London Bridge – The First Major Blockade

1. Normal Monday morning service resumed this morning (i.e. fell over completely).

   The problem appeared to be with the points on the scissors on P15 just at the end of the platform something that wasn’t touched over the blockade (or RRV damage as used that area for parking. That left 5 of the 6 terminating platforms working for 90 minutes and the ensuing chaos with trains stacked all the way to New Cross Gate and plenty of cancellations.

2. Maybe our rail colleagues need to learn that which us IT guys have learnt bitterly over the years – “I didn’t touch it, honest” doesn’t mean it won’t be broken when you try and use it.

3. Re Mike P,

   I’ve had a few of those over the years (even after extensive testing) and written a few independent reports for those kind of incidents as well.

   Not having P15 really screws things up because the via South Bermondsey services then have a very tortuous route in and out of the station that potentially blocks routing of via New Cross Gate services into and out of the platforms. (the long distance via NXG services were also experiencing problems because of signalling problems at Merstham)

4. Has it gone down again? Quite a few delays

5. Yes it has gone completely pete tong.

   The departure board has been moved so it is now above the new part of the gate line hidden behind 2 large pillars and WH Smith so it is very hard for people to see what is happening. The coded close the main doors announcement went up over the annoy.

   The short 4th track outside the station is in use to park departing trains to help unknot the mess so it took 15 minutes to get from the station to south bermondsey junction…

   LO services using down slow
   All Southern services using down fast
   both up lines with southern services blocking at NXG so LO will fall over too.

   Unless there was another fault tonight or not a complete recovery from this morning it might need an emerged timtable to make things work which wouldn’t go down well with most passengers. The big issue could well be passenger flow unless the departure board is returned to the old location.

6. That sounds a very elementary mistake.

   If the passenger forecasts and modelling have fallen over some serious questions will need to be asked. Not only about this but when SE changes kick in next week.

   Are they basing a lot of the planning on the Olympic changes? Those 2 weeks in mid summer will not equate with years of day in day out alterations.

7. @ Ngh – the reaction on social media this evening is what you might call “choice”. People are NOT happy and the photos show LB completely jammed solid but trains are leaving empty because people can’t reach the platforms for some reason. Seems the police are now arresting people for vaulting the crowd control barriers. If things like the positioning of departure boards are contributing to the problems you have to ask why that mistake has been made again – it’s been botched and then rectified at Waterloo and at Paddington in the past hasn’t it? You’d imagine that the learning from those failures might just get shared around Network Rail to prevent future errors.

8. So a mixture of badly placed signs and narrow platforms have caused all this? It seems odd to think departure boards can cause all these problems, as the station was getting by ok with narrow platforms in December wasn’t it? Looks like a major issue going by the pics.

9. RE WW & Ed

   Things were beginning to kick off when my train left (it certainly didn’t leave empty either! is suspect that photo has taken at an opportune moment.) The passenger next to me tweets were very “choice” indeed. The southern Twitter team is probably in melt down so what can be seen is a small fraction

   Departure board – the focus appears to be making the rebuild easier not on running a train service reliably during the rebuild (as that would cost more!)
   The gate line is currently split with the Shard side moved further towards the buffers and the SE side gateline remaining where it was.
   Complete inability for passengers to get off the trains and out of the station.

   My fear is that to work reliably P14 and 15 would need to be segregated for via South Bermondsey services leaving P10-13 for via NXG services (probably the post 2018 vision for operation!) but this would mean loosing a few more via NXG services to go from 4.? to 4.0 platforms.

   Having reversible lines doesn’t help if trains are “parked” so everything is blocked, everything has to be held much further out from the terminus to make things work when it goes wrong.

   (I’ll calculate the current .? later)

10. Re WW&Ed

    See these pics (not mine) for departure board sighting the crowds was about another 40-50 deep behind that inside the building:

    https://twitter.com/DavidSouthgate/status/552162331485302784/photo/1

    https://twitter.com/AndersonRose1/status/552180012917739520/photo/1

    https://twitter.com/twittoyou/status/552162875117412353/photo/1

    and then (at least) this deep outside:

    https://twitter.com/MarkTobin/status/552168105632608256

11. re Ed at 19:15
    The station passenger flow is part of the problems, the timetable or rather the inability of it to work is the main problem.

12. It will be interesting to see what Southern say. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the management meetings.

13. Surely this evidence of major shortcomings also needs to be referred to the Transport Select Committee, for its grilling of NR in a week or so’s time. One-off issues are one thing, lessons can be learnt, but a 4-year disaster zone affecting at least one hundred thousand every working day is another. Who will contact the Select Committee clerk and provide the link to this story?

14. Please find below a link to Evening Standard site with a report published at around 8pm tonight –

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/commuters-face-dangerous-overcrowding-at-london-bridge-station-as-engineering-works-cause-major-disruption-9959171.html

    I was at London Bridge just before 4pm and while the opening of two new platforms should have helped trains were already having problems with at least 1 cancelled.

    While the London Bridge to Victoria service was running late with a first stop shown as Crystal Palace . When it finally arrived and departed late it had become a direct service to Victoria and I had what must rank as one of the largest taxis in London!

    Changes in layout begin when one reaches the top of the underground escalators with an inability to walk straight out onto the concourse.

    I spotted a Thameslink train using one of the new platforms in the Southern part of the station but the question is whether this could actually cause a problem that need not exist given that both Southern and Thameslink are part of GTN and whether it would be better to make these trains Southern Trains until 2018 and thus remove ALL THAMESLINK services from London Bridge?

15. @ WW Please find a link below to news report Network Rail issued today re Christmas / New Year works –

    http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/News-Releases/Network-Rail-completes-200m-festive-upgrade-programme-221f.aspx

    The report shows just how much work they carried out during this period but as we all know if NR get it right no one bothers , get something wrong and it provides some front page headlines during a dead time of year for newspapers !

    Seems Network Rail will have to learn a lesson from Scottie in the original Star Trek and that’s to double the time a job will take and then get praised when the finish it early or at least on time . Well had they given Sunday as finish time for work at Kings Cross it would not have come in so late !

16. @ Melvyn – I was aware that NR had completed a great deal of planned work with no fuss and no trouble. Clearly there are / were problems at a couple of places and we have had the usual grandstanding and garbage being spouted by our great leaders and overlords in the House of Commons. I look forward to the Secretary of State for Transport personally planning next Christmas’s major possessions given he considers the use of Finsbury Park as a “turn back” was wrong despite the fact it had been used without trouble on several other occasions. It is also interesting that he can come to that conclusion given no official explanation of the events and root causes / mitigations has been published.

    Of course all the “garbage” being spouted actually gets us nowhere at all and risks damaging the ability of professional railwaymen and engineers from doing the right thing at the right time at the best cost. There is no point whatsoever in artificially extending timescales just so you can appear “good”. At some point you will be found out because an eagle eyed expert will spot what is going on and ask pertinent questions. People need to plan properly and have appropriate contingency plans. If there are failings or mistakes then the lessons should be learnt fully and quickly. Having a “witch hunt” might make one or two people feel good in the short term but it serves no decent purpose.

17. In June, 2014, I attended a meeting organised by Southern. This is part of the report I made: “Briefly, from January, 2015, there will be conflicting movements between South Bermondsey & New Cross Gate areas and inwards. Roughly 4 tracks (today) off New Cross Gate into 2 tracks into 3 tracks, then add (join) the two South London Line tracks, all over only those 3 tracks towards London Bridge. There will be a fourth track (the northernmost one) farther towards London Bridge but “will not be much use as it will be only unidirectional”. The southernmost track will be bidirectional between London Bridge and approx. Spa Road Junction but one will have to wait until a train has cleared the whole length before a train can be run in the opposite direction.”

    Reading the above comments, I sense that further disruption will be almost the norm until Southern/GTR gets some of its original its tracks back again and maybe not until through Thameslink trains are running.

    I am afraid that Southern were not too happy at all with the track layout forced upon them. That was last June. It seems that their fears were justified.

18. Re WW and Ed,

    Going back to earlier comments about platform usage:
    (Working TimeTable – WTT)
    Morning peak hour (inc ECS moves)
    via New Cross Gate 4.3 platforms
    via South Bermondsey 1.7 platforms

    but Evening Peak hour
    via New Cross Gate 5.0 platforms
    via South Bermondsey 1.0 platforms (i.e. only P15 – the curse of the narrow platform strikes back?!?) which suggests that using track 11 for via NXG Up moves might be a good way to cause a train jam as via South Bermondsey is effectively one out , one in.

    Unravelled took an excellent set of photos of the new concourse on Monday afternoon (in the LR pool):
    for example:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/unravelled/15586818604/in/pool-londonreconnections/
    Technically not quiet facing a brick wall but hoarding and block work wall…

    It will be interesting to see what happens with the space when the link to P1-6 via the former P8 closes on Friday night forever.

    NR said the delays finally cleared at 0030

    a bit more number crunching of the Working timetable:
    Avg Time in platform (mm:ss) # Departures (1700 to 1900)
    P10 09:45 8
    P11 10:08 7
    P12 11:00 5
    P13 10:30 5
    P14 08:45 4
    P15 06:55 9

    Things that stand out:
    Anything involving a 442 has an evil occupation time built in
    They appear to be joining 2 inbound trains in the platforms (e.g. Caterham and Tattenham C.?) to form one outbound services with a very long occupation time 18mins as well as a Coastway – this seems very high risk for reliability.

19. Re Graham F
    ” There will be a fourth track (the northernmost one) farther towards London Bridge but “will not be much use as it will be only unidirectional”. ”

    They would have been even more up the creek without a paddle on Monday night without that track.
    Long term it will be very useful as it will go under the fast TL lines at the dive under and join (become) the existing down slow @ Bricklayers arms Jn (i.e. by SELCHP). Performing the same purpose and the Wimbledon flyover on the SWML but we will have to wait several years for that.

20. Looks like a non departure of a South Bermondsey reversal in P2 at South bermondsey as made things fall over this morning 2 via south bermondsey services stuck behind it after leaving LBG.

    Time for a fitter and spare driver at South Bermondsey?

21. R Butlin
    But “Southern” will immediately dump all the blame on to NR – it’s NR’s engineering works, NR’s station & ( I assume ) NR’s placing of the screens.
    A merry game of pass-the parcel will then ensue, I suspect ….

22. following up on the above comment:

    The ECS reversal at South Bermondsey departed 12 minutes late which resulted in everything else being circa 12mins down including the via NXG services.
    Passenger flow out of the station in the morning was much better with tape barriers being moved and staff helping steer people.

    The 2 “stuck” services that had departed were “parked” in tracks 10 (Rev) and track 8 (Down – GF’s “4th track” ) leaving Track 11 clear for Up moves and Track 9 for down moves but very little flexibility to route services into platforms. They seemed to hold the services further out much better than previously when it was obvious something had gone wrong thus giving the flexibility to get things going again.

23. Some interesting quotes / info from NR/Southern from a new Evening standard Article

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/commuters-face-dangerous-overcrowding-at-london-bridge-station-as-engineering-works-cause-major-disruption-9959171.html
    Dave Ward, Network Rail Route Director of the South East:

    “I apologise for last night’s disruption. The service provision and station operation at London Bridge was not what we would expect or would like to deliver to passengers.

    There are a number of issues that we need to work through both with industry colleagues and our own staff to understand what went wrong as no significant infrastructure failures occurred.

    As a matter of urgency today we will be reviewing the operation of the station concourse as clearly not only did the overcrowding prevent the station operating in an efficient manner it led to circumstances that were unpleasant for passengers.

    An anonymous off the record…
    “Rail chiefs identified this week as the most liable to meltdown so far in the six-year rebuild of London Bridge. Pressure on the station is expected to be relieved next week when Southeastern services will stop calling at the station, forcing commuters to continue to Charing Cross.”

    Southern said:

    “We apologise to our passengers who were delayed at London Bridge yesterday evening. The problems started earlier in the day when signalling and power supply problems occurred at Merstham shortly after service start up.

    “This was a one-off problem and we do not expect this to be a regular occurrence. The situation was not helped by signalling issues at London Bridge shortly after. Although we recovered the service well, some minor delays were carried into the evening peak which escalated into longer delays, particularly at London Bridge.*

    We are reviewing the day to establish the root causes of these delays but we believe some of the issues may have come about as a result of teething problems on the first day of a new timetable over new signalling and track layouts which we will be focusing on very closely to resolve over coming days.”

    *Joining the stock in the platforms for 5 departing services (between 1700-1900) which has arrived from different places will help magnify even slight delays!
    3 Caterham/Tattenham Corner splitters
    1 East Grinstead (12 car – 3 separate incoming services)
    1 Beckenham Junction

24. The Dec 14 (or rather Jan 15) timetable into London Bridge is somewhat precarious. It was constructed on the assumption that services via South Bermondsey would use Line 11 in both directions, with Lines 9 and 10 being the Down and Up lines for services via Sydenham. The problem is that there is a short bit of track between Spa Road and South Bermondsey Jn where the Down services to South Bermondsey have to run ‘bang road’ against the Up services from the Sydenham direction. Line 8 is – I believe – only used by empties that need to be rushed out of the platforms to make way for incoming trains – they then sit in Line 8 awaiting a path down towards Sydenham.

    @Graham Feakins: GTR and Southern currently still operate as two separate entities until their merger in July 2015. I believe the problem is that at present Southern does not have enough rolling stock or drivers to operate the London Bridge – Brighton services, which is why they were assigned to GTR. However, GTR now also does not appear to have enough drivers – it looks like the previous franchisee ‘forgot’ to train new ones after they found out they would not be running the franchise any longer.

25. Re Staphan
    Line 8 was used both last night (I was on one such service then via NXG) and I saw one this morning (a Wimbledon service was “parked” there while the ECS on P2 at South Bermondsey was blocking the line due to a passenger pulling the alarm – presumably waking up as the service was about to go to the depot after being reversed at South Bermondsey) to rush out trains with passengers to clear platforms at LBG before they can get a path through South Bermondsey Junction.
    Agree on “bang road” issue being the big problem – it only works if every thing else is going to plan too.

    Running track 11 as fully bi-directional would probably need to ensure a guaranteed vacant platform at both ends so it would probably need both P14 and P15 at London Bridge, trying just to use P15 in the evening looks risky as well as P2 at South Bermondsey for down services.

    Given the length of time needed to train drivers they presumably would have had to be starting the process by October 2013 which would have needed DfT approval to pick up the cost or it would have been at the franchisee’s risk with DfT presumably then not having to agree to pick up the cost later under the new TSGN management contract when it was awarded.
    Was the TSGN award delayed by the West Coast problem? If so this look like a DfT issue, even if FCC had a “memory lapse”.

    There is also the SE/TL drivers and service transfer issue was there the potential for a bit of double counting or the assumption of 100% transfer if not that is a bigger hole to fill.

26. @ngh: My understanding of the timetable was that P14 and 15 would be used primarily by services running via South Bermondsey, which would run ‘in pairs’ (two trains leave London Bridge on min. headway, then two arrive on min. headway).

    Regarding the transition from FCC to GTR: this process of transition of ownership from one TOC to another is never fully smooth, but this one appears to have been significantly rougher than normal, despite Govia managing to persuade a good few people in management to – essentially – swap employers and stay in their jobs.

27. Re Staphan

    For most of the day yes but in the evening peak when it fell apart last night via South Bermondsey departures are just P15 on the WTT
    15 2H51 Beckenham Junction 1701
    15 2J87 West Croydon 1711
    15 2H53 Beckenham Junction 1730
    15 2J89 West Croydon 1741
    15 2O95 Wimbledon 1751
    15 2H55 Beckenham Junction 1801
    15 2J91 West Croydon 1810
    15 2H57 Beckenham Junction 1828
    15 2J93 West Croydon 1840
    15 2E29 Epsom 1851

    9-12 minutes between most successive departures (6-7 minutes in platform) with a narrow platform before any hurdles to deal with on the approach to the station.

    between 1700-1900, P14 appears just to have departures to:
    Epsom
    Littlehampton
    Brighton
    Caterham & Tattenham Corner

28. @ ngh 0142 – I clearly can’t comment on track layouts as I’m very unfamiliar with how LB works. Looking at unravelled’s excellent photos of the concourse and gatelines I could have easily predicted a complete mess given the pinchpoints that have been created from the staggered arrangement to cope with the flow through to platforms 1-6. The positioning of the departure board also looks peculiar. I assume that the gateline near platforms 12-15 is in its final position – if it is then the runoff from the platform ends looks to be minimal. I know the assumption is that many people will reach the platforms via escalators from the lower concouse but I am quite surprised that the area looks as small as it does. Once again I breathe a sigh of relief that I rarely use London Bridge main line.

29. @Straphan
    “Down services to South Bermondsey have to run ‘bang road’ against the Up services from the Sydenham direction”
    translation of “bang road” please?

    Not sure why they think Charing Cross services not stopping at LB will reduce the crowds on the Central side. Passengers from CX to central division destinations will surely use the Tube to LB instead of SET, but they’ll still end up in the terminal platforms at LB

30. @timbeau: sorry – railway slang for running on a bi-directional track but against the usual flow of traffic – hence the risk of ‘banging’ another train head-on.

    @ngh: Yes, it appears they did end up using just P15 for the PM peak. The planning rules state that the junction margin for conflicting moves at the throat is 2 minutes, and a minimum turnround time is 5 minutes for an 8-car 377 and 6 minutes for an 8-car 455 train. This means they are probably working almost at minimum specified times, give or take a minute.

31. Re WW spot on

    “The positioning of the departure board also looks peculiar. I assume that the gateline near platforms 12-15 is in its final position – if it is then the runoff from the platform ends looks to be minimal. I know the assumption is that many people will reach the platforms via escalators from the lower concouse”

    Yes final position for the gate line by 12-15
    You aren’t the only one to be surprised by the board location.
    I also think they are being over optimistic in assuming the main route will be via the escalators and might be in for a surprise.

32. @ngh Clearly, the flows to One London and Guy’s/King’s will go via the escalators and the lower concourse. But I have a gut feel that the flows out across Boro High St towards Bankside have been growing significantly in the 2-and-a-bit years I’ve been working there. There does seem to be employment growth that way – one potential employer I spoke to moved there from Victoria over the break. And I’m sure the walking flows into the City won’t reduce, and may not transfer downstairs. Depends what the new routes across Tooley St are like.
    The other imponderable is whether the resurrection of peak TL trains between London Bridge and Blackfriars will leave significant numbers staying on those trains.
    I’m sure it’s all been modelled……..

33. @ Ngh – given the escalators won’t be in use until the second half of 2016 you’d imagine that there would be some flexibility about the positioning of departure boards if it would help people navigate the station and reach their platform more effectively.

    Val Shawcross, dep chair of the Assembly T’port Committee, is caught up in tonight’s crush and has just tweeted that NR, Southern and TSGN are going “to be hauled in front of the committee” to explain what’s going on.

34. Re WW,

    I do like a good grilling for lack of common sense! It helps focus the minds.
    I’m counting the days till August 2016 but the undercroft wouldn’t be any use for Tooley Street access till 2018.

    Unless they have done some very intelligent modelling (aka not drawing circles for walking distance modelling with alarhe river in the way oops;-) hint hint !) Then the fastest route to / from the city is via the concourse. Given there is huge suppressed demand on certain routes and lot of new office space coming on line I’m not sure as to the accuracy of forecasting. The last presentation I saw forecast 0% through terminating concourse…
    (At which point my BS-ometer broke.)

35. Re WW
    Apparently more departure boards being installed starting tonight.

    One reason they probably wanted to move them from the previous place was I think that the cable run to the boards was from the SE side of the building by the escalators which they are trying to demolish.

36. @ Ngh – if nothing else it will be interesting to see what changes are made in the next few weeks. Based on the various comments about the train service it seems things are close to being run on a knife edge for Southern. Next week we have the baptism of fire for South Eastern travellers. Without wishing chaos or woe on anyone I will be waiting to see how long it is before timetables have to be changed again to create a service that operates reliably given the limited infrastructure that is available.

    It’s easy to be wise after the event but I am wondering to myself if the scheme at London Bridge is not a little over ambitious. There is a lot of disruption ahead which has to be managed rather better than it has been so far. The rest of Thameslink seems to have been a relative breeze in comparison – I don’t recall quite the same issues with rebuilding Blackfriars and that was a big rebuild across the Thames.

37. Monday was not brilliant on the Southeastern side either, with many trains running up to 15 minutes down, accumulated on the up journeys solely between New Cross/St. Johns and London Bridge.

38. Let’s not forget that when it comes to how ambitious the London Bridge rebuild is, NR are “following orders” from the planning inspectorate after Plan A was thrown back as “not ambitious enough”.
    Maybe they felt that plan was the right balance between ambition and service risk during construction…

39. WW
    It’s easy to be wise after the event but I am wondering to myself if the scheme at London Bridge is not a little over ambitious.
    Whereas I think the opposite …
    “Only” having 3 approach/departure roads + 4 terminal platforms on the ex-LBSC side @ LBG struck me as very over-optimistic for when something went worng ….
    OTOH, fitting in 5 terminal p/fs, until after the old box had been demolished & the requisite number of running lines was not going to be an easy task, was it?

40. With much talk here about running the networks at capacity, with trains hitting junctions dead on time, little is said about the need for excess capacity to handle the unexpected. When things this complicated fail the problems escalate very quickly. Its no good designing a network that is so busy it can’t be maintained.

    I guess the engineers build in margin for problems, both in projects and day-to-day running, and management, and especially politicians, see the fat as a free resource and try to grab it.

    I suppose all major railway work is done a decade after the optimal time in engineering/resource terms, just at crunch time

41. For example, from this morning

    “Earlier a person was taken ill at London Bridge, this has caused some congestion at the station and is causing delays of up to 25 minutes to trains through London Bridge.”

    A huge disparity between cause and effect. Planners need to provide resiliency as well as capacity.

42. From Twitter:

    Andy Slade ‏@Aaethor

    I hear a baby was born at London Bridge today. Must be the first time something has arrived early! #nationalrailenq #LondonBridgeTrains

43. @JohnB – a decade after optimal time !!!??? That would be very good going. Look at when CrossRail was first mooted. And the (original) Jubilee Line.
    Re: resilience – this is particularly a problem for drivers getting round the network to their next duty, compounds delays even more. And having a larger pool would be a mgmt decision….

44. @John B -slack would be nice but it comes at a price and the extra cost would probably sink many marginal projects.

45. Slack is a key feature with the IT projects I’m familiar with, but of course there its only money that is a constraint, not the physical space (and planning law) that so constrains railway infrastructure.

    What we need is off-site backup cities…

46. I’ve never really understood the logic behind this scheme anyway. Most of this disruption seems to be the supposed necessity of getting trains from the Forest Hill line into Blackfriars – something that the network managed without for the first 150 years of its existence. And if it is so vital that trains should be able to do this, how is it possible to justify not running any trains at all over that route for several years?

    Of all the ex-Southern routes converging on SE1 that could have been extended through the Snow Hill tunnel, they seem to have chosen the most disruptive to engineer.
    Running through services off the LCDR lines via Herne Hill or Catford would have involved no work at all, connecting Petts Wood with Cricklewood, Kent House with Kentish Town, (and Canterbury with Cambridge – assuming Canal Tunnel/Wilberforce Junction to still be part of the project)
    The ex-SER lines would have been a doddle, with a simple re-doubling of the connectoin at Metropolitan Junction and possibly the quadding across Borough Market (allowing Ashford-Bedford, or Folkestone to Foxton).
    Even the LSWR lines – by reopening the connection with Waterloo East, taking over the southern pair of SE tracks east of there and a new spur up to the Blackfriars viaduct – would have been less disruptive (allowing e.g Farnborough to Peterborough)

47. Re Greg 0923
    It is 3 tracks for 6 terminating platforms (has always been 6 platforms since the works started). P10 is only 10car at the moment till they finish building the end of it (see Unravelled’s recent photos at it needed the end of the former P9 demolishing over the blockade first) so this only leave 4 12 car platforms but it is still an improvement.

