What’s going on with Thameslink?

[bramling]

Baldock is normally the last station you can get a seat, Letchworth onwards its standing only in the morning peak.

It’s incredible they’re still running only 8-cars on the 387s. I believe there are going to be a few 12-cars in December, albeit not on Mondays and Fridays (does it *really* give that much of a saving not running these on two days, versus the extra diagramming complexity?).

 

[MikeWM]

It’s incredible they’re still running only 8-cars on the 387s. I believe there are going to be a few 12-cars in December, albeit not on Mondays and Fridays (does it *really* give that much of a saving not running these on two days, versus the extra diagramming complexity?).

But they've only got enough 387s to run an hourly shuttle between Cambridge and Kings Lynn right now, if GTR are to be believed No wonder there are no 12-cars running!

On a more serious note, I've been on precisely one 387 service in the last two years that was 12-car - 8 north of Cambridge, and then picked up another 4 at Cambridge. I think it was a Sunday morning service, probably either the 0957 or 1057 off Ely.

I'd agree from observation that Monday and Friday are considerably quieter than the mid-week days, but it does seem a bit over-complex to have different lengths of train on different days. Personally I'm moving around a lot in which days I go to the office, but on average Monday, Tuesday, Friday are the most likely.

 

[bramling]

But they've only got enough 387s to run an hourly shuttle between Cambridge and Kings Lynn right now, if GTR are to be believed No wonder there are no 12-cars running!

On a more serious note, I've been on precisely one 387 service in the last two years that was 12-car - 8 north of Cambridge, and then picked up another 4 at Cambridge. I think it was a Sunday morning service, probably either the 0957 or 1057 off Ely.

I think there have always been some at weekends. Without having a look, I presume it’s still the case that weekend schedules are still largely untouched since 2019. Apart from the 0456 Letchworth to King’s Cross which I occasionally use (arranging to be picked up and taken home by car for the return journey), I gave up on GN at weekends long ago!

EDIT, just had a look and September’s cuts indeed seem to affect Saturday as well. So not just weekdays.

I'd agree from observation that Monday and Friday are considerably quieter than the mid-week days, but it does seem a bit over-complex to have different lengths of train on different days. Personally I'm moving around a lot in which days I go to the office, but on average Monday, Tuesday, Friday are the most likely.

It just really doesn’t seem worth the bother to save a tiny number of unit miles. The September GN cuts seem to be all about this though. A handful of Letchworth/Cambridge trips, a couple of London/Cambridge evening runs and a tiny number of early morning or late evening services reducing in length doesn’t seem to add up to much in the grand scheme of things though, especially as it is leaving then exposed in terms of units seeing Hornsey. It feels more like being seen (by DFT) to have done *something*, rather than a serious cost cutting exercise. That said, I’d rather they cut the 2Cxx services north of Letchworth right through the day and increased the number of peak Baldock or Peterborough services, in the former’s case from their current grand total of zero!

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It just really doesn’t seem worth the bother to save a tiny number of unit miles. The September GN cuts seem to be all about this though. A handful of Letchworth/Cambridge trips, a couple of London/Cambridge evening runs and a tiny number of early morning or late evening services reducing in length doesn’t seem to add up to much in the grand scheme of things though, especially as it is leaving then exposed in terms of units seeing Hornsey. It feels more like being seen (by DFT) to have done *something*, rather than a serious cost cutting exercise. That said, I’d rather they cut the 2Cxx services north of Letchworth right through the day and increased the number of peak Baldock or Peterborough services, in the former’s case from their current grand total of zero!

Can't imagine they will do much in December so we will have to wait for May 23 now.

 

[Envy123]

It is a commuter service for Cambridge just as much as London. Between Cambridge and Kings Lynn it gets very busy with commuters and locals. Cambridge is exploding and many people cant afford to live in the city so are now communing in from Ely & Downham Market.

In addition its also much quicker to take the train from these places than drive to Cambridge as the roads are so poor. Its a well used service all day!

Understood. Didn’t know about the roads being that bad.

 

[bramling]

Can't imagine they will do much in December so we will have to wait for May 23 now.

