Experiences of service recovery (or lack of) on GTR Great Northern

[bramling]

It sounds like they have an entirely customer-blind attitude. At my GA stations we communicate as well as we can and try to suggest routes on a case-by-case basis based on time criticality and cost for the passenger. Cable theft near Romford comes to mind and TL/GN were used extensively for getting people to London. Ticket acceptance was immediate.

I'm surprised routing people via Cambridge to Liverpool Street wasn't immediately the go-to advice, it seems like the only sensible route.

They could have done this as initially they had a train reverse back to Cambridge, so anyone already at any of the intermediate stations could have gone via Cambridge. It may well be the case that people at other stations were able to do so. People at Letchworth didn’t have that option, as the staff booted everyone out and justified this by saying there would be no more trains today.

Of course, there's a clear failing by control as they couldn't get crew in the right places quick enough (at all?) to retain any service. I don't use GN/TL except Ely to King's Lynn which is patchy enough. It's genuinely the most miserable part of that journey, and not just because of the shock of changing from a FLIRT to an Electrostar!

It does seem like Cambridge to Kings Lynn manages to do slightly better than elsewhere disruption, sometimes anyway. Not sure if this is that the local train crew supervision manages to sort things out.

 

[JonathanH]

It is now 3½ hours since the line has cleared and I don't think any 9J (Peterborough to Horsham) or 9S (Cambridge to Brighton) train has yet gone through the core.

There are some Peterborough to Stevenage services operating, but not half hourly, and some Horsham to Redhill services.

Obviously massive traincrew displacement, but near enough impossible to get through services operating again.

 

[Robski]

It is now 3½ hours since the line has cleared and I don't think any 9J (Peterborough to Horsham) or 9S (Cambridge to Brighton) train has yet gone through the core.

There are some Peterborough to Stevenage services operating, but not half hourly, and some Horsham to Redhill services.

Both service groups will not be reinstated tonight according to GTR. 9Sxx binned off entirely and 9Jxx running as shuttles north and south of London.

 

[milooo]

Edit : looks like they've just sent out 2C50 from KGX, 16 late, first train to Cambridge in over 90 minutes. 1T50 meanwhile has been sitting on platform 0 for whatever reason for a very long time ('waiting for driver' according to posts on Twitter) and is now over 35 minutes late - fortunately I won't be waiting like a fool at CMB to catch this as I'm working from home today.

2C50 has just been cancelled at Stevenage running 70L and is now running as 2Z50

 

[Royston Vasey]

2C50 has just been cancelled at Stevenage running 70L and is now running as 2Z50

So the 2C50 arrived at Stevenage 72L at 19:50 and was cancelled (all stops to Cambridge), the train stopped for two minutes on P4 and departed, calling all stops to Cambridge, as 2Z50 at 1952, 2L.

Why? What does that achieve? Make it make sense!

Good luck to anyone on that expecting to claim delay repay... "according to our records your train arrived at Cambridge on time"

 

[bramling]

So the 2C50 arrived at Stevenage 72L at 19:50 and was cancelled (all stops to Cambridge), the train stopped for two minutes on P4 and departed, calling all stops to Cambridge, as 2Z50 at 1952, 2L.

Why? What does that achieve? Make it make sense!

Good luck to anyone on that expecting to claim delay repay... "according to our records your train arrived at Cambridge on time"

I gather GTR are quite messy when it comes to delay repay too. A friend of mine was caught a year or two ago when the wires came down somewhere like Alexandra Palace, and was stuck for a couple of hours and eventually had to do a cross transfer to another train via the track. His delay repay claim was rejected, which needless to say he wasn’t impressed about.

 

[Hadders]

Firstly, my thoughts are with everyone involved in the incident this afternoon. Very sad.

I was caught up in this today. I was intending to finish work early and head over to Kings Cross for a train to Stevenage about 16:00 but saw what had happened and remained in the office.

Firstly, GTR seem to have thrown in the towel on anything running through the core until the end of service. That's 12-car trains every 15 minutes so those passengers have to go somewhere.

Next the Thameslink departure boards showed no cancellations of services onto the GN. They had simply all been removed from the departure board so to the untrained eye it looked as though everything was running... No suggestion that you might want to go to Kings Cross, absolutely nothing.

I was only passing through STP on my way to KGX and upon arrival things were starting to move. I wuickly worked out when the incoming stock for the 17:42 GTR peak extra service would arrive and made my way to the platform. It arrived and I got on and it left about 10 minutes late, making an additional call at Finsbury Park. The train was so full 10 of the 12 cars were showing red on the loading indicator.

