Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Sorry, But if your a customer from Huntingdon, St Neots, Sandy, Biggleswade or Arlesey who see's 2 hrs or services whizzing through without stopping it's not a benefit in any way shape or form. These stations do not have any alternative unlike Peterborough (LNER) or Cambridge (Greater Anglia).
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
New travel opportunities !! (Supposedly.) The fact that you can now travel to Gatwick Airport for your yearly getaway but pay the price of seeing a less convenient service for the rest of the year due to skip stopping (between Peterborough - Hitchin) or disruption imported from the other side of the river !
The point I was making is that "binning off" the Cambridge Brightons makes a certain degree of sense when there are limited alternatives for that service group.
You are right of course that with the Peterborough Horshams, that intermediate stops are often themselves "binned off" to aid service recovery, so see a large degree of disruption even when the trains continue to run end to end, and that it is often at an unacceptable level.
We use the Peterborough - Gatwick Airport trains several times a year. Don't forget that Gatwick Airport is the most popular Thameslink destination outside Central London, and most of this traffic is offpeak. To reduce the through service from Peterborough would be deliberate Sundayisation and would simply add to congestion on the M25 and Gatwick Express or whatever the trains from Victoria are branded this week.
And the connection eg at Crawley is valuable for visiting south Hampshire.
Yes we know that LNER goes to Kings Cross and the Victoria Line plugs the gap to Victoria, but that route carries a high hassle factor which is more unattractive to us seniors than the 10% or so chance of Thameslink disruption on days when we use it.
As regards Stansted Airport, I have seen a separate thread about the dreadful XC service there; that is in itself a motivator for using Gatwick when there is a choice.
Don't forget the option to turn at Three Bridges and leave the smaller stops towards Horsham with terrible service (sometimes they'll add special stop orders to Southern trains, but it's not reliably done)
Don't forget the option to turn at Three Bridges and leave the smaller stops towards Horsham with terrible service (sometimes they'll add special stop orders to Southern trains, but it's not reliably done)
Even if it does happen, updating station or online departure boards in time for anyone to make a decision is variable at best. I'm not going to stand on the up platform at Littlehaven without a cast iron guarantee that the Victoria train will stop. Compare with the NS where station boards, on train screens and the internet all tell the same story.
XR is so much more resilient. There's also the option for shuttles such as Ilford to Shenfield, or Liverpool Street to Shenfield if there's a problem at Stratford or in the core respectively.
Not so much. Trying to actually plan an intermediate shuttle is almost impossible with crew and stock resources on the fly. Yes a reduced service can run from Paddington or Liverpool Street but note the key term, reduced; in some case it is less than 50% of the timetabled service for some stations.
Not so much. Trying to actually plan an intermediate shuttle is almost impossible with crew and stock resources on the fly. Yes a reduced service can run from Paddington or Liverpool Street but note the key term, reduced; in some case it is less than 50% of the timetabled service for some stations.
But the opposing branch would also lose service. So Bedford (?) would see all of those trains disappear, as we similarly see at Brighton when there's disruption around Cambridge.
That is an extremely selective way of looking at it. If, say, East Croydon or Gatwick Airport has an incident, that’s potentially 100% of the Thameslink service for a significant number of north-of-river destinations, and in some cases their entire service. And as an aside it will probably wreck the Fen Line service for the rest of the day too.
Someone I work with thought that the Cambridge to Brighton services had been axed (permanently), since they are cancelled so often they don't appear on Trainline.
Edit: They don't appear when cancelled, which is sufficiently enough of the time to make it seem like they are permanently cancelled
On the latter point, that’s a political choice. Essentially the politicians are saying to rail users at places like Stevenage, Hitchin, Letchworth, Baldock, Royston (none of which are exactly small low-population places) “stuff you, we don’t give a toss that your service is unreliable”.
I see no reason why at least one of the LNER paths should not be ditched to give Hertfordshire a reliable rail service.
All choices on where services go are political choices. It would be a political choice to cut somewhere’s LNER service to prioritise a Herts service - of which there are already more each hour than for LNER
What was the point of introducing Cambridge-Brighton and/or Peterborough-Horsham anyway?
The attraction of an increased frequency (at least through the core) quickly falls away if the Cambridge-Brighton's (in particular) get canned to try and keep resilience to the rest of the services. Why not cancel the Bedford-Three Bridges services? Don't Bedfords still run to Brighton?
The Bedford-Three Bridges service group is often cancelled when there is disruption on the Brighton Main Line or the Midland Main Line (or indeed through the core) to thin out the service with the Bedford-Brighton group continuing to run.
