the Increasingly Frustrating Thameslink

[Saint66]

TL will be a disaster when the GN links up without needing anything unexpected!

I knew you were good, but I didn't know you could predict the future!

 

[nidave]

That's what I thought, but I was corrected.

It was simply a way of having to employ fewer drivers, as one driver could operate a train into London, then out the other side down to Brighton in place of a service that would originally have started at London Bridge using another driver.

BR got roughly the same number of trains but using roughly half the manpower.

There you go, you learn something new everyday. As a bonus did it not allow north/south trains to be run - thus increasing capacity - I was under the impression that the terminal stations are where they are as London did not want anything going into the centre or though it originally.

 

[otomous]

Actually Thameslink was created to reduce the bottleneck of terminating trains at London Bridge and St Pancras, thus boosting overall capacity without needing a much bigger fleet, at a time when Network Southeast was under pressure to cut its costs by a government keen to remove its subsidy. A minimum of infrastructure work was done. It just so happens that it has been a victim of its own success and thus infrastructure works are now badly needed. In fact they have been needed for most of a generation and that is how long it has taken to start work. The work isn't going to be easy to achieve and no-one is saying that our current situation is what was wanted, expected, or promised. One of our major issues on the modern railway is the legacy of neglect and capacity reduction, so we lack resilience when something like a landslide or a major flood occurs. That is not a reason to abandon a wider project. If you want to blame anyone, blame past administrations who have saddled the current railway with a daily impossible task.

 

[21C101]

This isn't an isolated incident.

Because of the complex interworkings of destinations and drivers (as well as the signalling and power systems around Blackfriars/Farringdon being made of chocolate) failed trains/driver shortages or signalling/power problems cause chaos on a regular basis.

Try commuting on the route for more than a week and I'll guarantee you at least one difficult conversation with your employer when you arrive late in the morning or your journey home taking 2.5 hours instead of 1.5.

Thameslink is simply awful, soul-destroying and tediously unpredictable.

Oh come on, I commute from Flitwick and have done for over a decade. People from south of the Thames are delayed far more often than I am and I virtually always get a seat. Try commuting into London Bridge, Victoria or Waterloo and you are late most morning and standing up to boot both ways half the time.

I can't think of many other towns of 12,000 people that get 4 an hour offpeak and 8 an hour in the peaks.

 

[The Box Photter]

I don't know whether jonmorris0844 walks funny or not, but you don't need crystal balls to predict the monumental problems that shoehorning the GN suburban trains into the core will cause.

Let's consider the issues:

1. Initially a fleet of trains comprising some made in Derby (unreliable) and some nearly new units with loads of clever electronics (potentially unreliable)
2. When the 387s get sent somewhere else, there will be a single fleet of trains going north to widely different destinations from the same station that will all be painted in a similar livery - no risk of passengers getting on the wrong train there then.
3. Two sets of facing points just north of the platforms at St Pancras LL with no easy diversionary route - no possibility that they will ever fail pointing in the wrong direction or that a northbound train will never split the points there
4. Untried signalling in the core
5. Supposed "driverless" trains through the core - no chance of any of that technology going wrong, especially as the tunnels are so dry and never flood
6. 24 trains per hour through the core - plenty of slack to allow for late running
7. Upgrading of the electrical power supply between St Pancras and Bedford to allow 100 mph running - no chance of power failures or de-wiring there then
8. Signalling controlled by two power boxes (West Hampstead & Victoria)
9. DfT meddling
10. GoVia might pull out and hand back the keys

Its all so promising isn't it?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Oh come on, I commute from Flitwick and have done for over a decade. People from south of the Thames are delayed far more often than I am and I virtually always get a seat. Try commuting into London Bridge, Victoria or Waterloo and you are late most morning and standing up to boot both ways half the time.

I can't think of many other towns of 12,000 people that get 4 an hour offpeak and 8 an hour in the peaks.

I also commute in from Flitwick, buy surely you can't really be satisfied with the level of service or the standard of the rolling stock.

As for the issue of as 12,000 population, you need to consider the catchment area too, Ampthill, Maulden, and other villages swells the passenger numbers well beyond the population of Flitwick.

I usually get a seat in the morning, but I'd rather drive!

 

[Lee_Again]

When the inevitable happens and the core is blocked one morning with, let's say, a broken down southbound train at St. Pancras, and we have 24 tph, it will mean that within the hour (and these things are rarely fixed in less time) 8 trains will need to be 'put' somewhere on the GN and 16 on the MML.

