Some species of American cicadas have evolved a strange ability: they have synchronised lifecycles lasting prime number lengths of years. For the cicadas this is an advantage – it helps them evade the development of specialist predators. For nearby farmers and the environment, however, it can be anything but – some years it means the sudden emergence of an overwhelming number of adults at the same time, seemingly without warning.
Sometimes National Rail timetable changes have a lot in common with cicadas.
In most years timetable changes are relatively minor. Some passengers are affected and services are reshaped, but the overall shape of the national timetable remains the same. Occasionally, however, the railway cicadas emerge. May 2018 is one such event. The changes rolled out on Sunday 20th May represent the biggest combined set of timetable changes since railway privatisation in the 1990s. Indeed the betting here at LR Towers is that they probably represent the biggest set of changes since nationalisation and the formation of British Rail in 1948.
Why is May 2018 so different?
Normally Train Operating Companies (TOCs) make only minor changes to their timetables. Often they simply represent an attempt to improve reliability of services or to introduce any additional services that they promised during the bidding process for the franchise. Occasionally, however, more drastic changes are required. They happen when the previous timetable isn’t working reliably any more, or new trains or infrastructure allow the operator to run more, faster or different services.
What’s different this year is that for many TOCs nationally both of these drastic reasons have aligned at exactly the same time.
In the case of the former, the growth of passenger numbers since privatisation has led to increased dwell times at stations. More passengers need to alight and board, and that means the trains are spending longer in stations. For decades the assumption has been that 30 seconds should be enough time to unload and load at a small suburban stations, but data (and experience) has increasingly shown that in many locations this no longer holds true. This has been leading to services building up delays along their routes, arriving at their final destination late and – because an inbound service naturally tends to then become an outbound – often not departing as the next service on time. Indeed one of the most noticeable consequences of these timetable changes in the London area is that many suburban stations will now have minimum dwell time of 1 minute, unless they are very quiet.
In the case of the later, we are at the peak of a wave of record spending on infrastructure and new trains in the UK. For the first time, both the infrastructure and trains are in place to allow more and longer trains to run on some key lines for faster journeys on others.
Hello Thameslink our old friend…
The above means that virtually all of the timetables and train times across Great Britain will be revised, in some way, over the next 2 years. The biggest single change, however, happens now. This is because Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), the largest UK TOC (covering about 18.5% of the total GB passengers numbers) are completely rewriting the timetable.
Those changes cover the times of all of GTR’s trains across all of the company’s four ‘brands’ – Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express. This then has knock on effects at other TOCs that interact with GTR services – either opening up the opportunity for those TOCs to make changes of their own or requiring them to minimise conflicts and issues.
For Thameslink alone, this means changes at East Midland Trains (EMT), South Eastern (SET) and Virgin East Coast (VTEC). Meanwhile GTR’s Southern interacts with London Overground, resulting in major timetable rewrites at TfL too.
Although less of concern here at LR Towers, timetables in Northern England and Scotland are being rewritten on similar scale to the GTR, so there are major changes occurring at TOCs there too. Indeed by our calculation, over 55% of GB passengers will be affected just by the changes listed above, and this excludes the many minor changes taking place within other TOCs too.
The cicadas, it seems, have very much taken flight.
Too many lines, too few minds
The scale of the changes occurring at the same time is practically unprecedented. It has certainly meant that planning resources at Network Rail and the TOCs have been stretched extremely thin. The overall complexity of the planning exercise is astounding, not just due to the scale of the timetable changes that are all occurring at once, but because the franchise system naturally means different TOCs are trying to implement different, sometimes incompatible plans in parallel. On top of this sits the normal need to manage all the temporary timetable changes required for upgrades and engineering work.
All this has meant there has, unavoidably and despite the efforts of all involved, been less pre-checking and oversight than is normal at stages within the process this May. This has, in some cases, resulted in timetables being finalised just over a day before the change, as opposed to the normal industry standard of 12 weeks. In that environment, it seems inevitable that some commuter journeys for the coming weeks are going to be less than smooth.
Learning Lessons on Thameslink – a change of phase
Operating the Thameslink Core from St Pancras to Blackfriars at the full frequency of 24tph was always recognised as likely to be a considerable challenge. The original plan was to have a phased implementation, with 20tph through the core from May 2018 and the full 24tph from December 2018. This plan survived many iterations of what the destinations of the Thameslink services would actually be until a relatively late stage in November 2017.
At this point, the decision was made to phase the introduction of Thameslink services in 4 phases, each 6 months apart in 2018 and 2019, rather than just 2 phases in 2018.
This decision was the result of an independent review by the Thameslink Programmme Industry Readiness Board, chaired by Chris Gibb (A second ‘Gibb report’ of sorts). The rephrasing came with a new brand: “Railplan2020”.
This branding was both pragmatic and (we suspect) a slight nod to the past. It clearly acknowledged that it would be December 2019 – so in reality 2020 – before the plan was fully implemented. Indeed as we shall see later due to some unintended side effects at East Midlands Trains it won’t be till late in 2020 that everything is actually in place if everything goes to plan. It also seemed to be a self-aware reference to the original Thameslink Programme name Thameslink 2000.
Making a change on this scale was not something that was done lightly. As Gibb’s report laid bare, it was something of a necessity for a number of reasons some of which could have been anticipated but others of which were out of the operator’s hands.
A lack of drivers
Gibb identified that there weren’t just insufficient drivers available overall, but also not enough in the right locations or with the right route training to enable the number of services GTR intended to be run.
This lack of drivers actually predates the GTR franchise. Both the previous incumbents (First Capital Connect and Govia’s Southern) informed the DfT almost six years ago that the department would need to fund a ramp up in driver recruitment and training to prevent a major driver shortfall. They were informed then that would prevent the services being run as intended both during, and after, the London Bridge rebuild.
Training drivers, however, isn’t as simple as passing them out on simulators. It requires extensive instruction and real time on real trains. The lack of existing capacity to train large numbers of drivers at the same time required a programme to increase driver training capacity was required as well.
Even though steps have been taken to correct this, changes in Thameslink routes with fewer “Southern” destinations as a result of changing plans (ie not Caterham or Tattenham Corner) and more “SouthEastern” destinations (ie Rainham via Greenwich and Ashford/ Maidstone East via London Bridge) have had a major impact. Train drivers can’t simply turn up and drive any train – they need to understand and be cleared for, the routes that they drive. These changes have resulted in drivers being required in different location to those originally planned or even where drivers had been hired.
Although some of the blame for the above will likely be laid at GTR’s door, to a certain extent they are also victims of issues at the DfT. The biggest indicator of that is perhaps that many of the driver issues can be traced back to the GTR franchise bid having too few drivers specified. Yet this is partially the result of a DfT error in the numbers given to bidders. GTR’s assumptions were based on those numbers.
Rolling stock, infrastructure and other issues
Whilst driver issues were the most visible problem that forced the phasing shift, they were not the only ones.
Later than planned delivery and acceptance of the new rolling stock has caused issues too, meaning less new stock available to train drivers on and less new stock to swap existing services to. Most critically, on the services due to transfer from Southern, Great Northern or SouthEastern to Thameslink to in advance of the timetable changes.
Gibb also identified that there was the lack of a viable timetable. None of the four bidders for the franchise submitted a viable proposed timetable with their bids. GTR’s happened to be the least worst. Nonetheless, it required a lot of changes to produce a viable timetable.
There were (and are) also infrastructure limitations on the “Southern” part of the Network (such as Windmill Bridge junction). These prevent running the originally planned 16tph from London Bridge to East Croydon meaning it is only possible to ‘launch’ with 12tph instead. There had also been delays to the delivery and testing of the Traffic Management System (an addition to the signalling system) which helps signallers better regulate services to ensure on time arrival at the Thameslink core.
Not all of the issues were (and indeed are) physical. This is a ‘cicada moment’ and that brings with it ‘soft’ problems too. The sheer scale of the changes – and the fact that they involve working with previously untried levels of frequency means more time will be required to establish service reliability. This includes passenger and driver familiarity after each set of changes, which is especially important at high frequencies and with tight timing margins in places. This is a lesson learnt from the January 2015 timetable changes at London Bridge.
Changes on such a scale also place a huge amount of pressure on the organisation making them, and Gibb concluded that GTR simply didn’t have the bandwidth to make lots of changes, to sufficiently high level of quality, at once.
Finally, shifting to a phased approach would allow the deferral of a ‘hidden’ change – the requirement to have Automatic Train Operation (ATO) working and used by all services. This is in itself a massive additional driver training requirement, in addition to all the technical challenges by 6 months from late 2018 to early 2019
Softly softly
Taking a phased approached wasn’t an entirely alien concept within GTR. In contrast to the big bang approach of January 2015, from January 2017 the operator had followed the small incremental changes approach with weekly or fortnightly changes when addition infrastructure became available on the approaches to London Bridge. Over three months the performance gradually improved as drivers and signallers got more familiar with the new infrastructure, with typical journey times on departure from London Bridge to New Cross Gate (stopping or passing as appropriate) falling by 90 seconds.
Post-Gibb, in January 2018 the same gradual build up approach has been followed. GTR started training drivers on the newly rebuilt route through London Bridge and then operating some Bedford – Brighton services through, but not stopping, at London Bridge. This was followed by stopping at London Bridge (unadvertised), then ramping up the number of services running via London Bridge as opposed to the slower route via Elephant and Castle and Crystal Palace. Eventually they were operating over 60 services daily in each direction via London Bridge before this May timetable change.
The gradual change approach will also continue in the weeks after this timetable change but for other reasons.
The official publicised one is that the logistics of making all the changes in one weekend were shown not to be possible during the planning phase. It was simply not possible to move trains to their new starting locations while still be properly cleaned and maintained, with the number of drivers available and engineering works going on over the weekend. Especially while running regular weekend services.
This is not untrue, and indeed unmentioned in the official reasoning is that due to the shortage of depot and stabling space GTR had to store just under 10% of the Thameslink class 700 fleet off the Thameslink network. This won’t have helped. But the official line does somewhat gloss over the underlying, and most important issues that Gibb’s report highlighted and which are still true now: there is still a significant shortage of trained drivers (either on the route, the rolling stock or both) in some areas. Especially those areas where there the decision had already been taken to delay the phased introduction due to driver shortages. That is, Greater Northern services on the ECML and the SouthEastern service.
It is this significant driver shortage that requires the implementation of the timetable changes on three of the nine Thameslink routes to be brought in over several weeks (according to GTR), although the betting money at LR Towers is that this implementation period may actually stretch into months in some cases.
Phasing those changes in
The table below show the current high level phased introduction of the Thameslink service changes and the gradually phased introduction of the May changes.
The gradual phased introduction on routes TL5 Peterborough – Horsham (driver training issues in GN areas) and TL9 & 10 Luton to Rainham / Orpington (driver shortages and training issues in SE areas) will likely trigger the largest headlines in the coming weeks. This is because it has only been partly mitigated by GTR during the introductory phase. The TL5 services not running through the core, for example, will run into Kings Cross / London Bridge with some slight timing changes to make it work. This is possible because there are enough drivers to run trains on parts of this route, especially as the route being taken over by Thameslink is already operated by GTR.
The situation will be less good on the former Southeastern Routes, especially TL10 (Luton – Rainham) where the equivalent service south of the Thames was operated until Saturday by SouthEastern. This route was one of two late additions (the other being TL7 whose introduction is deferred till December 2019 as it has the double whammy of a GN route connected to a SE route with the significant driver shortages in both areas) to the Thameslink plan intended to reduce the number of Thameslink trains heading through the capacity bottleneck at Windmill Bridge Junction to East Croydon.
As this was a late addition, the hiring and training of extra drivers also started late. Worse, LR sources suggest it then proceeded with no great haste. This has resulted in a shortage of Thameslink drivers who know the route (stop us if you’ve heard this one before) the new class 700 rolling stock operating it or both. As it stands, many drivers either knowing part or all of the route but not the stock or vice versa, with great difficulties in getting enough drivers trained over a constrained route where the existing services were operated by another (albeit friendly) operator.
The result is a much-reduced peak service initially, with the hope within GTR that this will resolve itself in few weeks when GTR have actually been running the services themselves.
There is a risk this hope may turn out to be misplaced. GTR will be relying heavily on SouthEastern drivers to ‘pilot’ the Thameslink drivers, especially east of Dartford where the shortage is most acute. In an attempt to use the limited numbers of suitably trained drivers most effectively there will need to be up to 3 sets of trained drivers / pilots along the route (Luton – Blackfriars, Blackfriars – Dartford and Dartford – Rainham), which probably won’t do much for service reliability. Indeed Higham and Strood (east of Gravesend) where Thameslink is now the a significant operator receive a rail replacement bus service to Gravesend to help mitigate the expected poor service levels.
The reduced level of service is officially expected to last three weeks, but in reality it seems likely to last longer. Driver training issues can’t be resolved that quickly. Some of the new Thameslink drivers for the route were still working at Southeastern last week, so have route but not traction knowledge. A fragile service seems likely for a while to come till all the drivers are fully trained in every aspect.
A time for change but with some unintended consequences
All of this brings us back somewhat to the original question – why has it been necessary to make so many changes at the same time, particularly for GTR?
We looked at some of the reasons for the GTR changes in Govia go via Greenwich, though not necessarily the impacts and side effects. Making a workable Thameslink timetable required a complete reworking of the Southern (aka Sussex) and Midland Main line timetables, with the option of moderate or complete timetable changes at SouthEastern (SouthEastern opted to go big) and only slight timetable changes on the East Coast Mainline and branches.
GTR attempted to roll out as many of its original 2018 plans on the Southern network in the off-peak timetable changes in December 2015. This was to test the basis of its plan before they were applied to the more demanding and complex peak timetable. The main philosophy was to get a simpler, more robust timetable that was more resilient to falling over.
The implementation of this philosophy now sees many locations in Sussex and Surrey have services to or from either London Bridge or Victoria, whereas they might formerly have had a mixture of both, and a dramatic reduction in trains splitting or joining on route (of which Southern have been the national champions for a very long time). In London and North Surrey this philosophy sees a simplification of the metro service patterns, both peak and off peak, with a reduction from 20 service patterns off peak to 8. This brings with it a dramatic reduction in the interworking of drivers and trains between different service patterns, ie they are dedicated to the route for the shift /day respectively, which should massively improve reliability. The downside is that a significant number of users will now have to change on route, often with long waiting times. The remaining improvements to the Southern Metro services are reliant on further Thameslink changes taking place in December 2018 creating space to terminate extra services at London Bridge and Blackfriars.
Issues with descoping
On the Midland Main Line (MML), it wasn’t just the proposed Thameslink services driving the complete change to the timetable. It was also the now delayed and descoped electrification of the MML north of Bedford and the branch to Corby. The opportunity was going to be used to rejig the timetable to allow the existing service level of 15tph Thameslink and 5tph East Midlands Trains (EMT) to be increased to 16tph and 6tph, respectively. Two of the six hourly EMT services would then have been electric trains to Corby that would take over running EMT’s stopping services on the southern MML, allowing longer distance EMT services to Nottingham Derby and Sheffield to be sped up with the removal of stops.
For EMT the new timetable meant requiring more trains and drivers to run the existing service level of 5tph, due to retiming to allow longer layovers at termini, increased dwell times along the route to allow more time for increased passenger numbers to alight and board and no longer having the perfect optimisation for efficient use of rolling stock and staff on EMT services that the updated 1980s base timetable offered. Essentially, increased service levels would come at the cost of reduced efficiency.
Unfortunately, electrification to Corby has been delayed. So EMT are now attempting to run the existing service level, but in a more inefficient way, until electrification is complete and additional stock arrives. This has resulted in EMT removing Bedford and Luton calls from peak services (thus increasing loadings on Bedford Thameslink services and those passengers used to fast services journey times) in the interim. It has also required them to lease extra stock at short notice, which isn’t yet ready for use. This will lead to a small number of short formed services on EMT in the interim.
The knock-on effect for Thameslink (the first rule of British railway planning is that there will always be a knock on effect for Thameslink) is that they have had to remove stops (everything excluding Bedford, Luton and St Albans north of St Pancras) from TL2 in the peaks to provide alternative capacity for the removed EMT stops at Bedford and Luton. This will last till late 2020 and the introduction of the 2tph electric services between St Pancras and Corby (National Grid completing work for new electricity supply point being the limiting factor).
Unsurprisingly, this has left disgruntled passengers at the big stations of Luton and Bedford complaining about their downgraded experience (typically 11 minute longer journeys and having to travel on Thameslink) to MPs and local councils, who then started campaigning for the removal of stops of the Thameslink services to DfT, and then a second group of disgruntled users at smaller station complaining to the same MPs and local councils that they now had poorer train service than promised.
Some EMT users who live north of Bedford will now find themselves cut off from Bedford at peak times and having to use a rail replacement bus that takes significantly longer instead. To add injury to insult, one critical group of these users happen to be Thameslink drivers based at Bedford. It is perhaps unsurprising that some of these have been delighted to help EMT address their own increased driver requirement and remove their own issue of great difficulty getting to Bedford for work at certain times by switching TOC. This in itself then contributes to GTR’s driver recruitment and training issues yet again.
Meanwhile at SouthEastern and GWR…
At SouthEastern some of the changes have been enforced by the transfer of routes to Thameslink such as the Medway – Charing Cross service morphing into TL10 Luton – Rainham, but there has also been a route returning to SouthEastern. This is after a nine year spell operated by Thameslink during the rebuilding of Blackfriars and London Bridge stations. That service is the peak-only former-Bromley South to Blackfriars (originally Holborn Viaduct before its closure) to SouthEastern operation. The “withdrawal” and disappearance of this service (often in DfT’s top 10 most crowded in the UK list) from Thameslink led to many comments in the first timetable consultation, all due to GTR not communicating that it wasn’t disappearing at all – just transferring back to SouthEastern. It is also returning to it former service levels (5 trains per peak, up from typically 2 with Thameslink in later years).
SouthEastern also used the opportunity to make several other changes that should work quite well with the completed Thameslink timetable, but not so well in the interregnum. These were presumably all planned and settled before the phasing delays to Thameslink, and will unfortunately lead to gaps of 18 months rather than 6 months of misaligned services.
Some TOCs thought they were far enough away from the Thameslink Core not to get hit by the impact and GWR falls into this category. They have a franchise (direct award extension) commitment to improve service levels and patterns on the North Downs Line (services from Reading via Guildford to Redhill / Gatwick). The result was the GWR were having to change some of the times of their new timetable last week in order to make the overall timetable work, mostly as a result of not being aware of the new track layout and signalling at Redhill, and not keeping a close enough eye on the moveable object that the GTR timetable has become. This was combined with resources to check and recheck everything.
The cicadas take flight
As this article has hopefully helped demonstrate, the changes this May go well beyond what is usual for a timetable change. Nor are the effects entirely limited to what we have listed here. If you think you are immune just because you use the Underground then beware that some of the changes to introduce a more frequent London Overground service on the North London Line will affect District line timings on the Richmond branch.
Other London area passengers can look also forward to massive timetable changes at SWR in December 2018, GWR on 2nd January 2019 (delayed December 2018 changes) and Anglia, Crossrail / Elizabeth line, Virgin West Coast and London and West Midlands trains later in 2019.
The scale of those changes is largely deliberate and for good reasons. Headlines will be generated by the “but no one told me” brigade, but these will largely be unfair. A massive publicity campaign has taken place, as no one at the TOCs has been unaware of just how disruptive these changes were likely to be.
The far more justifiable headlines, however, will relate to the bad reasons for why this timetable is failing to run smoothly, and why some services are disappearing – many of which are well used by passengers. The long term consequence may well be a better GTR network, but neither the operator, Network Rail or the DfT can hide from the fact that many of the inconveniences, cancellations and delays that this timetable will initially bring can be traced back to logistics issues, planning failures and the non-delivery of works.
Most critically, we will be watching to see just how openly GTR own their driver issues. So far, the evidence seems to be that they won’t. Instead they will hide behind generic ‘operational incidents’ – even when, for example, that operational incident is actually a driver being accidentally sent down a route for which they haven’t been signed, or that no driver is available for a service at all.
Doing so will not play well to passengers and the media. It is one thing to acknowledge the flaws in your rollout and move to a phased approach, but this is only half the battle. To the majority of the travelling public issues of railway logistics are of no interest. What they care about is completing the journeys they need to make. Honesty won’t fix that, but it will at least help manage expectations.
LR is funded largely by its community. Like what we do? Then help us to do more!
There is of course no irony whatsoever given the complaints of GN users for years of potential performance pollution from issues on the MML, Thameslink core as well as south of the Thames to their services that most of the major issues causing disruption were GN related issues that then had knock on effects to others elsewhere on the GTR network elsewhere.
On Sunday the TL9 Services (Orpington-Kentish Town/Luton) services all seemed to be terminating at Blackfriars.
Was that due to works North of there or due to a shortage of drivers?
Southern Heights,
What makes you think these run on Sunday? I have found no evidence that they do.
@PoP: The table in the article… Before yesterday there were no services to Blackfriars at all on Sunday… I was up at the station anyway so decided to poke my head in….
Re SH (LR)
Blackfriars seem to be a fairly regular terminating point on Sundays in general for them.
It’s not just “Their driver issues”, either.
It is suprisingly difficult to find out (from the Thameslink website, at any rate) what trains are running, or not & how late they might be, if they are running at all, that is.
This is appears to be because of the usual assumptions made about web-sites these days, so that you have to go down several “rabbit holes” for specific information (which may or may not actually be there) rather than displaying a simple table.
This also is (IMHO) a public relations failure of considerable proportions.
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Previous big t-t changes?
The Kent Coast electrification, in 2 stages in 1959-61?
The electrification of the ex-LNW main line, also in 2 stages ( Manchester + Liverpool, followed by Birmingham ) in the mid-60’s?
The latter affected many services, all over the country of course, if only by the subsequent / parallel withdrawls & closures.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Lastly, according to the NR web-site, some t-t’s still have not been offically published & at the time of writng, these appear to be:
039 – Liverpool – Newcastle / Hull (!)
116A – ? some GW outer suburbans from the numbering
183 – Dorking / Horsham / Redhill / Tonbridge
188 – Gatwick / B’ton / Worthing & Littlehampton
189 – E Coastway
190 – ? DIdn’t exist in the previous t-t.
191 – As above
192 – As above
Though they may be visible on the separate TOC web-sites, of course.
None of this is much use to any potential passenger & looks to be further ammunition for journalists
I believe that was the Sevenoaks-Blackfriars Service, diverted because of engineering works… the Orpington-Kentish Town service isn’t scheduled to run on a Sunday until Dec 18 i think…
Perhaps in future GTR should be known, Einstein-like, as the General Theory of Railways. Will the knock-on effect of an operating problem somewhere on or near Thameslink, allow entropy (and concomitant delay) to progress even further and faster than before? “A problem shared is a problem doubled…”
Would TL be running smoother if the Wimbledon Loop services terminated at Blackfriars?
Even cancelling the Wimbledon service altogether, as happened this morning, wasn’t enough to help other services run smoothly.
Joseph Thomas,
In general yes, terminating the Wimbledon loop at Blackfriars would help. But not even I, who is very unhappy that they were allowed to continue, would attempt to apportion any part of the blame onto them for what is currently happening on these services.
The ‘new’ service from Epsom to London Bridge (2 TPH off peak) is shown in the pocket timetable as a Thameslink Service but the NR Journey planner shows it as Southern. It will be interesting to see what train turns up when I get on it tomorrow.
The ‘new’ is in quotes as in fact this service existed until the 1990’s.
Looking at the Brighton Station departures there are a number of Cambridge & Bedford services cancelled.
At least the railways don’t have the problem the airlines have where pilots are leaving to fly in China for wages that are several times higher and Tax free !!
There are no TL5 services from Horsham to London Bridge currently planned or running at the moment. They are all supposed to be running through to Peterborough.