Upon arrival at Stevenage there were so many people got off the train it took a good 10 minutes for them all to get off the platform, as bad as I've seen it. There was confusion about whether the train was going to call at Hitchin (it wasn't due to call there but apparently it was announced at FPK that it would)

I looked across to the southbound platforms and it was packed - many more people than in the morning peak! It was clear a train had not called for some time and Arsenal playing tonight means many more passengers.

There does need to be a more robust plan for when this sort of thing happens. The stock response seems to be to cancel all trains through the core and let everything else take the strain when services start running again. That really doesn't work and a better solutiuon needs to be found. I don't know whether it's diverting to Kings Cross (which probably can't happen due to platform capacity) or turning elsewhere like Finsbury Park but something needs to change.

I dread to think what's going to happen at Finsbury Park tonight when the football finishes of there aren't any 12-car Thameslink trains.

 

[MikeWM]

It does seem like Cambridge to Kings Lynn manages to do slightly better than elsewhere disruption, sometimes anyway. Not sure if this is that the local train crew supervision manages to sort things out.

It *can*, and seemed to be reasonably ok as a shuttle this afternoon, but I've seen some huge gaps in service in the past when things have happened way down the line as was the case today.

Actually it tends to get worse when the lines are reopened and they stop the shuttle and try to resume through services. The trains operating the shuttle(s) go down to London but, as tonight, there is nothing coming back from London to match. According to RTT, there's only been one arrival at KLN in the last 2.5 hours (1T50 as mentioned above, which was 90 (!) minutes late by the time it got to KLN) and the next one that might get there (1T56) has just got to Cambridge, so it will be another hour getting to KLN, if it isn't terminated short. (Looks like 1T58 was actually ahead of it, but they seem to have terminated that at Cambridge).

(Admittedly RTT sometimes doesn't show the shuttles, so more services can run than is apparent in these cases, but as above they usually stop once the line is reopened, so the situation at KLN is probably about as poor as described above).

 

[JonathanH]

Admittedly RTT sometimes doesn't show the shuttles

TrackIt! can be used to see what has actually run.

This for Kings Lynn in the last 12 hours (although not a permanent link).

Kings Lynn - TrackIT!

trackit.uppyjc.co.uk

 

[MikeWM]

TrackIt! can be used to see what has actually run.

This for Kings Lynn in the last 12 hours (although not a permanent link).

Kings Lynn - TrackIT!

trackit.uppyjc.co.uk

Very interesting, not seen that before, thanks!

So looks like there was one evening shuttle from CBG in the path of 1T52, arriving KLN just before 2000. That's a bit better than the gap as shown on RTT, though still far from great.

 

[Steve Harris]

Not sure why there was the assumption no trains will run for the rest of the day (similar was said Saturday just gone, but the service was mostly restored after 1930 until the end of service), but it's clearly going to be disrupted for some time - and like any incident that happens around this time, the focus will be on trying to get stock and drivers into the right places for the peak service?

Stevenage can run some services south from platform 5 but the main station is closed, so it's pretty much just services on the loop for now.

I really can't see how you work that one out, as nothing ran between Peterborough - Horsham after the 09:54 left PBO(bearing in mind Peterborough - London King's Cross is scheduled for Sundays only).

See Realtime Trains if you don't believe me.

 

[Failed Unit]

When you look at the Moorgate - Welwyn Garden City service, it should not really have go impacted by this. However at about 1800 a train terminated from WGC on platform 4. This train stopped there for at least 1 hour (probably no driver) which meant that WGC turned into a 1 platform station. The Sevenoaks services need to be emptied and sent to the carriage sidings. They then need to come back onto platform 3. The blocking of platform 4 basically killed off the WGC - Moorgate service, but also further delayed any 2Cs that were heading north increasing the gap between the 1627 and 1757 services that left Kings Cross. Surely a priority would be to ensure that train on platform 4 was removed?

Some trains ran non-stop from Hatfield - Welwyn North to avoid the congestion.

As others had said the lines was reopened by 1600, but the peak out of London was very challenging. I don’t get as well why is a send a train out 31 minutes later, rather then cancel it and send the following train out nearly on time. The driver / train daigrams are already shot.

A bad 2 days on GTR, in my opinion the recovery didn’t happen and if anything the service got worse after the incident was cleared.

 

[Failed Unit]

Amazing how many cancellations this morning are attributed to yesterday’s incident. Failure to recover for yesterday’s peak was bad but understandable. Not managing to get everything in the right place for this morning?

 

[Magdalia]

Amazing how many cancellations this morning are attributed to yesterday’s incident. Failure to recover for yesterday’s peak was bad but understandable. Not managing to get everything in the right place for this morning?

Two places with shortage of rolling stock this morning are Kings Lynn and Peterborough.