December brings something like three Cambridge to London fasts per peak lengthening to 12 cars, and one Peterborough each way, seemingly Tuesdays to Thursdays only. Naff all else bar some further tinkering early morning / late night.

 

[Bald Rick]

I can picture him insisting there are “eight trains an hour between London and Cambridge”. Another opportunity for him to humiliate himself!

he’d be so wrong as there’s at least 10 in most hours!

 

[bramling]

he’d be so wrong as there’s at least 10 in most hours!

Certainly some scope for a TV debate on this one!

I presume your 10 is 2x 9Sxx, 1x 2Cxx plus 2x GA, in both directions adding up to 10. Last week that figure would have been 16 I do believe.

 

[Steve Harris]

Understood. Didn’t know about the roads being that bad.

I thought that was why "streetview" was invented !

The only real alternative to the A10 is the A142 to Newmarket (a normal road) then the A14 (dual carriageway), but then your with everyone commuting in from Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds. And of course, it's a longer route than the A10 ! (The other alternative is driving through all the villages, which is probably worse).

On a more serious note, the trains to/from Cambridge are only going to get busier once the Cambridge congestion charge comes in (and IMHO I can see it happening, even if it's been talked about for longer than I can remember).

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

December brings something like three Cambridge to London fasts per peak lengthening to 12 cars, and one Peterborough each way, seemingly Tuesdays to Thursdays only. Naff all else bar some further tinkering early morning / late night.

Interesting that its a Tues-Friday service and makes sense to only provide it when demand it is and must help on driver rostering.

 

[bramling]

Interesting that its a Tues-Friday service and makes sense to only provide it when demand it is and must help on driver rostering.

There’s a small number of additional positioning moves required, at Peterborough and Cambridge, plus one to Hornsey. I wonder if on Mondays and Fridays the duty is amended to simply have the driver sitting spare for that time. In times past GN did run a couple of additional services late on Friday evenings, so it isn’t entirely unprecedented.

 

[philjo]

Baldock is normally the last station you can get a seat, Letchworth onwards its standing only in the morning peak.

I was on the 0654 Cambridge to Brighton service this morning (12 coaches)
The train loading indicator was showing yellow (standing room only) for several coaches after leaving Letchworth. After Stevenage about 6 coaches were showing orange (“carriage full”). The rest were yellow. Not seen a TL train north of Hitchin that busy for some time.

One of the problems of the 8 coach fast services - normally if the preceding 12 coach Brighton service is cancelled then it is harder to accommodate everyone on the next fast service at Letchworth.

 

[Envy123]

I thought that was why "streetview" was invented !

The only real alternative to the A10 is the A142 to Newmarket (a normal road) then the A14 (dual carriageway), but then your with everyone commuting in from Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds. And of course, it's a longer route than the A10 ! (The other alternative is driving through all the villages, which is probably worse).

On a more serious note, the trains to/from Cambridge are only going to get busier once the Cambridge congestion charge comes in (and IMHO I can see it happening, even if it's been talked about for longer than I can remember).

Right - I'm used to the better roads near Huntingdon and Peterborough, and naively thought that it'd be similar further north in the county.

 

[bramling]

So we decided to give GN/TL a go with a short local journey earlier today.

Checking before leaving home, desired train 20 minutes late. No use getting a subsequent one as it would have made us half an hour late, not viable to leave half an hour earlier, and we didn’t want to be 20 minutes late for our engagement (with the added risk on top of that of the train skipping stops). So car it was.

To be honest my local station might as well be made into a chocolate teapot garden, for all the use it is to anyone.

I’m realistic enough to realise there will be disruption from time to time, but nowadays it’s *every* time one tries to use the service.

 

[TheDavibob]

Ironically Cambridge and Cambridge North get a better service tomorrow than previously due to Engineering Work (between Cam North and Downham, so the fasts are back to Kings Cross, though not certain this scheduled service will happen).

The Ely - Kings Cross fast supposedly returns from Monday to complement the Cambridge - Lynn shuttle. That this should have been the original service reduction is possibly beside the point.

 

[43066]

So we decided to give GN/TL a go with a short local journey earlier today.

