Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018

[ComUtoR]

Could someone explain to an idiot like me why the incorrect routing of a train into the wrong platform at 0730 today is STILL having an impact on service at 1820?

Because of the knock on effect of having services and Drivers out of place. It is also down to having a service so tight that it is already at the point of breaking so the slightest nudge just compounds throughout the day. As a personal example : My diagram today had no recovery time. I was +4 when changing ends and so my next set of trips all ran late. This was just a small 4 minute delay but I couldn't recover it. When I booked off and handed my unit to a relieving Driver it carried on to his next trip too. So until that Drivers diagram allows for a reasonable time to turnaround or where the unit can skip a station or two; it will run late.

Now imagine that with hundreds of trains being impacted and the delay being hours.

 

[bramling]

Those (e.g. Arlesey) passengers are quite able to change at Finsbury Park to KGX services services in the same way as WGC/HAT passengers wanting core services are doing.

Why on earth would anyone do that?

In any case, if you get off a Cambridge/Brighton service (assuming it's running in the first place and isn't delayed - both of which are brave assumptions to make) you'll be waiting 22 minutes.

Furthermore, in the long-term the plan is the only off-peak King's Cross services will be the Kings Lynn 387s, which currently aren't planned to stop at Finsbury Park.

 

[bramling]

Because of the knock on effect of having services and Drivers out of place. It is also down to having a service so tight that it is already at the point of breaking so the slightest nudge just compounds throughout the day. As a personal example : My diagram today had no recovery time. I was +4 when changing ends and so my next set of trips all ran late. This was just a small 4 minute delay but I couldn't recover it. When I booked off and handed my unit to a relieving Driver it carried on to his next trip too. So until that Drivers diagram allows for a reasonable time to turnaround or where the unit can skip a station or two; it will run late.

Now imagine that with hundreds of trains being impacted and the delay being hours.

And of course then as soon as the train encounters a junction where its now-delayed path clashes with something else, either the delay increases, or someone else's train gets delayed. Multiply this by a few hundred, and it's obvious why this simply isn't working (*).

(* it's not "isn't going to work" any more, it's now turned into the predicted shambles).

 

[FOH]

I predict this will become politically untenable if it goes on beyond the half-term week.

Unfortunately, removing GTR doesn’t provide a quick fix, the uncertainty may make things worse.

That’s exactly what we were told in 2016 when our MPs were tabling motions to dismiss Govia in parliament and again in 2017 with the Gibb report.

I bet the great unwashed of north of London are wishing us Southerners had taken the pain.

 

[sefton]

Well it all went tits up for Great Northern this afternoon didn't it. No trains heading north from St Pancras to St Neots after 12.30 until 4pm.

Southbound this evening everything from 7pm onwards seems to have been cancelled.

Can it get any worse?

 

[bramling]

That’s exactly what we were told in 2016 when our MPs were tabling motions to dismiss Govia in parliament and again in 2017 with the Gibb report.

I bet the great unwashed of north of London are wishing us Southerners had taken the pain.

Govia developed quite a bad reputation when they ran Thameslink first time round, however outwardly they didn't do too bad a job turning round Southern (admittedly from a low level under Connex). It all seemed to go wrong from there, especially with the DFT influence.

The other problem now is would anyone else want to take on what is evidently now a poison chalice?

 

[bramling]

Well it all went tits up for Great Northern this afternoon didn't it. No trains heading north from St Pancras to St Neots after 12.30 until 4pm.

Can it get any worse?

MPs now on the case...

As for can it get any worse, we haven't even had a major failure or incident yet!

 

[Failed Unit]

Those (e.g. Arlesey) passengers are quite able to change at Finsbury Park to KGX services services in the same way as WGC/HAT passengers wanting core services are doing.

I think it is more the reference that they have a high cancellation/ skip stopping rate. The smaller stations between Hitchin and Peterborough have suffered most with big gaps since the new service. As have Welwyn north, knebworth, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton.

 

[bramling]

I think it is more the reference that they have a high cancellation/ skip stopping rate. The smaller stations between Hitchin and Peterborough have suffered most with big gaps since the new service. As have Welwyn north, knebworth, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton.

... which is exactly what was predicted to happen.

It's also worth remembering that we don't yet have anything like the full service - just 3tph to and from the core (on paper at least!).

