Regular Thameslink disruptions over a week

[Dima]

Hi,

My apologies if there’s already a thread for this, I couldn’t find one.

There have been disruptions on the Thameslink core section “due to a signal failure between City Thameslink and London Blackfriars” at least for two days last week as well as today.

Does anyone know what’s going on? Why does the same section keep causing trouble? Is there some serious issue there that would take a while to get fixed, so we should expect the disruptions to re-occur regularly in the meantime?

Thank you!

 

[800Travel]

Hi,

My apologies if there’s already a thread for this, I couldn’t find one.

There have been disruptions on the Thameslink core section “due to a signal failure between City Thameslink and London Blackfriars” at least for two days last week as well as today.

Does anyone know what’s going on? Why does the same section keep causing trouble? Is there some serious issue there that would take a while to get fixed, so we should expect the disruptions to re-occur regularly in the meantime?

Thank you!

An update on Thameslink disruption We’re really sorry for the disruption
@TLRailUK
passengers have experienced due to a repeated fault in the #Blackfriars area. We know people depend on these trains to get to work, appointments and family, and understand how frustrating it is when services are delayed or cancelled at the last minute. The issue is linked to the point where trains switch from electric rail power to overhead lines – a complex part of the network where electrical surges can affect signalling equipment. Our engineers are working hard to find the root cause and put in place a permanent fix as quickly and safely as possible. Unfortunately, disruption has been made worse today by a trespass at Three Bridges, which meant we had to temporarily close the Brighton Main Line for safety. We’d like to thank everyone for their patience. Restoring a reliable service for everyone who uses this route is our absolute priority, and we’ll keep customers updated as soon as we can. Please follow
@TLRailUK
for the latest travel advice.

Source - https://x.com/NetworkRailSE/status/1998108244842254806

 

[Minstral25]

It's been appalling for over a week now. Long gaps in services to Redhill with a lot of catch up non-stop to Gatwick and vice versa to East Croydon. 9R's (Bedford to Three Bridges) withdrawn for most of the day - Earlswood and Salfords with multiple hour gaps in services as 9J's (Peterborough to Horsham) cannot cope (or even run through Redhill half the time).

Multiple problems but as usual a complete lack of resilience when there is disruption. You can't get passenger numbers up if you don't run the advertised train service or anything remotely similar.

 

[boiledbeans2]

Wednesday (3 Dec) was awful. I believe this is what happened - a person was hit by a train at around 1pm so there was massive disruption. This is understandable. Everything was cleared at around 4pm. However, Thameslink declared that there will be no Cambridge & Peterborough services for the rest of the day. This was not understandable. Even if all the crew were in the wrong places, it takes ~2h to travel the entire line from Cambridge to Brighton to get them back in the right places. Let's give them an extra 2h buffer, so I would think some skeleton service would be able to resume by 8pm?

The fast GN services to Cambridge/Kings Lynn were also cancelled during the evening peak. So all the disrupted passengers from Thameslink and the fast GN services piled on the slow GN Cambridge services.

 

[uglymonkey]

They regularly cut anything on the Cambridge line if there is disruption in the core. Many a time at the display at London Bridge services are shown as delayed except Cambridge which has a big blank. If I can I get a train to Peterborough,if running,and intercept a GN train from Kings Cross. This then will either skip intermediate stations after Letchworth and run fast to Cambridge or be stopped and terminated at Letchworth. There does seem to be a lack of recovery built in to this route, 2 big fans of lines from Peterborough/Cambridge etc to Brighton, funnelling through a 2 track tunnel from St Pancras to Blackfriars.

 

[ChilliSauce]

Thameslink "The Station Stop Skipping Company" . Thamestink do this trick regularly with Leagrave, Harlington and Flitwick . Tell you the train is cancelled but you stand at the station and watch it run through non stop.

But for some reason they never skip Luton Airport Parkway despite it having alternative competitor (EMR) services and also the "stop service" starting from Luton .

 

[andos]

I live in Oxted and they regularly cancel all of our thameslink trains at the first sign of any problems. The service has been shocking lately. For all the money the core has had spent on it, there seem to be a lot of reliability issues.

 

[uglymonkey]

I agree, it does seem to be a slow slide of deteration of late , whether this is connected to the oncoming winter weather I do not know.

 

[LMS 4F]

On Monday 8 December I went from Elstree into London The inbound was delayed by about 20 minutes but we were kept informed.
St Pancras at about 6:30 pm was chaotic. A late running Bedford train was shown on the screens and announced as stopping at all stations to Bedford and when it came in it was full and standing in no time. Then the driver supposedly announced he wasn’t stopping at all stops but was going to call at his booked stops. A large evacuation of the train took place and off it went.
Fortunately I caught a St Albans train 10 minutes later which was also late but at least we could get back.
A long time since i rode Thameslink and not an impressive example.

