EMR/Thameslink disruption 29 Sept - mixed messaging

[sh24]

Obviously a very difficult day with 2 incidents causing huge disruption. However the customer messaging from EMR has me confused:

Major disruption is expected until the end of the day. - this is clear
You should continue to travel as originally planned however your journey may be delayed by up to 90 minutes. We are sorry for the delay to your journey today - OK
A series of alternative routing options listed - credit to EMR for listing this but that isn't the same message as travel as originally planned
If you hold an ‘Advance Ticket’ which is usually valid on a specific train you may use it to travel on any of our trains on this route - so does that mean that all Advance restrictions are removed for the day? which is very different to travel as originally planned!

It is of personal interest as I'm due to travel to Derby later and need to be there ahead of a late night meeting. Not even trying to dial into a Teams call on a 222...

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I am guessing by "travel as originally planned" they mean to still travel, even via diversions, instead of saying "Do not travel" and offering no alternatives as Northern like to do.

 

[thelongestroad]

Think you're reading into this too much...

 

[Horizon22]

I am guessing by "travel as originally planned" they mean to still travel, even via diversions, instead of saying "Do not travel" and offering no alternatives as Northern like to do.

Thameslink and Southern are in Code Black and stating “Do Not Travel” as they are dealing with a similar incident south of the river. Sometimes the disruption becomes so widespread and severe that no semblance of a normal service can be provided so the messaging is sometimes necessarily to prevent overloading trains / stations / staff.

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

Is this the person hit by a train incident? I was at St Pancras today and things were getting cancelled, running late and in the on the Thameslink platforms put on a different platform

 

[Travelmonkey]

a tricky day indeed across the network for Themslink having one of these is bad but 2 in quick sucsession on your main route yeah not a good day. the fact they've had to evacuate Gatwick due to the overcrowding is a bit ominous. may be best trying to avoid travel today or subject yourself to the WCML,

 

[Deepgreen]

I was caught up in this today as I travelled via Redhill. I was due to meet a friend at Gatwick (not an air passenger) and happened to be stopping off en route to see a steam train pass through Redhill (which was a complete coincidence of timing as it happens). The rendezvous with the friend was abandoned and I hung around to see the steam, so as not to waste the journey completely.

The usual chaos (in the face of a very serious set of issues, of course) ensued. The platform indicators at Dorking Deepdene showed our train terminating at Redhill, vice Gatwick. The guard stayed in his cab, and didn't check tickets (first class, next to his cab, full of students), or make a single annoucement about the issue. Did he know less than passengers who had read the platform screens? Not a word about the change of destination until we got to Redhill where platform staff just shouted "all change". People stumbled off with luggage to try to find out what was going on.

At Redhill, information is poor at the best of times, and it falls apart at any hint of problems. So today there there were trains blocking platforms for up to half an hour at a time, and screens showing completely wrong information for every train. This was accompanied by platform staff on loud radios receiving information but failing to pass it on over the p.a. and correct the wrong screens. Having abandoned the trip, I sat on a GWR train for 15 minutes that was shown as the 1340 to Reading but which was actually the 1310 (which I only gleaned from looking at Traksy!), and not a single word was announced on the platform or on the train about which train it was. This seemed to be true of many others too.

Now I know today's meltdown on TL was especially severe, but it is always the case at Redhill (an important node) that there is a complete failure to pass on whatever information there is to passengers over the p.a. It staggers me that it happens time after time here and nothing changes. I navigated my way through the chaos using apps like 'Traksy', but ordinary passengers had no chance. Abysmal.

 

[Travelmonkey]

Is this the person hit by a train incident? I was at St Pancras today and things were getting cancelled, running late and in the on the Thameslink platforms put on a different platform

unfrotunatley one near Luton and another near Gatwick

 

[sh24]

Think you're reading into this too much...

Am I though? Travel as originally planned and Advance tickets can be used on any train are 2 very different messages.

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

unfrotunatley one near Luton and another near Gatwick

They never mentioned that bit

Although to be fair they do better than us.

It would just be called " emergency services attending a serious incident"

 

[Travelmonkey]

They never mentioned that bit

Although to be fair they do better than us.

It would just be called " emergency services attending a serious incident"

both are correct although it's a tragic set of circumstances on both sides of the capital.

 

[skyhigh]

Am I though? Travel as originally planned and Advance tickets can be used on any train are 2 very different messages.

I think it essentially means turn up at the time you booked to travel, but if your train is cancelled you can still use the same ticket to travel on another train and not have to buy another.

