Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018

[bramling]

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.

I’d have thought most people from Welwyn and Hatfield would have just given up on the ThamesLink/ service and gone for the 313 services - especially as there’s virtually no overtaking scheduled now. Certainly from observations the 700 services which are running on that route are running quite empty at times. Ironically the 313s are probably more comfortable too!

The problem with extra stops on the 2154 is that it will then conflict at Digswell with the 2200 LNER service, which puts a further delay into it. This will cause quite a delay for people travelling to Hitchin and Letchworth for whom this is currently their only reliable service for some time either side, with nothing in the way of alternative.

 

[OwenB]

I’d have thought most people from Welwyn and Hatfield would have just given up on the ThamesLink/ service and gone for the 313 services - especially as there’s virtually no overtaking scheduled now. Certainly from observations the 700 services which are running on that route are running quite empty at times. Ironically the 313s are probably more comfortable too!

The problem with extra stops on the 2154 is that it will then conflict at Digswell with the 2200 LNER service, which puts a further delay into it. This will cause quite a delay for people travelling to Hitchin and Letchworth for whom this is currently their only reliable service for some time either side, with nothing in the way of alternative.

Certainly handy in the evening, if us Thameslink 'customers' dare have a social life with the ginormous gaps in the timetable from KGX after about 7.30pm. The 06.13 HAT-MOG is a nice little emergency train, should the 5.55 or 6.07 not materialise.

 

[Failed Unit]

I’d have thought most people from Welwyn and Hatfield would have just given up on the ThamesLink/ service and gone for the 313 services - especially as there’s virtually no overtaking scheduled now. Certainly from observations the 700 services which are running on that route are running quite empty at times. Ironically the 313s are probably more comfortable too!

The problem with extra stops on the 2154 is that it will then conflict at Digswell with the 2200 LNER service, which puts a further delay into it. This will cause quite a delay for people travelling to Hitchin and Letchworth for whom this is currently their only reliable service for some time either side, with nothing in the way of alternative.

You will be surprised. I was on the 1715 Moorgate- WGC last night. We arrived at Finsbury Park and many joined the exceptionally overcrowded 1721 London - Cambridge service. (Past 3 cancelled hence why it was so full). I stayed put.

However people want to travel north as well by rail. But admit most of this market is currently on the A1(M)

On the 2154. My open question is why not use the path vacated by the 2151 until Letchworth. Would that mess up drivers hours / unit stabilisation? Make an 8 coach service more useful.

 

[bramling]

You will be surprised. I was on the 1715 Moorgate- WGC last night. We arrived at Finsbury Park and many joined the exceptionally overcrowded 1721 London - Cambridge service. (Past 3 cancelled hence why it was so full). I stayed put.

However people want to travel north as well by rail. But admit most of this market is currently on the A1(M)

On the 2154. My open question is why not use the path vacated by the 2151 until Letchworth. Would that mess up drivers hours / unit stabilisation? Make an 8 coach service more useful.

As things are now it would almost certainly make the driver late. With revised driver diagrams it could be feasible. You might have severe difficulty selling the idea to Hitchin and Letchworth passengers though, there were complaints last week when it did call additionally at Finsbury Park and Welwyn on two days - on some days this has been the only service to Hitchin during a 3-hour window, although to be fair there are seats to spare.

 

[jellybaby]

Ironically the 313s are probably more comfortable too!

Not in this hot weather...

 

[jon0844]

Not in this hot weather...

Once they get moving they're okay after a few stops with the windows open. The inner services are lifesavers at the moment and increasingly people are choosing to get these and not even bother to hope for a KGX service.

A lot of people are unaware that London Terminals tickets are valid on the underground, and as they learn this, they realise they can jump on the tube to continue their journey. Previously they thought they had to get another GTR service and felt they'd just end up stranded at FPK so wouldn't save any time.

It must make for much lower blood pressure knowing that, for the most part, the inners are running fine and the underground is usually good too (with two lines to choose from at FPK).

 

[bramling]

Once they get moving they're okay after a few stops with the windows open. The inner services are lifesavers at the moment and increasingly people are choosing to get these and not even bother to hope for a KGX service.