 

[renegademaster]

At Redhill yesterday they did a fun game of cancelling my train , and then uncancelling after I already had changed to platform 0 to get the Victoria train

 

[NSEWonderer]

Ever since the Rainham and Luton service replaced the lovely Charing Cross and Gillingham service, the woolwich line has been a mere shell of itself.

Last week was horrendous, several hours with no thameslink trains at all on both directions, leaving long gaps aswell as that being the train that Elizabeth line users primarily get from Abbey-Wood, platforms were packing up.

Honestly just hope they see the light and remove it, regular commuters questioned the decision at the start to Introduce it and we've not been wrong since. Having the Charing X service back arguably also provides Elizabeth line users with a more reliable backup incase that goes down plus takes you directly to Charing X which is more useful arguably than Farringdon interms of connections.

 

[Mattplans]

But for some reason they never skip Luton Airport Parkway

Don't you think thi sis in the customer's interest though?

and also the "stop service" starting from Luton

I don't know what this means but if you're referring to the stopping services to Rainham or Orpington that mostly originate from Luton, this is Thameslink's favourite service to annex after any minor disruption

 

[cryptus]

I don't know what this means but if you're referring to the stopping services to Rainham or Orpington that mostly originate from Luton, this is Thameslink's favourite service to annex after any minor disruption

I think that dubious "honour" probably goes to the Sutton Loop services. Why on earth they haven't been cut back to terminate at Blackfriars I don't know.

As regards Thameslink's poor service recently, this particular signalling problem has been intermittently ongoing since the 13th November; it seems faintly remarkable that a cause has not been diagnosed by now, given it's failed on 4 separate occasions since.

 

[NSEWonderer]

I think that dubious "honour" probably goes to the Sutton Loop services. Why on earth they haven't been cut back to terminate at BFR I don't know.

As regards Thameslink's poor service recently, this particular signalling problem has been intermittently ongoing since the 13th November; it seems faintly remarkable that a cause has not been diagnosed by now, given it's failed on 4 separate occasions since.

Plus they've been way to reliant on overtime especially for the Luton to Rainham and vice versa service. Always seems to be a guarantee that only 1 train an hour in either direction runs, unless it's last week where almost every hour had none.

 

[bramling]

Ever since the Rainham and Luton service replaced the lovely Charing Cross and Gillingham service, the woolwich line has been a mere shell of itself.

Last week was horrendous, several hours with no thameslink trains at all on both directions, leaving long gaps aswell as that being the train that Elizabeth line users primarily get from Abbey-Wood, platforms were packing up.

Honestly just hope they see the light and remove it, regular commuters questioned the decision at the start to Introduce it and we've not been wrong since. Having the Charing X service back arguably also provides Elizabeth line users with a more reliable backup incase that goes down plus takes you directly to Charing X which is more useful arguably than Farringdon interms of connections.

Gosh, it seems like *no one* is happy with the service Thameslink provides. At what point is someone in a political position going to declare that the Thameslink Programme has been a failure, and more importantly start looking at how to repair the damage?

From a cynical point of view, what we all seem to miss is that the entire Thameslink network exists for the benefit of St Albans City, and providing people there have their luxurious metro frequency 20-minute rapid transit connection to London, everything is as sweet as roses.

(Actually I’m not sure the latter is the case, as when I was sounding off at work last week after Wednesday’s Stevenage meltdown, a work colleague who is a regular user at St Albans City was saying that he finds the service there appalling as well).

 

[Mattplans]

I think that dubious "honour" probably goes to the Sutton Loop services.

Really? I feel as if in disruption they tend to cut the Rainham first and the via Catfords (peak hour). They at least attempt to honour the Suttons.

From a cynical point of view, what we all seem to miss is that the entire Thameslink network exists for the benefit of St Albans City, and providing people there have their luxurious metro frequency 20-minute rapid transit connection to London, everything is as sweet as roses.

(Actually I’m not sure the latter is the case, as when I was sounding off at work last week after Wednesday’s Stevenage meltdown, a work colleague who is a regular user at St Albans City was saying that he finds the service there appalling as well).

So who on the Thameslink network truly has it best? Perhaps those of East Croydon (only)

 

[Bald Rick]

I live in Oxted and they regularly cancel all of our thameslink trains at the first sign of any problems.

there’s 11 Thameslink trains a day at Oxted, all in the peak (6 in the peak direction, 5 contra peak). They are the first to be removed in the contingency plans.

I agree, it does seem to be a slow slide of deteration of late , whether this is connected to the oncoming winter weather I do not know.

No, it’s the track circuit failure near City TL.

I think that dubious "honour" probably goes to the Sutton Loop services. Why on earth they haven't been cut back to terminate at Blackfriars I don't know.