It was very difficult to get stock to Kings Lynn last night because the line had an early close for engineering work from about 2200.

Peterborough to Horsham will be very sparse. Four units berthed in Horsham sidings.

Given that Stevenage is much nearer to Peterborough than Horsham, it was inevitable that most of the rolling stock would be at the Horsham end. Do you really think that Thameslink has spare drivers to move 3 or 4 trains Horsham-Peterborough in the middle of the night?

 

[JonathanH]

Given that Stevenage is much nearer to Peterborough than Horsham, it was inevitable that most of the rolling stock would be at the Horsham end. Do you really think that Thameslink has spare drivers to move 3 or 4 trains Horsham-Peterborough in the middle of the night?

I wasn't writing about this morning's service, more about whether any through services would happen last night. I wasn't expecting movements overnight, but now we come to it am surprised that there wasn't some rebalancing during the hours of normal service between 1530 and close last night.

 

[bramling]

Given that Stevenage is much nearer to Peterborough than Horsham, it was inevitable that most of the rolling stock would be at the Horsham end. Do you really think that Thameslink has spare drivers to move 3 or 4 trains Horsham-Peterborough in the middle of the night?

This is the problem, there aren’t the resources to run what they want to run. Thameslink needed to be flooded with resources to make it work, and it wasn’t.

 

[MikeWM]

Here's the 'service' provided at St Neots last night, starting *6 hours* after the lines reopened, going up to *10 hours* afterwards:


(image shows 1 train ran as expected, 1 'shuttle' in either direction, and 15 cancelled services)

This isn't 'recovery' in any sense of the word. 6 hours after the lines reopen just about *everything* should be running as normal, not this disaster of a 'service'.

 

[Steve Harris]

Here's the 'service' provided at St Neots last night, starting *6 hours* after the lines reopened, going up to *10 hours* afterwards:

View attachment 193322
(image shows 1 train ran as expected, 1 'shuttle' in either direction, and 15 cancelled services)

This isn't 'recovery' in any sense of the word. 6 hours after the lines reopen just about *everything* should be running as normal, not this disaster of a 'service'.

Thanks for that.
It really shows how the stations between Hitchin and Peterborough get totally shafted when things go wrong (and sometimes just a train running 7 mins late).

At least if your at say somewhere like Cambridge there are alternatives.

 

[Failed Unit]

Here's the 'service' provided at St Neots last night, starting *6 hours* after the lines reopened, going up to *10 hours* afterwards:

View attachment 193322
(image shows 1 train ran as expected, 1 'shuttle' in either direction, and 15 cancelled services)

This isn't 'recovery' in any sense of the word. 6 hours after the lines reopen just about *everything* should be running as normal, not this disaster of a 'service'.

That is one think I don’t understand. They must have had train crew available to operate these services. Hornsey wasn’t empty yesterday evening. Surely the drivers were not all north of the blockage.

Do all Kings Lynn trains change crew at Cambridge?

Many trains were north of the blockage. Why was the Kings Lynn service abandoned when at the very minimum they could have do a Cambridge- Kings Lynn shuttle much more effectively then what actually happened. As others said why was the first through service not until significantly after the line was handed back?

 

[MikeWM]

Here's the Cambridge equivalent for GN. *All* the Thameslink services were cancelled so I'm not posting those.


(image shows most trains cancelled, a few running but not much)

Note the last 2 trains of the night to London were cancelled. Most things going north were cancelled too, but 1T66 ran so late I suppose that technically counts as effectively 'running the last train'.

Again, this is from an incident *when the lines reopened around 1530*. Cancelling last trains as a result of something that was fixed over 8 hours earlier is ludicrous. Fortunately there are GA alternatives from CBG, though not after 2250.

The worst part is that there is nothing surprising here. This is the sort of 'service recovery' we've come to expect from GN.

 

[bramling]

Here's the Cambridge equivalent for GN. *All* the Thameslink services were cancelled so I'm not posting those.

View attachment 193326
(image shows most trains cancelled, a few running but not much)

Note the last 2 trains of the night to London were cancelled. Most things going north were cancelled too, but 1T66 ran so late I suppose that technically counts as effectively 'running the last train'.

Again, this is from an incident *when the lines reopened around 1530*. Cancelling last trains as a result of something that was fixed over 8 hours earlier is ludicrous. Fortunately there are GA alternatives from CBG, though not after 2250.

The worst part is that there is nothing surprising here. This is the sort of 'service recovery' we've come to expect from GN.

Another element to all this is what happened when the disruption finished. It was a good couple of hours before *anything* usable ran between Cambridge and London, and that includes all the intermediate stations pretty much as far as Welwyn, and I think Peterborough was no better. The first London train from Hitchin didn’t run until about 1740 IIRC.