    It looks like we are stuck with the current track layout on the approaches till Easter 2017 (start of phase 3A) when Southern get the down line through the dive under which then delivers the extension of the 4th track all the way to New Cross Gate.
    The alternative would have been to have multiphase construction of the dive under which left a down line to NXG in place but this would have cost a lot more and taken longer to complete etc. …

    Re Timbeau
    But the idea is to get the max. number of Southern passengers beyond London Bridge??? the option is already there for SE services to Charing Cross or Cannon Street. The works also allow more SE services to call at London Bridge in the am peak.

48. @timbeau: Yes, and how many paths through the Thameslink core would running through there yield? I bet not anywhere near 24tph…

    @John B: You rightly point out this is not an IT project where you can always plug in back-up hardware, build things up, test them, and then just switch over, or revert to the old kit if the new one fails. There is no such luxury with rail projects, where any slack designed into the project in the first place by NR is quickly eaten up by TOCs and/or DfT wanting to run as many trains as possible to ‘minimise inconvenience’… The result is as dire as what we have now, with 24tph crammed into a layout that is only designed to take in 22tph on a permanent basis, and with a small fraction of the normal passenger circulation space made available.

49. Southern have just cancelled the 16.36/17.06/17.38/18.06 stopping services to West Croydon from tonight, and for the remainder of the week, thought they’ve left the morning London-bound services untouched.

50. Any chance three years of problems on the southern routes into LBG could prompt more serious consideration of further capacity upgrades on the ELL? (I realise this would require a decent amount of investment to extend some platforms)

51. Repeat such delays, 10 times a week for 50-100,000 passengers on each occasion, starting with four months before a general election. The question will be when, not if, this becomes a political front page zone with various parties within the rail industry (possibly even the DfT) taken to the media pillory twice daily, occasionally also to the London Assembly and Transport Select Committee, and manifesto policies on National Rail and Network Rail needing to be adjusted to respond to disgruntled London & South East voters. Suspect TfL might be glad they didn’t secure the SE Lines this time around.

52. ] “John B @ 7 January 2015 at 10:21”
    ] “Slack is a key feature with the IT projects I’m familiar with…”

    Where do you work and can I have a job there? I’m rather more used to “we’ve bought this, get it working by Friday tea Time.” 🙂

53. @Straphan
    “how many paths through the Thameslink core would running through there yield? I bet not anywhere near 24tph…” Which suggestion do you mean?

    @ngh
    “But the idea is to get the max. number of Southern passengers beyond London Bridge??? ”
    None at all for the next few years without changing, and even if they do change they won’t be able to go to Charing Cross………..

54. @Anonymous https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/london-bridge-first-major-blockade/#comment-237764

    By the time any capacity upgrade other than the ongoing extension of Overground trains to 5 cars is done, the entire London Bridge and Thameslink scheme will be long completed…

55. Can anyone tell my why the juice rails get yellow sidewalls during/after engineering works which seem to get removed some time later….?

56. 2 days of evidence is obviously enough that it wasn’t going to work…
    That was probably the easiest set of services to pull but not necessarily the best for passengers overall.

    To get rid of the potential 6 trains (1700-1900) that come in and are joined in the platforms that could be joined further out would be better for the majority of passengers but joining then further out will need a lot of careful planning (or more mileage for those coming in as ECS, more drivers etc).

    Any bets as to whether the remaining via NXG stoppers will all be rediagrammed to 10car to compensate? 😉

57. Ticket acceptance with Underground, Overground and Southeastern on all reasonable routes from 16:30-19:30. Looks like they might be forced to capitulate over not allowing tube travel to Victoria…

    What Southern and Passengers think is “reasonable” will probably be radically different…

58. Doesn’t look like many trains got away on time since 5pm. Not sure what impact cutting 4 trains has had?

59. Re Ed,

    A lot more sane tonight and at least services operating even if running late. i.e back to the average before Christmas.

    The BBC TV camera crew turned up tonight as well – just 48 hours late.

    Trains doing extra stops at New Cross Gate (e.g. East Grinstead services)

    Huge numbers of extra staff and probably everything BTP could sensibly allocate?

    Also a return of a classic long distance commuter tactic (i.e. things settling down?), know which platform the train will leave from and stand in front of where the doors will be even if you block the unloading and loading of the train before! (Uckfield passengers getting in the way of a Bognor service on the platform before it). Time for a platform “lottery” for long distance services to discourage this?

    With 2tph of extra paths to West Croydon some evening peak LO PIXC busters instead?

60. @ Anon 1538 – I would say the political impact from these delays is already being felt. Even Boris has felt it necessary to get involved even though he has no direct influence over any of the parties directly involved. He can “huff and puff” but has no real power other than to say nasty things about NR and Southern and demand “action plans”.

    The government are also saying things but I am left wondering what bit of government is speaking given Government control Network Rail, they effectively control the Thameslink franchise and certainly have influence over Southern given the future merger into TSGN. Still dear old Claire Perry did her usual “I want to make sure the passengers are being looked after” platitude on the telly this evening so that’ll make everything OK won’t it!? They’re clearly concerned not to be put in the firing line too obviously but they are the ultimate “Fat Controllers” for the project works, the infrastructure provider and one train operator. I expect the London media will keep an eye on things but the rest of the country won’t give much of a damn.

61. @ngh “Looks like they might be forced to capitulate over not allowing tube travel to Victoria…”

    Bear in mind that we are in the middle of another huge rebuilding at Victoria underground station, with the various work sites leaving very restricted access routes on the surface. Both the District and Victoria line platforms and access stairways/escalators are running close to capacity as it is, and when the booking hall gates are closed the crowds back up into the main line concourse in seconds.

    I am sure that both TfL and NR are concerned that diverting even a small proportion of LBG users via Victoria could trigger a meltdown very quickly, however ‘sensible’ it might seem on paper.

62. And now the MP for Old Bexley & Sidcup is calling for the Jan 12 SouthEastern changes to be postponed until the Southern side is sorted.

63. Re chris j

    Indeed NR and TFL are right to be concerned about diverting passengers to Victoria.
    But they have allowed it once and if victoria coped it will be hard to resist political pressure to keeping doing it if it keeps voters happy…

64. Re mike p

    The 1 week gap between service changes looks particularly well chosen so there is time for the key people to be available for both sets of firefighting!

    It now looks like they knew the departure board moving could be an issue but were more worried about having to close the escalators in the evening peak if the boards stayed where they were before.
    The removal of the link through P8 at the weekend could well improve the pedestrian flow.

    Good old fashioned manual announcements really helped tonight in a way that automated ones just can’t.

65. “… some evening peak LO PIXC busters instead?”

    Can we please have a translation of what the latter part of that sentence means?

66. London Overground Passenger In eXcess of Capacity buster
    technical term for very targetted peak time extras services on London overground. The longer term aim of tfl was to run 2 extra tph to/ from crystal palace in the peaks (West Croydon the first choice not being possible without big infrastructure works see Sussex part 7 article leaving palace as the easy option).

    LO potentially have stock to run 2 extra to palace per hour but there are potentially 2 paths if southern don’t use them.

67. LO: London Overground
    PIXC: Passengers In eXcess of Capacity: a measure of how overloaded a service is.
    PIXC-buster: an extra train put on in order to relieve said overloading.

68. Chris J – Though probably not on the same scale as Victoria, if Southern are hoping some passengers to the New Cross Gate area will switch to Southeastern and go to New Cross that will just add pressure to SE services, which themselves see upheaval from Monday, with some people going to Greenwich supposed to use other lines heading via New Cross then getting off at Lewisham and using DLR to Greenwich.

    Are all southern trains being used at the moment the maximum length they can be for their routes? If not when will they?

69. @Ed – “Are all southern trains being used at the moment the maximum length they can be for their routes?”

    Southern have tried to run the maximum length of trains for the available stock* but I understand that there has been a shortage because of maintenance problems, particularly as ever as a result of the leaf fall season, although I guess that is not so much of a problem at the moment. They also commenced a programme of driver recruitment earlier in the year so as to provide a float, e.g. at London Bridge. As commented above, this has been unfortunately counter-balanced by a loss of existing train crew, so all staff I expect are fully employed in providing services, whilst a shortage still remains. The parallel situation is worse on the Thameslink side.

    * This is unlike Southeastern, who tend to run short formations anyway to try and keep each unit’s mileage per accounting period below a figure where they would have to pay the leasing company an increased fee should that mileage be exceeded!

70. P.S. Ed – I forgot to add that Southern were hoping the opposite of passengers transferring between New Cross Gate and New Cross (not a very nice walk) because they were told that there would be an extra 2 tph on LOROL’s Crystal Palace route, as ngh explains. The date given to Southern back in last summer, however, was January, 2015….

71. Re. loss of all Charing Cross services stopping at London Bridge until 2016, I notice in all publicity I have seen and various comments that nothing whatsoever is mentioned that WATERLOO EAST for Waterloo Main Line station will also not be served by London Bridge Southeastern services.

    So, at the very minimum, all that significant number of commuters and others who travel between Waterloo East and London Bridge (and beyond) will now have to change habit for a time-consuming slog ‘downstairs’ to use TfL and use the already overcrowded Jubilee Line between Waterloo and London Bridge, mostly to rejoin NR territory at the other end. Remember that many, many travel between Waterloo and London Bridge for stations beyond in both directions, as well as those starting/ending their journeys at London Bridge.

    Although I personally predicted this and the ensuing chaos seemingly eons ago, little can be done now to ease/eliminate what will be enforced next week. I already feel sorry for those affected, especially if they haven’t exactly been forewarned. Do correct me if I have missed something that an ordinary commuter/passenger might have also missed. Waterloo East has not been on the radar.

72. Re Graham F

    SWT have been publicising the loss of the onward connection from Waterloo East to London Bridge for a while now and they re-advertise this every few hours on their twitter feed. Not sure what else they have been doing.

    Waterloo East was closed for entry yesterday morning so every SWT passenger had a practice run for next week. According to one of my Colleagues it was carnage and they had to shut all tube entry at Waterloo as a result of the extra attempted loading being too much.

73. @ngh – “SWT have been publicising the loss of the onward connection from Waterloo East to London Bridge for a while now” – Well, that’s interesting, and I admit I’m not an SWT frequent user but please tell me, as a regular London Bridge user off the Southern, whether you have consciously noted any similar publicity from Southern or, especially, Southeastern, whose province it is, to tell folk that there will be no trains between London Bridge and Waterloo East for some 18 months. I’ll listen and look out tonight on my way through to the LR pub meet-up.

    But how predictable that, as you report, “it was carnage and they had to shut all tube entry at Waterloo as a result of the extra attempted loading being too much.” That situation I suggest will last for the coming 18 months.

74. Re Graham F

    Thameslink programme people have been visiting the majority of local stations as well as regular events at London Bridge where they hand out leaflets.
    SE seem to be publicising it as well but given the issues southern have been having it has been drowned out by everything else they are saying.

75. @ngh – As of a few seconds ago, I suppose SE thinks that this from their main website page will be sufficient for users of Waterloo East: “From Monday 12 January, no Charing Cross services will call at London Bridge. And some diversions will take place between Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Blackfriars. We anticipate some of our services will be extremely busy and strongly advise you to plan ahead.”??

    Where’s the all important mention of Waterloo East in that? Not everyone will automatically take on board that there will be no railway between London Bridge and Waterloo East until they find out the hard way.

    Indeed, try to find a mention of Waterloo East here on this more detailed page:

    http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/about-us/latest-news/timetable-changes-for-southeastern-services-travel-advice-for-passengers/

    However, stations like Maze Hill, Woolwich Dockyard and Dover get a mention.

    Honestly, just because the LR meet-up pub is no longer close to Waterloo East, there’s no reason not to tell everyone else of the inconvenience…

76. Display Boards:

    8 (additional) boards now back in old location on the Concourse
    1 General + clock
    1 Scrolling page departure list
    6 traditional boards for full info on individual services.

    &

    2 portable boards with departure lists near the top of the escalators.

77. Sounds like SWT users might like to consider their options. How about Waterloo to London Bridge via the Bakerloo to Elephant, then Northern to London Bridge? That could become a worthwhile strategy for users. Or alight at Vauxhall to Stockwell, then Northern as above. Or Clapham Junction then LO to Surrey Quays then change again, or direct via Southern suburbans, if LO/Southern in South London happens to suit your final destination. Or Clapham Junction to Victoria then out on the SE services from Victoria. Or Waterloo to Bank then DLR if your destination were Greenwich, Lewisham or Woolwich. Or Northern to Charing Cross then SE main line back across the river if you want SE London.

    Just goes to show that there are other travel options available in many cases, albeit less convenient, providing that you are prepared to think laterally or even orbitally. It would help if official organisations also pointed out the variety of options to hand, with or without travel via Victoria being supported – which IMHO is a useful option to promote as the SE side is less congested than the Brighton Line (not my baby, as Lady Bracknell might have remarked).

78. Regarding Waterloo East, I wonder if some of the perceived lack of warning might be because many people (but not all) are aware of the firm rule (at least, I think it’s a firm rule) that Waterloo East is served by every train to/from Charing Cross, and no other.

    So a warning of no trains between LBG and Waterloo East just might have been disguised as a warning of no trains between LBG and Charing Cross, which might have fooled some of the people some of the time.

79. @Graham Feakins
    Waterloo East platforms have been plastered with large signs saying that there will be no trains to London Bridge after 9 January for some weeks now. They are pretty hard to avoid.

80. Re Anon

    Or just walk it is only 2km between the 2 concourses much quicker than many of the alternatives given the time it takes to change between modes and service frequencies.

81. Re Graham F,

    My colleagues who use the Waterloo then Waterloo East – London Bridge (given perennial issues with the “Drain” and Jubilee) are all aware so SWT have been doing a good job. (The F-in-L already walks and then claims it is a bigger distance than it actually is.)

    Malcolm – I think all regular users will be aware of the golden rule (I had learned it by the age of 6/7) [ and the converse for St Johns!] so it will be the occasional users or those regular users who never read posters, take leaflets thrust into their hands or listen to announcements.

    Mumsnet are now on Southern’s case as some kids now have to change trains on their way to school – apparently the entire timetable should revolve around half a carriage of kids in the non peak flow direction.

82. And the inability of the National Rail Journey Planner to be programmed with ticket availability on alternate routes (as spotted by Sevenoaks Rail Travellers’ Association) seems to be unfixable before this weekend’s blockade.
    A return from Dartford to Charing Cross is quoted as £22.40 rather than the correct £9.20 !!!!

83. Why not run a shuttle bus from Waterloo to London Bridge for the duration. Getting people on the Jubilee for 1/2 stops is daft, and the roads aren’t that busy down there. You could make the 521 a circular route 🙂

84. @MikeP,

    Whilst the author may have a valid grievance, he/she themselves have made at least one error.

    but are then quoting a very high fare – higher even than the usual maximum, a peak-hour Day Travelcard. Their system does not even appear to know that Saturday is an off-peak day.

    So the author has failed to grasp that south of the river there is just one Travelcard. There is no longer a “peak” or “off-peak” version.

85. This now on New Civil Engineer online today: http://www.nce.co.uk/8674778.article

    It’s probably not irrelevant that Val Shawcross AM was inconvenienced the other day, and that London Bridge is the main station for City Hall.

    Mayor grills Network Rail after three days of London Bridge chaos

    8 January, 2015 | By Will Mann

    Mayor of London Boris Johnson will meet Network Rail bosses today after three days of travel chaos at London Bridge station.

    The station, Britain’s fourth busiest, was closed for 16 days over the Christmas period to allow construction of two new platforms, replacement of 3km of track, and installation of new signalling. The work is part of a £1bn rebuilding programme for London Bridge.

    Network Rail said that “this work was completed on time”, but this week has seen congestion and travel disruption for commuters at the station. British Transport Police were called in to maintain order as crowds 50-deep were squashed against the ticket barriers.

    A spokesman for Johnson said: “The Mayor shares the frustration of commuters and sympathises with them over the enormous inconvenience they’ve endured. He will be raising the recent disruption at London Bridge and indeed the chaotic scenes at Finsbury Park over Christmas with Network Rail when he meets with them.

    “The Mayor wants to hear what went wrong, and to understand what lessons can be learned and how the situation can be better managed going forward.”

    Network Rail said that the new timetable introduced following the Christmas rebuilding work “has proved challenging to manage”.

    It added: “We have reviewed this and made some immediate changes to a small number of evening peak services which will reduce the pressure on the infrastructure and allow us to deliver a more punctual service that passengers deserve.

    “We will monitor the service this week and assess if any longer term changes are required.

    “We have reviewed the operation of the station concourse, placed more staff at London Bridge, and implemented additional crowd control measures to separate passengers entering and exiting trains. By the end of the week, we will have additional passenger information screens, so the concourse is used more evenly.”

    Five trains leaving London Bridge were withdrawn from last night’s timetable to reduce the volume of trains going in and out of the station.

    Network Rail South East director Dave Ward said: “The service provision and station operation was not what we would expect or would like to deliver to passengers.

    “As a matter of urgency we will be reviewing the operation of the station concourse as clearly not only did the overcrowding prevent the station operating in an efficient manner it led to circumstances that were unpleasant for passengers.”

    Rail Minister Claire Perry said: “We’ve got an amazing piece of work going on down there at London Bridge.

    “We’ve got £6.5bn worth of investment in the Thameslink programme, a brand new station replacing what’s there, but it’s completely inexcusable during that process to inconvenience passengers to this extent.”

86. @Anonymous Unless my eyes deceived me yesterday from a passing SE train to Charing Cross, I swear, for a short length not far from the station throat at London Bridge, there is a stretch where there seem to be only three operational tracks. If so, no wonder there’s such a mess. Also, on my Twitter feed there are now so very many trains skip-stopping to regain time following delays that it makes me wonder how many routes actually attain the service level timetabled. Closer to home, the Beckenham Junction/London Bridge service frequently turns back at South Bermondsey or in the reverse direction, Birkbeck. London Bridge/Victoria also seems to suffer a lot with non-stop running to/from Crystal Palace.

    I wonder if Network Rail have actually run a programme to find out the pitfalls in advance – or even a Hornby layout.

87. Having had a look at the new LBG concourse (albeit after the pm peak when it was already pretty quiet) I think the most collossal mistake was to move the departure boards and assume people would use the ‘deeper’ (i.e. the one closer to the platforms) half of the gateline. This meant people who ventured there and had to wait for their trains stood directly in the way of those who needed to get through the barriers. Also, some of the gates in the ‘deeper’ part of the gateline were configured as exit barriers rather than entry barriers. A classic case of fitting a quart in a pint pot…

    Moving the display will give people waiting for their train more space, and will speed up the flow in conjunction with making the ‘nearer’ (further from the platforms) gateline the entry gateline. In the pm peak some of the ‘deeper’ gateline can then be used to manage the excess flow of passengers.

    Also, there is an issue with turnround times. At present, an 8-car train can be turned round in as little as 5 minutes, and a 12-car in 6 minutes. With loadings well in excess of 1200 people for a 12-car train (1500 is not uncommon at Victoria!), people need more time to get through the barrier to the train itself. Perhaps at least those trains arriving empty from depot could have their platforms advertised in advance of their arrival, which would buy passengers an extra 2-3 minutes.

88. @Malcolm: “many people (but not all) are aware of the firm rule (at least, I think it’s a firm rule) that Waterloo East is served by every train to/from Charing Cross, and no other. ”

    It can’t be that great of a secret — it takes but a glance on a map to discover that there’s nowhere else for a train through Waterloo East to go (or come from) than Charing Cross.

89. Re Staphan,

    I suspect the only solution for significantly improved passenger flow on the platforms themselves would be to install temporary steel decks over the escalator holes and remove the hoardings on the P11/12 and P13/14 islands (and may be P10 a little later) for the next 18 months till the escalators come into use. why are passenger number seemly such a surprise?

    In terms of information having the SE departures on the most visible part of the new boards (left hand side) may not have been a good idea as it is the least relevant to the passengers on the terminating concouse (especially as you will have to exit the station to access the SE platforms in less than 36 hours time). With the LBG service pattern revolving around 2tph frequencies having enough boards to show the next service of the 2tph would seem a good idea as it would allow passengers to plan alternatives more easily* as they might be able to see a delay or cancellation earlier, this would need at least 12 boards for individual services but there are only 9 on the new right hand boards or 6 on the very new left hand boards.

    Having some “next faster train to” boards on station approach might also help as you have fewer passengers slowing down or stopping to look at any particular information source. An improvement to these boards might be moving to 3 columns so the second column wouldn’t scroll between platform and departure time so passengers would have to wait and watch the screen to get all the information.

    (* i.e. getting the next service to East Croydon and getting on a service from Victoria to complete the journey instead if the direct service from LBG is delayed/cancelled/altered)

90. @Graham F
    “many travel between Waterloo and London Bridge for stations beyond in both directions”
    There can’t be many travelling between SWT at Waterloo and Southern at LBr though – especially now the Overground provides a direct route from Clapham Junction to all stations as far as Queen Road Peckham, and the Forest Hill line can be reached via Crystal Palace. Passengers from SWT to SE destinations will not be inconvenienced much by not stopping at Lon Br – at worst they will have to change at Lewisham. (although getting to Maze Hill would be a pain)

    That leaves Cannon Street – a journey I did today because it was raining and I didn’t fancy the walk (and because I won’t be able to do it again after this week for three years) . It’s not much quicker than walking, and in any case the Drain is quicker (although SWT point to point tickets are not accepted so you have to pay)

    No need for a dedicated shuttle bus between Wloo and LonBr: the 381 already does the trip and tickets will be accepted:it may need extra buses added though (tickest aslo accepted on the RV1, although that is a more circuitous route, but not the 521 which is even more circuitous – and all existing users from either LBr or Waterloo to the City or Holborn would get a free ride!)

91. @ngh, although additional and re-positioned screens will help with passenger flows, it won’t solve the ongoing problems caused by last-minute changes to the service: I was at London Bridge on Tuesday evening, and could comfortably get on to platform 15 intending to catch the 17.11 to West Croydon, stopping at all stations. It arrived 5 minutes late, but the small dmi screen at the end of the platform immediately showed it as running fast to East Dulwich. The platform staff were unaware of this until it was pointed out to them, and some of the passengers then headed back on to the concourse with the train departing half empty.

92. @Henning Makholm

    Yes, the map shows what you say. But some people never look at any map, their minds are just not made that way. The map also does not rule out the possibilities of some trains terminating at Waterloo East, or running through it non-stop (though neither has ever happened as far as I know).

    But anyway, the fact that “No trains LBG to CHX” implies “No trains LBG to WLE” is one of those things which might be obvious once pointed out, but might not occur to some people if it is not explicitly pointed out. That’s what I meant.

93. Re David G

    Old fashioned clear manual tannoy announcement are ideal for that! And were used for alterations like that on Wednesday – they are learning. Though the potential extra staffing bill for intensive tannoy announcements 19/7 might be a point of contention between Southern and NR at some point (ditto all the other extra public facing staff needed to make things run smoothly).

    I wonder if there will be more prioritisation of getting the space in front of the escalator bank down to the new concourse to the left of P10 (looking from the existing concourse) to generate some more circulating space.

94. “On Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 January, engineering work means no trains will call at London Bridge, Charing Cross, Cannon Street or Waterloo East.”

    As a result of the blockade this weekend means that I can travel direct services from Woolwich Arsenal to Victoria or Blackfriars. That will be a pleasant change.

95. @ Malcolm – there is always a danger in assuming that one clear message to commuters also conveys other messages too. I don’t commute through London Bridge or Waterloo East and I am possibly more aware than some (courtesy of this blog) of the broad sweep of the LB related changes but I doubt I’d have worked out that no CX trains also means no Waterloo East trains from LB. We also have to consider we have a growing population with many new people unfamiliar with the transport network trying to cope with just getting about. They plus off peak travellers and tourists will not understand all the decades long nuances of railway operating practice in the LB – CX / Cannon St corridor.

    I expect it will calm down somewhat in 2-3 weeks if the train services can run reliably because people will fine tune their journeys as best as they can. The bigger short term risk is the weather and what on earth happens if it snows or there are really cold temperatures. We all know from past experience what that does and I can’t see buses, tubes and DLR coping if the trains collapse in a heap.

    If the London wide bus strike goes ahead next Tuesday then we have the added delight of thousands of people diverting to the tube and rail network to try to travel on top of further revised timetables at LB and in SE London. I don’t think that is going to be a nice day to be travelling anywhere.

