malc-c
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Steve / Jon0844 / Hadders, thanks for summarising this.
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Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018
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Yeah, but these aren't trains going through the core. These are regular services deleted from the daily alpha plan and then reinstated without anyone being told!
Even drivers are having to call Three Bridges to check what's going on when they can't see the service on the board, or ask for a diagram to be emailed/faxed.
Lots of issues today causing delays besides the timetable. Some lineside fires in the morning, lights out at Moorgate, points problems, a bridge strike, an incident at WGC (not sure exactly what but think it was trespass related) and I assume some speed restrictions due to the weather.
Failed Unit
Established Member
Add to the displaced drivers.
1636 LondonKX - WGC. Advertised, Delayed and cancelled.
1651 London KX - Cambridge as above.
1706 Ran 28 late (losing more time as stuck behind 1715 MOG - WGC)
1721 Ran on time but seriously over crowded because of all the other cancellations. I stuck with the 313. Slow but got a seat.
They are advising that some trains cancelled because of a broken down train. (London - Cambridge) surely this isn’t true. Class 700s don’t break down! They are the perfect train
OwenB
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Has anyone noticed how uncomfortable the seats are...?
Failed Unit
Established Member
No. They have lots of space to stand however.
OwenB
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Like the train I'm on. 18.06 KGX-HAT, especially busy as the 17.51 was cancelled. What a treat.No. They have lots of space to stand however.
According to this article http://www.thecomet.net/motoring/mp-secures-evening-peak-services-for-stevenage-commuters-1-5576987 our local MP has arranged for the following trains to stop additionally at Stevenage (which is a bit more marginal than Welwyn and Hatfield):
Services from King’s Cross to Baldock and Royston – the 4.54pm, 5.24pm, 5.54pm, 6.24pm and 6.54pm – will now all call at Stevenage.
Is it possible to tell if this actually happened? OpenTrainTimes suggests not but I'm not sure if I'm reading it right.
Services from King’s Cross to Baldock and Royston – the 4.54pm, 5.24pm, 5.54pm, 6.24pm and 6.54pm – will now all call at Stevenage.
Is it possible to tell if this actually happened? OpenTrainTimes suggests not but I'm not sure if I'm reading it right.
Failed Unit
Established Member
For interest. If they had done a driver training program would it be more efficient.
I am thinking now that a Peterborough- Horsham service may have 3 drivers with changes at Finsbury Park and London Bridge.
If GTR were a decent TOC and had trained Peterborough and Horsham drivers end to end would the requirement for drivers be significantly reduced?
Failed Unit
Established Member
Need to prod our MP and see what he can do. I guess we are viewed as ok as we have the inners.
Interesting however as Stevenage has LNER services at 1633, 1733, 1833 and 1906.
If this an ORCATs protection? As only the 1754 doesn’t have a better LNER option.
I took LNER from King's Cross to Stevenage and then turned back to get to Hatfield. There was a 700 at KGX that could have formed a Cambridge service (not shown on the board) but instead it ran empty to Hornsey.
I should have gone to Finsbury Park but my route worked out okay even if that bridge strike did hit my return service with a 15 minute delay.
I should have gone to Finsbury Park but my route worked out okay even if that bridge strike did hit my return service with a 15 minute delay.
You can arrange what you want but many drivers refuse stop orders so there's no guarantee it will do additional stops unless it's on the diagram. If that has been organised then that's different, but do we know what the reality is?
bramling
Veteran Member
Great idea to load more people onto what are already some of the busiest services. Is this the best he can pull out of the hat?
One presumes this is a temporary measure, unless of course Mr McPartland would like to “secure” some extra 365s to lengthen the affected services, and explain to people further out who won’t be too happy at *another* stop.
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gingerheid
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Properly confused by that timetable. The poor villages between Royston and Cambridge! What did they ever do to the world to deserve that?
Failed Unit
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No one important lives their
As demonstrated this morning. On the Cambridge- London
0527 running 1 hour 4 mins late
0557 Cancelled.
0627 on time. (But only made it to WGC)
0657 withdrawn
0727 withdrawn
Amazingly they are not skip stopping 0527. Don’t understand why as skip stopping seems to be the GTR standard response to all delays. So the villages have 2 trains within 5 minutes of each other for the entire rush hour.
