GTR cancellations including not operating from Victoria until 10th Jan

[Horizon22]

And that is why you have the timetable as outlined, lack of resource within these teams to reliably deliver anything else.

Yep. It's a shame as the possibility is certainly there to do something extra if someone had the time to spend a night shift planning some VSTP diagrams and the crews. Passengers will of course lose out significantly as a result.

 

[Bald Rick]

The lack of resource may not only be crew.

A TOC also needs people to replan a service, rewrite diagrams, etc. If you are short of those people, then you take the easiest route which is to ‘copy and paste’ the reduced Service already running.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Passengers will of course lose out significantly as a result.

Passengers also do need to accept travelling in a pandemic is not trouble free and can be fraught with difficulties.

 

[Timmyd]

The question that I am yet to hear a satisfactory response to is this:

Why is it that every single time Southern have a staffing crisis, the Caterham/Tattenham Corner branches are the first to be hacked back? On the CAT branch, we automatically lose our semi-fast services, in favour of retaining the stoppers, despite the fact that the vast majority of the Zone 1-5 stations have a direct bus service to Central London, or duplication of services by either London Overground or the Victoria-London Bridge services?

The Zone 1-5 stations and the Brighton Mainline seem to be the priority for Southern, and stuff the branches. Even the EGR line seems to get an unfair share of hits, despite the fact that the Uckfield services could be adjusted to serve more stations.......

Because they’re always empty. I frequently have reason to use Whyteleafe South off peak and its rare i don’t have a whole coach to myself all the way to ECR. When stations like Forest Hill are losing their whole Southern service (and the Overground from those stations is already very busy all day and especially at peaks), and you have fast connections at East Croydon to London Bridge still, you really have nothing to complain about. Stations like Anerley don’t have direct buses to Central London (in fact no stations in the Croydon area do any more) and from Sydenham it would take well over an hour on the 176, so not a realistic alternative

On the broader question, one thing which will need to be taken into account is schools traffic. Significant numbers of children travel relatively long distances from Clapham Junction to schools in and beyond Croydon (the East Grinstead line particularly) and thats a journey which would be impossible by bus at that time of day.

 

[Horizon22]

The lack of resource may not only be crew.

A TOC also needs people to replan a service, rewrite diagrams, etc. If you are short of those people, then you take the easiest route which is to ‘copy and paste’ the reduced Service already running.

No indeed. I suppose for me the "easiest" route is not necessarily the "only" route and has the most substantial impact on passengers and its trying to balance those requirements.

 

[Bald Rick]

No indeed. I suppose for me the "easiest" route is not necessarily the "only" route and has the most substantial impact on passengers and its trying to balance those requirements.

yes, perhaps I should have said ‘one way’ rather than ‘easiest’. There are of course easier ways to deal with it from a planning perspective, that are far less passenger friendly.
y

 

[louis97]

I am not sure the decision was taken 1-2 weeks ago. Perhaps the options were being discussed, but the decision wasn't made

The wider train planning team were told on the 20th December about the need for a reduced timetable from 4th January. With annual leave and bank holidays, this leaves very little time to do any replanning of the service. Rolling forward the Victoria closure plan was mentioned, and really was the only option with the resource and time available.

From 10th January there will be a reduced timetable until sometime in February. Although if I'm honest this could be longer dependent on the Covid situation.

 

[Horizon22]

yes, perhaps I should have said ‘one way’ rather than ‘easiest’. There are of course easier ways to deal with it from a planning perspective, that are far less passenger friendly.
y

Hmm, I'm not sure there's that many options less passenger-friendly that cancelling trains at two of the major stations for a week!

 

[Rob Gibson]

Hmm, I'm not sure there's that many options less passenger-friendly that cancelling trains at two of the major stations for a week!

Don’t many commuters take a full two weeks off for Christmas and New Year especially as Monday is a Bank Holiday? Very doubtful East Croydon can handle shuttles without getting in a big mess, anyway can simply undivert the 6 long distance tph that are running to London Bridge.

 

[JonathanH]

Very doubtful East Croydon can handle shuttles without getting in a big mess

It is fairly easy to reverse trains from Victoria in platform 2 and use platforms 1 and 3 for the through services.

anyway can simply undivert the 6 long distance tph that are running to London Bridge.

