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

[TSGN Spotter]

Travel advice for Friday as per NRE:
Travel information for Friday

A revised timetable is planned to operate on Friday 4 September, with:

An hourly shuttle service between Kings Lynn and Cambridge

An hourly service between London Kings Cross and Cambridge

An hourly service between London Kings Cross and Ely

 

[MikeWM]

Is there capacity for that? The Train will need to approach Platform 2 very slowly and it will also be blocked...
I do think they can run 1 Train per hour to Ely though.

I think it would have worked, if it had carried on to CMB rather than terminating at Ely at x12 it would have been running about 15 minutes before the GA Norwich-Stansted (x27 off Ely), and then with a few minutes of pathing allowance at say Waterbeach, would have arrived at CMB just after when the Stansted-Norwich was due to depart (x30), still with enough time to get into platform 2 without delaying the southbound GA behind it (due CMB at x40). Then there's nothing else due north for a while so fine to spend 10 minutes or so changing ends on platform 2 and then head back to Ely to pick up the path it was using to go to Kings Lynn (x04 off Ely). It's not ideal but it does seem to fit in fine.

Anyway the point is hopefully moot now as

A revised timetable is planned to operate on Friday 4 September, with:
...
An hourly service between London Kings Cross and Ely

though let's see what actually happens. Platform occupation at Ely could be an issue with terminating trains from both north and south, though if the Kings Lynn shuttles remain 4-car as today, I guess both can use the same platform, and they'll just have to be a bit more careful than usual about which platforms they use to reverse the EMR services.

 

[philjo]

Another incident south of Stevenage this morning. All services are currently running via Hertford North. Cambridge to Brighton services Now suspended so just the Cambridge stoppers are showing as running at the branch stations. I am on one of the peak semi fasts running 30 mins late.

 

[MikeWM]

South of Cambridge is obviously a mess given the above, but at least GN are finally serving Cambridge-Ely again, actually fairly better than expected (seems to be more-or-less an hourly Cambridge-Ely shuttle and an hourly Cambridge-Kings Lynn shuttle).

 

[Royston Vasey]

LNER and others have been dispatching trains from Kings Cross for almost two hours. GN haven't managed one yet and the 1336 2C32 KGX-CBG currently (at 1405) showing delayed and the 1406 2C34 KGX-CBG expected to depart 32 late (a train is at least inbound to form it).

I'm at Stevenage having planned to be on 2C32 but I'm ordering an Uber...

 

[Failed Unit]

Another incident south of Stevenage this morning. All services are currently running via Hertford North. Cambridge to Brighton services Now suspended so just the Cambridge stoppers are showing as running at the branch stations. I am on one of the peak semi fasts running 30 mins late.

I was caught up in this earlier, I was heading north. It was literally as it happened somonewhere north of Welwyn Garden City. There as a service to Horsham that was stopped just north of Welwyn Garden City and was there for a significant amount of time. Doing North there was a train heading to Cambridge that was also there for a long while. (Assume one of these were involved)

Information is always scare at the time of an incident but they let the 0832 Welwyn Garden City - Sevenoaks go, but cancelled the 0806 (Ex London - Cambridge) service back at Potters Bar.

So if this incident happened at about 0830 - LNER had diverted all trains around the Hertford Loop very quickly (I caught the 0840 London - Harrogate at Stevenage after a drive up the A1). GN actually kept the Welwyn Garden City - Moorgate service going. LNER still have some long delays as expected at the moment. I suspect GTR services are also still a mess including the Moorgates which were not that badly impacted this morning on the WGC branch. Hertford Loop would have problems of course.

 

[MikeWM]

LNER and others have been dispatching trains from Kings Cross for almost two hours. GN haven't managed one yet and the 1336 2C32 KGX-CBG currently (at 1405) showing delayed and the 1406 2C34 KGX-CBG expected to depart 32 late (a train is at least inbound to form it).

I'm at Stevenage having planned to be on 2C32 but I'm ordering an Uber...

It looks like the Welwyn route reopened about 1230. In the 3.5 hours since then (according to RTT) they dispatched one service to Letchworth at 1306 and one to Cambridge at 1536.

This is another great example of how they just can't seem to recover in any useful timeframe from disruption events. Surely there are units and drivers around somewhere, so why can't they run almost any trains?

