Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018

[Failed Unit]

WGC has had a shocking service this morning. Everything advertised has run! This must be the first reliable morning since the new timetable came in.

Not everything- the 0752 didn’t.

 

[OwenB]

Not everything- the 0752 didn’t.

And the 5.55 HAT-KGX didn't (5.52? WGC)

 

[notverydeep]

That is good for planning ahead.

Speaking to others that use the line that is their biggest frustration with this whole shambles you just don’t know. You leave home and check on the journey planner. Then half way to the station they cancel the train you were walking to get. Or like in these examples. You check and they are not running so you go for a slow train instead. Only to find out later it ran.

We are simple creatures- tell us what is running or not the day before. Then keep it the same. This last minute addition is as bad to be honest as the cancellations. “Look at what you could have won” you drove because you expected the train to be cancelled- it wasn’t.

Indeed. The 07:27 Cambridge - King's Cross (2C13) must have been empty. Even as I left Welwyn Garden City on 2Y15, the 08:02 even slower train to King's Cross (like most of the others displaced by the routine absence of these two faster services), 2C13 still did not show up on the Live Departures or Real Time Trains - a good 30 minutes after the service had left Cambridge and only 20 minutes before it arrived at WGC. And I work in the rail industry. I specify timetables on other services. For the second time this week, I have left the house in the 30 minutes before 2C13's scheduled time at WGC, unaware that it was running. If I haven't got a clue what to expect on my journey to work, what on earth must 'normal' customers think of this?

2C06, the 0751 London Kings Cross to Cambridge North http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/O08404/2018/06/13/advanced was also a late notice addition (that did show on Live Departures) and this started from King's Cross, rather than WGC (instead of the 08:32 King's Cross) as it has on a couple of days in the last week and a half.

Let us hope that a 'critical mass' of appropriately trained drivers isn't far off and that this is going to be kept up, but based on past performance, all of these trains will simply be 'missing' again tomorrow...

 

[Failed Unit]

Last night they had the same train up twice. The 1822 WGC - London Kings cross. As “Delayed” and on time. How did they manage that?

 

[jon0844]

Last night they had the same train up twice. The 1822 WGC - London Kings cross. As “Delayed” and on time. How did they manage that?

They've had that today. One new timetable and one amended timetable. One will likely have no platform allocated and may be the same time or +/- a minute or two.

There was a gap in service (no train on boards or apps) and then in rolled the train running as normal. Since 0700 every northbound service has run so far.

 

[Failed Unit]

They've had that today. One new timetable and one amended timetable. One will likely have no platform allocated and may be the same time or +/- a minute or two.

There was a gap in service (no train on boards or apps) and then in rolled the train running as normal. Since 0700 every northbound service has run so far.

Hopefully it will continue.

Master stroke by GTR. Most bitching is about the timetable now. Normally. “Why did they tell us for weeks to plan ahead and they didn’t do that themselves.” Followed by “these seats are uncomfortable”. Hopefully soon we can focus on the cheap seats on the 700s.

 

[OwenB]

Hopefully it will continue.

Master stroke by GTR. Most bitching is about the timetable now. Normally. “Why did they tell us for weeks to plan ahead and they didn’t do that themselves.” Followed by “these seats are uncomfortable”. Hopefully soon we can focus on the cheap seats on the 700s.

The seats are terrible though...

 

[Failed Unit]

The seats are terrible though...

Of course they are, but at the moment people are thankful to get on a train they don’t care about comfort. Any train heading in the right direction. GTR has turned the desire to get a train as the main focus if they removed all the seats and ran the full timetable this would be considered as a successful implementation.

 

[OwenB]

Of course they are, but at the moment people are thankful to get on a train they don’t care about comfort. Any train heading in the right direction. GTR has turned the desire to get a train as the main focus if they removed all the seats and ran the full timetable this would be considered as a successful implementation.

Joking aside, I agree with what you say. Lowering people's expectations by being ground down over the course of nearly a month already now. Chaos is the new norm.

 

[rdm111]

Just checking my train @ CTK, and suddenly its not looking too bright again (mine is the 1641 to GTW)

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Very very effective journey on TL today. Got to East Croydon on time & there was a Peterborough service on Pl 1 running late. TL train left and flew through to London Bridge then swiftly into the core and up to St Pancras early. TL train then quickly dispatched into the Canal Tunnels. I had time for a tea before I checked into Eurostar.

Credit where credit is due.

One person having a good journey doth not a good train service make - every single train I have intended to use over the past two weeks has been cancelled or significantly delayed. Just to re-iterate that is EVERY train in either direction. The cancellations are often at short notice too - so you see a train is running head to the station only to see DELAYED on the board with no inkling of when or if it will turn up. The service seems to operate in sporadic flurries with large gaps - when the flurries of trains appear you can not always be sure where they will call or if you will be decamped somewhere so it can miss a few stops to make up time so it can sit in St.Albans siding and come out just as late as it was to start with.
Credit certainly is due to whoever devised this mess as they managed to do what the Luftwaffe couldn't do in decimating the service.