 

[MrCub]

Because of the knock on effect of having services and Drivers out of place. It is also down to having a service so tight that it is already at the point of breaking so the slightest nudge just compounds throughout the day. As a personal example : My diagram today had no recovery time. I was +4 when changing ends and so my next set of trips all ran late. This was just a small 4 minute delay but I couldn't recover it. When I booked off and handed my unit to a relieving Driver it carried on to his next trip too. So until that Drivers diagram allows for a reasonable time to turnaround or where the unit can skip a station or two; it will run late.

Now imagine that with hundreds of trains being impacted and the delay being hours.

That's a genuinely helpful and interesting reply. So with the lack of recovery room in diagrams this sort of problem is going to go on and on...

 

[Steve Harris]

I think it is more the reference that they have a high cancellation/ skip stopping rate. The smaller stations between Hitchin and Peterborough have suffered most with big gaps since the new service. As have Welwyn north, knebworth, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton.

Indeed they have/are. My local station (St Neots) had a 3 hour gap in services towards London. 1 service and then another 3 hour gap planned, (which turned out to be less as a service got spun at St Neots).

Bearing in mind the service pattern is supposed to be every 30 minutes !

 

[NorthKent1989]

It's just teething problems, come back in June after a full review and the service has settled.

With the amount of years this has been in the planning then building, commuters and passengers who have had their services altered before and after the works have expected things to roll into action in May not June, services should be ready straight away!

 

[ScotGG]

Also worth remembering that Horton came from Southeastern when the franchise was doing very poorly and communications were crap - and that was before 2015. There were some dire moments. When he moved more than a few SE users raised eyebrows.

Since he left communications at SE improved. Now its been pulled into the mess with Rainham services often a non event.

 

[ComUtoR]

That's a genuinely helpful and interesting reply. So with the lack of recovery room in diagrams this sort of problem is going to go on and on...

The service needs to be recovered in some way. As you can see from this and other threads the vitriol aimed at the TOCs when they skip stops, cancel trains, terminate short etc shows the problem the TOC faces. Run the service late all day and make it worse by not doing anything to recover the service or face the ire of the passengers.

The stock that sat in platform 2 needed to change ends. The services behind needed to change ends and what isn't mentioned is that any service inbound would have needed to be stopped and anything that needed to cross a junction would also be delayed. With more and more services the problem just gets worse and worse. 24 trains an hour through the core and a single incident like this will impact every single one of them.

The tight nature of diagrams is a nightmare to deal with. Passengers again, take aim at the TOC when there is 'padding' in a service and there is accusations of massaging PPM. The problem is that by running the service to the absolute minimum means that sometimes a single minute cannot be recovered.

Chuck in staffing issues; PNB's etc. and you find that you don't even have the staffing level to recover the service.

It is the sheer number of issues that compound in a single incident or delay is what causes the knock on effect to last so long. Don't get me started about infrastructure constraints..

*EDIT*

Oh and it spreads like a virus. Trains go in different directions so their delay can spread across the network. If I get delayed at Charing Cross but then need to get to Victoria then whatever I'm booked to take at Vic will be delayed. Same with units. They can end up doing multiple services and the same stock can serve multiple routes in a day. If that stock gets displaced/cancelled/fails etc then everything that unit does will be impacted.

It's truly insane.

 

[Failed Unit]

With the amount of years this has been in the planning then building, commuters and passengers who have had their services altered before and after the works have expected things to roll into action in May not June, services should be ready straight away!

Really?

This is GTR.

Southern Railway passengers have put up with this for years. The rest of us have lived in a bubble. Remember PPM wise Thameslink actually perform best, southern next with Great northern worse for ppm.

Look at the other programmes. Introducing the 700s - mass cancellations as they kept diagramming drivers that were not passed for the traction.

London Bridge fiasco?

Near total cancellations of weekend services as the 387s were introduced.

History tells us GTR can’t handle big projects.

We have an investigation. GTR and DFT will be criticised. Nothing will change.

 

[bramling]

The service needs to be recovered in some way. As you can see from this and other threads the vitriol aimed at the TOCs when they skip stops, cancel trains, terminate short etc shows the problem the TOC faces. Run the service late all day and make it worse by not doing anything to recover the service or face the ire of the passengers.

The stock that sat in platform 2 needed to change ends. The services behind needed to change ends and what isn't mentioned is that any service inbound would have needed to be stopped and anything that needed to cross a junction would also be delayed. With more and more services the problem just gets worse and worse. 24 trains an hour through the core and a single incident like this will impact every single one of them.

