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

[Magdalen Road]

All gone wrong again today, due a trespass incident somewhere between Stevenage and Welwyn.
No London - Cambridge services 1200 onwards, passengers advised to go via Liverpool St.
It appears one or two have left St Pancras for Cambridge after all, around 1500 but I'm committed to the long diversion now. There are also delays on this route!

 

[jon0844]

All gone wrong again today, due a trespass incident somewhere between Stevenage and Welwyn.
No London - Cambridge services 1200 onwards, passengers advised to go via Liverpool St.
It appears one or two have left St Pancras for Cambridge after all, around 1500 but I'm committed to the long diversion now. There are also delays on this route!

Someone suicidal on a bridge, so all trains stopped and power off.

 

[tatitiliti]

Thanks for finding these, though my reading of RTT has off peak arrivals at xx39 and departures at xx41, with 62 minute turnrounds.

The peaks have longer turnrounds too.

It is bizarre that the changes don't also apply in w/c Monday 10 August.


I think it is only a matter of time before speed restrictions will be needed between Littleport and Downham because of the lack of rain. Here it last rained on 22 June, and that was only a brief shower.

Yeah, based on where the addition is, I’d imagine it would be due to the ground and track conditions or engineering works related to it. Indeed, no meaningful rainfall up here for well over a month now!

But, as you say, bizarre why it’s two isolated weeks spaced apart.

 

[MikeWM]

I think it is only a matter of time before speed restrictions will be needed between Littleport and Downham because of the lack of rain. Here it last rained on 22 June, and that was only a brief shower.

Yes - I've not been up that way for a few weeks, but I have noticed the ride quality between Ely and Waterbeach, particularly in the up direction, appears to have got significantly worse over the past week - presumably due to the ground being excessively dry.

 

[Intercity_225]

This could be off-topic (if it is then mods, feel free to move this to a separate thread), but I've been making the May 2026 TT on the SimSig map for Kings Cross. What's been surprising me is that most services I've added so far (except the Inners) have got alot of padding throughout the majority of services. How come, despite this, delay possibilities are still so bad?

 

[Mattplans]

This could be off-topic (if it is then mods, feel free to move this to a separate thread), but I've been making the May 2026 TT on the SimSig map for Kings Cross. What's been surprising me is that most services I've added so far (except the Inners) have got alot of padding throughout the majority of services. How come, despite this, delay possibilities are still so bad

I've been playing a lot of SimSig recently as well and I'm also quite surprised that with the amount of padding some services have that it's so easy for them to get delayed. I'd say Simsig even has slight 'optimism bias' since things move slightly faster than they might IRL (ie you can instruct a train to reverse and it will do so immediately), although this can sometimes be balanced out by the fact it takes time for the player to resolve conflicts/set routes as the area is so large. (Looking at the MML sim).

Gives some appreciation into why things move slower than they should

But yeah it only takes one little incident or delay to through a spanner in the works on some timetables. I do come off this game sometimes wondering how people do it everyday.

 

[whoosh]

I notice from Monday 3rd August - Friday 7th August, and again from Monday 17th August - Friday 21st August:

Most services from Kings Cross to Kings Lynn are scheduled to arrive at Kings Lynn two minutes later (XX:22).

Most services from Kings Lynn to London Kings Cross are scheduled to depart King’s Lynn two minutes earlier (XX:43).

The two minutes appear to be added between Littleport and Downham Market in both directions.

Does anyone know if this is some sort of punctuality trial introduced as part of STP? If so, if they think that increasing journey times and reducing already far too low recovery times at King’s Lynn will make any meaningful difference to PPMs, they must be out of their minds.

Or perhaps it’s some engineering work-linked speed restriction on that stretch for two random non-consecutive weeks?

Thanks for finding these, though my reading of RTT has off peak arrivals at xx39 and departures at xx41, with 62 minute turnrounds.

The peaks have longer turnrounds too.

It is bizarre that the changes don't also apply in w/c Monday 10 August.


I think it is only a matter of time before speed restrictions will be needed between Littleport and Downham because of the lack of rain. Here it last rained on 22 June, and that was only a brief shower.

Yes - I've not been up that way for a few weeks, but I have noticed the ride quality between Ely and Waterbeach, particularly in the up direction, appears to have got significantly worse over the past week - presumably due to the ground being excessively dry.

Yes, it is because of the dry weather. 'Soil Moisture Deficit' is the technical term for it apparently. Those familiar with the area will already know, but for anyone else reading, the line out to Kings Lynn sits on peat soil which can shink and degrade during long periods of dry weather, making some sections of track uneven, which leads to Temporary Speed Restrictions being placed upon them. This retiming is to take account of those.