A lot of people are unaware that London Terminals tickets are valid on the underground, and as they learn this, they realise they can jump on the tube to continue their journey. Previously they thought they had to get another GTR service and felt they'd just end up stranded at FPK so wouldn't save any time.

It must make for much lower blood pressure knowing that, for the most part, the inners are running fine and the underground is usually good too (with two lines to choose from at FPK).

The air conditioning on the undesiros isn't wonderful either - very warm airless and stuffy. I'll take a 365 any day which at least has an excellent flow of air all round - especially when the ball vents are working. At least the 387s having some opening windows, the air conditioning on those is equally weak although with a window open it does improve the circulation of air.

 

[bramling]

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.

All this assumes the temporary timetable will make drivers available for training, which is a very shaky assumption to make. Even if the unit and driver diagrams are geared towards the services which are planned to run, and assuming there's no errors which from having looked at the timetable is another shaky assumption to make, it's highly likely the driver diagrams will be quite a bit less efficient than if they were optimised for the full timetable, plus of course there will be fewer services through the core than in the base timetable. So in the continued absence of additional over-and-above-business-as-usual resource, it may still take a massive amount of time to complete all the required training. Add in other variables like inherent ThamesLink/ unreliability, which is also crucifying the GN service on a constant basis, summer holidays approaching where coverage is always traditionally worse, people off trains for operating incidents, and all the normal trials and tribulations involved in running a normal train service let alone one which is operationally gasping for breath, and chatter about ER issues starting to be heard, and unfortunately I can't see this situation resolving itself quickly. The fact that things have gradually slid *downhill* since FailedPlan2020 was implemented would seem to support this.

Still, soon we will have the McPartland (not-so-) Express Pullmans in the evening peak now, so at least someone gains from all this in the form of some cheap electoral publicity. I'm not sure people will buy it though - there's plenty of letters in local papers correctly pointing the finger at the DFT/government.

 

[gingerheid]

A lot of people are unaware that London Terminals tickets are valid on the underground, and as they learn this, they realise they can jump on the tube to continue their journey.

! People like me! Please tell me more

 

[stut]

! People like me! Please tell me more

London Terminals tickets from the GN Route are valid on the Victoria Line between Finsbury Park and King's Cross, and on the Northern and Circhampolitan lines between King's Cross and Old Street/Moorgate (no intermediate stations on this one). This is regardless of emergency timetables and the like.

 

[jon0844]

The air conditioning on the undesiros isn't wonderful either - very warm airless and stuffy. I'll take a 365 any day which at least has an excellent flow of air all round - especially when the ball vents are working. At least the 387s having some opening windows, the air conditioning on those is equally weak although with a window open it does improve the circulation of air.

I have to disagree there. 365s are extremely noisy when the windows are open and many areas get no air flow and are horrible (by the doors). I'm yet to see a 700 with faulty air con - I know they exist - and a 387 with windows open will make the air conditioning totally useless.

I don't find the 700s bad in the heat, and this week is a good test. I suffered yesterday on a LNER train where the air con had failed entirely. Lucky for me I was only in to Stevenage, not Leeds.

 

[gingerheid]

London Terminals tickets from the GN Route are valid on the Victoria Line between Finsbury Park and King's Cross, and on the Northern and Circhampolitan lines between King's Cross and Old Street/Moorgate (no intermediate stations on this one). This is regardless of emergency timetables and the like.

Thanks!

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

And if LUL staff dispute this validity at the KGX gateline, stand your ground. If it says London Terminals on it and is valid via Finsbury Park it's valid. End of. Long running position going back to rail pre-history, when the tube too over the Moorgate line in c. 1930 something (and then gave it back in 1975.)

 

[Failed Unit]

Back to the July timetable - a few of the commuter groups have kicked off about the gaps on the version published on the website. Mainly because of the large gaps.

The social media team are responding saying the July revised timetable is not yet published so we have a glimmer of hope.

Just hope that all stations get at least 1 off peak train per hour out of whatever comes along. I think the peak will still be poor but at least the summer holidays will help. Be nice to see services restored for people that commute into Hatfield, Welwyn and Stevenage. Which isn’t a small number of people.

 

[gingerheid]

If this isn't the July timetable what is it?