My understanding is that after the junction with the ECML there are two sections before St. Pancras. So that's 2 trains. Where are the other 6 going to go? They are just going to block one of the lines (probably up slow) in to King's Cross. And I don't think there are 6 sections until after Finsbury Park meaning that one of the platforms there will be blocked too.

My fantasy solution for this, and sorry to bore those that have read it before, is to reinstate the disused eastern Copenhagen tunnel and put the four KX lines in there and the middle tunnel. The two lines from TL would then run on their own through what is now the up/down slow (west tunnel). North of the tunnels would exist two flyovers to match everything by direction without flat junctions. Similar to what happens now.

If TL used the two outer lines and then ran the fasts around the Hertford Loop (only a 5 minute time loss), passing the slows at new loops at Gordon Hill, the TL would effectively be grade separated all the way to Kings Langley. And it would also remove four tph from the Welwyn Viaduct.

Any problem on the TL core would effectively have no impact on the ECML except for the fours slows on the Hertford loop where they mix with the four TL fasts.

Anyhow, we'll all see how it goes in a few years.

I also commute in from Flitwick

How strange. Both Flitwick commuters on the same Forum. What's the chances??

 

[The Box Photter]

When the inevitable happens and the core is blocked one morning with, let's say, a broken down southbound train at St. Pancras, and we have 24 tph, it will mean that within the hour (and these things are rarely fixed in less time) 8 trains will need to be 'put' somewhere on the GN and 16 on the MML.

My understanding is that after the junction with the ECML there are two sections before St. Pancras. So that's 2 trains. Where are the other 6 going to go? They are just going to block one of the lines (probably up slow) in to King's Cross. And I don't think there are 6 sections until after Finsbury Park meaning that one of the platforms there will be blocked too.

My fantasy solution for this, and sorry to bore those that have read it before, is to reinstate the disused eastern Copenhagen tunnel and put the four KX lines in there and the middle tunnel. The two lines from TL would then run on their own through what is now the up/down slow (west tunnel). North of the tunnels would exist two flyovers to match everything by direction without flat junctions. Similar to what happens now.

If TL used the two outer lines and then ran the fasts around the Hertford Loop (only a 5 minute time loss), passing the slows at new loops at Gordon Hill, the TL would effectively be grade separated all the way to Kings Langley. And it would also remove four tph from the Welwyn Viaduct.

Any problem on the TL core would effectively have no impact on the ECML except for the fours slows on the Hertford loop where they mix with the four TL fasts.

Anyhow, we'll all see how it goes in a few years.


How strange. Both Flitwick commuters on the same Forum. What's the chances??

I believe there are at least 3 regular commuters from Flitwick and a dachshund named Colin. The joys of living in a rotten borough.

 

[EM2]

I was quite happy using the Bedford - St Pancras line when it terminated in the proper St Pancras Station (before it became a shopping arcade with trains) and at Moorgate. The service was self-contained and wasn't affected by problems happening between London & Brighton, which it often is. One of the reasons we moved here was because of the frequent, reliable train service into London.

How long ago was that?!

 

[nottsnurse]

...2. When the 387s get sent somewhere else, there will be a single fleet of trains going north to widely different destinations from the same station that will all be painted in a similar livery - no risk of passengers getting on the wrong train there then...

Oh my, not the dreaded similar looking trains/multiple destinations problem. How did we all cope in the pre-privatisation days, with all those similar painted NSE/BR trains going to different destinations?

Perhaps folk can drag their heads out of their iPhones/Kindles and pay attention to the world around them, like we did in the old days eh?

 

[The Box Photter]

How long ago was that?!

It was when the Premiership was called the First Division and dinosaurs roamed the land (Jimmy Knapp & Arthur Scargill).

I can remember making use of a Network Day special ticket to "bash" the newly-introduced Class 317s from St Pancras to Bedford and thinking how modern they were compared to the ancient DMUs I was more used to out of Paddington.

That was also before Luton had a station at (well near) the airport.

 

[EM2]

It was when the Premiership was called the First Division and dinosaurs roamed the land (Jimmy Knapp & Arthur Scargill).

I can remember making use of a Network Day special ticket to "bash" the newly-introduced Class 317s from St Pancras to Bedford and thinking how modern they were compared to the ancient DMUs I was more used to out of Paddington.

That was also before Luton had a station at (well near) the airport.

So, Thameslink has been in existence for over 25 years, and now it's a bad idea?

 

[The Box Photter]

Oh my, not the dreaded similar looking trains/multiple destinations problem. How did we all cope in the pre-privatisation days, with all those similar painted NSE/BR trains going to different destinations?