 

[JaJaWa]

 

[gingerheid]

I've also not managed to use a single train from Cambridge to core (or back). I got really close once when the train before was over 50m late leaving Cambridge.

 

[Bishopstone]

Given the relative thinness of Thameslink train movements, for now - eg Brighton-Cambridge has been two or three a day, should be one an hour, and is planned to be two an hour from December - then the lateness of what does run is quite a worry, isn’t it?

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Today's example of sporadic N/B all stations service : 15:03, 16:13, 16:18, 16:28, 16:33, 16:43. They were on the NR site as running and not cancelled (though in reality more may have ended up cancelled). How can they justify no trains for over an hour and then five in a half hour spell? I have given up on them - slow as the tube and bus alternative is it is far much more reliable

 

[bramling]

Given the relative thinness of Thameslink train movements, for now - eg Brighton-Cambridge has been two or three a day, should be one an hour, and is planned to be two an hour from December - then the lateness of what does run is quite a worry, isn’t it?

This is exactly the problem. There’s plenty of examples on RTTT where trains have picked up late running in one area and the core has then transmitted it to the other side, then incurring significant further time loss as well as delaying other services. As you rightly imply, this will get rather worse if more services run through the core / run at all.

Things are worse if your station has no other alternative, and even worse if your station only has a half-hourly service - like Arlesey and Sandy, or if you’re making a short trip like Hitchin to Arlesey where a five minute journey can suddenly take half an hour.

I think this penny is starting to drop quite loudly in GN land now, loudly like when a 2p machine at an amusement arcade drops a healthy winnings! People are horrified at how fragile their service has become.

 

[BRX]

There’s plenty of examples on RTTT where trains have picked up late running in one area and the core has then transmitted it to the other side,

When you say "transmitted it to the other side" you make it sound like something unusual has happened, but it's just what happens with late trains anywhere - if they are late early in their journey they are likely to be late later in their journey.

Where the effect of funneling services through the core might become significant would be where it unusually magnified the late-running, or had a disproportionate knock-on effect to other services trying to get through the core at the same time. Do we have any convincing evidence of this being a major problem?

And in any case, the concentration of trains trying to get through the core is not really so different from what happens at any terminus station - a great number of services converging at one point.

It feels to me like there's something of an over-emphasis on the unusual nature of having trains running through the core. It's not really so different from what happens at a terminus station - just that the trains don't reverse direction in order to get out again. As has been pointed out throughout this thread, it's a solution to the problem of a lack of terminus capacity in London.

'Running through the core' is also, in effect, what pretty much every tube line does.

We know what the basic current problem is: lack of drivers. I don't see how we can come to any meaningful conclusions about how anything else is working until that rather major issue has been resolved, and the new timetable is operating with the number of drivers it was designed with. Once that's the case we can look at other factors. My prediction is that after perhaps a rather extended period of disruption, things will settle down a lot, there will be some tweaks and adjustments, and the new timetable will turn out to work ok. And a lot of the comments being made here will in hindsight look like hyperbole.

 

[Failed Unit]

In terms of timekeeping GN was in free fall ever since GTR took over. I think it is the worse of the area. Definitely worse than Thameslink. So maybe Southern should be worried about GN trains importing delays if / when they get the drivers sorted out.

I remember in November Gn down at 30% within 5 minutes. It was painful. (But still better than now).

 

[bramling]

When you say "transmitted it to the other side" you make it sound like something unusual has happened, but it's just what happens with late trains anywhere - if they are late early in their journey they are likely to be late later in their journey.

Where the effect of funneling services through the core might become significant would be where it unusually magnified the late-running, or had a disproportionate knock-on effect to other services trying to get through the core at the same time. Do we have any convincing evidence of this being a major problem?

And in any case, the concentration of trains trying to get through the core is not really so different from what happens at any terminus station - a great number of services converging at one point.

It feels to me like there's something of an over-emphasis on the unusual nature of having trains running through the core. It's not really so different from what happens at a terminus station - just that the trains don't reverse direction in order to get out again. As has been pointed out throughout this thread, it's a solution to the problem of a lack of terminus capacity in London.

'Running through the core' is also, in effect, what pretty much every tube line does.

We know what the basic current problem is: lack of drivers. I don't see how we can come to any meaningful conclusions about how anything else is working until that rather major issue has been resolved, and the new timetable is operating with the number of drivers it was designed with. Once that's the case we can look at other factors. My prediction is that after perhaps a rather extended period of disruption, things will settle down a lot, there will be some tweaks and adjustments, and the new timetable will turn out to work ok. And a lot of the comments being made here will in hindsight look like hyperbole.