96. I was caught up in the ‘carnage’ at Waterloo yesterday. Access to the Jubilee was closed at main concourse level. That meant that even access to buses in Waterloo Road was blocked. I suspect that they will have to close access to the Jubilee line there during the morning peak for the duration of the London Bridge closure. What other safe option is available? More buses certainly seems to be a realistic option, remembering that no peak long distance services stop at Clapham Junction. So, using the Overground from there is barred to thousands of passengers. Although there are alternative routes on the Tube, can the Northern line or the Jubilee (at Canada Water) handle any more passengers?

97. @ Ngh 1419 – I suspect the overall numbers might not be a surprise but the distribution of them across the revised services and also how people present themselves to catch trains might well be. As per Straphan’s comments about turn round times I wonder just whether anyone bothered to think about the distribution of passenger loads vs the gateline capacity and its configuration. These are pretty crucial issues coupled with the capacity available on the platforms. LU has a reasonable chance of getting gateline configurations right because people are typically channelled towards particular walkways by escalators and corridors. Large terminal layouts with varying entry and exit flows require a different approach and constrained platform layouts don’t help very much. The fact that the train service has been all over the place for days must mean there is no stability in flows at the gatelines yet nor on the platforms.

    You’ve said people have been doing counts and watching video recordings but I’m not sure I’d have kept the gateline in place during such restricted working. I know Southern and South Eastern won’t want to increase revenue losses by not having gates and the ability to shut gates can help keep people outside if needed but I do wonder if the gateline is actually causing an impediment. It shouldn’t be doing so. I’d have been tempted to move to conventional manned fixed barriers with additional evacuation capacity at the platform ends with banks of Oyster Validators located elsewhere in the concourse for people to touch in and out. Not brilliant I accept but possibly a bit more flexible and faster at getting people off the platforms and out of the station or off the concourse and on to trains when needed.

98. Please see link below to today’s Evening Standard which includes an interview ith NR and shows that they have resorted in installing temporary barriers outside the main entrance to prevent passengers entering on same side as where departure boards are now located –

    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-bridge-overcrowding-commuters-face-third-day-of-delays-9964237.html

    Given the closures at LBG And Waterloo Eaśt its a pity a bus link to CHX has not been introduced .

    Pity they could not re.-open the old Jubilee Line Station at CHX !

99. They cannot win

    In one sentence – “They should take out a lot of trains.”

    Then – “It isn’t fair to cancel trains..”

100. Wow I thought I was aware of all the forthcoming changes but had NO idea there will be no trains from London Bridge to Waterloo East. I assumed they skipped London Bridge and then called at Waterloo East & finally Charing Cross. Southeastern have not reported this at all. I know someone who has to connect to a SW train and this will make things very bad for them. They have no idea.

101. Ed – they do indeed skip London Bridge and then call at Waterloo East and Charing Cross.

     What you can’t do, of course, is travel from Waterloo East and then interchange at London Bridge.

102. My big concern about Monday’s changes on Southeastern is that, so far, no work seems to have been done to try to ease passenger flows at platforms 1,2 and 3 at London Bridge. Although some commuters may heed the advice to change to a Charing X / Cannon Street service further out (eg at Lewisham or Hither Green), I suspect that many won’t. Platforms 1,2 and 3 at London Bridge will inevitably be more crowded than usual. Platforms 1/2 are quite narrow for the first 30 metres or so from the entrance/exits but they are cluttered with timetable displays, coffee shops, loos all of which reduces space for passengers. I can foresee dangerous levels of overcrowding and gridlock in the narrow passageways leading to the tube ticket hall (there is already often gridlock on a normal day). I appreciate that some passenger throughout may drop as Charing X / Waterloo Eastvpassengers will not be alighting, but there are huge numbers who transfer from Southeastern services to the tube or complete their journey on foot and will need to enter and exit platforms 1,
     2 and 3. Removing as much platform clutter would help, although I appreciate that some is strctural and not easily removed. I foresee chaos next week, with temporary closures of the 3 remaining platforms, trains being directed to run non stop through the platforms, unless it is planned to make changes soon to ease passenger flow.

103. @Ed you seem to be a little confused.

     To express things another way, Waterloo East and Charing Cross will receive their usual trains, from various places in the South-East, but the temporary novelty is that they will not call at London Bridge. So if your friend is at London Bridge wanting Waterloo East, he will indeed have to find another way. But if he is coming from anywhere else, say Lewisham, he will still be able to get to Waterloo East as normal (maybe a few minutes earlier or later).

104. @Ed I have just realised that you may be referring to the coming weekend. That is different altogether, London Bridge, Cannon Street, Waterloo East and Charing Cross are completely closed. This is quite separate from the every-day restriction of CHX trains non-stopping London Bridge. If your friend is travelling at the weekend, he will have an entirely different problem. Except, of course, that unless he is one of the small number of people who live there, he will not need or wish to start his journey at London Bridge at all. I recommend the journey planner…

105. One obvious change to ease passenger flow at LBG would be to suspend both the Southeastern and tube gatelines for the first week of the changes. I bet it won’t happen. It would also be helpful to retain footbridge access to the platform 4,5,6 exits for a short time, and delay demolition of those platforms -at least to allow aceess to entrances and exits – until the revised service patterns have bedded in.

106. It’s all very well to “suspend” gatelines, but these days with pay-as-you-go, it would be necessary to have a lot of free-standing oyster validators, which is not easy to arrange, and may cause a similar amount of congestion as the gatelines you have just suspended.

107. @ dvd – I don’t expect gatelines will be suspended as there is a need to bed down the revised arrangements to allow different ticket acceptance and OSI arrangements at London Bridge. What may be necessary is for gatelines to work in “open mode” with the Oyster readers still working so people don’t get charged maximum fares but the throughput would be higher – provided the open mode was clearly advised to people so they don’t dawdle at the gates wondering what’s happening.

     It may be the case that some P1-3 decluttering happens over the coming weekend when everything is shut down. However you can’t take all the timetable info away when you’ve got a brand new timetable, service patterns and operating arrangements at LB! Some people will need help from static information displays. If everything was removed the first demand from confused passengers would be to put it all back!! I do feel for Network Rail as I suspect there is no way they can “win” at the moment because the slightest thing going wrong would cause upset.

     The chair of the Assembly Transport Committee wrote to NR today demanding answers to the LB and Christmas disruptions (F Park / Paddington). Unfortunately several of the questions relate to matters that are the remit of the Train Operating Companies and not Network Rail. What has the decision to cancel trains, run them fast or curtail them or passenger compensation got to do with Network Rail? NR might be accountable for the root cause of the disruption but they are not responsible for the train service and fare / refund decisions. I would have expected the Chair to have understood the distinction given the number of times NR and TOCs have appeared in front of the Committee, including on Thameslink and London Bridge works.

108. And I’d expect the Chair to know that the internal investigation into those Christmas engineering issues should be made available to them next week.

109. I travel by train, I don’t schedule them.

     How about stopping some London Bridge services short at Norwood Junction and getting people onto Thameslink services to Blackfriars, City Thameslink and Farringdon. Plenty of connections from those stations into the City.

     OK Thameslinks would have to stop at Norwood but it is on the way from East Croydon Northwards.

     It might be possible to turn the terminated services round at Selhurst depot.

     Just a thought.

110. @Anon 2245
     Those Thameslink services are normally routed via Streatham, not Norwood Junction, and are going to be pretty full anyway – and people can change to them at East Croydon. Some Southern services on the Forest Hill line have been weeded out altogether, rather than just terminated at Norwood Junction

111. Please find below a link to a press release on Network Rail site giving details of changes to trains and promises of a much better London Bridge Station !-

     http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/News-Releases/No-Charing-Cross-trains-to-call-at-London-Bridge-rail-station-from-Monday-and-further-changes-plan-2228.aspx

112. @Melvyn (& Co.) – Yes, do read that Network Rail link just provided. It backs up rather well my previous opinion that Waterloo East is simply not on the radar (apart from a mention for this coming weekend). Don’t they realise that Waterloo East is a major interchange for the terminus known as Waterloo Main Line (SWT services)? If you don’t spell it out, then it won’t dawn on creatures of habit, let alone the more irregular user. I wonder how many actually deliberately seek out the NR site in the first place, apart from their employees and esteemed readers here of LR.

     At least some posters have been out up at London Bridge on the platforms which actually specify in big characters “From January 10th, No service to Charing Cross or Waterloo East.” However, despite the assertion of Quinlet that “Waterloo East platforms have been plastered with large signs saying that there will be no trains to London Bridge after 9 January for some weeks now. They are pretty hard to avoid.”, all I can say is I passed through Waterloo East last night and peered out of both sides of the train and didn’t see a single one on the platforms. Maybe they are on the ramps.

     Meanwhile, back at London Bridge, a media chap, complete with fluffy microphone and camera boarded my train as it arrived last night on Platform 12, clearly to get another clip of distress from a passenger who had been in the awaiting crowd.

     @Philip Wylie

     8 January 2015 at 12:35

     @Anonymous Unless my eyes deceived me yesterday from a passing SE train to Charing Cross, I swear, for a short length not far from the station throat at London Bridge, there is a stretch where there seem to be only three operational tracks. If so, no wonder there’s such a mess.

113. Oops! @Philip Wylie – sorry, keyboard mis-key – that point is answered by my earlier comment. Yes, indeed, only three tracks out of London Bridge to serve the four tracks from New Cross Gate outwards and the two tracks of the South London Line, all diverging at the South Bermondsey end! Beyond South Bermondsey Junction, those three tracks reduce to just two before ‘opening out’ to four outside New Cross Gate for the main line route via Forest Hill. Worse, to mind my mind is the stretch of reversible track (one of the three) which cannot be cleared in either direction all the way between approx. Spa Road Junction (Bermondsey) and London Bridge.

     In other words, the 3-track bit is not such a short stretch as perhaps you saw. But there you are. It’ll be OK in 2018….

114. @Graham F
     “all I can say is I passed through Waterloo East last night and peered out of both sides of the train and didn’t see a single one on the platforms. Maybe they are on the ramps.”

     They are – and would be difficult to miss. I didn’t notice any on the platform but I was running for a train, but I would suggest people passing through Wlo E on the way to/from Charing Cross, as I assume you were, are not the target audience for such posters.

115. @timbeau, Graham Feakins,

     I would say they are pretty hard to avoid. Although some of them are so big that paradoxically you might not notice if walking past it. In any case presumably the people involved will see the same things at London Bridge anyway.

     One good thing is that they “personalise” the notices to the relevant station such as “Major changes from Waterloo East …” so that you don’t just ignore it thinking it is a standard network-wide enormous notice.

116. All this week they have had people down in the corridor by platforms 1-6 wearing bright tabards, waving leaflets around and shouting out about service changes.

     On the ramp coming down from platforms 5 and 6 there are posters on the side walls, saying that from Saturday, these platforms will be closed.

     Similarly every morning people have been standing around my local station waving the same leaflets under people’s noses. Plus there have been large posters plonked on the platform in a deliberate place on the platform that your eye will catch them if coming out of or going into the ticket office.

     Similarly the signs at Charing Cross have been flashing up the message for weeks…

     I don’t see how much more they can do really…. Take all passengers aside, lock them in a room for 10 minutes while they shout at them????

117. The publicity is fine and little more they can do about that. In SE’s franchise extension 100 more staff were announced – many to do this short term awareness.

     The issue really is that even if every single person knows the changes (impossible with tourists, new students etc) and many do change behaviour where they can, it looks unlikely there is the slack in other lines and modes nor on SE themselves. The real big things that should have been done to mitigate that would have taken years to prepare and implement weren’t done – extending remaining metro trains to a minimum of 10 cars and ideally 12 car on SE metro. They’ll still be 6 and 8 car trains running which isn’t adequate.

118. Re PoP,

     “Although some of them are so big that paradoxically you might not notice if walking past it.”

     A bit like the moment in Godzilla where the main character stands in the footprint but doesn’t realise it is a footprint because it is so large.

     Re PoP, Southern Heights, Timbeau, GrahamF.

     There comes a point where you hit diminishing returns – it just ends up costing a very large amount to inform the decreasing number of (potential) users who aren’t aware. At some point you give up on prevention and just plan to deal with issues as they arrive on the day i.e. similar to thinking to ALARP.
     The threshold would appear to be that there aren’t issues pedestrian flow issues caused by passengers queuing to seek advice in the peaks (probably not at London Bridge but elsewhere Waterloo East, Cannon Street, Lewisham) the biggest issues may be if the message hasn’t got through to Southern Passengers who formerly used the footbridge change at LBG. (slightly distracted already by the volume of other relevant messages recently?)

119. ALARP As Low As Reasonably Practicable

120. I suspect most people who travel through London Bridge on Southeastern have been fully briefed and followed the Southern problems, and are very aprehensive about similar problems on Monday. I expect the Platforms 1-3 and the tunnels to them to be very hard to navigate, and the Jubilee to have severe problems at both Waterloo and London Bridge ends.

     If Southern’s problems turn out to be teething ones that resiting information boards and adjusting gate flows can fix, all to the good, though harsh words can be directed at the planners. But I wonder if a London Bridge crippled for 3 years will never be able to cope with the demand.

     At least the fasts I catch from Orpington with split destinations will allow me to stay on board to WAE and CST and avoid the mob.

121. It would potentially be unwise to start demolishing the next stage of London Bridge (old) until the testing time of next week has been lived through. It could be that a tipping point was reached, where it was necessary urgently to restore the pre-January SE train services there. Metaphorically, to burn your bridges at once might prove to be a bridge too few…

122. @Anonymous 17:53

     Funnily enough I was thinking the exact opposite. It now seems that a lot of the problems really were just teething problems and the only sensible course of action is to continue as planned rather than drag everything out. Because of the way these things are scheduled around bank holidays for the major possessions, a short delay can easily turn into a year’s delay if one is not careful. They are now so far into the project that it has got beyond the point where anything will be achieved by pausing for reflection.

     If I were Network Rail I would knock down platform 5/6 pretty sharpish before we get an uninformed politician deciding to overrule everyone else and insist that stopping at London Bridge is reinstated.

123. @PoP
     Are you saying that the LB reconstruction schedule doesn’t allow a week’s pause for review, or works catch-up, between January and Easter? Sounds a very unwise planning schedule if that’s the case.

124. @Anonymous 19:14

     I am sure they have built in recovery time over the course of a year’s construction activity but they will have cranes, diggers, manpower etc. booked to do specific tasks in the coming weeks. To cancel them at this late stage would cause chaos. So many tasks are dependent on previous tasks being completed that you can’t easily just put everything back a week. Put it back a week now and you could easily delay the project by much, much more than a week.

     Do you really think it would look good for SouthEastern passengers to see the platforms still there and their trains not stopping? That would surely cause questions to be asked.

     In any case supposing you did reinstate the old timetable and trains stopping at platforms 5/6. What then? Every week you don’t progress forward means a extra week of potential misery for Southern passengers. You can’t really pause this forever. At some point you have to move forward and you might as well do it as soon as possible.

125. To illustrate my point about teething troubles, here is a snapshot of departures from London Bridge via East Croydon. OK, there is one relatively unimportant cancellation (due to a broken down train near Cowden) but for a Friday Night at 19:30 this is pretty good.

     If we had listened to the disaster mongers we would never have the better service on the Circle Line that we have today because after a week of operation there were loud noises for the plan to be abandoned.

126. Re Anon 1914
     In the previous phases the contingency time appears to be mostly at the end of each phase – you really want to avoid using it up for no productive gain right at the beginning of each phase.

     The biggest issue in the very very short term is possibly the high winds delaying lifting out of the P8 to P5/6 section of the footbridge this weekend. Otherwise there is plenty of demolition to keep many occupied for weeks.

     SE passengers coped on the Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday before Christmas with no stopping on the AM Up peak services to Charing Cross so many will have already had a practice run at what will happen on Monday onwards admittedly a quieter time with fewer other passengers. Hopefully the others will be able to follow those that had a practice run to an extent.

127. And I can see all the politicians screaming if the changes were delayed by a week and how stupid the engineers have been etc etc etc

     Just because there is contingency time built into a project is not an excuse to delay things just because it’s there – especially at the start.

     Because you don’t know what will happen next month or the month after or 6 or 12 months time when you might actually need it for proper reasons.

128. Perhaps the crowding on the Southern concourse on Monday was a deliberate ploy to get in the papers and get so me free advertising in the Standard for this weeks changes….

129. SFD: Trip to an awards dinner then???

     Next Week:
     More cancellations:
     London Bridge to West Croydon services @
     16.36, 17.06, 17.38, 18.06, 18.36

     And an alteration till further notice (a trial to see if it might work earlier too?):
     17.51 Tattenham Corner to London Bridge service will terminate at Purley and attach to a re-timed 18.05 Caterham to London Bridge train. The combined train will then run as booked to London Bridge arriving at 19.03 which then goes on to form the 1906 to Caterham (CAT) and Tattenham Corner (TAT)

     This gets rid of a service that would have joined from 2 arriving trains in LBG so it cuts an arrival (generally good as there are more arriving than departing trains)

130. @ngh – Those cancellations are not yet shown in NR’s Journey Planner but I note all run/ran via New Cross Gate and Forest Hill. If last night’s peak period was anything to go by, passengers at London Bridge for stations New Cross Gate to Norwood Junction were being advised to take the Jubilee Line to Canada Water and then the Overground from there. (Even more) overcrowding problems at Canada Water do you think? Passengers intended for the 10-car Southern services into 4/5-car already filled Overground trains doesn’t quite measure up in my book.

     How long do you think these cancellations will last and who pays Southern for the loss of traffic?

131. How long do you think these cancellations will last ..?

     Personally I suspect we will soon see them back. New radical timetables are often chaotic when first introduced. The surprising thing is that I haven’t seen any reported need to change the morning peak timetable.

     Next week there should be fewer Southern passengers using London Bridge as there will be no onward connections to Charing Cross. So it may be that things will calm down a lot then – at least at London Bridge. It wouldn’t surprise me if Southern gradually reintroduce the trains one at a time.

     As for who pays, first we have to have a blame game. I am convinced that the timetable was basically sound but eventually it should come out as to the primary causes and then it can be established who bears the cost.

132. There is now a TfL press release announcing additional buses on the 21, 47 and 381.

     http://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2015/january/customer-advice-during-major-nr-work-at-london-bridge

     Is this a last minute mitigation measure? Where have these buses come from?

133. @ Guano – that looks rather like a last minute measure to me. The long standing position was that there was no need for extra buses despite Assembly members demanding them months and months ago. I’ve seen nothing on any bus forums about these extras or the vehicles to run them. Stagecoach certainly have spare double decks following recent deliveries of new buses. Go Ahead have buses spare as a result of the NB4Ls being introduced on the 453 and only a partial cascade of other buses. Not so sure where Abellio will get 10 buses for the 381 from but perhaps they have some older buses tucked away.

134. Things getting better:

     Monday 5th Jan 1700-1900 scheduled departures:

     Total 42

     Category, # trains, % of trains

     “pre advertised” Cancelled 0 0%
     “Late Notice” Cancellation 6 14%

     On time 0 0%
     <3 mins late 0 0%
     4-5 mins late 2 5%
     6-10 mins late 7 17%
     11-15mins late 2 5%
     16-20mins late 4 10%
     21-25mins late 7 17%
     26-30mins late 3 7%
     31-35mins late 2 5%
     36-40mins late 2 5%
     41-45mins late 2 5%
     46-50mins late 4 10%
     51-55mins late 0 0%
     56-60mins late 1 2%

     Friday 9th Jan for comparison:

     Total 42

     "pre advertised" Cancelled 4 10% [added back in for comparison]
     "Late notice" Cancellation 2 5%

     On time 9 21%
     <3 mins late 10 24%
     4-5 mins late 8 19%
     6-10 mins late 5 12%
     11-15mins late 4 10%

     i.e. circa 60% leaving within 5 minutes of scheduled (up from 5% at the beginning of the week)

     At this rate it could soon be better than November!

135. Replacement buses? That will be interesting if the strike next Tuesday goes ahead ..

136. AIUI the additional buses have been planned for a couple of months.

     Some of the W Croydon trains will come back. Others might make way. Morning Peak changes likely also.

     The change to the attachments / detachments is permanent, and there is more of that to come. Purley will see more un/coupling action. Could there be are any correspondents around to observe how it goes?

137. Ps – who pays? Bowker’s Law states that all railway cost is borne by the fare payer or tax payer. It would be unfair for this to be paid by the former. So it will be the latter. It is almost irrelevant which company it is routed through. Although it would be more likely to be routed through one that is accountable to Treasury.

138. @Sad Fat Dad – Re. your P.S. – not necessarily so – it could be that the supplier of any faulty equipment is the one who has to pay (or at least contribute).

139. I have yet to hear of any rail component supplier taking on consequential loss liabilities, as it would just put them all out of business. In any event, aside for a few points failures which haven’t really caused much trouble, the new kit is working perfectly.

140. The announcement of additional buses from Monday 12th January does look to me like a last minute measure. There is nothing as yet on the London Bus Routes (unofficial) website, which normally has this kind of change in the Service Changes section as soon as it is known about.

141. Re SFD
     FYRA? Ok not in the UK…

     Thameslink programe advert on the radio earlier flagging up the changes to SE services.
     Also a new tag line for the Thameslink Programme used at the end of the ad?
     “transforming North South travel in London”

142. This seems to have much relevance to this thread:
     http://853blog.com/2015/01/09/southeastern-shambles-greenwichs-farewell-to-charing-cross/

     Enjoy!

143. Hope it’s okay to link to these images – if not, feel free to remove.

     I got a bit restless one night and couldn’t sleep, so I drew up these images to show to a couple of commuters I know. Thought they might be interesting, they show why the changes are needed from 12/01/2015, exactly how large the reduction in paths is, why CHX trains can’t stop at LBG, why GNW line can’t go to CHX etc.

     London Bridge layout 09/01/2015 (prior to any works)
     http://s27.postimg.org/5u6a64n5v/LBG_SE_LAYOUT_PRE_1.jpg

     London Bridge throughout initial changes, until 04/05/2015
     http://s4.postimg.org/v3mou5jh9/LBG_SE_LAYOUT_STAGE_2.jpg
     The work during this stage will be mainly on the track between the two separate lines to CHX and CST.

144. (reposted, this time in the correct thread)
     There was a recorded announcement at Southampton Central this morning informing passengers that there is no longer any connecting service from Waterloo East to London Bridge “for the duration of Thameslink works”.

145. @Anonylon,

     Links to track diagrams, especially ones not seen before, are welcomed. From the looks of it, platforms 5 and 6 will be physically there but trackless. I am surprised because the diagram indicates that the up platform loop is still in use but I thought a top priority was to free that up to enable works to continue on the next pair of platforms.

     Presumably the idea is that platforms 5 and 6 can be demolished whilst trains are still running. Then the up Charing Cross is slewed over to provide space to start work on building work where the up platform loop currently is.

146. If Anonylon is correct, why are the fasts from Orpington that are being diverted to Cannon Street every half our calling at New Cross. Why don’t they cross over after the station?

     The 1973 Operation London Bridge video mentioned in the Greenwich article is fun (http://853blog.com/2014/05/29/operation-london-bridge-thameslink-programme-1975-style/)

147. Re PoP

     I’m sure you’ve seen the info in the diagrams in another form before?

     The current phase is now Core not phase 2 which begins in April.

     Close… most of the track (country end) of P5 will remain as it get reused as up Charing Cross in a few months. The key is demolishing P5/6 near the pedestrian ramp to enable slewing the track to meeting the existing Up Charing before the Joiner St bridge. The track in P6 won’t get used again so could get lifted very soon if it helps demolishing the island (much easier if there isn’t a live track either side) besides there is plenty of demolition in the short term to enable the south to north construction sequence to continue.

     The Up loop to P5 swap for up CHX is at the start of phase 2 (April) and also aligns with the existing CHX tracks that will eventually go under the dive under being taken out off action.

148. Re John B

     Because most if not all Cannon Street services will be on the slows through New Cross otherwise even more capacity is lost…

     It is no longer a fast but a semi fast, lots of services now have extra stops too.

149. @John

     …New Cross. Why don’t they cross over after the station?