Perhaps folk can drag their heads out of their iPhones/Kindles and pay attention to the world around them, like we did in the old days eh?

People ended up in the wrong place, but then they couldn't Tweet about it.

I'm guilty of jumping on a DMU at Paddington, expecting it to stop at Ealing Broadway, but finding out as we hurtled through Ealing Broadway at almost 70 mph that the first stop was Slough.

As the 700s will be split 12 car/8 car with only 8 car trains working on the GN lines, it would make sense to apply a different livery for the easily confused. That way, passengers wouldn't have to rely on inaudible announcements or misleading platform screens, both of which Thameslink is expert at providing.

 

[Aictos]

When the inevitable happens and the core is blocked one morning with, let's say, a broken down southbound train at St. Pancras, and we have 24 tph, it will mean that within the hour (and these things are rarely fixed in less time) 8 trains will need to be 'put' somewhere on the GN and 16 on the MML.

My understanding is that after the junction with the ECML there are two sections before St. Pancras. So that's 2 trains. Where are the other 6 going to go? They are just going to block one of the lines (probably up slow) in to King's Cross. And I don't think there are 6 sections until after Finsbury Park meaning that one of the platforms there will be blocked too.

My fantasy solution for this, and sorry to bore those that have read it before, is to reinstate the disused eastern Copenhagen tunnel and put the four KX lines in there and the middle tunnel. The two lines from TL would then run on their own through what is now the up/down slow (west tunnel). North of the tunnels would exist two flyovers to match everything by direction without flat junctions. Similar to what happens now.

If TL used the two outer lines and then ran the fasts around the Hertford Loop (only a 5 minute time loss), passing the slows at new loops at Gordon Hill, the TL would effectively be grade separated all the way to Kings Langley. And it would also remove four tph from the Welwyn Viaduct.

Any problem on the TL core would effectively have no impact on the ECML except for the fours slows on the Hertford loop where they mix with the four TL fasts.

Anyhow, we'll all see how it goes in a few years.


How strange. Both Flitwick commuters on the same Forum. What's the chances??

Kings Langley? I didn't know Thameslink was going to serve the WCML as well as the ECML and MML.....

Only issue with using Hertford Loop and I agree with it in principle is come 2018 the service frequency will be increased so any TL services HAS to fit around them.

Don't forget you also have long signalling sections between Hertford and Langley Junction which is the only reason why there's only 2tph in the peaks and not off peak.

It might also be beneficial to introducing a stop at Hertford because even if just 1tph in both directions was first stop Stevenage/Finsbury Park I can pretty much assure you the service be popular with locals there.

 

[21C101]

People ended up in the wrong place, but then they couldn't Tweet about it.

I'm guilty of jumping on a DMU at Paddington, expecting it to stop at Ealing Broadway, but finding out as we hurtled through Ealing Broadway at almost 70 mph that the first stop was Slough.

Not on the Southern, we had things called headcodes (route numbers in bus terminology). No reason why they cannot be provided now other than they don't want to.

As the 700s will be split 12 car/8 car with only 8 car trains working on the GN lines, it would make sense to apply a different livery for the easily confused. That way, passengers wouldn't have to rely on inaudible announcements or misleading platform screens, both of which Thameslink is expert at providing.

Are you sure. I thought it was only the inner suburbans/slows that are 8 car. Can't imagine the Cambridge to Brightons being 8 car?

As to your earlier post. It takes me about 5 or 10 minutes longer to get to work from Flitwick than it took me from Streatham Common 1/4 of the distance and Streatham Common has fewer trains and twice as many stops.

 

[The Box Photter]

So, Thameslink has been in existence for over 25 years, and now it's a bad idea?

The way it is operated at present and future plans, yes.

The core is intended to operate as a high-capacity tube style line, but in reality it is a medium-distance commuter railway during the week and a leisure railway at the weekend.

The more complicated it is made, the greater the possibility of disruption, especially with only two tracks between St Pancras and Blackfriars.

The original plan for expansion of the Thameslink service was called "Thameslink 2000" so that should give you some idea of how long this project has been contemplated. That project was quietly shelved as being too expensive and too difficult (I think by John Prescott when he was Transport Secretary).

The most reliable service we've had north of St Pancras during the Thameslink-era was when the St Pancras box was being built and no trains could run through. That's because the line became self-contained, running into a single terminus and homeward-bound trains in the evening weren't delayed somewhere in 3rd rail land.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Not on the Southern, we had things called headcodes (route numbers in bus terminology). No reason why they cannot be provided now other than they don't want to.




