Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018

[Class 466]

So today they’re running an hourly shuttle between Rainham & Dartford which will most probably run all day without any issues given the stock and Crew come from Gillingham. Why on earth could they have not done this last week? At least passengers have the certainty of a train running today!

 

[southernyoshi]

Are they going to end up having to go back to the old timetable while they train enough drivers to run the new one - & then introduce the new one properly in December or even next May? Or is the new timetable itself fatally flawed from the start - can it ever work?

 

[paul332]

I'm not sure that bi-mode switching is actually an issue here. I'm not aware of any delays since the timetable change or some time before that down to the AC/DC changeover (if there have been, then their impact has been negligible compared to crew shortage and other delays). Changeover seems pretty slick and reliable on 700s, as it was on 319s, well within the minute or so dwell time. 377s and 387s took considerably longer, but they're history now. As long as signallers set up and drivers accept the correct routes, bi-mode and stock type shouldn't contribute to the problems.

 

[NorthKent1989]

It's pathetic, but what's most irritating is Thameslink's meaningless waffle about the timetable "bedding in". What utter crap. Passengers are intelligent people who want the truth - e.g. "we f***ed up, don't have enough trained drivers and it's going to be like this until September ".

They should have been honest and delayed the changeover for another few months people would be miffed but more forgiving at the very least.

 

[whoosh]

The timetable can work.

One driver drives Peterborough to Horsham, has a break, and drives back. Easy.
Something goes wrong? Peterborough driver takes train to Kings Cross, then empty to Hornsey to clear the platform, has their break, takes train back into Kings Cross, and picks up return path.
Easy.

That's how it should work.


But what's happening is that the Peterborough driver drives to Finsbury Park, (and then is booked to work another train North from Finsbury Park and hasn't got enough time to go into Kings Cross should something go wrong such as no Horsham driver to relieve him).
A Horsham Driver takes over to drive to St Pancras through Canal Tunnels (hastily learnt with weeks or days to go!), then gets route conducted through the Core to Blackfriars. And then route conducted again Blackfriars via London Bridge high level (only signs low level!) to East Croydon, before continuing by themselves to Horsham.

And that's assuming they are one of the ones who were trained on Canal tunnels.

Thus it needs four drivers for that train, and any delay in the other direction making one of them late, or one of the jobs being uncovered (there's a lot less spare coverage than there would've been had route knowledge not been a problem), and it all degenerates into chaos very quickly.

 

[bramling]

Are they going to end up having to go back to the old timetable while they train enough drivers to run the new one - & then introduce the new one properly in December or even next May? Or is the new timetable itself fatally flawed from the start - can it ever work?

On paper it works.

The question is how well it, and the network as a whole, can cope with disruptions before degenerating into shambles. Unfortunately it doesn't take much to go wrong before that happens - and when things go wrong disruption is far worse, multiplies far more quickly and goes far more widespread than under the old timetable.

You only have to have one train running a bit late and it will be causing conflicts all the way along, sometimes involving multiple trains at a time. Much worse than under the old timetable -- and of course a much greater chance of there being late running in the first place if the train has come all the way from somewhere like Brighton or Horsham.

For real-life proof, look how much trouble the Blackfriars wrong-signal caused last week.

 

[jon0844]

I think it is fair to say that the current mess isn't indicative of what the service would be like when all drivers are fully trained and available.

We are of course still going to see major problems when there's an issue in the core, but that will be separate fun and games to come.

 

[bramling]

I think it is fair to say that the current mess isn't indicative of what the service would be like when all drivers are fully trained and available.

We are of course still going to see major problems when there's an issue in the core, but that will be separate fun and games to come.

Politically I suspect the current timetable has had it. This week has given people a flavour of what things might be like, and the general feeling seems to be "we don't want the through services if it means the service is going to be less reliable".

A reduced number of through services would of course work fine, perhaps the balance can be diverted to Harpenden to please people there?!

 

[Deepgreen]

I think it is fair to say that the current mess isn't indicative of what the service would be like when all drivers are fully trained and available.

We are of course still going to see major problems when there's an issue in the core, but that will be separate fun and games to come.

Yes, but they're not! GTR has, yet again, failed to plan for, and provide, the resources to run the railway, while at the same time going all out to assure passengers that this huge upheaval will be what passengers have been waiting for all these years. X years of a possible planning window has led to this - un-prepared, un-resourced and unable!

It could also be said that the GTR network could work far better under an operating regime that actually knows how to run a railway.

 

[bramling]

Yes, but they're not! GTR has, yet again, failed to plan for, and provide, the resources to run the railway. It could also be said that the GTR network could work far better under an operating regime that actually knows how to run a railway.

At some point GTR have to go. Ideally that point should be now, but that could make things even worse.

