New signs for FCC at Moorgate

[jon0844]

In the last week or so, they've changed the signs at Moorgate for the FCC GN trains.

Like Old Street (and presumably the other stations along that section), it used to say 'Trains to Welwyn'. Now at Moorgate all the signs say 'Trains to Stevenage'. Both are confusing!

Now, clearly some trains to Hertford North do go on to Stevenage, but the WGC ones don't - ever. Why couldn't it just say National Rail (especially now there are no trains on the TL side) or even Great Northern at a push?

The station map doesn't even show Stevenage as a destination, which is even more odd!

I'd like to see them keeping the NSE colours, for nostalgia, but I think it's time there's some proper consistency with how TfL owned stations sign other services. I'd also like to see them offering FCC the ability to have train running information elsewhere in the station (besides 'their' bit down on the platform). It's a PITA going down to the platform to see a delayed/cancelled train. There are no announcements upstairs either.

 

[barrykas]

Those "new" signs (initially as vinyls) were applied shortly after FCC took over. The GN platforms were signed "Trains to Stevenage" and the Thameslink ones "Trains to Bedford".

And it's not that long ago that Highbury had "British Rail (Eastern)" and "North London Link" signage.

Cheers,

Barry

 

[A60K]

And it's not that long ago that Highbury had "British Rail (Eastern)" and "North London Link" signage.

And at one of the stations, the ex-Northern City services were signed as "Great *Eastern* Electrics" for a long while!

 

[jon0844]

I know TfL refused to put 'First Capital Connect' at Farringdon (presumably they don't want to advertise any specific TOC, as these will change from time to time) but it certainly seems confusing to do it like this!

 

[ungreat]

Thats because Tfl will be getting those,and the GN services to WGC etc as Overground routes.......

 

[Aictos]

Thats because Tfl will be getting those,and the GN services to WGC etc as Overground routes.......

Is it good for TfL to takeover the inner suburban services from FCC, why stop there?
Might as well add Southern's, South Eastern, South West Trains, London Midland and etc...services leaving TOCs to run the semi fast to express services out of London.

 

[jon0844]

I presume that the first stage will be TfL part funding the 15-minute frequency to WGC and Hertford North/Stevenage (which will, in turn, mean some 7-8 minutes for trains into Moorgate).

The second stage will be to take it over as London Overground, and presumably that will mean all of those stations will be manned - and services will run into Moorgate seven days a week? Surely they won't want to divert trains to King's Cross at night and at weekends?

I wonder what will happen with the ECML if that happens. Would London Overground get exclusive use of the slow lines and FCC/others the fast lines? If that happened, mind, this would mean no FCC services could stop southbound at Hatfield!

 

[Aictos]

I presume that the first stage will be TfL part funding the 15-minute frequency to WGC and Hertford North/Stevenage (which will, in turn, mean some 7-8 minutes for trains into Moorgate).

The second stage will be to take it over as London Overground, and presumably that will mean all of those stations will be manned - and services will run into Moorgate seven days a week? Surely they won't want to divert trains to King's Cross at night and at weekends?

I wonder what will happen with the ECML if that happens. Would London Overground get exclusive use of the slow lines and FCC/others the fast lines? If that happened, mind, this would mean no FCC services could stop southbound at Hatfield!

I doubt the East Coast InterCity Operator, Grand Central and Hull Trains wouldn't be too pleased to find the 4 track railway had been reduced to just 2, just so LOROL has exclusive use of the slow lines as that would mean all non LOROL services running on the fast line which would mean a lot less paths and less services.

As to FCC, I supposed their Finsbury Park, Stevenage then all stations to either Cambridge or Peterborough services could be diverted full time around the Hertford Loop calling at Gordon Hill and Hertford North only with the Cambridge Cruiser/Kings Lynns/Finsbury Park, Potters Bar, Hatfield then all stations to Cambridge/Peterborough remaining on the Welwyn route.