It seems anything that goes into Kings Cross is cancelled to/from Horsham, as usual no concern for passengers along Southern with almost no Southern trains Stations now without trains for long periods (as has been a typical trait from Thameslink to date)
Difficulties probably were not helped by 3 or 4 units being stuck in Three Bridges sidings behind a signal failure.
@SE5Traveller: According to the table included in the article, the Sevenoaks ones are due to start in May 2019, The Orpington ones yesterday….
@Milton Clevedon: Schroedinger’s Train Service?
Where are the extra trains ending up overnight?
What happens when something goes wrong, a driver not on the platform at Blackfriars or a train pushing another one out of the core?
Why is Kentish Town used as a terminus, if it’s an excess passengers buster why is there nothing comparable from the south?
What were the big timetable changes at the time of privatisation, bigger than this?
Toby
The t-t changes at privatisation were, in fact, quite small. Certainly at first, anyway.
According to the Indie severe delays are hitting “Northern Rail”, for identical resons – not enough trained drivers.
@SOUTHERN HEIGHTS (LIGHT RAILWAY)
from the 20/20 websiste for Denmark Hill:
“Frequency of Thameslink trains doubled from two to four trains per hour throughout the day. (Monday to Saturday). Sunday services will be increased from Dec 2018 onwards.
New regular Thameslink services introduced between Orpington and Kentish Town (extending to Luton during peak periods) & Sevenoaks and London Blackfriars (ending to Welwyn Garden City during peak periods) offering increased capacity, multiple interchange opportunities with improved connectivity including interchange at Farringdon for Crossrail. Following the announcement in late 2017 that the Thameslink programme will be phased in the planned Thameslink services from this station will run between Sevenoaks and Blackfriars until May 2019 when they will run through to Welwyn Garden City.”
it doesn’t say explicitly that the Sunday service would be the Sevenoaks-Blackfriars one but that would be consistent with the consultation…
Regarding terminating trains at Blackfriars.
Sevenoaks trains have done this for some time aT weekends and late night weekdays.
Sutton was originally the route planned to run to Blackfriars but a certain MP for Streatham kicked up a huge fuss and so his constituents now have their services affected whenever there is a problem on the MML while the Sevenoaks services are isolated from this instead and can continue running no matter what’s happening north of Blackfriars.
Good article but rather unfair on GWR, who have been well aware of the scope and impact of Redhill remodelling for some time.
The real issues have been the combined impact of uncertainty around the GTR ‘final position’ and the fact that their new slots at Redhill and to/from Gatwick were based on the enhanced 3tph North Downs service going ahead.
This has not happened, for a number of reasons (all infrastructure / level crossing related). However reworking the existing 2tph service back into the new timetable has proved awkward, particularly due to the new off-peak GTR Victoria-Redhill service which was added as a mitigation quite late in the day.
I believe there have also been challenges with staff resourcing issues at Network Rail planning centre, who have been trying to cope with major late rewrites to Northern, Thameslink etc as well as late announced engineering work and critical timetable development work for December 2018.
If anyone is interested in when the last major timetable change was for the south, a very helpful person at the Rail Delivery Group gave the following response to my query a few weeks ago.
“I can confirm that the last major South Western recast was December 2004 – this being the first major change since 1967 which was driven by a need to adjust to changing demand and customer growth. Smaller scale changes were made in the late 1980’s and early 90’s associated with extensions of third rail electrification and the replacement of loco-hauled services to West of England by class 159’s.
“The last significant South Eastern recast was December 2009, driven mainly by the arrival of domestic commuter services on HS1. Smaller scale changes before then were made in response to the introduction of Networker carriages (sliding doors) replacing slam-door rolling stock (late 1980’s and early 90s).
“South Central (now Southern) has had a number of piecemeal changes, but not to the complete service since before privatisation – probably 1978 for the last major recast. Examples of less significant changes resulted from extensions to third rail electrification (to East Grinstead – 1987), start of Thameslink services (1988), recast of Southern Metro services in 2008 and the transfer to TfL of South London Line services (2012).
“In addition, there have of course been the ‘usual’ minor changes to timetables twice a year, each May and December.”
I decided to sample the service today, changing at London Bridge for City Thameslink (rather than my usual practice of getting to Fetter Lane by going to Charing Cross and the 15 bus). The announcement that the 14.16 to Cambridge was cancelled “due to an operational incident” was rather belied by a train passing through the station, bang on time, occupied only by a driver and driver-trainer
East Mids Trains have recorded 93% PPM so far today, even the Brighton Main Line is doing no worse than the you would expect in the previous timetable – Southern Mainline at 85% PPM for instance – which very much seems to suggest the timetable and it’s underlying concepts work. It seems pretty clear the issues GTR are having are largely to do with the combination of the late completion of crew diagrams and the effect this has had on the compilation of rosters, and having not enough drivers in the first place which has been a long standing GTR issue anyway.
It certainly doesn’t look like the Operation Princess 2.0 some commentators were predicting, the issues look very much resolvable but will take time, and this needs to be the message in the media.
Great article. American cecadas are overweighted anyway.
Couple of things, in march we had fireworks because they (GTR,Siemens and Fool and horses) could run an ATO train. As a little example, this is the excerpt from their self PR in the railjournal.
“ATO is necessary on the St Pancras – Blackfriars section of the Thameslink network to allow 24 trains/hour/direction to operate in peak periods from December 2019. GTR will start to operate 22 trains/hour on this section in May when the network is extended to Peterborough and Cambridge northeast of London and Horsham, Maidstone East, Dartford, East Grinstead and Littlehampton south of London.”
So they have been promoting a technological/ world first but were short of drivers to run ATO trains. Is this a chicken /egg conundrum or a daily mail riddle can you resolve this year 8 math question.
As a French national I am ashamed that the Thameslink parent company is run by such poor management. Hearing the head of Thameslink speaking on the BBC made me want to dig a hole and hide in it.
But your writing is excellent, but maybe next you could publish not the day after the major change so we could all take this to our MP, local council and so on to protest this utterly shambolic schizophrenic operational shame.
One way to load unload the trains would be to have signs on the platforms, a little like the Japanese, but the driver would require a little more training to stop at the same spot all the time.
Anonymous 19:17
I think today could be best described as ‘patchy’. Personally, I was encouraged because it seems like there is nothing that can’t be fixed.
Clearly some people have lost out even if the timetable ran perfectly (e.g. Harpenden). Some people have really lost out at the moment because their route is disproportionately affected when things went wrong today. So I feel sorry for the people between Crawley and Littlehaven, for example. Yet other people seem to genuinely be far better off with a surprising number of trains running to time to the minute and many only a couple of minutes late. Between 17.30 and 18.30 at East Croydon the service seemed remarkably good (according to online monitoring apps) compared to normal although there were at least three cancellations in the period.
The Greenwich branch and services via Woolwich Arsenal were affected by lightning striking the signalling system at Hither Green this evening. This affect the ’rounders’ so the impact was beyond the initial area. The trains that appeared to be unaffected by this were the Rainham trains – though sadly already running late.
I must concede bias here. My local station probably has its best ever off-peak service of 2tph fast to London Bridge and 2tph slow (but via the direct route). As far as I am aware, none were cancelled.
Para 6: past tense of lead is led!
Re Stuart @2116
I though we had found and corrected that one this morning, it obviously crept back in!
[Fixed. LBM]
Re Anon and PoP,
&
Agreed this certainly isn’t January 2015. The fundamental aspects look good but the execution isn’t at the moment.
@se5traveller
The 2020 website is presenting an incredibly one-sided view of the changes at Denmark Hill. Yes, they’ve increased the frequency from 2 to 4 during the middle of the day when the trains were largely empty anyway. Meanwhile, the morning peak hour trains between Denmark Hill and Blackfriars, which were already standing room only, have been reduced from 7 to 5. It was physically impossible for people to get on the train this morning – passengers were being left behind on the platforms. One woman fainted en route from the overcrowding and had to be physically escorted off at Blackfriars. Londoners are generally seasoned travellers, but the commuter anger this morning was very, very real.
Re: Thameslink on the Greenwich line.
What’s the reason for these continuing to Rainham rather than terminating at Gillingham as the semi-fasts did? Demand? Operational convenience? Or something else?
@ PoP – having also done some online checking I would agree this has not been the “car crash” that some have been predicting. It’s clearly not perfect but for a first peak day on such a changed timetable it could have been far worse. Looking at a computer screen is not the same as trying to travel so the passenger experience may not have aligned with the stats. GTR, though, have the challenge of making sure things get no worse and also progressively improve over and above the planned phasing in of some missing services over the next 3-4 weeks. A few bad days will bring the pains on with some gusto.
I can’t imagine Horsham line passengers are happy though – they’ve gone from what seemed to be a reasonable Southern service to a very patchy Thameslink one.
I am surprised that London Overground have had close to an exemplary day. I was expecting some wobbles with the new NLL timetable but it looks to have gone well. LO do have the advantage of pretty robust timetables with loose run times and recovery margins.
@WW – Similarly on LO Southern side, where one major conflict that had to be ironed out (at short notice) was the junction at Peckham Rye and the combined Southern/LO service between there and the junction beyond Queens Road, Peckham. I understand that LO like to be given preference but others try and insist that there has to be give and take, especially when those “pretty robust timetables with loose run times and recovery margins” of LO you mention interfere significantly on shared tracks.
Examples of the effect of Thameslink on other services can be seen at Bromley South. The increase in service via the Catford Loop from 2 to 4 tph has only been achieved by operating at alternative 10 and 20 minute intervals. With half of the existing South Eastern Victoria to Orpington service being replaced by the additional Thameslink trains the resulting pattern between Bromley South and Orpington moves from regular 15 minute intervals to alternate 7 and 23 minutes.
The potential dangers of terminating two stopping trains per hour at the station were highlighted last Friday when a signal equipment failure at Shortlands Junction resulted in the closure of Platform 2 at Bromley South (the slow down platform used by the terminators). All trains had to use Platform 4. If that had been this week the entire down service would have been blocked as there is nowhere for the terminator to go to except a long way southwards.
In a further change, possibly related but it is not clear, northbound fast trains from Bromley South to Victoria have had an additional 20% running time added. Trains down the mainline have moved from taking between 16 and 17 minutes last week to 20 to 21 minutes this week, whilst the hourly ex Dover Priory service calling at Denmark Hill, has moved from 24.5 to 30 minutes for the 12 mile journey. In the opposite direction mainline services have been speeded up to 15.5 minutes, with the Dover Priory service up from 23 to 21.5 minutes.
Re NED,
“What’s the reason for these continuing to Rainham rather than terminating at Gillingham as the semi-fasts did? ”
A new turnback siding and platform was added at Rainham several years ago. It had been an aim to terminate further east for a long while but it needed the infrastructure and an extra train that SE didn’t have with out shortening others.
One ‘minor’ change in the new timetable is a change of platforms for London Overground at West Croydon. They now terminate and reverse in platform one and the Victoria via Crystal Palace (Southern) service now uses the centre turnback siding.
Not sure of the reason but it may be to prevent the scrum for seats which used to happen when the LO train arrived at platform 3.
Re John M,
The Southern Metro services have been rejigged so some routes North and South of the Windmill Bridge Junction are now joined to different routes than they were last week hence different timing and the need to make the Windmill Bridge Jn complex work better, covered at high level slightly opaquely in the article:
James Bunting
Yes, the padding is actually disgraceful, as it merely encourages slack working (IMHO)
Meanwhile Diamond Geezer has spotted that, although Elephant & Castle St Pancras is 1.2 km longer via the Northern Line & has 6 intermediate stops, as opposed to 3 on the “slink”, the Northern line is faster.
Which suggests to me, that something isn’t right.
Greg Tingey,
But in the case of the Bromley South – Victoria trains it is very unlikely to be padding.
As ngh points out innumerable times (usually in response to you raising this subject in various guises) there is a real problem with dwell times in the suburban area on two track lines.
The options are limited. Cut out some of the suburban stops on metro trains, add suburban stops on long distance trains (I have a feeling you don’t approve of that either) or slow down the fast trains so as to increase capacity at the price of longer journey times for longer distance passengers.
Note the increase only in the inward journey. One possible reason is that dwell times of people alighting in the evening peak is not as great as attempting to board in the morning peak.
In the case of Thameslink, this is only one phase of implementation and, I suspect, dwell times have actually been cut down. It is only sensible and prudent to have some slack in the centre whilst the service settles down. If it still takes longer than the Northern line in 2020 then you may have a point.
Walthamstow Writer,
Horsham line passengers also got the worst of it during the period when the RMT guards dispute was effective at causing disruption on Southern. It would not be unknown in the evening for three consecutive trains (on a half-hourly service with no obvious alternative) to be cancelled.
Although they got a really raw deal yesterday things do seem much better today (in fact remarkably good all round) so maybe they will be better off in the long term with direct trains to the City, St Pancras and beyond – and a fallback plan to keep operating them if there is a blockage beyond London Bridge.
Re PoP,
It wasn’t GT who has raised it the last few times, time to dig out my last response on this, it even covered the assymetry in the BMS -VIC requirements…
@ARRIVADERCI Oh i’m incomplete agreement with the peak time services. A cut of of 7 to 5 arriving at Blackfriars between 8 and 9 and reduction of trains through to St Pancras in the same period from 5 to 1 (up to 2 in June) I just couldn’t face it yesterday so caught a later train…
I hope it was better today. i got the 8.47 and changed at Blackfriars and for all my resentment at the timetable changes it was pretty easy as it’s just a walk across the platform at Blackfriars on to an empty Bedford train…
On the subject of padding, I’ve noticed the amount of time between Kings Cross (KGX) and Finsbury Park (FPK) up on some journeys from 6mins to 10mins. Last night, the train I was on arrived at FPK a minute early and sat there for 5 mins to its new scheduled departure time!
Jordan D,
That definitely was part of the plan. It is a new service so they want to be sure they arrive at St Pancras on time. There was even talk of installing advertising or artwork in the tunnel. My guess is that they will gradually reduce it with each timetable iteration once they are confident they don’t need it all.
The BMS-VIC fasts now arrive 5 minutes after the slows on the same route, off-peak. I know people have complained before that the slow dwell times mean they are consistently late in the rush-hour, holding up the fasts, but that’s hardly the case off-peak. Has another train from Denmark Hill been inserted between them?
Do timetable planners always assume the same journey times peak and off-peak for simplicity, and so rush-hour issues lead to off-peak padding. The few times I travel on slows late at night, the dwell times seem far too long for the number of passengers.
PoP
You are wonderfully optimistic (!)
If it’s dwell times that are the problem, then surely, one would expect the Northen line with 6 stops, to take longer than the “slink” with 3 & automated dorr-opening in the ATO section.
But this is not the case.
Greg Tingey,
In the case of Thameslink I was not suggesting it was dwell times but the desire to have some leeway at this stage of the phased implementation.
There is a fundamental difference that the Northern line is self-contained but Thameslink isn’t. You are pursuing two different objectives. On the Northern line you are trying to run a frequent service as fast as possible on what is largely a self-contained route. Yes, there is a timetable but if all trains are delayed it is no big deal. On Thameslink right sequence arrival into the core and right time departure out of it are pretty important.
Re Greg,
Plenty of padding between Blackfriars and Elephant to allow for potential issues at the Jn…
A problem the Northern line doesn’t have.
PoP – you misread me: the journey was *from* Kings Cross to Finsbury Park on a Cambridge train, that existed last week, and isn’t due to disappear until Dec 2019. Why the need to pad it with 4 extra mins (a 66% journey time increase), when it doesn’t interact with the core …?
Jordan D,
I have indeed. Both in equating King’s Cross with St Pancras and misinterpreting the meaning of ‘up’. So no obvious explanation then but a strong likelihood it is all to do with platform occupation and the need to clear it ready for the next train. We then encounter the classic Railplan 2020 junction problem where something has to give and, unfortunately for you, it is your service.
Having looked a little closer at the timings, courtesy of Realtime Trains, the application of the extra time allowances seem to vary between the four off-peak main line services BMS-VIC. However, nearly half of the extra time is between Factory Junction and Victoria. As this point is about a mile and a half north of the last stopping point on the slows (Brixton) then it suggests that dwell times are not necessarily the only problem.
The ex Dover Priory service has had timing increased from 11.5 minutes to 19 minutes between Bromley South and Denmark Hill, and from 8 minutes to 10 minutes from there to Victoria. Given that the Catford Loop stopping services with 8 station calls in between only require 23 minutes for the same journey, of which six minutes are shown in the WTT as dwell time, it would appear to be a very awkward piece of timetabling.
@ Milton Clevedon (21 May 2018 at 14:05)
Re: “Einstein-like General Theory of Railways”
Perhaps we should also invoke a Heisenberg-like Uncertainty Principle in which one can know either the location of a train, or its speed and direction, but NEVER both!
Unless space was an issue, I can’t help feeling that they missed a trick by not making St Pancras a 4 track station with 2 large island platforms.
Comparing Northern line and Thameslink is a bit apples and oranges. They’re both trains, but the walls of the Northern trains are about 30% doors. Class 700 not so much. It is well known that dwell time at station is impacted by area of doors and circulation space inside the train. If you want Thameslink to dwell less, take out seats to have wider corridors and doors – should be a popular suggestion…
@Jarek
On the other hand, the Northern Line trains are cramped inside with very little room to walk around, thus actually getting to the doors can be a slow process. The 700s have much more space inside with wide aisles, so should be easier to walk around.
The Northern Line also has horribly cramped stations, which will slow down people getting off the trains as people waiting for trains will be in the way! The inner London Thameslink platforms by contrast are much wider and more spacious.
@Jordan D,
On the Kings Cross to Welwyn train I was on last night, we stopped outside Finsbury Park and the driver came on to tell us we were waiting for a platform to clear, but that we weren’t due into Finsbury Park for another 6 minutes anyway! They’re massively padding that short stretch.
(I change there, and of course just missed a Hertford loop train meaning a 15 minute wait – at least 50% longer than under the previous timetable. The following service was rammed when they’re normally more comfortable, but then there’s one fewer service between 1800 and 1900 going down that branch, and they’re mostly all stopping services now)
Higham’s replacement bus is only running eastwards to Strood, from where intending customers travelling towards London will pass through Higham around half an hour after they left it.
Its use appears to have been superseded by a fuller timetable to/from Rainham than GTR originally thought possible – few buses offer a faster service than by waiting for one of the trains that is running.
Inexcusable lack of communication and unncessary station skipping last night on the Rainham service. Ask those waiting at Woolwich Arsenal who watched a train sail past, with even the station staff unaware it wasn’t stopping.
It then (having left LBG 7 minutes late) proceeded to make Plumstead one minute early and Slade Green 2 minutes early (deigning to stop at those two).
There really is absolutely no excuse for treating passengers like this. None whatsoever.
@Adam Bowie – yes, it is a great mess: my parents (on the WGC Inners) are very pleased at the increase of services as they were the poor relation of the Loop Line throughout the evening. Weekends are going to be good for them.
As a WGC commuter, the loss of our two fast trains in the morning (quickest journey now 22 mins from 14 mins) is a pain in the backside. Being promised jam tomorrow with more services (not to mention the loss of direct trains to Peterborough) is not really cutting it …
I hadn’t even spotted the extra addition to services from KGX to Finsbury Park until last night … enough to make the blood boil. As the last commentator said – “absolutely no excuse for treating passengers like this. None whatsoever.”
James Bunting
It is to be hoped that this slow-down of already slow services to/from Bromley South is temporary, but I fear not ….
DJS
IIRC the original plan was three platforms @ St Pancras LL – 2 southbound & one north, so as to allow for overlap & timing wrt joining services from bothe routes coming south.
It was decided that it was too expensive – remember at one stage the box was going to be left empty – yes really/
now we are stuck with it.
On dwell times:
@PoP 0911
Quite common for dwells to be longer inward. There’s a desire to present right time at junctions and termini which isn’t quite so critical outwards. This can be seen in the SWR timetable. For example Windsor services are timed at 56 minutes into London and 54 out. The up services pretty reliably arrive right time but the down are often a few minutes late. This has been the case since the 2004 changes and doesn’t seem to have been a priority to address presumably because there’s a near 30 minute turnaround at Windsor.
Another factor is that the morning peak is generally more intense. Returning school traffic is mostly out the way before the evening and finish times are more staggered especially towards the end of the week when people will stay in town for drinks, shows etc.
@John B 1047
In general the same dwells will be assumed due to the desire to deliver an easy to remember clockface timetable which is commercially desirable. Having said that you’ll often see longer sectional times closer to London once frequencies become true turn up and go. A bit more slack off peak should also mean a better chance of services starting the peak right time assuming no major incidents.
Noticeable that Richmond-Willesden Junction is now very much the Cinderella of London Overground with an uneven service pattern and waits of up to 25 minutes. 15 minutes is considered the minimum for a metro service. On paper it’s arguably the worst timetable in many years. Silverlink previously operated a 15 minutes service throughout the day (At least in theory!).
Starlight,
But surely the current timetable, which aims for a 15 minute interval, is much better than the previous 10/20/10/20 minute one? Weekends are clearly much better than Monday-Friday. Your 25 minute example is very much the exception.
Clearly there are challenges along the line now that the Clapham Junction – Stratford services is 4tph all the way to Stratford all day and the North London line has to be shared with freight. I am presuming the electrically-hauled freight cannot yet go via Gospel Oak as Gospel Oak – Barking is not yet open to electric traffic.
The excessive run times from Kings Cross to Finsbury Park are temporary, for the long term good.
The eventual 24tph timetable has every ECML train into the core synchronised to pass with every train out of the core at Belle Isle simultaneously – maximising the space left for other moves straight in or out of Kings Cross.
However that gives you a temporary ‘problem’ whereby the services that are temporarily diverted to start from Kings Cross that are to be eventual core services (e.g. the Cambridge slows) directly clash with the core service they are to eventually parallel move with at Cambridge.
Trains can’t be at Welwyn viaduct at a different time, trains going into the core can’t be later, so the only thing that can be done is to depart the temporary King’s Cross services ‘early’ to get over Belle Isle first, then sit at Finsbury Park to await their ‘proper’ onward path.
@PoP 2036
Unfortunately the gaps are far from the exception in the afternoon, departures from Richmond mid afternoon:
1356 1421 1445 1509 1520 1545
Then into the peak there’s consistently a gap between the 45 and 09 departures. This does assume that all the data on National Rail Enquiries is correct of course which may be a leap at the moment!
However if correct it’s no longer really a turn up & go service. And passengers do generally really like clock face services as they’re easy to remember.
DJS & Greg T
Apparently space is indeed the issue at St P; it simply was not physically possible to get a platform station in the footprint of St P. Nor was it possible to do it without having to shift the whole station north about 200m (for the 2 track to 4 track junction), and that would put it on a steep gradient (not allowed) and would also put the canal tunnels too far north to come meet the ECML where they do. Plus the platforms would have to be very wide to cater for all the passengers off two simultaneous arrivals from the north, not to say have a bank of at least 4 escalators.
Besides, it’s not really necessary.
Starlight,
I know it is not ideal. I get the impression it is more consistent from Stratford. The example you give, whilst correct, is slightly misleading because, for some reason, there are also some trains that terminate short at South Acton.
So times at South Acton are:
1405 1414 1430 1442 1455 1518 1529 1541 1552
(trains starting at South Acton in bold)
I don’t know why this is but I do know that London Overground strive to have clockface timetables, ideally with a consistent interval. So I suspect this is unavoidable and being worked on to improve it in future.
@Ianno 22 May 2018 at 21:01
There’s space in the timetable for the Cambridge stoppers to sneak out of Kings Cross onto the Down Fast and cross to the slow at Holloway Junction before Finsbury Park, which avoids conflict with southbound Thameslink trains. This would allow them to depart a little later (e.g. at x.24/x.54).
Though the platforming to squeeze that in would be fun to sort out.
Re Greg,
It is to be hoped that this slow-down of already slow services to/from Bromley South is temporary, but I fear not ….