Yesterday the cancellations were (links to Realtime Trains):
Southbound: 9S49 1651 from Cambridge only went as far as Three Bridges "due to a planning error (TI)." (and ran 20 minutes late throughout) 9S57 1850 from Cambridge only went as far as Gatwick Airport "due to a signalling problem (track circuit failure) (IC)." (and ran 20 minutes late throughout)
Northbound: 9S00 0506 from Brighton started at Preston Park "due to a planning error (TI)." 9S68 2214 from Brighton started at Three Bridges "due to late arrival of an inbound service (YI)"
Not so much. Trying to actually plan an intermediate shuttle is almost impossible with crew and stock resources on the fly. Yes a reduced service can run from Paddington or Liverpool Street but note the key term, reduced; in some case it is less than 50% of the timetabled service for some stations.
Realistically though the reason XR works is that most trains don’t run on both sides. Therefore issues on one side don’t ruin the service on the other, further than minor knock on delays in the core, and the core can run without the service from one side at only minor delay, or they are often able to capture some of the trains of a suspended side and run Paddington to Abbey Wood services.
But the opposing branch would also lose service. So Bedford (?) would see all of those trains disappear, as we similarly see at Brighton when there's disruption around Cambridge.
That is an extremely selective way of looking at it. If, say, East Croydon or Gatwick Airport has an incident, that’s potentially 100% of the Thameslink service for a significant number of north-of-river destinations, and in some cases their entire service.
Yesterday the cancellations were (links to Realtime Trains):
Southbound: 9S49 1651 from Cambridge only went as far as Three Bridges "due to a planning error (TI)." (and ran 20 minutes late throughout) 9S57 1850 from Cambridge only went as far as Gatwick Airport "due to a signalling problem (track circuit failure) (IC)." (and ran 20 minutes late throughout)
Northbound: 9S00 0506 from Brighton started at Preston Park "due to a planning error (TI)." 9S68 2214 from Brighton started at Three Bridges "due to late arrival of an inbound service (YI)"
Definitely a large factor, but in my opinion the Elizabeth Line doesn’t make running long distance services across London work either. The Heathrow to Shenfields are in my experience the most commonly cancelled services, and in disruption on one side are often withdrawn.
That’s not a bad thing though. At some point someone in the Thameslink project should’ve asked why we were running through highly congested infrastructure on both sides so far. The frequency on the Elizabeth Line means it doesn’t really matter that few trains cross the core, the change is easy enough and the Heathrow to Shenfields reflect the only real major cross London flow.
And, very generally, there anecdotally seem to be fewer faults on the GEML through to Shenfield (and the GWML has improved) than the ECML through to Cambridge or the BML - so less need to make service interventions
Essentially Thameslink tries to make Gatwick the epicentre of southeast rail but it fails to do this effectively as it did not bring all the necessary infrastructure improvements.
So you know that at no time in the 20-years-plus the project ran nobody did?
And that the answers weren't a combination of:
- Political demand for cross-London connectivity
- Economic/Commercial demand for direct Cross-London services
- The operational and capacity need to run to stations with enough capacity to terminate trains
- The operational and capacity implications of needing to run additional trains between London and the outer stations beyond where you think Thameslink 'should' have run.
- The commercial, operational and capacity implications of needing to stop existing outer-suburban trains at more stations to cover the stations Thameslink would no longer serve.
Maybe my acquaintances are not typical, but it's surprising how many mention trips between Cambridge and Gatwick. People don't use airports only for holidays. I also have friends who regularly use Cambridge to Farringdon (for the interchange with the Elizabeth line), Cambridge to East Croydon, and Cambridge to Brighton: the last-named again not for holidays but for the university there.
Strong agree. Probably shouldn't have gone via Greenwich either, since that has undermined the whole idea about the withdrawal of services from Charing Cross to avoid crossing junctions.
Yep and what is crazy is the charing X really only had one point of conflict which made it miles more reliable than the Thameslink equivalent. The biggest bottleneck outside of the thameslink core itself is the crossover from and to Deptford from bermondsey
So you know that at no time in the 20-years-plus the project ran nobody did?
And that the answers weren't a combination of:
- Political demand for cross-London connectivity
- Economic/Commercial demand for direct Cross-London services
- The operational and capacity need to run to stations with enough capacity to terminate trains
- The operational and capacity implications of needing to run additional trains between London and the outer stations beyond where you think Thameslink 'should' have run.
- The commercial, operational and capacity implications of needing to stop existing outer-suburban trains at more stations to cover the stations Thameslink would no longer serve.
My message was bit tongue in cheek, but given the challenges posed by Thameslink to those that use it from knock on delays on one time severely affecting the other and the total lack of operational resilience and ability to recover from disruption it's pretty clear they at least weren't coming up with the right answers to those problems.
If a branch has an incident, there’s a chance it would end up not having a service. It depends on what exactly would happen. But it doesn’t mean the core wouldn’t run.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Definitely a large factor, but in my opinion the Elizabeth Line doesn’t make running long distance services across London work either. The Heathrow to Shenfields are in my experience the most commonly cancelled services, and in disruption on one side are often withdrawn.
That’s not a bad thing though. At some point someone in the Thameslink project should’ve asked why we were running through highly congested infrastructure on both sides so far. The frequency on the Elizabeth Line means it doesn’t really matter that few trains cross the core, the change is easy enough and the Heathrow to Shenfields reflect the only real major cross London flow.
