Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018

[Hadders]

I’m waiting at Stevenage for a train to London.

0717 cancelled
0720 left PBO 21 minutes late
The 0732 is currently on time but suspect could be a little cozy.

Passengers for Arlsesy being told to go to the gate line (presumably for a bus).

And they keep playing the recorded announcement about new timetables, more capacity etc. Just switch it off.

This isn’t good.

 

[gingerheid]

I'm on the 0740 Cambridge - London fast and there are 6 people in the carriage!

This has never happened before, but is presumably the result of the portion from Ely (a partial duplicate of the preceding portion from King's Lynn) being described as Cambridge on the boards rather than London.

(Edit: Is this because the system can't cope with the fact that the Ely portion won't call at Ashwell & Morden, but the King's Lynn portion it joined onto at Cambridge will?)

 

[Downthelane]

07.32 WGC to KGX caught up late running 313 Moorgate service ahead of it by Potters Bar!

Until the 313's are gone I can't see how this is going to work as the 700 are just too quick.

Means the 700 services on SL will have a poor timing status when in fact they will leave on time and be more than capable of making up time.

 

[Trainfan344]

Great work from the Twitter team this morning! https://twitter.com/GNRailUK/status/998454538855206912

@GNRailUK Hello, does the 7.21 train from Downham Market continue on to London?
Hi, I believe this attached to more coaches but can't confirm ATM sorry Jess. ^Nat

 

[infobleep]

I beg your pardon!

Two journeys that I need to do fairly often are Rochester to Bickley and Rochester to Woolwich Arsenal. The first named will take me 34 minutes when I do it tomorrow morning, but 53 minutes if I wanted to do it in a week's time. The second named would take me 41 minutes if I were to do it tomorrow morning, but 52 minutes (and with only one journey opportunity per hour as opposed to two at present) when I do need to do it in a week's time. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't be allowed to moan about these negative enhancements to my travelling experience.

As for Luton, I cannot think of any earthly reason why I should ever want to go there. But even if I did, the fastest available journey under the new timetable takes three minutes longer than it does today, and still involves HS to St Pancras and a change there. For sure, I will now have the option of a direct train - but it takes an hour longer, and is no cheaper. (There is no HS supplement for most journeys which continue beyond London.)

I was looking up Whitstable to London for Monday 4 June and the route to St Pancreas was not only longer than going to Victoria but also more expensive! I think even if you factored in the tube to At Pancreas you'd be able to do it faster. Maybe not officially faster but certainly faster in practice.

 

[RichJF]

An absolute disaster on the East Grinstead line this morning with TL. Legacy Southern are mostly ok (Victoria services).

It appears that the early morning departures that were TL left ok but everything after about 0630 has been cancelled, terminated short.

 

[Kanrakuq]

The Peterborough-Horsham train arriving at 0704 at Arlesey has been cancelled. Given that the 0634 one had already been jettisoned anyway and isn't timetabled for another two weeks, it will mean that if the 0734 one arrives, there will not have been any trains going south stopping at the station since the 0604 90 minutes earlier.

I thought they would at least put some effort into the rush hour.

The 0734 finally arrived 10 minutes late, jam-packed of course, then sat around at Finsbury Park for ages before the driver said they will be going to terminate at Kings Cross instead of going through the core. Nice one, rush hour drivers untrained for half the route.

Edit: And the one behind, the 0804, has been sat at Finsbury Park now for 10 minutes.

 

[philjo]

I got the 0700 stopper from Letchworth (I previously normally used the 0720 that started at Letchworth). As far as I could tell, all seats were taken by the time the train left Stevenage. There was room to get to the door at Potters Bar as it was a 700 (on the previous timetable this train was a 387 and was very cosy after WGC) At least it got to Potters Bar on time. there were 2 consecutive northbound trains on the board at Potters Bar cancelled so none of my colleagues from London were on the bus this morning. The next Cambridge-KX stopper was shown as running about 10 minutes late but the train would not have reached WGC by that time.

 

[Failed Unit]

0808 WGC - Moorgate left very late strange as it was sat on Platform 1 for ages. Left after 0824. Missing out stations south of potters bar.
0822 Faster service ran early throughout as a result of nothing on the slow line and isn’t crush loaded.
0824 looked ok.
I expect the service will struggle to recover afterwards as 0832 will be stuck in train jam. Massive gap in service for inners.
No trains to moorgate between 0840 and 0900 because of combination of delays and cancellations.
Operation princess 2 anyone. (This is good weather as well)

Bet the meet the manager session on Thursday does not happen.

Update. 5 trains at Finsbury Park. A Pair of 365s, the Peterborough- Horsham and the Cambridge- Kings cross. No one knows what is moving first. Smart money on the 365.

 

[gingerheid]

Has something gone wrong around FPK? A Gatwick - Peterborough service has been sitting there for 15m, and my train into KGX is crawling.

 

[gingerheid]

Kings Cross barrier ate my Thameslink ticket! Had to get the staff to fish it out

 

[87015]

Has something gone wrong around FPK? A Gatwick - Peterborough service has been sitting there for 15m, and my train into KGX is crawling.

Yes 9J11 in the tunnel (or at least it shows as clear of Belle Isle) with a driver that doesn't sign it. Setting back...

 

[Failed Unit]

I understand a class 700 train has failed. (I know that would never happen) 0648 Cambridge North to Kings Cross. Service collapsing as predicted.