Are you sure. I thought it was only the inner suburbans/slows that are 8 car. Can't imagine the Cambridge to Brightons being 8 car?

As to your earlier post. It takes me about 5 or 10 minutes longer to get to work from Flitwick than it took me from Streatham Common 1/4 of the distance and Streatham Common has fewer trains and twice as many stops.

I expect 377/5 will be along shortly to correct me. Nevertheless, the service should be designed around the customer, not the other way around. Despite the announcements and platform displays, I regularly encounter passengers on northbound trains out of St Pancras who ask, "Why haven't we stopped at West Hampstead" and have to be told the train is first stop St Albans. Some will ask as they get onto the train, despite having walked along the platform past the display.

If the trains were colour-coded in an obvious way (perhaps using different coloured doors) and prominent information on the platform showing which colour door to look for, the risk of mistakes could be reduced. It also has the benefit of being very low tech and reliable, so long as the fleet is deployed correctly.

 

[asylumxl]

Not going to blame TL for Thames Water's failing, but thank god I'm almost at my destination. And only 94 minutes late!

 

[transmanche]

Not on the Southern, we had things called headcodes (route numbers in bus terminology). No reason why they cannot be provided now other than they don't want to.

A simple yet effective system. And would be even more useful with today's PIS and regular announcements.

 

[21C101]

Not going to blame TL for Thames Water's failing, but thank god I'm almost at my destination. And only 94 minutes late!

94 Minutes late? Luxury!

16.38 from Sutton has just got into St Albans 114 minutes late, and t'passengers consider themselves lucky.

 

[Class377/5]

I expect 377/5 will be along shortly to correct me.

I haven't the time to correct the amount of misinformation you've just posted on the previous page. Roughly half your posts were full of wrong information, this like

• That a line with 25% capacity left in peak (the Thameslink Core in 2018) isn't sufficent
• Driverless trains (or did you misuse that word to try and link to the current flooding? )
• Peterbrough and Cambridge will be 12 cars not 8
• Thameslink has been delayed by planning enquires and Government actions. Not sure how you an think how things can be different.

 

[Aictos]

Page 72 of this Network Rail document says the GN will see BOTH 8/12 car Class 700s > http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse...and south east route utilisation strategy.pdf

As to colour coding trains, you can't be serious? What was wrong with actually using the information screens provided?

I think there are more serious issues to be dealt with then worry about having to run colour coded trains because someone doesn't want to read the info provided to them.... :roll:

 

[21C101]

Page 72 of this Network Rail document says the GN will see BOTH 8/12 car Class 700s > http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse...and south east route utilisation strategy.pdf

As to colour coding trains, you can't be serious? What was wrong with actually using the information screens provided?

I think there are more serious issues to be dealt with then worry about having to run colour coded trains because someone doesn't want to read the info provided to them.... :roll:

If the mockups are accurate the class 700s will also have TV screens inside saying where they call.

 

[The Box Photter]

I haven't the time to correct the amount of misinformation you've just posted on the previous page. Roughly half your posts were full of wrong information, this like

• That a line with 25% capacity left in peak (the Thameslink Core in 2018) isn't sufficent
• Driverless trains (or did you misuse that word to try and link to the current flooding? )
• Peterbrough and Cambridge will be 12 cars not 8
• Thameslink has been delayed by planning enquires and Government actions. Not sure how you an think how things can be different.

Look, I'm just a poor sodding commuter who spends £5,000 of his taxed earnings on the shambles that is currently called Thameslink.

I'm sick to the back teeth of corporate suits, politicians and people like YOU who tell everyone how things will be lovely in just a few years time, and that anyone complaining about things now is being unreasonable.

I'm putting forward my opinions, just as you're entitled to put forward yours. As you obviously know much more about the issue, please go ahead. My job involves assessing complex situations that have already gone wrong and suggesting ways of preventing the same thing going wrong again. I'm trained to consider scenarios where errors or mistakes might occur. In my view, Thameslink as it stands is not fit for purpose and I have grave misgivings as to the future.

The floor, as they say, is yours ....

 

[Lee_Again]

Kings Langley? I didn't know Thameslink was going to serve the WCML as well as the ECML and MML.....

Only issue with using Hertford Loop and I agree with it in principle is come 2018 the service frequency will be increased so any TL services HAS to fit around them.

Don't forget you also have long signalling sections between Hertford and Langley Junction which is the only reason why there's only 2tph in the peaks and not off peak.