I think the implication of the discussion in this thread is that that is not simple.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

anyway can simply undivert the 6 long distance tph that are running to London Bridge.

If only planning trains was that simple…

The traincrew working one of those long distance services into London Bridge may well be booked a break on arrival then after that break work a local stopping service from London Bridge.

The reason this is being done is Control is short staffed due to sickness and doesn’t have the ability to unpick/improvise plans.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

From 10th January there will be a reduced timetable until sometime in February. Although if I'm honest this could be longer dependent on the Covid situation.

Undoubtedly and wouldn't be surprised to see this as a precursor to more permanent reductions in services even when resourcing issues have gone away as DofT budget is going to holed below the waterline now with substantial drop off in income again so they will want to minimise costs where they can.

 

[Goldfish62]

Undoubtedly and wouldn't be surprised to see this as a precursor to more permanent reductions in services even when resourcing issues have gone away as DofT budget is going to holed below the waterline now with substantial drop off in income again so they will want to minimise costs where they can.

Indeed. I would find it strange if SWR were the only England TOC subject to permanent timetable reductions and I'm a little surprised at the apparent eagerness of some of them to return to pre-Covid service levels when it seems inevitable that reverse gear will have to applied sooner rather than later.

 

[Deepgreen]

This saga does reinforce my view that today's railway is very fragile regarding service re-arrangement. It is now far too common to see buses put on to replace trains when anything goes wrong and even planned well in advance because it's now just too hard to re-arrange the railway even where physical route options exist. I'm NOT saying that this is necessarily the case here, as clearly C19 poses problems not previously experienced in modern times. However, I really would have thought an East Croydon to Victoria 12-car regular shuttle service SHOULD be possible and achievable even with severe staff absences on an otherwise virtually empty four-track railway, and is only thwarted by the vast complexity of staffing that has built up, particularly as a result of privatisation.

On the other hand, I fully expect to see severe semi-permanent cuts to the railway as a whole, forcing huge numbers of people into cars and direcrly contradicting Johnson's promnise of a green recovery from C19.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Dec 2021 ==

Passengers also do need to accept travelling in a pandemic is not trouble free and can be fraught with difficulties.

Quite, but I can see an exodus from the railway being a very realisitic possibility as services are slashed and not re-instated, especially as this government continues to favour roads and airlines in its budgets and strategies, despite trying to pass itself off as a 'green' one.

 

[philthetube]

Its akin to the only supermarket in town simply removing 50% of its products including many of the main staples & expecting all their customers to accept it

Toilet rolls?

 

[Surreytraveller]

Toilet rolls?

I was going to say the same thing. They were struggling to keep up with demand. People cannot always get delivery slots now - same sort of comparison

 

[andystock22]

Looking at the timetables on the Thameslink website they plan to operate 8 Thameslink trains per hour through the central core (St Pancras to London Bridge. 4 from Bedford, 2 from Cambridge and 2 from Peterborough). Plus 2 per hour from St Pancras to Blackfriars.

Considering most of these services will be 12 cars, should be enough when the Northern Line is closed South of Moorgate, bases on current passenger demand.

 

[Jan Mayen]

St Pancras to Blackfriars? Won't that block the platforms a bit?

 

[andystock22]

St Pancras to Blackfriars? Won't that block the platforms a bit?

It's the services which go down to Elephant & Castle and doen through the Wimbledon Loop.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

This saga does reinforce my view that today's railway is very fragile regarding service re-arrangement. It is now far too common to see buses put on to replace trains when anything goes wrong and even planned well in advance because it's now just too hard to re-arrange the railway even where physical route options exist. I'm NOT saying that this is necessarily the case here, as clearly C19 poses problems not previously experienced in modern times. However, I really would have thought an East Croydon to Victoria 12-car regular shuttle service SHOULD be possible and achievable even with severe staff absences on an otherwise virtually empty four-track railway, and is only thwarted by the vast complexity of staffing that has built up, particularly as a result of privatisation.

If this was a crisis that came out of nowhere in real time the brilliant control staff would work miracles with the willing support of train crew to run a shuttle but if it needs planning operators have to submit bids, timings have to be validated etc etc and all this takes a lot of resources and time all because one party is worried about incurring sch8 penalties. The railway doesn't need all these contracts and processes anymore it just needs to let staff get back to running trains for its passengers.