The tight nature of diagrams is a nightmare to deal with. Passengers again, take aim at the TOC when there is 'padding' in a service and there is accusations of massaging PPM. The problem is that by running the service to the absolute minimum means that sometimes a single minute cannot be recovered.

Chuck in staffing issues; PNB's etc. and you find that you don't even have the staffing level to recover the service.

It is the sheer number of issues that compound in a single incident or delay is what causes the knock on effect to last so long. Don't get me started about infrastructure constraints..

*EDIT*

Oh and it spreads like a virus. Trains go in different directions so their delay can spread across the network. If I get delayed at Charing Cross but then need to get to Victoria then whatever I'm booked to take at Vic will be delayed. Same with units. They can end up doing multiple services and the same stock can serve multiple routes in a day. If that stock gets displaced/cancelled/fails etc then everything that unit does will be impacted.

It's truly insane.

The irony is that the new timetable does have plenty of padding in places. Compare the King's Cross to Cambridge stopping service this week compared to last week for a good example of this.

This whole service is simply too much trying to be crammed into too little, it's as simple as that.

 

[Verulamius]

Very fast run this evening from London Bridge back to St Albans City. Left London Bridge 5 late at 18.40 1/4 and into St Albans 2 late at 19.10 3/4. Just over 30 mins for the journey.

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W64593/2018/05/25/advanced

 

[Steve Harris]

The service needs to be recovered in some way. As you can see from this and other threads the vitriol aimed at the TOCs when they skip stops, cancel trains, terminate short etc shows the problem the TOC faces. Run the service late all day and make it worse by not doing anything to recover the service or face the ire of the passengers.

Perhaps part cancelling a service and running it ECS to a point where it will be "Right time" in the timetable and then running the following service even if it is delayed. Would that work ?

I must admit i was actually impressed that someone at GTR must have a brain. A Horsham - Peterborough service was running late and there was space to cross it from the Down Slow to the Up Slow and into platform 4 at St Neots to terminate, (and start the return Horsham service from there). A Kings Cross - Peterborough service was about 5 minutes behind so obviously passengers could transfer to that service to travel onwards.

Of course if GTR got ticket acceptance from VTEC for passengers travelling from Peterborough, it would mean only passengers from Huntingdon would of lost out.

 

[paul332]

I thought passenger numbers were falling?

They are now!

 

[Downthelane]

MPs now on the case...

An MP who is weak and trying to recover his voting base (Welhat is a key target seat for Labour) but he is after all a Tory and responsible for allowing GTR and Horton to be in the position they are in the first place.

I assume dropping the HAT and Potters Bar stop on the 7.55 and running the 17.51 on FL to WGC will secure a fourth term for him.

The railways should be for the many NOT the few.

 

[ComUtoR]

Perhaps part cancelling a service and running it ECS to a point where it will be "Right time" in the timetable and then running the following service even if it is delayed. Would that work ?

That is part of service recovery. It already happens and passengers kick up a huge fuss when it happens. Take a look at the fury behind GTR and other TOCs skipping stops.

 

[Failed Unit]

An MP who is weak and trying to recover his voting base (Welhat is a key target seat for Labour) but he is after all a Tory and responsible for allowing GTR and Horton to be in the position they are in the first place.

I assume dropping the HAT and Potters Bar stop on the 7.55 and running the 17.51 on FL to WGC will secure a fourth term for him.

The railways should be for the many NOT the few.

Or giving us a concrete assurance that come May 2019 the x02 and x32 services will run into the core. . Getting tin hat.

 

[southernyoshi]

So in other words too many trains, not enough lines or drivers - does that nean the timetable is more than merely a flawed introduction - can it ever work? Or is reversal & abandonment the only way out?

 

[bramling]

Perhaps part cancelling a service and running it ECS to a point where it will be "Right time" in the timetable and then running the following service even if it is delayed. Would that work ?

I must admit i was actually impressed that someone at GTR must have a brain. A Horsham - Peterborough service was running late and there was space to cross it from the Down Slow to the Up Slow and into platform 4 at St Neots to terminate, (and start the return Horsham service from there). A Kings Cross - Peterborough service was about 5 minutes behind so obviously passengers could transfer to that service to travel onwards.