There’s a slight difference between the core and a Tube line - namely that the latter does not have varying stopping patterns outside the central area. So a train running 10 late and out of path will probably remain so. On the big railway that train could then get stuck behind a stopping service and end up 25 late. That is a big and important difference, which your analysis misses completely.

Also Tube services tend to be rather more frequent, so a train running late probably doesn’t matter to the passenger as long as the headways are balanced and reasonable, much harder to achieve with a 2tph service especially if you’re trying to put things back on time. It’s worth noting that some branch Tube stations have or have had notoriously erratic services - before the shuttle was implemented Mill Hill East could go for an hour without a train, the Rayners Lane branch of the Picc is known for long gaps during disruption, and wasn’t a certain MP elected on a platform of sorting out the Wimbledon branch?!

 

[Hadders]

When you say "transmitted it to the other side" you make it sound like something unusual has happened, but it's just what happens with late trains anywhere - if they are late early in their journey they are likely to be late later in their journey.

Where the effect of funneling services through the core might become significant would be where it unusually magnified the late-running, or had a disproportionate knock-on effect to other services trying to get through the core at the same time. Do we have any convincing evidence of this being a major problem?

And in any case, the concentration of trains trying to get through the core is not really so different from what happens at any terminus station - a great number of services converging at one point.

It feels to me like there's something of an over-emphasis on the unusual nature of having trains running through the core. It's not really so different from what happens at a terminus station - just that the trains don't reverse direction in order to get out again. As has been pointed out throughout this thread, it's a solution to the problem of a lack of terminus capacity in London.

'Running through the core' is also, in effect, what pretty much every tube line does.

We know what the basic current problem is: lack of drivers. I don't see how we can come to any meaningful conclusions about how anything else is working until that rather major issue has been resolved, and the new timetable is operating with the number of drivers it was designed with. Once that's the case we can look at other factors. My prediction is that after perhaps a rather extended period of disruption, things will settle down a lot, there will be some tweaks and adjustments, and the new timetable will turn out to work ok. And a lot of the comments being made here will in hindsight look like hyperbole.

The tube works because the service is very frequent (up to 36 trains an hour) and everything has the same calling pattern.

This isn't the case with Thameslink. Some stations only get 2 trains an hour so if something goes wrong the service for those stations effectively falls apart.

No-one is saying that we shouldn't have Thameslink. What we are saying is that to have every single service from a particular station going through the core is asking for trouble.

 

[bramling]

In terms of timekeeping GN was in free fall ever since GTR took over. I think it is the worse of the area. Definitely worse than Thameslink. So maybe Southern should be worried about GN trains importing delays if / when they get the drivers sorted out.

I remember in November Gn down at 30% within 5 minutes. It was painful. (But still better than now).

Yes - GN is fragile and has always been so simply because the railway is handling more services than it probably should - compare the December 2017 timetable with a NSE one from the early 1990s and the difference is very noticeable. However it generally works fine until there is a delay somewhere for whatever reason, then the junction layouts and mix of stopping patterns cause the delay to multiply very rapidly. The last thing we need is random delays, big and small, brought in by ThamesLink/.

I agree that the other areas should be worried too - the whole thing works both ways.

 

[Hadders]

We've been 'fortunate' since the new timetable came in as I don't think there's been any major infrastructure issues (e.g wires down at Alexander Palace) or person hit by a train.

Such issues will be magnified to a far greater degree issues on both sides of the core being transmitted to the other side.

 

[bramling]

We've been 'fortunate' since the new timetable came in as I don't think there's been any major infrastructure issues (e.g wires down at Alexander Palace) or person hit by a train.

Such issues will be magnified to a far greater degree issues on both sides of the core being transmitted to the other side.

A lot of delay on GN arises at places like Hitchin and Welwyn, without there needing to even be an infrastructure failure. An up train 5 down leaving Arlesey could quite happily end up 20 late by Digswell, all perhaps caused by priority having being given to a late-running VTEC service leaving Peterborough. It is this effect which has caused the driver issue to push GN into full meltdown, and this effect which will continue to produce a highly erratic service even when the driver fiasco is resolved.

No doubt ThamesLink/‘s exciting solution to this is to change the reporting number to start with a 9, although I don’t think they ever said what would happen if two class 9s arrive at a converging junction together?!

 

[ijmad]

Arlesey continues to have a shocking service. What should be 2tph all day long turns in to 14 trains total that actually ran, creating several multiple hour long gaps towards London. Suppose it's better than nothing, but the Peterborough Thameslink services are still a shambles.

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sea...13/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=pax-calls&order=wtt

 

[BRX]

There’s a slight difference between the core and a Tube line - namely that the latter does not have varying stopping patterns outside the central area. So a train running 10 late and out of path will probably remain so. On the big railway that train could then get stuck behind a stopping service and end up 25 late. That is a big and important difference, which your analysis misses completely.

