Easter Monday, London to Harlow

[hounddog]

I need to make this journey on Easter Monday, 10 days away.

The so-called 'definitive source of information' is showing no service at all - not even replacement buses.

There is a PDF timetable buried on the Greater Anglia website which helpfully says that on-line journey planners may not be updated until "nearer the time".

That timetable has been on GA's site for about two weeks. How long does it take to update the journey planners? How many people will look up NRE, see no service and waste money on unnecessary taxis etc?

 

[Joe Paxton]

I need to make this journey on Easter Monday, 10 days away.

The so-called 'definitive source of information' is showing no service at all - not even replacement buses.

There is a PDF timetable buried on the Greater Anglia website which helpfully says that on-line journey planners may not be updated until "nearer the time".

That timetable has been on GA's site for about two weeks. How long does it take to update the journey planners? How many people will look up NRE, see no service and waste money on unnecessary taxis etc?

Agreed, this is pathetic.

(The relevant page on the GA website is here.)

 

[Kite159]

At least they are not showing any services, would be worse if they were showing a regular service without any mention of buses

 

[MrPIC]

As far as I know there are some trains running... I'm working easter monday night and I've had a peek at the diagrams and the Airports are certainly running, albeit maybe via Southbury instead of the Valley.
I'd put money on airports and cambridges via Southbury, no Stratfords and Hertford shuttles to Broxbourne.

 

[jopsuk]

so here the issue seems to be that planned work is cancelled, they've not (for some reason) fully updated all systems but it will be a Sunday service in all regards.

 

[CyrusWuff]

For amended timetables to be shown in journey planners in good time, TOCs need to submit revised "bids" to Network Rail no later than the Wednesday 18 weeks before they're due to be implemented (that was 9th December for w/c 15th April), so that Network Rail can notify the TOCs of their decisions on those bids 14 weeks before (6th January) ready for publication 12 weeks before (20th January).

Miss that T-18 deadline, even if it's due to late notification by Network Rail, and the revised timetable isn't uploaded until the Wednesday before.

Dates for the 2017 and 2018 timetables can be found in the "Operational Rules (EAS-TPR)" section of https://www.networkrail.co.uk/industry-commercial-partners/information-operating-companies/

 

[jopsuk]

so basically, it's not GA's falt, indeed they'll have had a plan in place, it's a systems issue.

Of course, whose fault it is doesn't matter to the traveller- right now to someone planning ahead it looks like no trains are running with no bus replacement. That this isn't the case is only discover-able through digging.

 

[306024]

Unpicking cancelled engineering work is a train planners least enjoyable task, made worse (as in this case) if only part of the plan is affected and you have to come up with a new plan at short notice.

Where TOCs take the lead in the planning process, such as at GA, you can advertise a revised plan to give passengers some idea of what is happening, but that won't necessarily have been fully validated by NR. You run a risk if NR wanting to alter it for some reason. NR won't publish the plan until it has been validated, which is why it doesn't appear in the electronic systems so many rely on.

Under these circumstances NR should strive to publish the revised plan ASAP, and not just sit on it until the Wednesday before the race.

 

[hounddog]

Progress of sorts.

It appears that half of the timetable (still shown on GA's site) was loaded overnight. NRE is still telling me I have to leave on Sunday evening to arrive on Monday lunctime, but at least I can leave for home at teatime on Monday rather than wait until Tuesday morning.

Shambolic.