 

[tatitiliti]

Yes, it is because of the dry weather. 'Soil Moisture Deficit' is the technical term for it apparently. Those familiar with the area will already know, but for anyone else reading, the line out to Kings Lynn sits on peat soil which can shink and degrade during long periods of dry weather, making some sections of track uneven, which leads to Temporary Speed Restrictions being placed upon them. This retiming is to take account of those.

Thanks for confirming! It’s smart that they’ve built this into the timetable. Speed restrictions are not uncommon between Downham and Littleport as it sits on a peat bog…!

Any idea why it’s two random non-consecutive weeks though?

 

[Bikeman78]

I must admit that is a big frustration of mine as well, at Blackfriars you get on the first train to Finsbury Park. Get off to connect to Welwyn Garden City, on to find out that the train you have just got off is stopping additionally at Welwyn Garden City. Granted control could have decided to do the additional stop after Finsbury Park, but it is annoying. Likewise going Southbound additional stops are often made very last minute.

As others have stated depending on where you are you have no idea what is the best way to get home. Sometimes they stop the London - Cambridge services additionally, sometimes a Thameslink. If you are at Kings Cross, where do you go? Finsbury Park can be better as you have the metro service as well. There is no consistent plan, which as I user I would love to have. I really feel for Fen-Line passengers. For me the hourly shuttle between Cambridge and Kings Lynn should be the absolute minimum.

A standard contingency plan would help. E.g Three Bridges to Bedford disrupted, all Horsham to Peterborough will stop at Salfords and Earlswood until the Bedford trains are running again reliably. Website and station departure boards should be updated to reflect this. There's no point having all these systems if they don't provide accurate information when it is most needed. I find it particularly frustrating that trains sometimes vanish instead of showing cancelled. I gave an example of this a few weeks ago.

 

[MikeWM]

Another classy evening on GN with 1T48 terminated at Ely and 1T50 at Cambridge, both due to 'train faults'.

 

[OneOfThe48]

A standard contingency plan would help. E.g Three Bridges to Bedford disrupted, all Horsham to Peterborough will stop at Salfords and Earlswood until the Bedford trains are running again reliably. Website and station departure boards should be updated to reflect this.

What makes you think that isn’t the standard contingency plan?

 

[Bikeman78]

What makes you think that isn’t the standard contingency plan?

Bitter experience when trying to get to the East Surrey hospital. Similarly when Thameslink to Horsham is stuffed. The Southern Bognor trains might stop at Littlehaven but then again they might not. If they do, it's not well advertised. Again I've given examples upthread.

 

[OneOfThe48]

Bitter experience when trying to get to the East Surrey hospital. Similarly when Thameslink to Horsham is stuffed. The Southern Bognor trains might stop at Littlehaven but then again they might not. If they do, it's not well advertised. Again I've given examples upthread.

There is of course a difference between having a standard contingency plan, and that plan always being reliably deliverable in practice with the constraints on service at the time

They undoubtedly will have a plan that says ‘if there’s no Bedford service, stop the Peterborough service at those two stations’

 

[Bikeman78]

There is of course a difference between having a standard contingency plan, and that plan always being reliably deliverable in practice with the constraints on service at the time

They undoubtedly will have a plan that says ‘if there’s no Bedford service, stop the Peterborough service at those two stations’

I'm sorry but that sounds like a cop out. See post #923. GTR is awful at telling passengers what is going on. Maybe they are overwhelmed but if that is happening so often then the whole operation needs a rethink. I've suffered more delay since 2018 than in the 30 years prior. I am glad that I'm only an occasional user. Commuting on Thameslink would drive me to despair.

 

[OneOfThe48]

I'm sorry but that sounds like a cop out. See post #923. GTR is awful at telling passengers what is going on. Maybe they are overwhelmed but if that is happening so often then the whole operation needs a rethink. I've suffered more delay since 2018 than in the 30 years prior. I am glad that I'm only an occasional user. Commuting on Thameslink would drive me to despair.

So is your suggested alternative that it just doesn’t occur to them?

 

[saismee]

Despite getting severe motion sickness on the bus, my friend will outright avoid taking the train between Lynn and Norwich, preferring the Excel A bus. The cost isn't an issue but it just isn't doable with what "service" GN provide.

