Thameslink Chaos (07/11/11)

[Class377/5]

Part of the Thameslink upgrades works was (in the original plan) to extends the OHLE to Tulse Hill. A rather random place tbh but even that minor extension was cut back to City only!

 

[The Box Photter]

I heartily agree that the Sutton Loop & Wimbledon passengers are treated very much as the poor relations when it comes to FCC. I would point out; however, that if your Wimbledon train is cancelled at short notice there is the (less pleasant) option of a London bus to get you home. For passengers north of Elstree & Borehamwood, the alternatives are limited. Does the 84A bus still run from Barnet to St Albans?

I can't recall exactly the last de-wiring between St Pancras & Bedford, but we do have frequent power supply problems and signalling failures. I don't need to go over the chaos caused by the last heavy snowfalls and sub-zero temperatures which had a detrimental effect on rolling stock and infrastructure.

As I understand it, when the temperature drops significantly and there is a risk of points becoming frozen, Notwork Fail tends to default to leaving the tracks set to accommodate East Midlands Trains into & out of St Pancras HL. This precludes FCC from getting any of its trains onto the fast lines north of Kentish Town and it defaults to a half-hourly all-stations service to Bedford.

This isn't really satisfactory.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I think (and we all hope) - that there are better contingency plans being put into place for such events.

During the gauge corner cracking shambles , St Albans enjoyed a split service from Moorgate to the north of 10 tph all stations on the slow lines for several months (as the fast lines were most affected , and TLK abandoned them to MML) - whilst it was fairy tedious to say the least , it provided a decent quantum of service for that period. The penny , I hope, has been dropped re the need to serve north of Elstree with a reasonable service level - the bare minimum in my estimation being 6 tph - and frankly the "inners" can be basically dropped as there are other options , as mentioned before.

Ironically - a self contained Blackfriars based loop has reliabilty benefits... though not meeting the peak requirement to get north of City Thameslink etc.

In difficult times , there are difficult strategies.

 

[HH]

It falls down very very often on the ECML and the GEML.

It's hardly new. And certainly not new tech.

 

[Class377/5]

I heartily agree that the Sutton Loop & Wimbledon passengers are treated very much as the poor relations when it comes to FCC. I would point out; however, that if your Wimbledon train is cancelled at short notice there is the (less pleasant) option of a London bus to get you home. For passengers north of Elstree & Borehamwood, the alternatives are limited. Does the 84A bus still run from Barnet to St Albans?

I can't recall exactly the last de-wiring between St Pancras & Bedford, but we do have frequent power supply problems and signalling failures. I don't need to go over the chaos caused by the last heavy snowfalls and sub-zero temperatures which had a detrimental effect on rolling stock and infrastructure.

As I understand it, when the temperature drops significantly and there is a risk of points becoming frozen, Notwork Fail tends to default to leaving the tracks set to accommodate East Midlands Trains into & out of St Pancras HL. This precludes FCC from getting any of its trains onto the fast lines north of Kentish Town and it defaults to a half-hourly all-stations service to Bedford.

This isn't really satisfactory.

There is still a bus from Barnet to St Albans as I saw one on Sunday. Don't know the number tho.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

There is still a bus from Barnet to St Albans as I saw one on Sunday. Don't know the number tho.

The 84 still runs to St Albans

More options , and quicker from Hatfield though

 

[Bedpan]

Here we go again!! Two of the first three trains through the core after the weekend, the 04.14 and 04.52 departures from Harpenden are cancelled due to signalling problems although it looks like this time they are down in Sussex.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Sored out quickly this time though.

 

[HSTEd]

While 25kV may be the "future", ripping up perfectly functional electrification equipment to replace it with other equipment seems like a rather insane waste of resources.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

More problems tonight - appears to be slow lines to Radlett then back over to the fast , seemed to be trouble this am today. Not doing well performance wise due to various track and signalling issues. Delayed 20 coming home.

Not a good day all round actually UK wise.

 

[Bald Rick]

More problems tonight - appears to be slow lines to Radlett then back over to the fast , seemed to be trouble this am today. Not doing well performance wise due to various track and signalling issues. Delayed 20 coming home.

Not a good day all round actually UK wise.

Points failure W Hampstead.

It did lead to the rare pleasure of being on a 319 on the Down Fast overhauling a Meridian on the Down Slow near Elstree, both at line speed !

 

[Class377/5]

More problems tonight - appears to be slow lines to Radlett then back over to the fast , seemed to be trouble this am today. Not doing well performance wise due to various track and signalling issues. Delayed 20 coming home.

Not a good day all round actually UK wise.

Points failure W Hampstead.

It did lead to the rare pleasure of being on a 319 on the Down Fast overhauling a Meridian on the Down Slow near Elstree, both at line speed !

Multiple points failures on the MML at the same time at the start of peak meant both slows and fasts were blocked at different points.

 

[Minstral25]

Multiple points failures on the MML at the same time at the start of peak meant both slows and fasts were blocked at different points.

Lot's of hanging about at City Thameslink this evening - waited for 15 minutes and no trains either way which is very unusual. That's after this mornings train missing its paths because it was trying to squeeze 8 coaches of passengers into 4 and ending up 20 minutes late - really appreciated the one day it all worked well last week

 

[Class377/5]

Lot's of hanging about at City Thameslink this evening - waited for 15 minutes and no trains either way which is very unusual. That's after this mornings train missing its paths because it was trying to squeeze 8 coaches of passengers into 4 and ending up 20 minutes late - really appreciated the one day it all worked well last week

Wasn't helped by signalling problems at Preston Park either. Bad day tho yesterday wasn't too bad.

Seems there has been mega issues on the route lately. Hope it calms down.