Time for a vat of Coffee:
The Sydenham Hill – Victoria am peak (stopping) journey time has gone up from 13 minutes in the timetable or mostly 11 minutes in reality /WTT at my earliest recollection (also see the morning of the Victoria station bombing leading to the intended targets in certain carriages being missed given 11 in reality vs 13 in TT so early arrival) to 17/18 minutes in the timetable today (or typically 19 minutes in reality this morning) since I’ve known the route (very very very well). [PoP once hauled me up for knowing my journey time to the station in units of seconds rather than minutes]
This is due to increasing dwell times due to increased passenger loading and the unsuitable design of the stock for those loadings (3+2 seating, 1.75 shoulder width doors, narrow vestibules, 8 car trains but mostly 9 car platforms).
Part of the solution is to replace the rolling stock in the next franchise with something more suitable of the current and future loading levels.
They weren’t even on DfT’s radar for the most crowded in the UK, till the (late) local MP invited/dared them along to measure… and one appeared straight in the UK top 10.
Apart from Harpenden, one of the big losers here seems to be those who join/leave TL at Kentish Town. With no improvement to peak services there are also no off-peak services to LUT, LTN and HPD. From your excellent article, I see that this is probably a knock-on effect of the delayed electrification of the MML. What I don’t understand is, why more existing services don’t stop at KTN. It would greatly improve options for passengers who would have a very short interchange with both branches of the Northern Line compared with the 10 minute walk from STP to the Bank Branch.
Anon @ 2354
That doesn’t work.
Firstly, the xx24/54 departure clashes with in the peak with the extra GN Fast Line departures to Baldock.
Secondly, arriving Up Slow departing back Down Fast would restrict these trains to Platforms 1-9 and below (and 1-3 are tricky due to needing to go “wrong line” on the Up Fast through Gasworks Tunnel) which basically means the platforming as you say is difficult/impossible to make work, especially with full length 0-8 fully utilised in the peak, leaving only Platform 9 – for which the temporarily long turnround times don’t fit into one single platform.
@Tubehound: Kentish Town only has 8-car-length platforms so the full length (12 car) trains can’t call there. Extending the platforms would be difficult because there are bridges at both ends.
NGH
Dwell times won’t wash with the Bromley South’s I’m afraid, since there are no intermediate stops.
And it’s gone from 17 minutes for 11 miles ( 38.8 mph ) to 28 minute ( 28.7 mph ) – for no reason at all, that makes any sense.
[ Yes, I know about last-stop padding – look at the timings Highams’ Park – Chingford & reverse! ]
Re Greg,
But the “slow” Bromley South services as you referred to them in previous comment do have 8 intermediate stops all now with officially increased dwell times in the timetable, I think you might actually have been referring to the “fast” services that now have to go bit slower so they don’t catch the now slower slow services…
There also paths for services that aren’t running yet but would have been in the original plan.
Greg Tingey,
You also have to bear in mind that the service pattern on the Bromley South – Victoria route has changed over the years.
In the days of 17 minutes from Bromley South (I think it was actually as little as 15 minutes when I had a house near the station) lots of morning peak hour trains started at Kent House or, occasionally, Beckenham Junction. So as well as shorter dwell times with the slam door stock, the fast trains were not so hampered by all-stations trains for such a long distance. Furthermore there would be Orpington – Beckenham Junction then fast to Victoria services which made it much easier to run a fast service from Bromley South just before or just after it. We have been through all this before in Kent Route Studies: Victoria Metro Services.
Circumstances have changed and the need today is to sacrifice best journey times for increased capacity along a two track railway. I know trains taking longer than they used to is something you can’t seem to accept but it is one of the realities of modern life that won’t go away. On the plus side it is usually, not always, accompanied by a more frequent service and most passengers value frequency and reliability over a few extra minutes of journey time – a lot of research shows this.
“The ‘new’ service from Epsom to London Bridge (2 TPH off peak)”
Was run by Southern yesterday, It chases an LO service through Platform 5 at Norwood Junction so an easy change twice an hour (what are the disabled complaining about?)
My down train terminated at Sutton rather than Epsom but the up return arrived just a couple of minutes late at Sutton… I think it was two late at Norwood Junction, closely followed by an LO service.
I’d expected that the new timetables were going to strictly use the TL service numbers and be consistent across the whole of the peaks and in fact I thought that this was where an increase in total peak time frequency would come from.
So for example TL1, TL2 and TL3 would be the trains that stop and Flitwick and would start/finish at Brighton, Gatwick and East Grinstead as per the table.
In practice there’s a mix and match mix of stopping patterns with some even going to/from Rainham and the Brighton starters being used for the fast services in the afternoon peak. There are also some nasty gaps like no faster trains from Blackfriars to Flitwick between 17:57 and 19:12.
So there’s no direct trains from Brighton to Luton Airport, Leagrave and Harlington between 14:26 and 18:58. Harpenden and Flitwick get none between 14:26 and 17:58. Obviously you can change in London but not ideal for families with small children going for a day at the seaside.
I don’t think we’ll see much more of these service numbers….
Another oddity is that the semi-slow trains to Mill Hill, Elstree and Radlett in the evening peak take as long as the all stations ones.
Appalling level of service. Was on a train yesterday that waited for 30 minutes to leave Cambridge (although in fairness this was due to signal failure near Stansted). However, my destination was London Bridge. Only thanks to constantly checking my smartphone was I able to see at a very early stage that this stop was cancelled due to late running. What shocked me was at St. Pancras and Blackfrairs there was no announcement onboard that the service was not calling at London Bridge, indeed the service indicator continued to show London Bridge as the next stop when we pulled into Blackfrairs. Thankfully I got off . . . and off the train went direct to East Croydon. I presume that they were people onboard who didn’t double before entering the Thameslink tunnels – and ended up in East Croydon and had to travel back to London Bridge. I could not understand why the driver did not make an announcement.
Return journey was all cancellations at London Bridge. My train (23.31) was one of the them. I had to make my own way to Blackfrairs and wait almost one hour for the next one. Arriving home at 1.30 rather than 00.30. Multiple claims on Delay Repay (and how many more will be doing that? Everyday so far, endless disruption and stops cancelled, with presumably shed loads of money paid out in compensation.
@Pedantic of Purley
Re Bromley South, the problem is that the North Kent commuter trains to Victoria also go this route, and the new timetable has added significant duration to those fast trains too, with no increased service (in fact a reduced one)
For example, the previous 06:42 from Whitsable to Victoria now leaves 06:30, but arrives to Victoria the same time. Duration increased from 1:27 to 1:39, and it seems the large majority of this is increased duration from Bromley > Victoria
And here there is no ‘increased frequency’ to balance this out.
In fact they’ve cut the service too – quite a few less Victoria trains than before (and at the same time cut a few high speed services from St Pancras)
So the worst of both worlds – slower trains, and less frequent service. Steps backwards are painful.
Kent Commuter,
You have my sympathies. The future isn’t promising when it comes to journey times. And yes, for some people there are no corresponding benefits for the disadvantages that are introduced.
Your comment also highlights how people can be adversely affected by a timetable recast elsewhere. All the publicity has been directed at issues on Midland Main Line but it is happening in other places as well.
It is no consolation to you to know that thousands of extra seats (and standing room capacity) has been created for others.
Kent Commuter & PoP
Sorry, but
[This comment has been shortened due to lack of space. PoP]
Le Ver
I don’t use twitter or similar – I would have been even more disrupted that you were ….
PoP @ 9.56
You’ve referred before to slam-door stock needing shorter dwell times, but there must have been a proportion of stops where the train start was delayed by the need for a member of staff to get to and slam a door? Or were the punters in those days much more dutiful at shutting doors behind them? It’s somewhat counter-intuitive that automatic doors slow things down.
Greg Tingey,
You made your point. We gave you an explanation. You chose not to accept our explanation. That is your right.
There is nothing to be gained in wittering on. This is not a site for people to vent their perceived grievances if they will not accept the explanation given. If you are dissatisfied then that is tough. There is nothing to be gained by continuing to make the same point (not just here and now but on many other occasions).
Roger B,
Lots of evidence that slam doors were quicker. It has been raised here many times. At the London terminus you could have half the train emptied before the train came to a halt.
Remember that there were far more doors. Commuters did always shut them otherwise they would have disapproving glances the next day. There was very much an unspoken etiquette in those days. Furthermore, if one was left open, other passengers would be very quick to close a door which was delaying their journey.
@ PoP 2308 22/5 – I wonder if the strange timetable on the Richmond NLL service is the result of a decision to bring forward the x7-8 headway on the core (Stratford / Will Jnc) NLL service? I thought TfL were going to wait until they had the extra 710s in place to provide enhanced timetables. If the improvements have been accelerated I wonder if a tight train fleet is the reason? Looking more closely at the peak timetable there are also long gaps in departures from Clapham Junction at the same time each hour. It seems that the headway is based on a 12,12,24,12 cycle from Richmond and Clapham Junction in the PM peak. However you then get a bizarre varied headway east of Willesden Junction with gaps varying between 3 and 15 minutes rather than a straight x6 headway. I know the occasional freight works through even in the peak which partly explains some of the gaps but it’s really quite daft compared to previous timetables.
I am afraid I tend to side with Starlight’s comments. 24 minute gaps are pretty awful and not easy to remember. It means digging out a timetable – except they don’t provide paper ones anymore! 24 min headways in London are enough to put me off even considering using a service. It’s not the middle of the Costwolds or rural Essex where you expect longer gaps between trains. I’m also pretty unimpressed with the rest of the NLL timetable, esp in the peaks / peak shoulders with useless “non connections” with the GOBLIN at Gospel Oak. I am not a regular commuter so any moans I have are irrelevant but in terms of me thinking about using a service then it’s something of a disincentive.
@PoP/Roger B
There were instances were doors were not shut properly – more usually in stock with end vestibules rather than where there were seats right next to the doors. Can still happen with HSTs.
At London termini in the mornings, it was necessary for someone to walk down the train shutting all the doors left open by the hordes of disembarking commuters – they didn’t slam the doors behind them as nine times out of ten there would be someone behind them, and even if the train was not going out as empty stock, contra-peak loadings were much lighter than they are now, so most doors would not have been used by anyone boarding the train. The train crew would do it, but it slowed things down as
1. those doors were heavy
2. they couldn’t start walking down the train closing the doors until everyone was off
3. it was officially the guard’s job, but he was usually in the middle of the train, rather than at one end.
Judging how well things have gone is indeed not as simple as looking at stats… which really do not give a flavour of poor communication, short(er) formations, level of overcrowding, stop skipping, wait times for connections, etc.
@Timbeau: When I first moved to London I had to occasionally use the train between London Bridge and Waterloo East. Two things stand out: The platform staff had to sometimes physically restrain people from trying to get on the train even after the ‘RA’ signal had been given and sometimes the passengers on the train would try and close the door even as I was trying to get on. The second struck me as quite rude really!
Walthamstow Writer,
I too suspect it is an attempt at early introduction of the 4tph Clapham Junction all the way to Stratford service that caused the problems. But, to keep in the spirit of the subject in question, we are back to some people getting an improved service (WLL – NLL) and others getting a service which is questionable as to whether it is an improvement or a retrograde step.
If you want a paper timetable then download the timetable from the PDF of the timetable on the TfL website and then print it.
In 1986, it was always an advantage to get a Charing Cross train that bypassed the London Bridge platforms, as otherwise you could be stuck for ages while the steady stream of arriving passengers kept opening the slam doors. There was just never a pause to dispatch the train in, I can see why passengers on the train tried to get the doors shut.
Slam door stock wasn’t great for partial detrainment, as there was only room for one person between the seats, so it was a big shuffle to get out of the the middle. Not only could you leave before the train stopped, you could board after it started, as we schoolboys did a lot at West Dulwich…
Anyway, enough history. Modern tube stock is much slicker to open and close the doors, trains seem to take ages for buttons to light, or to start after the doors close. It seems the trains are designed for high safety, 10+ minutes gap between stop operations, which really doesn’t fit with metro stops 3 minutes apart.
A key reason to use Thameslink from LBG is that it costs no extra to Blackfriars or City Thameslink (you might expect that as the old Holborn Viaduct destination), but surprisingly the TfL contactless fare to St Pancras and Kentish Town is the same as to LBG, so you start saving when avoiding the Tube.
ORP-VIC slow has had 1 minute of padding added (39->40), but they’ve taken 2 off the ORP-LBG fast (17->15), so the reason to go to Victoria via LBG and the tube is strengthened.
I wonder if what they really needed was a “tube mode” for the core. Doors open immediately without button presses, as soon as the train is stopped (perhaps even automatically as part of the ATO). Maybe even platform edge doors to ease dispatch…
Re Muzer,
Doors do open automatically in the core which is announced while the train is slowing down.
Muzer. That is exactly what Thameslink has in the central area and that Crossrail inevitably will have (given it has platform edge doors). (or have I missed your point?)
By the way tube doors are opened by the driver when the Correct Side Door Enable (integrated into ATP on automatic lines) gives permission. Only on DLR are the doors open buttons on the doors enabled automatically by the ATP)
Muzer – indeed; when the Class 700s are operating in ATO the door opening sequence will start a fraction of a second before the train stops, which will save about 2-3 seconds per stop.
@ John B – no real surprise about the fares from Kentish Town. The Thameslink route across Zone 1 / Kentish Town has been on TfL, not TOC, fares for many, many years. This is because of the parallel with the Northern Line.
I believe that it now stretches to West Hampstead and Finsbury Park. Looking at the single fare finder confirms this – £2.90 peak, £2.40 off peak F Pk – E&C Rail Stn and West Hampstead TL – E&C Rail Stn. NR fares kick in north of F Pk / West H’stead and south of London Bridge / Elephant and Castle.
@Ian J – 12 car trains can stop at Kentish Town with SDO (last 4 cars don’t open doors). I witnessed this many times myself.
@WW 1442
Spotted that with Clapham now I’ve had a chance to have a proper look. For Richmond customers the new times are an inconvenience but I’m very surprised that’s been agreed for Clapham. In the morning peak the trains are usually full to capacity up to 5 minutes before leaving with crush loading all along the WLL. Any uneven frequency is only likely to make passenger flows and dwells worse.
Lots of disgruntled passengers on Twitter for LO. The Orwellian copy & paste reply doesn’t help: ‘We work closely with them (NR) to regularly review schedules and improve them where possible’. Completely ignores the substance of the complaint which is a particular bugbear of mine!
A wider point is that this change seems to have increased the number of non standard workings and uneven departure times across the network. For example even the flagship Gatwick Express is now 00/14/30/44 from Victoria. Regular commuters will adapt but it can’t be over emphasised how much of a selling point regular clock face services are to new and occasional rail users.
The disadvantage and inconvenience of odd timings is often amplified where connecting services are involved. So to pick a random example, Egham to Brondesbury journey time now varies between 55 minutes and 1hour 12. That’s a much harder sell if people are weighing up their options against driving than a 30 minute interval with the same times all day.
I worry that we’re in danger of having to relearn the lessons of the 1980’s in terms of the railway needing to be led by the needs of customers rather than operations.
Thanks @pop
What’s really unfortunate of Kent commuters is that the Bromley issue is just one of many unpleasant changes in this new timetable
Southeastern have also removed splitting/merging of trains at Faversham, which whilst removing an annoyance mean a less frequent service for both the Dover and Ramsgate branches
And then the Thameslink service to Rainham has added slow stopping trains to more of the line, causing lots of retiming and supposedly part of the longer journeys
It would be nice if this was balanced out in some way with any other improvements (faster line speed on the bits out of London? We can dream) but there are none. Just lots of backwards steps and hence rather unhappy commuters
I’ve never understood NR fares inside the zonal system. The journey planner always quotes high numbers with the caveat that its much cheaper with Contactless/Oyster. From Orpington (Z6, no tube) its £4 offpeak to LBG, but also £4 for any station in Z6 you can get to avoiding the tube, £5.50 if you need the tube. Its odd you can do a 30 mile/90 minute journey for the same price as a 12 mile/15 minute one.
But then I’ve tried to read the London Terminals page http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/46587.aspx and it just makes your head spin
On the subject of Thameslink to Rainham, I’d really like to understand the rationale for this in more detail
Southeastern have said that this introduction is why they’ve had to make so many negative changes to their timetable
Looking at the new Thameslink service, I can’t work out who gets any benefit from it to make it that pain worthwhile.
The new thameslink service is really slow with many stopping points. Any of the locations that are obviously helpful are better met by getting the existing fast trains and changing. For example Rainham to Luton is 2:31 direct via Thameslink, or 1:36 changing at St P. Or Rainham to London Bridge 1:27 via Thameslink, or 0:53 direct with SE.
If SE are correct and they had to slow down and re time all their fast commuter trains to accommodate the slow Thameslink ones, it’s clear who the losers are but what is the corresponding benefit? Why did they extend to Rainham and share more of the north Kent line with a slow service?
@Ianno 23 May 2018 at 06:16
As an off peak rail traveller, I would happily take a reduced journey time just in the off peak.
Kent Commuter 18:37
Again totally understand. On the subject of splitting, it is removed to increase reliability. Not good for the passengers involved but for others it reduces the chances of an incident (such as one portion arrives late or trains won’t join) having a knock-on effect and affecting others.
Kent Commuter 18:49
Why did they extend to Rainham and share more of the north Kent line with a slow service?
Why indeed? The trite answer is because they couldn’t send it to Croydon due to capacity problems so they had to send it somewhere. All covered in Govia go via Greenwich.
I always had severe doubts about this being a good idea and your comment confirms many of the reasons for those doubts. The trouble is the obvious question is ‘where is a good place to send the trains?’ and that is hard to answer. Besides it does rather cleverly get extra trains into Kent eventually (full timetable not yet implemented) and get around the 22tph restriction in and out of Cannon St.
@Ww I think Kings Cross – Finsbury park has matched the tube fare for as long as the Tube has been there. Similarly for Liverpool Street – Stratford
@ John B – my apologies I didn’t make clear I was referring to PAYG / Contactless fares not cash. TfL doesn’t quote cash fares for non Tube / Overground trips. I would need to double check a Mayoral Decision but cash fares in the Gtr London area on NR services that stop there are priced zonally. That explains your distance point as you can pay the same across London as just into Zone 1.
Having done some limited checking there do appear to be zonal cash fares on NR. However I can’t actually find a cash fares “tariff” for purely NR zonal fares anywhere. It’s not on the Mayoral Direction nor the Oyster Rail website. As there is a premium on cash fares over Oyster / Contactless PAYG no one seems to want to advertise the fact very widely or clearly.
Re: Le Ver, earlier today…
Your comments on the Cambridge train intrigue me. I can only assume there was no driver available for the London Bridge route so it was diverted to go via Crystal Palace lines. This still doesn’t explain it leaving 30 minutes late.
There are many managers working all day every day at the moment conducting services through London Bridge. This has also now become a TL relieving point for drivers. There are also testing and commissioning drivers taking services Fromm East Croydon through the Canal Tunnels to Finsbury Park and back to try to keep the GN/TL crossovers running.
This helps to solve a lot o f the issues regarding those services that are eventually going some/all of the way down the BML.
However, for those mentioning the Rainham services, the issues are more serious, involving up to 3 drivers to complete the journey:
1) Only 13 Luton drivers sign through to Rainham
2) There are no managers able to conduct between Blackfriars and Dartford as none signed this route as not previously TL
3) Dartford to Rainham sees Gillingham drivers who are mostly still trainees waiting for a DI, are newly qualified SET trained or TL passed out drivers who are not allowed anyone in the cab for the first year due to being new drivers. This then limits the possibilities somewhat for other drivers to learn the route.
I’m realiably informed that training on this route stops next week though I’d like to think this doesn’t remain the case for long.
Drivers have been poached on no-notice periods from SET Gillingham and Orpington depots. Many though not all of those require the class 700 conversion course. Expect to see them out driving a class 700 very soon!
Kent based people: Having only just signed the North Kent line myself it does indeed seem that those living in Higham have been seriously shafted. I can’t see why an additional stop can’t be made on the HS1 rounders to St Pancras for them but suspect it’s not as easy? Maybe due to timings I’m sure it could add another 10 minutes round journey time… back to rule #1 “All things impact TL”…
I should say that would be maybe 5 mins not 10 mins (assumed a return journey for some reason!) above comes from assuming extra loading times and accelerating from a standstill instead of whistling through Higham at 70mph
@ww
Cash fares can usually be found on the BRfares.com website.
Re: Le Ver, TL Driver,
I looked on Realtime Trains for trains matching your description, and the closest I could find was [link]. This train, however, did stop at London Bridge. I don’t know what source of information you were using on your smartphone, but let’s assume it was correct at the time. In that case, it seems that the LBG stop was reinstated after previously being cancelled, which explains why no onboard announcement was made.
TL Driver: As Le Ver stated, the train left Cambridge late due to a signalling problem immediately south of the station. So no mystery there.
John B/WW: which stretches of line are subject to which Oyster farescales (and therefore presumably cash farescales too) are shown on the (astonishingly complicated) map at https://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/fares-guide/guide-to-fare-scales/.
This shows that with Oyster, TfL-LU fares apply on Thameslink between West Hampstead and Elephant & Castle. Unfortunately the Thameslink connection to London Bridge is not shown, nor the connection to Finsbury Park: re the latter, TfL-LU fares already apply between King’s X and Finsbury Park. .
Re: Alice
I’m glad you were able to check for us. I don’t believe many service has been diverted th elong way round as there are so many pilots knocking about. Your message suggests this is the case.
I’ve found during this period that online realtime journey planners aren’t actually that accurate as the last information may have been that the train is being diverted but by the time the train gets to the critical point they’ve found someone to cover that part. I assume that’s what happened here if Le Ver believed it wasn’t going to London Bridge.
A small statistical interlude:
GTR wide PPM has been declining every day since Monday with late running and cancellations both growing in proportion to each other, which is worrying. Some of the issues can be put down to the signalling power failure near London Bridge but it will be interesting to see if we get a day without a high impact infrastructure issues to judge things on this week.
PPM / late / cancelled
Monday 82.3% / 10.9% / 6.7%
Tuesday 77.6% / 13.2% / 9.2%
Wednesday 74.7% / 15.2% / 10.1%
Still better than Jan 2015…
Re PoP,
SE and NR appear to have been running 23tph in the am peak so far this week in the new timetable pretty well 😉
PoP
Slam-doors – there’s a BT film from the early 70’s showing trains arriving at Liverpool St, all all the doors are well-open & people pouring out, before the trains stop ( It’s the opening shot )
[ Agree re stopping services, btw, but non-stop ones should not be any slower (surely? ) Also see John B on Orpington – VIC timings ]
WW
Kentish Town – Elephant is on TfL fares, yes, but not TfL maps (STILL)
Starlight
Further back than the 1980’s….
Sir Herbert Walker pushed this & the lesson is forgotten with depressing regularity, though not at even intervals. 😢
GT/WW: the Oyster-rail map has been updated to show that Kentish Town/Finsbury Park – Elephant/London Bridge is on TfL-LU fares.
Greg Tingey,
We really have tried hard to explain why the stopping services can affect the non-stopping services on a two track section. We can do no more.
The lesson about even intervals is not forgotten at all. All companies strive for it. It is just in todays crowded railway something has to give. You can have even intervals. All you have to do is thin out the service to make it possible. As soon as you have a junction or common length of track and two services of relatively prime frequency (eg. 3ph and 4tph) then you are bound to start getting problems. Throw in freight paths as well of which, in practice, you usually need at least 2tph and something has to give.
Sir Herbert Walker famously did his ‘at the hour, on the hour, in the hour’ on the service from Victoria to Brighton. All wonderful but that was just one train an hour. There are now at least eight trains an hour from London to Brighton using a two track railway from south of Three Bridges to Brighton (plus trains to Lewes). The is also additional Gatwick express trains to fit in that don’t stop at Clapham Junction and East Croydon.
We can go back to Sir Herbert Walker’s ‘at the hour, on the hour, in the hour’ service but I suspect it won’t go down well.