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No one important lives their
As demonstrated this morning. On the Cambridge- London
0527 running 1 hour 4 mins late
0557 Cancelled.
0627 on time. (But only made it to WGC)
0657 withdrawn
0727 withdrawn
Amazingly they are not skip stopping 0527. Don’t understand why as skip stopping seems to be the GTR standard response to all delays. So the villages have 2 trains within 5 minutes of each other for the entire rush hour.
Problems this morning down to the taxi booking system apparently - http://www.whtimes.co.uk/motoring/g...-to-train-drivers-not-getting-taxis-1-5579275
Provided the intended service is 'adequate' (as opposed to full, - opinions on what that means can vary of course), if it enables the driver establishment to be brought up to the required level of flexibility and skills diversity then it is better for the long-term stability of services.
After more than 2700 posts in this thread alone, continually repeating words about on about something that went wrong in the past contributes nothing to the discussion. The fact is that we are where we are, in other words, Horton's actions (or lack of them) are now irrelevant. What is now needed is to restore full services as quickly and as safely as possible.
One would hope that an achievable temporary reduced timetable based on available resources would reduce the instances of this.
Failed Unit
Established Member
Poor GTR. They are already the joke of the industry then get hit by that. Could be worse. They could be relying on their own trains.
Failed Unit
Established Member
But at the moment they can’t run an hourly service to all stations on the route. But the past is relevant as it shows their ability to deal with the present and future. I know neither of us know personally and GTR will never release such details but it would be interesting to know the following.
1. What % of drivers are trained on the 700s
2. What plans are in place to get that to a level that they can run the service.
3. By when
4. What % of drivers are trained to run through the core
5. The plan to get this up to a level the service can operate.
The weekends have got a greatly reduced timetable. One they still can’t resource or comment when they can.
The July timetable might be fully recoursed or it might not be. They can’t comment how long it will run for.
However although past performance doesn’t indicate future. History shows us to be sceptical. GN has suffered for years especially at weekends with not having enough staff. Things got better last year, but you certainly have more confidence then me. If they have a plan I wonder who has seen it. Hopefully the DFT. it may be cynical but the £5M fine they already have paid will mean they are not as focused as the would be if they were taking a real financial hit.
notverydeep
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I suspect this is a coping mechanism
The passenger information continues to make the worst of a bad situation. Before I set out, I saw that not only are the Cambridge slows in a mess as noted a few quotes above (including the 2C09 - the 0627 ex Cambridge terminating at Knebworth rather than WGC - not sure why), the normally fairly OK Welwyn Garden City - King's Cross trains, with the 0702, 0732, 0802 and 0832 all cancelled. However, an additional stop was added to 1R09 0738 Royston - King's Cross shown as its passing time 0809 (although this seems to stop additionally at Stevenage every day and is always a few minutes late at least). At about 0818, on the platform the revenue staff started to direct the modest number of passengers away from platform 2 to the 0824 Moorgate. The pretext was that the service was too crowded and that passengers for WGC were being detrained at Knebworth for a bus and it would no longer stop. This was followed up by it changing to 'cancelled' on the platform screens and disappearing a few minutes later.
I thought I had little to lose stopping to see what happened. The above turned out to be completely untrue. And surprise, surprise a couple of minutes later in rolls 1R09 and of course around 100 people alight. Logically if 100 people alight then roughly 100 more can board and unsurprisingly a fair number of people who had been waiting on the over-bridge rushed back down and did so.
By all means deter people from boarding a train you know will be crowded by giving advice that it will be, but instructing front line staff to pedal what you know to be bull and know will be revealed as such in a short time is stupidity of the highest order. It exposes them almost certainly to verbal abuse if not physical risk. Colleagues - just don't. The train was full and standing and not very comfortable, but no more so than on other 10 or so occasions when this train has had an additional WGC stop.
But that wasn't all, taking everyone - clearly including all the station staff in rolls the 700 for 2Y17, the 0832 to King's Cross - despite that continuing to show as cancelled until its departure time...