 

[Failed Unit]

It looks like the Welwyn route reopened about 1230. In the 3.5 hours since then (according to RTT) they dispatched one service to Letchworth at 1306 and one to Cambridge at 1536.

This is another great example of how they just can't seem to recover in any useful timeframe from disruption events. Surely there are units and drivers around somewhere, so why can't they run almost any trains?

I have found they tend to give up for 2-3 hours after such events even if trains were previously diverted. Services that were running well also collapse Welwyn to Morgate hasn’t yet but the evening is young.

 

[bramling]

I have found they tend to give up for 2-3 hours after such events even if trains were previously diverted. Services that were running well also collapse Welwyn to Morgate hasn’t yet but the evening is young.

It doesn’t help that they seem to have crew reliefs on some stopping services at Welwyn, which of course means things go up the wall if diverted via Hertford.

 

[Failed Unit]

It doesn’t help that they seem to have crew reliefs on some stopping services at Welwyn, which of course means things go up the wall if diverted via Hertford.

GN are back to normal. Here is the list of stopping services since 1600 at Welwyn Garden City
1602 - Cancelled
1623 - Delayed
1638 - Delayed
1653 - Cancelled
1702 - Ran - 3 late
1707 - Ran

Moorgate is a similar sea of Red Delayed / Cancellations.

So 4 hours after the line fully re-opened the service for some stations is worse then when it was shut.

 

[Kite159]

Is it bad to be surprised the late running 9J51 16;53 Peterborough to Horsham service hasn't had any stops ripped out north of Stevenage when it departed Peterborough 22 minutes late?

 

[Failed Unit]

They were doing lots of stop skipping this morning. About 0905 there was a train to Horsham arrived at Peterborough. First one for a while. It went non-stop to Peterborough. Cue lots of frustration from passengers on the platform who didn’t have a clue when the next one would show up

 

[philjo]

At Kings Cross earlier the peak Cambridge semi fasts were all listed as on time. I was on the 1654 which left on time. The departure boards were advising passengers for Ely & Kings Lynn to change at Cambridge. A couple of the stoppers were cancelled including the 1627 Letchworth service.

 

[bspahh]

The 6.48 and 7.19 from Ely to King's Cross were both cancelled this morning, apparently from crew issues.

I have an Interrail ticket so I am going via Peterborough instead

 

[Magdalen Road]

More cancellations due to animals on the railway. Must be a day for it as Peterborough has a swan problem.

 

[bramling]

More cancellations due to animals on the railway. Must be a day for it as Peterborough has a swan problem.

Yes I got a text from a friend who turned up at Hitchin to travel to London around midday and the service was still disrupted, despite GN having put on their website that the disruption was due to end at 1030.

Apparently ended up standing all the way to London, and then found there was engineering work on the GWML so no Didcot semi-fast services running, again not quite what the website was suggesting to be the case.

So all-in-all one very unimpressed user. It does seem to be the case that if you actually want use the railway, especially at weekends, it’s now necessary to have access to inside info for example via the various third-party websites like RTTT.

I see there’s still issues on the Peterborough route.

 

[philjo]

the 0654 Cambridge-Brighton service that I used this morning was 8 coaches instead of 12 so suspect some stock was in the wrong place from yesterday ? It wasn’t very busy north of finsbury Park where I got off. The fast Cambridge-Kings Cross service that passed through shortly beforehand was 2x387s .

 

[bramling]

the 0654 Cambridge-Brighton service that I used this morning was 8 coaches instead of 12 so suspect some stock was in the wrong place from yesterday ? It wasn’t very busy north of finsbury Park where I got off. The fast Cambridge-Kings Cross service that passed through shortly beforehand was 2x387s .

It isn’t uncommon for 700/0s to cover on 700/1 disgrams. On a typical day it’s quite common to see one or two on the GN side. Another delight of Thameslink, though this does provide some amusement value where people wait in their special spot for the declassified first door - the look of horror when the back of the train shoots past them and they realise they aren’t going to secure their special seat is always amusing to watch.

 

[scramjet]

I guess I now know why there were essentially zero fast 379s between KGX and CBG/CMB the past week; I've had to use Thameslink from CBG.

I also had an interesting evening—can't recall if it was Tuesday or Wednesday—when the Thameslink I was on—which was already 10-12 minutes late at STP—suddenly became a fast train to Cambridge South at Hitchin, and about three quarters of all passengers got off. Good for me, whilst I was carrying a load of luggage, but not so great for everyone else.

