For the Peterborough-Horsham route, as just a basic passenger looking on, let me know if I've got this right based on what I've seen: Network Rail said TL can't keep abandoning Horsham trains halfway through the route at Kings Cross, so instead TL have scheduled actual timetabled services into Kings Cross instead (Hitchin, Biggleswade, etc. seemed to have four an hour this morning), they're completely removed the timetabled P-H trains that are unable to go through the core, rather than marking them as cancelled, and so the only ones timetabled for it are essentially guaranteed to do so (and, as far as I can see, they did).
If that is the case, why on earth didn't they do it last week and give some fluff about "phasing in" the timetable gradually or something? Well, I mean, they said that anyway, but you only needed to have eyes to see it was just chaos — this at least makes it look like someone has thought about it. So they had all that bad publicity and anger last week for nothing.
P.S. Despite the timetable changes, spare a thought for poor Arlesey and Sandy, which seemed to have been the only stations that didn't get any Kings Cross trains this morning. The other stations got served by a variety of different ones, but with those two, they saw a 90 minute gap of southbound trains during the rush hour with their only available pastime being watching the other emergency Kings Cross trains drive past without stopping.
Albeit, it was a timetabled 90 minute gap this time, rather than a surprise, so that's an improvement ... no, since the timetable was only released at about 2am last night, actually it's not ... They seem to remember that Arlesey is a normal station during the 10 minutes when they're telling us how much the season ticket will cost. Now all they need to do is work on the other 364 days, 23 hours and 50 minutes.
If that is the case, why on earth didn't they do it last week and give some fluff about "phasing in" the timetable gradually or something? Well, I mean, they said that anyway, but you only needed to have eyes to see it was just chaos — this at least makes it look like someone has thought about it. So they had all that bad publicity and anger last week for nothing.
P.S. Despite the timetable changes, spare a thought for poor Arlesey and Sandy, which seemed to have been the only stations that didn't get any Kings Cross trains this morning. The other stations got served by a variety of different ones, but with those two, they saw a 90 minute gap of southbound trains during the rush hour with their only available pastime being watching the other emergency Kings Cross trains drive past without stopping.
Albeit, it was a timetabled 90 minute gap this time, rather than a surprise, so that's an improvement ... no, since the timetable was only released at about 2am last night, actually it's not ... They seem to remember that Arlesey is a normal station during the 10 minutes when they're telling us how much the season ticket will cost. Now all they need to do is work on the other 364 days, 23 hours and 50 minutes.