 

[bramling]

There is of course a difference between having a standard contingency plan, and that plan always being reliably deliverable in practice with the constraints on service at the time

They undoubtedly will have a plan that says ‘if there’s no Bedford service, stop the Peterborough service at those two stations’

I’ve been disrupted enough times since 2018 to see that if there is any kind of plan it doesn’t get consistently inplemented.

In fact, it feels like if there is a plan, it’s one of two things
* throw the pieces up in the air and see where they land
or, as seems to be increasingly common,
* pull down the shutters and run as little as possible, perhaps a Cambridge-Kings Lynn shuttle if feeling generous

King’s Cross is particularly poor in disruption. I still haven’t forgotten the day when the power surge happened and the doors to the station were all locked, zero information, in the end managed to find a way in and eventually departed on 8/365 which was about the only service to actually run, and had virtually the whole train to myself as I don’t think it had even been advertised.

This is one thing that has got massively worse since GTR took over. It wasn’t like this in FCC days. Two issues I think, the control function just isn’t effective enough, and the driver diagrams are so ridiculously complex that they fell apart at the slightest thing.

 

[Failed Unit]

You only need to have travelled for the last 4 weeks to make the statement you see no evidence of a disruption plan. I am sure it is the same everywhere on GTR but a few examples.

1. At Welwyn Garden City they only show trains that are actually running. So you often are met with a blank screen and / or a conflict with apps. There is often no platform shown on apps on trains stopping additionally until the last minute. So you may get a Horsham trains stopping on the apps, but not shown on the monitor until it is nearly on the platform.
2. Late running of trains, they sometimes skip stops / sometimes don’t but with no consistency. You may get the 0710 leaving before the 0653, the later skips stops but can’t pass the 0710. (They refuse to swap the daigram around)
3. Monday’s incident is fairly standard, line not available between Welwyn Garden City on Stevenage. The NCL gets hammered because of “2C” trains blocking the line. Terminate them WGC and send them back. Nothing is going North anyway so why trap people on a train? Once the line is back open stop a 12 car Thameslink train to WGC to pick up the stranded passengers that haven’t taken other means. (Takes a while to divert)
4. When the service is disrupted in the evening peak, decide early if they are going to stop a Thameslink train additionally or the x24 and x54. They do both, with no logic to why they have chosen one over the other so a passenger at Kings Cross doesn’t know where they need to go to get home.

A recent example was the 1654 London Kings Cross - Cambridge was due to start at WGC, this was on the monitor at Kings Cross. Some passengers took a train to Welwyn Garden City, but but they time they got there GTR had decided to run it from Kings Cross with a late start.

Monday was a typical example, incident that is fairly standard happens in the Morning, the service still isn’t recovered by the evening. Sadly closure of Welwyn Garden City - Stevenage is fairly high. The other line that is constantly closed is Hitchin - Cambridge. I don’t know How longi It takes to turn around services at Letchworth / Royston but this option is not preferred to try and keep passengers moving. As Bramling said, running a Kings Lynn - Cambridge shuttle in such a situation seems to be actively avoided.

On the Thameslink North side - Sutton -St Albans is another one they struggle to recover because they won’t amend diagrams and it has a very short turn around time.

 

[Magdalia]

Yes, it is because of the dry weather. 'Soil Moisture Deficit' is the technical term for it apparently. Those familiar with the area will already know, but for anyone else reading, the line out to Kings Lynn sits on peat soil which can shink and degrade during long periods of dry weather, making some sections of track uneven, which leads to Temporary Speed Restrictions being placed upon them. This retiming is to take account of those.

Thanks. The changes from 3 August are now reported on BBC local news see here:

Train passengers warned of hot weather disruption in East Anglia

With soil shrinking in the heat, Network Rail says trains will be slower while engineers work.

www.bbc.co.uk

Train passengers are being warned to expect disruption next month because of engineering work as a result of the hot weather.

Network Rail said the peat and clay that sits under long stretches of the railway in East Anglia had dried out and shrunk, causing the track to drop in places and become uneven.

Speed restrictions late at night and an amended timetable will need to be put in place "until the ground conditions have recovered".

The affected routes are expected to be:

• Great Northern services between Ely in Cambridgeshire and King's Lynn in Norfolk. Speed restrictions will affect the timetables. There is more information on the rail operator's website

 

[Vexed]

On the Thameslink North side - Sutton -St Albans is another one they struggle to recover because they won’t amend diagrams and it has a very short turn around time.

This is getting better in the December timetable change. Off peak only 2tph terminate at St Albans, the other 2tph goes to Luton. Both get longer turn around times. Not much help in the peak though.