Re Greg,
On a busy 2 track railway the speed of fast services will be limited by the slows (also see C2C issues) – which have just been slowed down again. PPM metric manipulating Padding* has been removed between Brixton and VIC on the Up services but dwell times at intermediate stations have been increased to match reality so fasts theoretically catch the slows up sooner on paper now, which was happening in practice for years in reality but massaged with padding post Brixton.
It is also worth noting that TL aren’t running the full level of services (even more so in the peaks) on the Catford Loop yet but the SE timetable assumes they are there and running to avoid a second rewrite.
*SE’s chief timetabler is informally known as Dr Padding for adding plenty of it to avoid a big timetable rewrite for years.
This timetable change is a very good example why ‘even interval’ doesn’t always work. Each and every iteration of the Thameslink timetable – thus far – was based on having services running every 15 or 30 minutes, with roughly the same stopping patterns in the peaks and in the off-peak; with additional peak trains to cater for peak flows.
Now we see that – aside from the disruption and cancellations – passengers are complaining about:
(a) peak overcrowding – which can only be solved by adjusting stopping patterns on a train-by-train basis to cater for loadings;
(b) slow journey times – which are largely down to inordinately long dwells in Thameslink trains, as well as the * in every train approaching and leaving the core.
* the brackets denote a performance allowance added into the timetable of each train. The current Network Rail Timetable Planning Rules prescribe that a 2 minute performance allowance must be added into every Thameslink train approaching the core; and upon leaving the core.
Greg Tingey,
For an even better example of why your thinking just won’t work look at the down trains on the Hayes branch.
Even interval thinking is applied to trains departing London Bridge. So they depart at quarter hourly intervals. But the problem is that the ones from Charing Cross are fast to Ladywell and the Cannon St ones call at New Cross, St Johns and Lewisham before arriving at Ladywell. So from Ladywell onward you have an uneven interval (approximately 10/20/10/20).
So how would you resolve this to your own satisfaction?
ngh 08:39
Small statistical interlude.
Sadly not surprising.
It will be hard to keep up the level of managers acting as pilotmen etc. for any length of time. Its like keeping an army on six hour standby (ready to move with six hours notice) or police mounting extra patrols. You can do it but you can’t keep it up for any length of time. Other less polite examples are available.
At the same time, the process of route training and driver training for a new type of vehicle for will steadily improve but much more slowly.
So, basically, it is almost certainly bound to get worse before it gets better but it will get better. And that is why it doesn’t seem so bad as January 2015. Even though, I suspect, it will get worse in the short term the underlying factors such as number of drivers route trained will show a slow but steady improvement. We are also, to some extent, talking about new services not existing services that people have come to rely on.
The short term solution probably requires an intervention in a fairly drastically in some way. Running buses between Three Bridges and Horsham in the evening might be good idea unless they can overcome the appalling cancellation record there – five trains on a service that peters out to hourly in the evening. This was last night but they had already cancelled them all before the power outage at London Bridge.
When a new major release is planned of a computer operating system there is lots of offline testing to find and resolve bugs and issues, but it isn’t until release when “real people” use it that you find the difficult problems. This is obe reason why for critical systems it is recommended to not update immediately but to await the first ‘point release’ where they will be corrected.
This massive timetable rewrite is, in effect, a new operating system for the UK’s metals, and was always going to have some major fall-out when introduced. That the problems so far have not resulted in a complete shutdown, but are mostly in limited geographical areas, is to be welcomed.
I look forward to the next set of adjustments – the point release, if you will – with hope.
@AlisonW: It is rather unfortunate that this “program” is only going to be installed on one system…. So, a) There’s a lack of a test platform, b) Waiting for an incremental upgrade was never going to be possible.
As an aside (and for the real timetable geeks), what is the train service the furthest from London that was affected by this change? I’m kind of hoping one between Inverness and points North. 🙂
Southern Heights,
Don’t know but I have heard a case of service delays in Aberdeen being caused by a points failure at Brighton.
All you need to do is look at the furthest point for a Thameslink service coming from South of the Thames towards the ECML (and then running via Welwyn Viaduct); and the northernmost point of a LNER/VTEC/Whatevertheyrecalledthisweek train.
I’ve got a 1S26 12:00 King’s Cross-Inverness service; as well as 3 different trains from King’s Cross to Aberdeen. Any of these services could be affected by the late running of a Brighton-Cambridge Thameslink service.
As far as timetable rewrites go: this is exactly why GTR conducted the largest ever timetable consultation exercise which – sadly – does not appear to have been enough… Crowding models exist (or can be readily created in Excel by consultants using ticket sales and passenger counts data) to simulate the impact of large-scale timetable changes such as this one. Not sure crowding modelling was carried out by GTR in this instance. If not, that’s a few tens of thousands of pounds they will regret squirrelling away…
Delays on Thameslink can affect South Eastern, with knock-on effects to HS1 and hence Eurostar, and so on across Europe.
ngh 08:56
So they do! Yes, 23 trains from 0815 until 0914 from London Bridge to Cannon St. And the first train included is a 0815 and the first following train excluded is 0915 so a genuine 23tph for an hour. Even more impressive if you think of it as 24 trains in 61 minutes.
I notice that after 0915 the inward trains are far less frequent leading me to suspect that Network Rail have implemented a plan of theirs to let trains depart from Cannon St at a slightly lower rate (so as not to clash with incoming services on the throat) and then have a good purge after the peak period is over at 0915 – for which you have to reduce the number of incoming trains. Not a problem because Cannon St is largely a peak period station.
My own personal whine: you used to be able to count on Welwyn GC or Hertford North trains stopping at Harringay and Hornsey and Stevenage/Gordon Hill/Letchworth not stopping. Not any more – now it’s “always check and trustno1”
Straphan @ 1001 and others on interval services and crowding
It definitely seems to be that it is almost too simple for its own good – removing stops to manage loadings has the side benefit of faster journey times for virtually everyone as by definition to maximise capacity every train has to do similar, and generally speaking the less you stop the faster you go (unless you put tons of padding in…). It also brings operational/cost benefits in that because of the slightly faster services you can cycle units and traincrew more quickly. Now there’s no reason you can’t design a repeating interval peak service which achieves this (e.g. Mr Fiennes 1949 Shenfield metro timetable), but it isn’t a complete necessity as regulars will aim for a specific train anyway.
The other issue which seems to be causing crowding on Southern (and to a lesser extent GN) is that the peak service is sustained for a longer period, meaning you need more units, which I suspect is why there are trains particularly immediately before the high peak (e.g. 0730 to 0800 arrivals at Victoria) which were 12 cars and now are 8s, as the extra units have had to come from somewhere to boost the shoulder peaks.
Anonymous,
there’s no reason you can’t design a repeating interval peak service
None at all. For the first line you want to do it on. But then you try and do it on a second line which interacts with it and has a different frequency. And a third …
The Shenfield metro timetable you mention was probably the best commuter timetable ever with a combination of fast outers, semi-fasts and slow inner all in an absolutely regular pattern. Fiennes did have the advantage of parallel fast lines that meant that no foreigners strayed onto his territory. Later, once electrified, he could even take advantage of them to send the trains back on arrival at Liverpool Street via the fast lines to complete another peak period trip.
Southern Heights @ 1405
I understand during the timetable development process that something or other got tweaked at Haymarket as a direct consequence of a Thameslink-related timetable change. Don’t ask me to pinpoint what it was though….
@WW @PoP and others RE: odd intervals on LO Richmond/Clapham/Stratford service.
I note that the odd intervals for Richmond/ClaphamJ services to Stratford are only on weekdays. At weekends a 4tph even interval service is scheduled from both Richmond and Clapham to Stratford.
One therefore wonders if the constraint is somewhere else – District Line timetable? Freight paths? It’s certainly odd.
My observations from this week, at Day 5 are that over the last couple of days this new timetable has been proven to be a complete fuster cluck. This evening for example, at Farringdon at around 19:15 all but one of the 7 trains on northbound platform was cancelled. At least two cancelled running south. All but 2 others showing “delayed” with no updated times shown. The remainder were 10 minutes plus late. This week Orpington trains were introduced. By Tuesday evening they were running non stop to outskirts of London, with alternatives cancelled or significantly delayed. The number of trains stopping in morning peak along the Elephant and Castle route has been cut. Few have been anywhere near on time. We get directed to Railplan2020 for revised timetable (the post Monday one) but only update to timetables there as far as I can make out is red text effectively saying “don’t believe the timetable”. Some station announcers have given up announcing train times, they just announce the calling points and the destination. The trains have permanent exclamation mark signs on their screen displays saying to look out as the train might not end up arriving when or where you are expecting. This evening Thameslink Twitter was saying that cancellation of all trains West Hampstead to St Albans is a “short term timetable amendment”. TL are also still using the operational incident excuse and not owning their cock up. This certainly isn’t the careful phasing in of a new timetable it has been presented as…
Well fascinating. With Finsbury Park as my nearest ‘big’ station I had high hopes for even the 3 tph intermediate service but the cancellation levels have been horrendous. And I am totally confused as to the Moorgate service timetable. There seem to be more trains but on Sunday the timetable seemed to change in front of me from a 6tph to a special? This isn’t the full metro service is it? Anyway on Monday earwigging two GN drivers. One is at a depot with work for 90 drivers and they have only 65. Also no spare turns on the roster. The other said only 11 of 23 Sunday duties were covered on Sunday. I hope it gets better I really do but it should have been better planned than this.
Watching the TL trains disgorging on platforms 4/5 this morning was a site to behold. Particularly northbound services. Commuters pouring off and down the steps. There was a near army funnelling down under the arches for the tube.
I did notice that the Tooley Street entrance for the tube had been closed due to severe overcrowding (the same yesterday too I believe) though this may be a regular everyday thing pre Thameslink anyway.
I understand the arguments about the difficulties of providing uniformly even interval services where there are conflicting or multiple routes. More difficult to justify, though, are odd changes to stopping patterns. For example, on my line all the trains between Ashford and Tonbridge call at all stations apart from one morning peak service which runs fast through Pluckley and two evening down services which do the same, and one evening down service which omits the stop at Marden. It’s very hard to see why. Overcrowding can’t be the issue because both Marden and Pluckley are small stations and the extra load from either one of these is not going to make that much difference. Nor can time savings be the issue because, for example, the train omitting Marden saves 2 minutes running town, but when it gets to Ashford it has a 4 minute station stop with no particular connecting services. It’s almost as if the timetable planners have said that these small stations get enough stops on other trains so we will let these individual trains run fast through them. But this ignores the attractions of regular stopping patterns.
Today has not been a good one. In a remarkable coincidence, Thursday is the day that the GTR drivers’ rosters change each week.
However from what I’ve seen, the inherent reliability of the timetable itself is much improved, particularly south of the river. But there have been several major incidents that have hidden it (unit failures today, signalling power supply at London Bridge yesterday, broken rail Balham on Tuesday)
As ever with major timetable changes, give it a few weeks, and then see how it is working. The Great Eastern Main Line timetable rewrite in 2010 took 3 months to settle down.
I know LR is loath to allow too many anecdotes but I decided to check out Thameslink today from Finsbury Park. 14:08 to Horsham pulled in bang on time. Within two minutes there was an announcement that there would be a delay of ten minutes as a relief driver was on his/her way. After 25 minutes we moved off! Not bad progress to Blackfriars where there was an aborted cancellation announcement. I was still within London one hour after leaving Finsbury Park!
It is obviously called Railplan 2020 because it will take until 2020 for it to settle down and work properly.
Re Anonymous @2102,
LO frequencies/intervals – there are gaps for the extra 2tph on the NLL after the arrival of the 710s (expected first on GOBLin in August, then later on the Watford DCs, LO West Anglia and then NLL)
And on Thursday the PPM had declined again:
PPM / late / cancelled
Monday 82.3% / 10.9% / 6.7%
Tuesday 77.6% / 13.2% / 9.2%
Wednesday 74.7% / 15.2% / 10.1%
Thursday 72.9% / 16.2 % /11.0%
Still better than Jan 2015…
Watching Real Time Trains is somewhat compulsive viewing at the moment.
Farringdon this morning (08:00 – 08:45):
Total planned trains: 25
Departed on time: 3
Departed late: 11
Cancelled: 11
If GTR have an in-house band, I hope they’re called ‘The Operational Incidents’
A sidebar point (from the Meet the Managers session at Kings Cross) yesterday on ticketing – relevant to the costings made upthread (and I apologise if others are aware), but the same fare is to all the stations from Kentish Town to E&C/London Bridge because they are all grouped “London Thameslink” – which can be bought from any Thameslink station
The anecdote is that one can buy a London Terminals ticket from Great Northern stations to KGX/STP/Moorgate (& Old St), but not Farringdon. And no one (including at the DfT) thought about extending the ability to buy Great Northern stations to London Thameslink. So if you’re heading to (say) Farringdon – until they implement this ‘fix’, you can’t get a carnet or similar discounted fare.
NGH
I take it the PPM cancelled figures are cancellations in addition to the planned cancellations.
In comparing the PPM with January 2015, was the proportion of late to cancelled the same? From a passenger’s point of view a train being cancelled is a lot worse than 10 minutes late, so if there was more late running, but fewer cancellations in January 2015 the service might be seen as better, even though overall PPM was worse than this week.
Re JB,
Operational Incident – A southeastern service was sent into the Northbound through platform at Blackfriars so NR and SE taking the hit for this one. Admitted things were looking not good already.
Re Londoner in Scotland,
As “Cancelled” includes services that run but skip stopping as well as a cancelled, a comparison is tricky in a meaningful sense as “cancellations” were far higher but there was lots of skip stopping included in that.
Thanks for a very informative and well-balanced article. As a commuter, this plus the comments thread puts all the recent delays and cancellations into perspective and gives a view of the enormous complexity that belies any timetable change.
Unlike the poor sods from Harpenden and Hitchin, the new timetable will work just fine for me when reliably executed (journeys between SNO and KGX/STP).
The one thing I didn’t understand from your article is why, given the number of dependencies that were descoped or delayed (driver training, infrastructure upgrades, missing impact assessment of new timetable to other operators), the May timetable change didn’t get delayed by a few months to give more time for these key elements to be put in place?
@ngh: Two biscuits to be taken in this case:
– One by the signaller in Three Bridges who decided to let a Class 1 (or was it Class 2?) service into the through platforms;
– One for the Southeastern drivers who shrugged his shoulders upon seeing the signal and just went for it.
Presumably they were unable to find anyone to guide the Southeastern sod into Smithfield sidings quickly?
@Curious Commuter: May is the time all timetables change in (Western) Europe.
Remember that tickets for UK trains can be bought all over Europe, so reservation only trains and seat reservations need to be updated internationally. Also via Eurostar the UK timetable has an interaction with the continental timetables.
@ngh/straphan – Shurely all the route setting’s fully automated by now, isn’t it ?
But, yes, SE driver clearly “asleep at the wheel”.
@SHLR – a bit going into labour then. Once it’s started, it’s got to be completed. One way or another.
SWR TT change has been kicked back to May 19.
@Southern Heights: Thanks, that explains it. The joys of an interconnected world eh! How is the rest of Europe going to deal with the changes coming in with the next phase in December? Is that another month when European timetables change too?
@MikeP: There still has to be *some* sort of human oversight?
If anything, I’d expect an ARS algorythm to have a strict instruction to never route Class 1 or Class 2 trains into Platforms 1&2 at Blackfriars (Thameslink trains are described as Class 9).
@straphan
What are Class 1, 2 &c trains in this context? And ARS?
Curious Commuter,
The problem with delaying the changes is that, as keeps getting pointed out, a whole load of other changes are dependent on this one. Really, by the time you are a few months away, you more or less have to go with it. It is not just your staff who are affected. It is staff on other TOCs and timetables other TOCs were wanting to introduce. Not least there is the issue of leasing dates for rolling stock and contractual obligations.
Also note that an awful lot of the problems that have screwed up the whole service such as this morning’s incorrect platform routeing or Sunday’s ‘train stuck in tunnel’ would probably happen whenever you introduced the service. From that point of view far better to introduce it in May than wait until December.
If there is an issue of driver’s route knowledge (as there is here) then far better to introduce the timetable in May rather than have what you had at London Bridge in January which was drivers unfamiliar with the new route (but signed off as it wasn’t totally new to them) going slowly during hours of darkness as they were still very reliant on lineside signs to ensure they drive within the rules.
That said, you do wonder why they didn’t try something, well, less ambitious. In retrospect (easy to say) it might have been better not to attempt so many new through services late at night and simply terminate them at King’s Cross or Blackfriars (or London Bridge terminating platforms).
The only Train Operating Company in London that can really delay, cancel or substantially modify the timetable at will is c2c simply because it is almost self-contained.
@Curious Commuter: Yes, there are two updates per year….
@JKH: Do you mean May 2019?
Long Branch Mike,
Class 1: Notionally an express passenger train
Class 2: Notionally a stopping passenger train
The classification of class 1 and class 2 is much vaguer than it used to be. The purpose is primarily to assist the signaller (or computer) in distinguishing them. So nowadays a Hayes – Charing Cross not calling at Lewisham, St Johns or New Cross is classified as a Class 1 passenger train and Hayes – Cannon St all stations is Class 2.
A Class 9 used to be unfitted freight but that no longer exists so is used to distinguish critical services. So Thameslink was trains were recently designated Class 9. I think London Overground has always been Class 9.
ARS is automatic route setting. What Straphan was saying was that if under ARS then the rules should state no trains other than Class 9 to be automatically routed in platforms 2 at Blackfriars (through route northwards).
As an update to my earlier complaining: not only do some Welwyn GCs no longer stop, some Gordon Hills and even Stevenages do!
ANECDOTE ALERT!
I’ve been told by an interested third party that ARS is not working in Three Bridges Signalling Centre, so the signalmen are apparently setting up the routes for every train!
RE: ANECDOTE ALERT!
This is not an anecdote. Railtrack refused to pay Delta Rail their fees for maintaining the ARS software and the associated Timetable Processor. So NO ARS anywhere in the Three Bridges ASC area.
RE: CLASS 9s
There are also data problems if you try to run two identical TIDs in the same TRUST area at the same time. Schedules are ‘live’ from 1 hour before they depart their origin until 3 hours after they arrive at the (final) destination.
Thus a 1S02 between Brighton and Cambridge must avoid any other 1S02 at any point in a 6 or 7 hour window at any point between Brighton and Cambridge. At a very early stage, it became clear that it would be easier to have these as Class 9 and then the only trains that we would need to avoid TID conflicts would be with LOROL between Norwood Jnc and New Cross Gate.
@PoP: Thank you for debunking all my jargon. I shall try to do better next time.
Just for clarification: the Class 9 trains currently in use across the UK are (to the best of my knowledge):
– All Eurostar trains – to differentiate from Southeastern and to unify train numbers in UK and French planning systems. Hence 9Oxx trains are to/from Paris, whereas 9Ixx are to/from Brussels and become 90xx and 91xx trains respectively on the French side;
– London Overground East London Line – so that signallers know to route those trains onto the East London Line at Queen’s Road Peckham and New Cross Gate;
– Thameslink – so that signallers give them priority and know to route those trains onto Thameslink at London Bridge, Blackfriars, Carlton Road Jn and Belle Isle;
– Virgin Trains West Coast – all London-Scotland trains via Birmingham, so that signallers differentiate between them and the direct London-Glasgow trains that run via the Trent Valley;
– TfL Rail – Paddington-Hayes&Harlington services: presumably because if the Class 345 units operating these services were 9 cars long as originally planned they would not fit into Platform 14 at Paddington; and so signallers would immediately know not to send them there (or indeed, to send them anywhere past Airport Junction).
Re Automatic Route Settign (ARS). There is no ARS at Three Bridges Area Signalling Centre (ASC), largely because it is an eNtrance eXit (NX) Panel control system (pushing buttons to set the routes) and they don’t lend themselves well to ARS.
In any event, it is irrelevant, as the Thameslink Core and approaches is controlled from somewhere else: the Three Bridges Route Operating Centre (ROC) just across the tracks from the ASC. But that doesn’t have ARS either, and never has done (ie it’s not ‘not working’, it’s not there!) Having said that, the ROC will have the Traffic Management System (TMS) soon. The type of TMS to be applied at the ROC will be rather more advanced than ARS.
And that’s enough TLAs.
Re Phil Harmonic and Gordon D,
And over the other side of the tracks the TMS system for Three Bridges ROC isn’t live yet either…
An emergency timetable will be in action over the BH weekend with reduced TL service levels presumably to try to run the others more reliably especially with Sunday staffing levels being an issue on GN that predates GTR (A First Capital Connect mistake in 2009).
For starters:
TL2 Bedford – Gatwick has been culled
GN services all running into Kings Cross
The disruptions page about this morning has been quite candid:
Earlier today the 07:37 service from Sole Street to London Blackfriars was incorrectly routed into platform 2 at London Blackfriars and blocked the line towards London St Pancras International for approximately 30 minutes. Thameslink services travelling into London Blackfriars were at stand outside and needed to reverse back towards Elephant & Castle to allow this Southeastern train to be correctly placed into platform 4. This is a process that takes time, as drivers need to change ends of the trains and each train has to be reversed through each signal at safety caution, awaiting permission to proceed incrementally.
The train has now been moved into its correct platform and the line has been reopened for our services to run again, however owing to the number of services that run through this area a queue built, and it will take some time for services to return to normal.
Delays caused by disruption leave trains, drivers and crews in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is causing further congestion and delays to services across the network, particularly at St Albans and Luton where trains start and terminate.
However it does make you wonder why didn’t lust leave it on Platform 2, got the driver to run around to the far end and drive it off to where it should have gone. Rather than backing it up and all that…. That would possibly have been less disruptive?
Couldn’t they just have dumped it into Smithfield? Or was it a 12-car?
Re Straphan,
375s aren’t allowed into Smithfield any more and SE drivers don’t sign it any longer. The 2 TL trains immediately behind had to be backed out first to allow the SE replay forming manoeuvre.
Class “9” trains.
I assume the Royal Train is still 1Z01 ???
@ngh: That’s what I call joined-up thinking! D’oh…
Straphan,
I believe that Smithfield sidings can take a 12-car in an emergency providing it is the outermost siding but it will block the inner siding. But no help if class 375 are no longer allowed (were they ever?) Also, according to Open Train Times diagram there is currently a train in the outer siding.
If the sidings were empty and class 375 were permitted and they could have found a pilot for the train then they could have split the train in two and put it in both sidings.
@JKH
“SWR TT change has been kicked back to May ’19.”
I have to ask: is someone able to back this up, or is it just a rumor?
Alice 24-05 00.50
Good searching! That was the train l caught. Still puzzled by onboard train indicators saying one thing and platform indicators saying another. Thanks as well TL Driver.
THREE BRIDGES ASC
Sad Fat Dad is right (to a degree) no ARS. However way back in the late 80s, once all (the original) 6 panels were up and running an attempt was made to run ARS on Panel 5. This involved a huge amount of work in the AMO at Redhill drawing up data tables just to regulate down trains from Hayward’s Heath so that slow Brighton’s didn’t go down in front of Fast Brightons and Littlehamptons. That down Eastbourne trains could go more or less at will.
It was the cost of maintaining these ARS tables which ‘old BR’ could easily absorb but Railtrack just was prepared to undertake but resented paying Delta Rail to do it.
So with very limited success in 1994 it was switched off. I was told 6 years ago that the relevant PCs were still in situ in the equipment room.
LONDON BRIDGE PLATS 4&5
I passed through LB on Thursday late pm just as the peak was starting. Aim was to get the first Luton to East Grinstead service (thankfully only running 3 late) but the platform was awash with lost souls. There appeared to be just 3 members of staff, one in the office and two on the platform; each taking turns to spend time in the office or on the platform.
No train despatch is required, unlike on the SE side. Driver does the lot. All they need to do is give verbal calls to stand clear or let the automatic PA announcement say it, which always seemed to kick-in after the train had started to move!
