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Experiences of service recovery (or lack of) on GTR Great Northern
- Thread starter Failed Unit
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R
RailUK Forums
Even better tonight, 1T48 has sat at Cambridge for 25 minutes due to 'an earlier operational incident', whatever that is supposed to mean. Ah, it moved off as I was typing, only 20 minutes late.
2026 off to a great start - 4 trains, 1 of which cancelled and the others 16 late, 5 late and 20 late. GN just as good as ever it seems.
Magdalen Road
Member
4 trains for me too. Delays 2, 11, 34*, 12.
*this would have been 52 if I’d had to get the Brighton so glad the KGX fast was held for us, after I asked.
*this would have been 52 if I’d had to get the Brighton so glad the KGX fast was held for us, after I asked.
Tonight 1T48 took 9 minutes to split at Cambridge, 1T50 took 7 minutes, 1T52 took 11. It's actually quite impressive that GN have found yet another way to be rubbish at running trains, but they seem to have managed it with their apparent inability to split 379s in a reasonable time.
1T50 was also delayed by being behind a late stopper between Hitchin and Cambridge, arriving at Cambridge 18 late. Exactly as everyone predicted would happen with this new timetable. 1T52 would have done the same if it hadn't already somehow lost 8 minutes by Hitchin.
We've only had 8 real days of the new timetable so far, but looking at 1T48, 1T50 and 1T52 over those 8 days, not one has arrived at Ely on time, that's *zero*! 4 out of those 24 have arrived within 5 minutes of timetable, a miserable 17%. So far it is actually worse than the appalling performance seen under the previous timetable.
1T50 was also delayed by being behind a late stopper between Hitchin and Cambridge, arriving at Cambridge 18 late. Exactly as everyone predicted would happen with this new timetable. 1T52 would have done the same if it hadn't already somehow lost 8 minutes by Hitchin.
We've only had 8 real days of the new timetable so far, but looking at 1T48, 1T50 and 1T52 over those 8 days, not one has arrived at Ely on time, that's *zero*! 4 out of those 24 have arrived within 5 minutes of timetable, a miserable 17%. So far it is actually worse than the appalling performance seen under the previous timetable.
For comparison, when the class 317s split at Letchworth in the afternoon peak, the front set would be on the move as little as two minutes after arrival. Has anyone observed what goes on at Cambridge to make the process so slow?
Good point. Does the "splitting process" commence as soon as relevant pax have alighted? Or are incoming drivers not a part of the "splitting process" bcause they are booked off on arrival and there is potentially a delaying factor until subsequent drivers are present?
In the case of Letchworth, the driver from King's Cross remained in the front cab. Another driver got in the middle, shut the doors, split the rear unit off and gave a toot on the horn to let the front driver know that the split was complete. Then the doors on the leading unit would be released again for a few seconds and then the train departed. I assume the process of checking the rear unit was empty happened after the front had departed. There were always announcements about the split en route from Hitchin.
I have decades of experience of travelling on splitting trains on the GN.
That's because the second driver got on at Hitchin, herded the through passengers into the front unit (and there were not very many), and closed the interior gangway doors before the train had arrived at Letchworth. I wouldn't recommend trying to do that at Cambridge.
Trains arriving at Cambridge for splitting have lots of passengers, and a disproportionate number of them don't know where they are or what they are doing. That includes passengers who are in the rear 4 cars wanting to go beyond Cambridge but not realising they need to move. If the train is splitting in platform 4 at Cambridge then this results in two conflicting flows of passengers going in opposite directions between the front and rear parts of the train. At Cambridge "as soon as relevant pax have alighted" is not trivial.
I haven't watched any splits since the class 379s were introduced, but I did watch class 387 splits, where GN used 3 drivers, one in each cab at the location of the split, plus another at the front. I don't know to what extent splitting class 379s is different from splitting class 387s, but hopefully there is a learning curve and drivers are moving along it.
Interesting. I never observed that because I was always in the front unit. It sounds a sensible plan. Perhaps someone can board at Royston to usher people forward? Or have staff at King's Cross to do the same. Failing that, the dwell time at Cambridge needs to be changed to reflect reality.
Presumably there is no scope to reduce or retime until later in the evening the current level of splitting activity in order to improve reliability?
A 12 car train from Kings Cross has to split because 8 cars is the maximum north of Cambridge.
I'd never noticed that - I can see the need for the two drivers facing forwards, but why was the 'facing backwards' driver needed? Did the same happen with 365s back in the day - I do think I'd seen quite a lot of those attaching/detaching but don't recall it needing 3 drivers.