A lot depends on what the driver's duty does. In your example, if the train was for example booked a crew relief at Peterborough then it wouldn't readily be possible to turn at St. Neots - unless some special arrangement is made with the crews (e.g. get the relieving driver to St. Neots). If unable to turn for this reason, then the options are do the crew change as booked and sort out the delay on the next trip, reform the train into something else if another driver is available, perhaps cancel a whole round trip (but then what do you do with the train, and who does that?), or some other plan depending on how the land lies. Bear in mind the driver coming off will have a next service, so what’s going to happen to that? And where’s the relieving driver - freshly booking on and thus ripe for getting a train on time, or stuck on another delayed train somewhere?

This is why many service recovery measures don't really appear to pay much attention to immediate passenger convenience - first and foremost priority is generally to get the driver back on time, as an out-of-place will often have a severe impact on subsequent services (unless the driver is on his last trip in which case the train will just be left to run later and later!!).

 

[bramling]

An MP who is weak and trying to recover his voting base (Welhat is a key target seat for Labour) but he is after all a Tory and responsible for allowing GTR and Horton to be in the position they are in the first place.

I assume dropping the HAT and Potters Bar stop on the 7.55 and running the 17.51 on FL to WGC will secure a fourth term for him.

The railways should be for the many NOT the few.

Hitchin & Harpenden MP is on the case, and that's hardly a marginal...

 

[bramling]

That is part of service recovery. It already happens and passengers kick up a huge fuss when it happens. Take a look at the fury behind GTR and other TOCs skipping stops.

It's not surprising passengers kick up a fuss, as what looks like a relatively minor adjustment can delay someone by a considerable amount, probably on top of the original delay they've already suffered.

Sometimes recovery can be questionable - for example a Charing Cross to Ramsgate service lost 10 minutes in the outskirts of London, then was amended to miss Sturry and Minster. A pretty pointless exercise, even the crew commented that they couldn't see the point. Yet for someone trying to get to the two stations this pointless exercise cost them an hour - assuming the following service was on time of course. Coincidentally another Govia company!

 

[Failed Unit]

That is part of service recovery. It already happens and passengers kick up a huge fuss when it happens. Take a look at the fury behind GTR and other TOCs skipping stops.

Always a difficult balancing act if as result of the skip stopping certain stations have no service for a couple of hours. Damned either way.

I have noticed recovery is hard. This morning the stock to form the 0832 WGC - KX turned up at 0830. Left at 0842 once driver had done stuff. So 10 Down. Skipped 3 stops so back on time by Finsbury Park. However the following 313 operated service was also delayed. Local stations between potters bar and Finsbury Park had a massive gap as a result. Luckily LUL are accepting tickets.

 

[Steve Harris]

That is part of service recovery. It already happens and passengers kick up a huge fuss when it happens. Take a look at the fury behind GTR and other TOCs skipping stops.

I am very aware of the furry that TOC's get for skip stopping.

Thing is, im not promoting skip stopping !

If a train is cancelled it is cancelled, which to most people is very clear and unambiguous. However, if that service gets reinstated part way along its route it becomes a plus. As passangers have more certainty than when a train your on suddenly passes through your station without stopping !

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Thankfully , after a half life sentence of travelling on Thameslink under various owners and operators I only now use off peak.

Even so , this week , am perplexed that you have crew reliefs at St Albans on the up fast , peak and off peak - and there seems to be a good cohort of drivers piling into cabs at Blackfriars in the midday - presumably refreshing the various routes or even learning them.

Now we all know the famed or infamous driver shortages of old - but there has been a 3 year period of intensive driver training and so on , but this acclaimed "Keolis - French RER -operator of perfection" seems to have got the total and utter fundementals all wrong in terms of matching driver knowledge in all areas to the detriment of the total service.

OK - I have previous in the railway over a long time and know only too well how difficult it is , but should not have someone broken the constituent sections , by train service group, into sensible bits and double checked everything for the base timetable...?

I appreciate the work going on out there - but even midday time standing for 8 mins in City Thameslink southbound , waiting a path , sort of defeats this brave ATO etc railway.

 

[Downthelane]

Hitchin & Harpenden MP is on the case, and that's hardly a marginal...

For someone who has been critical of GN being the poor relation of TL I find it a worry that you don't see this as a threat. The St Albans and Harpenden lobby is larger than our own and if TL customers aren't happy then GN will be the first to lose what will become good for all. Be careful for what you wish for.