One would expect there to be at least one train complete with driver ready at both Cambridge and Peterborough ready to run a trip to London and back, either timetabled or ad-hoc.

The issues seem to be
* the whole Thameslink service is unworkable
* GTR’s crew diagrams are unfit for purpose and seem to be too complex
* GTR seem incapable of keeping track of what their crews are doing during disruption
* GTR’s control seems overwhelmed during disruption
* GTR’s station staff appear to have little or no training in handling disruption
* Comms between control and the York-based signallers seems to be a problem as well

Can anyone point to anything about GTR which actually functions well?

 

[Bikeman78]

So today there’s just been a fatality at Stevenage, no doubt that will be the job wrecked for the remainder of the day.

Yep. No Peterborough to Horsham trains for the rest of the day. The best they could manage was an hourly Horsham to Redhill and an hourly Peterborough to Stevenage shuttle. Credit where it's due; the Southern controller did stop the Bognor trains additionally at Ifield and Littlehaven.

 

[Bikeman78]

Given that Stevenage is much nearer to Peterborough than Horsham, it was inevitable that most of the rolling stock would be at the Horsham end. Do you really think that Thameslink has spare drivers to move 3 or 4 trains Horsham-Peterborough in the middle of the night?

I wonder where the various trains ended up. They had nine hours to move trains around. Horsham to Peterborough normally has 12 drivers at any given time. The two shuttles would have needed four or five so what were the others doing? I'm sure they could have run two or three trains through the core to balance up. Three Thameslink trains were cancelled out of Peterborough this morning. Two of them were complete round trips so perhaps crew rather than unit related.

 

[bramling]

I wonder where the various trains ended up. They had nine hours to move trains around. Horsham to Peterborough normally has 12 drivers at any given time. The two shuttles would have needed four or five so what were the others doing? I'm sure they could have run two or three trains through the core to balance up. Three Thameslink trains were cancelled out of Peterborough this morning. Two of them were complete round trips so perhaps crew rather than unit related.

Another day and another GN disruption, this time the rail adhesion train seems to have gone defective on the up slow line at Stevenage.

Probably won’t melt the service down, but has caused some localised significant delay. As usual, zero information being provided at stations, so the first indication of any problem is when trains don’t turn up. Secondly zero sense of any urgency when working round the issue.

We’ll see what the rest of the day brings.

 

[Failed Unit]

Another day and another GN disruption, this time the rail adhesion train seems to have gone defective on the up slow line at Stevenage.

Probably won’t melt the service down, but has caused some localised significant delay. As usual, zero information being provided at stations, so the first indication of any problem is when trains don’t turn up. Secondly zero sense of any urgency when working round the issue.

We’ll see what the rest of the day brings.

Probably better then normal from GTR considering all the problems on Thameslink. They are stopping Horsham / Brighton trains additionally at WGC. The Moorgates have experienced delays but not too bad. Some long delays (as you would expect) and cancellations but the rush hour does appear to be working (unlike last week)

 

[bramling]

Probably better then normal from GTR considering all the problems on Thameslink. They are stopping Horsham / Brighton trains additionally at WGC. The Moorgates have experienced delays but not too bad. Some long delays (as you would expect) and cancellations but the rush hour does appear to be working (unlike last week)

That’s about right. No meltdown tonight, but extremely rough round the edges at King’s Cross, and as usual zero information or sense that anyone is ahead of events rather then behind them.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Another week and the same signalling problem has reoccurred again in the core now for the fourth time in the last week resulting in the usual decimation of services. NR should be coming under a lot more external pressure to get this sorted given how many MPs constituencies Thameslink trains run through. So hopefully NRs is deploying its most experienced signalling engineers to get this sorted ist not as if it hasn't been working reliably for nearly a decade.

 

[jon0844]

Presumably different hardware vendors, but didn't they have a similar problem on the Northern Line recently where they couldn't find the cause of a problem that affected services for the best part of a week? Wasn't a section of line closed completely?

 

[Mattplans]

How effective is skip stopping in "making up time" or mitigating disruption? It seems a lot of the time, these services with half their stops cancelled end up behind trains that are stopping any way...

I think this is something the railway really needs to crack down on, because 9 times out of 10 by the final destination there is no time saved.

 

[jammmmmsssssss]

How effective is skip stopping in "making up time" or mitigating disruption? It seems a lot of the time, these services with half their stops cancelled end up behind trains that are stopping any way...

I think this is something the railway really needs to crack down on, because 9 times out of 10 by the final destination there is no time saved.

I've seen it work really well on Greater Anglia