The fact that the shambles has happened is bad enough, though the DFT need to take their share of blame for this. Ultimately it’s their project, they chose GTR, and they should have been monitoring things, in the same way you keep an eye on a builder working on your house.

But the worst thing is what’s coming out of GTR. They’re quite clearly clueless as to what is happening on the ground and in reality, and by the weekend the feeling is that they had given up and thrown in the towel. Horton and the rest of the management seem completely detached from what is going on, almost in a parallel world. It’s breathtaking how they could ever have predicted a “minimal” impact. It is simply laughable to hide behind the biggest timetable change in a lifetime soundbite - people rightly don’t give a damn about that, they expect their advertised service to run.

If the biggest change in a lifetime rubbish is such an issue, I suspect most commuters would rightly think that maybe it shouldn’t have been planned that way.

There’s a photo floating about of a whiteboard notice advising people not to travel unless their journey is essential. Unbelievable that thinks have sunk to that level.

Does anyone still think there’s any prospect of this operation reliably running the planned 24tph service?...

 

[SPADTrap]

9J15 unannounced disabled passenger Crawley Station [CRW] - Passenger Special Needs.

27/05/2018 10:22 - Signaller reported that 9J15 0919 London Bridge - Horsham delayed Crawley with an unannounced disabled passenger nd no station staff to deal with it. The passenger was put on the train at Three Bridges. TSC and signaller arranged for the driver to take the person onto Horsham and deposit them there. Control advised and asked to make arrangements for the passenger forward from Horhsam.

27/05/2018 10:24 - 9J15 on the move from Crawley.

From another forum - how lovely of the railways.

 

[greatkingrat]

The timetable can work.

One driver drives Peterborough to Horsham, has a break, and drives back. Easy.
Something goes wrong? Peterborough driver takes train to Kings Cross, then empty to Hornsey to clear the platform, has their break, takes train back into Kings Cross, and picks up return path.
Easy.

That's how it should work.

It's not that simple, your solution provides a service to Peterborough, but no trains to Horsham. And if the Peterborough driver is already south of the river when the problems start, they can't get back.

 

[Agent_Squash]

It’s not the timetable that is the problem. It’s how GTR has planned the introduction of the timetable - lack of driver training for example.

 

[Ianno87]

It's not that simple, your solution provides a service to Peterborough, but no trains to Horsham. And if the Peterborough driver is already south of the river when the problems start, they can't get back.

In that situation (and most others) lack of service to Horsham, for example, isn't a huge deal - the Vic-Arun Valleys are still there to cover the basic connectivity between the 'big' stations, with additional stops if necessary (depending whether its a single cancellation, or the entire service). There aren't many examples of where a problem one side of London will risk a route the other side of London losing its entire service.

 

[Roy Badami]

Looks like the DfT is laying the blame on Network Rail:

"What we have seen in the last few days has not been good enough. No one should underestimate the logistical challenge of introducing a timetable change.

"The changes have been made for a very good reason: they mean a big expansion of services across the country. A timetable change of such a scale involves reorganising staff rotas, training staff for new routes, and reorganising how we deploy our trains.

"It needed months of preparation, and I am afraid that a number of things went wrong, but most particularly the fact that for the second time in six months, Network Rail was far too late in finalising planned timetable changes and left the rest of the industry struggling to catch up.

"I am not happy with that at all and I have told the leadership of Network Rail that it cannot happen again."

From this BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44236185

 

[Failed Unit]

Must admit I am lost for words.

Was planning to get 1302 Kx - Cambridge. A class 700 to form it - no driver. No idea if it was a 365 if it would have a driver.

I had time so off I got to Highbury and Islington to get train from there.

They stopped the 1311 Peterborough service at Hatfield and WGC. Not that they said when the cancelled the first. No chance I was risking waiting as the 1402 could be cancelled. GTR are famed for skipping not adding stops.

 

[jon0844]

Must admit I am lost for words.

Was planning to get 1302 Kx - Cambridge. A class 700 to form it - no driver. No idea if it was a 365 if it would have a driver.

I had time so off I got to Highbury and Islington to get train from there.

They stopped the 1311 Peterborough service at Hatfield and WGC. Not that they said when the cancelled the first. No chance I was risking waiting as the 1402 could be cancelled. GTR are famed for skipping not adding stops.

All the xx12 trains until 1412 stopped at Hatfield, WGC, Welwyn North and Stevenage as extras - Hatfield being for the Slam Dunk Festival.

At least that was the plan...

 

[Failed Unit]

All the xx12 trains until 1412 stopped at Hatfield, WGC, Welwyn North and Stevenage as extras - Hatfield being for the Slam Dunk Festival.

At least that was the plan...

Haha. Extras. They made up the 1tph. Lucky we still have the inners.

 

[Downthelane]

Today's countless cancellations on GN are NOT the fault of the Canal Tunnels and driver training.