The main benefit with the Elizabeth line is that services can be quite easily curtailed at Paddington and into Old Oak Common depot and most of the time there’s no crew risks. Thameslink doesn’t have the same infrastructure to easily chop their service mid-route like that.
If a branch has an incident, there’s a chance it would end up not having a service. It depends on what exactly would happen. But it doesn’t mean the core wouldn’t run.
For something like Peterborough-Horsham or Cambridge-Brighton, I’ve always wondered how it would work if every service was planned with a crew relief at Finsbury Park.
So a Cambridge driver would work Cambridge to Finsbury Park, have a short break, and then take over a train back to Cambridge. In the event of an issue, the incoming train could run to King’s Cross and become the service the incoming driver was planned to take over. Any train arriving with no driver simply terminates (either via King’s Cross, reverse directly off Finsbury Park platform 4, or via Hornsey reversing sidings) and goes back with the original driver.
Essentially keep it completely simple, and remove as much “pass” driver movements as possible, which is another source of problems on GTR.
Obviously this will likely result in an increase in trains suddenly terminating at Finsbury Park, but preferable to the current situation of having no service.
If a branch has an incident, there’s a chance it would end up not having a service. It depends on what exactly would happen. But it doesn’t mean the core wouldn’t run.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
The main benefit with the Elizabeth line is that services can be quite easily curtailed at Paddington and into Old Oak Common depot and most of the time there’s no crew risks. Thameslink doesn’t have the same infrastructure to easily chop their service mid-route like that.
For something like Peterborough-Horsham or Cambridge-Brighton, I’ve always wondered how it would work if every service was planned with a crew relief at Finsbury Park.
So a Cambridge driver would work Cambridge to Finsbury Park, have a short break, and then take over a train back to Cambridge. In the event of an issue, the incoming train could run to King’s Cross and become the service the incoming driver was planned to take over. Any train arriving with no driver simply terminates (either via King’s Cross, reverse directly off Finsbury Park platform 4, or via Hornsey reversing sidings) and goes back with the original driver.
Essentially keep it completely simple, and remove as much “pass” driver movements as possible, which is another source of problems on GTR.
Simply is doing a hell of a lot of work there. As is the idea of reversing directly off Finsbury Park platform 4. Currently Thameslink trains call on the slow line platforms to clear the fast line, so any reversal would need to be known about in York ROC prior to the route being set.
And I don't think there's any signalled route from the Up Platforms at Finsbury Park to the Hornsey flyover. Reversals would need to be on the Canonbury Spur or in King's Cross itself at which a 12-car can't use platforms 9 or 10.
The main benefit with the Elizabeth line is that services can be quite easily curtailed at Paddington and into Old Oak Common depot and most of the time there’s no crew risks. Thameslink doesn’t have the same infrastructure to easily chop their service mid-route like that.
Agreed it’s an important factor, but I would argue it’s more so in terms of recovering service in a disrupted area, which is a challenge services across the country face to a huge extent.
What’s more unique about Thameslink is it is very good at importing delays across London. The Elizabeth line avoids this by still having largely separate service groups on each side.
The simplest way to summarise it is that the Thameslink routes we have today were designed around flows and demand but with no consideration of infrastructure and whether such a set of routes can actually function properly.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Finsbury Park itself cannot be used for any reversing duties on a regular basis at the minute, but Canonbury does exist as you mentioned. The minimal cost option we have is to add a siding on/near the Canonbury curve so trains can reverse using that, stopping at P2 as normal (I think they meant to say P2). At least some GTR drivers already sign Canonbury though it appears to never be used in disruption, probably because the crew arrangements do not allow for this to work.
Thameslink already uses Hornsey sidings for northbound trains when there are engineering works further north so that is possible.
However Finsbury also poses other problems regarding delays which this wouldn't fix. For instance a delay to any train from Moorgate or King's Cross can and does make a Thameslink either sit just outside the station or sit in a platform (because P2 and P7 are used for Moorgate trains in disruption), both of which cause knock-on delays. Ideally the space that is currently used by P3 & P6 needs to be converted into two extra tracks so that each line out has a dedicated platform. This way Thameslink trains do not unnecessarily delay Moorgate trains and the few King's Cross stoppers, and the reverse does not happen either. Additionally Hornsey & Harringay need Slow 2 platforms so we can end the double crossing-over nonsense that often needs to happen as a result of needing to actually, you know, stop trains there.
For something like Peterborough-Horsham or Cambridge-Brighton, I’ve always wondered how it would work if every service was planned with a crew relief at Finsbury Park.
Its proximity to Hornsey means this is entirely possible - if GTR can sort out their driver situation. The same could be done at Kentish Town or West Hampstead, and additionally south of the river e.g at East Croydon and Elephant & Castle though with no depot nearby it might slightly more difficult (another lesser issue of TL, it doesn't have any South London depots).
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
