spent big money renewing Parks Bridge and Lewisham Jcn the latter only at Christmas to make "your journeys more reliable over these critical jcns". However, they now are used far less with this timetable despite being renewed to reduce the failure rate to improve deliverability of the previous timetable. OK they will still have limited use but the railway invests large sums to provide reliable infrastructure like this and it will only get that money back by providing services that people what to use but if it continues to believe that PPM is all that is needed to deliver increased revenue its not going to work.

And yet, all that work, the junction failed multiple times. With multiple issues in a very short time.

 

[43066]

And yet, all that work, the junction failed multiple times. With multiple issues in a very short time.

Has it happened again since the work was done? Disappointing if so.

 

[ComUtoR]

Has it happened again since the work was done? Disappointing if so.

Yes.

The SE network does appear to be crumbling. Yes, there is/has been investment but the basic network barely changes.

A large part of the Timetable issues is trying to separate the daily infrastructure problems and what is actually a timetable issue.

 

[ScotGG]

Station staffing also helps when passengers fall ill. SE Metro is DOO so no guard to help. I've seen a few times when someone is ill delays occur if at a station that's unstaffed at that particular time.

 

[cuccir]

I noticed London Bridge trending on Twitter this evening, and the photos associated with it look pretty shocking (eg 1, 2, 3) Severe overcrowding in the concourse and on platforms, associated with signalling problems causing disruption I think.

It would only take one incident for that level of overcrowding to become very dangerous, and it must be highly vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

I don't travel in that part of the UK often at all. Are the levels of overcrowding shown common? Or was this an exceptional event?

 

[Bald Rick]

Are the levels of overcrowding shown common?

No

Or was this an exceptional event?

Yes. Major signalling failure at Cannon St.

 

[Bald Rick]

How Steve puts up with it I’ll never know. He reads them all.

 

[NorthKent1989]

There were never these scenes at London Bridge before the new timetable was introduced - sure, there were issues at Cannon Street in particular during this sort of disruption, but now that bottleneck has moved to London Bridge, and behind the gateline too.

Reducing the number of trains (compared with pre-Covid times) and forcing passengers to change at London Bridge has made the system a lot less resilient and is contributing hugely to scenes like this. This is on the DfT and Southeasterm.

Exactly this, since the timetable has been changed the service has been horrendous.

Whatever they tried to fix by removing conflicts at Lewisham to reduce delays (which weren’t all that bad compared to now) they’ve simply moved it all to London Bridge, this also puts paid to the fact that London Bridge is an easy interchange, not that easy considering it’s crowded constantly now.

 

[Mikey C]

There were never these scenes at London Bridge before the new timetable was introduced - sure, there were issues at Cannon Street in particular during this sort of disruption, but now that bottleneck has moved to London Bridge, and behind the gateline too.

Reducing the number of trains (compared with pre-Covid times) and forcing passengers to change at London Bridge has made the system a lot less resilient and is contributing hugely to scenes like this. This is on the DfT and Southeasterm.

That's twice now in recent weeks we've seen these incidents.

The lack of a separate interchange bridge at London Bridge is becoming really telling now.

 

[Horizon22]

I noticed London Bridge trending on Twitter this evening, and the photos associated with it look pretty shocking (eg 1, 2, 3) Severe overcrowding in the concourse and on platforms, associated with signalling problems causing disruption I think.

It would only take one incident for that level of overcrowding to become very dangerous, and it must be highly vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

I don't travel in that part of the UK often at all. Are the levels of overcrowding shown common? Or was this an exceptional event?

It’s not common, but they really don’t seem to be managing the congestion appropriately as you would expect from a major station with adequate crowd control measures.

 

[Tangent]

Exactly this, since the timetable has been changed the service has been horrendous.

Whatever they tried to fix by removing conflicts at Lewisham to reduce delays (which weren’t all that bad compared to now) they’ve simply moved it all to London Bridge, this also puts paid to the fact that London Bridge is an easy interchange, not that easy considering it’s crowded constantly now.

And, of course, the vast majority of all passengers are heading to and from the Charing Cross platforms, which concentrates the problem. London Bridge is easy and pleasant to use if you're changing trains and have less then ten minutes to wait. If you have to wait more than 10 minutes, it's considerably less pleasant; when it's rush hour and there are delays, it's another story altogether.

 

[Craig1122]

A big problem with crowd control at London Bridge is that in the evening trains from CHX/CST will continue dumping more people onto the station.

In the morning those people will be catching the first train to one of 2 destinations so the platforms should clear relatively quickly. In the evening some will be waiting for multiple trains to go past before one heading to the correct destination arrives. So the platforms are potentially being filled much faster than you can empty them.

Closing the barriers to incoming passengers is the main method of crowd control on LU but this simply won't be as effective because of the number of people changing. The other LU method is to non stop until overcrowding can be eased, again this doesn't really work because you can't just carry people on to the next station in the same way.

Also add in that the bulk of the barrier staff at London Bridge seem to be agency without the training, experience or motivation to manage the situation correctly...

 

[theageofthetra]

That's twice now in recent weeks we've seen these incidents.

The lack of a separate interchange bridge at London Bridge is becoming really telling now.

The biggest issue is there was an incorrect assumption during the design process that most passengers would wait downstairs until a few minutes before their scheduled departure (those with access requirements aside)

The reality is very few do and head straight up to the platform even if they are waiting 10 mins or more.

 

[matt_world2004]

Didn't tfl also have the plan of simplifying the terminals, would this have caused similar problems.
Don't Rail delivery group have software for modelling flows through stations ? Tfl has? And applying this modelling to service changes .