They are mostly crewed from St Albans, so terminating at Blackfriars doesn’t really help. They also provide the only service to Kentish Town, Hendon and Cricklewood, and most of the service to Mill Hill, Elstree and Radlett.

As regards Thameslink's poor service recently, this particular signalling problem has been intermittently ongoing since the 13th November; it seems faintly remarkable that a cause has not been diagnosed by now, given it's failed on 4 separate occasions since.

This particular failure has been intermittent since last Monday. I’m sure the details will come out in time, but AIUI it is very complex. It is also being given attention at the highest levels.

 

[dub]

They are mostly crewed from St Albans, so terminating at Blackfriars doesn’t really help. They also provide the only service to Kentish Town, Hendon and Cricklewood, and most of the service to Mill Hill, Elstree and Radlett.

They should really be crewed from somewhere south of the Thames too. Whenever there are engineering works or problems in the core the Sutton loops gets forgotten about. Even in the long disruption messages they barely ever get mentioned even when a 4tph service becomes fewer than 1tph because of infrastructure failures and shortages of train crew. Are there any other Thameslink routes only crewed from a depot at one side of the core?

 

[NSEWonderer]

Gosh, it seems like *no one* is happy with the service Thameslink provides. At what point is someone in a political position going to declare that the Thameslink Programme has been a failure, and more importantly start looking at how to repair the damage?

From a cynical point of view, what we all seem to miss is that the entire Thameslink network exists for the benefit of St Albans City, and providing people there have their luxurious metro frequency 20-minute rapid transit connection to London, everything is as sweet as roses.

(Actually I’m not sure the latter is the case, as when I was sounding off at work last week after Wednesday’s Stevenage meltdown, a work colleague who is a regular user at St Albans City was saying that he finds the service there appalling as well).

Arguably the very fact it links either side of the Thames might very well be it's issue in regards to the quality of infrastructure, tightness of services on either side. Only takes a sneeze and its all ruined.

The Elizabeth Line for example it's really only lego underfoot is the GWML most of the time if things go down, the core and GEML are quite reliable and more so because of proper investment. Thameslink outside of the St Pancras to Blackfrairs core the rest of the sections it operates in aren't as near reliable often or the best, investment wise. Sure London bridge had the major redevelopment and the Bermondsey dive under project but further down from there it's not often the greatest, ECML could be a lot better investment wise aswell as the MML.

 

[Mattplans]

Whenever there are engineering works or problems in the core the Sutton loops gets forgotten about.

I'd imagine this is more to do with having no diversion though. From Denmark Hill, thameslink can divert into victoria. I wonder why they don't do the same at Herne Hill?

 

[westcoaster]

They should really be crewed from somewhere south of the Thames too. Whenever there are engineering works or problems in the core the Sutton loops gets forgotten about. Even in the long disruption messages they barely ever get mentioned even when a 4tph service becomes fewer than 1tph because of infrastructure failures and shortages of train crew. Are there any other Thameslink routes only crewed from a depot at one side of the core?

Sutton services are crewed by three depots, Cricklewood/St Albans and Bedford.
There are no depots in the south near by to operate it, nearest would be Orpington or Three Bridges, both a long pass ride away.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Dec 2025 ==

I'd imagine this is more to do with having no diversion though. From Denmark Hill, thameslink can divert into victoria. I wonder why they don't do the same at Herne Hill?

Capacity would be the main issue, iirc they can operate into Victoria via Herne hill but it's only Orpington drivers now have the route knowledge.

 

[Dima]

I think that dubious "honour" probably goes to the Sutton Loop services. Why on earth they haven't been cut back to terminate at Blackfriars I don't know.

Then what would serve the stopping services in NW London?

Gosh, it seems like *no one* is happy with the service Thameslink provides. At what point is someone in a political position going to declare that the Thameslink Programme has been a failure, and more importantly start looking at how to repair the damage?

I think it’s way too pessimistic.

I live in NW London and I have been using it daily to get to work for years, and I can say I am pretty happy with it overall. It’s much more comfortable and faster than the tube and for the vast majority of the time it runs on time. It’s also cheaper if you have a season ticket.

It also gives me access to Luton and Gatwick airports, as well as lots of other places in Central and South London.

I definitely wouldn’t call it a failure.

 

[dub]

Snap - Sutton loop resident and I wouldn't want to lose the services through the core. I just want them to be more resilient with a driver depot somewhere between Elephant and Castle and Sutton that allows for trains to continue running in a degraded state into the Blackfriars bays when the core is closed, like people on the northern end of the route get with trains turning at Kentish Town.

 

[Purple Train]

Having a single core is always going to be a single point of failure, and I don't believe that the Thameslink infrastructure is intrinsically more unreliable than e.g. the Elizabeth Line core will be when it reaches the same age. However, if there are six separate incidents across the network, like on Monday, no system in the world will be able to cope, and I consider myself reasonably fortunate to have only been an hour late...!