Checking before leaving home, desired train 20 minutes late. No use getting a subsequent one as it would have made us half an hour late, not viable to leave half an hour earlier, and we didn’t want to be 20 minutes late for our engagement. So car it was.

To be honest my local station might as well be made into a chocolate teapot garden, for all the use it is to anyone.

I’m realistic enough to realise there will be disruption from time to time, but nowadays it’s *every* time one tries to use the service.

Not good! The MML side seems to be holding up rather better than the GN side.

 

[bramling]

Not good! The MML side seems to be holding up rather better than the GN side.

Interestingly, when we went for our curry, the owner commented “how come I never see you walking to the station nowadays?”. A discussion ensued, during which he commented that many people are moaning about the service and “why couldn’t they just leave the service as it always was”. Quite.

To be fair, I think we were slightly unfortunate today, as most of today’s service seems to have been fine. But the point is that this is no use if the required service doesn’t run or runs late. There seems to be an attitude here among some that things are frequent enough to just get the next service, or the one before. This simply isn’t always viable.

 

[MikeWM]

The Ely - Kings Cross fast supposedly returns from Monday to complement the Cambridge - Lynn shuttle. That this should have been the original service reduction is possibly beside the point.

I think that is rather the point! But at least it means a more reasonable service again, and a reduction in reliance on the rather busy GA Norwich-Stansted services (not helped when GA decide to put their 3 carriage trains on the route rather than the 4 carriage ones, which they did on at least two diagrams on Thursday).

I wonder if someone of influence pointed out to them that the current service was unacceptable. Or, perhaps more likely, even they managed to realise that the current service was going to be wholly inadequate when it seems likely a lot more people than usual will be heading to London next week.

 

[jon0844]

Perhaps now Shapps has been booted out he can put a bit of effort in on behalf of his constituents to sort out GN

Surely the DfT meddling is what has caused the reduction in services since September 4th? And that as trains go off lease there are no immediate plans to replace them - and talk of short forming trains again (as said by someone else, the 700s are a problem for the DfT, but it should almost guarantee now that no 8s will ever be extended to 12s).

The question is whether the new person might actually seek to reverse this trend, which I assume will be replicated all over the UK in December and next May given half a chance. Despite the Government continuing to convince everyone that working from home is bad, and will cost you a gazillion pounds a day in higher energy costs etc.

 

[Magdalen Road]

I think that is rather the point! But at least it means a more reasonable service again, and a reduction in reliance on the rather busy GA Norwich-Stansted services (not helped when GA decide to put their 3 carriage trains on the route rather than the 4 carriage ones, which they did on at least two diagrams on Thursday).

I wonder if someone of influence pointed out to them that the current service was unacceptable. Or, perhaps more likely, even they managed to realise that the current service was going to be wholly inadequate when it seems likely a lot more people than usual will be heading to London next week.

An unpleasant journey that was on the Norwich 3 carriage too. There were people crammed into the toilet cubicle. It didn't help that it coincided with the college students being back.

I'm really concerned about the next couple of weeks - as you posted MikeWM, presumably there will be thousands of people travelling to / from London. The service would struggle to cope with normal provision.

 

[MikeWM]

Well, the 0947 off Ely was back today, and on time, which was an improvement over most of my journeys over the last 6 weeks or so. I guess GN looked down the back of the sofa and found some 387s and some drivers that they somehow had managed to lose for a week if their statements last week were to be believed - though we all know better than to believe them by now.

The bizarre side-effect of the Ely terminators now running, but Kings Lynn services remaining as a shuttle to Cambridge and trimmed south of there, is that there are hourly off-peak fasts again between Cambridge and London, but none in the peaks!

 

[Magdalen Road]

Well, the 0947 off Ely was back today, and on time, which was an improvement over most of my journeys over the last 6 weeks or so. I guess GN looked down the back of the sofa and found some 387s and some drivers that they somehow had managed to lose for a week if their statements last week were to be believed - though we all know better than to believe them by now.

The bizarre side-effect of the Ely terminators now running, but Kings Lynn services remaining as a shuttle to Cambridge and trimmed south of there, is that there are hourly off-peak fasts again between Cambridge and London, but none in the peaks!

