Thameslink Services/Timetable from May 20th 2018

[Failed Unit]

After a better AM peak, the Live Departure Board for City Thameslink (for example) now looks truly grim.

If they can’t sort it next week, I reckon we’re into the realms of a reduced Emergency Timetable to take us through the summer.

Yeah I noticed that going home. Poor from farrington. Good on great northern (for the first time this week)

Yet to change at Finsbury Park. Maybe one day. But all changing done this week at kx / st pan.

 

[Domh245]

Yes but there’s a lot more chance of a train being delayed under Thameslink and coming all the way from somewhere like Brighton or Horsham. Under GN many Peterborough services had turnarounds of about 20 minutes at King’s Cross which would absorb incoming delays. This week is already showing this up, and thus far there haven’t even been any major infrastructure failures.

Thameslink is already becoming a swear word in Hertfordshire, as predicted. This week has been a total shambles, and those decision makers responsible for proceeding with the botched implementation should be ashamed of themselves, and with the level of competence displayed they really should be considering alternative careers.

The train in question has a 15 minute turnaround at Peterborough, and a 13 minute turnaround at Horsham (+11 minutes of allowances on route). Whilst not the 20 minute turnarounds of 'old GN', it is still a fairly generous turnaround time that will mop up a lot of smaller delays. Rather amusingly, the GN service that it replaced only had a 8 minute turnaround at Peterborough (a1439 d1447, compared to the new a1439 d1455) and an 18 minute turnaround at Kings Cross, so the net turnaround time actually increases by 2 minutes!

That said, the implementation has been awful, and I don't think you'll find many who try to defend those who have implemented it, but I do believe that once they've sorted out the staffing and training issues, the timetable will work. There may need to be some tweaking around the edges, because it is rare to have something working out of the box first time, but I'll be amazed if there is some sort of fundamental flaw with it.

 

[Antman]

Just had my own 'fun' with the new Thameslink services today with a simple return trip from Arlesey to Stevenage to see Solo: A Star Wars Story at the local cinema. There were no issues with the outbound journey, with the train being on time both departing Arlesey and arriving into Stevenage. The return journey, on the other hand, was completely different. The 1344 departure from Stevenage was running around 15 mintues late by the time it arrived. Around 2 minutes after leaving Stevenage, the driver says over the tannoy:

"I know you all probably don't want to hear this, but I've just been informed that this train will now be stopping next at Huntingdon. It will no longer be stopping at Hitchin, Arlesey, Biggleswade, Sandy or St Neots. I'm really sorry about this. Any passengers for Hitchin, Arlesey, Biggleswade, Sandy or St Neots stations will need to catch a service from Huntingdon back to these stations. Once again, I'm very sorry about this".

So cue an unexpected trip up to Huntingdon and a lot of angry passengers. A replacement bus was brought in for passengers heading to St Neots, Sandy and Biggleswade, but anyone travelling to Arlesey and Hitchin were advised to wait on the platform for the next train. As such, I ended up having to wait for around 45-50 minutes for the next southbound service back to Arlesey (the 1441 departure was already cancelled as part of the timetable introduction, so the next service was the 1511 departure).

I'm not surprised that passengers were angry, couldn't the train have run as booked to Peterborough and skipped some stops on the return journey to recover time? At least the situation would be known from the outset.

 

[bramling]

The train in question has a 15 minute turnaround at Peterborough, and a 13 minute turnaround at Horsham (+11 minutes of allowances on route). Whilst not the 20 minute turnarounds of 'old GN', it is still a fairly generous turnaround time that will mop up a lot of smaller delays. Rather amusingly, the GN service that it replaced only had a 8 minute turnaround at Peterborough (a1439 d1447, compared to the new a1439 d1455) and an 18 minute turnaround at Kings Cross, so the net turnaround time actually increases by 2 minutes!

That said, the implementation has been awful, and I don't think you'll find many who try to defend those who have implemented it, but I do believe that once they've sorted out the staffing and training issues, the timetable will work. There may need to be some tweaking around the edges, because it is rare to have something working out of the box first time, but I'll be amazed if there is some sort of fundamental flaw with it.

I agree the timetable works on paper - in fact it works rather well. Unfortunately it relies on everything running on time (and the trains being there in the first place!). It falls apart when late running and incidents start occurring. Evidently 15 minutes turnround time at Peterborough isn't enough otherwise there wouldn't be stops being missed - although of course it's not just turnround time but also what the driver duty does next.

The issue isn't whether the timetable itself is flawed (it isn't), but the GN's propensity for things to snowball when small amounts of delay are introduced into the system.

