Magdalen Road
Member
It’s incredibly slow by comparison about 2 hours to get to Kings Cross (including changing to tube at Tottenham Hale) vs. 1h15. Also very few direct to/from Ely.
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Experiences of service recovery (or lack of) on GTR Great Northern
- Thread starter Failed Unit
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I suppose it depends where you need to be in London and where you commute from. Cambridge South, Cambridge, and Cambridge North are probably okay with GA if Liverpool Street is nearer to where you want.
An_Engineer
Member
- Joined
- 14 Feb 2018
- Messages
- 45
I'm about equidistant from Kings Cross and Liverpool Street, but unless there's massive problems I will generally want to catch the Kings Cross train as it is significantly faster. If the fast King's Cross trains aren't running I will normally look to the Brighton Thameslink service before considering the GA as the time difference is still that much.
As to today...... luckily I had my work laptop with me so switched to working from home (in the heat). Wonder if I can claim for abandoned journey? (Prob not, but I did literally abandon my journey)
As to today...... luckily I had my work laptop with me so switched to working from home (in the heat). Wonder if I can claim for abandoned journey? (Prob not, but I did literally abandon my journey)
Magdalen Road
Member
As you may have gathered, Liverpool Street is not convenient.
The latest from GTR on Twitter/X is that they expect to run the same ‘service’ tomorrow.
- no direct trains between Kings Cross and Kings Lynn
- hourly shuttles
- no fast Kings Cross - Cambridge
- probably no southbound from Kings Lynn for 2.5 hours in the morning again.
Will the mysterious 0630 discretionary Kings Lynn to Kings Cross bus run, not advertised in the planner, on twitter only.
tatitiliti
Member
I expect a large part is down to the part of London you end up in
Some of the peak time fasts between Cambridge and Tottenham Hale come close to journey times on the King’s Cross flyers, and that’s when they’re running to the timetable…
I was planning zo get the 10:12 Cambridge to London Kings Cross (KGX)) at 11:02 today, but I see that overnight its disappeared from Real Time Trains. With ticket restriction meaning I have to arrive at KGX after 10:55 I'm planning on getting the 09:56 service arriving KGX at 1122. Do I qualify for delay repay?
Kraken Fen
New Member
Sources suggest that 16 of the available 26 Class 379’s are affected by the OHL related problem and some Class 387’s. Unsure of maintenance repair timescales !
tatitiliti
Member
lol
So we can expect this timetable for the rest of this week at least then?
Surely they have some 700s available temporarily? Though I don’t know if drivers are trained on those widely up here…
Failed Unit
Established Member
Today I just can’t understand some of the decisions made by the signaller.
Apparently there is a broken down train at Letchworth. However the problems I am seeing are at Welwyn Garden City going north. For some reason the 0654 King’s Cross - Kings Lynn service sat at Hatfield for ages on the slow as did 0657 Finsbury Park - Welwyn Garden City.
The queue delayed the stock for the 0730 which we were told would run fast to Finsbury Park. It is but on the slows behind the 0740 so passengers at Welwyn Garden City should have got that if they knew it was going first.
Several trains were on the slows such as a Hull trains service which delayed further the departure of the 0730 as it needed to go via platforms 4. For some reason a London - Cambridge stopping service was on the fasts, so it needed to skip Welwyn Garden City because of platform congestion.
The delays are increasing, but it is ok because there was a broken down train significantly further north, so all delays are because of it.
Apparently there is a broken down train at Letchworth. However the problems I am seeing are at Welwyn Garden City going north. For some reason the 0654 King’s Cross - Kings Lynn service sat at Hatfield for ages on the slow as did 0657 Finsbury Park - Welwyn Garden City.
The queue delayed the stock for the 0730 which we were told would run fast to Finsbury Park. It is but on the slows behind the 0740 so passengers at Welwyn Garden City should have got that if they knew it was going first.
Several trains were on the slows such as a Hull trains service which delayed further the departure of the 0730 as it needed to go via platforms 4. For some reason a London - Cambridge stopping service was on the fasts, so it needed to skip Welwyn Garden City because of platform congestion.
The delays are increasing, but it is ok because there was a broken down train significantly further north, so all delays are because of it.
It was a broken down freight train blocking the line between Hitchin and Letchworth for about an hour. It got going again around 07:15 towards Cambridge. At that point there were several Cambridge services held at Hitchin, Stevenage, Knebworth and WGC to avoid blocking the fast line. The 06:31 Letchworth to Cambridge left Letchworth at 07:21
Magdalen Road
Member
Since then there’s been an electricity supply failure at Audley End, and track circuit failure at Royston. I wonder what % of GTR ran on time today.