     I suspect those points are are for emergency/engineering work/Sunday use only. Using flat crossovers at such a critical section of track is going to reduce capacity. In the up direction you want everything sorted out on the correct track by the time St Johns is reached. In the down direction you just want to get the trains out of London.

150. @ Anonlyon Thanks for the diagrams, easier to understand than most (including why demolish P5/P6 first).

     @ PoP – Not entirely true, but the junction will be used sparingly for the reasons you mention. Off peak RTT suggests not at all, during the peak a couple such as this service will. It has to be done on the flat somewhere, but Parks Bridge Junction is more logical as the Hayes/via Lewisham services are all absent at this point.

     @ ngh – Does a single additional call at New Cross really demote it to semi-fast status? Looks like off peak every Cannon Street service now stops there, presumably easier to timetable it by doing so.

151. I wonder if the New Cross access is to let the bankers of Kent to cut the corner to Canada Water and take pressure of LBG. I’ve been thinking what I could use it for, though the LO dip into Z1 makes it less attractive. I guess we’ll see whether the CST diversion continues beyond the first 18 months for the 3 years, and then even becomes permanent.

     BTW the RailUKForums thread on London Bridge reconstruction is interesting and long http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=108509&page=1

152. This Thameslink briefing on the 3rd of December has lots of clear diagrams of track layouts and assertions on timetable/route changes. Not sure if you know it all.

     http://www.bedfordcommuters.org.uk/141203%20Stakeholder%20Forum.pdf

153. RE 10 extra buśes on route 381 would have thought extension of route to Victoria Station would be more useful giving a link to alternative services when problems arise .

     Introduce a limited stop route linking London Bridge, Waterloo and Victoria a perfect job for a small fleet of Artic buśes !

154. Extra buśes announcement in news on LOTS site today –

     http://www.lots.org.uk

155. Just in time for Tuesday’s planned bus strike!

156. Does anyone have any information on whether this weekend’s work has gone to plan ? Here’s hoping for no overruns or Monday morning blues to add to confusion which will be caused to some by the changed service patterns from next week.

157. @timbeau 8 January:
     How sure are you that Thameslink from East Croydon to Blackfriars are routed through Streatham? That would require them to use the slow lines all the way between East Croydon and Streatham Common.

     During the August blockade Thameslink ran (glacially) via Crystal Palace too.

158. Re Henning and Timbeau.

     All TL from East Croydon are routed via Crystal Palace unless engineering work is taking place (extra verification as I can hear a 319 as I type…)

     Via Streatham would be a Wimbledon Loop TL service.

     The fall back route from East Croydon is via Clapham Junction (fasts), Pouparts Junction, Wandsworth Road, Brixton, Canterbury Junction, then back on to the Holborn lines just north of Loughborough Junction.

159. ngh
     If you hear of any trains that will use the latter route,could you let us know…there are TWO unbashed stretches for me in that description….Thanks…

160. Re DVD

     NR photo of P6 looking towards New Cross:

     https://twitter.com/NetworkRailLBG/status/554371361725227009/photo/1

     When the photo was taken (in daylight so quite a bit earlier)

     Track removed from P6, Hoarding up along the track centre line and cladding being removed from the P5-6 to P8 overbridge revealing the steel frame below, part of the platform edge removed and the P6 signals removed

     So no easy opportunity to go back…

161. There is one Thameslink service in the weekday mornings, the 0724 departure from Brighton, 0823 from East Croydon, that runs via Selhurst and Streatham (not stopping at either). Strangely it appears to be diagrammed to switch from the slow to fast lines at Stoats Nest Junction to stop at platform 2 at East Croydon, and then cross back over to the slow lines again. Realtime Trains link for 12/01/15, 1W83 0724 Brighton to Bedford
     
     It was also running at the end of last year, but presumably it’s a path that the planners have managed to find in amongst everything else rather than a long-standing routeing.

162. Thanks ngh. It will be interesting to watch the progress over the coming months.

163. I note that, sadly, what was a long-standing, Thameslink evening service from East Croydon to Blackfriars and beyond, the 18.16, stopping on the way at Tulse Hill and Herne Hill (I think originating in Brighton), no longer does so with the December 2014 timetable change. It was popular with those who used that couple of intermediate stops. The 18.16 still runs but no longer stops.

164. @JA It has to cross to fast as otherwise it would be stuck behind a Cat/Tat to Victoria service that stops at South and East Croydon before itself crossing to the fasts at Selhurst. During one of the November engineering works I went on a train from Blackfriars to East Croydon that went through Streatham and Streatham Common (and then carried on through Platform 5 at East Croydon before crossing to the fasts there).

165. The link to 1W83 doesn’t seem to work so here it is:

     http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/L02617/2015/01/12/advanced

     Is it because it stops at Tulse Hill and so uses the same platform as the Wimbledon loop which is not accessible from Crystal Palace

166. @Anonymous – “Is it because it stops at Tulse Hill and so uses the same platform as the Wimbledon loop which is not accessible from Crystal Palace” – More likely because the path via Crystal Palace is occupied by a West Croydon to Victoria service passing West Norwood Junction (close to Tulse Hill) at just about the same time.

167. @JA
     That explains it – if I am passing through the Streatham area it is usually on the 0828 from Wimbledon (0844 from Tulse Hill) and often have to wait outside Streatham for another Thameslink train from the Croydon direction to go first – which I now realise to be 1W83. I had not realised it was such a rarity.

     There is no reason of course why a train for the Herne Hill direction shouldn’t use the island platform at Tulse Hill if it is convenient to do so and intending passengers are forewarned.

168. Slugabed – the East Croydon, Clapham Junction, Canterbury Junction, Loughborough Junction route that you need will be in passenger use. I don’t have dates at the moment, I’m afraid, but keep checking the very late/very early Brighton/Three Bridges to Bedford and vice versa services on something like RTT. Around 00:00-04:00, there are paths that will take that route when the normal route via Herne Hill is blocked overnight for engineering works.

169. @timbeau – “There is no reason of course why a train for the Herne Hill direction shouldn’t use the island platform at Tulse Hill if it is convenient to do so and intending passengers are forewarned.”

     If you are talking about the 08.37 departure, then it would still be in front of you after Tulse Hill, even if it used the island platform there. I wonder whether the 08.40 departure, which comes from Herne Hill and uses Platform 2, which would cross the path, is too close for comfort for both your train and the 08.37 (if either used Platform 3).

     There’s also now an 08.32 which starts from Platform 3 at Tulse Hill, running ECS to Tattenham Corner via Crystal Palace, having arrived as a service train from Beckenham Junction (those poor souls haven’t much luck getting a direct service to London Bridge via Crystal Palace these days!).

     In fact, for any train from Streatham that is bound for the Herne Hill route and using island Platform 3 is a rarity indeed. I recall a signal stop as a speed control on the Streatham side of the station should that occur. It’s OK for the trains that creep around the corner from West Norwood.

170. @Graham Feakins, I think timbeau was merely expressing doubt about Anon 22:17’s theory that stopping at Tulse Hill is the reason why 1W83 runs via Streatham.

171. @Henning Makholm – Yes, and, trying to be helpful, I gave several other reasons, any one of which, or a combination thereof, could be valid. In fact, the 07.24 off Brighton has stopped at Tulse Hill for a good 20 years+, as did the 18.16 out of East Croydon which I mentioned earlier.

172. P.S. I have certainly been on timetabled Thameslink trains from East Croydon that travelled via Streatham Common and Tulse Hill, and swift the runs were too between Selhurst and Streatham Common but they all used platform 1 at Tulse Hill. The 18.16 service had to use Platform 3 because it had come via Crystal Palace. The former were more likely to interfere with already occupied paths should they have been routed from East Croydon via Norwood Junction, Crystal Palace and beyond.

173. Not even 7am yet and there are problems on SE already…

     http://www.commutelondon.com/Commute/page2.html?selection=SOUTH%20EASTERN

174. Just been through London Bridge on a Charing Cross train and the service is much better than normal – no need to wait for a platform at LB.

175. @henning malkolm

     That was indeed my point – it seems unlikely that a train would be routed via Streatham simply to avoid using that platform (which it would have to use if routed via CP) .

     There would be little point in a train off the Streatham line and intended for HH using platform 3

     And yes, the ex-Wimbledon train does usually follow the ex-Brighton, as the timetable requires. That’s why the latter waits for the former if it’s late, and thus why I see it at Streatham Junction.

176. Platforms 1-3 at London Bridge this morning surprisingly problem free. The trains were on time, too, which was a bit of a shock.

177. @Slugabed & Others

     Re Canterbury –> Loughborough Junction trains

     This site http://www.psul4all.free-online.co.uk/2015.htm gives all routes travelled by `unusual services` and shows several `small hours` trains on the above route. This site / plus book has been published over many years and is an excellent site for `track bashers` like me.

178. @ Graham Feakins.. the turning back of LB/Beckenham Junction services at Birkbeck is now the norm if anything goes wrong. I wonder how many other services are suffering as badly from disrupted service levels due to turnbacks, running fast or skip-stopping?

179. @Philip Wylie/Graham F

     Kingston is a favorite place for turning back services – the did it again this morning. Unfortunately thinning bout he trains does not result in any reduction in the number of people trying to use them.

     Mayhem at Waterloo main line this morning as a knock-on of the London Bridge blockade, with two exits closed because of overcrowding on the Underground downstairs (and the Drain having problems as well).
     Another passenger was relieved to learn that the problems would only last until this evening, until it was pointed out that by 2015 they mean the year, not the time!

180. Steven Taylor and Anonylon:
     Many thanks!

181. If I remember correctly, 1Whiskey83 is the only Thameslink train routed via Streatham rather than Crystal Palace. The reason for this is (I think) a peak extra running from Norwood Jn to Victoria at the same time.

182. @timbeau. The Waterloo problems were just a bit predictable, after the ‘practice’ session last Wednesday. On Friday, even passengers on the 10.08 arrival were being warned about the LB closure, and being advised to use the Tube instead! I note that only one of those beefed-up bus routes will actually serve Waterloo. I’m due through in the morning peak on Friday this week. That will be interesting.

183. @John B
     “I hear a baby was born at London Bridge today. Must be the first time something has arrived early! ”

     “Madam, you shouldn’t have got on the train in your condition”
     “I wasn’t in this condition when I got on the train”

     (the old ones are the best)

184. I will be satisfied by the outcome of the Thameslink programme if a train doesn’t stop outside London Bridge and wait for a platform. Oh that will be the day…

185. @Kingstoncommuter,

     Personally I would be much happier if trains did stop and wait for a platform. There have been mercifully few railway accidents in the past few years. Not allowing trains to stop because the platform is occupied seems like a recipe for carnage on a grand scale.

186. So any reports on how it was at LBG today both on the Southern and Southeastern sides?

187. Southern OK this morning, average 10min delays this evening.
     Lots of people still diverting to the overground.

     SE seemed to work as well as could be expected this morning but very crowded. One colleague “I used to be able to get a seat, now today I was lucky to get on”

     The Jubilee line has a failed train tonight…

     and the Standard got a bit confused and said SWT services were no longer stopping at London Bridge 😉

188. I’ve been watching the departure boards for WAE and LBG all day. The morning seemed fine, with just a ‘normal’ Lewisham signals problem. The evening has been bad, some problems at WAE, but chaos at LBG.

     I guess evenings will always be worse, as inbound passengers disperses when the trains arrive, as delayed passengers are contained in trains outside the station. Evening passengers waiting for delayed trains clog up the station and all approaches, so people aren’t waiting on platform when their train does arrive. Crowd control doesn’t work as it can’t prioritise who has a good reason to queue jump because they have an imminent suitable train.

     I assume you can’t move through the P1-2 tunnel. At least Southern have a concourse to sort the outgoing passengers in.

189. London Bridge was absolutely deserted at lunch time. Waterloo East was a bit busier than I’d have expected for that time of the day.

     It’ll take people a little while to work out their routes, what’s best for them, get to grips with it, etc. But when they do I hope it’ll settle down. For a first day of major changes, I’d say it went pretty well.

190. SWT have been pretty thorough with their advice about onward travel via Waterloo East, I read about it on one of the overhead displays at Southampton Central a few days before Christmas. Also plenty of on train and station announcements; but there’s been some unintended consequences with local media and twitter reports reading as though SWT really do send trains in that direction…

191. My biggest beef with Southeastern today is that they have done more “fiddling” with the timetable than I had expected. My morning CS train has been changed to a CX service, leaving 40 minutes in morning peak between any CS trains – one of our trains effectively been pushed to Blackfriars, when I though CX commuters would be the ones most impacted for now

     But the CX morning service did run smoothly …

192. My experiences of today – as a Sidcp commuter – were that it went better than I had expected. Cannon Street services seem to have generally been boosted to 10 car which is sensible, although probably at the expense of Charing Cross trains. I got the 7.02 from Sidcup which has been retimed from 7.04. This train is almost always 10 cars but only 8 this morning so annoyingly I failed to get a seat, which is rare for me. But we sailed through London Bridge without a problem which was good. The evening was a different experience as I returned from Cannon Street having been hospital visiting in east London. Cannon Street seemed slightly busier than usual and some services (including mine) left around 10 minutes late. Again it was noticeable that most services were 10 car. Managed to get a seat. Platform 2 at London Bridge looked manic.

     Southeastern ‘s Twitter was extremely busy all day with many complaining about the changes but that’s only to be expected.

     There will be many unhappy Sidcuppers tonight and in the future because the three up peak services which used to start from Sidcup siding all now start from Crayford. That’s good news for commuters from Crayford, Bexley and Albany Park who gain three extra up peak services, not so good for Sidcuppers who lose the guarantee of a seat which they’ve had for many years.

193. @dvd
     Glad to hear Sidcup comes off better than Chislehurst in the morning. I cannot see why they have created a 40 minute service gap for Cannon Street (and London Bridge) in the peak morning period

194. One would have expected that with no trains using the flat junction just south of Blackfriars to go “round the corner” to/from London Bridge, that Thameslink would have been more reliable. Oh, ho! I joined a train at City TL this evening, already 15 late By the time it left Blackfriars I had finished the Evening Standard.
     And I was standing as far as Tooting.

195. @ Stuart. There is a big gap on the Sidcup line too. Following the first Charing Cross service of the day (4.57 Sidcup) there’s a 60 minute gap before the next Charing Cross service, with two Cannon Street services in between. Slightly odd spacing.

     On the plus side, and as pointed out by someone last week there are now 4tph in the evenings (at least on the Sidcup line) until 9-30 – 10pm which for south east London is a minor revolution and long overdue. Not so much use for those leaving London perhaps as you don’t really have a choice of terminus -unless you are equidistant from CHX and CST – but useful those venturing out to London in the evenings who will now only have a maximum 15 minute wait, provided they are not fussed about where their train terminates. This may in fact be the first time in the history of south east London’s railways that there has been more than the bog standard half hourly service.

196. To give an update on the high level works…

     The track has been removed from the western half of platforms 5 and 6. The points at the west end of platform 5 have been removed and the track plain lined to allow down trains to travel through platform 4. Hoardings have been put up on platform 5 and 6 from where the footbridge is to the very western end of the platforms. This is the area that will be demolished to allow slewing in future.

     The area of track (lines 3 and 4) being worked on at the moment, is very visible. There are portable red buffers on the track which mark out the boundaries. Lines 3 and 4 are being relayed for a future stage. 3 was CST up and 4 CHX down, but this needs to swap for a future stage, when line 3 will be the CHX down and 4 the CHX up. The track is from just outside New Cross to not very far outside London Bridge. Commuters – look out for it and you’ll see. Some has already been removed, particularly line 4.

     Effectively, there is 1 up and 1 down for CHX and 1 up and 1 down for CST.

     With regards to clutter and station furniture on platform 1/2, I was told this would be looked into whether some of it can be removed to free up space. And I was also told that the CHX/WAE services tonight had a bit of space on them.

197. @anonlynon
     “when line 3 will be the CHX down and 4 the CHX up.”

     I thought the new Thameslink tracks would eventually be between the CST and CHX tracks?

198. Timbeau – sorry, I wasn’t clear, that’s my fault. I meant during stage 2, not the final layout. You’re right about TL being between CST and CHX eventually, but until the later stages of the rebuild line 3 and 4 will be down CHX and up CHX.

199. London Bridge was a bit of a mess tonight. Not many trains left on time. A lack of trains are hurting SE and they needed more before this started. What were the DfT playing at? I suppose people in the area didn’t shout loud enough. Hard to get on train this morning let alone tonight

200. Anonylon – if CHX trains were not packed this evening not a great surprise though LBG was. Not many will want to travel out of CHX and change at say Lewisham, as chance of a seat (or even boarding) would be low there, so most would take Jubilee to London Bridge or District to Cannon Street. Initially at least.

201. Early peak hour from WAE and CHX quite quiet last night but trains very slow after leaving LBG and my train was 10 minutes late by the time it got to Sevenoaks. This morning, CST services very busy but on time and LBG platforms 1-3 ran smoothly. I see they have now given up on people to give out leaflets.

202. Looks like a large quantity of crowd control barriers delivered and stored under the Western Approach Viaduct over night. Some already in position around the SE bus station entrance / exit (looks like they are there to slow inward passenger flow down and make it easier to close if needed, also positioned to produce a cleaner passenger flow?).

203. Crowd control works very badly if more than one destination is required. Concourses and a train announcement system that allows one train’s worth of people to surge onto a platform at a time work (aka CST) . At LBG at least Southern have a concourse, if a compromised one. Southeastern don’t, and who knowing their train will leave from P1-2 sometime is going to hold back for an announcement.

     Can P1-2 really hold many trainloads of waiting passengers? Generating extra P1-2 space by demolishing concessions/toilets should have been done some time back.

204. Re John B,

     They have just announced a 1 way system for evening peak too, with escalators only going down in both peaks. It looks like the SE concourse is Station Approach!
     (Which will then make accessing the P10-15 concourse much harder if everything backs up on the SE side.)

205. John B: Can P1-2 really hold many trainloads of waiting passengers? Generating extra P1-2 space by demolishing concessions/toilets should have been done some time back.

     The platform 1/2 island is narrow and, particularly on the platform 2 side, contains some very narrow sections to the extent that yellow hatching is in place in areas where standing would be unsafe.

     I find it staggering that no attempt to remove some of the clutter on this platform has yet been undertaken – it will clearly be more difficult to do these works now compared to weekend/holiday quiet periods previously.

206. @john B
     I would imagine many passengers, especially if they are likely to miss their next train from LBG 1/2 anyway, will head for platform 3 and pick up a later train at Cannon Street.

207. @ngh: Yes it would have been handy if that had been announced in advance as well… There was zero information at the bottom of the Cottons Centre escalators. So I ended up trying every way in, succession until I finally got the one by the bus station. Zero signs encountered en-route….

208. I know many people have been doing some great work on this project and I don’t want to appear too critical but some simple things seem to have not been done.. Not removing platform clutter on 1/2 and only looking into it after the changes? Extra congestion was pretty obvious to see.

     Possibly the same thing with only delivering passenger control barriers a day after it starts?

     Then there’s the wider issue of not ordering more stock for longer trains over the past few years. That would lessen congestion in the PM and get more people away from the platforms. Mornings seem better but afternoons will be the crunch time with people arriving on foot, tube and bus, and hoping to board trains arriving from Cannon Street.

     This morning wasn’t great by any sretch. The hourneys are now timetabled longer but after 8am many were 5-10 mins late arriving, with some very busy stations en-route like Lewisham. Let’s see how it is in a week without a bus strike.

209. @timbeau when I worked near London Bridge I would often take Cannon Street train and thereby get a seat on an outbound train on the Hayes line. If you can work out the LB departure time for Cannon St of your train, simply remain seated!

210. I struggle to see why ex-Charing Cross trains can’t stop at Platform 4; it would significantly reduce overcrowding in the evening peak and would allow an alternative route to LB in the morning peak by allowing passengers to change at Waterloo East to travel back to LB

211. @RB,

     Well first of all that presumes there is some track serving platform 4. There is at the moment but that will not necessarily be true in future.

     Secondly, in the morning it could well lead to dangerous overcrowding.

     Thirdly and more critically, there are around 22tph from Charing Cross. That might not sound like an awful lot but it probably more than can be comfortably handled on a busy platform like that. For example, I think that is more than the former platform 6 could manage.

     The final reason is that it was decided to have one simple plan with one simple message to passengers. It would have been possible to revise the arrangements (including a complete rewrite of the timetable) every few weeks or months but this was thought not to be a good thing. It would lead to mass confusion – even amongst regular commuters. A further consideration is that the first few days or weeks of a new arrangements are the most disruptive. After that they generally settle down. Do you really want to go through the chaos of the previous week every two to three months?

212. @ES 14:20

     Crowding issues aside, this morning was a good one for the southeastern train service . Of the 233 passenger services southeastern ran to London termini before 1000, 219 were up to 4 minutes late (and this defined as ‘on time’), 14 were late, of which 8 were 5 minutes late.

     In the context of performance seen recently, and on the second day of a major timetable change, this is a great result.

     And no, I don’t work for southeastern.

213. Also, there’s only one down line through LBG from CHX. Stop a train in platform 4 for, say, 2 minutes because of the large amount of people and you hugely reduce the number of trains you can get through. Any stopped train now will completely block the line and you don’t want that. It all needs to flow.

214. RB:
     When CHX had 29tph in the rush hour, and it was said that P6 was the busiest platform in Europe, 12(ish) tph bypassed it on track 7. On the way out the load was spread between P 4 and 5. Causing even a fraction of the trains all coming through P4 now to stop would probably back up the service too much.

     I guess they’ll be swinging the service back and forth between tracks 4,5,6,7 as the platforms are demolished and rebuilt, so having the running line next to P4 will only be temporary anyway.

     You’d also have the confusion that you could get on at LBG but not off

     The final layout will have 3 platforms feeding 2 tracks towards CST, 2 platforms feeding 2 TL tracks, and 4 platforms feeding 2 CHX tracks. The ability to alternate departures on a line will allow a much smoother flow. I remember the slam door days when a train could never escape LBG inbound because there was always another passenger wanting to board.

215. Sad fat dad – the figs this morning may look good but so much time is now padded in. Deptford to LBG was 6 mins, now 9. Also many services were getting to LBG late but now given 10 mins on timetable to reach Cannon St. Takes 3 to 4. Hence many arrived ‘on time’.

216. ES: Journey Planner has journeys LBG to CST from 8am with a range from 4 to 8 minutes, but I expect 2-3 minutes padding before LBG too.

     They padded the CHX-LBG service from 7 to 9 minutes some time ago to improve reliability, and I switched aiming to get to CHX to aim for LBG, as on many routes intersecting the Jubilee you could take advantage of those 2 minutes.

217. The additoinal buses between Waterloo, LBG and Canada Water, ostensibly on 381, seemed to be the only ones at Waterloo this morning. They are quite obvious, only having singfle doors and being painted blue! They were there yesterday as well, so this is no strike-breaking special.
     Looks like they’ve been hired in for the duratoin and therefore not driven by drivers in dispute.

218. I used platforms 1/2 at London Bridge occasionally (before the changes) and found the narrow sections quite scary. I plan to avoid LBG indefinitely in the future. Both platforms were usually closed on Sundays (except when the Charing Cross lines were closed for engineering works) and I’m sure it would have been possible to remove some of the clutter.

     Day two saw me travel via Charing Cross both ways and there were no problems although I was up extra early to ensure a seat this morning.

     I expect there to be some pressure from south east London MPs for government led procurememt of extra rolling stock. I wonder what Bombardier would be able to supply ? Class 387s took two years from OJEU notice to delivery so not much hope of anything before 2017/18. And what’s really needed is extra carriages for Networkers and 376s to enable an all 10/12 car peak service which I imagine is an impossibility. But anything which increases the pressure to consider Southeastern’s rolling stock woes would be welcome for the longer term. Roll on a TFL takeover. .

219. ES
     Then there’s the wider issue of not ordering more stock for longer trains over the past few years. But, that is not the “railways” problem though is it?
     It’s down entirely to DfT & their political masters, is it not?
     As in “dvd” comment: I expect there to be some pressure from south east London MPs for government led procurememt of extra rolling stock.
     Precisely- along with the transfer of “Inner-suburban” services to TfL, doubtless?