It's certainly not something they can manage to run at the moment! http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sea...18/06/27/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

 

[ijmad]

If this isn't the July timetable what is it?

It's certainly not something they can manage to run at the moment! http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sea...18/06/27/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

They're not even pretending any more, are they. Jeez, this is fewer running trains than the daily tests in the lead up to the May timetable change.

 

[gingerheid]

They're not even pretending any more, are they. Jeez, this is fewer running trains than the daily tests in the lead up to the May timetable change.

That's why I just don't understand how it could be this bad. In the lead up to May there were running more trains on non-TL routes than they are now.

I didn't at all expect it to work. I envisaged lots of trains running 15-30 mins late all over the place, and perhaps a lot of delayed trains appearing in the paths of the new services that were deferred until 2020. I also expected meltdown days to be worse than they are now and to take longer to recover from, and to happen more often. But I didn't all expect it to be like this and still don't understand why it is.

 

[mmh]

They're not even pretending any more, are they. Jeez, this is fewer running trains than the daily tests in the lead up to the May timetable change.

A 2tpd route, even the Conwy Valley line manages better than that.

How much longer can this shambles go on? I'm becoming increasingly doubtful they will ever get out of it.

 

[MikeWM]

The last Kings Lynn service this week has its every-6-weeks-or-so replaced by a bus from Cambridge this week for engineering work.

But is there a bus actually running? It isn’t in any journey planners, or RTT etc. Normally I’d assume it was an oversight but with the way GN is run nowadays I half suspect they are just stranding passengers and not giving it a second thought

 

[MikeWM]

Speaking of commuter groups, does anyone know what has happened to FLUA? (The Fen Line Users Association) Their website hasn’t been updated in nearly two months - which is rare - and I haven’t seen any comments from them in the local press. Surely, if ever there was a time to speak up for your users, now would be it?

 

[bramling]

Speaking of commuter groups, does anyone know what has happened to FLUA? (The Fen Line Users Association) Their website hasn’t been updated in nearly two months - which is rare - and I haven’t seen any comments from them in the local press. Surely, if ever there was a time to speak up for your users, now would be it?

The trouble with user groups is you’re left with narrow-minded groups, using emotive language like “fighting” for better things or “securing” extra services. Whilst this may be understandable, it really doesn’t help the bigger picture. It’s like Mr McPartland getting his extra stops - a more useful outcome would have been getting a service or two added at times when people really needed them. The irony of course being that this is a mess largely created by the political system - be it civil servants or ministers.

 

[farleigh]

It’s like Mr McPartland getting his extra stops .

Why do Ant & Dec get special treatment?

 

[bramling]

A 2tpd route, even the Conwy Valley line manages better than that.

How much longer can this shambles go on? I'm becoming increasingly doubtful they will ever get out of it.

There was an example tonight of how extra stops can go wrong. 1R66 got extra calls at Finsbury Park and Hatfield. The latter call seemed to be the result of some pestering by a very small number of passengers, and I don’t see the value in a Finsbury Park call at all when they have the 313 services. So cue a long stop at Finsbury Park whilst station staff made their announcements and waited for anyone to cross over, with the service evidently having arrived unexpectedly. Hardly anyone boarded. Then another long stop at Hatfield, not entirely sure why but may have been awaiting staff dispatch, only a handful alighting. Net result 15 minutes delay, plus two services by now queuing close behind, one of which a long-distance LNER service. I wouldn’t be surprised if no one had told the signaller what was happening. It does seem that a lot of people have abandoned the service now - some pretty lightly loaded off-peak services. I hear there’s been some issues with buses jamming up the forecourt at Hitchin too. All in all little sign of any improvement.