The 1724 Kings Cross to Cambridge was held at Knebworth for about 10 minutes while the driver attempted to reset the air con which was not working in several carriages (2x379s). The coach I was in wasn’t too bad. So the Kings Lynn train was almost immediately behind when it departed Letchworth so presumably followed it all the way to Cambridge as the 1724 would call at all stations.
I work at King's Cross, as I presume do many others here. The ECML would have to be entirely closed for me to use GA + Victoria Line.
As a side note, I seriously dislike the deep-level tubes; can't wait for us to finally get the 2024 Stock in.
Tried to follow all this on RTT. Looks like you were on 1C82. This was followed by 9S44 Brighton - CBG, running on time all the way to CBG.
IT50 to Kings Lynn was 1/2 min early at Hitchin but 3 1/2 down at Letchworth, not clear why but not bc it was held up by the trains in front. Maybe it had to wait to cross on the flat at Hitchin?
RTT shows 1T50 as canx "This service was cancelled due to the planned train being replaced with a slower train (MS)." but nevertheless lists actual running times all the way to Kings Lynn. It seems to have progressively lost more and more time after Hitchin without AFAICS being held up by trains in front and eventually arr 24 down.
Why it is timetabled to follow 9S44 which makes more stops is another matter but it can't help in times of disruption. I guess there are no easy options.
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Take another look at 1T50 compared to 1C82. The former was right behind the latter all the way from Hitchin to Cambridge, but as 1C82 stops everywhere and 1T50 doesn't, this caused 1T50 to lose 10-11 minutes on that section. This is exactly what happens all the time with this idiotic December 2025 timetable that delays the 'fast' services as soon as the stopper and/or the Thameslink are just a few minutes late.
Here's 1C82:
and here's 1T50, clearly stuck just behind and getting later and later as a result:
(screengrabs from RTT showing calls and passing times for these two services).
Not much option with 1D25 right behind it for Forster Square. I suppose they could have put both of them successively into P3 to let you back through but a bit of a risk, what if you had not cleared the crossover at Hitchin in time. I would not want to be the signaller making that choice, presumably once overtaken you stay overtaken.
The real damage as @MikeWM points out is that 1T50 wasn't let past as well. But that would have delayed you on 1C82 by another 10 mins or so. I had been looking at its progress vis-a-vis 9S44 but for once that was on time so was not the root of the problem.
Which all goes to show how badly we need a passing loop in the Royston area. Bidi not helpful bc of up trains notably 2C55.
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The issue with the 700s a few weeks back was apparently down to an issue with the wiring in or around Kentish Town, and had damaged the pantographs on a large number of units - causing many trains to be taken out of service, or run with just one pan up. Perhaps something similar has happened elsewhere on the network.
It took some time to work out the location of the wiring causing the damage and presumably a lot of work to check all the 700s that had been through there that needed inspecting (given they move from the MML to ECML regularly). It also explains why it was only one type of train affected.
Besides the issue with the freight train, the National Grid requested a switch off of power between Hatfield and Wood Green. Not sure how long it was for, but presumably it was to avoid a far worse issue (remember the frequency issue some years back that stranded loads of trains? I'm surmising it could have been to avoid something like this). Or it may have been simply due to some emergency works at a substation or something.
That delayed just about everything for time that nobody has in the peak, with an inevitable hour or two to recover. From what I can see, only a couple of stopping pattern adjustments were made, including the Sevenoaks running fast to Finsbury Park and a Moorgate terminating at Finsbury Park. The Sevenoaks occupied platform 3 for so long that the Cambridge (on the fast) could not stop at WGC without holding up everything behind it - so eventually skipped the stop and passengers had to return from Welwyn North.
Failed Unit
Established Member
That does make sense (although we were never told). The Sevenoaks I assume “missed“ its slot when the Moorgate got out ahead of it. (The driver needing to change ends at a guess). After that there were 2 trains that went non-stop through platform 4. An ECS and the Hull trains services. As you know a train can’t leave platform 3, while another one is arriving on 4. So the 0730 couldn’t leave until they had passed. As you state, that was blocking the platform for the Cambridge on the fast.
Nothing could be done about this as the ECS that formed the 0730 was on the fast. When they told us at WGC that the 0730 was going to be non-stop, many people left platform 2 waiting for the late running 0738 service. We all regretted it, the Moorgate didn’t arrive ahead of us (because we passed it between Ally Pally and Finsbury Park). Why we were not put on the fast a Marshmoor I would love to know, the fasts didn’t seem that busy.
Frankly reading this it looks like a timetable that can't reasonably work for controllers, signallers or train crew with passengers ultimately being shafted. It is all far too tight for the infrastructure available with just a whiff of a problem if so reliant on trains all being on the right path and slotting in at key junctions so often. All very complex.