220. Southeastern did a much better job tonight both at WAE and LBG, hardly a delayed train according to the Live Departure Boards.

221. Most left LBG on time but some lost 5-10 minutes along the metro routes. Too many people trying to board or alight perhaps?

     Grey – yes I wasn’t absolving the DfT of responsibility for not ordering more stock the past few years. It was down to them.

     dvd – as you say it would be 2017 the earliest now for more stock and SE should be getting 377s from Southern. Additional stock should have been ordered years ago to be ready now.

222. Don’t hold your breath, South East London MPs haven’t exactly lobbied hard for better services so far.

223. @GTR Driver True – but a certain (Greenwich) PPC whose ministerial colleague awarded the franchise extension started campaigning for SouthEastern to fix things or have the franchise removed within days of the start of the extension.

     Right hand, meet left……

224. There will be no extra stock, other than via already agreed cascades, for South Eastern prior to the next franchise retender. DfT only tend to agree to extra rolling stock when there is some competitive pressure on costs so they can demonstrate VFM. The only exception is when they decide they want to buy part of the train set themselves and when that process takes x years longer than anticipated they then get their tame TOC to buy fill in trains so there is an avoidance of an egg and face interface.

     Given the very extensive discussions here over many months I’d argue that the next South Eastern franchise will be very difficult to get right. It’s evident that there are very significant (i.e. expensive to fix) constraints on the network coupled with asset condition problems. It will be a very brave bidder who can pull together and justify a package which fixes or eases the infrastructure bits (working with NR) and can raise rolling stock capacity in the peaks and raise off peak services and also bolster service quality. Even if some of the service is devolved to TfL you still face some interesting questions about how you justify and finance investment to raise capacity that would benefit TfL’s contractor and the residual longer distance TOC – an example might be more longer platforms at Charing Cross (putting to one side for a moment if its even feasible in engineering terms). After 5 years of London Bridge related disruption there must also be a question about the appetite of passengers for more major works on the network. Work also equals risk for the franchise holder and that means £s go on the bid bottom line unless you’re TfL and can absorb some of it.

     I’m not saying its not desirable to see a much better SE network just that it will be a tough package to define, justify and finance. Much of the TfL devolution to date has been on discrete routes where major investment directly relates to the services TfL run. The lines into Liverpool St, taken up in 5 months time, are the first example of something more mixed.

225. So South Eastern could do with extra rolling stock ? So how about D78s being released by new S Stock trains for use on inner Surburban services while present problems persist.

     Would have it been possible to bring into use the new section of track on the new viaducts earlier ? Even if they were used as non stopping through route .

     Odd how SWT manages to get extra carriges and indeed new trains ahead of South Eastern I suppose it’s price to pay for Kent objecting to TFL take over of services in London .

226. @ Melvyn – being extremely cynical and not wishing to invoke the ire of Timbeau I think there is a combination of three things with SWT. Firstly there’s a desire to make the “deep alliance” work effectively. Secondly some of the rolling stock changes have been planned for a very long time and have taken / are taking an extremely long time to come to fruition. What looks “new” actually isn’t – it’s years late having taken forever to get through the DfT and then contracted. Finally I think there is a bit more of a nuanced political issue for the coalition about looking after SW London, Surrey and Hampshire commuters. It feels more “looked after” politically than Kent for example.

     I think we need to stop being “armchair programistas” whereby we keep changing the scope of massively complex projects. Something like London Bridge rebuilding has been in the planning for years with a massive amount of effort from many many people and it simply can’t be unravelled without dire consequences. Network Rail are still in “knock it down” or “still building” mode at LB and there’s no scope to bring things into service early.

     I don’t think re-use of D78s is remotely sensible for South Eastern. Based purely on a hunch I think the putative scheme to reuse D78s on the NR network will not work. I’m not denying the undoubted credibility and experience of the people involved. I don’t have any issue with the D78s either – I think they’re decent trains. I just think the regulatory structure of the industry plus the mess of refranchising in the North and the inevitable “we don’t want London’s cast offs” reaction from Northern politicians is a poisonous combination. The politicians want new trains not second hand tube stock and too many party leaders have put their head on the block saying new trains will be bought. There’s also a sense in which the D78 plan is an idea ahead of its time – I’m not sure there’s much appetite to do something quite that clever or innovative.

     I may very well be proved completely wrong but that’s how I see things at present.

227. @Melvyn,

     Something you have to take into account with rolling stock used on intensively used routes is its reliability. On South Eastern you really do not want stock breaking down. Just think of the consequences of a train breaking down in the former platform 4 at London Bridge today. Nothing out of Charing Cross. Charing Cross fills up with inward trains. Fairly soon anything trying to get to Charing Cross comes to a halt. Around 50% of your railway is out of action.

     When a train breaks down the effects are often felt over a very wide area and the penalty payments (quite rightly) are very expensive indeed. So one really does not want to start introducing stock that is near the end of its lifetime and needs to be modified as this is well known to be the profile of an unreliable train.

     Unsatisfactory though insufficient rolling stock is, having the wrong kind of rolling stock would be fairly disastrous and be more trouble than it is worth. They might resent it up norf but there is a good reason why we demand the latest most reliable stock and our cast offs (after a refurbishment) are good enough for them – much as they might not like that.

228. I was told by a usually reliable source that the plan to re-use D78 stock started as an April Fool stunt, but was so widely believed that it took (sort of) flight….

229. @Malcolm – no, it’s more serious than that. Here are parts of what Roger Ford of ‘Modern Railways’ said last year:

     “I was invited to the launch of the Wrexham & Shropshire history. Adrian Shooter took me to one side and said, conspiratorially, ‘put the 8th October in your diary for a meeting to discuss our D78 conversion plans’. Naturally, I expressed a certain scepticism and asked why that day? It was when the new venture would know if its bid to buy D78 stock from LU had been accepted and how many trains it had acquired.

     Vivarail ‘D-train’ – Vivarail has acquired all 150 D78 Driving Motor cars plus enough vehicles to form 75 units….. in total, Vivarail has bought at least 300 vehicles and plans to have a demonstrator running by the end of May 2015.

     Power – By far the most interesting feature is the underfloor diesel power pack. Each DM car will have two fully-enclosed modules each housing a 200hp automotive diesel engine driving an alternator and compressor. Also housed in the module will be the cooler group, battery and compressor, driven from the engine via the alternator shaft. Each module will power the two traction motors on a bogie.
     Power from the alternator will be fed to an inverter giving a 750V dc output. The DM’s existing camshaft control equipment will be replaced by a new solid-state DC chopper system, designed and supplied by Strukton Rail of The Netherlands. Rheostatic braking will be retained.

     According to Vivarail D78 stock already has formal approved for operation over Network Rail. The conversion to D-train, will follow the official guidance for ‘Operating non-Mainline Vehicles on Mainline Infrastructure’ which was issued this year. Only modifications made to the D78 will need to comply with the relevant Technical Standards for Interoperability, the Notified National Technical Rules, and project entry under the EC Common Safety Method for Risk Evaluation and Assessment.

     Performance – Maximum speed will remain at 60mile/h.

     If anyone can make D78 stock conversion commercially viable it is this battle hardened bunch of veterans. For me, the potential show stoppers are those highly rated Ford diesels hammering away in their little boxes under the floor. Interesting times ahead.”

230. @melvyn
     “Would have it been possible to bring into use the new section of track on the new viaducts earlier ? Even if they were used as non stopping through route .”

     I doubt it would help much: until platforms 7 and 8 are converted for through traffic, the boittleneck is the two available tracks from CX through the station itself, not the approach from the west. And of course at present the existing tracks are a non-stopping through route.

     @WW It is not just SWT who are tardy in introducing new/ refurbished trains. Ask the good folk of Todmorden about why their new curve still has no service. This is due to late delivery of trains to Thameslink!

231. I just want to make it clear before we libel anyone that there is no late delivery of trains to Thameslink. Delivery, as far as we can tell, will be on time as agreed in the contract. What was late (by almost two years) was the signing the contract which inevitably led to a revised schedule of delivery.

232. @timbeau: A lesser spotted routemaster (or similar) spotted at LBG this morning doing the Waterloo to Canada Water run today. It even has special blinds to inidcate it, so I guess this a long term thing…

233. @pop
     Indeed, late ordering of the trains, rather than falling behind on the delivery schedule.

234. Anyone know if the crossover to the west of P5/6 (717) is still in use (even if not timetabled) or or has it been lifted or C&P’d…?

235. WW
     Given the choice between a continued (even if re-furbished) “Pacer” & a completely re-fitted D78, which would you, as a passenger, prefer?
     I think that’s “No Contest” but ….

     As Graham F, quoting Uncle Roger says, the diesel power units may be the weakest link.
     However, IIRC, “the plan” is to mount everything on slide-in modules & “trays” rather like computer-server equipment. Turn everything off, undo half-a-dozen clip/snap/screw connections, slide “tray” out, slide replacement ray in, do the string up again – all in 45 minutes or less.
     Maintenance is done on the “trays” away from the units – I assume that they will carry spare sets of these.
     We can await the results of the demonstrator trials in June/July this year with interest, can’t we?

236. @ Southern Heights – Ensignbus are running the supplementary Waterloo – Canada Water service hence the Routemaster. Even more oddly they have a former Wrightbus hybrid on the route which started life with Arriva London on the 141 and which reached London Bridge from the north. The hybrids weren’t a huge success but were modified by Wrightbus and returned to London only to be withdrawn and sold to Ensign. Most have gone to the West Country but one is on the supplementary service.

237. @WW: So we have a new annex to the London Transport museum!

238. @ Greg – I offered an opinion about the initiative and in doing so said I liked the D78 as a train. It isn’t about the train it’s about the prospect of getting the project past what I perceive to be some rather difficult obstacles. I’ve read the Roger Ford article about it so am aware of the info from that source. I also said I may well be proved wrong and I’ve no issue with you (or anyone else) chucking my words back in my face if the trains do get converted and enter service. 🙂

239. @WW
     @ Southern Heights –
     Ensignbus are running the supplementary Waterloo – Canada Water service hence the Routemaster

     I saw the Routemaster too, but at a distance so couldn’t be sure it was part of this service.
     The details of this supplementary service are not at all clear. The usually-reliable LOTS suggested they were just augmenting the 381 between Waterloo and London Bridge, but the slip-boards say they are continuing to Canada Water and no route number is displayed – the dot matrix dipslays (on those buses that have them) show the TfL roundel instead. So it is not clear what fares are charged and what tickets are accepted (NR, LU or bus – the roundel suggests they could be Rail Replacement services for the Jubilee Line!). Certainly the blue Ensignbus livery makes them look very unlike a standard TfL bus service.
     Nor is it clear whether they follow the 381 route all the way round the Rotherhithe peninsula to Canada Water, or take the much more direct route along the A200.

240. WW
     Perfectly OK – crossed wires.
     However, as we have noted & others may not have is that Adrian Shooter & his chums believe, given their experience in the field, that they can get through the regulatory “hoops” without too much difficulty – we will see.

241. @ Greg – yes I know that Mr Shooter and his chums (to use a Fordism) believe they’ve got a way through the regulatory maze. Based on nothing more than a hunch (as I said) I have my doubts that progress will be straightforward. As you say – we shall see.

242. As far as stock cascades are concerned, the DfT is currently meant to have a ‘hands-off’ approach to rolling stock procurement. However, back when they still had a ‘hands-on’ approach (i.e. when the Thameslink and IEP deals were hatched), the plan was that the Class 700s are to replace a significant number of Class 377s at Southern. These can then go in three directions:

     – Up North or out West if equipped with pantograph and 25 kV AC capability
     – On South London metro as Class 455 replacements
     – To Southeastern, which would use them to replace Class 465/466 on out-of-London workings, with the extra 465s in turn used to strengthen metro services to the fullest extent that the infrastructure will bear.

     A variation of this plan would involve the DC-only 377s replacing dual-voltage 375s at Southeastern, which in turn would be cascaded onto freshly-wired lines. Southeastern currently have 30 4-car Class 375/6 that are dual-voltage and were presumably bought to operate Thameslink services back when there was a plan to run a substantial proportion of Thameslink trains to Kent rather than Sussex. That of course never materialised – I don’t think those units have ever run any services under the wires.

     This cascade will, of course, only happen once the Class 700s are delivered, and the wires are up either on the Western or in the North West of England. There are still a few years to go before either of these things happen…

243. @Straphan
     “This cascade will, of course, only happen once the ……wires are up ………….. in the North West of England. There are still a few years to go before either of these things happen…”

     Really?
     http://www.networkrail.co.uk/North_West_electrification.aspx

     Phase 2 (Liverpool – Earlestown/Wigan) is a matter of weeks away.
     http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-manchester-rail-electrification-delayed-8036457 – “possibly as late as February”!). However, the number of electric trains will be limited by the availability of the class 319s

     Phase 1 (Manchester to Newton-le-Willows) was completed over a year ago, with Manchester-Scotland services operated by new class 350s.

244. @timbeau: The latest Modern Railways issue suggests there may not be any electrification through the Pennines throughout the duration of the next Northern and TPE franchises. I think there was also talk of delaying the other four routes in NW England (Manchester-Bolton-Preston, Preston-Blackpool North, Wigan-St Helens Central- Huyton, and Bolton-Wigan).

245. Been looking at the Greenwich line with the cuts there. The train following the first cut train (17:37 from LBG) which is 17:42 looks to be suffering from the extra demand, as every day it has lost 5-10 minutes from London Bridge to Dartford. It then goes to Gravesend and makes it up due to slack in timetable so stats aren’t affected. Similar things happening with other trains following cut services. Also told these are pretty horribly busy now. They need to be 12 car.

246. I know 12 car isn’t possible right now I meant they should have been, in a broader sense, but not possible right now due to specific issues.

247. @Straphan
     “I think there was also talk of delaying the other four routes in NW England (…….(3) Wigan-St Helens Central- Huyton………………).”

     Isn’t Wigan – St H – Huyton part of phase 2 and thus almost complete?

     Lots of photos on this site, with places like Eccleston Park and Bryn already done – wires and everything

248. Oops
     linkies here
     http://www.nw-sparks.co.uk/huywnw.shtml
     http://nw-sparks.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/incident-at-bryn.html

249. @timbeau: Fair enough – I should change gossip sources then…

250. …although I was right about Blackpool:
     http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/business/local-business/electrification-to-be-shunted-back-into-2017-1-6687550

251. Day 3 and it was Charing Cross services for me both ways from Sidcup and no delays or issues.. I’ve noticed that drivers are not announcing that services are not stopping at London Bridge until the last station before Waterloo East (in my case that’s Hither Green), although I haven’t seen one example of passengers preparing to get off as we approach London Bridge so the message must have got through, at least to seasoned commuters. I’ve been studying Southeastern’s twitter feed and there is still puzzlement (and some anger) at the changes. It also surprises me that so many twitterers ask questions such as what time is the train to X tonight. If they have twitter, surely they have the National Rail app ? But perhaps they are only occasional travellers. I was hospital visiting again and heading back via the City. Although tempted to return via Cannon Street I decided to use the Drain to Waterloo to connect to a Waterloo East service. This worked well and I wonder whether the Drain is busier than usual ? If I worked in the City I’d probably choose this route rather than the slow crawl from Cannon Street or the bustle of London Bridge.

252. @ES – ah, this could be (part of) the reason that SouthEastern’s PPM so far this week looks quite unbelievably good (well into the 90%s)
     Clearly a detailed look at the TT as well as the published PPM would be required to identify all the smoke & mirrors.

253. The industry needs to stop measuring its performance on stats like PPM. Far too easy for the TOCs to fiddle and takes no account of aspects like overcrowding and customer service.

254. Anonymous @ 1949

     Overcrowding is measured by PIXC, and customer satisfaction by the National Passenger Survey, the latter of which us the largest regular piece of market research in the country.

     There are frequent moans about PPM, but no-one has come up with a better measure that accurately reflects how passengers feel about punctuality. It has origins in research done by BR about how late a train needs to be before passengers feel inconvenienced. Personally it suits me fine, if I’m up to 5 mins late that never makes me late for work, appointments etc. If I’m more than 5 mins late I start to get worried.

255. @dvd
     “Although tempted to return via Cannon Street I decided to use the Drain to Waterloo to connect to a Waterloo East service. This worked well and I wonder whether the Drain is busier than usual ? If I worked in the City I’d probably choose this route rather than the slow crawl from Cannon Street or the bustle of London Bridge.”

     Fine if you have a Travelcard but not if you have a point-to-point season as they are not being accepted at Bank.

256. Clearly, as this week has shown, the way to improve the service (and get better PPM) is to stop trains calling at busy intermediate stations. Sorted.

257. Yesterday’s SouthEastern PPM was 96% – 1922 ran, 1852 ontime, 70 late 11 cancelled/very late. And Jan looks far better than Dec so far – http://uktra.in/performance/ppm/2015/1
     It does seem they’ve decided to fix the PPM by/yet throwing PIXC under a bus (sic), or just plain preventing passengers from boarding but, really, this does treat paying customers with contempt.

258. MikeP – what is your proposed alternative?

259. Well, SFD, we have to believe something, somewhere will improve. Too many reports on twitter of fights breaking out.

260. SFD says “There are frequent moans about PPM, but no-one has come up with a better measure …up to 5 mins late ….”

     I don’t think the moans about PPM are particularly about the 5 minute figure. Clearly it could use 1 minute, or 10 minutes, or whatever, and would get different numbers, but the 5 minute level is probably as good as any.

     The problem comes when a train runs “to time” but a would-be passenger who presents themself at the entrance to the station at a time which would normally allow them to be on the train, but because of excessive station congestion, or because the train has been non-stopped through where they want to get on, or is going to be non-stopped through where they want to go, or because they physically cannot cram themself onto the train (or a range of other difficulties), the passenger does not receive the expected service from the train (it has been “virtually cancelled” as far as that passenger is concerned).

     An “improved PPM” figure might, instead of adding in “1” to the count of “trains on time”, just add in x, where x is the fraction of would-be-passengers of the train who actually benefit from it. Obviously tricky to measure, but no-one said life had to be easy!

261. As we were held up on a train today coming from CHX to Kent at Metropolitan Junction – it struck me how after all these years the bottleneck will still remain – i.e. the four lines out of CHX and WAE reduce to 2 just before London Bridge. I’ve been commuting this way for the best part of 35 years and find it unbelievable that this is not being corrected.

     I checked the exits for WAE and CHX – 46 million! And CHX is the 5th busiest station in London. WHY is this bottleneck not being corrected I thought to myself? Then I passed into the two line section and thought “thats why”.

     Maybe I’m wrong, but its because of property speculation that we can’t have four lines for CHX trains AND two lines for TL services. Tell me I’m wrong, but next time you go through there try and imagine another two lines where Mr. R. Murdochs new building (“Baby Shard”) is.

     Two extra lines for London’s commuters vs a smaller office block – one that is worth £450 million rental over 30 years? (apparently that’s the rental deal for the building otherwise known as “The Place”).

     Who originally owned that site? BR? Network Rail? who agreed to it being sold off RATHER than being set aside for what millions of commuters need – a removal of this bottleneck.

     I’m really disappointed with this part of LBG development. The bus station is smaller and feels much more crammed – even underneath part of the Baby Shard. There should be a open space and bus station here for the 56 million exits done at this station alone. The TL part of this development is sorted that’s true, and the other side for all other trains into Kent (via the Bermondsey diveunder etc), but its beyond belief that a bottleneck will remain for CHX and WAE services.

262. Anonymous @2212.

     The point is, that the bottleneck for southeastern services isn’t the two track section. It is platform capacity at Charing Cross. Even if the two track section was to become four (or six, or 38) you could run precisely zero additional trains up to Charing Cross.

     Now if someone, somehow, came up with a workable scheme for more platforms at Charing Cross, then widening the viaduct might help. Even then, the number of additional trains that could be run would again be precisely zero, as there is not enough track capacity at New Cross. And so we continue…

263. The biggest block to extra tracks is Borough Market rather than a building that was planned after the viaduct and has been fitted around said viaduct. The planners are reluctant for the listed structure to be removed.

264. @Anonymous 22:12

     We have covered the issue of only two tracks for Charing Cross trains at Borough Market many times. I really ought to keep a list of links to common discussions and refer people back to them.

     Basically:

     i) what would four tracks achieve that cannot be achieved by two tracks?

     ii) given how hard it was to get a Transport and Works Act order for Thameslink due to the controversies at the public inquiry concerning Borough Market can you really realistically see an inquiry inspector agreeing to this?

     Two tracks is quite adequate. It is not a restriction on capacity. The restriction on capacity will almost certainly be Charing Cross terminus and a maximum of 28tph that can be accommodated. In fact, getting onto a favourite topic of timbeau, given that platforms to and from Charing Cross at London Bridge are paired by direction and the optimal pairing for the approach to a terminus is to have alternating tracks (up, down, up, down) as is the case at Waterloo East, it might well be the case that the optimal way of going from one to the other is simply to have a two track section in the middle which would minimise the number of conflicts.

     Now to contradict myself: what makes you think there are only two tracks between Waterloo East and London Bridge? If you look at the final track diagram there are four. Admittedly two are assigned to, as their primary purpose, to Thameslink but in an emergency they could be used. As Thameslink has only 16tph through London Bridge there is a bit of spare capacity available if there was a need to use it.

     If there was a proposal to have a further two tracks through Borough Market that would inevitably involve a public inquiry. It would not be hard for those opposing it to produce expert witnesses who could show that the tracks really weren’t necessary. Unfortunately the inspector’s report on the original inquiry is no longer online to my knowledge but the jist of one of his comments was that normally the intrusion onto the historical fabric of Borough Market would not be allowed but he had to weigh the compelling case made by Railtrack(?) that this was essential for future rail development and London’s transport needs against the desire to protect the fabric of the area – which includes a catherdral very nearby. In his view the enormous importance of the rail link overrode the need to preserve Borough Market. Based on that judgment I cannot see a future public inquiry inspector being sympathetic to an application for unnecessary extra tracks at Borough Market.

265. RE SFD (and PoP)

     Agree on Charing Cross and New Cross (or rather Lucas Street Tunnels in particular???) effectively being the limiting factors.

     Which is why another LR favourite the Bakerloo Extension via Lewisham has come off the crayon pad onto the drawing board as it gets round those 2 issues!

     The key with the 2 track section is to ensure the trains passover the points at the 2>4 track section and vice versa at a reasonable speed and don’t stop in the 2 track section.

     A back of the envelope calc example:

     28tph is 1 train every 2m08s on average. At 30mph a 12 car train will pass in 18.5s so it should clear track circuits (or alternatives) covering the points in 30s at that speed leaving a 1m38s gap behind till the next service starts to pass. You also have platforms where every train will stop at either end of the 2 track section which can be used to regulate the service optimally.

266. PPM – Public Performance Measure that combines punctuality and reliability statistics.

267. You can run 28 tph on a two-track railway, even with stops. The tube lines do it all the time. But you can obviously only do it if the dwell time at every stop is limited (to, say, 45 sec). If there are one or more stations with a longer dwell time, then there must be more than one track each way in such stations. In particular, a terminus like Charing Cross, where the whole train empties, fills or both must have appropriate extra platforms. But any station requiring extra dwell time must be similarly equipped, or else the 28 tph (or 32 or whatever the precise figure aimed at is) cannot be achieved.

     I know I am only repeating here a commonly-recurring theme. Perhaps what I have written (with any necessary clarifications or corrections) belongs in our oft-lamented FAQ area!

268. Mentioned up the article, but can’t find where, about announcements one stop out from Waterloo East – DOO drivers have been given instructions (printed on paper) to announce prior to Waterloo East that tickets will be accepted for travel to London Bridge by the Jubilee line or on the 381/RV1.

     Unfortunately, it seems that a glitch has developed with Networker PIS screens in the past week or so, with scrolling messages freezing at a certain point. I’d take a hunch at it being a result of a software update – with new messages about the works and new destination/calling pattern PIS codes input recently.

269. Re. PPM and all that – a comment received from a pal (former guard and driver on the South Eastern side) yesterday: “I can’t see what the problem is these days…so what if one is a few minutes late…there’s more to worry about than that. Believe me and I have my guard journals to prove it…late running was the norm in the 1980s…and we still survived. People expect far too much these days.”