Yesterday the Nat Rail journey planner was showing the 0516 Ely to CBG only, no 0613, then a direct Ely - King's Cross at 0642 but looking at RTT it doesn't look like this 0642 ran. Tomorrow's journey planner didn't look like it has been updated yet. I'm ill so haven't commuted today (stress from not knowing if I'll get to work has probably contributed to this) so will have to see what happens. No peak fasts doesn't help much!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Sep 2022 ==


Posted below on 15/9/22 at 1145am but has been automerged with my post from Monday and I don't know how to undo it.

Right, so now the disruption to the Fen Line has been extended to at least 25th September *and* passengers are having their delay repay claims turned down.
On twitter, one is told it's because 'timetable of the day', despite last week, customer services advised that one *could* claim.
This is dreadful.

 

[Watershed]

Posted below on 15/9/22 at 1145am but has been automerged with my post from Monday and I don't know how to undo it.

Right, so now the disruption to the Fen Line has been extended to at least 25th September *and* passengers are having their delay repay claims turned down.
On twitter, one is told it's because 'timetable of the day', despite last week, customer services advised that one *could* claim.
This is dreadful.

It's yet another example of why the purported "Timetable of the Day" exception is absolutely unacceptable and should never have been allowed to be introduced.

 

[Magdalen Road]

It's yet another example of why the purported "Timetable of the Day" exception is absolutely unacceptable and should never have been allowed to be introduced.

Agree, it's appalling customer service. This week I've been off sick, so haven't had to put up with it, but most of the claims from last week were paid. So why have they changed approach this week?
I suspect that the engineering works could be months' worth of work; doing 5+hours (addition not be choice) of commuting on top of a working day is too much.

 

[MikeWM]

It's yet another example of why the purported "Timetable of the Day" exception is absolutely unacceptable and should never have been allowed to be introduced.

Absolutely so. To bring in a different hobby-horse of mine, it is something that would be a lot more difficult to do if everyone was still consulting a paper timetable. Removing printed timetables and instead trying to make everyone use journey planners has made this sort of thing far more possible than it would otherwise would have been.

How can one even try to make a delay repay claim for a cancelled service anymore? How are you supposed to know *when* it was cancelled, and therefore whether it is applicable for delay repay or not?

 

[WizCastro197]

Poor Earlswood. Yet again there seems to be little to no service...
They might as well close the station permanently with the amount of disruptions it had received within the past month or so!

 

[Surreytraveller]

Poor Earlswood. Yet again there seems to be little to no service...
They might as well close the station permanently with the amount of disruptions it had received within the past month or so!

Points failure at Redhill. You cannot get to Earlswood

 

[GordonT]

Points failure at Redhill. You cannot get to Earlswood

Why does this general area appear to be the railway equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle in terms of frequency of disruption?

 

[Minstral25]

Why does this general area appear to be the railway equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle in terms of frequency of disruption?

Total lack of investment as treated like a little used branch line for Maintenance? Probably not but it does feel that way and Thameslink seem to consider stations they provide 75-90% of service at as Southern stations in management terms so don't care if trains don't call, it someone else's problems (and yes, I know Southern and Thameslink are effectively the same company sharing resources but in operational management they are not)

Also, Go-ahead owns the local buses so are really happy to have Rail passengers fill them up to create more income.

 

[GordonT]

Total lack of investment as treated like a little used branch line for Maintenance? Probably not but it does feel that way and Thameslink seem to consider stations they provide 75-90% of service at as Southern stations in management terms so don't care if trains don't call, it someone else's problems (and yes, I know Southern and Thameslink are effectively the same company sharing resources but in operational management they are not)

Also, Go-ahead owns the local buses so are really happy to have Rail passengers fill them up to create more income.

Wonder if it points to weak regional infrastructure management or the operators not stamping their feet hard enough when NR lets them down? The Monopolies & Mergers Commission (or whatever it's called these days) is supposed to exercise control over the scenario which you describe but has/had a reputation for homing in on theoretical irrelevances and failing to act in genuine cases of market dominance.