Today's splitting scores : 9, 7, 6 - so 1T52 improved over yesterday, but not the others.
Either way, punctuality at Ely was dismal as ever - 1T48 5 late (due to the time taken to split), 1T50 17 late (mostly due to being caught behind a late-running stopper, same as yesterday), 1T52 31 late (started very late from KGX). So keeping the record that none of these three key trains have got to Ely on time once since the timetable change.
bramling
Veteran Member
There definitely needs to be some focus on all this. It’s not really on to have a situation where key trains just can’t run on time. This has been going on for ages - in the old TT a regular train of mine was formed at KX from a Kings Lynn arrival, and it was virtually never on time arriving, and not uncommon to be 20+ mins late.
Looking at the connection from 1T53 to 2L81 at Ely...
Since 05/01, one connection would've been missed, one connection made successfully, and two would've been made due to the GA train being replatformed and held to let the GN get out of the way. Both cases where 2L81 was delayed they ended up departing on time from Ipswich.
Since 05/01, one connection would've been missed, one connection made successfully, and two would've been made due to the GA train being replatformed and held to let the GN get out of the way. Both cases where 2L81 was delayed they ended up departing on time from Ipswich.
bramling
Veteran Member
I’m watching another piece of dubious recovery on GN just now.
2C65 left Cambridge 18 late, and has lost a further 6 mins to Welwyn GC despite having a completely clear run.
It was amended to run fast from Welwyn GC to London, but has just been held in Welwyn platform 2 for five minutes to allow 1T61 and 9S65 to pass. It will now likely get tangled up with 9S65 at Finsbury Park, meaning the train’s next working will not be able to depart on time.
I guess one of the negatives of having half the stopping service reverse at Letchworth is it makes it more undesirable to run a late train fast on the Cambridge-Hitchin section. Operationally doing that would have worked a lot better.
2C65 left Cambridge 18 late, and has lost a further 6 mins to Welwyn GC despite having a completely clear run.
It was amended to run fast from Welwyn GC to London, but has just been held in Welwyn platform 2 for five minutes to allow 1T61 and 9S65 to pass. It will now likely get tangled up with 9S65 at Finsbury Park, meaning the train’s next working will not be able to depart on time.
I guess one of the negatives of having half the stopping service reverse at Letchworth is it makes it more undesirable to run a late train fast on the Cambridge-Hitchin section. Operationally doing that would have worked a lot better.
rmHawk765
Member
Just my two cents - the supposed '6tph' on the GN inners to Gordon Hill/Hertford at peak is not really 6tph because there is far too often a cancelled train or two, causing overcrowding. If one thing breaks in the NCL, the whole next hour of Hertford & Welwyn trains is done for. And the most striking part is that with the current timetable, there's always at least 6 717s sitting in the depot through all the disruption. It's quite frankly abysmal that GTR still cannot sort it out. I don't even know if they'll be able to reliably run the 4tph off-peak when it returns in Dec 2026. I am, of course, disappointed the 8tph at peak to Gordon Hill will not be returning by the looks of it, but then again there is zero way the current GTR will be able to run that to any decent extent.
GN has well and truly been forgotten when it comes to the TSGN franchise, and I don't think that comes as a surprise. The very fact that two distinct networks were paired into one franchise still seems ridiculous to me.
GN has well and truly been forgotten when it comes to the TSGN franchise, and I don't think that comes as a surprise. The very fact that two distinct networks were paired into one franchise still seems ridiculous to me.
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bramling
Veteran Member
I agree it does feel like GN is somewhat forgotten now. Clearly the new ECML timetable has been deemed more important, whilst for whatever reason the GN/TL service on the ECML just cannot be made to function reliably.
It was always a terrible idea to introduce Thameslink to the awkward southern end of the ECML, but there just hasn’t been enough focus on sharp operating. The transfer of signalling to York in particular seems to have resulted in a dip in performance, which doesn’t seem to have ever recovered.
rmHawk765
Member
To add, this is also the reason why I believe the proposed Overground takeover of the inners is a very good idea. GN having to manage a higher-frequency route as well as rather contrasting regional routes certainly doesn't help matters. With a dedicated driver pool for the inners and the reliability TfL has shown to provide on Overground routes it would improve the inners significantly, but also other GN services as they will be able to focus much more on improving service levels and recovery with a smaller network, or at least I hope so. GTR has apparently been sorting their driver issue out (finally), so maybe they will be able to offer a decent service on their longer distance routes.