     Well, there’s food for thought.

270. Reminds me of the “three rules”:

     1) Don’t kill or hurt anybody.

     2) Subject to (1), get people or goods to where they want to go.

     3) Subject to (1) and (2), get them there on time.

271. I’ve never liked PPM, for its focus on terminal stations, the acceptance that a few minutes late is OK, and not accounting for train loading. I see Network Rail have a figure for average lateness of a passenger, but only quote it regionally. Its what I want to know. A railway advertises a journey taking a certain time, I want to know the real figure (especially for the Brighton train that never arrived on time all year!).

272. John B at 08:16

     The clue is in the terminology. ‘I’ve never liked’ ‘ I want to know’
     What we like and want must take it’s place and the hierarchy of the three rules takes precedence over wants and likes. It’s a good job that this is recognised by NR or we would be having engineering works terminating with terminations. Delays, cancellations and inconveniences are much to be preferred over injuries and deaths.

273. Re Graham F,

     This week my retired mother ventured to get on a SE service at London Bridge in the evening peak, she couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, her view was that the rebuilding of Charing Cross in the 80s (that enabled the Embankment Place office block above) when she used it everyday was far more disruptive and dangerous (people waiting on narrow platforms and nearly being pushed off or hit by opening doors etc). She was quite happy that the train was only 3 minutes late (and there weren’t any fights/arrests which were a regular occurrence during the Charing Cross rebuild).

     Pity there isn’t you tube or twitter archive of material to prove nothing really changes…

     Circa 30 years on how many of the current staff will have recollections of the CHX rebuild or is it time to find some retired ones for consultancy advice? (Even If it is just to say this happens everytime there is a large civils rebuild at a station)

274. @Sad Fat Dad

     The NRPS is a joke and is used by the industry to kid itself that it is experiencing “record levels of satisfaction.” This is achieved by ignoring any surveys that were completed during times of disruption on the railway. Nobody believes that 85% of passengers are satisfied with their service; look at surveys based on Which or Twitter for a much more accurate assessment.

     As for PIXC, there are no public facing targets for this for any TOC.

275. “people expect far too much these days.”

     @GrahamF When someone purchases a product from a private company, they are perfectly entitled to a reasonable expectation that that company will provide what has been paid for. There is no reason why the railway should not be held to the better levels of service that its customers have come to expect from other industries.

276. @Malcolm’s three rules
     Trouble is that PPM prioritises Rule 3 over Rule 2: as long as the train gets to the terminus on time, that counts as a result under PPM , despite having left people behind (breaking Rule 2) due to:
     – missed connections,
     – inability to get to the platform before the train leaves because of crowding, or poor or -late information
     – skip-stopping,
     – short formations or other PIXC issues making it impossible to board, .

277. Anonymous at 10:12

     Have you tried getting a new broadband connection recently (or even at any time in the last few years)?

     Those companies make the TOCs look extremely efficient and customer driven.

     (This includes the umbrella group that runs trains and provides home broadband.)

278. Re Timbeau,

     If skip-stopping results in a service being on time it doesn’t count as being on time for PPM purposes (It think that got changed after Connex SouthCentral experience) it is done to ensure the next service is more likely to run on time, so an indirect effect.

279. @ngh
     So does it count as a cancellation? Because as far as the stops that have been skipped are concered, that’s what it is. This is also the case for services that start or terminate away from the scheduled station – with the naive assumption by the operator that passengers can use another service to connect with it. (Only if all the people already using that service magically dissappear to make room)

280. @Anonylon – it’s worse than freezing, the glitch makes them flash horribly too.

281. @WW
     @ Southern Heights –
     “Ensignbus are running the supplementary Waterloo – Canada Water service hence the Routemaster”
     @myself 1339 yesterday
     “The details of this supplementary service are not at all clear. ”

     I spoke to an official standing at the Waterloo terminus of these buses today. They are apparently operating as a Rail (or rather Tube) Replacement service to augment the Jubilee Line, calloing at Waterloo, London Bridge, Bermondsey and Canada Water only (whether he omitted Southwark deliberately or forgot to mention it I don’t know).
     Officially you are supposed to have a ticket valid for the Jubilee Line (which of coutrse currently includes any NR ticket from London Terminals to Southern or SE destinations valid via London Bridges) but no-one seemed to be checking.
     The bus stop flag shows “381” and makes no mention of the extra service. Given its remoteness from both Waterloo East and the Jubilee Line entrance, and the apparent lack of any signage other than on the buses themselves, it is hardly surprising that on most of these buses the crew outnumbered the passengers. (yes, they are single-manned)

282. Why does this extra service have to be the same as the 381? It’s Waterloo terminus is just about the most inconvenient place to catch a bus for anyone actually arriving at the station, and there are no other useful stops on that route close to the station. The obvious place would be up on the taxi road so that passengers can walk straight out to the bus, or to use one of the southbound stops on Waterloo Road so that they are close to where passengers for the Jubilee ticket hall will be. No wonder their loadings are so pathetic!

283. Timetable changes from next week w/c Mon 19th Jan:

     http://www.southernrailway.com/southern/news/changes-to-london-bridge-services/

     Existing removed West Croydon services removed as this week. (and last)

     The services that are formed from inbound services joined in LBG as mentioned in my previous post:
     https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/london-bridge-first-major-blockade/#comment-237778

     Have been rearranges so they don’t join in LBG any more so fewer inbound paths via New Cross Gate

     To get rid of the potential 6 trains (1700-1900) that come in and are joined in the platforms that could be joined further out would be better for the majority of passengers but joining them further out will need a lot of careful planning (or more mileage for those coming in as ECS, more drivers etc).

     Looks like 3 separate 3 CAT + TAT services that joined in LBG have all been removed, (up from 1 this week)
     and
     2 of the 3 services that formed the 12 car Brighton Service departing at 1716 no longer arrive at London Bridge as separate services
     (1 ex Reigate diverted to VIC, the other service presumably joining before East Croydon, 1 cancellation earlier presumably means more units joined up earlier in the off peak to replace the ex Reigate unit???)

284. @Fandroid
     “Why does this extra service have to be the same as the 381?”
     No idea, unless it’s to keep them close to the existing direct service to London Bridge (i.e the 381) so you don’t have to play guessing games about which is coming first.

     I’m afraid neither your suggestion of the taxi road nor of Waterloo Road would be ideal – you can only approach and leave the taxi Road from the direction of Westminster Bridge, which is in the wrong direction for London Bridge (and why only the 211 and 507 use it, and why so many taxis don’t but illegally use Mepham Street instead). Waterloo Road, in either direction, is unsuitable as a terminus as there is nowhere for buses to lay over.

     These buses are not simply short workings of the 381 – they are limited stop, take a different route between Bermonsey and Canada Water. If there are ALSO ten extra buses on the 381, as suggested by LOTS, they are not very obvious – if there are any extra vehicles they are of the same type as the regulars on that route.

285. @timbeau: Extra signage for these buses would be good, I haven’t seen a single mention of them anywhere at London Bridge…

286. Delays and cancellations yet again on Southern from London Bridge this afternoon.

287. The evidence is pointing more and more to a troublesome set of points near New Cross Gate. As is often the case the problem appears to be that the fault intermittently shows up. See for example this NR press release.

     I am sure that isn’t the whole story and there are timetable issues too.

288. It’s not reasonable for passengers to expect the impossible. Railways in the UK exist in an ongoing paradox of trying to provide a 21st century service with 19th and 20th century tools. There is NO easy way of trying to upgrade the network while continuing to run trains. Especially one as complex as the old Southern area.

     When I buy something for home delivery I know I’m not going to get an exact delivery time because no-one can anticipate the van’s loadings that day, the traffic that holds it up or whether the driver rings in sick and they just can’t get a replacement for love nor money. The railways exist with similar constraints.

     So until we have the tools to do the job properly, maybe people do expect too much these days.

     As for PPM prioritising 3 over 2, skipped stops still count as cancelled trains, and skip stops, turning back early, etc, are necessary tools of last resort in trying to recover the service. The bigger picture cannot just be ignored. It can be painful, especially in the peaks, and is not deployed without thought. But if running as booked leads to more congestion, stock being miles from where it is needed, and crews having to cancel workings because they are now breaking working time regulations, then it’s a bitter pill that sometimes has to be swallowed.

289. @anonymous 1618
     As indeed there were yesterday afternoon as well.
     With display boards showing trains simultaneously retimed and cancelled

290. The 21st Century problem is people gaming metrics, whether they be on the railways, NHS or academia. Governing bodies think forcing numeric targets on suppliers will solve problems, but the suppliers wriggle out of them, obeying the letter, but not the spirit of the intent. I doubt PPM is trusted by passengers, as it doesn’t reflect their experience of the network. There are very few statistics that are both easy to explain and can’t be fiddled.

     The multiple interfaces introduced by railway privitisation have just allowed everyone to muddy the water as to how things are going, so no wonder passengers are cynical.

291. MikeP – sorry for the late reply. Yes, I think I remember hearing about that one. I haven’t personally seen any of the frozen PIS screens flashing too, nor heard of any other instances of it, so I’d guess that was two separate glitches occuring at the same time – the freezing and the flashing.

292. NGH – thanks for the notice. London Overground emailed today to apologise for the service on the the Highbury & Islngton to West Croydon, Crystal Palace and Clapham Junction routes this week. It has been very busy – especially from Shadwell in the evening peak.

     I think I understand why evening peak Southern West Croydon services from London Bridge have been removed to support longer distance routes. As Graham Feakins says, these were generally 10-cars with passengers presumably dispersed to the Overground.

     What has confused me this week is why Overground services to New Cross seem to be formed of 5-cars whereas the West Croydon services are 4-cars (based on my travel experience). Is this a pattern for later services? (Admittedly, I thought all Overground trains would be 5-cars in December 2014… “Don’t believe the hype!”)

     If the Southern services are cancelled for a month, is there opportunity for additional Overground services in place? Or is this too late to plan?

293. There were delays and cancellations this morning too. 45 minutes late into redhill due to a train literally failing to stop at purley despite having been announced as approaching as if it was (and registering as having stopped on real time trains and the nr app which will no doubt cause a large spanner to be thrown in 100 odd peoples compensation claim!). Interestingly a number of people did disappear – presumably those with student oysters onto the 405 bus.

     I am not an unrealistic passenger, but many who catch the same train in the morning are. I accept that trains will be late and that’s life, however the two trains I can get to work have not run to schedule once in two weeks and the cock up by southern control or the driver this morning was out of line with acceptability. This is presumably the result of stress from constant delay on the part of both. It doesn’t bode well for the next 3 years. I can’t say I fancy the job – or that of twitter account monitor.

294. @Anonymous
     How does “failing to stop at Purley” result in “45 minutes late into Redhill” What happened in between?

295. PPM

     I recall missing stops being reported as “partial cancellations”

     One of the things that i think is wrong with PPM is that it is measured against updated timetables – so if a toc cancels trains for the next day then they are not measured as cancellations

     One of the good things about PPM is that there are no exclusions – it doesn’t matter whether or not a delay is in the industry’s control (unlike for airline compensation)

     However for down trains the measurement of delay at destination means it may be irrelevant to most passengers who used the train and is easily manipulated by adding recovery time after the last intermediate stop

296. @timbeau I was waiting for it at Purley next train half hour later and 15 late itself

297. @GTRDriver If the railway cannot provide passengers with the service they have paid for then they should be compensated. And I don’t mean the pathetic Delay Repay schemes that only pay out after 30 minutes’ delay.

298. How much is your time worth? How long is a piece of string?
     The Living Wage in London is supposed to be £9.15 per hour or 16.25p per minute. The national avarage salary is about £27000, which equates to about £16 per hour (assuming a 37-hour week and six weeks annual leave and public holidays). The average income of train travellers is likely to be higher than the national average.

     A five minute delay may be inconsequential, or it may mean you miss a flight, a job interview, your best friend’s West End debut, or being with a loved as they leave this world.
     One inequitable feature of the Delay Repay scheme when you miss a connection is that it is paid by the operator of the incoming service (TOC1), which may be only five minutes late, rather than the operator (TOC2) of the outgoing service which shut the doors in your face, thereby making you wait for their next service an hour later. But TOC1 takes the full hit for the compensation, which can be many times the income they got for their leg of your journey. (And of course hurting TOC1’s bottom line makes TOC2 look better in comparison)

299. Happy for people to be compensated for lateness since we can’t give them their time back and we apparently can’t seem to improve matters much. However I would prefer the time effort and cash being spent on such rebates being used to implement better operating practices and a more realistic timetable. Not tackling the causes but paying for the symptoms doesn’t help anyone in the long term.

300. GTR Driver commented yesterday that when he orders something for delivery he does not expect to be told the exact time it will arrive and knows it will be subject to the vagaries of traffic congestion, driver needing a poo etc etc.

     I ordered new curtains from John Lewis just after Xmas. They were delivered by a superb parcel delivery firm (DPD) . Not only did they tell me the day of delivery, but in the morning I was told that I was delivery number 30 with an ETA between 11am and 12. But that wasn’t all. The driver was GPS tracked and you could follow his progress on a map. Whenever you checked you would be told he was on delivery number 11 or whatever. He duly turned up at 11.15. As this is technoligically possible I expect it will become the norm in a few years.

301. Day 4 & 5 on the Sidcup line. Day 4 I ended up getting the bus to Eltham rather than my usual 14 minute (and 30 seconds) walk to Sidcup. I was later than usual and feared being seatless at Sidcup following the disappearance of the Sidcup siding starters. I caught the Victoria service which to my surprise was 8 cars. I had half expected it to be shorter as a result of bolstering Cannon Street stock. We pootled along as you usually do on Dartford – Victoria but gained a head of steam after Denmark Hill, only to lose another 5 minutes queuing at the Victoria gateline. Evening was a 10 car from Cannon Street (I haven’t noticed anything less than 10 cars on Cannon Street services all week. Top marks to Southeastern)

     Day 5 saw me just miss the lsst available seat on the 7.19 from Sidcup, but it was a 376 so plenty of standing room. I did try leaning against one of the perch seats but they give me backache. I’d go for a Networker anyday in terms of the softness against the bottom test if I can get a seat, but top marks to Connex (a phrase really heard) for having the foresight to order the 376s. Return was from CST again due to hospital visiting. London Bridge seemed quieter tonight but it is Friday. Lots of work still going on after dark around lines 3/4 presumably dive under track rearrangement.

302. Yeah I’ve had stuff delivered by DPD too. They turned up early and because I believed their stated time I wasn’t in. They then ignored my instructions as to what to do with the parcel if it couldn’t be delivered. You can do all the GPS tracking you like, but if my train is 12th in a queue for London Bridge there is no way of predicting its arrival against a background of an unworkable timetable and unexpected points and signal failures.

303. One thing notable by their abscence this week on southeastern train faults and infrastructure issues like signal faults. It reminded me of the Olympic two weeks – far less issues than normal.

     Is the lack of signal/points etc problems in part due to imfrastrucutre simplication?

     Is another factor more staff at hand from NR and SE to pre-empt problems or sort them eg added staff at depots working overnight?

304. @ES – yes lots of extra staff. Same on Southern side, but it’s not having the same result.

     @dvd – good to hear of you DPD experience. What would the reaction be if southeastern offered an 1100-1200 arrival time at Charing Cross for the 1031 from Sidcup?

305. @dvd – John Lewis sideline – and there’s the situation where I ordered an item of furniture online last year from said department store; it arrived OK but turned out to have significant failings which I could not have ascertained from their website, so they had to take it back later and refund me. By visiting the store subsequently, I found what I wanted.

     The railway parallel I suggest is the published timetable which perhaps can only give you an idea of the service to be offered, as opposed to what is there when one arrives at the station or even after one boards the train. I recall those Passengers’ Charters never went as far as guaranteeing a service, let alone one that was on time. Was it from those days that anything “on time” was deemed to be anything within five minutes of booked time?

     To use the example that GTR relates, being 12th in the line queuing up for London Bridge I guess is no fun for him either. I know that they were blocking back at least as far as Norwood Junction a few days ago and by that time, there’s nowhere to divert them to, either – and only six platforms (nine previously) left to handle them anyway.

     The timetable was meant to work but clearly did not take into account multiple permanent way and thus signalling failures with what appears to be brand new equipment. The now restricted access to London Bridge on the Southern side by creating paths on just three, common, reversible tracks between London Bridge and Spa Road serving both the New Cross Gate (4 tracks) and South Bermondsey (2 tracks) sides has not helped one iota.

306. Just a little step back, courtesy of an old Thames News clip, to the bad old days of British Rail and cancelled trains and delays. There is a slight glitch with the clip where it is blank but either side of that are slam door stock into Charing Cross plus a nice view of the old look Liverpool Street with slam door stock. You could argue some things never change in terms of the cancellations and delays!

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79qO-VspUTk

307. WW
     Yes, but
     the “bad old BR” was severely cash-strapped & DO note the way all the doors were open & the train was emptying well before it came to a stop – done that myself enough times ….

     [Usual minor snip. PoP]

308. I duly arrived at Waterloo at 08.15 on Friday. It was solid going down the escalators from the main concourse to the Jubilee Line ticket hall (but I guess that’s normal), but that seemed to be functioning OK. I imagine that no-one is going to look for a faraway bus if the Jub is working OK. Anyway, I would imagine that hard-bitten commuters would ignore any odd-looking buses (eg RMs and funny-coloured single-door jobs) on the grounds that they are probably just running some down-market tourist trips.

309. Some London Bridge nostalgia from the 1990s courtesy of Thames News. FAO of Graham H – this may bring about flashbacks as it includes John Prescott advocating leasing of main line stock.

     https://t.co/n3WEHnI7YS

310. @WW interesting to devise a sentence including the words “John Prescott” and “nostalgia”…

311. Plans being reviewed to demolish toilet block and café on platforms 1 and 2 at LBG, and install more screens. Lewisham should see more focus on customer information too.

312. Interesting suggestion of replacing the timetable with a 95% confidence interval for each train’s arrival time. If only the public were more statistically minded…

313. The timetables on platform 1&2 have gone, and yellow box junction stripes have appeared on P. 2 around the overbridge. Last night there were lots of announcements asking people not to stand there. Next I guess they’ll be issuing parking tickets…

     Trundled through London Bridge on a Charing Cross train today. P.8 now gone and things are progressing rapidly.

314. The yellow hatching on P2 has been there a while, as have the announcements not to stand there, as have the punters ignoring the announcements!

315. @Graham Feakins: That’s odd you would expect reversible lines to increase throughput. But then as it all ends in up/down lines again at New Cross Gate, you could well be throwing away the advantage gained…

316. @Southern Heights
     It’s not that they are reversible that’s the problem, it’s that therev are only three of them replacing a larger number of lines, albeit those lines were unidirectional.

317. London Bridge was dangerously busy tonight on platform 1 and 2. It’s madness to see 8 or 10 car trains leaving packed to the rafters with people unable to get on, with those left adding to congestion on platforms. 12 car should be the norm after so much money spent extending platforms for it, only for no additional stock to be allocated to Southeastern. Great job government.

318. @Ed: That’s government policy for you, I’m afraid. Same thing up North: rafts and rafts of infrastructure upgrades, but the next franchise will probably have to contend with fewer units than the current franchise…

319. @Anonylon
     Does plans being reviewed to demolish the cafe and toiket block on platforms 1/2 mean they are considering doing this ? Or that they were planning to but may change plans ? I think both are freestanding structures and should have been removed before the closure of platforms 4/5/6 to create extra space for passenger circulation.

320. dvd – Indeed it was obvious the platforms would be packed from this month. Can’t believe they didn’t think of making more space. Along with a lack of trains what were NR and the DfT thinking of? NR have admitted they cocked up the planning with the Southern side of London Bridge. Some basic errors on the SE side too, along with the DfT not paying attention.

     Straphan – it’s ridiculous – lack of planning nationwide. The system needs changing. Maybe a decent chance with an election coming up to let MPs know.

321. dvd – I believe plans to do it. Cafe Rizzata (right spelling?) and the toilets. Mention also of extending the canopy so that people encouraged to move down, but I’m not convinced that’ll happen/have any benefit. It’s a shame it wasn’t done straight away, and I don’t know the reason why, but have to trust there was a logical reason for not doing so.

322. The main reason for not demolishing the coffee shop and toilets in full is that they both hold the canopy up. You can expect partial demolition, leaving the supporting walls.

323. Network Rail’s rep for CR2 was grilled by the Assembly Transport Committee over the London Bridge problems this week. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction about what has happened. Various members pointedly remarked that they use London Bridge regularly and had suffered first hand from the chaos. There were no miracle answers from Network Rail and they apologised and admitted they’d got things wrong. Val Shawcross was particularly scathing about timetable information being hopelessly wrong (before the recent very short notice changes) with leaflets having trains listed that have never run and were never in an operational timetable (so called Ghost Trains). There was also a demand for more Overground trains from West Croydon given Southern’s cuts but that’s not really possible (no spare stock). As one might expect the politicians were unable to resist the temptation to effectively say “we told you so”. They had sought reassurance and, of course, had been given it about the revised services and now reality has turned out somewhat differently. Oddly there was little mention of South Eastern but then I think more AMs use Southern’s services.

324. @WW -“As one might expect the politicians were unable to resist the temptation to effectively say “we told you so.”

     Well, yes, that’s because independent advisors have freely provided information to them over time, by contrast with Network Rail and its Thameslink-related parties.

     It is likely true that many AM Transport Committee members use Southern services and are knowledgeable about them. For example, Val Shawcross was Leader of Croydon Council and between her and her predecessor remarkably achieved consistent cross-party support for Tramlink during its gestation and beyond. I know that she has use Southern to access City Hall via London Bridge.

     Meanwhile, on the Southeastern side, here is part of a message I received last night: “my first (and I hope last) experience of L Bdge – Grove Park in the evening peak under the current set up was most unpleasant, and if this is typical I’d strongly advise anyone to avoid platforms 1 and 2 at LB in the evening peak if at all possible. At 18.00 both platforms dangerously packed with passengers (only a matter of time before someone falls/is accidentally pushed off a platform onto the track in my opinion). All the departing trains also packed – platform staff shouting at standing passengers to move down inside – and this was in the front coach of an 8 coach 465 train. My travelling companion (72 yrs old and not a regular rail user) appalled at the scene.”

325. @Ed
     The probvlem is the drigiste view of the Treasury and the current Chancellor that capital expenditure is good while revenue expenditure is evil. So investing in infrastructure = capital = good but spending on revenue support to franchisees (or reducing their payback to the Treasury) = revenue = bad.

     The Treasury is riddled with such contradictions. Another is that, according to their definitions, spending on improving a road junction on a TfL road = capital = good, but the same improvement on a borough road = revenue = bad.

     But they don’t seem to care.

326. @Quinlet: Couldn’t have said that better myself. Thanks!

327. @ Quinlet – nicely put. It also seems slightly bizarre that building new trains in the UK is regularly seen as a “good thing” and “investment” but then, as you say, there’s not enough money to buy enough of them or to run them effectively. We have a similar nonsense with buses – it’s “wonderful” to buy new whizzo buses or support their purchase but then cut the revenue grant for TfL or stand back and allow local authority funding to be slashed so socially necessary services are permanently lost. This is likely to mean that people give up on using commercial daytime routes too thus worsening the entire viability of local bus services. Therefore you have “investment” being wasted and not delivering the expected benefits. I thought government departments were supposed to be full of bright intelligent and experienced people who could stop these nonsenses? Oh look the airborne porcine squad is zooming past the window again. 🙂

328. @WW – Yes, well, it’s your penultimate sentence that gets me so wound up when I come across senior Civil Servants who have what can only be described as a “superior, I-know-best” attitude. Especially when dealing with local government.

329. Why do ToC companies need DfT approval before acquiring new rolling stock? Shouldn’t DfT just set performance standards and let them get on with it?