On a different note, does anyone know what the longer-term plan is for the Baldock/Royston services? I've seen/heard it said that the Royston-King's Cross 1tph peak service will be replaced by the second Cambridge/Brighton, however I'm less sure this applies to the Baldock services, especially as these currently run concurrent with the Cambridge/Brighton 1tph (on the rare occasions it runs!). Is it the case that the Baldock services will remain with the Royston services either withdrawn or cut back to Baldock? From what I'm hearing the Royston services in particular are severely overcrowded at the moment, though I assume this is partly due to the lack of Cambridge/Brighton services.

 

[bramling]

After a better AM peak, the Live Departure Board for City Thameslink (for example) now looks truly grim.

If they can’t sort it next week, I reckon we’re into the realms of a reduced Emergency Timetable to take us through the summer.

Something will have to be done. There is local fury about this, and looking at local news we already have MPs on the case.

I wonder how easy it would be to revert to the old timetable? The VTEC/HT/GC service is barely changed from the old timetable (it's surprising how little alteration was necessary here to fit in such a radical change), but I'm less sure how much has changed at Cambridge and Peterborough to accommodate things.

There is no way this should have been brought in when the driver training was clearly nowhere near ready. This should have been known about (how can GTR and Horton be *so* disconnected from reality predicting "minimal" effect on the service as recently as the weekend?).

 

[Domh245]

I agree the timetable works on paper - in fact it works rather well. Unfortunately it relies on everything running on time (and the trains being there in the first place!). It falls apart when late running and incidents start occurring. Evidently 15 minutes turnround time at Peterborough isn't enough otherwise there wouldn't be stops being missed - although of course it's not just turnround time but also what the driver duty does next.

Amusingly enough, coming back to the same timed train last week, it was 10 minutes late at Stevenage, still 10 minutes late by the time it got to Peterborough, and then left 8 minutes late. Maybe they skip stopped it today because the controller on duty had a different view on things, maybe it's because the right time departures are more important now that it is going through the core (less important at the moment if they are going to loose a whole load of time at Finsbury park whilst waiting for a driver).

 

[jfisher21]

Happy to say the 0616 London bridge (0508 Brighton) - Cambridge ran this morning. Caught it from london bridge - st pancras, very empty, much nicer than the tube, thanks Thameslink!

 

[Hadders]

Something will have to be done. There is local fury about this, and looking at local news we already have MPs on the case.

I wonder how easy it would be to revert to the old timetable? The VTEC/HT/GC service is barely changed from the old timetable (it's surprising how little alteration was necessary here to fit in such a radical change), but I'm less sure how much has changed at Cambridge and Peterborough to accommodate things.

There is no way this should have been brought in when the driver training was clearly nowhere near ready. This should have been known about (how can GTR and Horton be *so* disconnected from reality predicting "minimal" effect on the service as recently as the weekend?).

I agree. I too wonder about the feasibility of reinstating the old timetable as an 'Emergency Timetable'.

 

[bramling]

Amusingly enough, coming back to the same timed train last week, it was 10 minutes late at Stevenage, still 10 minutes late by the time it got to Peterborough, and then left 8 minutes late. Maybe they skip stopped it today because the controller on duty had a different view on things, maybe it's because the right time departures are more important now that it is going through the core (less important at the moment if they are going to loose a whole load of time at Finsbury park whilst waiting for a driver).

You're probably right that it's now very important to try to have things right time, not just in the core but across the board. Before even if a service continued to run late into its next trip sooner or later there would be a turnround.

Non-stopping on GN was pretty rare until the last couple of years, although there has been an increase recently. A few weeks ago when I was working nights in London IIRC I experienced skip stopping on 4 out of 6 trips into London. This was unheard of a few years ago - under National Express and FCC generally things just ran on time!

I seem to remember reading on here a couple of years back how services would be able to recover up to 10 minutes in the core alone. I'd love to know how, and I think this week shows this isn't the case - indeed late-running services seem to have been losing a further couple of minutes in the core if anything -- and this is without the 24tph.

 

[hwl]

I agree. I too wonder about the feasibility of reinstating the old timetable as an 'Emergency Timetable'.

More likely that an emergency timetable would cull stops* and services like Southern did in Jan 2015 at London Bridge and Connex did 17+ years ago.

*And reinstate at the last minute if running to time

 

[Bishopstone]

I wonder how easy it would be to revert to the old timetable? The VTEC/HT/GC service is barely changed from the old timetable (it's surprising how little alteration was necessary here to fit in such a radical change), but I'm less sure how much has changed at Cambridge and Peterborough to accommodate things.

I wonder, does platform capacity exist at Kings Cross and London Bridge (‘low level’) to split the Peterborough-Horsham service north and south, in the current cross-London timings?

But if the problem is chronic lack of driver route knowledge, then to my naive non-railway mind, the painful solution is to run fewer trains and re-task the ‘spare’ drivers with learning their new roads.