This would be made possible by the following:

Hertford Loop reinstatement of loops on lines at Gordon Hill, Cuffley and Watton at Stone with reversible crossovers at Hertford North ala Royston, to permit operation of both high density inner suburban metro-type service and fast outer suburban trains on this route which could provide much-needed extra capacity south of Hitchin.

By diverting the semi fast Peterborough and Cambridge services, it slightly improves the capacity of the ECML via Welwyn.

Inner Suburban services to Letchworth Garden City via Hertford North would terminate at a new twin bay platform at Stevenage which would mean remodelling of the leisure park in the area close to the station, these services would be replaced by both semi fast and slow Cambridge services as Stevenage would be better placed to act as a Interchange then Letchworth could ever hope to do so.

Along with signalling and line speed improvements as well

If capacity is ever to be improved on the Hertford route then this needs to be looked at especially the signalling at the Hertford end which isn't suitable at all as the sections are far too long which is why trains are timed to take so long in the area.

I think 85 to 90mph would be the best speed for the Hertford route.

As to using Moorgate full time and not using Kings Cross in evenings and weekends, it won't happen as the demand is just not there and Kings Cross isn't as busy on a weekend as it is during the week.

As to all these stations being manned, does that mean new booking offices at Bayford and Crews Hill?

Or just enhanced manning of existing stations until close of service?

Still wouldn't say no to another member of staff to enhance current single manned stations at night, stations such as Hertford North, Welwyn Garden City, Royston and I think Letchworth Garden City although I'm not too sure if Letchworth is a 24hr manned station.

During the day, there's always someone about but at night, it's just you so enhanced manning for nights has got to happen.

 

[jon0844]

But most of the services that use the slow lines to WGC are the 313s, and semi-fast services - some of which are put out to the fast to overtake. The others are already using the fast lines exclusively anyway.

If London Overground takes over, then they'll be running more services (inner-suburban) than FCC so it isn't quite the case that the lines will be left empty most of the time.

Beyond WGC, when it's back to 4-track then I presume FCC will be back out to the slows.

As for Moorgate, well clearly Moorgate is pretty dead - but Old Street is quite busy at weekends, on account of it being in Shoreditch. Is Essex Road ever busy even in the week?

I am only thinking on account of how London Overground/TfL would look at the service - and why I'd say the stations will all be manned, as I thought became the case on the existing LO takeover of Silverlink/NLL?

 

[Aictos]

The NCL simply won't open until end of service Monday to Friday and the Weekends as according to the people who run the railways aka the accountants, the line simply doesn't make enough money to extend the hours beyond what it currently is.

Unless of course, there's huge public pressure to run a service to Old Street outside the existing times but if you do that, you might as well run into Moorgate although a reduced service to Old Street might be viable using Moorgate to turnround 313s and if this is successful and enough people take it up then you might see the NCL open from 6am to 12pm which is near enough to the end of service anyway.

Why not submit it to FCC and see what they say?

Anyway, the sooner we get these 313s back from LOROL and refurbish them to our high standards, the sooner we can run more 6 car services, might even be able to run a extra service up to Letchworth via Hertford so run one at xx39 and xx07 thoughout the day especially at weekends where the demand is certainly there.

 

[jon0844]

I'd not only like to see a 15-minute frequency, but later trains (and more of them) are always a good thing. On most days, they'll easily attract people to use them. As long as someone is there to sell tickets to these people, it should even make money! When did FCC (or Wagn) extend the operation into Moorgate in the week to around 10pm? I remember when the last service was about 7.30-8pm.

In the week, I'd say you could run trains to/from Moorgate with sufficient demand until much later. By all means run them every 15 minutes (alternating WGC/HN) and if you time them right, people could change at Finsbury Park for semi-fast services elsewhere. Now wouldn't that be sensible!