Also Tube services tend to be rather more frequent, so a train running late probably doesn’t matter to the passenger as long as the headways are balanced and reasonable, much harder to achieve with a 2tph service especially if you’re trying to put things back on time. It’s worth noting that some branch Tube stations have or have had notoriously erratic services - before the shuttle was implemented Mill Hill East could go for an hour without a train, the Rayners Lane branch of the Picc is known for long gaps during disruption, and wasn’t a certain MP elected on a platform of sorting out the Wimbledon branch?!

Yup I get the differences between the Thameslink core and tube lines. I was more making the point that it's not unusual to have an arrangement where you move large numbers of people towards or away from the centre of the city using trains that continue right through.

But on a terminus-station arrangement, the same as you describe above can happen - an inbound service is ten mins late, meaning that the outbound service it forms is also ten mins late, and gets stuck behind a stopping service, ending up 25 mins late.

 

[MikeWM]

Yup I get the differences between the Thameslink core and tube lines. I was more making the point that it's not unusual to have an arrangement where you move large numbers of people towards or away from the centre of the city using trains that continue right through.

But on a terminus-station arrangement, the same as you describe above can happen - an inbound service is ten mins late, meaning that the outbound service it forms is also ten mins late, and gets stuck behind a stopping service, ending up 25 mins late.

There are a lot more options there though, which can help matters. Eg. there will be turnaround time for the late train, which may get it back on time. Or the stopper can be delayed leaving until after the fast. Such options aren't available with the Thameslink core.

For example, I've long thought it is rather crazy that the 'final' plan is 6tph on the two-track section betwewn Hitchin and Cambridge - two stoppers, two semi-fast and two fasts, when the time difference between a fast and a stopper on this section is almost 20 minutes (particularly in the up direction, where there is no crossover until after Hitchin), and there is nowhere to overtake. Once - if ever - all these trains are running, I think it is all too obvious this is going to be a major cause of delays. At the very least passing loops should have been put in (near Royston, probably) to alleviate problems.

Before Thameslink, the signallers at Kings Cross and Cambridge had the ability to use their good judgement to hold the stopper back if it would be in the way of the fast. This flexibility is basically lost now, certainly in the down direction.

 

[gingerheid]

I think today was a record for Cambridge to Core? Said they'd run 8 out of 16 and actually ran 7, of which almost all aren't horribly late!

Poor Peterborough though; said they'd run 16 out of 32, and actually ran 10.

Both results, though, are probably still worse than what you might see if there was a drivers' strike!

 

[Failed Unit]

There are a lot more options there though, which can help matters. Eg. there will be turnaround time for the late train, which may get it back on time. Or the stopper can be delayed leaving until after the fast. Such options aren't available with the Thameslink core.

For example, I've long thought it is rather crazy that the 'final' plan is 6tph on the two-track section betwewn Hitchin and Cambridge - two stoppers, two semi-fast and two fasts, when the time difference between a fast and a stopper on this section is almost 20 minutes (particularly in the up direction, where there is no crossover until after Hitchin), and there is nowhere to overtake. Once - if ever - all these trains are running, I think it is all too obvious this is going to be a major cause of delays. At the very least passing loops should have been put in (near Royston, probably) to alleviate problems.

Before Thameslink, the signallers at Kings Cross and Cambridge had the ability to use their good judgement to hold the stopper back if it would be in the way of the fast. This flexibility is basically lost now, certainly in the down direction.

Interesting you should mention that.

The stopper will be a class 9 train because it goes through the core. (Maybe the also might quietly forget about Maidstone)
The fast will only be a 1.

The stopper therefore is more important.

I think I’m reality you will see skip stopping on the stopper.

The problem is with everything on Thameslink becomes a class 9 is it isn’t actually important any more as everything is equal. Poor MML as the Sheffield trains or now the least important on that route.

 

[jopsuk]

I need to go to London from Cambridge tommorow (off peak)- I'm best off using GA again aren't I?

 

[Ianno87]

Yup I get the differences between the Thameslink core and tube lines. I was more making the point that it's not unusual to have an arrangement where you move large numbers of people towards or away from the centre of the city using trains that continue right through.

But on a terminus-station arrangement, the same as you describe above can happen - an inbound service is ten mins late, meaning that the outbound service it forms is also ten mins late, and gets stuck behind a stopping service, ending up 25 mins late.

In the old timetable, late starts back to Ely/Kings Lynn on the fasts were fairly commonplace due to short turnrounds off the inbound workings, particularly for a few evening peak workings. Some late starts then got exacerbated by losing path behimd a stopper at Hitchin.

Thameslink de-cluttering King's Cross now means these work on 39 minute turnrounds pretty much all day, so right time starts have markedly improved from reducing reliance on the terminal station.