We now have an almost Bermuda Triangle where people have to take a gamble on turning up at King’s Cross, Finsbury Park or St Pancras - especially with extra stops seemingly getting added based on who shouts the loudest and whether specific drivers agree to play ball or not. The 365 and 387 services naturally seem most reliable, although the 387s in particular are getting 4-cars turning up at times (last week in particular was very bad for this), but again the mix of stopping patterns just doesn’t work without a reliable bedrock service - which of course should really be the Brighton/Cambridge, Horsham/Peterborough and KX/Cambridge, none of which are anything near reliable. So the “extras” are becoming the base service, but the snag is they mainly run in peak flow direction, and are geared around taking people to and from London, hence why there are odd calling patterns like fast King’s Cross to Knebworth and Knebworth to Hitchin. Perhaps these should all have been the Thameslink service and everything else stay at King’s Cross. The variety of termini is causing a lot of trouble at present - again something which was predicted and ridiculed by a few on here. Some of the people who have defended this project over time must be feeling rather stupid now.

 

[tsr]

The TL service plan seems to have dissolved into a further level of chaos in the last couple of days - managed chaos, thanks to the overwhelming dedication of a lot of staff.

The problem of trains not being advertised is being compounded by what seems to be an increasing number of cancelled and non-advertised trains being suddenly reinstated, which is not as random as it seems - as they are covered by "recently" available drivers, who have nothing better to do than run whatever trains they can with the level of the route training which they have so far achieved.

Staff are having to go round checking sidings as nobody knows where all the specific units have ended up. And they're having to run a few 700s coupled together (largely overnight) to get them between depots, because otherwise the lost-and-found units wouldn't have drivers.

Grim...

 

[bramling]

The TL service plan seems to have dissolved into a further level of chaos in the last couple of days - managed chaos, thanks to the overwhelming dedication of a lot of staff.

The problem of trains not being advertised is being compounded by what seems to be an increasing number of cancelled and non-advertised trains being suddenly reinstated, which is not as random as it seems - as they are covered by "recently" available drivers, who have nothing better to do than run whatever trains they can with the level of the route training which they have so far achieved.

Staff are having to go round checking sidings as nobody knows where all the specific units have ended up. And they're having to run a few 700s coupled together (largely overnight) to get them between depots, because otherwise the lost-and-found units wouldn't have drivers.

Grim...

They really seem to have no overall idea of what’s running. Yesterday at my station staff got as far as announcing that a service was “approaching” and to stand back from the platform edge. I’d love to know how that one arose as Open Train Times wasn’t showing anything on the diagrams, and sure enough the train never materialised.

 

[MikeWM]

The trouble with user groups is you’re left with narrow-minded groups, using emotive language like “fighting” for better things or “securing” extra services. Whilst this may be understandable, it really doesn’t help the bigger picture.

Agreed - and FLUA also seem rather confused as to their local needs too. They seem obsessed with getting all-day 2tph to Kings Lynn, when a far more useful thing to be investing their energy into would be getting longer trains on the route, far more of a priority for the vast majority of their users. That's actually the main reason I haven't joined them.

 

[jon0844]

They really seem to have no overall idea of what’s running. Yesterday at my station staff got as far as announcing that a service was “approaching” and to stand back from the platform edge. I’d love to know how that one arose as Open Train Times wasn’t showing anything on the diagrams, and sure enough the train never materialised.

There has been an issue where OTT, P2, Tornado etc were showing ghost trains because of head codes stuck in berths that had passed some time ago. The same fault has had the same train in multiple locations. You can imagine the fun that has caused!

It has happened at least twice in the last week that I'm aware of. Possibly a lot more.

 

[OwenB]

There has been an issue where OTT, P2, Tornado etc were showing ghost trains because of head codes stuck in berths that had passed some time ago. The same fault has had the same train in multiple locations. You can imagine the fun that has caused!

It has happened at least twice in the last week that I'm aware of. Possibly a lot more.

Are you all saying that they have no idea where their trains are at any given moment? Wow.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Are you all saying that they have no idea where their trains are at any given moment? Wow.

If the systems that show staff where trains are aren't working, then staff won't know where trains are. Its no different to 25+ years ago before stations had access to computers, and the only way for station staff to know where trains were was for people to ring each other up.

 

[87015]

If the systems that show staff where trains are aren't working, then staff won't know where trains are. Its no different to 25+ years ago before stations had access to computers, and the only way for station staff to know where trains were was for people to ring each other up.

But it’s being made to happen far more often and then the effects amplified by GTRs decisions to not put a proper TT in and run stuff on/off/without schedules as they go along. It’s not what the system is designed to cope with, quite rightly.