 

[Joe Paxton]

I was looking up Whitstable to London for Monday 4 June and the route to St Pancreas was not only longer than going to Victoria but also more expensive! I think even if you factored in the tube to At Pancreas you'd be able to do it faster. Maybe not officially faster but certainly faster in practice.

Look again. The journey to St Pancras is marginally quicker than to Victoria.

 

[Kanrakuq]

Yes 9J11 in the tunnel (or at least it shows as clear of Belle Isle) with a driver that doesn't sign it. Setting back...

If you're getting that from the Real Time Trains information, it's wrong. I was on that train and it was rerouted into Kings Cross from Finsbury Park without ever going into the tunnel. The National Rail information for the journey was updated correctly: http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/ldbdetails/M5Bn5XfScEZ3FuDAIBdNBQ==

 

[jon0844]

0808 WGC - Moorgate left very late strange as it was sat on Platform 1 for ages. Left after 0824.

Someone had been very sick on the train and it needed to be cleaned before the driver would take it out.

 

[Max]

Looks like 2C11 was wrongly routed by the signaller (presumably to STP as opposed to KGX?). This has been confirmed on Twitter by GN.

 

[NorthKent1989]

I see what you mean about connections at Woolwich Arsenal but it could be said that similar connections are available at Stratford on the HS albeit at a higher fare.

Hopefully Crossrail will eventually get to Medway with Southeastern curtailed at Abbey Wood or Dartford.

A friend of mine who works for Southeastern said some people are a bit confused and think that the new Thameslink service is the opening of Crossrail.

It's an easy mistake since both are opening around the same time more of less! it would be good if Crossrail did come to Medway, but I doubt it, TfL seem very focused on Gravesend/Ebbsfleet as their south eastern terminus, which is fair enough.

How is the Rainham service going so far?

 

[SA_900]

The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 5 characters.

 

[Failed Unit]

Someone had been very sick on the train and it needed to be cleaned before the driver would take it out.

Certain irony on this. GTRs incompetence is making passengers physically sick.

 

[Failed Unit]

Considering the melt down on great northern at the moment. I think it will be prone to heavy delays and frequent cancellations.

Perfect for me. This change has more than doubled the number of services on the Brighton Mainline direct in to London Bridge at my intermediate station (although perhaps it merely takes us back to where we were before the improvement works). On time as well, and the new 700s may not have comfortable seats but can accommodate an awful lot more standing people!

Is anyone able to speculate about the reliability of the Gatwick Airport to Peterborough service e.g. will it be less subject to cancellation/delay than other routes?[

 

[FOH]

The next 4 trains in a row are cancelled from Finsbury Park to London Bridge. Nothing for an hour and a quarter

 

[Deepgreen]

So, it seems from reports that AGAIN, GTR are trying to run their schedule with too few train crew - "lessons will be learned", but not by us! Planning horizon - one day ahead.
I'm so glad I no longer need to use that joke outfit.

 

[urpert]

My expected train (0552 Sevenoaks - Luton) was cancelled throughout this morning. I'm hoping this is first day teething problems rather than an admission that this is actually one of the "staggered introduction" services...

 

[Failed Unit]

So, it seems from reports that AGAIN, GTR are trying to run their schedule with too few train crew - "lessons will be learned", but not by us! Planning horizon - one day ahead.
I'm so glad I no longer need to use that joke outfit.

Glad to see the lessons learnt from the class 700 introduction were implemented. They still can’t link drivers knowledge/ traction knowledge and route knowledge together.

 

[HughT]

Looks like 2C11 was wrongly routed by the signaller (presumably to STP as opposed to KGX?). This has been confirmed on Twitter by GN.

What I find interesting about this is the speed with which - when it's someone else's fault (in this case NR and its signaller) - GN puts out a clear and precise explanation. And yet, when it's down to GN's own shortcomings (as evidenced here over the past 26 hours or so), it's just something "logistical" or "operational", or some other vague term. Without it being at all clear where the blame lies. Do they attend the same PR training as Ryanair, I wonder...

 

[SAPhil]

I wodered why Thameslink/RailPlan 2020 havent been publishing the weekend timetables. It seems that there is no longer a through the night service at weekends. Does anyone know if this is a permanent "improvement" ?

 

[talldave]

What I find interesting about this is the speed with which - when it's someone else's fault (in this case NR and its signaller) - GN puts out a clear and precise explanation. And yet, when it's down to GN's own shortcomings (as evidenced here over the past 26 hours or so), it's just something "logistical" or "operational", or some other vague term. Without it being at all clear where the blame lies. Do they attend the same PR training as Ryanair, I wonder...

What does this word "training" mean???

 

[Stampy]

Glad to see the lessons learnt from the class 700 introduction were implemented. They still can’t link drivers knowledge/ traction knowledge and route knowledge together.

You would have thought that when a driver (I presume they do this) signs "onto" the train with his code - it would say something along the lines of
"You are NOT trained to drive this route between X & Y"

 

[Failed Unit]

You would have thought that when a driver (I presume they do this) signs "onto" the train with his code - it would say something along the lines of
"You are NOT trained to drive this route between X & Y"

I think what happens is driver turns up. Says they can’t sign route / traction. Train gets cancelled. (Or rerouted into KX if lucky.) no idea how people allocate drivers that don’t sign - but it happened a lot when the 700s were introduced.