Have a summer training blitz; re-cast the driver diagrams so they are robust; in the interim run a reduced but reliable service, and be ready to re-launch when the schools return in early September.

 

[Silver Cobra]

More likely that an emergency timetable would cull stops* and services like Southern did in Jan 2015 at London Bridge and Connex did 17+ years ago.

*And reinstate at the last minute if running to time

Arlesey and Sandy have often been the two stations north of Hitchin to have their stops removed when skipping stops has happened in the past. So it makes me wonder if both stations could see a reduction to one service per hour during an emergency timetable, or even complete withdrawal of service if it is deemed necessary...

 

[hwl]

I don't think it was an infrastructure issue. More likely it was to try to bring the service as close to being back on time by the time it reached Peterborough as possible (it went from 15 down at Stevenage to 6 down at Huntingdon), as the following service did call at all stations between Stevenage and Huntingdon. Looking at RTT, several late-running Peterborough services in the last few hours have either skipped various stops between Finsbury Park and Peterborough or been cancelled, and the same with some Cambridge services, including one that only stopped at Foxton after Finsbury Park.

However there was an IEP meant to be doing a fast test run stuck immediately behind this Thameslink service so there may be more to it than just TL issues...

 

[Silver Cobra]

However there was an IEP meant to be doing a fast test run stuck immediately behind this Thameslink service so there may be more to it than just TL issues...

That's true. I did see a plain 9-car IEP run through Huntingdon on the fast line just before the delayed service I was on left the station.

 

[Nevasleep]

Just had my own 'fun' with the new Thameslink services today with a simple return trip from Arlesey to Stevenage to see Solo: A Star Wars Story at the local cinema. There were no issues with the outbound journey, with the train being on time both departing Arlesey and arriving into Stevenage. The return journey, on the other hand, was completely different. The 1344 departure from Stevenage was running around 15 mintues late by the time it arrived. Around 2 minutes after leaving Stevenage, the driver says over the tannoy:

"I know you all probably don't want to hear this, but I've just been informed that this train will now be stopping next at Huntingdon. It will no longer be stopping at Hitchin, Arlesey, Biggleswade, Sandy or St Neots. I'm really sorry about this. Any passengers for Hitchin, Arlesey, Biggleswade, Sandy or St Neots stations will need to catch a service from Huntingdon back to these stations. Once again, I'm very sorry about this".

So cue an unexpected trip up to Huntingdon and a lot of angry passengers. A replacement bus was brought in for passengers heading to St Neots, Sandy and Biggleswade, but anyone travelling to Arlesey and Hitchin were advised to wait on the platform for the next train. As such, I ended up having to wait for around 45-50 minutes for the next southbound service back to Arlesey (the 1441 departure was already cancelled as part of the timetable introduction, so the next service was the 1511 departure).

Ouch. Really poor they couldn't make the decision at Stevenage either.

 

[LdnNiko]

Just a mess. Again.

When should we expect the timetable to actually be of any use to passengers?

 

[Ianno87]

I agree. I too wonder about the feasibility of reinstating the old timetable as an 'Emergency Timetable'.

Highly unlikely - as well as everything beimg so tied together...

1) It's well known that train planning resources are highly stretched at the moment. Rolling back a timetable is not as simple as flicking a switch - it involves undoing all the background data changes (running times, planning margins, driver diagrams, stock positioning - all of which will have been extensively revised) - a herculean task in itself

2) It's unlikely there will be a timetable slot at London Bridge?, for example, to 'just' stick the Horsham-P'bro in there instead, all the metro area services have been recast with longer turnrounds for resilience...which means less spare platform space for 'additions'. Undo that, and you undo the entire Sussex Metro which *seems* to be doing fairly well.

3) The biggest wider impact of the timetable change was on East Midlands Trains, who will have significantly amended timetables over for the summer (for multiple stages) for Derby remodelling, based on May 18 as a base plan. I doubt its feasible to redo these again within the necessary timescales based on the 'old' timetable

 

[sefton]

I'm not surprised that passengers were angry, couldn't the train have run as booked to Peterborough and skipped some stops on the return journey to recover time? At least the situation would be known from the outset.

Just reading on Twitter they tried to turn a stopping train into a fast train at Hitchin and instructing anyone for an intermediate station off.

Apparently the passengers rebelled and refused leading to a further 10 minute delay until Govia gave up and ran the train as planned.

 

[bramling]

Highly unlikely - as well as everything beimg so tied together...