330. @WW: Well after all people are people and therefore it’s only natural that this kind of stupidity happens across the board, not just in the private sector…

     Let’s get the latest whizzo server, full of all the latest features! OK..
     Can we have a consultant who actually knows how to get the best out of it? No…

331. @ John B – TOCs used to be “left to it” but the nature of the industry then and now is very different. Rolling stock is hugely expensive and has a long life and therefore has to have a use beyond the term of one franchise. Therefore DfT will be required to underwrite and mandate the use of the stock across franchises. There are a few exceptions to this (e.g. FGW owning some HSTs) but such valuable assets should be kept in use for as long as is sensible. I’d guess that new rolling stock could not be financed without clarity about the ROSCOs getting sufficient return on the assets. The ROSCOs don’t want stock sitting around doing nothing but equally the DfT don’t want to pay for more trains than are strictly necessary. The demands for high premium payments / minimal subsidy also push TOCs towards minimising costs with obvious consequences for intensive use of trains and minimising excess numbers of staff. The only change we’ve seen recently is the “quality score” in recent bids seemingly allowing a bit more flexibility in recent contract wins.

     We have the funding dilemma with diesel stock at the moment. There is a shortage of such trains but as electrification schemes progressively complete there will be a surplus. Everyone wants new shiny trains today but industry won’t build them for an effective 3 year lifetime as by then lots of existing, and cheaper to lease, DMUs will be sloshing round the system looking for a home. In a recent Roger Ford article he predicted that some very interesting things might happen to the leasing costs of existing DMUs if the government stands by its alleged statements to “scrap Pacer trains”. Why would you pay the lease charge for a new DMU if you could get a mid life refurbed DMU for a much lower charge? That’s where we are headed and will be a crucial factor for the Northern and Transpennine franchises. The DfT seem to be struggling as the tender documentation is late and delays to electrification schemes are affecting the ability to cascade diesel stock.

332. Re John B,

     Because more /new rolling usually leads to bigger subsidies required from DfT (i.e. revenue support in the case of SE).*

     I suspect the split of CHX and CST services on SE has lead to stock being used less efficiently overall as lengthening has had to be targeted at very specific services. (VIC services being shortened and generating complaints).

     *Also similar linked issues with silly things like SE having to pay for more revenue protection enforcement but all of the benefits going to DfT so why bother and just not take the revenue support instead?

333. So railways have very long payback times for track/stations (so we had private Railtrack, now public Network Rail) and rolling stock (so DfT needs to control it). Then have a series of private companies to run the service as a frequently negotiated franchise that has to negotiate with both parties and can only make short term business decisons. This is a recipe for madness.

     A properly subsided British Rail would be a much better solution. Why isn’t this an election issue?

334. It is, but only for the Greens and UKIP.

     Greens: As you said…
     UKIP: Paint them all in Green/Maroon/Umber and Cream/Blood and Custard* and it will be fine…

     *Or at least that was their policy in 2010, they’ve just sacked their manifesto writer for 2015, so we’ll just have refer to the old one.

335. @Southern Heights: I think the policy of UKIP is: chuck the ‘furriners’ out, leave the EU (triggering a massive rise in unemployment and reducing commuter numbers) and presto: no overcrowding! (At least not around London!)

     They will probably also want slam-door stock re-introduced: all this guff about automatic doors and aluminium-bodied trains is symptomatic of the EU nanny state!

336. Back to the cafe and toilets on P1/2

     What other toilet facilities are there at LBG?

     I recall a gents on P1/2 and P5/6 (which have obviously now gone). Am not a lady so no idea where the ladies facilities are/were.

     It always appeared to me that a station the size of LBG was woefully under provisioned for toilets (and the strange mix of free ones on the high level and the pay ones on terminating part) so getting rid of the ones on P1/2 could lead to unintended consequences especially due to the lack of on train toilets on many trains and at destination stations. The ones at Greenwich for example always seem to be closed.

337. Re Chris C,

     the new London Bridge Station map that came out this week (publishing new maps in advance of big changes might be useful to make the first few days run a bit smoother?):

     http://uhoun19qey9384ovv24t33c1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/London-Bridge-station-map-Jan-15.pdf

     The Gents on P4 got unofficially demolished in 1992 and never reopened.
     http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/29/world/bombing-in-london-leaves-28-injured.html

338. @ John B – I think the railways are an election issue for some people. However they will never ever reach the top of the agenda in a national election which means the parties can say what they like (within limits) about railways and transport and few people will ever challenge them. Most voters will be concerned about the economy, the pound in their pocket, education and health. It was ever thus and I can’t see it changing anytime soon. Many would argue those things are the right priorities for our society and deserving of the politicians’ attention.

     I’d like to have a rational discussion with the politicians about railways and buses but I think I’d be suicidal or wanting to massacre the lot of them after 5 minutes of listening to pre-prepared soundbites which will be lacking in substance. I see a flavour of the policies and platitudes on Twitter and it is deeply depressing. Recreating British Rail would take longer than one parliamentary term if you wanted to avoid paying out vast sums in compensation to the incumbent TOCs. Therein lies the danger that the policy would never be fulfilled nor positive results being obvious to the passengers within a 5 year parliamentary term. You need a political consensus to change the industry structure in a stable and sensible way which doesn’t distract railway staff from the job in hand of running a reliable and safe railway. I don’t see that consensus being possible.

339. @ngh: Indeed, publishing maps in advance makes far too much sense, it will never happen! Ooops! What the maps miss completely is any guidance on how the flows actually work, so the escalators from the tube are down only in the P.M. peak, the Cottons entrance is closed as well, so the only way in the P.M. peak is from bus station/Shard side. It would have saved me having to leg it up the ramp on the first day of the closure.

     The gents on P1,2 really should be closed, boy do they stink! I guess the overbridge needs to stay as a fire escape (into the old Southern Railway offices), otherwise my vote would be to demolish that as well. It’s the most dangerous spot on the platform…

340. Re Southern heights
     3 maps needed then – AM peak, PM peak, and off peak.

     Demolition sequence for the footbridge spans (subject to change):
     5/6 to 8 (mostly removed already)
     3/4 to 5/6

     then later:
     1/2 to SER building
     1/2 to 3/4 (after CST services no longer stop at LBG)

341. I like the LBG free toilets, and will miss them. Too public bodies are closing them without accepting the hidden costs of people pissing in corners.

     I suspect after a night on the beer, I might switch from LBG to WAE just for the guarantee of their lovely urinals while I wait.

342. @WW 11:25 – “…the ROSCOs getting sufficient return on the assets…” for unusual definitions of “sufficient”.

     “….the ROSCOs maintaining their license to print money” is how most would view their position.

343. NHG – but that doesn’t answer the question if the toilets on P1/2 are going to be demolished or not as others have mentioned is a strong possibility. If they do go then there are then no gents facilities in any of the fare controlled areas ,

     Are the toilets in The Vaults free of paid for? Until I looked at the map you linked too I never knew there were any there in the first place (but then I’m not as regular user of LBG as I used to be)

     Southern Heights – stinking or not they do provide a useful public service and avoids what John B mentions of people pissing in corners (and that includes ladies)

344. (Another) New Southern Timetable from next Monday (26th Jan)

     http://www.southernrailway.com/southern/news/changes-to-london-bridge-services-from-monday-26th-january/

     More changes to Caterham and Tattenham Corner services and more am peak changes but lots of changes to East Grinstead and Uckfield services vs the timetable this week.

345. SH & straphan
     Very funny
     
     [Off topic snipped. LBM]

     Chris C
     Boggages on LBG: Men on 1/2, ladies on 3/4, gents again on 5/6 ….

346. The toilets on P1/2 are closing imminently, which is effectively bringing forward their closure date by 19 months. The Ladies on P3/4 remains until next August.

347. @Chris C: You do have to spend 30 pennies on those…

348. @ngh: The morning peak seems to have everything open, for entry and exit. So just some notes should do it.

     Why remove 1/2 to SER building first? That should be treated as a fire escape in case of a fire in the corridor….

     @John B, Chris C: Not many corners going to left soon!

349. Re southern heights,

     Presumably because the SER building will get demolished to allow site access from the north side from August next year onwards?

350. Is it is still a myth that peeing on the 3rd rail can result in electrocution??

     Because I can see some people doing that once the toilets are removed.

     That and the platform staff finding lots of coffee cups littering the platform that aren’t filled with coffee !

351. Given the preoccupation of certain Assembly Members with toilet provision on the rail network it looks to me as if Network Rail are about to shoot themselves in the foot again at London Bridge if they are scrapping well used toilet facilities. I recognise things need to be demolished to rebuild the station but not replacing toilet facilities even with temporary facilities looks like a mistake. It can’t be beyond their competence to avoid this sort of problem.

352. Lots more pissing in trains if toilets are out on the networkers or none like on 376s then its going on the floor/seat. A recent 11pm trip had piss on seats around the out of use toilet. With the poor SE frequencies some wont get off after a few drinks to wait 20-30 mins for the next train.

353. Also, the SE side was a pretty miserable place again with crowding. Not as terrible as the Southern side for timekeeping, but many trains leaving 5 minutes late and rammed. It’s creaking already and 3 more years of it looks interesting. The CHX trains passing through look more empty so some carriages could switch to those coming from Cannon Street, but even then many are 10 and can’t really be lengthened. Plus I’m wondering if those that pass through from CHX pick up a lot more people at Lewisham?

354. The canopy idea is brilliant. Remove it now and people will spread out more along the platform during adverse weather conditions as there’s nothing to lose!

355. WW
     But it seems to be beyond everyone’s competence to provide said facilities at, say Farringdon, doesn’t it?

356. Why can’t people go to the loo before they leave work / pub / restaurant ? Men are the main culprits. I rarely use public toilets as they are usually pretty disgusting. I have passed through London Bridge thousands of times but have never used the loos. And as for public pooing. Don’t get me started.

357. I don’t understand why so many are still using London Bridge. Those working in the area may feel they have no choice. But those coming off the Northern line should be getting off at Bank and making the very short walk to Cannon Street (it’s a few minutes walk). Regular commuters know this. But this route should be better publicised. I know people who, heading for the West End when Charing X closed for weekend engineering works, would alight at London Bridge for the Jubilee line, having no idea that by remaining on the train to Cannon Street they could walk to Bank and get the Central line, or indeed the Northern line. These alternatives should be better publicised.

358. On the subject of the toilets someone tweeted a short while ago that someone had peed on an SE train and took a photo.

     dvd – Bank to West End stations aren’t included in the accepted alternative routes are they? If not then the many people with an ‘x’ station to London terminals season tickets wont use that. But I’d agree that many people do not go Cannon St to Bank as it’s not known how close it is.

359. @Quinlet: the drigiste view of the Treasury and the current Chancellor that capital expenditure is good while revenue expenditure is evil

     The answer of course would be for the government to buy the needed trains outright, thus reducing revenue expenditure on lease payments (and saving a huge amount of money long-term, as bond rates at the moment are ludicrously low: people are literally paying the government (in real terms) to look after their money for them).

     This is what is happening for the Crossrail trains, but for some reason it doesn’t seem possible for procurements overseen by the DfT. The government could always aim to sell the rolling stock in a few years if it all seems a bit too socialist for them…

360. dvd
     Err … on this delicate subject – quite a few of us do “go” before we start our journey.
     But, if the train &/or stations on the way home don’t have “facilities” you might still be, err, “pressed” in an awkward situation.
     It’s also to do with the physiological differences in musculature in the lower body between men & women … but I think I’ll stop there, shall I?

361. How many affected passengers would now feel the London Bridge redevelopment is a good scheme?

     It’s going to seriously affect Council support for redevelopment of stations like East Croydon.

362. @Walthamstow Writer

     Just to emphasise, Network Rail are not getting rid of the toilets at London Bridge. They are removing the men’s toilets from one island platform. More specifically they are removing the toilets from one island platform 20 months earlier than originally intended.

     Given the pressing need for more space on the platform I can understand why such a decision has been made. I can also understand why Network Rail did not initially plan to demolish them because, if it turned out it wasn’t actually necessary to do so, it would not go down well with the already suffering passengers.

     I don’t like spending money unnecessarily but personally I would rather pay 30p to use the decent toilets than the facilities on platform 1/2 available for free.

     @Greg

     But it seems to be beyond everyone’s competence to provide said facilities at, say Farringdon, doesn’t it?

     They were provided in the early days of Thameslink. They were closed, allegedly due to vandalism, but I think the reality was they just couldn’t cope with demand and got blocked. They were quite small but there really wasn’t much space available at the time so it is hard to see what else could be done.

     Andrew Wolstenholme (CEO Crossrail) has stated quite categorically that there will be toilets at Farringdon when Crossrail opens. This fits in with Crossrail’s policy that on an urban metro toilets should be at stations and not on trains. Adding toilets is far from trivial and at Farringdon they will cost £1.5 million to install.

     @Ed

     dvd made a good point about changing at Cannon St/Bank. But I think you miss the point on ticketing. The aim is not to provide alternative routes to the passengers destination at no further cost. The aim is to provide alternatives to Charing Cross and Waterloo East at no further cost. If heading for the West End then you would have to pay a zone 1 tube fare anyway so why would one be expected to get it for free if going via Cannon St/Bank?

     Putting it another way, the aim of the ticketing is to make sure passengers aren’t out of pocket as a result of their journey being disrupted by the Thameslink works. There is also an aim, less publicised, to make sure the railway companies and London Underground are not out of pocket either by over-generous concessions.

363. @poP
     “If heading for the West End then you would have to pay a zone 1 tube fare anyway ”

     No you wouldn’t – most of the West End is within ten minutes walk of Charing Cross.

364. @timbeau,

     I agree with the statement but it doesn’t affect the situation described.

     If you are going to somewhere within 10 minutes walk from Charing Cross and are willing to walk then I would argue it is fair enough to expect the person to go via Cannon St to Embankment. If they want to go via Bank to Oxford Circus (much more than a 10 minute walk from Charing Cross) or Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect them to pay for the tube journey.

365. @PoP
     Seriously? Would you really get the Tube to go to Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square – or even Tottenham Court Road – from Charing Cross? It would be quicker, as well as cheaper, to walk.

     I would admit Oxford Circus is marginal, but much of its hinterland, including Regent Street, Carnaby Street, Savile Row and Wardour Street, is within walking distance of CX.

     As for the Strand/Covent Garden/Kingsway area, walking is really the only sensible option.

366. To be fair Theban, we haven’t been presented with the omelette at London Bridge yet, just the many broken eggs! But I do agree about how we now sell major works at East Croydon, which are desperately needed and would follow on from Thameslink in an ideal world. Maybe we need a discussion on this very subject over on A Study In Sussex Part 7.

367. @timbeau,

     I don’t know if you are choosing to misunderstand me or whether I just can’t make myself clear. Of course it is quicker to walk from Leicester Square from Charing Cross.

     Let me spell it out. You are coming into London Bridge on the terminating platforms. You can’t get to Charing Cross but you can get to Cannon Street. You want to go to Leicester Square (for example). Of course it is quicker to walk from Charing Cross – but you can’t get there by train. So one alternative is Cannon St then Embankment and walk (no extra charge) or Cannon St, walk to Bank and then get the tube. One further alternative is to change at Embankment for Bakerloo Line – which is quicker than walking given that you are already at the station and on the tube network – but it would be very generous to give the passenger this journey for free due to disruption at London Bridge – although I can see an argument for doing so.

     Maybe a better example is Holborn. Just about walkable from Charing Cross depending on exact final destination. Alternatively you go via Cannon St and Bank. I would argue you shouldn’t expect to have that tube journey “thrown in” and once you do that all sorts of journeys become eligible to have the tube portion “thrown in” leading to considerable revenue loss.

368. @Theban,

     I think the crucial thing concerning London Bridge and long term reputation damage is whether in the next month or so the situation returns to some kind of stability. If the chaos goes on for many months then there may be concerns. The timetable can be sorted out – at the risk of upsetting some more people. One just hopes that the points failures and signal failures will be sorted and new ones won’t start appearing too often.

     Given that much of what would happen at East Croydon is very complementary, if not fundamental, to Croydon’s plans, I suspect Croydon would back the plans wholeheartedly. That doesn’t mean that they won’t voice concern about the level of disruption and keep a close eye on it nearer the time. The point is that East Croydon can’t really cope that well now so the alternative of having that in perpetuity is probably even less attractive.

369. Theban – Croydon Council are very keen to have the station redeveloped. It fits in with their plans to regenerate the town centre for both businesses and residents / visitors.

     Planning Committee decisions have to be based on the scheme presented to them and based on criteria such as on completion does it meet the objectives and policies of the local plan and is the scale of the final scheme in keeping with the rest of the area.

     People and councillors may object to the noise and disruption of the construction works and any service changes during that period but these are not valid objections in planning terms.

     If the planning committee rejected the plans on the basis that a few relatively minor things went wrong with the train services (not the construction) at London Bridge they would rapidly find themselves over ruled by a planning inspector.

370. It’s a shame no tradition was ever established that all rail tickets to London include one entry and exit within zone 1. So a journey to Charing Cross can be made direct or via Cannon Street then tube for the same price. Easily workable technologically these days, but with obvious implications for revenue, and possibly naive and incorrigibly Socialist on my part.

371. The phasing for the East Croydon rebuild (ignoring Windmill Bridge Jn!) is likely to be less disruptive as you start out by adding part of the new platform Island and eventually ending up with 2 islands and 4 tracks bit by bit on the west side. The current 2 islands on the East side (P3/4 and P5/6) don’t get touched and the new pedestrian access has already been installed at the North End of the platforms. If some of the civils & trackwork in the Windmill Bridge complex gets done first then the station works could be less disruptive. Very different to the London Bridge rebuild overall.

372. I believe that some National Rail tickets are being accepted a little more widely at present at Central London Zone 1 Underground stations because of the London Bridge vicissitudes, not just at London Bridge, Waterloo East and Waterloo. They are also valid at Charing Cross, Embankment, Blackfriars and Cannon Street. Maybe elsewhere. Not sure about Bank.

373. @GTR Driver
     Even when both LT and BR were nationalised as part of the British Transport Comnmission, they remained fiercely independant, through ticketing only existing as a historical anomaly, usually where services had changed hands or had always been shared (e.g to Amersham, Upminster). And certainly never on the Southern, still swornm enemies of the Combine as late as the 1930s.

     @poP
     granted that at the margins there is going to be some unfairness wherever you draw the line (Waterloo to Bank to pick up the Cannon Street service you can’t catch at London Bridge would be nice).

     Indeed, the availability of a London terminals ticket between Cannon Street, Blackfrairs and Embankment (but not intermediate stations) is a help. But given the person headed for Somerset House or Covent Garden (say) has already been inconvenienced by having to detour via Cannon Street, making him make a further detour via Embankment (rather than going direct to Temple or Holborn) is really not fair.

     Tube stations are rarely a destination in themselves – they are waypoints en route to a destination. If the line to Charing Cross is closed and I’m diverted to Cannon Street, I don’t then want to be bussed to CX, I want to go straight to my intended destination: and shouldn’t have to pay any more to do so.

374. East Croydon is already ‘under construction’ – but the contractors are doing themselves no favours by apparently doing nothing for long periods while unnecessarily inconveniencing the public. Taking Platform 3/4 as an example, the scaffolding and the piles of building materials have been there for at least a year with no change. Platform space is reduced, creating pinchpoints, and sight lines for the displays are made difficult.

     If there is a reason for such a poor state of affairs then it should be stated honestly, rather than simply putting up posters which gaily announce “We’re giving you a lovely new station . . .” or similar puff. In the absence of a true explanation it just looks like bad planning, which simply creates more distrust by the travelling public of any future planned work.

375. @timbeau,

     making him make a further detour via Embankment (rather than going direct to Temple or Holborn) is really not fair

     I did add ” I can see an argument for doing so” to cover this. Yes, it really isn’t fair but someone has to pay for this. At the end of the day that is either TfL (but why should they subsidise this?) or DfT either by paying directly for this or via Southern which is, or will be, on a management contract. So, ideally this cost should have been factored in to the project if it were deemed a desired thing. Sadly, of course, that makes getting the project approved in the first place more daunting.

376. The Transport Select Committee have just published their Rail Investment report. Given comments here and elsewhere about wanting more trains and more investment in London then look at these two gems from the recommendations.

     We welcome the substantial investment in CP5, and the commitment to electrification and increasing commuting capacity in a time of austerity. We support the Northern Hub programme, and welcome the indications that the Department for Transport will listen to the case for investment in the North and East of England. We remain concerned that the Benefit Cost Ratio used to allocate rail spending has failed to give sufficient weight to the wider economic and social benefits of rail investment. Focusing simply on passenger numbers and the short-term economic return from rail investment will inevitably continue to focus investment in London and the South East. Instead, we recommend the Department for Transport adopt and publish broader criteria for allocating funding, which consider the contribution to the Government’s wider policy objectives—such as long-term economic regeneration, environmental policy or social need. Rail funding must still deliver value for money for the taxpayer, with the economic case for each project subject to rigorous testing against the revised criteria. This approach, however, will result in a fairer allocation of rail investment across the country; other regions, such as the far south west, have been “starved” of investment. (Paragraph 31)

     The cascading of train carriages out of the South East may provide the most efficient way for the rolling stock operating companies to manage their rolling stock. It is concerning that the Department has chosen to order brand new trains for passengers in London and the South East, while expecting passengers in the rest of the country to be content with reconditioned older trains—cast-offs from more prosperous areas. (Paragraph 52)

     In short the Regional MPs want money spent in their areas from now on and London can go on a starvation diet. Given these remarks amongst several others in the recommendations then I think we can simply give up on London gaining the extra capacity it needs once we get beyond Crossrail and Thameslink completing. Whoever is the next Mayor is going to have a real battle on their hands to secure sufficient funding for TfL.

377. Re WW

     Where are the MPs on the Transport Select committee constituencies? And which bit of the country isn’t represented on the TSC? 😉
     4.5months to election…

     Using social etc. aspects in BCR (TfL style) would improve many NR schemes’ BCRs in London.

378. @WW/ngh – the “interesting” thing about an “anywhere but London” policy will be that there really isn’t a vast portfolio of non-London schemes with good BCRs. There never has been, as the passenger volumes comparedwith SE/London schemes are almost always relatively lower. Where there has been major investment, much of it has included a strong element of cost-saving renewal or commercial justification. So unlessthe Treasury relax the rules, it’s quite likely that there will be every excuse for it to make the cake smaller. So we all lose.

379. NGH – easily found here

     http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/transport-committee/membership/

     members from all parts of the country but they are not on the committee to represent their region.

380. Walthamstow Writer – London won’t get what it needs from Whitehall, and neither will the rest of the UK. The sooner real financial devolution across England occurs the better. It will be a long, slow fight but it is entering more mainstream agendas now.

     The entire spend on capital projects AND running costs is just too low everywhere. Instead of the north moaning about the south (when there’s a massive need and huge swaths of it aren’t getting what is needed anyway) they should look at why the entire spend is from budget that is too small, and demand it is bigger and/or greater local power to fund and plan locally. Whitehall and the Treasury just doesn’t see it transport as a priority and thus a small amount of total gov spending goes on it. Are they representing the population on this? I don’t think so.

381. Re Chris C,

     I knew the answer anyway!

     There is a suspicious skew given their reports output – they seem to be representing their regions /constituencies rather well:

     5 Northerners
     2 East
     1 West Midlands
     1 SW
     1 Scottish
     1 London

382. @ngh 1530 (“which bit of the country isn’t represented on the TSC?”) Jim Fitzpatrick on the Transport Select Committee represents Poplar and Limehouse.

     http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/jim-fitzpatrick/197

     But your point stands; there are plenty of effective members from Northern English constituencies (and Redditch, which I think is in the Midlands).
     http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/transport-committee/membership/

     I do agree that a consistent process for assessing projects would be a good thing.

383. @Ngh – oh sure. I know where the MPs are from but I’m forever hopeful that they might put their regional prejudices to one side and produce something with a bit of objectivity. Yes I know I’m deluding myself.

     The second that wider benefits were found to benefit schemes in London they would immediately be discredited and the search for another fiddle factor / appraisal technique would begin. The problem the MPs have is that a massive proportion of rail travel is London / SE centric and therefore there will be a skewing effect whether you do the analysis by fare revenue, passenger numbers or wider societal benefits. It’s not as if London and the SE doesn’t have development needs or deprivation issues. None of that is to decry issues in other parts of the country. You either do things fairly and objectively *or* you campaign and win on a clear mandate to ignore objectivity and shovel the investment cash away from London & SE and spend in Bristol, Cornwall, Bolton, Liverpool and Nether Whittle on the Moors somewhere near Yorkshire / Lancashire / Derbyshire / wherever!