The two platform staff seemed completely overwhelmed trying to leaf through a master platform sheet to answer questions, then checking the CIS displays to see what was going on. I felt sorry for them, because in many cases, the best answer was either; take this train to East Croydon or St Pancras and change there for Brighton/Gatwick/Horsham (EC) or walk over the road to KGX for Peterborough or Cambridge. Some savvy pax did ask these questions but the poor staff just did not have enough experience to look at the sequence of incoming trains and say “Yes, I think you should or “No, staying here will be easier/quicker”.
Just a complete and utter abdication by their own line managers, felt so sorry for the 3 staff. If I hadn’t just come out of the pub, I would have offered to help.
Was a horrendous display of just how not to run a railway
Thanks to SadFatDad for his excellent explanation of the the Three Letter Acronyms (TLA).
Unfortunately we have TLA creep in the form of station and airport codes – please spell them out.
As well as other system acronyms, so please spell them out for the unititiated.
I know that TRUST stands for ‘TRain RUnning SysTem TOPS’, the NR computer system used for monitoring the progress of trains and tracking delays on the network, where TOPS is Total Operations Processing System.
I presume TID is Train identification?
Gordon, re London Bridge. I haven’t been on 4/5 in the peak this week, but I have been on Blackfriars P1 and P2. The platform staff there have been stars. They use tablets with live feeds of line maps to see where the next 2-3 trains are and thus how long they will be, and announce accordingly. Generally they override the automatic announcements, which is good because (in my view) the latter are useless with trains arriving every 2-3 minutes.
I gather the platform team all had training in the last 3-6 months to prep them for this. Not sure why it hasn’t come through at London Bridge.
@NGH 0039
Had completely forgotten about the 710 cascade. Delayed due to testing according to Wiki. Would be interesting to see the timetable plans once they are introduced.
Incredibly frustrating that there appears to be radio silence from LO explaining the reason for the changes. Slightly less annoying if you know the reason for things, especially if changes are temporary. And most commuters aren’t checking on here regularly so will be completely in the dark.
(I’ll declare a personal interest in this one as NLL trains which were previously just busy are now crush loaded)
Re starlight,
As previously mentioned in comments under another recent LR article, the dual voltage 710s are all completed but the 710s are getting a new software build base on experience learnt from the 345s (which use an older software / computer hardware combination dating back to the 379s (and later used on 377/6 & /7 and 387s)
Re Anon E Mouse @ 15:26
“SWR TT change has been kicked back to May ’19.”
I have to ask: is someone able to back this up, or is it just a rumor?
1. I had heard it on the rumour mill for several weeks, the SWR timetable change requires the desiro fleet (444s and 450s) refurb and 442 rebuild to be complete and a quick mathematical analysis suggests with the progress rate to date is virtually impossible hence I was expecting it to be delayed and thought about suggesting a potential delay in the article wording but didn’t in the end.
2. If JKH is who I think they are then it is pretty good indication that it is the most likely outcome.
@ngh
Duly noted. I’ve had my suspicions about the Desiro refurb being behind schedule.
As a side note, I recently got a chance to travel on the first refurbished 450 (450111) and I noticed that the guards compartment was still in situ. I understand that the refurb will replace all of the guards areas with more seating so I suppose that this unit will have to go in again for it to be removed.
Re LBM 25 May at 21:12 – So we have the answer to “TLA” but what about four-letter codes? FLA? There’s a few of those in this example:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P81065/2018/05/25/advanced
For those interested, it’s not actually a freight train pathing from Victoria to Bristol Temple Meads, nor actually a diesel train but is reserved for steam train specials.
A four letter code is sometimes (autologically) known an ETLA (extended TLA)
Regarding SWR the delay also sounds plausible given the recently announced, and quite extensive, changes to their proposals for both suburban and mainline services: an extra few months working on the plan won’t do any harm at all, and they will be keen to avoid a repeat of the current situation in any case.
A further example this morning of the way in which the problems at Thameslink have become so invasive of other networks. The Catford Loop is closed for engineering work this weekend. To allow Sevenoaks services to operate South Eastern have cancelled half of their main line stopping service, being replaced by Thameslink. As at 1000 this morning Thameslink have only managed to operate three out of eight of the trains they were supposed to be providing .
@LBM
TfL tla http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-abbreviations.pdf
There is a lot of Twitter commentary this morning about apparently random cancellations leaving some routes without trains for up to 2 hours. This and the crest of this week’s events leads me to wonder why there wasn’t a contingency plan that cancelled strategic trains so as to leave all routes with at least a reasonable service, rather than what looks, at best like making it up as they go along. I don’t underestimate how hard it is when the trains aren’t all available or in the right place and there aren’t enough drivers or trained drivers, let alone the teething troubles of such a radical change to the timetable, but this last week shows something very wrong with the combined processes of NR, GTR and to and extent SE Trains.
Re 130,
Part of the issue is that GTR’s train planning department has a high churn rate, a high vacancy rate and poor salaries so struggles to cope at the best of times and certainly isn’t resourced for the dual tasking of long term and short term planning (different art forms) AND the massive changes taking place. Realistically to cope with the change element they would have had to have taken on and trained up a lot more staff on contract for what would have been about 2 years but now realistically 4 years. They also amalgamated the TL/GN and Southern functions and will also have to resource up to split them again in 3 years so might have well as have hired more staff permanently excepet this is an an unusual franchise with the revenue risk sitting with DfT so potentially very little incentive for GTR (or any of the other bidders) to do this.
The are also plenty of instance of complaints from NR as to the poor quality of timetabling submissions increasing NR’s work load at a time when they are already snowed under with the level of big timetable changes and engineering works nationally.
Given that December’s draft Working TimeTable is due out in 14 days time don’t expect any major plan B, GTR need to focus on running the trains. The timetable fundamentally works with many parts of Southern seeing some of their best days this year during this week, there is just a lack of the required resources to run it. The potential for emergency timetables dilutes some potential route learning opportunities so they won’t want to reduce problematic Rainham and Canal Tunnel services too much as it will just make the problem last longer.
GTR glossing over media strategy appears to be a complete flop as they are now admitting it is now a 2 month issue* rather than a 3 week one in places and would have been better to mention it as phased change in publicity. Hence a change of public relations strategy looks inevitable.
*see the article above
@Graham Feakins, timbeau, Briantist
I’m aware that TLA, ETLA and FLA station code lists and references exist, but that’s not the point.
We strive to keep the comments as readable as possible, so that the reader doesn’t get distracted to look something up, or spend time working out what the acronym means.
There is often a lot of detail and and multiple levels of forces in play in LR articles and the comments, so we want to make understanding and discussion as distraction free as we can.
Furthermore we have a lot of non-railway industry and non-technical readers, and too many acronyms are a disincentive to read.
@100andthirty I would have thought that the contingency plan was called the Sunday service. Perhaps they should drop back to that – it is helpfully half-term – and then strengthen it if and when it shows signs of working and resources become available to operate it.
Re: NickD – That would require the Thameslink Sunday timetable to mesh perfectly with the weekday timetables of VTEC, EMT, Southeastern, the other constituent parts of GTR, any freight operators and no doubt a few others I’ve overlooked.
I’m not saying it doesn’t as I simply don’t know, but…
PS: … and presumably the rolling stock disposition at the end of the Sunday timetable is designed to facilitate the start of a weekday timetable, not another Sunday one. Again, just guessing.
PoP…..I understand all the points you make, but all that says is that they failed to obtain the required resource, and if they can’t recruit at the pay on offer, then it has to rise. Timetable planners are a bit important! Imagine a parallel where electricians are in short supply and there’s a deadline. We’ve seen before that the price of electricians rises, but they will be obtained.
They were awarded this job exactly 4 years ago; it’s not a huge amount of time, but there was plenty of time to warn of the troubles. In my experience of projects, the sin is not to admit there’s a problem; keeping quiet when you’re in trouble is as close as you can get to “original sin”. Did the people in authority sing “la la la la” at the top of their voices when someone tried to explain that there were problems?
Put it another way, it’s a bit late for all these things to emerge now. If things are as bad as you say, the whistle should have been blown much earlier. Perhaps it was and the phased introduction (recommended in the Gibb Report?) was the result. it seem to me that the whistle wasn’t blown hard enough
Re London Bridge staff. Not a tablet in sight, just using A4 booklets.
Other problem compared to Blackfriars is you have many more choices with South Central to East Croydon and South Eastern to Dartford. In some cases, it would have been quicker to go via SE Hi-Speed from St Pancras.
Re: TID – yes Train Identification number
100andthirty,
I am sure you mean ngh but no matter, based on offline discussions, I am pretty sure we speak with one mind on this issue.
I actually applied to be a train planner once. I was more or less warned off it at the interview. In the secretive way that British Rail worked, the interviewers knew I had been accepted for a trainee computer job (for which I had applied months ago and heard nothing) but I didn’t. I think they recognised the low status and limited promotion prospects available in timetabling and thought I was far better off (financially and in other ways) pursuing a career with computers.
I am sure ngh is only explaining from GTR’s point of view why they don’t have more train planners.
Onto your point of fingers in their ears … It is this aspect of not facing up to reality or apparent cognitive dissonance than makes it all so unacceptable. As an ex-railwayman myself and ngh, who is very aware of how and why problems inevitably develop, we can forgive a lot of things but appearing not to face up to the reality of the situation is something that is hard to defend. I would liken it to the initial response to Foot and Mouth disease a few years ago or the absolutely pathetic initial response to flooding in Somerset in 2013-14. I notice the minister involved with that one hasn’t had much of a career since. Making the wrong decision is forgivable but displaying ‘rabbit caught in the headlights’ tendencies isn’t.
I am sure GTR are doing all they think they need to do about this but I don’t understand why they thought everything would be more-or-less OK in the first week when everyone else, from the feedback we had, was convinced it was going to be pretty much a disaster initially. In fact, in many ways it has gone better than some suggested with a lot more of the new services running than some of the prophets of doom were suggesting.
Thameslink appears to have run barely half a dozen trains to Rainham today – and some of those only ran to or from Dartford. Sevenoaks broadly reduced to hourly, though with at least one 2.5 hour gap in the service.
Hopefully ngh can relay the (non) performance figures, but it’s enough to put me off trying to travel tomorrow.
@130
Stalin is reputed to have said that the worst criminal was ‘he who knew but did not tell’.
@Man of Kent – Re. Rainham, GTR has this on their website: “Re Rainham: “In addition to the gradual introduction of the new timetable, cable testing is taking place at Sheerness which is further reducing Thameslink services to Rainham. As the High Speed does not call at Higham, a regular bus replacement service will run between Gravesend, Higham and Strood.” Note the bus now does run to Gravesend.
@Graham F
I noted the Sheerness excuse. It’s difficult to understand how it affected the Thameslink service, given it is a branch line further to the east, and also that it was fixed and open again by 2130 on Friday night. I suspect the Sunday Rainham service will be another work of fiction.
Plus, I can’t find any timetable for Higham-Gravesend buses.
@ Man of Kent – “I can’t find any timetable for Higham-Gravesend buses.” – Neither could I but that’s what they’re saying.
@PoP 25 May at 15:24 – Reverting for a moment to this: “I believe that Smithfield sidings can take a 12-car in an emergency providing it is the outermost siding but it will block the inner siding. But no help if class 375 are no longer allowed (were they ever?)”
But why couldn’t the errant train have been permitted to draw forwards and down into City Thameslink itself and reverse using whichever part of the double crossover thought convenient at the south end of the station? Trains can reverse southwards from both northbound and southbound platforms, or can’t they see that from the signalling centre?
Incidentally, I note there’s still a sign in Snow Hill tunnel forbidding Networkers to proceed on the through route at the junction to Snow Hill sidings, thereby implying that at least Networkers are still permitted as far as the sidings.
@Man of Kent – Up until 1900 yesterday Thameslink only managed 11 out of the scheduled 27 out of Sevenoaks, somewhat less than hourly. Strangely, after that time they managed a full service.
Graham Feakins,
My comment on Smithfield sidings was hypothetical as we have already established that class 375 cannot go north of platform 2 at Blackfriars. I only made the comment because it would be equally valid for a class 700.
I suspect the reason for the ban was because of the steep incline back into Blackfriars. Having got rid of the class 319 from this route and the risks presented by one of these stalling due to lack of power to climb in Blackfriars it would probably be incongruous to permit a class 375 to do it. Class 700s have loads of redundant power capability – built in because of the steep inclines on Thameslink.
Can you image the further chaos if the class 375 were allowed forward into City Thameslink and then it couldn’t get back to Blackfriars? I suspect in the circumstances that happened it would actually be a better, but riskier, option but rules on the railway are strict.
I think one needs to take the ‘No Networkers’ sign as historic. It is the rule book that determines where you can and can’t run a particular type of train. These kind of signs can be dangerous because the subliminal message is ‘anything but Networkers’.
According to the sectional appendix, Class 375s are not cleared north of Blackfriars.
The only multiple units cleared beyond Blackfriars but not as far as Farringdon are Class 376 and Class 508, which are both cleared as far as the change of mileage in Snow Hill tunnel (located approx. 11 chains south of City Thameslink, south of the crossover, and 14 chains north of Blackfriars). It is possible that there is some authority given to Networkers beyond that in the sectional appendix; otherwise it seems that they are permitted no further than Blackfriars, making the signs Graham mentions redundants.
Yesterday, the situation was dire at Gravesend for anyone wanting the Thameslink service – at least the Javelin (and SE via Sidcup) are reliable. This morning 9P12 and 9P91 were passing on time (at about Northfleet) but there was nothing else (on Thameslink) shown anywhere from Metropolitan Junction onwards.
Bearing in mind that closures on the direct Greenwich line are not unknown and that it is doubtful if any route knowledge of the other three routes to Dartford has been taught (except to ex-SE drivers), any future “minor” interruption could well put the kibosh on services if pilotmen are not available. Perhaps I should say the other 3.5 routes to include round or direct across the Courthill Loop.
RE MAN OF KENT at 01:00
“I noted the Sheerness excuse. It’s difficult to understand how it affected the Thameslink service, given it is a branch line further to the east,”
Same signalling panel etc. as Rainham.
“Plus, I can’t find any timetable for Higham-Gravesend buses.”
Just Higham – Strood buses…
“Thameslink appears to have run barely half a dozen trains to Rainham today – and some of those only ran to or from Dartford. Sevenoaks broadly reduced to hourly, though with at least one 2.5 hour gap in the service.”
Today SE is closed between CHX and Courthill South Jn and Kidbrooke – Barnehurst so fewer plan B options too. E.g. everything is running from CST via Lewisham or Greenwich.
Catford Loop is closed for the bridge replacement west of Peckham Rye so the TL Sevenoaks are running via Herne Hill with lots of other diverted SE services all at reduced frequencies.
The real test for the new services will come on the first Monday In June ( 4th ) when half-term is over & everyone is really back at work.
If, at that point, after 2 weeks thorough “practice” it then all falls apart, “we” should know that there is a serious, ongoing problem that is going to need competent & ( all-imprtant in this sort of situation ) integrated management & control, with all the players actually talking to each other.
From what others have posted above, the omens & signs are not good.
We shall see.
@ngh
Yes, I accept all of that, but TL is maintaining a fiction of running a service it clearly cannot run.
It is exacerbating the situation by not providing accurate information about what is, and isn’t running e.g. the Sheerness excuse remains on display this morning. Follow all the links to eventually access the timetable pages, and it says:
“Services on Saturday 26, Sunday 27 and Monday 28 May
As part of their Railway Upgrade Plan, Network Rail need to carry out essential engineering works this Bank holiday weekend.
A revised weekend service will operate. We urge passengers to continue to check before they travel. Thameslink and Great Northern services may be incorrect in journey planners until approx. 24 hours before the time of travel. Timetables for services on these routes are shown below.”
Except that today’s Kent timetable shows half-hourly services via the Catford Loop. The others may be similarly inaccurate. As originally written, I’ve abandoned a trip to Sevenoaks today because yesterday’s performance simply isn’t good enough.
I don’t doubt that it is difficult to implement temporary changes to the TL timetable to try and reduce some of the effects (noting too, the shortage of timetable planners) but one mitigation would be to truncate the Rainham service at Rochester, where – for the majority of the day – it can easily be turned and save a driver or two. The remaining five SE trains an hour (four today) provide an adequate onward service.
Which still leaves the question as to what TL are running tomorrow, because it is far from clear on the website.
Man of Kent,
As Graham Feakins has pointed out to me, it is almost impossible to work out what is going on on any line – not just Thameslink routes. By their own admission the Journey Planner will not always be up to date. Yet the detailed breakdown of alterations to passenger services on their websites contain important omissions – Thameslink excepted which doesn’t seem to tell you anything useful relating to reality.
For example, there are no local Southern trains between Redhill and Tonbridge and these are replaced by a bus service. But there is no reference to this. There are trains running but these are Southeastern Hastings – Charing Cross trains are diverted and are fast from Tonbridge to Redhill.
At the same time there are no trains between South Croydon and either Uckfield or East Grinstead – leading to the inaccurate statement that buses replace trains between Purley and East Grinstead and Purley and Edenbridge Town (where there is a further bus to Uckfield). So Edenbridge has two stations on two different lines but both are affected by engineering works – as is the entire surrounding area.
There is no real advice in any co-ordinated way to describe the travel arrangements of a wide dispersed area covering of what I have counted to be at least 23 stations (South Croydon – East Grinstead, Hurst Green – Uckfield, Redhill – Tonbridge exclusive, Hildenborough) yet this is a pretty major closure covering a large geographic area that should have been properly planned a long time in advance.
@PoP
Thank you for confirming the worst. Absolutely disgraceful, isn’t it?
By the way, Real Time Trains now shows that the Rainham service has been revised for the day – an hourly shuttle between there and Dartford.
@100andthirty and ngh have basically summed up the TL debacle and it is atrocious. Badly planned, under resourced and appallingly implemented. And now that they are in this mess they seem to have turned their backs on the passenger and giving little out about what is going wrong and more importantly what they intend to do about it. I really hope their top management are in today in crisis mode working round the clock to achieve something like a decent service on Tuesday. I really want this to succeed but it’s a tall order. Where else do such long distance trains combine at such high frequency with such high interdependencies as this. The Milano passante gets up to 15tph in the peaks has three branches at either end and is not nearly so interdependent. The Munich S-bahn has 6-7 branches at either end but is quite self contained and the lines not nearly so long. I can’t wait to see what Roger Ford of Modern Railways makes of this given that he lives on GN.
Well at least this situation is not as bad as Queensland Rail’s disastrous October 2016 timetable update in Brisbane, Australia. Due to there being insufficient drivers to operate this timetable, over 330 services/week were axed. After more than 600 days later, these services are still axed. Fridays have a confusingly different timetable to Mon-Thu with less services. Some weekends only have hourly services (worst service in Oceania), and school holidays see some peak and off-peak services cut by 50%. There is no sign of when services will be improved with Queensland Rail, the Queensland Government, and overseeing Citytrain Response Unit avoiding the big question. Just to add to the mess, the heavily delayed New Generation Rollingstock (700 series) trains have been deemed to be illegal by the Australian Human Rights Commission due to lack of disabled access. Overcrowded 3-car services that were “temporary” in the January 2014 timetable changed still exist (apart from on Fridays when they have been axed). It makes UK train timetable stuff-ups seem minor by comparison.
Clearly some people need to “consider their position”.
No doubt at the end of this debacle someone will be persuaded to give up his bonus, but still walk away with several million quid. Not that I can see any reason why anybody should be paid a bonus for doing their job.
PoP
About 6 years back, NR “pulled a trick” which was just as bad – you could not get into Thanet AT ALL one weekend, because the engineering/planning sections were not talking to each other, so that …
On the ex-LCD lines there was work somewhere between Rochester & Faversham & buses replaced trains, whilst on the ex-SER lines Ashford-Minster- (I think) Sandwich was equally “out”.
The locals & prospective visitors were not happy bunnies
Hypothetically speaking, is it possible to roll back to the previous timetable – even if it has to be done nationwide?
Or are we too committed to it now?
If it is indeed possible, how bad do things have to be before it becomes the best option?
@ Mike / Dave Russell – I know it is a common refrain to want resignations or maximum management effort but, being my ever cynical self, I can’t see this happening. Mr Grayling has already blamed Network Rail (NR) which I find mildly galling given all the new infrastructure is in place, barring the new Train Management System (TMS), and the timetable appears to work. As Ngh has explained NR is itself frustrated at the quality of what emerges from GTR’s own timetabling people. Not even NR can control where lightning strikes hit so some of the recent disruption is outwith their direct control. I feel the “blame NR” line is part of a wider strategy to discredit that organisation as part of a wider strategy dreamt up the SoS.
There are clearly issues with the late supply of new rolling stock – a matter between the DfT, Siemens and those funding the deal. So not even GTR or Network Rail are in the dock for that problem (unless I’ve missed something). The DfT also happily signed a franchise contract with GTR despite them not having a workable bid timetable. We know via the National Audit Office reports that multiple other failings have been laid at the DfT’s door.
This then leaves GTR. They appear to have failed in multiple respects and are continuing to do so on a daily basis. However they must know they are not going to be booted off the contract prior to 2021 because DfT don’t have the resources to cope with the retendering of the contract. They have also won several battles with the DfT over the application of contractual provisions so that will give them some “comfort” even during the current mess. They can also point to the flawed information on things like driver numbers and recruitment dating to before the time they started so there’s another convenient get out for them. Furthermore I can’t see the DfT getting rid of what is probably considered a convenient “human shield” for the Department in the form of GTR. They’re the people who have to face the cameras and media not Mr Grayling. The fact that the Thameslink franchise is also a net cost management contract removes a fair amount of financial incentive from GTR to respond to weaknesses in its own operation (see Ngh’s remark re their scheduling team). There’s no doubt this is a monumental mess but I simply don’t see anyone walking or being booted out.
I don’t have to use GTR so I’m just an observer. The bit I can’t fathom is how you go from a service that broadly worked just over a week ago to one that is a shambles all over the place including those routes which have run for years – e.g. Bedford – Brighton, Sutton Loop, the Sevenoaks TL service plus the old Southern Horsham service and parts of GN. I know the new timetable is a big step up in some respects but for so much to have gone wrong and keep getting worse *and* for no one to seemingly have a clue what’s going on suggests something [1] structural is failing or is close to failing. I can’t really recall such a bad timetable change happening before.
[1] something other than all the many myriad things that have been well documented and explained.
Re Mike,
1. Roger F is already twittering about it…
2. Length of routes – the max journey length on RER D is ~95miles so similar to many longer Thameslink routes. 4 of the TL routes are 45miles or less, 3 routes in the 70-80 mile bracket and the remaining 5 routes in the 100-113 mile bracket including Bedford – Brighton which as worked well for years when there aren’t infrastructure works.
Re WW,
1. Late Rolling Stock – still 6 units waiting to be accepted, at the time of the timetable change 5 of those units were in Germany with 3x 12 car units delivered this past week. The late delivery and acceptance of the rolling stock has required lots of GTR driver resource in repeated running up fault free mileage as well as repeated testing of software updates and debugging. It has also meant there are fewer units and paths available to train driver on 700s or new routes (e.g. Canal tunnels) that require 700s. This has cost Siemens a very very large sum of money as the contract was drawn up very carefully (which took ages), they also got the cleaning staff requirement calculations wrong hence the units appearing less clean than they should be.
The original assumptions was that the units would all have been accepted well before this TT change so probably currently 4 months behind if being charitable having recovered form being far further behind.
2. The recent NAO report had subtle fleeting references to DfT putting their fingers in their ears and going la-la-la on not starting the driver recruitment push under the previous franchises, indeed first stopped driver recruitment as soon as they knew they had lost the bidding.
3. “Human Shield”etc DfT need GTR and GTR have so much ammo on DfT that they are unaxeable. Every potential replacement known exactly how much more it will cost to run that GTR so DfTs costs would go up (probably by an upper 8 digit sum to the end of the GTR contract timing)
4. Net Cost Contracts – this always leads to perverse incentives for both sides. My first job post uni (after getting a bit bored with engineering for a while) was working for a strategy consultancy where I ended up spending lots of time sorting out loads of these issues always starting out with fairly complex modelling of all the intricacies (excel models running for 24hrs) which always flushed out the problems which then lead to sensible discussions on payments or investments to remove these problems as well as optimum cooperation (equitable cost and profit share) leading to greater profitability for both parties, most of these contracts were bigger than the DfT – GTR contract but I can’t see DfT applied many learnings from the commercial world at the time, the Wilkinson era appears a bit different in this respect, I sometimes jest that PW will have been the best return on investment DfT have made in living memory.