 

[frankmoh]

Also somewhat related to Thameslink and Southern, the platform boards at several SWR stations were wrong today and the platform PA system wasn't working. I can only imagine that added to the confusion at Wimbledon or Clapham Junction.

 

[LickeyIncliner]

I think it essentially means turn up at the time you booked to travel, but if your train is cancelled you can still use the same ticket to travel on another train and not have to buy another.

If the message said "Please try to travel as you planned", rather than "you should..." it would be consistent. It also phrases the key point as a request ("Please try...") rather than saying "you should...", which is both more polite and more reasonable when the rest of the message is saying that you almost certainly can't "travel as originally planned"!

[edited just to correct typo]

 

[IanMac]

My wife was booked to travel from Peterborough to Gatwick Airport today by Thameslink: she is not a savvy train traveller, and she is reasonably comfortable with the straightforward nature of the Thameslink offer (no changing trains, no involvement with Central London etc). She and her niece are flying to Sicily tomorrow.is

While she was out at the hairdresser this morning I checked the train service and found out about the two fatalities. She wasn't happy with what I told her when she returned. At that time the 13:54 PBO-HRH on which she was booked was shown as delayed, though not by how much. As I was watching the screen the word Delayed disappeared and was replaced by On Time. So that was good.

I drove her to PBO, to find that showed the 13:54 cancelled, together with the following 14:24. (I couldn't understand why, as I knew that all the Thameslink departures between 08:00 and 11:15 had been terminated short of HRH, including one at Alexandra Palace and one at SVG, so there should be a number of train sets available north of London. I didn't know at that time that the TBD incident had blocked train access to the Thameslink depot.)

Enquiries at the ticket office drew the advice to go by LNER to KGX, cross the road to STP and ask again.

So that was it. The paper advance ticket wouldn't open the barrier at PBO, so staff had to assist, and then I helped with getting the cases to Platform 3 (and asking staff where the unreserved seats would be). My wife boarded the 13:50 PBO to KGX, along with a couple who by chance had booked the same journey; and I went home.

I didn't get a running commentary, but it seems that the 3 of them didn't even cross the road from KGX because STP was visibly overrun by people with baggage; instead they took a taxi to VIC aiming for the Gatwick Express. Now by the time I heard about this I knew that GTW had been evacuated before 12:00 due to overcrowding, and did not reopen until 15:14. I wasn't surprised to hear that the Gatwick Express (which it wasn't, because the brand had been cancelled until further notice) was standing room only and crammed with baggage. Interestingly the PBO - HRH paper ticket wouldn't open the barrier at VIC "so we used the disabled gate".

We finally established telephone contact at 16:45 as she was checking into the airport hotel - so the booked arrival time at GTW (16:16) was probably more or less achieved (no Delay Repay due!). I was told that there was a very long queue to get from the terminal into GTW - these would be people who had flown in during the day and been unable to access the station while it was closed.

Time for my question: why did the paper ticket (collected from a TVM at PBO) not open the entry barrier there; and why in the circumstances would it also not open the entry barrier at VIC? (At least it wasn't swallowed up by the exit barrier at KGX - though I don't know whether it was actually needed there).

 

[sh24]

I asked at St Pancras and was told “take your booked train” so…there we go.

As I had arrived an hour early it was the set menu at Searcey’s and now on a pleasantly empty 20:02.

 

[Hadders]

Time for my question: why did the paper ticket (collected from a TVM at PBO) not open the entry barrier there; and why in the circumstances would it also not open the entry barrier at VIC? (At least it wasn't swallowed up by the exit barrier at KGX - though I don't know whether it was actually needed there).

Various reasons. At my local station railcard discounted tickets and Advance tickets are set to be rejected by the ticket barriers so that a manual inspection can take place.

 

[Bald Rick]

A truly awful and tragic day. Very difficult for those involved, passengers and staff.

 

[Deepgreen]

A truly awful and tragic day. Very difficult for those involved, passengers and staff.

Yes indeed, but the lives of the staff involved in running the (remaining) service are made all the harder by the abysmal information regime the railway has if anything goes wrong. It's always a major problem and it never noticeably improves. Perhaps it never will. It isn't just the railway either - a recent trip by air from Gatwick saw delays which weren't explained to us except by someone trying to shout (very ineffectively) across a crowded and noisy gate lounge!

 

[saismee]

Various reasons. At my local station railcard discounted tickets and Advance tickets are set to be rejected by the ticket barriers so that a manual inspection can take place.