I am certainly not pleased with the fact that services out of KGX that worked reliably for decades were replaced with considerably less reliable TL services. It honestly still seems like a complete afterthought, being done only as a 'why not' kind of thing. Compared to the MML the infrastructure simply cannot cope as well, and it doesn't really work with the fact that there's still some contained regional and a lot of contained commuter services. The southern MML's regional and commuter services are almost exclusively TL so it just works more fluidly. I understand it technically makes sense, with Cambridge to Gatwick being a large flow for example, but I think everyone would much rather have an actually reliable service even if that means slight inconvenience in terms of changing trains.
Even this has gone worse than expected. Ridiculous numbers of 5 cars on Leeds trains to name something off the top of my head. KGX is completely at capacity which is going to cause huge headaches in the future. We are going to need a new terminus (or at least major works at KGX) in the not too distant future because Thameslink really will not benefit from even more trains through the core, but the ECML will. Effectively we've reached a point where Thameslink's idea of through trains is no longer helpful and we actually need more contained services.
rmHawk765
Member
A great example of the fact that mixing different services like this requires a level of precision we currently cannot achieve on our railway unfortunately.
Speaking of Finsbury Park, the interchange between GN inners and TL has actually been screwed with Dec 2025, with Hertford trains departing about a minute late to make the connection. I'm not even going to try to figure out why, but it's an annoyance. Going into London for example, I've routinely been stuck waiting 20 minutes for the next train via East Croydon as that will of course be an inevitably delayed Horsham. Not like the interchange worked half the time especially going away from London in the evening, with one train or the other being delayed, but it's even worse now.
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Friday's numbers:
- 1T48 takes 11 (!) minutes to split at Cambridge, 8 late at Ely.
- 1T50 takes 9 minutes to split, 16 late at Ely.
- 1T52 takes 12 minutes to split, 17 late at Ely.
So, 0 out of 30 on-time for these at Ely since the timetable change - and a whole 5 out of those 30 arrived less than 5 minutes late. Actually the record is worse than that, as looking at RecentTrainTimes, 1T54 and 1T56 also have the same punctuality issues (though they don't split at Cambridge).
On-time arrivals for evening peak services at Ely since the timetable change:
(chart showing no on-time arrivals for 5 consecutive evening peak trains).
It must have been quite difficult to manage to degrade the service further from last year, but this does look like this year will be even worse than the dismal results seen with the previous timetable.
- 1T48 takes 11 (!) minutes to split at Cambridge, 8 late at Ely.
- 1T50 takes 9 minutes to split, 16 late at Ely.
- 1T52 takes 12 minutes to split, 17 late at Ely.
So, 0 out of 30 on-time for these at Ely since the timetable change - and a whole 5 out of those 30 arrived less than 5 minutes late. Actually the record is worse than that, as looking at RecentTrainTimes, 1T54 and 1T56 also have the same punctuality issues (though they don't split at Cambridge).
On-time arrivals for evening peak services at Ely since the timetable change:
(chart showing no on-time arrivals for 5 consecutive evening peak trains).
It must have been quite difficult to manage to degrade the service further from last year, but this does look like this year will be even worse than the dismal results seen with the previous timetable.
bramling
Veteran Member
Those figures are pretty shocking. Be interesting to see what’s causing this, but I reckon it’s probably different things from one day to the next. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the new TT has made things worse for Fen Line services, Cambridge South will probably worsen things as presumably every trains is theoretically able to gain a minute or two here at present.
The common demoninator is the split taking much longer (almost double the time) than scheduled.
That being said, this is the sort of issue that can be ironed out after a few weeks/months with proper attention paid to it by performance teams, so it is not guaranteed to be awful forever.
That being said, this is the sort of issue that can be ironed out after a few weeks/months with proper attention paid to it by performance teams, so it is not guaranteed to be awful forever.
bramling
Veteran Member
Just had a very quick look at tonight. 1T38 and 1T40 both lost time between Hitchin and Cambridge due to late-running Brighton-Cambridge Thameslink services.
The thing with the splits, one would think that this should have already been been able to be improved upon, but it’s the same with the emptying out at Letchworth, GTR just don’t seem to have any capability of focussing on these sorts of issues. There is no evidence of *any* focus on these sorts of details which make the difference between the service working and not working.