5. Most of the TSGN contract thinking predates the West Coast fiasco it was just dusted off after the prolonged rolling stock negotiations.
6. “no one to seemingly have a clue what’s going on suggests something structural is failing or is close to failing. I can’t really recall such a bad timetable change happening before.”
The problem is nothing to do with the timetable which shows every sign that it will work well, indeed many bits of Southern look likely to be more reliable than they have been in years. Several southern metro and coastway routes have had some of their most reliable days of the year this past week.
The core problems are:
a) they don’t have enough drivers trained on routes or stock the quickest remedy involves some on the job training so the problem services still need to run to provide learning opportunities. Just a couple of extra trained drivers available on certain routes would make a massive difference (very non-linearly mathematical in the “chaos” sense). The solution is to keep slogging away at it.
b) the rostering doesn’t /didn’t take account of the need for slack given the potential for unreliability at this stage, e.g. the 2 & 3rd driver shifts need to sign on earlier given disruption levels in-order to get to the right location by the right time to prevent escalations in disruption, this is impossible to fix within a week so an area for potential improvement this week especially later in the week.
In all the works why did the power supply changeover point not move? I would have wanted it before a train is committed to the core, ie south of Blackfriars or north of St Pancras.
I see that Blackfriars – City – Farringdon station elevations are 6, 11 and 12, rising to 53m for West Hampstead. Is there an elevation graph of the line?
Toby,
There is no problem.
If a northbound train fails to changeover at City Thameslink (where the power change point now is) then it can simply reverse using the crossover to the south of the station to get back to Blackfriars.
If a southbound train fails to changeover at Farringdon then everyone is aware of it and it can proceed to City Thameslink (which is wired) using the pantograph and then it can simply reverse using another crossover to get back to Farringdon.
They thought about this and did a sensible solution which only required wiring from Farringdon to City Thameslink.
The problem with the Southeastern train was entirely because it was not allowed beyond the end of the northbound platform at Blackfriars.
Re Toby,
1. Cost
2. St Pauls sight lines affecting the height of Blackfriars station designs
3. You really want to minimise the length of dual voltage area for plenty of engineering reasons.
Walthamstow Writer,
As you can see, when GTR said they couldn’t implement the full timetable immediately because the rolling stock was in the wrong place, what they meant was that it was in Germany and it needed to be in England.
DJL,
It must be just about possible to roll back the timetable but would be very, very difficult for reasons stated earlier.
There is nothing basically wrong with the new timetable in principle and, as a Southern user who believes the service has considerably improved both in theory and in practice, I would be loathe to see such a measure.
All radical new timetables are potentially problematic. That is why they are not undertaken likely and it is a pity they weren’t more honest with the likely effects as they must have been known days before implementation.
If there are problem is shouldn’t need a complete rollback to sort them out. The timetable appears to work relatively well in the peaks if other incidents don’t occur. So the obvious thing to do is temporarily reduce the off-peak service in a planned, controlled way. This also gives you opportunities to terminate at London Bridge or King’s Cross until one is confident the services can be reinstated.
A further problem is that if you try and reinstate the old timetable after a number of weeks or months you will start to hit the same problem in reverse. Drivers are now trained up to the new routes but their route knowledge on the old routes, which must be kept up-to-date, will have lapsed.
So, I would argue the worst thing you can do is switch back. You have to work through this.
And always ask yourself the Justine Greening question ‘then what?’ Do you abandon the new timetable forever and waste a lot of the benefit of £7 billion of intrastructure improvements? Or do you implement at a later date and go through the pain a second time? Don’t think for one moment it will be pain free whenever you do it.
Re PoP @ 1834,
Not quite – they don’t need the units to run the current timetable but certainly do need them for December. They would have been most useful for training though.
Toby: the changeover *was* moved, for northbound services, to City TL.
As ngh says, the main reason is the need to minimise the length of dual traction for a high capacity railway with high power trains. And also have as much as possible on AC (which permits higher power), whilst keeping far enough away from the rest of the DC network such that lots of expensive electrical kit and maintenance can be avoided.
Even where it is, there are problems. If you watch a southbound departure from the south end of Blackfriars platform 1, but position yourself on the south end of platform 2, you will see arcing across the Insulated Block Joint (IBJ) in the running rails, as the DC return current tries to get back to the earthed AC system at City TL. That IBJ burns out approx every 9-12 months, and is thus replaced roughly every 6. Which is roughly 20 times the frequency of most IBJs. To put it into context, there are a couple, of hundred IBJs between Blackfriars and London Bridge / Elephant & Castle inclusive.
DJL (and PoP by extension). Yes it is possible to roll back a timetable; c2c did it about a decade ago. It takes about 6 weeks to enact to get the rosters changes and everyone briefed (in a hurry – the briefings for the TL timetable have been going since Christmas). But note that c2c is almost a self contained railway.
@ Ngh – as ever thanks for the detail. I did acknowledge the timetable was seemingly working well. I certainly haven’t heard too many moans about Southern’s performance and have been surprised that when TL works there seems to be decent timekeeping on many trains. I admit I had not twigged that there were still Class 700s in Germany! I imagine GTR can’t make stark comments about this for fear of upsetting Horseferry Road.
I take your point about GTR having leverage over the DfT. I certainly can’t see the contract being retendered both for the reason I quoted and the one you cite – a huge cost increase from any other bidder. They are going to have enormous fun come late 2019 when they will have start the procurement process for the next contract come 2021 with all the splitting apart that will require plus the great leap into working alongside the undefined “East Coast Partnership” concept.
@ PoP – re your “Don’t think for one moment it will be pain free whenever you do it.” remark I hope TfL, MTR Crossrail and Network Rail are studying the Thameslink debacle very closely given Crossrail faces two pretty fundamental timetable changes in May and December 2019 to link in the existing eastern and western routes. I am not suggesting for a moment that Crossrail has anything like the inheritance that has beleagured GTR and they have had time and still do to plan those stages very carefully. It’s just that the scale of change each time is pretty large and the change to what passengers expect and experience will be considerable. There are also obvious signalling interface performance risks and probably limited scope to run a representative / taxing shadow timetable in the run up to the actual changes. I can see that they could build up a “shadow” through service to the east before May 2019 as Liverpool St “basement” will obviously be open to passengers. The west is harder given the much more intensive post Dec 2019 service level that can’t be fully replicated in advance. Methinks this might be an interesting thing to watch in the coming months. They certainly cannot afford any sort of service “meltdown” given the importance of Crossrail revenue and patronage growth to TfL’s budget / business plan.
Re Paul,
” I imagine GTR can’t make stark comments about this for fear of upsetting Horseferry Road.”
Just more ammunition to add to the file though!
Almost everyone got taken in by images of the final unit leaving the factory 3 months ago, I keep pondering an article “(German tank) Serial number analysis revisited 75years on: What can we learn out modern rolling stock introduction?”
[The Germans loved their sequential serial numbers, we randomised ours, so every bit of their captured equipment was looked at carefully…]
The interesting lesson apart from software/software/software is that seeming more reliable units in testing get sent over (delivered) ASAP to get units delivered but just tend to have more issues post delivery before acceptance and v/v.
It looks like a return to the old way of a prototype/very early pre-series units out in the field for real world learning probably far better for (all) rolling stock manufacturers working capital and profit margins but doesn’t particularly fit with the way they like to schedule things in the factories. The modern reason would be to sort the software as all the mechanical stuff seems to work very well as designed these days.
From what I understand Crossrail are probably much further ahead with driver training than GTR are with their GN drivers and they have a much large “float” of drivers to enable training.
CR have already have the luxury of more daily driver training paths and available units on the GWML than GTR had at this time last year. With the CR tunneled section now all live (a little late) and all the PEDs completed it should only take few months till driver route training can start in the core.
Retendering in 2021, I expect DfT might want to exercise extension options so the impact of December 2019 TT changes outcome can be taken into account and allow the Moorgates to be devolved to TfL before a main split else there is too much change at once.
ngh,
Actually the Germans were generally carefully to randomise part numbers too (including serial numbers of the tanks). I believe it was one critical component within a tank that got overlooked that meant the Allied forces had a good idea of the exact level of German tank production.
And I was told by the person then responsible that TfL Rail/MTR went to great lengths to produce inefficient driver diagrams that ensured that as many drivers as possible had as much varied experience as possible . He found it very difficult to get used to this having spent much of his career trying to optimise driver rosters.
I can understand the practice of skip-stopping for when it is necessary for a train to regain its proper path but, not for the first time this weekend, Thameslink’s actions are somewhat bewildering to the ordinary passenger. This morning train 9K22 left Sevenoaks 14.75 minutes late. Having called at all stations to Bromley South it left there 9.5 minutes late and then went fast to Blackfriars. This meant that it passed Herne Hill 1 minute before its booked stopping time and Elephant & Castle 3 minutes before, arriving at Blackfriars 4.5 minutes ahead of its booked time. Perhaps those more knowledgeable about these things than I am could explain what benefit to anybody this action would have been?
James Bunting: It’s only speculation, but after a late departure, if skip-stopping is chosen to get the train back on time for the benefit of future services with that train or with that crew, then there may be little choice as to exactly which stops are skipped. Skipping any stops before Bromley South may have been pointless if there was another stopping train in front. And skipping after the train has regained its path may have just been inability to react to last-minute overachievement of the hurry-up target, or it may have been to get the train out of the way of a following train which, perhaps, was still over-late. But bewildering to most, that’s for sure.
@ NGH 28 May 2018 at 09:17
@ PoP 28 May 2018 at 09:50
I once had a long discussion with someone who knew, about German coding for wartime railway movements. Unfortunately for them, they used pretty much the same codes for their military matériel in WW2 as in WW1. Our side could estimate precisely their abilities in terms of matters like divisional resupply rates (and also encourage the Resistance to undertake targeted sabotage on relevant railway corridors). Such planning was used extensively prior to D-Day. None of this appears to have been needed to delay the arrival of class 700s.
Great Northern all diverted to Moorgate this morning – most inconvenient as a cyclist.
(Does make me wonder what happens when a train is diverted and a passenger bringing a bicycle doesn’t notice. Turfed out onto the platform at Drayton Park?)
Skip stopping is best done close in, where there are likely to be alternative services that the users of the skipped stations can use – this may explain why skipping was only done after Bromley South. It is best done when the following service is hot on its heels, as it will allow both trains to be reasonably well loaded, (intending passengers for the second train can take advantage of the late running first one)
But it helps if there is a dialogue between the staff on the ground and the omnipotent “Control”. Otherwise you get problems like the one I witnessed last week. One train was delayed leaving the terminus whilst a fault was fixed, which was cleared just as the next train, on the adjacent platform, got the Right Away. It was then announced that the delayed train would be leaving shortly after, but would skip several stops and thus overtake the other one. To their credit, both crews alerted people to this and allowed people to switch across to whichever train was more suited, despite the added delay this caused.
Unfortunately, one of the passengers on the delayed train was in a wheelchair, and was travelling to one of the skipped stops. Cue more delay whilst a ramp was found to disembark him from one train, and another ramp to embark him on the other (different class of train, different ramp!) before either train could leave (as the second train already had the right away, the delayed train’s exit from the station was blocked). It would have been quicker for the crew to over-rule “Control” and not skip that one station.
@JAMES BUNTING
PPM, the measure to which railway companies are held by the ORR, and to each other and Network Rail contractually clicks in after 4 minutes and 59 seconds.
PPM measure the time that a train was more than 300 seconds late, but here’s the clincher, at the terminal station. It’s the arrival time at the terminus. This is why stops are skipped: there are no external contractual obligations about anything other than this. So, it makes perfect sense to skip stops and arrive early, because it’s good for PPM.
What’s good for PPM for a particular journey is also good for the next service that collection of equipment and people are to make.
People who think that train companies in the UK don’t have any focus on anything other than terminal stations quite rightly have a point.
Briantist
And also why, in many services, you will find a lot of / all of the padding is in that last stop.
E.G. my local service…. Terminals are Liverpool St & Chingford, next stations are Bethnal Green & Highams Park. The distamces for each of those stages is: 1.25 & 2 miles, respectively.
Up timings are : 4 & 5 minutes and Down timings are: 3 & 7 minutes.
You will find something like this amost everywhere.
In terms of the SWT timetable changes I note they are now running a One Train per Week (TPW?) service from Salisbury to Corfe Castle. Bit early for a day out though with the southbound departure just after 08:00. This does not appear to be on the NR Journey Planner or on Real Time Trains as far as I can see – neither recognise Corfe Castle as a valid station.
Re James Bunting,
9K22’s normal route would be via the Catford Loop with 9 stops between Bromley South and Elephant and Castle but the Catford Loop and South London Line are closed for a bridge deck replacement at Belenden Road (just west of Peckham Rye) so all services are diverted via Herne Hill or don’t run.
Someone possibly got bit worried about continual late running without realising that it would have 7 fewer stops than normal, but given it was terminated at the bays at Blackfriars instead of going through the core there is good chance that TL used a Southeastern driver as they have frequently over the years
Ngh – yes RER D is long but it’s also a bad performer with various initiatives over the years to try and improve it. I think it was 2015/16 there was significant passenger upset when the timetables were rewritten to build some redundancy into the service. Journeys were slower and some place lost direct connections. I can’t imagine anywhere in the world runs this sort of level of frequency/ interdependency / length of route perfectly – I’d love to find one so TL could learn from it.
Walthamstow Writer I quite agree with your comments from yesterday. My only thought would be that it could be nationalised at a fiscally sensible cost if their performance becomes so bad their penalties threaten to overwhelm the rest of the company. Or they may just want out to avoid reputational damage.
Regarding skip stopping. To me this seems to have become much more frequent lately. But I’ve no data to back that up. It seems to be being used for trains that really aren’t that late at all sometimes.
I’m not averse to it but it needs to be done taking the passenger into account and I’ve seen cases where that clearly has not happened. No warning, no following train to pick up the stranded. Again evidence of contract driven behaviour not service driven. I worked for the Underground and I would like to have seen it used more where we had trains piled up one behind the other but the controllers were always averse.
I sincerely hope tomorrow brings a better service. I’m not sure the Canal Tunnel was used at all today!
@MIKE – skip stopping is perhaps less effective on the Underground as many stations with traditional signalling are designed around all trains stopping, with closing up signals on approach and shorter overlaps all configured for the speeds associated with stopping. Hence stations typically have a fairly low fixed speed restriction for trains passing through. New CBTC signalling such as SelTrac should be able to allow a faster station run through however. Management may also be concerned about crowding on narrow deep tube platforms, so a high run through speed might be considered a risk and be resisted even where technically possible.
Briantist – not quite right re PPM.
PPM measures arrival time at certain points – generally the destination station, but in Thameslink’s case also in the core. Thus each Thameslink service has 2 PPM counts: one in the core and one at destination.
Also a train is only deemed a PPM success if it starts at its booked origin, terminates at its booked destination, does latter up to 4’59” of the scheduled arrival time (as per the public timetable, not the working timetable), and crucially *calls at all booked intermediate stations*
Therefore any service which skips stops is automatically a PPM failure, and also counts as a cancellation (for the Cancelled and Significantly Late measure, CASL).
Skipping stops is not done lightly, and is always done on the principle of minimising overall delay to passengers. Usually it is to get the train and crew to the destination such that the next working can start on time. Sometimes, of course, with hindsight the decisions taken could have been better, but I challenge anyone to prove that they have never made a decision at work that with hindsight could have been done better.
Explanation of Skip stopping even if that means passing stations early: when it comes to missing stations out, Drivers are not allowed to use their own initiative for the benefit of passengers, they merely do what they are told to do… so if control say “run fast to Blackfriars” then the train runs fast to Blackfriars regardless of how ridiculous it may turn out to be to do so…. it really is just as simple as that!!!
@James Bunting, ngh
Others have pointed out correctly this wouldn’t be for PPM reasons. 9K22 was scheduled to stop at all stations via Herne Hill so wouldn’t have gained much time. The decision was probably taken so it could run ahead of 3 fast services (2 of which were on time) without delaying them or the next all station Southeastern service. Running it fast from Bromley South seems sensible to try to get it back on time, doing it before then would have caused a larger gap for many stations without alternative services.
Greg
In terms of padding at the end of a journey, there are a variety of reasons why the final leg can take longer than the first leg. From most reasonable to less reasonable: Driving policies mean that going into terminal platforms takes longer with the train going slower for longer times in approach to speed restrictions (compared to on exit) and the crawl down the platform. Pathing time due to waiting for platform/conflicting moves will generally only happen on the final leg. Performance/Engineering allowances are at the end as if they were at the start you wouldn’t be covered for anything after that point – but these are generally quite small. Then there is having a different public timetable to the internal/working one which is quite common on Southeastern. The London Overground example seems to be partially internal/working time differences to have an even interval public timetable.
The audit office report says GTR have bought out performance penalties with the DfT until autumn this year. This probably means PPM isn’t quite so important to GTR. They might be quite glad they did if the current issues will take several months to fix.
There seems to be fun with skip stopping, as people are calling it, between Three Bridges and Horsham.
What seems to be happening is that the Thameslink Peterborough – Horsham trains are cancelled (as planned) and the Southern Bognor Regis and similar trains make additional stops to compensate. All this is entered into the Network Rail Journey Planner timetable. Then either the substitute train is late or someone has worked out it would be late if it stopped at these stations so these station stops are cancelled (almost certainly at short notice).
Also, rather curiously, these trains are booked to call at Faygate, which normally only has a limited service on Monday-Friday.
Skip-stopping normally refers to a service pattern on a two line track where alternative trains skip stations. Graham Feakins informs me the colloquial term for not stopping at a station when booked is ‘whooshing’.
The situations along this line is further complicated because the stations seem to be still managed by Southern but the trains that call there should all be Thameslink ones.
Not in the London area, but possibly the best example of padding is the Bidston-Wrexham Central service, where public arrivals (on this single track line) are 2 mins *after* the departure of the same train back to Bidston.
As for the “give up and roll back” option, we need to think about the long term loss of ridership once users have been taught that the service is their enemy. We’ve gone in a week from reliable, near metro frequencies to one an hour if that, irregularly. The lesson to users is that the system will let you down and may as well be designed to, so don’t give them the chance.
Yes I know they bought some shinier trains but this is a classic sunk cost fallacy. The money is spent. Run the old timetable with the new trains.
@ Southeastern Passenger / Mike – your reference to the “buy out” of penalties confirms something that was lurking in my mind that GTR are clearly not overly fussed about the application of the performance regime. It also explains the lack of any commentary about performance penalties / losses from both GTR and DfT. When you add in the “accumulated ammunition” that GTR have against the Department that Ngh has referred to then we have a rather bizarre situation where GTR probably aren’t feeling too much financial pain. The Department can’t do very much either. The only people who are “on the hook” are other TOCs and Network Rail if they are accountable for problems that impact GTR (such as the wrongly routed train at B’Friars). It perhaps shows an interesting level of foresight on their part to have bought themselves a financial break in the full knowledge that the launch of the new timetable would be “difficult” (being polite).
I don’t think Govia are too worried at this point about reputational damage. If things come right then the current episode will be forgotten in a year’s time. If the timetable can be tweaked in the future to ease the worst of commuter grumbles then that’s another positive. They weathered the problems at London Bridge and don’t seem unduly fussed about South Eastern being “hated” by many of its passengers for years.
Well, here’s the problem. It’s not like you can take the Tesco Train is it?
By coincidence I met up last week with friends and colleagues all of whom were and one still is a train planner in the industry. We have something like 150 years worth of experience between us, but could not remember a debacle as bad as this timetable change across the network. There are undoubtedly fingers to point at many of those involved but overall it seemed symptomatic of a fundamental breakdown of the planning process, which is there for good reason – to avoid outcomes like this!
I would hope that there is a thorough investigation into the causes and remedies but that might just be too embarrassing for some of those implicated. There is a risk that it’ll all be blamed on the planners, but the reality is that as a profession they’ve tended to be under valued for some time (including financially) and de-skilled as software is believed in part to be be more efficient for some tasks. The loss of of the breadth of knowledge on how all parts of the railway inter-connect is something that I became aware of following privatisation when some of those I dealt with seemed to develop such a narrow perspective that rarely strayed beyond their particular remit.
The whole point of developing the base timetable in advance is to allow time for all the ancillary processes, (such as the production of diagrams and rosters and feeds into all the commercial and information systems), to be undertaken and validated, so that the deliverbility of the whole can be reviewed and changed as necessary up until implementation. For this to happen as suggested in this case barely days before commencement was a disaster waiting to happen – and so it came to pass.
What happens next we’ll have to wait and see, there’s no magic bullet that will restore the service quickly and the political and reputational fallout may take a while to settle. I certainly don’t envy the users or the staff on the ground who will have struggle through the next weeks or months.
@Alex: I think you’ll find it’s not just GTR that would have to roll their timetable back – so would East Midlands Trains, Greater Anglia, and Virgin East Coast (or whatever they’re called this week)… Here lies the problem – if it wasn’t for all these interdependencies, GTR would have just delayed the introduction of the timetable until December. But they couldn’t.
@PoP and others: Regarding the running of Class 375s into Smithfield, etc.:
Class 377s – which I believe have a little LESS oomph – ran up and down the incline from Blackfriars to City Thameslink for years. They also have a larger loading gauge than Class 375s due to the bodyside cameras. I am therefore still struggling to understand why they are not permitted into Smithfield.
@Straphan
“Class 377s – which I believe have a little LESS oomph [than 375s]”
Why is that? – I thought that, at least the early ones, were the same apart from the coupling arrangements. The 377s working on Thameslink were a bit heavier because of the pantograph and associated ac gubbins.
Straphan,
Simple. You now have powerful class 700. So you don’t want to risk screwing up the service by allowing less powerful trains in that might break down.
It’s the same principle on Crossrail 2. Once you have Crossrail 2 trains on Network Rail track you want to have all trains that use Crossrail 2 routes built to that standard of performance and reliability and I believe that is the plan.
Of course, if I am correct, then the irony is that a rule meant to protect Thameslink services may have actually made an incident far worse. In particular, the offending train could have gone to Smithfield sidings (if it could accept it) and Network Rail controllers could have done the London Underground trick of just leaving it there all day and retrieving it outside passenger hours.
Perhaps they need a rule that ‘foreign’ trains are only permitted in an emergency to go north of Blackfriars. I also wonder if the rule was introduced as a result of extending the overhead wire (as described by Sad Fat Dad).
Wasn’t it the case that only dual voltage 377s are / were allowed north of Blackfriars with 3rd rail only ones limited to terminating at Blackfriars? Which would match the 375 restriction. I.e. don’t let non dual voltage stock any near the change over zone to prevent the inevitable from happening.
Didn’t a 465 have issues with the new extened wiring at some point too?
Surely the fact that 375s are no longer allowed into Smithfield should have been irrelevant – it was already off-limits by being in Platform 2.
I assume the extension of the overhead wire back to City TL was done as the original expedient – reversing units at Moorgate if they refused to switch to DC – was no longer available. Units would reverse at Farringdon if they failed to switch to AC.
Changeover now happens, I understand, at Farringdon southbound and City TL northbound. This gives trains in both directions one more stop before the end of the wires/rail to identify any problems whilst there is still an opportunity to reverse. nevertheless, at least one pantograph has got caught up in the roof at Blackfriars.
Timbeau
(Not so) pretty picture of the bent panto in here
@PoP: My understanding was that GTR intended to operate overnight Thameslink services with Class 377/387 units, to safeguard Class 700 reliability (give them more depot time) and to reduce the amount of fresh air being carted around in the middle of the night (given 4-car Class 319s were thus far big enough to handle clubbers/airport workers/early flight passengers). This is one of the reasons why there are still traditional ‘lights on sticks’ in the core tunnel.