Or possibly (and disappointingly likely) the magnetic strip was just demagnetised or written wrongly. Slightly too close to a modern phone and away goes the data.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Chanced a rare trip on the train to SPX as there was a good personal reason to do so (35th wedding anniversary and a booked meal at the station) - great trepidation as at the time there were just a 30 min service Bedford to Brighton service showing as running) - up on the 1727 and back on the 2023) , as you can imagine they were very busy but did it succesfully. There was a very limited service on the stoppers to either SAC or LTN , slightly perplexed that the stoppers were pulled in their entirety but a very few were put back in.

Awful scenario , but I suspect most people got there eventually. Thanks for that to be honest.

 

[Hadders]

Or possibly (and disappointingly likely) the magnetic strip was just demagnetised or written wrongly. Slightly too close to a modern phone and away goes the data.

It's not that. The tickets operate the barriers at the destination.

I routinely keep my CCST tickets next to my phone, and have done for years. Never had a problem with them becoming demagnetised, including currently a monthly season ticket that still operates the barriers on day 29 of its validity.

 

[westcoaster]

Chanced a rare trip on the train to SPX as there was a good personal reason to do so (35th wedding anniversary and a booked meal at the station) - great trepidation as at the time there were just a 30 min service Bedford to Brighton service showing as running) - up on the 1727 and back on the 2023) , as you can imagine they were very busy but did it succesfully. There was a very limited service on the stoppers to either SAC or LTN , slightly perplexed that the stoppers were pulled in their entirety but a very few were put back in.

Awful scenario , but I suspect most people got there eventually. Thanks for that to be honest.

Track circuit failure at Herne hill blocked the Sutton loop for over 60 minutes pre peak, causing way more issues.

 

[bleeder4]

I was on The Golden Arrow railtour yesterday and got caught up in this. Got held for an hour at South Croydon due to the fatality at Three Bridges. Some trains in front had to be moved out of the way so we could get through a congested Redhill station on platform 0 to access the Tonbridge route.

 

[Bald Rick]

Track circuit failure at Herne hill blocked the Sutton loop for over 60 minutes pre peak, causing way more issues.

In the context of yesterday, that was barely noise. It was the two fatalities that caused the disruption, including on the St Albans - Sutton services. This was because there were 2x12 car services on the Down Slow at St Albans when the incident happened with nowhere to go, and therefore the St Albans terminators could not access St Albans to terminate (and all those services have a crew change there).

 

[_toommm_]

Seen on X that the fatality at Three Bridges was a member of staff sadly taking their own life, which makes it even worse:

https://x.com/thebestmarklee/status/1972941603414413603?t=4EgoAEeJriA3JpY16Y2-NQ&s=19

Yesterday we sadly had a member of staff take his own life at Three Bridges. My thoughts are with his family and all those that knew him. ❤️

 

[Deepgreen]

I was on The Golden Arrow railtour yesterday and got caught up in this. Got held for an hour at South Croydon due to the fatality at Three Bridges. Some trains in front had to be moved out of the way so we could get through a congested Redhill station on platform 0 to access the Tonbridge route.

Trains weren't "moved out of the way" - they proceeded when they could in their alloted order until a route was available at Redhill.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Sep 2025 ==

Seen on X that the fatality at Three Bridges was a member of staff sadly taking their own life, which makes it even worse:

https://x.com/thebestmarklee/status/1972941603414413603?t=4EgoAEeJriA3JpY16Y2-NQ&s=19

Horrible.

 

[Horizon22]

It's always a major problem and it never noticeably improves. Perhaps it never will.

It really isn't. A cursory check on NRES for any time of the day, gives various levels of disruption with differing thresholds of impact for example right now:

As a result, trains may be delayed by up to 10 minutes or revised".
Disruption is expected until 22:30.

versus

Disruption is expected until further notice.

Train services are running between A/B and C, and also between D & E

Buses will replace trains between C & D

Journey times may be extended by up to 60 minutes whilst travelling by road transport.

The latter incident also has a lot of accomapnying background information.

 

[_toommm_]

Horrible

Not sure if that was aimed at me, but I meant 'makes it even worse' as more upsetting, rather than worse in a negative/insulting way.

 

[800001]

Am I though? Travel as originally planned and Advance tickets can be used on any train are 2 very different messages.

They advise to travel as originally planned, ie as close to your scheduled travel time.
However, your ticket is valid on other trains, so if yours is cancelled or delayed you travel on other trains with your ticket. It's a simple as that.