It might also be beneficial to introducing a stop at Hertford because even if just 1tph in both directions was first stop Stevenage/Finsbury Park I can pretty much assure you the service be popular with locals there.

Kings Langley!! Good spot.

I agree with a stop at Hertford. I did put on here many moons back a 'proposed' timetable.

It had 4tph stoppers (an increase on the current 3tph). Then the 4 'fasts' would overtake them at Gordon's Hill. I would have 2 of the trains stop at Hertford. 1 for Cambridge and the other Peterborough.

There are some long sections on the loop but with the money saved by not having to 'solve' the Welwyn problem could easily fund this. They're already playing with the signals as it's being used as a test for a new signalling system. I forget the acronym.

Just a thought.

 

[nottsnurse]

...As to colour coding trains, you can't be serious? What was wrong with actually using the information screens provided?

I think there are more serious issues to be dealt with then worry about having to run colour coded trains because someone doesn't want to read the info provided to them.... :roll:

Indeed.

As I touched upon earlier, how did such simple folk cope in the days of a nationalised railway, when most trains were the same colour, passenger information systems were a far off dream and PA systems of the time merely a way of turning speech in to garble?

 

[The Box Photter]

OK I give up. No more inaccurate posts. No whining and no colour coding suggestions.

 

[RJ]

Well if you think TL is so bad, and suggest we should just give up on it, why don't you just move closer to your work? A similar level of overreaction which works for both parties!

I've commuted a number of times on TL in the past, and I must be lucky, as my biggest delay has only ever been 20-30 mins, and most often that has occurred in the evening when heading back.

I can personally recommend a couple of nice commutes. HS1 was fantastic when I was a Canterbury to Blackfriars commuter. The Javelin service was reliable, comfortable and I always got a seat in the morning and evening too. The TL service through the core was a sea of delays every morning, but it didn't matter as it was a high frequency service.

EMT are also very reliable on the Leicester to London route. Recently I've experienced a lot of minor delays, 10 minutes or so normally but nothing like the horrors I hear about on other lines.

 

[Class377/5]

Look, I'm just a poor sodding commuter who spends £5,000 of his taxed earnings on the shambles that is currently called Thameslink.

I'm sick to the back teeth of corporate suits, politicians and people like YOU who tell everyone how things will be lovely in just a few years time, and that anyone complaining about things now is being unreasonable.

I'm putting forward my opinions, just as you're entitled to put forward yours. As you obviously know much more about the issue, please go ahead. My job involves assessing complex situations that have already gone wrong and suggesting ways of preventing the same thing going wrong again. I'm trained to consider scenarios where errors or mistakes might occur. In my view, Thameslink as it stands is not fit for purpose and I have grave misgivings as to the future.

The floor, as they say, is yours ....

Perhaps you should present your posts as opinions rather than facts from a long standing commuter?

As for your job, the problem is you need informed data to consider scenarios. Using lies and false data means your never come to a reasonable conclusion, which is where you are. As for your fears for the future, go read up on Thameslink and you'll find half of what you post is plain wrong so your own opinion is wildly off the mark.

As for floor is mine, well it seems you ignored the points in my posts (yet again).

Page 72 of this Network Rail document says the GN will see BOTH 8/12 car Class 700s > http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse...and south east route utilisation strategy.pdf

As to colour coding trains, you can't be serious? What was wrong with actually using the information screens provided?

I think there are more serious issues to be dealt with then worry about having to run colour coded trains because someone doesn't want to read the info provided to them.... :roll:

Colour coding isn't permitted as if affcets colour blind passengers ability to work out what the train would be. The current rules around the doors for contrasting doors, it's for those with poor eye sight and the colour blind.

 

[21C101]

Colour coding isn't permitted as if affcets colour blind passengers ability to work out what the train would be. The current rules around the doors for contrasting doors, it's for those with poor eye sight and the colour blind.

Yes it is. SWT Inner suburbans are red, outer suburbans blue and expresses white.

No reason why the 8 car inner suburban 700s can't be painted a different colour from the 12 cars.

Not that that will be much help if you want a train to Cambridge and end up at Bedford.

I would still like to know why GTR and FCC before them don't use headcodes when the 319s are fitted with headcode blinds (or were) and later stock has dot matrix displays front and sides that could have headcodes.

"Bedford" on the front of a train means F**** All.