There would need to be some service rationalisation (more trains doing all stops, pathing changes etc.) but that would probably have some big losers but is that worse that outright unreliability? Depends where you are I suppose!
I think it's safe to assume that an unreliable (read: permanently delayed/cancelled) service puts people off more than a slightly slower service. It would also save the industry a lot in delay repay claims.
The big problem as someone has already said (?@Magdalia ?@MikeWM) is that the King's Lynns are not timed so they have the best chance of the window between slow(er) trains on the stretch from Hitchin to Shepreth Branch Junction. Finding them a better slot in the hourly cycle would improve the margins in normal running.
Obviously it is better overall to give the longer distance trains priority, however in the example above it would have meant an extra 10 mins delay to a stopper which was already running late due to the aircon problem.
I suppose the signaller was attempting to share the pain or trying to ensure the least damage to their respective return workings, we will never know. Sometimes as upthread they make incomprehesible decisions but this problem had no good solutions AFAICS.
bramling
Veteran Member
The GN has always been like that. It looks “simple” on a map (as some fool once somewhat famously posted on here), but as you say the mix of services is where it unravels. Part of it is having a significant traffic generator at the country end in the form of Cambridge, which not only requires a significant number of services, but there’s a desire to run fast services to London.
It worked, just about, when northbound services generally started their journey on time. This was exactly why there was so much chatter on here about the problems Thameslink would cause.
If you’re going to try and run that sort of service, significant resilience work was required, and not just in the core. So many locations on the GN still essentially have a 1970s or 1980s layout, yet are trying to squeeze the whole Thameslink thing into them.
It’s the same attitude from politicians who just look to throw housing up without providing any associated infrastructure or services, and then become indignant when people form the view that nothing in Britain seems to work properly any more.
bramling
Veteran Member
The Fen Line services are never going to have an ideal slot between Hitchin and Cambridge, as they are always at risk of catching up with something, and there’s only so many ways of timetabling it.
I think it worked better when they were planned to immediately precede the Thameslink though.
I think I will have to find the time to plot it on all a Marey Chart. That seems to be the name in academic circles but was new to me, what are they called IRL?
London Trains
Established Member
- Joined
- 9 Oct 2017
- Messages
- 1,209
Of course its not this simple as there's (a lot!) more to consider, but surely the best solution would be to have the fast, semi-fast (Thameslink) and stopper enter that stretch in that order in fairly quick succession.
bramling
Veteran Member
This is what the previous two timetable patterns have done. I’m not overly keen on the Dec 2025 setup. The other by-product of it is it has exposed the Fen Line service to everything, previously a late up Fen Line service would end up delaying the down Stopping service, so swings and roundabouts really - and probably a bit unfair that users at somewhere like Knebworth get their service disrupted partly because of features like the single-line sections north of Littleport or Ely North Junction.
As ever, the real problem is that 2 of the 6 trains per hour that go north from Hitchin onto the Cambridge line essentially present themselves at random times. There’s essentially only three ways to reconcile this - a massive programme of works to reduce delays south of Finsbury Park as far south as Brighton, significantly more recovery time on the GN side, or else cease or at least reduce the through working.
tatitiliti
Member
I still think some strategically placed passing loops on the Cambridge line (or, better still, additional platforms at rural stations) to allow flyers to overtake, with more overall recovery time built in for stoppers near these loops, would help. This is probably the best you can do short of adding a third rail on what is clearly the most congested part of the route with no overtaking capability.
In addition, procuring more stock and having massive recovery times at King’s Lynn (i.e. minimum 70 min) with a regularly used third platform so there’s essentially always an available unit to send southbound may reduce the fragility of the Fen line and, so I hear, is being explored.
I think, if the constraints are with infrastructure, no amount of tweaking the timetable will improve this situation if the entire thing fails in the event of even mild disruption which is what we’re seeing now.
It’s never been a route with high PPMs, especially since Thameslink, but it just so happens that the current timetable has made it considerably worse. Is ‘comparatively poor PPMs like before but still better than now’ what we should be aiming for?
In addition, procuring more stock and having massive recovery times at King’s Lynn (i.e. minimum 70 min) with a regularly used third platform so there’s essentially always an available unit to send southbound may reduce the fragility of the Fen line and, so I hear, is being explored.
I think, if the constraints are with infrastructure, no amount of tweaking the timetable will improve this situation if the entire thing fails in the event of even mild disruption which is what we’re seeing now.
It’s never been a route with high PPMs, especially since Thameslink, but it just so happens that the current timetable has made it considerably worse. Is ‘comparatively poor PPMs like before but still better than now’ what we should be aiming for?
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