Straphan,
I understood that too and I believe they thought it was one of the tricks that would make the franchise successful as they would have lower than expected operating costs.
Greg Tingey,
Which highlights another possible reason for the ban. They only want trains capable of automatically changing power supply so that such an disruptive incident is much less likely to happen.
Again though, it makes sense to make an exception for the situation that occurred with the Southeastern train.
.. and isn’t this the sort of thing that the Thameslink Programme Industry Readiness Board should have been ensuring could be done to reduce risk? Rather than the nonsense of removing the northbound Bedford EMT calls in the evening peak which has made thing worse… Mind you, they couldn’t even make sure that GTR had enough trained drivers…
Station skipping was built into the Victoria Line ATO but there are two variants – one allows the train to pass through at a maximum 40 kph and the other will hold the train outside the station until it is able to pass through the platform without stopping. This was designed for occasions where there is a fire or security alert at the station and you don’t want to stop in the platform. Both Brixton & Walthamstow can be skipped – the train goes into the siding withour stopping at the platform. Passengers are meant to be de-trained at the proceeding station. Passengers can be carried into and out of the sidings safely but the Train Operators don’t want to change ends with a train full of ( irate ??) customers.
There were a number of discussions about the safety of 40kph until it was pointed out that if a 2009TS was accelerating from a normal station stop the back of the train was doing more than 40kph at the headwall. The same applies on entry the speed of the front of the train passing the tailwall > 40kph. No wonder it eats brake blocks and wheels on the trailer cars.
“eats brake blocks and wheels”: err, isn’t practically all the service braking regenerative now? And even if it isn’t, wheels are only damaged if they lock up and slide, which definitely should not happen not never nohow. Of course, I could be wrong…
Mark Townend – it wasn’t the 5mph platform speed restriction which bothered us it was all about the communications. From control to driver, stations supervisor, all the subsequent supervisors up the line and of course to the passengers on the train and then all the others up the line. The last thing we needed was a handle pulled by someone who saw themselves sailing past Gillespie Road non stopping and who hadn’t taken on board the message to get the train behind. When we did it, it worked but we didn’t do it as often as I would have liked. It made up a lot of time on a crowded leading train and freed up space for the ones behind.
Malcolm,
Only 6 of the 8 cars have regenerative braking so the other 8 wheelsets use friction braking. While the priority is set to use the regen first this does not provide sufficient retardation so the brakes on the trailer cars are used at most station stops. The wheels wear due to the use of tread brakes – the blocks tend to wear them to strange profiles that then require the wheels to be turned to restore them to the correct profile. The estimated life of the trailer wheels was only about 5 – 10 years from memory. It was a design compromise to reduce cost as the specified acceleration could be met with only 3/4 of the axles motored but of course it has resulted in higher maintenance costs as well as loss of regen causing the operational costs to be higher.
It was not possible to convert the trailer cars easily as the space where the traction equipment should go is taken up by the compressors amongst other things.
Malcolm……..”of course I could be wrong”……….hostage to fortune.
Victoria line trains have 2 trailer cars which, at the high braking rates of the Victoria line have to contribute a share of the braking so dissipate quite a lot of energy as heat. This wears the wheels faster than on motor cars which I imagine was what JOHNM was referring to.
Class 700 also have tread brakes, but on the motor bogies so your point is true for those trains.
Best of all is the outer axle of Crossrail trains; those axles have no brakes at all. (don’t panic, 2 axles out of 28 or 36 won’t harm overall braking performance)
100andthirty
Best of all is the outer axle of Crossrail trains; those axles have no brakes at all. (don’t panic, 2 axles out of 28 or 36 won’t harm overall braking performance)
Actually I thought part of the point was to enhance braking performance. The idea being, as I understand it, you are better off having the first wheels cleaning the track enabling the subsequent wheels to brake with less chance of wheelslip and hence brake harder if need be.
PoP……rotating wheels don’t generally clean the track! In fact the first wheelset is the one most likely to lock under braking in poor adhesion! The unbraked axles are provided specifically so they continue to rotate at road speed to drive, accurately, the tachometers needed for the various modern control systems.
Sanding is the method of choice to deliver the best stopping performance. Sanding on multiple units is never carried out on the first or second wheelsets. The first sander is usually on the 3rd axle, and further sanders are permitted on 4 car and longer trains. These are usually controlled by the wheelslide protection system and can be very effective. That said there is still some slip between the wheel and the rail which can confuse ATP systems, hence the unbraked axles.
Re Class 375s non admittance to City Thameslink.
As I understand it, they are out of gauge with the OLE. Same with Networkers. Something to do with aerials on the driving cabs. When the wires went up at City TL (which is at much reduced height compare to standard) the trains effectively became out of gauge.
Re: 130 – For the sake of completeness, further research demonstrated the acceptability of leading axle sanding on Class 153 and Pacer rolling stock, which hitherto had not been fitted because of concerns about track circuit actuation on trains with fewer than eight axles to clear the sand away before the last one. As ever the Class 139s were the exception – no track circuits on that line!
Re SFD,
Yes that was it – Going back to my 1357 comment I’ve remembered the detail: the antannae on a 465 got zapped and fried after the wiring changes.
Re Malcolm, PoP, 130,
Rheostatic or regenerative braking is typically only useful till some where around 7mph at which point you needed to have been blending in friction braking to bring a train to a final halt. At low rpm 3 phase drive traction motor efficiency drops to just 30-40% resulting in massive heat build up in the motors partially contributing to the efficiency reduction, as EMU traction motors are traditionally cooled by a rotor mounted fan, cooling is proportional to motor speed hence you don’t get much cooling at low speeds.
The Aventras actually have an unusual solution, traction motor cooling is achieved using external blower motors (as used on large electric locomotives (e.g. Class 91)) which allows traction motor cooling to be independent of motor speed which allows the use of rheostatic / regenerative braking down to lower speed before friction braking is blended in. The use of blower motors also enables the traction motors to be shorter as there isn’t a fan mounted on one end of the rotor and this in turn allows a comparatively higher power traction motor to be used on inside frame bogies with disc brakes.
The traditional motor cooling approach on the 700s means that with their inside frame bogies they only have room for traction motors that are 25% less powerful than the Aventra and have no room for the brake calipers for disc brakes so have to use tread brakes instead.
All the Aventras have a comparatively large number of powered axles for mainline EMUs at 50 or 55% partially to maximise rheostatic or regenerative braking at service braking rates.
In terms of sanding the 345s have it on the 3rd and 11th axles from each end, the 710s the 3rd axles from each end and the 5/10car Anglia and West Midlands units on the 5 cars on the 3rd and 11th axles from one end and on the 10 cars on the 3rd and 11th axles from one end and the 10th and 18th axles from the other.
Most recent stock has used radar for ground speed measurement (also in the ETCS spec) but this isn’t high performance enough for ultra high precision stopping predicated by platform edge doors on Crossrail hence it is combined with using the leading and trailing axles of the units for speed measurements as 130 has referenced above (especially if trying to use rheostatic or regenerative braking at lower speeds).
Balthazar – thanks, I didn’t know about the Pacers and class 153, although I would suspect that being unable to stop was seen as a bigger hazard/risk than not operating a track circuit.
NGH et al,
In terms of stopping at low speeds one way to acheive this is to reverse the direction of the field at low speeds so you still get an induced current. Not sure if this is done on trains but it is done on industrial AC motor drives and on lifts. The problem with 2009TS failing to operate very short track circuits was a result of good bogie performance resulting in a very thin wear line in the railhead and hollow treads on the trailer wheel that resulted in the contact points being on the ‘rusty’ part of the rail. It was only noticed as the track circuits in advance and in the rear were still operated by the other wheels so the track sequence logic flagged an error. This is one of the hazards of having track circuits that are less than a cars length ! However they are needed to get the number of TPH.
JohnM….. out of interest, putting the motors into reverse at low speed for electric braking to a standstill is a feature of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn’s latest vehicles.
Timbeau @1405:
“Surely the fact that 375s are no longer allowed into Smithfield should have been irrelevant – it was already off-limits by being in Platform 2.”
No, for two reasons:
1. 375s are cleared for all platforms at Blackfriars
2. Continuing a mistake could make it worse. For example, if I were to accidentally cycle onto a motorway sliproad, I would get off it as quickly as possible. I would *not* think “oh well, I’ve gone past the ‘no bicycles’ sign already, I may as well keep going”.
(Aside: explicit ‘no bicycle’ signs wouldn’t actually appear on a motorway sliproads; I have however encountered some on various A14 sliproads near Cambridge)
Re: 130 – “I would suspect that being unable to stop was seen as a bigger hazard/risk than not operating a track circuit”.
No, actually! Approval for four-axle trains to be fitted with sanders came well after general acceptance of its benefits. (Note that I am referring to relatively recent history, after – as I understand it – British Rail ceased putting sanding equipment on rolling stock, or at least didn’t fit it to multiple units, since when there has been a progressive movement to full fitment based on careful consideration of the risks perceived by BR.)
@Alice
If 375s are, after all, permitted in platform 2, why was there a problem retrieving it from there?
Some interesting myths and facts here.
To add to it a little, as I understand it, the reasons that 375s and Networkers can no longer go north of Blackfriars is as chroniclled by SFD – issues with the gauge of the trains and OLE equipment.
Smithfield sidings can only take 8 cars on each road. Emergency or otherwise.
Platform 2 for a Networker is not a ‘wrong route’ as trains are permitted to go in to that platform and turn back. However it was not the correct platform if you get my drift as the train obviously blocked through services. However, this would not have been the fault of the driver. While it may have been wise to query it with the signaller in the circumstances it’s still not a wrong route in the true sense. If this train did indeed have to do a shunt to get to the Blackfriars bays then I’m not surprised there were massive delays. Obviously you can’t walk through a Networker so SB trains would have had to been blocked to allow this to happen if it did – and I’m not saying it didn’t though I always thought normally they would just send it back south from the through platform and take the delay hit my doing what they could with bi directional through platform one. Just to add, the terminators in the bays also have a ‘9’ headcode.
I did not know there was no ARS on TL. This I find fascinating and possibly explains the number of wrong routes I have received through the years and also maybe the large increase in the over the last couple of years.
Finally, I am sure GTR have an absolute host of ammo on the DFT regarding the whole debacle of the last few years and not just now, certainly judging by the rumour mill anyway.
Re Timbeau: / others:
The problem retrieving it was that by the time it arrived in P2 there were already three trains behind it, the first of which was blocking the necessary point work to get the offender out again. Each of the three had to be backed up themselves (one at a time, in order) sufficiently far out of the way to get the 375 out.
Or in other words, once the mistake had been realised, it was resolved as quickly as possible, in a safe manner, to minimise delays to passengers (even though it might not seem like it).
Can we put this one to bed now?
Re SfD,
I though we had 5 days ago but it keeps reawakening…
Re 130 & Balthazar,
“I would suspect that being unable to stop was seen as a bigger hazard/risk than not operating a track circuit.”
All pacers, sprinters and engineering equipment (Tampers, RRVs etc. ) have a little electronics blackbox + induction loop that helps trigger track circuits called a Track Circuit Activator (TCA) and marketed by one manufacturer as Track Circuit Assistor.
Re John M and 130,
The variable frequency drives used for motor control these day enable you to control motor speed very easily and accurately as the rotor speed always self regulated to 2-6% less than the frequency applied to the stator field by the electronics hence there isn’t too much to be gained by reversing the current unless you want all the standing passengers to fall over!
NGH……. that little bit to be gained on the example I quoted is worth it for the last few km/h before the stop and avoids the alternative which is applying the spring applied emergency/parking brake. The only friction brake control on the Schwebebahn is on-off!
Re SFD, just one last question. Had the signaller realised his error – and I’m not being critical of the 3BR guys it must have been hell in there the last few days as well – but if he/she had realised in time and prevented the following train closing up and fouling the reversing route, then presumably it would have been a fairly quick and simple situation to resolve?
Thanks (no more questions m’lud)
So now GTR are running an amended version of the new amended timetable, which as far as I can tell consists of removing 50% of the trains from the information screens entirely and cancelling the other 50%
Flitwick to St. Albans this morning consisted of 1 train followed by a 75 minute gap. Not quite the 4tph + peak extras expected. I wouldn’t have minded but all the trains were showing on the TL app when I left the house. 15 minutes later when I got to the station it said no trains for half an hour and the next 3 all cancelled.
This evening there’s an hour gap of no trains at all between 16:30 and 17:30. Rush hour and not a single train St. Pancras -> Flitwick. You couldn’t make it up.
@Dave: Just as well there are plenty of pubs in the vicinity!
Chris Grayling passing the buck and heaping blame on Network Rail in the media:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44299902
Re Dave: I must have dreamt boarding the 1706 St Pancras this evening (on time), and its subsequent call at Flitwick.
Re Mike Wilks. Yes, relatively quick, but not necessarily easy.
Signaller realises error, cancels route, and stops other trains entering lines that may cause conflicts, (3-5 minutes)
Signaller advises shift manager and control, and decides next steps (3-5 mins)
Signaller – Driver conversation to explain what has happened and next steps (2-3 minutes)
Driver shuts down cab (1 min).
Train must be confirmed clear of passengers and locked up (3-5 mins).
Driver sets cab up at other end (3 mins).
Driver or station staff call signaller to advise ready to start (1 min)
Signaller sets route and it clears (1 min; longer if something needs to depart southbound from platform 1 first).
Some, but not all of this can overlap.
Minimum 12 minutes, probably 15 and possibly longer, whilst nothing moves northbound. Meanwhile the same signaller will be fielding calls from the trans that are stopped at red signals, and also signalling the southbound services normallly.
Thanks SFD and I totally take your point – have NR stepped up the staffing at 3BR to help with this? (I am making the assumption you have a working knowledge of what’s going on there?)
@sfd Yes, for some reason I typed st Pancras instead of St. Albans. The 17:24 + oddsies from St. Albans was as rammed as expected
An now joint statement by NR, GTR (and Northern):
https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/network-rail-gtr-and-northern-apologises-for-may-timetable-troubles
That is not quite what GTR said before the timetable change.
In his editorial in last weeks RAIL magazine, Philip Haigh made an interesting point and the capabilities of the rail industry to make improvements. To quote “The DFT’s otherwise welcome drive to make the railway better for passengers is outstripping the supply of competent managers who can deliver all these changes”
Whilst this is more about the the wider rail industry, it seems a particularly prescient comment.
Re Jimbo,
DfT doesn’t actually want to pay for those managers it wants more output from the same managers – see McNulty efficiency report and the 5 (at least) since!
NGH
That joint statement screams in what it very significantly does not say.
DfT is not even given a whisper of a mention.
Odd, that, what?
North Kent has been a largely Thameslink-free zone for much of the day, with only one train having left Rainham since 1000. (This only reached Dartford, and in the absence of a relief driver, was terminated and returned empty to Gillingham).
Real Time Trains shows that around three-quarters were planned cancellations, but the few remaining haven’t run either. (Lucky really, as there is some kind of blockage on the up Greenwich this afternoon). Of course, no mention of the wholesale slaughter of the service on the Thameslink website .
It has however removed reference to the rail2020 timetables, and now advises customers that “New timetables are being gradually introduced. Please check journey times at National Rail Enquiries daily”.
It is interesting to note how cancellations are spread across the Thameslink network. I have not yet looked at today’s service, but Peterborough – Horsham and Cambridge – Brighton are looking better this week than last, but the long-standing services from the Midland line to Sutton, Three Bridges and Brighton are worse.
Is an effort being made to get trains out on new routes, at the expense of old ones, for route learning purposes?
@ Ngh – the appearance of that “non DfT referring” public statement puts me in mind of a scene from an early episode of Endeavour (the Morse prequel). A senior politician who’s “misbehaved” is confronted by a gun toting “Spook” and given an insight as to his future. “I’ll just call Harold” says senior politician. “This is what Harold has to say on the matter” says the Spook as he cuts off the phone call with the gun barrel having already handed him a resignation letter to sign.
I can just see the TOC and NR MDs / CEOs being visited by a DfT “Spook” with the draft statement. When they say “we aren’t putting our names to this, we’ll just call Chris” the Spook goes “This is what Chris has to say. Now agree or shall we say you’re retiring to spend more time with your families?”
(Of course Mr Carne of NR is going anyway so slightly academic for him but that “don’t mention the DfT” statement has all the hallmarks of having come down from the top.)
ngh 30 May 2018 at 08:50
Re John M and 130,
‘The variable frequency drives used for motor control these day enable you to control motor speed very easily and accurately as the rotor speed always self regulated to 2-6% less than the frequency applied to the stator field by the electronics hence there isn’t too much to be gained by reversing the current unless you want all the standing passengers to fall over!’
The motor does not stop suddenly if you reduce the direction of field rotation – you use a very low frequency so that the induced frequency in the rotor is still a few Hz which gives a braking torque at zero speed. In fact you can hold a train ( or lift) stationary by generating sufficient torque to balance gravity. In lifts it is normal to apply the brakes when the car is stationary with the doors open to remove (reduce ?) the risk of the shear between the car and floor / ceiling if it moves with the doors open. Something similar will applies with PEDs – pre-opening before the train stops carries a risk if the train fails to stop.
With lifts the brakes get so little use that they get glazed and fail to hold – I put a requirement in the LU lift spec that the brakes should be applied from maximum speed once a day preferably when the lift was empty to condition the brake shoes and drum.
I see Northern have at least published a genuine temporary timetable .
Far better than Thameslink’s “New timetables are being gradually introduced. Please check journey times at National Rail Enquiries daily”
From Monday 4 June, 6% of daily train services, that’s 165 of the normal 2,800 daily services, will be cancelled, until the end of July.
https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/temporary-timetables
AP,
Well Grayling would be pleased. They have replaced those diesel trains on the Windermere branch with something else.
@WALTHAMSTOW WRITER, 1 June 2018 at 11:27
“… puts me in mind of a scene from an early episode of Endeavour (the Morse prequel).”
It was the pilot, a TV film broadcast in January 2012. The series proper didn’t start until April the following year.
Minister: “Morse? Explain to him”
Spook: “Oh, I’ve tried. Not for sale. You do the decent thing, his guv’nor might be able to rein him in”
Minister: “We’ll see what Harold has to say about it”
Spook: “This is what he has to say about it” (reveals handgun with silencer) “There’s two ways out. This one or do I have to get blood on my shoes?”
Re: Man of Kent
Yesterday was very poor with the Rainham services. I was involved in 3 of the ‘sparse’ morning services between Rainham and Dartford. All ran to time but then with no relief at Dartford one was cancelled and taken empty back to Gillingham. None of the rest of the workings on my diagram showed up (they didn’t leave Luton).
As I stated last week. Route learning has currently finished for the Luton drivers with only 13 signing right the way through. I was told by control that there is a chronic shortage on covering jobs. Certainly yesterday there appeared to be a 11hr gap between 08:30hr service that did run and the 19:28hr that when I’d last looked was the next not cancelled.
There were grandiose plans for SET drivers to pilot those areas where we don’t have the route knowledge but these don’t seem to have come to fruition. TBH I’m not sure who has the reins (with vastly varying levels of competence admittedly) in the driver training/route learning issues as the people usually involved are all out conducting/driving during the day.
I’m not sure what service level people of Higham get at the moment but it can’t be very good. Without going in to too much detail I can’t see how the current plans will help sort this out in the interim. You can’t train drivers on a route if no trains run on it. There are other internal issues that could be ironed out with a short term hit but as stated there’s seems to now be a real lack of direction in these outer reaches of Kent. There was an initial plan to get this bit of the route up to spec but this has failed and two weeks in it’s like it’s been cut off from the rest of TL.
At the very least, a shuttle service between Rainham and Dartford would surely work, instead of cancelling through services every time they arrive at Dartford without relief…back to the Luton problem…
@TL Driver
Thanks – much as I suspected.
It underlines the point (made I think by 130 but possibly on a different thread) that predicatable misery is easier to deal with, and it would surely now be a better PR exercise to cancel all Rainham trains for the time being, rather than maintain a charade that they *may* run.
There’s no TL service on this route at all today according to National Rail, which is offering the first train on Sunday as the next departure from Higham, because the bus service is not running (not advertised as running?) at the weekends.
That still leaves the option of training runs as empty stock movements in the scheduled paths – or even as extras in passenger service.
AP 1 June 2018 at 17:23
“I see Northern have at least published a genuine temporary timetable .
…….
From Monday 4 June, 6% of daily train services, that’s 165 of the normal 2,800 daily services, will be cancelled, until the end of July.”
They have a simpler problem. Northern intended to introduce some new services from 20 May 2018, but that depended on completion of electrification Manchester to Preston, via Bolton. So their problem of Drivers not being up to date with trains or routes is not as complicated as for Thameslink or Great Northern.
The temporary timetables are mostly concentrated around Preston, Blackburn, Bolton and Manchester Victoria.
Interesting how this very good analysis confirms that the whole Thameslink so-called upgrade was aimed at achieving amazing frequency on the core St Pancras – Blackfriars section and then metro-type frequencies on south London routes, leaving Great Northern passengers hung out to dry. Our perfectly good services are being destroyed under this new timetable even without the present chaos.
@TL driver
When I looked at Higham yesterday morning, they had 1 train (to Luton) and 1 bus (to Strood) during a three hour period. It looks as though Thameslink can’t even organise a bus properly. As for the website saying buses to Gravesend and Strood, I have never seen a bus to Gravesend offered.
Quinlet
With a lack-of-services that bad, I would assume that the MP for Higham/Strood is making waves?
Thameslink is so unreliable that at East Croydon cheap D.R. Saver tickets for Thameslink to/from Brighton are also valid on the more expensive Southern trains. Buy them from the machines, you have to drill down to enter Brighton as the destination, and purchase ‘Thameslink only’ tickets, then travel in comfort of Southern. No one cares, no one checks.
So yesterday both GTR Southern and GTR Thameslink deserted the Redhill route.
Southern decided to axe the Reigate to Victoria service in favour of putting the stock on extra Tattenham corner services for the Derby.
Thameslink decided to cancel its entire Gatwick to Bedford and Horsham to Peterborough services at the same time and replacing with a Half hourly Horsham to London Bridge Service.
Thus 6 trains per hour reduced to just 2. However Thameslink being Thameslink they managed to only get around 68% of the Horsham shuttles to run so much of the day service reduced to hourly where there should be 6 trains per hour.
Luckily for Redhill itself SouthEastern were running their Hasting service through and many actually stopped at Redhill (although some didn’t). I’m sure taking thousands of Redhill customers wasn’t in the plan of SE
However this doesn’t help smaller stations on the Redhill Route like Merstham, Earlswood and Horley. Reigate spectacularly suffered as it lost its 2 per hour to London completely replaced by a bus to Redhill which seemingly timed to just miss the London service at Redhill.
Why can’t GTR join up the dots of what it does? Why does it keep losing all services to Redhill?
If RTT can be believed it seems the London Bridge to Redhill service in the Evening peak next week is reduced to one train per hour instead of four. The services to Earlswood, Salfords and Horley have a almost 2 hour gap in the evening peak. What nightmares await the long suffering Redhill commuter?
Chris Brady: I cannot tell from your message whether you mean that “also valid” is an actual announced arrangement (as it could well be) or just an “in practice” observation (“no one checks”). The difference could be important to those (*) who try to follow the official rules whether or not they believe they would be found out if they didn’t.
(*) The number of such “conscientious passengers”, while initially quite large, may well dwindle close to zero in view of recent events. There is a widespread tendency to reason “why should I play fair with them, when they are causing me such aggro, pain and (in many cases) financial loss?”
Malcolm, Chris Brady
I suspect there are two issues here. The first one is that we have discussed previously as to whether it is legal for a TOC to differentiate between brands within the TOC. And in this case the answer is probably ‘yes’ as these are discounted fares not standard regulated fares. But the difference is a bit subtle and there may well be an instruction to the effect that if the customer challenges this on the grounds of unlawfulness then an excess fare should not be applied.