I would say that, in my opinion, I'd be running late services (from KGX, not Moorgate) with 317s or 365s (or even 321s now) to offer a toilet provision. Is there are any reason not to run them on the Hertford Loop? Are some platforms not set up for 4-car services? I wouldn't expect any to run as 8-car at that time of night. Assuming the demand isn't too great, it's probably better to keep people closer to each other at night.

 

[DavyCrocket]

I know TfL refused to put 'First Capital Connect' at Farringdon (presumably they don't want to advertise any specific TOC, as these will change from time to time) but it certainly seems confusing to do it like this!

It's a corporate standard (though you are allowed to say London Overground).

I don't know if it is still a TfL dream to control all rail services in the GLA area.

 

[Aictos]

The reason for the lack of 4 car EMUs on the Hertford loop is a issue with the DOO equipment, I don't know the exact reasons as 4 car EMUs are used on the line either in regular service in late evenings, night and early morning not to mention when a 317 is used vice a 313.

I would love to see the 321s get out more and hopefully when Kings Cross finish their conversion training, that will be possible as I would like to see 317s replace some of the 313s at the weekend and have 321s replace some of the 317 workings.

Anyway, drivers can always step out of the cab and look back to dispatch themselves, lord knows they have to do it when the DOO equipment has failed.

 

[stut]

Sending the PBO/CBG semi-fasts via HFN may well give a slight improvement at Digswell, but at quite a cost for several thousand commuters, who see
their nice commute of just over half an hour shoot up to just under an hour. Is it really worth that just to get some half-empty trains headed to
Lincoln and Sunderland through there?

It needs to be done properly. New fast lines round the outside of WGC, down by the A1(M). And yes, I know there's a snowball's chance in hell of
that happening in the near future.

 

[philjo]

Still wouldn't say no to another member of staff to enhance current single manned stations at night, stations such as Hertford North, Welwyn Garden City, Royston and I think Letchworth Garden City although I'm not too sure if Letchworth is a 24hr manned station.

I think that the platform office is staffed at Letchworth GC until the departure of the last service - many of the late night services from London terminate there & go into the sidings, so they check that no-one is still on the train.

The ticket barriers are not manned after the booking office closes around 8pm - you then have to use the side gate for access.

 

[CCF23]

The signs at Highbury and Islington leading down to the Victoria Line have been changed too.

 

[Aictos]

Sending the PBO/CBG semi-fasts via HFN may well give a slight improvement at Digswell, but at quite a cost for several thousand commuters, who see
their nice commute of just over half an hour shoot up to just under an hour. Is it really worth that just to get some half-empty trains headed to
Lincoln and Sunderland through there?

It needs to be done properly. New fast lines round the outside of WGC, down by the A1(M). And yes, I know there's a snowball's chance in hell of
that happening in the near future.

What do you suggest? Send the Sunderlands, Hulls, Bradford Interchanges, Lincolns around the loop to free up some capacity at Welwyn North?

NR could just blow up the viaduct and replace it with a more modern structure with 4 tracks then you just need to remodel Welwyn North on the down side and you've got 4 tracks and no bottleneck!

It's not like the semi fasts will be made 20 mins late on purpose as the upgrades would be in place to enable the diversions to happen on a more permanent basis.

 

[stut]

They may not be late on purpose, but are you seriously telling me that FPK-SVG is going to take the same time on the loop as on the mainline? Even a 10-minute increase in journey time is significant on these services, and I suspect the many £3000+ a year season ticket holders already crammed into these trains would have plenty to say about it.

then, even with the viaduct and Welwyn North sorted, you'd have the small matter of two tunnels to double up too.

What solution? There is no easy solution. I'd say ditch schemes like Lincoln and instead reinstate decent feeder services to NNG and the like. Stop obsessing over shaving a few minutes over headline timings to Edinburgh, particularly when minimal convenience of the few is at the greater cost of the many. Get on with building HS2 to free up long-distance capacity and with extending platforms to take the 12-car trains.