 

[whoosh]

Thanks for confirming! It’s smart that they’ve built this into the timetable. Speed restrictions are not uncommon between Downham and Littleport as it sits on a peat bog…!

Any idea why it’s two random non-consecutive weeks though?

Different train planning staff altering different weeks, and one hasn't finished other alterations in their week yet? That's my guess.

 

[OneOfThe48]

Different train planning staff altering different weeks, and one hasn't finished other alterations in their week yet? That's my guess.

Yes - as per their website linked in the post below

'Network Rail will continue to monitor and work to improve ground conditions. The amended timetable will remain in place until the speed restrictions are no longer required. Although Network Rail are working hard to get the speed restrictions lifted as soon as possible, it may take some time due to the amount the ground has been impacted.'

Thanks. The changes from 3 August are now reported on BBC local news see here:

Train passengers warned of hot weather disruption in East Anglia

With soil shrinking in the heat, Network Rail says trains will be slower while engineers work.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[tatitiliti]

Different train planning staff altering different weeks, and one hasn't finished other alterations in their week yet? That's my guess.

Ah, it’s showing for the 10th now!

So affected weeks seem to be w/c:

03/08
10/08
17/08

 

[Magdalen Road]

The website didn't mention changes to train formation as far as I could see?
Yet the 0444 Kings Lynn to Kings Cross has only half the train and apparently this is the plan for the next few weeks. The other half was left behind at Kings Lynn.

 

[OneOfThe48]

The website didn't mention changes to train formation as far as I could see?
Yet the 0444 Kings Lynn to Kings Cross has only half the train and apparently this is the plan for the next few weeks. The other half was left behind at Kings Lynn.

On their website

As the speed restrictions will affect how trains and crews can be utilised across the route, some services will have fewer carriages than usual as we will be redeploying trains to maximise the number of services we can operate across the day.

 

[Magdalen Road]

On their website

It was a surprise to the driver. Edit: probably because the website says it starts 3rd August.
The driver also got a surprise when their screen went blank as the system suddenly did a reboot, closer to London and was apparently giving a fault message in error.
And yet more cancellations this afternoon.

 

[Intercity_225]

Two questions that has popped up in my head:

Have the new peak services from Cambridge (the fast ones) and the new stoppers from Letchworth improved reliability, or made it worse?
Also, how has this affected passenger numbers? Are the 1Cs particularly busy?

 

[Failed Unit]

I think the changes have made it worse. Can’t really tell on passenger numbers. Going South for example at Welwyn Garden City the Sevenoaks services are more heavily loaded as the Kings Cross service is so close behind why wait for it?

The Letchworth services is cancelled a lot more frequently in the evening peak, compared to the Cambridge on the previous timetable. (When the only Letchworth service was cancelled the impact was less)

Old.
1724 Letchworth Cancelled, catch the 1727 Cambridge and very little change.

Now
1724 Cambridge runs
1727 Royston Cancelled - Potters Bar, Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City have a gap, more annoying for people going north that can’t walk to St Pancras for the Thameslink. The might stop another service additionally, however rarely tell anyone stood at Kings Cross.

The stations losing the service are significantly busier. However others highlight the cancellation of the Letchworth is good for Kings Lynn passengers as the empty stock gets in the way.

 

[tatitiliti]

One thing that would massively improve punctuality and congestion on the Cambridge line is a northbound passing loop just after/at Baldock and a southbound passing loop just after/at Meldreth. Then for flyers to/from King’s Lynn to never stop between Cambridge South and London.

Cambridge line surely has to be one of the most congested fully two-track lines in existence shared by stoppers, semi-fasts and flyers…

 

[tatitiliti]

I think the changes have made it worse. Can’t really tell on passenger numbers. Going South for example at Welwyn Garden City the Sevenoaks services are more heavily loaded as the Kings Cross service is so close behind why wait for it?

The Letchworth services is cancelled a lot more frequently in the evening peak, compared to the Cambridge on the previous timetable. (When the only Letchworth service was cancelled the impact was less)

Old.
1724 Letchworth Cancelled, catch the 1727 Cambridge and very little change.

Now
1724 Cambridge runs
1727 Royston Cancelled - Potters Bar, Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City have a gap, more annoying for people going north that can’t walk to St Pancras for the Thameslink. The might stop another service additionally, however rarely tell anyone stood at Kings Cross.

The stations losing the service are significantly busier. However others highlight the cancellation of the Letchworth is good for Kings Lynn passengers as the empty stock gets in the way.

Agree