"04 Bedford" = Brighton and Stns to East Croydon then core stations and St Albans, Harpenden, Luton, Flitwick Bedford

"14 Bedford" = Brighton and Stns to East Croydon then core stations and St Albans Harpenden, Luton, Leagrave, Bedford

"34 Bedford" = Brighton and Stns to East Croydon then core stations and St Albans, Harpenden, Luton, Flitwick Bedford

"44 Bedford" = Brighton and Stns to East Croydon then core stations and all Stns from St Pancras to Bedford

"54 Bedford" = Brighton and Stns to East Croydon then core stations West Hampsteasd, Elstree and all Stns to Bedford.

would be a whole lot more useful and was tried and tested on the Southern Railway and its successors for 70 years until ditched by the TOCs.

While 'umble commuters don't know the full facts, the rail industry often suffers from "we know bestism" and unwillingness to be innovative and flexible.

 

[Bald Rick]

Let's consider the issues:

1. Initially a fleet of trains comprising some made in Derby (unreliable) and some nearly new units with loads of clever electronics (potentially unreliable)
2. When the 387s get sent somewhere else, there will be a single fleet of trains going north to widely different destinations from the same station that will all be painted in a similar livery - no risk of passengers getting on the wrong train there then.
3. Two sets of facing points just north of the platforms at St Pancras LL with no easy diversionary route - no possibility that they will ever fail pointing in the wrong direction or that a northbound train will never split the points there
4. Untried signalling in the core
5. Supposed "driverless" trains through the core - no chance of any of that technology going wrong, especially as the tunnels are so dry and never flood
6. 24 trains per hour through the core - plenty of slack to allow for late running
7. Upgrading of the electrical power supply between St Pancras and Bedford to allow 100 mph running - no chance of power failures or de-wiring there then
8. Signalling controlled by two power boxes (West Hampstead & Victoria)
9. DfT meddling
10. GoVia might pull out and hand back the keys

Its all so promising isn't it?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


I also commute in from Flitwick, buy surely you can't really be satisfied with the level of service or the standard of the rolling stock.

As for the issue of as 12,000 population, you need to consider the catchment area too, Ampthill, Maulden, and other villages swells the passenger numbers well beyond the population of Flitwick.

I usually get a seat in the morning, but I'd rather drive!

Now I know many of you like facts, so here are some:

1) granted

2) rather similar to, say, platform 1/2 at London Bridge, Platform 13 at Clapham Junction, or Platform 1 at Blackfriars (in the Thameslink core). Folk using these platforms seem to have managed for the last 175 years.

3) rather similar to, say, the set of facing points at Borough Market Junction, or Cardiff Queen St, or Northolt Jn. (And it is only 1 set facing under normal operation). There's hundreds of locations around the country where regularly used points are critical to operation of a request service with no diversion possible.

4) if you mean the existing signalling - it has been tried for 3 years now (and it's not made of chocolate). If you mean ETCS, it's been tried all over Europe, and the 'back office' systems for the core have been tested extensively for over a year. Live testing starts in 6 months.

5) the condition of the tunnels will have no impact on the ATO system, for the simple expedient that all the ATO kit is on board the train. If the train is wet enough to harm the ATO kit, it ain't going anywhere anyway. And there will still be drivers.

6) plenty of slack. The core runs quite happily (and regularly) at 150 second headways with conventional signals, drivers driving trains, and trains not designed for rapid boarding /alighting.

7) that was done 3 years ago. I don't believe the rate of dewirements has increased since.

8) only for 8 more weeks including this one. Then it's off to Three Bridges, which will control the whole core from Kentish Town to Loughborough Junction.

9) granted but understandable. If I'd paid £6.5bn for a set of new toys, and £1bn a year for someone to operate them, I'd be asking plenty of questions too.

10) or they might not, given that it would cost them a LOT of cash and exclude them from future franchise competitions for the next couple of years.

I've commuted from St. Albans for 12 years, and am indeed satisfied with the level of service (overall) and the rolling stock, even if I rarely get the luxury of a seat. Granted this week has not been great* But it's a damn sight more reliable than the M1, rather quicker and cheaper also.

* whilst my train home tonight was 100 minutes late, personally I didn't experience the lateness. I have tonight broken my personal record from London Bridge office to St. Albans - 37 minutes - by using the northern line to St P.

 

[Abpj17]

Box Photter - so drive?

And all the colour and header codes in the world won't help the drunks and the tourists lol, colour coding doors is an awful idea - would remove flexibility/increase confusion for any non standard routes. And there are so many variations they'd run out of colours - you know as well as me that the fast to St. Albans aren't consistent - some skip the airport, others skip leagrave