I've had it with train cancellations; they are frequent and annoying enough that I want to move to another line that terminates at Kings Cross-St Pancras. I wonder if I am confident enough to brave Peterborough, which has LNER, which almost always seems to get maximum priority on the ECML.

 

[jon0844]

There are lots of driver and train shortages now due to what appears to be an exceptional number of people hit by trains between London and Cambridge (as well as yesterday a Peterborough train involved in an incident south of the river) in a relatively short space of time. I believe some 10 drivers are now off and multiple units are out of service due to impact damage.

 

[Magdalen Road]

There are lots of driver and train shortages now due to what appears to be an exceptional number of people hit by trains between London and Cambridge (as well as yesterday a Peterborough train involved in an incident south of the river) in a relatively short space of time. I believe some 10 drivers are now off and multiple units are out of service due to impact damage.

That's a not immediately apparent consequence of those incidents.

Yesterday's commute was notable because AM was on time and PM was only 5 minutes late.

 

[jon0844]

Another fatality involving a GN train now.

 

[philjo]

I was catching the 15:31 St Pancras to Cambridge service today which was a few minutes late. We were then held at a red signal at Finsbury Park, unusually on the fast line at Platform 5. It then appeared that the next driver was not available so the train was being held (& subsequently cancelled) and we were advised to go to platform 7 for the next Cambridge service.
So this unit was blocking the down fast line with the LNER 15:39 Bradford service stuck behind it for about 40 minutes. Other services were going round on the slow line through platform 7.

 

[MikeWM]

Well, they've cancelled all the CBG-KGX fasts today, their only remnant being an hourly CBG-KLN 'shuttle'. Apparently due to 'driver shortage', the Saturday driver shortage issues now entering year 13...

 

[RailwayRookie]

Well, they've cancelled all the CBG-KGX fasts today, their only remnant being an hourly CBG-KLN 'shuttle'. Apparently due to 'driver shortage', the Saturday driver shortage issues now entering year 13...

The driver shortage also being because of three drivers hitting people in the last week but don't let any sort of compassion affect your narrative aye?

 

[Failed Unit]

The driver shortage also being because of three drivers hitting people in the last week but don't let any sort of compassion affect your narrative aye?

How was the poster to know that, sadly on the ECML fatalities are a weekly occurrence. However I strongly suspect that isn’t the real reason here. Assume all 3 drivers involved were rostered on today - they wouldn’t have needed the level of cancellations we are seeing. I suspect it is more to do with lack of drivers volunteering for overtime, which is their right of course, like every other year.

 

[RailwayRookie]

How was the poster to know that, sadly on the ECML fatalities are a weekly occurrence. However I strongly suspect that isn’t the real reason here. Assume all 3 drivers involved were rostered on today - they wouldn’t have needed the level of cancellations we are seeing. I suspect it is more to do with lack of drivers volunteering for overtime, which is their right of course, like every other year.

On the thread that goes into intricate details about the running of the line and every little reason for a delay??
I'd say its a reasonable assumption they would put the pieces together. Especially as the 2nd, 3rd and 4th posts above their own mention it.


All 3 drivers didnt need to be rostered today, but what if people rostered today were moved to cover the weekday activities instead?

Lets also not forget that the rolling stock may not be entirely serviceable after hitting someone, or the amount that had Pan issues over the last few weeks may not have all been put right yet.

Just because one reason is cited doesnt mean there arent multiple factors leading to it.

 

[Failed Unit]

Or as most of this thread covers. This company is simply not capable of running/ recovering a service. Your rolling stock point makes no sense at the weekend.

it is true about the number of fatalities. Last weeks involved a Thameslink service operated by a 700/1 so possibly from a different depot. Unfortunately there are so many fatalities on the ECML I can’t remember where the other ones involving GTR units were.

 

[milooo]

Rolling stock shouldn't be an issue 22 379s and 11 of the 387s aren't in service today so there are plenty of spares today

 

[bramling]

The driver shortage also being because of three drivers hitting people in the last week but don't let any sort of compassion affect your narrative aye?

From an end-user point of view, this shouldn’t really enter into it. Proper levels of resourcing should be able to accommodate spikes in non-availability. This route hasn’t been properly resourced for most of recent history.