There has to be underlying staff issue at GN that is either staff unwilling to work OT and GN planning services expecting OT to be worked.

Or those who have said they would work deciding not to.

Or Unions exercising some power.

 

[Failed Unit]

Not just great northern either. Although the GN inners which are keeping up the average- we should remember these have seen a planned 50% cut in timetable today. These figures are bad - compare them on what people expected to run before the emergency timetable, the one many people planned their weekend around.

 

[bramling]

In that situation (and most others) lack of service to Horsham, for example, isn't a huge deal - the Vic-Arun Valleys are still there to cover the basic connectivity between the 'big' stations, with additional stops if necessary (depending whether its a single cancellation, or the entire service). There aren't many examples of where a problem one side of London will risk a route the other side of London losing its entire service.

Hitchin to Peterborough for starters. Then without other services being adjusted various stations on the Cambridge branch, plus Knebworth and Welwyn North. And of course once we’re in the realms of having to make adjustments the timetable starts to fall apart very quickly. So, no, it doesn’t really work well, and it isn’t really working very well.

 

[jon0844]

Haha. Extras. They made up the 1tph. Lucky we still have the inners.

Yeah, you're right - they didn't have the Cambridge services that were also supposed to run.

 

[carriageline]

The thing that ‘interests’ me the most is the vast area that this disruption is being felt.

Just wait until there is some kind of major fault/job stopper inside the core. Trains at so many corners of the TL network will start to see trains cancelled.

It’s fantastic I can get a train from Rochester to Luton. But when the wire comes down at (let’s say) Bedford, I’ll be furious it’s stopping me getting to London Bridge easily! Likewise with Cambridge/Peterborough passengers (although they could be diverted to Kings Cross!)

 

[bionic]

Today's countless cancellations on GN are NOT the fault of the Canal Tunnels and driver training.

There has to be underlying staff issue at GN that is either staff unwilling to work OT and GN planning services expecting OT to be worked.

Or those who have said they would work deciding not to.

Or Unions exercising some power.

I don't know what the OT situation is on the GN side but drivers are not and should not be expected to work overtime. Some choose to work a bit, some choose to work a lot and some don't do any. It's personal choice. If every TOC employed enough drivers then they wouldn't have to rely on staff working their rest days. Nobody can blame people for using their rest days for their intended purpose, rest. There are countless people desperate to get on the railway in the driving grade. Rather than relying on existing drivers to voluntarily give up their free time to cover work, it might be more constructive to actually employ enough people to cover it all in the first place.

 

[Bromley boy]

I don't know what the OT situation is on the GN side but drivers are not and should not be expected to work overtime. Some choose to work a bit, some choose to work a lot and some don't do any. It's personal choice. If every TOC employed enough drivers then they wouldn't have to rely on staff working their rest days. Nobody can blame people for using their rest days for their intended purpose, rest. There are countless people desperate to get on the railway in the driving grade. Rather than relying on existing drivers to voluntarily give up their free time to cover work, it might be more constructive to actually employ enough people to cover it all in the first place.

Yep, and we know why TOCs don’t employ enough drivers, don’t we. Penny pinching.

Most posters on here know that but a few like to attack staff at every opportunity, which of course plays into the hands of the TOC.

How anyone can possibly blame the unions for the debacle of the TL timetable is beyond me.

 

[Bishopstone]

Rather than relying on existing drivers to voluntarily give up their free time to cover work, it might be more constructive to actually employ enough people to cover it all in the first place.

Possibly. So long as we don't then get complaints from the contingent who worked a lot of overtime, that the opportunity has gone and therefore their income has been cut.

 

[Failed Unit]

The other thing about volunteered overtime is people like to plan. You are more likely to get someone to volunteer if they know what is needed weeks in advance rather than days. When you look at this weekend considering they only released the timetable on Friday, doesn’t strike me that the knew how many volunteers they needed. No wonder they are short. (Isn’t sunday not on anyone’s shift patten on GN?)

 

[physics34]

Looks like the DfT is laying the blame on Network Rail:



From this BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44236185

Grayling was saying that in the commons the other day. It is a smokescreen and doesnt excuse GTR from not having enough drivers trained accordingly!

 

[Bromley boy]

Possibly. So long as we don't then get complaints from the contingent who worked a lot of overtime, that the opportunity has gone and therefore their income has been cut.

We probably would, but it will never happen, so the point won’t come up!

TOCs actively want fewer drivers with some working overtime for lucrative rates.

 

[Downthelane]

We probably would, but it will never happen, so the point won’t come up!

TOCs actively want fewer drivers with some working overtime for lucrative rates.

Quite, once Brexit starts to have its effect the number of commuters will drop significantly meaning far less demand, this is a carefully orchestrated games by Grayling and chums.