The second issue is what does this achieve? If the person points out they are entitled to 100% refund on delay repay because the Thameslink service isn’t running then what is the point in charging the customer the payment only for them to reclaim a similar amount on delay repay?
In any case, GTR really don’t want to be looking for bad publicity right now. So far better to just let it go.
T33,
My sympathies. It isn’t good is it? By the way, don’t think for one minute that makes us on the Tattenham Corner branch the lucky ones. If past years are anything to go by, the trains are reported to be absolutely packed and we just avoid the line on those days.
@CHRIS BRADY
“No one cares, no one checks.”
It is certainly true that the all the parties involved have know that the risk to running services during the introduction of what was once called the Greater Thameslink were so huge that the GTR franchise had to be done on the basis of getting just short of £9 billion for running the trains as best they can, where the Department for Transport is collecting the fares.
Basically, the GTR is the railway franchise equivalent of a “junk bond” to private operators. No private company way prepared to put it’s money on the line to operate it.
Basically, as long as you have a ticket of sorts, the Department for Transport, at this stage is happy. Govia Thameslink Railway is simply paid to run the trains, they really don’t care what ticket you have: it makes no odds to them.
I think that what appears to be advice to buy any old ticket (and you won’t be penalised) needs to come with a health warning. Certainly what has been said makes it clear that penalties are most unlikely. But just in case there are any off-message or jobsworth ticket inspectors out there, and bad stuff happens, sadly London Reconnections will not be in a position to take any compensating action (beyond saying “sorry – tough luck”).
PoP: Actually, I don’t think the purchaser of a Thameslink ticket would be entitled to 100% delay repay, because the scheme is all about delays that the purchaser didn’t know about when they bought the ticket. Similar to how, if I buy a ticket valid only today after the last scheduled train for that destination has already gone, I cannot get delay repay (though I can probably get a refund, but it would be at the operator’s discretion, and probably subject to an admin fee).
POP. Why do you say they are discounted fares? They’re not like an advance, valid on one train only. They are sold by GTR – valid from station X to station Y. Thameslink doesn’t have a legal status, there is no (current) TOC called Thameslink.
Who can take you to court, claiming you don’t have the correct ticket? GTR.
Who operated the ‘non Thameslink brand’ train that you traveled on? GTR
Who did you buy a ticket from? GTR.
Courts look at legal entities, not brand names or the colour of the vinyl on the side of the train. I know where I think the judge will lean.
Island Dweller: When this came up before, it was asserted that discounted tickets can be sold with any constraint, absurd or not – being accompanied by a teddy bear was one memorable example. Compared to which, limiting you to trains with one sort of vinyl sticker is quite ordinary. But we probably don’t need to repeat the whole discussion – which, if memory serves, generated rather more heat than light.
Malcolm,
I agree we didn’t really reach a firm conclusion when discussed before. And I certainly don’t claim to be necessarily correct. But I disagree on your interpretation of delay repay. It is decided against the published timetable. What is the published timetable is is a bit of an issue.
I am fairly sure though that we are talking about your journey being delayed though this isn’t only after you have bought your ticket. If you plan a journey and get to the station and your train is delayed and you then choose to buy a ticket and catch it anyway and claim then that is entirely legitimate.
To give an example why take a journey I actually made. I went by bus to Bourne End in the evening peak. By the time I was there I was pretty much committed to catching the train home. The only alternative, I happened to know, was a bus all the way back to High Wycombe and get a train from there. In the absence of any specific information at Bourne End, I bought a ticket and made my way to Maidenhead when a train did eventually turn up and it was only there that I was aware of the extent of the problem. I actually got back more than the cost of my ticket for my delay (which I estimated at 5 hours).
It would have been totally iniquitous to deny me compensation because I was aware of the problem (but not the extent) once I got to the station. I relied on that journey the moment I chose to catch a bus to Bourne End rather than to High Wycombe station.
POP – I don’t think it was a pleasure for the Tattenham passengers, but if they really wanted to sort the branch out a few 700/0’s would have shifted everyone. They’re not called hoovers for nothing and I think they are cleared
Malcolm. Of course, this would be settled once and for all if GTR ever agreed to a test case in court. I find it instructive that GTR always back away from that.
@ Briantist – I don’t think your statements are quite right. It is quite clear that GTR have put their own money into the franchise, some of which is for extra passenger benefits in “compensation” for earlier poor performance. They have also incurred losses. That money hasn’t come from fares or the DfT.
I also think it is a little back to front to say that we ended with the current situation because no one would take on the risk. I am sure there are plenty of bidders out there who would have taken the risk – at an appropriate cost. That is different to not bidding at all. The DfT took the decision to make this effectively a management contract with some elements of risk transfer because it simply didn’t have the money to pay the likely outrageous sums that would be added by bidders in the form of risk premium to the base contract cost. Also why pay someone to take a risk they cannot fully manage? – short answer, don’t bother.
What were perceived as the biggest risks outside the control of the TOC have largely not materialised. The construction work ran pretty much to schedule with no massive overruns. So far the signalling / ATO seems to be functioning reliably without causing huge issues.
The irony is that issues with minor components, elements of post blockade testing and poor timetable assumptions / planning coupled with the DfT led cock ups of driver numbers / training and rolling stock supply are those that have turned up, some directly within the purview of the TOC and its paymaster. The risks that have turned up are “normal” risks that can materialise on any franchise and frequently do. I recognise hindsight is marvellous and it was probably the right call to not transfer revenue risk to the TOC but so much else has gone wrong that could have been largely avoided for reasons well documented in the article and subsequent comments. It’s almost a text book example of how not to upgrade a railway and introduce a new timetable.
PoP: Yes, I agree that delay repay is, and should be, applicable whenever the passenger has behaved reasonably. I suppose I was thinking that buying a ticket for a train which you know does not exist would not be reasonable.
But this is a bit of a distraction from the question of whether a “Thameslink only” ticket is valid on a different train, in the total absence of Thameslink trains on the line in question. I still maintain that this extended validity is certainly something which the train company can (and probably should) offer, but is not something to which the customer can help themself without any explicit offer having been made.
If a bookshop offers a free bottle of water with every Daily Telegraph, but then runs out of water, they can certainly choose to offer coca-cola instead. But if they do not so choose, the customer cannot claim entitlement to it on the grounds that coca-cola is the nearest thing to water which they have in stock.
Malcolm,
As I repeatedly point out, you can’t apply usual legal principles to train tickets and travel. The relevant legislation is the Conditions of Carriage (or whatever it is called now). I believe it is a statutory instrument invoked by the Secretary of State. Whatever.
Forget Sale of Goods. Forget Law Of Contract. Take into account the Consumer Rights Act as rail travel is now covered by this.
T33,
Nice idea but it is hard enough to find a class 700 driver who is route trained to drive routes normally used by these trains!
I see that TL seems to have abandoned the Rainham service entirely, in favour of a Rainham/Dartford shuttle, which links into SouthEastern trains but not to Thameslink.
As the Thameslink website states “Mutual ticket acceptance is in place between Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern”, there doesn’t seem to be an issue with the actual train used – unless perhaps it is a Gatwick Express?
@Quinlet
And no-one has bothered to change the Thameslink website – it is still showing (at 1930 on Sunday) “All weekend a reduced service will operate between Luton / Kentish Town and Rainham with trains on Sunday operating between London Blackfriars and Rainham. Trains will also be diverted via an alternative route and not call at all intermediate stations between London Bridge and Dartford. Trains will however, call additionally at Lewisham and Blackheath.” Utter fiction….
The various comments about which train you can travel on also relate to my earlier post about the ‘new’ Epsom to London Bridge semi-fast service.
The pocket timetable both paper and the on-line PDF as well as real time trains all show it as a Thameslink service. It is also announced at Sutton as a Thameslink service however by Wallington it has mysteriously changed to a Southern service on the platform displays.
The train has a Southern livery and the internal train announcement says it is a ‘Southern service to London Bridge’ even when the platform says it is a Thameslink service.
The two I have travelled on are class 377/6 running as 10 car formation.
I think you just have to guess who is running the service and what your ticket validity is.
This mornings – let’s say farce. Only 50% of Redhill’s normal “new” peak (6am to 9am) timetable ran but GTR was not willing to make Redhill a winner, so Earlswood, Salfords and Horley only had a third of their London Bridge trains, which considering their “new” Victoria service includes at least 12 minute wait at Redhill to couple up the Reigate portion isn’t an amazing service.
However this evening the plan is that only 33% of the Redhill service will run between 5pm and 7pm as the rest is “disappeared” There is a 90 minute gap in the middle of the peak, so even less trains to get home upon, unless you want Earlswood, Salfords or Horley where every train has been cancelled from 16:51 to 19:21. Of course plenty of options for GTR to cancel the bare bones service it is leaving in before this evening to make it worse.
T33 – I suspect part of the problem at the weekend is the lack of conductor drivers available to take trains through from Blackfriars to London Bridge. If you glance at the south end of Blackfriars P1 you’ll see a ‘gaggle of managers’ there to perform this task. However, with the best will in the world, there is a struggle to find enough people to cover this service all day every day. I suspect many had had enough of working 5 days in the week and the request of seven was a request too far.
Interesting that you say TL are now running a Dartford – Rainham shuttle? Things looked far more positive this morning when I arrived and although half my diagram has again been cancelled there certainly seem to be more trains running generally.
@ TL Driver
Forgive my ignorance but I’m struggling to understand this bit “half my diagram has again been cancelled”.
The only thing I can think of is the second half of your shift includes routes you don’t sign, that the first half doesn’t. Is that correct?
DJL,
I presume there is no driver available to hand over to at Blackfriars. Rather than having a train blocking the platform, the sensible thing to do is cancel the whole train in its entirely.
TL driver,
I don’t fully understand the ‘Blackfriars to London Bridge’ bit. Are these Rainham trains driven by ex-SE drivers who know London Bridge to Rainham but need piloting to London Bridge (and then are happy to take it from platform 4 at London Bridge) ?
If they are Horsham trains (and possibly others) don’t they need piloting all the way to East Croydon? Or are the drivers involved happy to sign off London Bridge platform 4 to New Cross Gate (over the diveunder) but not the Blackfriars – London Bridge bit?
At weekends Horsham trains (such as there are) terminate at London Bridge at the moment and I think the southern portion of the Cambridge trains are axed (and the train goes into King’s Cross). So I don’t think there is much need for managers – but I am still not clear what happens about the Rainham trains.
I’m not sure i can comment but around 4-5,000 commuters use these services in the high peak every night and tonight they got (assuming the three trains due to run manage to call)
London Bridge to Redhill eve peak
16:51 Cancel
17:00 Cancel
17:21 Cancel
17:30 Cancel
17:51 Cancel
18:00 Cancel
18:21 Cancel
18:30 Cancel
18:51 Cancel
19:00 OK (2.5 HOURS GAP)
19:21 OK
19:30 Cancel
19:51 Cancel
20:00 Cancel
20:21 Cancel
20:30 OK(69 Gap)
Just wonder how they get home as the 8/12 car Victoria services are normally standing room only to at least Coulsdon South and often Redhill itself. Plus most from Gatwick to Redhill are cancelled too.
@T33
Looking at Real Time Trains:
1900 appears to have been diverted to Kings Cross
1921 ran via Elephant
Just to update my last post – the 17:30 was cancelled but run through late after everyone had left the platform.
However the 19:00, 19:21 and 20:30 were all cancelled because Drivers didn’t know route – 2 before they got to the core and one at Blackfriars
How come they used to run a Bedford to Three Bridges service that now they have a new timetable there are not enough Drivers to run a few trains on the Bedford to Gatwick service
@TL Driver
I had thought replacing the south easter part of the Luton-Rainham service with a Dartford to Rainham shuttle might have been a creative short term response to the problems (and at least avoid some of the multiple drivers needed for the route). However, I see I have been over optimistic with today’s offering going back to the full route to Rainham, except that most have been cancelled (including all the evening trains). Pity poor Higham, within even the promised bus to Gravesend and Strood actually being just to Strood and not even then reliable.
It’s gone very quiet – have we all given up? How’s the service today?
Apparently there was a failed tamping machine overnight between Gatwick and Horley leading to all sorts of nasties e.g. the 09:16 Bedford to Brighton calling all stations to London then skipping between Three Bridges and Brighton but still 12 minutes late at Brighton (just before 12). The 06:54 Peterborough to Horsham goto Finsbury at 08:07 but stayed there for 40 minutes waiting for a driver
I changed at London Bridge this morning (for City Thameslink) and a Peterborough train appeared virtually instantly. According to the station signs and Real Time Trains, it was precisely one hour late
@DH: If it’s an hourly schedule, who cares?
Southern Heights,
The TOC!
If your train is an hour late you get marked down for the train being significantly late and you get marked down a second time because the train that should have been there is either late or cancelled. Yet, as shown here, the customer in this case has not suffered in any way.
They really should be only marked down once.
The customer on the platform waiting for the 09.16 or whatever to their destination will be quite happy if the 8.16 turns up an hour late (as long as it continues) – however the passengers on the train, the vast majority, will not – marked down twice seems correct to me.
Mike: You are right about the number of discombobulated passengers. However, it does seem a bit unfair that simply renaming the one-hour-delayed service as the 09:16 would result in only one penalty (for the cancelled 08:16), whereas not renaming it results in two.
It is also a shame that as a result of fragmentation, all this delay attribution has to be done for absolutely every delayed and canceled train, costing much more in admin that the investigation which would be required in an integrated railway, which could be restricted to a sensible sample of delayed trains (to ensure that causes of delay are found and dealt with). You don’t have to drink all the milk to see if it is off.
Given that we understand GTR to have been understaffed with timetable planners, I wonder how well staffed their delay attribution team is (or whatever the correct title is – on the modern railway I can’t even guess job and department titles any more )
@Mike Wilks
Given GTR have a get-out-of-jail-free card valid until September, probably not at all!
Re Mike and Moosealot,
But not a get out of jail fee card as regards NR or other TOCs.
Most of the attribution is unsurprisingly being coded in the Driver issues categories.
EMT was the last formal hold out of the other operators taking 5 weeks to respond to the final proposal issued when there were only 8 weeks left to go… So lack of staff at other comparatively small TOCs was also an issue.
District/LO on Richmond branch
District bid its usual every 10 mins, and was forced by Network Rail to republish its timetable with minor delays of upto 2 minutes on Richmond arrivals for some trains, with some trains being held at Turnham Green, and others just outside Richmond station. In other words District Line didn’t want a Working Timetable change this May – they were forced into one. I don’t know what the LO service pattern was attempting to be, but given that District line has a very regular every 10 minutes is doesn’t seem that difficult to work around. I suspect LO are reversing at South Acton due to a train shortage – I think they should have had new trains coming in on the Watford route and cascaded those trains onto NLL to boost services, but the new trains are late! (Haven’t we heard that one before somewhere? – Thameslink perhaps?) So instead of sticking with what they had before until the new trains are ready they went ahead with revisions and stop-gap reversing short, creating uneven intervals.
Scheduler,
Thank you for the detailed information.
My understanding is slightly different. It is partly based on comments at a Programmes and Investments committee meeting last October so things may have changed since then.
I understood that London Overground were keen to introduce this service as soon as possible so did not want to wait for a timetable change. Hence the slots for the full 6tph are already allocated and the service can be brought in without a further timetable change. Basically, the District was going to be affected and better to have them ready rather than get the new trains and then have further delays whilst waiting for a District timetable change.
Note that the Clapham Junction – Stratford service is now 4tph all day. It used to be the case that 2tph terminated atWillesden Junction. So the knock-on effects of this may have forced a timetable change on the District line anyway.
Note also that both London Overground and London Underground are both run by TfL. I would suggest that if London Underground didn’t want this change more that London Overground did then it wouldn’t have happened.
This weekend (9&10 June) there have been some interesting shuffling of the deck chairs on the via Catford and via Herne Hill routes to Bromley South and onwards.
Because of engineering work at Blackfriars and also possibly to make the most of their limited trains and drivers Thameslink have operated Victoria – all stations via Herne Hill and Swanley to Sevenoaks and Southeastern have done Victoria – all stations via Denmark Hill to Orpington. I would imagine this gives a quicker journey time between London and Sevenoaks.
Admittedly it all fell down in the afternoon on Saturday with over 1 hour waits at Herne Hill (and worse at the likes of a Penge East) because of cancellations and planned deletions causing Southeastern to implement calls on via Maidstone East services at Beckenham Junction and Herne Hill with seemingly no impact on their timetabled journey times to London anyway. Also Brixton didn’t seem to get much of aan advertised service possibly because the Thameslink trains don’t fit?
Wonder if this is something they are seriously considering in the short term for the normal weekday given half of the Victoria – Herne Hill route services now rather pointlessly terminate at Bromley South to please certain vocal MPs in the Sevenoaks area! Interchange with N-S Thameslink could still be provided at Bromley South and Herne Hill (assuming they run those services!)
Slowing down VIC-ORP would not be popular. Sevenoaks passengers go to LBG anyway, and I expect the Bat and Ball – St Mary Cray people change at Bromley South to get a fast to Victoria.
re: district line timetable change, I remember reading that when the full rollout of the new tube trains was completed (happened last year I believe) they could improve the timetable due to the faster acceleration of the new trains. Haven’t seen any evidence of this happening – has it, or is it planned at all?
Kent Commuter,
Pretty sure that happened a couple of years ago. Don’t expect it to make an obvious difference to the public though. We are probably talking multiple occurrences of about half a minute between two critical timing points. It probably makes very little impact on journey time but does affect how many trains they can run.
The Subsurface railway operates a far more regular pattern than it used to and that is probably one of the benefits of all the trains being of the same type of stock.
The new sub surface trains are not yet set to deliver improved performance, except by very small amounts. The big improvement comes when the new signalling is in place. LU sets train performance to match the performance of the trains and vice versa. The S stock is capable of operating with a much higher acceleration rate than is currently permitted, but it is suppressed electronically to match something like the D stock (or A stock for the S8).
130
I thought that no longer applied, given that we are now 100% S7+S8?
BUT – that further, noticeable improvements will appear with the new signalling? ( Apart from dealing with the current ageing-related failures, that is )
For affected passengers maybe explain ‘Driver Managers’.
Are these equivalent to trainers / examiners, do they carry the route manual and read out details to the driver who has not yet memorised all route details like a rally navigator.
DJL and POP (4th June) sorry for my delay I have been out of the country.
When I said the second half of my diagrams had been cancelled this was because the train never left Luton on both occasions I believe. Either way it didn’t show as running at all on RTT.
I don’t know what things have been like since then but I shall see on Monday. I arrived back to see the boss has resigned.
“PM” tonight on BBC Radio 4 has about 8 minutes of commentary, including that from an anonymous TL driver, commencing 07:20 in:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5qnk4#play
GF
Re. the BBC excerpt: – As usual, the general public were blaming the TOC/operator/bosses.
Thus far, it would seem that in all cases DfT/Grayling’s diversion tactics have worked.
However, on this morning’s “Today” programme the shadow Transport spokesperson re-directed attention to Mr G.
@Greg T: There have been a few occasions recently where the spotlight has been turned towards DfT/Grayling, including an opinion piece this morning in The Independent.
Or, for undiluted spleen, this is worth a daily re-read…
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/04/failing-chris-grayling-and-the-tale-of-the-troublesome-trains
I don’t accept GWR didn’t know about the revised track layout at Redhill or the developments in the Thameslink timetable. We very much did and the revised scheme at Redhill is a disappointing one overall but useful for reversing trains!
Our work with NR and GTR was on basis of a recast to 3tph on North Downs which was rejected by NR so we had to rebid the old timetable and that was not compatible with aspects of the new Brighton ML timetable.
Initially some trains were totally rejected or returned with stops missing and this only days before the start of service. We were able to resolve most issues by rebidding and negotiations during first week and have now restored most services as required but clearly a disappointing experience.
The Transport Select Committee has published it report into the timetabling fiasco this morning:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmtrans/1163/1163.pdf
In summary:
1) Not enough resources needed for timetabling (NR, TOC, ORR, DfT) [ORR has now agreed to an extra 85% funding for NR System Operator in CP6]
2) Optimism bias
3) Governance – lack thereof and lack of challenge
4) Some TOCs consultations on changes a bit lacking (Northern /TPE rather than GTR)
5) Lack of mitigation for those adversely affected by changes (e.g. Harpenden etc.)
6) different people at DfT using different reasons for different decisions e.g. Harpenden where Jo Johnson won the prize for being accurate with the MML upgrade and electrification North of Bedford being the actual reason (as per the article!)
Had the opportunity to take a 12 car 700/1 from Cambridge to St Pancras for the British Library at 09.54 this morning and return at 13.31.
Only a few people in each coach departing Cambridge, but perhaps half a coach’s worth joining at each of the next 5 stations. Quite a few staying on at St Pancras. A bit quieter on the return.
All on time. Impressed by the acceleration of the 700, don’t know how it compares on 750V, can they get 5MW there?
The seats are hard, and I would probably have been fairly uncomfortable by the time it got to Brighton. It’s a very utilitarian interior and quite noisy through the inter-coach connections.
But it all seems to be doing what it set out to do.
Worth waiting for.
@Roger B
“Only a few people in each coach departing Cambridge,”
Not that surprising, since there are non-stop services that take 15 minutes less. (Indeed, it can still be faster from Cambridge to Brighton by using the Victoria Line) Were you using the slow train for any particular reason?
Re Roger B
For a 12 car typically the max is 5.1MW on AC and 3.75MW on DC (in poor supply areas it can drop to 3.0MW)
@ Timbeau. My first chance to sample Thameslink (not 2000) from Cambridge. I was intrigued to see what the loading on a 12 coach semi fast would look like. (Quite a lot of air).
Fortuitously the book I wanted is in the BL and not the UL and it’s a shorter walk from St P. than KX!
@NGH that’s quite a contrast in performance.
Re RogerB,
The 700s have 3 DC performance levels that can be geographically (software) defined (GPS or Eurobalises), there is actually a 5.1MW DC option too but I think only 1 substation can support this currently (the monster between City TL and Blackfriars).
At lower speeds the performance is actually limited by tractive effort not power so DC vs AC is slightly academic low speeds such as in the core, more relevant for 30 to 100mph acceleration.
Greater Anglia have published their May 2019 timetable and it introduces the London Southend Airport Express.
https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/sites/default/files/assets/download_ct/20190423/zeGjtjpY2njn5QF1HZlO6-9SKgKjinWUsDtbyBIdZpc/ga1905_mainline_table_1_web.pdf
Fastest advertised journey time from London (Stratford) is now 40 minutes.
It also means that 1300 passengers can check-in for their first departures leaving at 06:30 and arriving back up to 23:20.
Both EasyJet (4xA320) and RyanAir (3xB737) have overnight based jets.
Calling it the “London Southend Airport Express” is a masterclass in deception and exaggeration! It (a) is one train a day in each direction, (b) only runs from mid-September to the end of the timetable in December, (c) is only around 2 to 8 minutes quicker than the normal service but (d) doesn’t call at Romford, Shenfield (down), Billericay or Wickford, and (e) there’s no train to the airport on Sunday morning. On the plus side seats are reservable on the down journey! On the down side I suspect it will be replaced by a bus rather often.
I could be wrong but it looked to me a bit like putting two ECS movements into creatively branded revenue service?
Not starting until mid-September probably ties in with the completion of the overhead line renewals on the Southend Vic branch currently underway, which includes a 9 day blockade between Wickford and Southend Vic over the Spring B H weekend and week after.
RonnieMB. There is stabling just outside Southend Victoria so I doubt there is any need for an early empty stock move to the coast.
It is only one extra service a day but very significant for public transport access to the airport – as mentioned above, now London passengers can take a train to the airport in time to catch the first ‘wave’ of departures. I presume it doesn’t stop at intermediate stations (such as Romford) because they’re not staffed that early.
I wouldn’t dream of planning to arrive at Stansted only an hour ahead (that airport is a zoo…) but at Southend that’ll be plenty of time.