 

[Horizon22]

If this was a crisis that came out of nowhere in real time the brilliant control staff would work miracles with the willing support of train crew to run a shuttle but if it needs planning operators have to submit bids, timings have to be validated etc etc and all this takes a lot of resources and time all because one party is worried about incurring sch8 penalties. The railway doesn't need all these contracts and processes anymore it just needs to let staff get back to running trains for its passengers.

The base timetable already exists. Yes bids might need to be submitted, but there are more than enough trains East Croydon to Victoria & vice versa that you can run trains in already existing paths.

I appreciate that trying to rework the service entirely without an emergency plan & severely reduced resources (on crew and planning sides) may be difficult and have certainly experienced this myself over the past 18 months, but a shuttle should be the minimum attempt.

 

[hwl]

Toilet rolls?

My local supermarket was out earlier today.

 

[physics34]

One of the points is that there will be dozens of spare drivers available who sign vic to croydon, just not enough to run a full TT. Its clear that there is a shortage of staff elsewhere along the operations ladder aswell.

 

[Ian1971]

Passengers also do need to accept travelling in a pandemic is not trouble free and can be fraught with difficulties.

What about passengers who have travel like medical staff who can’t work from home or students who need to attend their colleges because their college isn’t offering home learning

I fully understand that their are significant staffing issues but the total removal of services to one of London’s main termini is very extreme.

This is one of the reasons their should have been some restrictions as soon as Omicron was found to protect those working in the public sector so that services could be continued

 

[JonathanH]

the total removal of services to one of London’s main termini is very extreme

It isn't that extreme because there are other network options for people to make almost any journey on the route being served. Circulating via London Bridge / Waterloo adds about 20 minutes.

 

[Ian1971]

It isn't that extreme because there are other network options for people to make almost any journey on the route being served. Circulating via London Bridge / Waterloo adds about 20 minutes.

No it doesn’t, if you are say trying to travel from East Croydon to Kingston, instead of travelling 10 minutes to Clapham and then changing for a 20 minute journey to Kingston a total of say 40 mins top if you have a 10 minute connection

You now have a 40 minute journey to Waterloo East changing at London Bridge and then 29 minute journey to Kingston factor in 10 minutes changing. It makes a 1 hour & 20 minutes journey double the length

 

[zwk500]

No it doesn’t, if you are say trying to travel from East Croydon to Kingston, instead of travelling 10 minutes to Clapham and then changing for a 20 minute journey to Kingston a total of say 40 mins top if you have a 10 minute connection

You now have a 40 minute journey to Waterloo East changing at London Bridge and then 29 minute journey to Kingston factor in 10 minutes changing. It makes a 1 hour & 20 minutes journey double the length

For that journey, the train to Wimbledon and Tram to Croydon takes less than an hour. Not great, but certainly not the end of the world.

 

[Surreytraveller]

What about passengers who have travel like medical staff who can’t work from home or students who need to attend their colleges because their college isn’t offering home learning

I fully understand that their are significant staffing issues but the total removal of services to one of London’s main termini is very extreme.

This is one of the reasons their should have been some restrictions as soon as Omicron was found to protect those working in the public sector so that services could be continued

What would you suggest Southern does?

 

[30907]

However, I really would have thought an East Croydon to Victoria 12-car regular shuttle service SHOULD be possible and achievable even with severe staff absences on an otherwise virtually empty four-track railway, and is only thwarted by the vast complexity of staffing that has built up, particularly as a result of privatisation.

I agree - given time to arrange something relatively simple, and sufficient traincrew etc. There is only one TOC involved, though, so I'm not sure where your last point fits.

 

[Dave91131]

What about passengers who have travel like medical staff who can’t work from home or students who need to attend their colleges because their college isn’t offering home learning

I fully understand that their are significant staffing issues but the total removal of services to one of London’s main termini is very extreme.

This is one of the reasons their should have been some restrictions as soon as Omicron was found to protect those working in the public sector so that services could be continued

I agree that the total removal of all Southern services between East Croydon and London Victoria is far from ideal to put it very mildly, irrespective of how simple or difficult providing even a basic shuttle between them (also serving Clapham Junction) would be.

But regarding restrictions as soon as Omicron was discovered, I highly doubt that the introduction of any measures at that time would have seen us in any better position than we are now - just look at the measures already brought in and the further advice and guidance given, and the case numbers are still rocketing north.