 

[Russel]

Having a single core is always going to be a single point of failure, and I don't believe that the Thameslink infrastructure is intrinsically more unreliable than e.g. the Elizabeth Line core will be when it reaches the same age. However, if there are six separate incidents across the network, like on Monday, no system in the world will be able to cope, and I consider myself reasonably fortunate to have only been an hour late...!

Monday was particularly bad, so we can cut them some slack for that, but the service was pretty shambolic for almost a week, I was at City Thameslink last Thursday and there was a 20 minute gap until the next north bound train, I walked to Farringdon and got the Met to Kings Cross rather than wait.

Thameslink does seem to have more than it's fare share of issues though, if it's not the core, it's somewhere else on the network that brings everything to a standstill, given how many years and how much money has been thrown at it, it really should be better.

 

[Spamcan81]

Wednesday (3 Dec) was awful. I believe this is what happened - a person was hit by a train at around 1pm so there was massive disruption. This is understandable. Everything was cleared at around 4pm. However, Thameslink declared that there will be no Cambridge & Peterborough services for the rest of the day. This was not understandable. Even if all the crew were in the wrong places, it takes ~2h to travel the entire line from Cambridge to Brighton to get them back in the right places. Let's give them an extra 2h buffer, so I would think some skeleton service would be able to resume by 8pm?

The fast GN services to Cambridge/Kings Lynn were also cancelled during the evening peak. So all the disrupted passengers from Thameslink and the fast GN services piled on the slow GN Cambridge services.

I was caught up in the Dec 3 chaos on my way back to Arlesey. Managed to squeeze on to a Cambridge stopper at FPK. It was cosy to put it mildly. I know such tragedies can throw the system completely out of kilter but to abandon most of their passengers to their own devices was completely unacceptable. Luckily, I was able to get a lift back from Letchworth.

 

[Russel]

I was caught up in the Dec 3 chaos on my way back to Arlesey. Managed to squeeze on to a Cambridge stopper at FPK. It was cosy to put it mildly. I know such tragedies can throw the system completely out of kilter but to abandon most of their passengers to their own devices was completely unacceptable. Luckily, I was able to get a lift back from Letchworth.

This is becoming more common, not just on Thameslink and I agree, it's totally unacceptable.

When things go wrong on the WCML, LNWR will rip out the Trent Valley stops, creating a two hour gap in service, with little to no information or alternative options for passengers, but it's all good because you get an empty apology and delay repay that takes a week at minimum to be paid out...

 

[Minstral25]

At Redhill yesterday they did a fun game of cancelling my train , and then uncancelling after I already had changed to platform 0 to get the Victoria train

Great stuff - that's about 1,000 extra steps

there’s 11 Thameslink trains a day at Oxted, all in the peak (6 in the peak direction, 5 contra peak). They are the first to be removed in the contingency plans.

Along with the 9R's Bedford to Three Bridges, which are the only trains to call at Earlswood and Salfords meaning massive gaps in service as the only possible replacement is the 9J Peterborough to Horsham, which has too short a turnround at Horsham, is often badly affected by disruption & skips stops from East Croydon to Gatwick meaning all local station in Redhill route have a lack of service.

The southern service 1R which replicates part of the route (Victoria to Reigate) is also normally withdrawn in disruption too. Leaving a triple whammy for Redhill route

They should really be crewed from somewhere south of the Thames too. Whenever there are engineering works or problems in the core the Sutton loops gets forgotten about. Even in the long disruption messages they barely ever get mentioned even when a 4tph service becomes fewer than 1tph because of infrastructure failures and shortages of train crew. Are there any other Thameslink routes only crewed from a depot at one side of the core?

The 9J's (PBO-HOR) have similar issues, because the crew depot is in Horsham, trains have to be skipped East Croydon to Gatwick, leaving Redhill route with little or no service. Thameslink needs a better crewing locations but unlikely to happen.

 

[NSEWonderer]

Having a single core is always going to be a single point of failure, and I don't believe that the Thameslink infrastructure is intrinsically more unreliable than e.g. the Elizabeth Line core will be when it reaches the same age. However, if there are six separate incidents across the network, like on Monday, no system in the world will be able to cope, and I consider myself reasonably fortunate to have only been an hour late...!

The problem is the Elizabeth line core isn't nearly a quarter the reason they have disruption most of the time and the same often is for the Thameslink core. The issue is often the line at one end of the core when it comes to the Lizzy, Thameslink however has lines that aren't as near reliable as the GEML for example. And it feeds more than 2 lines either side of the core and needs pretty much all of them to be working relatively without much delays else it starts causing serious issues.

 

[Bald Rick]

The problem is the Elizabeth line core isn't nearly a quarter the reason they have disruption most of the time

It was 100% of the reason this morning!