1) It's well known that train planning resources are highly stretched at the moment. Rolling back a timetable is not as simple as flicking a switch - it involves undoing all the background data changes (running times, planning margins, driver diagrams, stock positioning - all of which will have been extensively revised) - a herculean task in itself

2) It's unlikely there will be a timetable slot at London Bridge?, for example, to 'just' stick the Horsham-P'bro in there instead, all the metro area services have been recast with longer turnrounds for resilience...which means less spare platform space for 'additions'. Undo that, and you undo the entire Sussex Metro which *seems* to be doing fairly well.

3) The biggest wider impact of the timetable change was on East Midlands Trains, who will have significantly amended timetables over for the summer (for multiple stages) for Derby remodelling, based on May 18 as a base plan. I doubt its feasible to redo these again within the necessary timescales based on the 'old' timetable

I don't think there's any prospect of rolling back to the entire old timetable, but on the GN side it wouldn't be that hard. Failing that, we've been told on here many times how easy it is to divert the Thameslink service into/out of King's Cross (*).

(* which most of us knew was utter rubbish).

 

[Class 466]

Thameslink haven’t run anything towards the Medway towns since 1341 ex BFR. and the rest are caped for the day bar the 2311 currently. So in essence- there will only be 1 unit at best there for tomorrow Morning. Higham has been the real loser out of all this. Southeastern should intervene and call there to end this abandonment of passengers really.

 

[Ianno87]

I don't think there's any prospect of rolling back to the entire old timetable, but on the GN side it wouldn't be that hard. Failing that, we've been told on here many times how easy it is to divert the Thameslink service into/out of King's Cross (*).

(* which most of us knew was utter rubbish).

That's fine (ish) for GN...but what do you do with the other end of the schedules to Brighton and Horsham - they won't necessarily be schedulable into London Bridge instead for the reasons I've stated.

And for King's Cross, there's a difference between diverting into Kings Cross on a planned basis (which requires a compliant timetable) and an unplanned basis (when the signallers make it work on the day but would never actually be timetableable as such)

 

[Antman]

Thameslink haven’t run anything towards the Medway towns since 1341 ex BFR. and the rest are caped for the day bar the 2311 currently. So in essence- there will only be 1 unit at best there for tomorrow Morning. Higham has been the real loser out of all this. Southeastern should intervene and call there to end this abandonment of passengers really.

It's ridiculous that Higham passengers are having to make do with a bus service when there are two HS trains an hour passing through in each direction.

 

[bramling]

That's fine (ish) for GN...but what do you do with the other end of the schedules to Brighton and Horsham - they won't necessarily be schedulable into London Bridge instead for the reasons I've stated.

Find a way to make it work or cancel them (many already are!).

 

[Antman]

Just reading on Twitter they tried to turn a stopping train into a fast train at Hitchin and instructing anyone for an intermediate station off.

Apparently the passengers rebelled and refused leading to a further 10 minute delay until Govia gave up and ran the train as planned.

I don't blame the passengers at all, just feel sorry for the staff who get all the flack rather than the person responsible!

 

[ungreat]

One thing I'll give Thameslink credit for is that they did reinstate a cancelled service as a result of these delays. The 1524 Peterborough-Horsham service (1541 from Huntingdon) was originally displaying as cancelled at Huntingdon while I was waiting there for my southbound service back to Arlesey. About 5-10 minutes before heading south, I saw an empty 12-car 700 pass through the station towards Peterborough. By the time I got to Arlesey, that service (1604 from Arlesey) was now listed as 'On Time' rather than cancelled.

It wasnt reinstated because of that...it.was reinstated as it was originally thought there was no relief crew at Finsbury Park. It transpired there was. So it ran. I know this because I was it!

 

[Ianno87]

Find a way to make it work or cancel them (many already are!).

Of course, so simple. Don't quite know how I didn't think of that.

 

[Silver Cobra]

It wasnt reinstated because of that...it.was reinstated as it was originally thought there was no relief crew at Finsbury Park. It transpired there was. So it ran. I know this because I was it!

Ah, that's fair enough. Nevertheless, it was good to see a service being reinstated bucking the usual trend of services being cancelled.

 

[Failed Unit]

Is it coincidence that Thameslink is dead this evening and great northern is actually ok? Or just luck great northern is working for the first time this week.

66% on outer
75% on inner.

Fairly good for once.

 

[bramling]

Is it coincidence that Thameslink is dead this evening and great northern is actually ok? Or just luck great northern is working for the first time this week.

I wouldn't say GN has had a good day. Apart from many cancellations, there's been some pretty hefty late running, mainly on services to and from the core. The KX-Cambridge looks to have been reasonably okay though.

 

[bramling]

Of course, so simple. Don't quite know how I didn't think of that.

It's not like the service is any use to anyone in its current unreliable form, so at least the GN could have some form of reliable service back. We're only talking about 3tph on the southern side having to be found some way of being run.