Failed Unit
Established Member
I suspect this is a coping mechanism
You are right is is. Coupled with the deep frustration that if anything it is getting worse, with no visible incentive to improve things and no one seems to be accountable. Even Hortons last shot was basically. “Nothing to do with GTR gov”
However I do take the point. Posting how bad things are every day is of little interest to the general forum. The users of the users know and those that are lucky enough not to need to use GTR don’t really care.
So time to wind my neck in. breathe deeply and waste my life collecting delay repay, to see what July brings. Hopefully at the very minimum an hourly service and some clue what is happening.
It is very hard to detach yourself and think logically when you are suffering daily the kind of issues you highlight in the rest of your post. I really feel for front line staff. But my last point irrespective I hope the industry learns from this. However I am sceptical- until GTR and DFT admit themselves that they are partly accountable for this mess I suspect we will see this shambles again elsewhere. We have done this kind of timetable change before successfully- SWT a few years ago. Hopefully the later stages will go like clockwork and they have a recovery plan for the inevitable infrastructure / unit failure.
You see the daily abuse the twitter team get for passing on the information (or lack of it). But we the users (maybe incorrectly) don’t think the management care. Going back to the past when the CEO at the time was actually lying on national TV, it does show how detached he is from the passengers. The management may care - but it doesn’t feel like it. They certainly don’t have the get up and go that Scotrail have. Look how quickly the 365s got into service. They have a few at Ely, surely this is a quick fix to drivers on Kings Cross - Cambridge not having traction knowledge of the 700s.
Anyway breathe again. Off my chest. No more posts from me until something new comes along.
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bramling
Veteran Member
Many northbound services off the southern region picking up 15-20 minutes delay in the Three Bridges to London Bridge area today. Anyone know why? Can’t blame this on waiting drivers at Finsbury Park. Doubtless leading to a highly erratic service for people making local GN journeys.
On the different note, already spotted some oddities in the July emergency timetable. Without seeing the working timetable it’s hard to be sure, however there definitely seem to be some workings which don’t balance, eg services which have no evident way of getting the stock to the origin to form the service. Time will tell I suppose. Almost gives the feeling of a last gasp for air from a failed and sinking programme.
notverydeep
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Are these the July timetables - or is this just what they are trying to do now? It looks to me as if it is a publication of the timetable simply no longer including trains which have been 'deleted' from the various systems, such as the 0657 and 0727 Cambridge - King's Cross, despite the latter actually running on several days last week...
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bramling
Veteran Member
Yes this is the July timetable posted on the ShamblesLink/ website. Normally I’d think better of it and take the view they probably know what they’re doing, but having seen the sheer incompetence of this collective outfit to date I’m not so sure!
OwenB
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Looks more or less the same to me too (HAT-KGX). If they can't run it properly now, I'm not sure what making it an official emergency timetable will do.
notverydeep
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Presumably this means that the 0727 Cambridge - King's Cross (our 0822 and your 0825) will go from sometimes running unadvertised to never running!
OwenB
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No doubt. I've taken to going in very early (5.55, 6.07, 6.25 - depending on what's running) - it's a killer, but any later and there's issues (6.37 unreliable, 6.55 always cancelled). It's a pain.
bramling
Veteran Member
One presumes the driver and unit diagrams will be tailored to suit the reduced timetable, which in theory should help, instead of everything having to be adjusted on the day which is what is happening now.
But this assumes they’ve got all their planning right, and readers can make up their own minds on how likely this is given past performance! As I say, on first glance there are things which stick out straight away as proverbial red flags.
I would like to see this work from a resourcing point of view, as at least then people can’t attempt to blame poor performance on transition issues.
Failed Unit
Established Member
I didn’t think it was. I think this is the reaction to the criticism that we don’t know what is planned today.
If it is the emergency timetable it is not very customer focused.
Some examples.
At 0921 a train leaves London Kx for Cambridge.
Next train from London kx to Cambridge (slow) at 1151.
Fasts still running non stop.
Therefore 2.5 gap northbound at Welwyn North, Knebworth and all Stations between Letchworth and Foxton inclusive.
Big gap between 2051 and 2221 London - Cambridge in evening. But the 2154 still only stops Knebworth, Hitchin and Letchworth.
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