Well the the first was a comment about picking up during delays, which then became almost exclusively about parking in Hitchin, Arlesley St Albans et al. But my point has been confirmed by Chief Planner who feels that things are improving.
Ah so one opinion, from the Midland side, confirms all.
My last full week of GN side journeys (two weeks ago) was anything but reliable. I forget exactly, but there were cancellations, most trips arrived late to some degree, and in more than one instance the journey was crowded due to preceding services being delayed or cancelled. On one evening there had been IIRC a *two hour* gap in the up service along the Cambridge branch. That’s not good by any record, especially with only 3tph so far!
I wouldn't blame GTR for a suicide, however one can quite reasonably blame the Thameslink concept for transmitting such delays far wider than would otherwise have been the case. The GN was messed up on Monday evening thanks to the problems on the Brighton line, and passing through St Pancras early afternoon yesterday the departure board for the Horsham service read wall-to-wall cancelled. I'm sure the Southern commuters appreciated that.
It's also worth remembering that we don't have the full Thameslink Programme aspirational service. GN side was planned to have 6tph off-peak and 8tph peak, in each direction. In reality we have 3tph, with a number of these missing. The current service is erratic enough, and it has features which will be actually benefiting performance that the end-state service won't have, for example the current Cambridge North/Cambridge stopping service having 31-minute turnrounds at King's Cross during the daytime. If it's not working well now, which it isn't, then it's certainly only going to get worse. As I wrote above, we're still seeing two-hour gaps at times, and that's simply appalling even by your standards!