Sure, but I would wait for a month or so of the new timetable before it has been categorically been deemed a failure.
bramling
Veteran Member
The same issues have been going on for some while, but were masked in the last timetable because of the interworking with the stopping service. Prior to that, Fen Line services had a much longer turnround at King’s Cross.
It seems those responsible for specifying this simply don’t appreciate how fragile the route is, and it only works when a high proportion of trains run on time. Add to this that Cambridge station is handling a lot more trains than was once the case, and again it only works when everything is on time.
There’s just one consolation, which is one can only imagine how much worse still all this would be had Cambridge-Maidstone happened.
jammmmmsssssss
Member
Surely it has to get better from here?
I expect that it won't though
That should start on 5 January, not 14 December. The intervening period was 11 days of trying to run the service with the wrong track and signalling, followed by an 11 day closure for the new track to be joined up and the signalling installed.
I hope that you are right here.
Whereas I know that you are right here, and I started doing my imagining more than 10 years ago.
bramling
Veteran Member
It does feel like the original May 18 timetable seemed to work better (and would have worked better still if the peak Baldock services reversed at Letchworth instead). Longer turnrounds at King’s Cross for both the Fen Line and stopping services, which had the benefit that any late running up service generally didn’t translate into a late down service except in dire circumstances. This isn’t the case now, yesterday evening was an example of this.
Of course, King’s Cross has lost a platform in the meantime, and it may also not help that the “outers” fleet has shrunk from 51 units to 43, as well as course the new ECML timetable coming in. Unfortunately the consequence of this is that GN users get a much less reliable service.
Much as I’m not a fan of the whole Thameslink thing, at least May 18 had some resilience in there for the other non-TL services. What has happened now is they are effectively trying to run a 2017-style service for the non-TL elements on top of the inherent unreliability which Thameslink imports. It just isn’t working well, and I can’t see this timetable ever will. It’s annoying enough that individual services pick up late running, but the lack of breathing space means these delays propagate and don’t recover.
I wonder if one longer-term solution might have to be a bay platform somewhere on the Cambridge section. We seem to have reached a point where the Shepreth BJ to Cambridge section, and Cambridge station itself, is now a significant additional bottleneck. Letchworth is the only place where there is space, although it doesn’t help the built lift towers in the space.
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Indeed, I think mid/late Februrary really a fair evaluation can be made. That is not to say it will get better of course, but obviously GTR performance teams will be noticing this discrepancy between the booked time to complete a split and the actual time taken - which as I said is sometimes 100% worse - and want to know what exactly is going on. It could be a range of factors from incorrect CIS/PIS causing passenger confusion, technical issues completing the split, lack of driver familarity etc.
Failed Unit
Established Member
The Fen Line certainly appears to be suffering.
Welwyn Garden City south seems to be better, but can’t recover even small delays, they are not snowballing as much. Morning only
My unscientific view.
X23 and x53 Moorgate - They are on platform 4 and generally depart on time now they no longer have a conflict with the arriving London service,
x00 and x30 Sevenoaks - They are generally on platform 3, so no longer have to wait for the Cambridge service
x08 and x38 Kings Cross - Tend to be late, probably Welwyn North Congestion
x10 and x40 Moorgate - Tend to be late because of the Kings Cross service, sometimes gets let out first and delays the Kings Cross service even more,
x10 and x40 Cambridge 0 Does seem to vary but not conflicts at Welwyn Garden City,
I have notice not many people use the King Cross service now, probably down to it only being 7 mins behind the Sevenoaks, more likely to be a 700 (so you don’t get the less cramped seating arrangement) and the time difference is not that great. Must be frustrating for the poor cafe owned at the station.
Welwyn Garden City south seems to be better, but can’t recover even small delays, they are not snowballing as much. Morning only
My unscientific view.
X23 and x53 Moorgate - They are on platform 4 and generally depart on time now they no longer have a conflict with the arriving London service,
x00 and x30 Sevenoaks - They are generally on platform 3, so no longer have to wait for the Cambridge service
x08 and x38 Kings Cross - Tend to be late, probably Welwyn North Congestion
x10 and x40 Moorgate - Tend to be late because of the Kings Cross service, sometimes gets let out first and delays the Kings Cross service even more,
x10 and x40 Cambridge 0 Does seem to vary but not conflicts at Welwyn Garden City,
I have notice not many people use the King Cross service now, probably down to it only being 7 mins behind the Sevenoaks, more likely to be a 700 (so you don’t get the less cramped seating arrangement) and the time difference is not that great. Must be frustrating for the poor cafe owned at the station.