384. Sorry for the duplication; others beat me to it.

     There is a bit of a ‘chicken and egg’ issue: poor connectivity and quality of service will lead to low ridership so lower benefits from speeding up services. London (drags self back on topic) is having a great deal of money spent on it *at the moment*; not all of it wisely (see LR passim). Other parts of the UK can and should make the case for investment in rail and public transport more widely. this can and should be discussed elsewhere.

     The extraordinarily dense and effective London rail and bus networks are a national-scale asset deserving of investment. hence my call for a consistent process for assessing investments in public transport, in London and elsewhere.

385. Re Graham H

     “the “interesting” thing about an “anywhere but London” policy will be that there really isn’t a vast portfolio of non-London schemes with good BCRs.”

     That was my thinking though they won’t like that answer when it appears!
     My gut feeling is that applying TfL BCR methodology to NR network projects would result in an even bigger bias back towards London and greater SE projects. The draft Sussex LTPP report hints that many potential projects would become more viable if TfL BCR methodology was used (i.e. improvement in southern metro services).

     As soon as the on going running costs are looked at HMT would run for hills on many Northern projects because the underlying cost base is so bad in comparison. 1 driver for 10car (or soon 12car) EMU or 1 driver and a guard for 2 car DMU etc.

386. @ngh – this was indeed the conundrum we faced in DTp in justifying the PSO grant. If we were buying passenger miles or time savings (the typical BCR objectives), we’d chuck all the money at firstly, NSE, then InterCity; buying regional services bought neither of those things in sufficient quantities, and even though regional services have seen good growth in recent years, it’s been from a very low base. That’s why we lit upon train miles as the thing to buy – regional comes out relatively well on that basis (although Intercity would have trumped it had we not decided to exclude it from grant altogether). And it had the advantage that investing in cost saving measures was easy to justify.

     What is difficult to get into the noddle of local government generally outside London and perhaps Manchester is the cost benefit closes railway lines.

387. PSO Public Service Obligation grant from the government to make up funding shortfall on many railway lines.

388. @poP
     “Yes, it really isn’t fair but someone has to pay for this.”

     That begs the question. It doesn’t actually cost anything – there are no extra trains being run.
     “Revenue protection” these days seems to mean making sure no-one gets anything for free, even if it costs nothing to provide it. And if the consequence is other people end up paying more than they should for the service, or not getting the service they paid for, that’s just their hard luck.
     And that isn’t fair

389. Fleet seem to be getting on top of the flickering messages now.

     I’ve seen a couple of complaints/questions about extending ticket acceptance recently. The problem is that places like Waterloo-Bank and Victoria are already hugely congested as it is. Victoria is regularly temporarily closed during the morning peak. Just yesterday it took me 20 minutes to walk 10 feet waiting to get into the Underground – ended up going from Victoria to Blackfriars via Clapham Junction, Vauxhall and St Pancras!!!! I should imagine it’s a case of TfL saying ‘no, sorry, we’ve got to prioritise our existing passengers and it’s too busy already without adding in extra passengers from elsewhere’.

     There will be some formation changes next week on Highspeed. Reviews of Metro lengths/allocations seems to be taking a bit longer… it’s not just a case of saying ‘this 8 car is overcrowded, let’s put 4 more on’. So much has to be considered, like which train is overcrowded the most? Which other service can you afford to shorten to lengthen it? When are you going to get the stock from that service over onto the one that needs to be lengthened? Is that going to require another driver on duty to drive it empty to where it needs to be? Is it going to require a train to leave the depot earlier in order to get in position, reducing the maintenance time? If it works the lengthened service, how is it going to get back to where it should be afterwards? Will it leave somewhere short or even without stock for the rest of the night? Will it require a rejigging of diagrams because it’ll work more miles than planned to? and more. But I can assure that if a train can be lengthened, it will. Comments and feedback from passengers are being reviewed very closely by all.

390. Most trains on the Greenwich line have reached their final stop late this evening PM peak. Around 10 minutes is the norm. Not a surprise perhaps with that line having the biggest cuts in the PM peak. No real reason for lateness other than congestion it seems. Happens a lot of nights though today worse.

     Will that mean SE having to pay a ‘fine’ for all the services more than 5 mins late? If so they may put pressure to get more 12 car down there from CST moping up more people at London Bridge by skipping Woolwich Dockyard?

391. Re Ed,
     They’ll just blame it on NR as the CST lines have been reduced from 3 to 2 tracks from North Kent East to the approaches to London Bridge while tracks 3+4 are lifted and renewed…

392. @Anonylon

     Victoria is going to get worse from next week as (I think) a Victora/Circle interchange subway is going to be closed so they can put 2 new lift shafts in. TfL advice is to change anywhere but Victoria for those lines.

393. @John B,

     Indeed, and that shows one of the problems we are facing these days with catering for a quickly increasing population. You need to improve things but in doing so you are creating disruption and forcing people along an alternative route. However, we are in the situation where it is almost inevitable that, at some time during the upgrade to the main route, the alternative route also needs upgrading.

     Witness Christmas problems at King’s Cross/Finsbury Park made worse because they were working on the West Coast Main Line as well. London Bridge leads to increased usage of the East London Line but at times that is going to have to be closed because of Crossrail work at Whitechapel. Tottenham Court Road (Central Line) is closed and Covent Garden has severe restrictions leading to both stations putting additional strain at Holborn – itself recognised as a station desperately in need of capacity enhancement.

     Despite the pain, the only sensible thing to do is to try and get ahead of the curve – but one can only do this if funds are available.

394. @ PoP – and just to add to your theme about a lot of work being done we need to consider what will happen later this year and next when the Central London road network will be affected by many schemes. We have the N-S and E-W Cycle Superhighways, reconstruction of CS2 out to Bow, junction improvements at places like Kings Cross, the reconstruction of Tottenham Court Rd / Gower St plus Vauxhall, Oval, Lewisham, Victoria and Elephant and Castle. It is my view that the bus network simply cannot cope with that scale of activity. We already have nasty problems with Aldgate’s gyratory being changed plus construction sites at various places. Given the extent of changes to the rail network in S/SE London it looks like more than a double whammy for the same places when all the road works kick in and the bus network is placed under severe strain.

     If we look back at what happened this week when there was a nasty incident at Redbridge on the A406 and then another on the A13 we can see that the road network is teetering on the edge. Much of North and North East London ground to a halt plus the Blackwall Tunnel for hours as a result of those incidents. Imagine what happens when you have a rail network bursting at the seams, a road network with massive roadworks all over it and then you get a couple of nasty accidents (almost a daily occurrence somewhere in Gtr London). It’s not going to be pretty.

395. @Rayl

     I agree about the present state of East Croydon. For the volume of passengers the platforms now are really narrow. I find it quite a frightening station to use in peak hours at present because it doesn’t feel safe.

396. Pedantic of Purley – If only the DfT & Treasury had been ahead of curve dating back 20 years. Thameslink (2000) would now be in operation, Crossrail would be running if it hadn’t been delayed for a decade (or more depending on how far back you want to go with various schemes), DLR out into Essex would be ready to open plus a new bridge and DLR/Tram over the Thames, and on it goes.

     Even now when the failures to plan are causing real issues it still looks like the Bakerloo will take 20+ years to extend, a bridge is 10+ years off, LO over the Thames is a pipe dream and even a short extension to Barking Riverside sees all fun and games to get any money out of the Treasury, CR2 is on a slow-go, and the entire SE, SWT and Southern networks are not running maximum length trains for their lines, nor will they anytime soon.

397. “Much of North and North East London ground to a halt”
     35 minutes to drive from Forest Gate to Custom House. I was late!

398. Ed 23 January 2015 at 16:33
     ” Instead of the north moaning about the south ”
     The
     1) NW triangle electrification
     2) all the Northern Hub projects
     3) Transpennine north electrification
     will all be finished and available for trains before London’s Crossrail

399. @ Ed – while the government departments may well shoulder some blame for delays to schemes surely the real culprits are politicians rather than government depts? They’re the people who have objected to schemes, fillibustered in the House, implemented rail privatisation but failed to account for how big rail projects should be delivered, voted down legislation and called for public enquiries (to deal with external objections to schemes like Thameslink). If you step it back then it falls to the voters to make like difficult for politicians if we want a different transport policy. It is ludicrous that it takes so long to get things done but we get what / who we vote for.

400. @Anonylon, flickering displays – some feedback is that the fix has been turning the displays off….

     A shame that it’s apparently taken the involvement of SE’s MD (following input from the Epilepsy Society) to see any sort of action on this. There’s enough people being taken ill as it is as a result of the overcrowding

     It appears the issue may be more widespread – I’ve seen a tweet saying C2C has it on occasion too – are their displays from the same source ?

401. Alan Griffiths
     “” Instead of the north moaning about the south ”
     The
     1) NW triangle electrification
     2) all the Northern Hub projects
     3) Transpennine north electrification
     will all be finished and available for trains before London’s Crossrail”

     Electrification does not of itself improve capacity at all, and many of the trains will be the south’s hand-me-downs (Class 319s, in particular). Indeed, I strongly suspect the main reason for the DfT’s sudden enthusiasm for electrification is simply that EU emissions rules make procurement of new diesel trains uneconomic.

     The only new line proposed in all that above is the Ordsall Chord, which last I heard was bogged down in the planning consent process. Whilst it will have a transformative effect on services across Manchester, it is hardly on the scale of Crossrail. or even Thameslink 2000-and-counting.

     Where the North and Midlands are forging ahead, and London is falling behind, is extensions to their tram networks, notably in Manchester and Nottingham, and possibly Birmingham. Unfortunately London seems to have heard more about the unfortunate experiences of Edinburgh in this regard.

402. MikeP – I think just turned off until it can be fixed. Whilst I don’t work in any of the depots, so can’t say for sure in this specific case, I think it’d be unfair on the engineers to say it took the MD’s involvement to get a fix. It may have taken his input to take the decision to turn the PIS off completely, but I can assure you engineers will have been working on this since it was first noticed even if this wasn’t noticeable to passengers.

     Every fault that is reported is looked into and logged down. If no fault can be found, i.e the fault clears or doesn’t present itself when in the depot, it’ll be logged as investigated but no fault to fix (i.e if the flickering is only triggered by a station call in the PIS, which means that the train can be programmed in the depot but it may not show up). If it can be fixed, it will be there and then. If it’s not fixed in time for the start of service and it’s a fault that doesn’t affect the actual running of the train, it’ll be sent back out with a priority of getting it back later to work on it again (in this case, though, I’d have personally said sending it out is fine, but turn the PIS off completely to avoid any problems – although that needs communicating to all drivers and you then open yourself to criticism that there’s no information…)

     When the first one was noticed, it would have been looked at that night. Everything would have been done to try and fix it (if the guys in the depot could see the fault as it was). Then, presuming you can quickly identify the fault and quickly fix it, because it’s related to the software you have to update it on every single train. That’s 190 trains that need their software updating, can’t be done over one night. Not every train on the depot can be done in one night and then the next night on the depot there may not be time to do it and then the night after that it may be berthed at somewhere like Ashford or Faversham where it can’t be done, and so on.

     Haven’t a clue about any relation to C2C that you mention, but I doubt it. To me it seems like an isolated software issue relative to a new line of information put in, perhaps one bit of wrong code somewhere or perhaps messages too long? Speculating there.

     Do keep sending the Tweets on the matter to the Twitter account though (productively, of course). As I said, all feedback on everything is being looked at.

403. Walthamstow Writer – Oh yes I fully agree. By the DfT I was referring to the politicians in that department over previous years.

404. The Passenger Focus rail customer satisfaction survey as reported by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31002940), conducted between September and November 2014 reported that the 3 companies using London Bridge had the worst satisfaction scores in the country:

     “Southeastern’s satisfaction score fell 11% to 74%, while Govia Thameslink, which took over the former First Capital Connect route, was on 77%, a 2% drop. Satisfaction with Southern was also 77% but this represented a 1% improvement on 2013.”

     I suspect the only way this year is steeply down.

405. I can’t help but wonder to what extent SouthEastern’s satisfaction figures were helped downwards by an appalling piece of expectation management by the DfT and their political mistress at the announcement of the franchise extension…..

406. timbeau @ 24 January 2015 at 16:03

     Pop will tell me off if I extend this discussion, but more info can be found on the Network Rail and Transpennine express websites.

     Electric trains are now running the Manchester Airport to Edinburgh & Glasgow services, via Wigan instead of Bolton.
     There are lots of overcrowded local trains in the urban north. Any evening paper has stories, notably in relation to Bolton.

407. The PIS on my Cannon Street service this morning had no flickering but did display a potentially alarming message along the lines of “This service has been delayed by a train derailment” !! Needless to say everyone seemed to ignore it and the train was bang on time.

408. An anecdotal observation from the sharp end at Canada Water if I may.

     Though the station remains horribly congested in the peak, this week there are hopeful signs, with a much heavier loading of my northbound morning peak Overground train than I was observing last week, which suggests that people are starting to adjust to alternative routes, presumably DLR via Shadwell for City and Wharf or just walking into the City from Whitechapel or Shoreditch rather than just jamming onto the Jub platforms and hoping for the best.

     I also saw a relief 47 and 381 this evening which, though hardly jammed, did seem to be taking some people somewhere rather than just transporting fresh air like the ones I’d seen previously.

409. Alan
     “I also saw a relief 47 and 381”

     I was confused by that for a moment – a class 47 would be an odd thing to see at Canada Water station. Then I realised you have switched from trains to buses!

410. @timbeau – love the thought, that’d certainly shake me out of the morning commuter sleepwalk if one of those came growling through!

411. I saw a Manchester Stagecoach buses on the 47 on Monday. It was empty, I guess people in central London so expect a bus to be red, that they ignore any other colour schemes.

412. The Ensignbus extras between Waterloo and Canada Water seem to have vanished without trace.

413. I’ll beat ngh to the weekly update which can be found here.

     No further changes to the morning peak which suggests that here at least things are stabilising – or possibly they have run out of ideas.

     In the evening peak there is a very minor departure 2 minutes earlier for one East Grinstead service. Apart from that changes are confined to the metro services via South Bermondsey. They are mostly minor retimings but a few trains now have a couple of stations omitted.

414. @PoP: Things seem to have stabilised somewhat on the SE side too. The platforms in the afternoon are less crowded and people seem to be taking heed of the yellow boxes on P2.

     I suspect that in a few months, they might even allow entry via the escalators again from the tube station. But in general people have taken the hint: It’s a pain to go through London Bridge, so avoid if possible…

415. OK
     I’ll post without any comments this time ….

     {QUOTE: One person who does not share the views of Mr Statham is MP for Lewisham East, Heidi Alexander.

     She said: “I’m dumbfounded by the complacency of Southeastern in suggesting that they are performing well at the moment.

     “If their performance measures are telling them they are doing a good job then I’m afraid there is something seriously wrong with their measures.”

     Ms Alexander has secured a parliamentary debate on the impact of the London Bridge redevelopment on the rail services and has previously described the service as “horrendous”.

     She added: “Most commuters will understand the need for works at London Bridge whilst also feeling that services have gone from bad to abysmal.

     “Southeastern need to introduce longer trains, better communication and radically adjust their definition of good performance. ENDQUOTE]

     One question, though: does this MP actually believe that criticising SE trains is going to do any good, given the much-discussed complexity of operations here, & that NR, not SE trains are the principal agent of change?

416. @Greg: You missed out one: DfT….

417. Re PoP,

     The via South Bermondsey changes look like they are there to make sure there is a far higher probability the services make their slot at the right times, if they don’t it really causes big problems.

     The typical problem would be train A (usually a Beckenham Junction service) would be going to arrive at Tulse Hill late (knock on from earlier delays) so the signaller will pre-emptively let train B (a via Streatham service) in front.
     Train B then makes it into Platform 15 at London Bridge first and very early ie. well before Train A was meant to have departed Platform 15 on the next trip.
     Train A is stuck as P15 is in use and it is effectively blocking Train B from an easy departure again.
     The only place to put train A is in to one of the lower numbered platforms typically P10 which stops all other movements across the throat (the return movement is almost as unhelpful!).
     Train B departs slightly late having sat in P15 for 15 minutes,
     Train A departs 15-20 mins late and pick up more delay as it tries to get to South Bermondsey.
     In the mean time Train C a via New Cross Gate metro service (typically a Victoria – London Bridge service ends up sitting outside London Bridge as P10 is occupied by Train A.
     Train C also blocks Train D the next via South Bermondsey service while it waits to get into platform 10.
     A,C,D then skip stop or terminate short to try to get the back to schedule before the next service they run, trains E,F,G,H have got delayed with the extra in throat “knitting” to get the service in and out but the pm peak is already completely delayed and services only get back on schedule by 2100 a the earliest.

     The tweaks help train A make the slot on time in both directions by adding lots of slack including the ability to get in front of an LO service between Queens Road and Peckham Rye (especially in the Down direction). And a better chance of getting in front of the Thameslink services especially Northbound on the Palace – Tulse Hill section

     ” or possibly they have run out of ideas”

     Probably running out of easy ideas that wouldn’t need a complete recast (May???)

     An alternative to the above example (which happened a few times!) would be for the service that gets to P15 first to always form the next service due to depart (i.e. the departing sequence is always Beckenham Junction, West Croydon, Wimbledon) in the above case study trains A&B would effectively swap.

     [Or may be even break a railway taboo – allow Train B in the above example to depart early – it would only matter to passengers beyond Tulse Hill (i.e. the first 6 stations are the same for every service)

     The current timetable uses P14 for some services with very long dwell times (Caterham + Tattenham being the worst, Littlehampton) with 20min + dwell times which prevents the use of P14 to help with via South Bermondsey problems like it does for the rest of the day outside the pm peak (see previous discussions on this). Changing this would probably need a major time table rejig not just the many small tweaks at the moment. Given the problems only really occurring in the pm peak it suggest this is part of the problem.

     A more radical thought for improving reliability might be more flexible platforming for P10-14 in the evening peak, with platforms being allocated in the order of services arriving (this would really annoy some of the long distance passengers who queue just by the expected door positions so they can get “their” regular seat (or alternatively just get them used to the 2018 situation (i.e. many of the seats already taken) well in advance of 2018. It might need the last 2 cars worth of P10 finishing to make it work though., there are many possible hidden issues.

     Many of the problems causing delay across the network aren’t new but current LBG functionality has shone a bright light on them as the ability and flexibility to recover from them has largely been removed. (.e.g. dwell + reoccupation times at P4+5 at East Croydon + tens of others)

418. ngh 30 January 2015 at 15:22

     “Re PoP,
     the pm peak is already completely delayed and services only get back on schedule by 2100 a the earliest.”

     I hope I’m right to read 2100 as an hour and not a year.

419. Re Greg and Southern Heights.

     To link to the Kings Cross over run thread:
     Choose 2 from:
     On Budget
     On Time
     On Quality

     DfT chose one – on budget – the smallest possible one!

     As such SE are doing a very good job with both hands tied behind their back…

     To do 12 car properly would need up to around 80 4 car units but would DfT sign off on uoto £450m for the extra stock (assuming new). They are getting the 25x 4car 377 in 2 + years time so about 1/3rd…

420. @ngh
     “break a railway taboo – allow Train B in the above example to depart early – it would only matter to passengers beyond Tulse Hill ”
     But these are the people who woiuld be most inconvenienced by an early departure, because the further out you are going, the longer he gaps between services.

     Swapping rolling stock around to just form whatever is the next train out is all very well, until a train that was due for heavy maintenance that night ends up stabled in a platform somewhere – or train crew who live in Horsham end their working day in Caterham.

421. Toilets and cafe set to go in three weeks.

422. @ngh “(this would really annoy some of the long distance passengers who queue just by the expected door positions so they can get “their” regular seat”

     I suspect many of the commentators on this site fall precisely into this category! I certainly did when I commuted from Waterloo to beat the huge crush when the platform was finally announced on the concourse… it was a bit of a game although occasionally you would come unstuck with platform changes as the tannoy announcement was not made on the platform you were waiting on of course.

423. @ngh: They could pick two and only picked one… Says it all really….

424. Nice though it is to get a seat, I wish some of these people who queue on the platform before a train is advertised, especially if they are waiting for the NEXT one, would give some thought to the implications of their actions:

     Blocking passengers exiting from the incoming train.

     Blocking the driver if he’s changing ends.

     Blocking the view of the train for the dispatch train because seemingly they HAVE to
     stand over the yellow line.

     Preventing dispatch because no-one knows if they are getting on this train or the next one.

     Making attachments/detachments marginally more stressful – believe me, you don’t want to be distracted when you are doing these.

     ALL of which can add to the probable delays that we already have.

     To say nothing of how unnerving it can be for the driver when people waiting for the next train stand well over the yellow line on their phone or with headphones in. You wouldn’t believe it would be possible for anyone to ignore a 377 horn at such close quarters.

425. GTR Driver, I do agree with your points. But this is very wide-spread practice particularly where the concourse is full to bursting, and is sometimes the only method to get on the desired train, let alone get a seat. For my own sins I am comforted by the fact that my trains came empty from the depot so hopefully I am not a cause for the delays you mention! Waiting for the NEXT train is a definite no no of course. Mind you, I imagine there are similar problems with busy tube platforms.

426. Re Alan G

     9pm 😉

     Re Timbeau,

     Early departure – Partially playing devil advocate as it is a potential solution though not very palatable.
     All Southern metro services via SBM involved use 455s that go back to Selhurst, Streatham Hill (or recently Stewarts lane) after a few further trip back to LBG later when it is quieter so there is the opportunity to swap the back around again much easier than for most other southern services hence the suggestion. The journeys via South Bermondsey are all 30-40 minutes to the other Terminus and the same units usually depart from LBG 90mins after their previous departure.

     Re GTR driver

     That was firmly in my mind when suggesting the platform lottery too!

427. @ Greg – to be fair (what am I saying?) to Heidi Alexander she does take an interest in transport issues in her constituency. This is not her first swipe at South Eastern and I think she would love to see them gone and replaced with TfL control. I expect that reflects a majority view amongst her constituents (and some posters on this blog). In last week’s Sunday Politics London it was interesting to see complete agreement from a Labour and Tory MP (with London constituencies) that it was *essential* that TfL take over all London area commuter services. I was pretty surprised by that. The context was a discussion about widening the area that the Mayor of London was responsible for.

     The wider political context is that this is an ideal opportunity to take a damn good swipe at the Government and DfT. Claire Perry thinks the South Eastern direct award was a “good deal” and has made commitments to make sure South Eastern perform. She is therefore pretty much in the firing line for opposition MPs. The mess around the London Bridge changes is a chance not to be missed even though I suspect things are calming down (as you’d expect). This is not to say that passengers are having blissful journeys – clearly they aren’t doing so – but there are no easy or quick answers.

428. WW
     
     [Accusative comment claiming to speak for the majority deleted. PoP]

     Is it therefore finally beginning to percolate to MP’s & their constituents (or the other way around) that the hidden hand of the DfT have a lot to answer for?
     If so then we are living in interesting times.

429. Found this presentation from Oct/2014 – much is already familiar, but a few new (to me) bits and pieces too…

     http://www.ice.org.uk/ICE_Web_Portal/media/eastofengland/Thameslink-KO2-London-Bridge-Presentation.pdf

430. @Dave
     Thanks for link. I have missed this. I liked in particular the new configuration overlaid on top of the old layout of London Bridge.

431. @Dave – echoing Steve’s comments. Good to see broader non-rail-infrastructure info too – unsurprising given the different audience from the presentation from earlier last year. Particularly interesting are the present & modelled passenger flows. I daresay Greg might have something to say on that.

432. @ Greg – I may possess several skills but reading the minds of MPs is not one of them. I doubt many MPs understand the complex yet fine detail of the railways in this country. It’s an open question as to whether they need to have that understanding. Those with constituencies with heavy levels of rail usage / dependency on public transport will have more knowledge because there will simply be more complaints from the voters. As with most areas of knowledge there will be a few expert MPs and Lords and that’s often enough to cause trouble / pause for thought because they are able to influence their colleagues. That’s just mirroring life – there are only ever a few experts on particular subjects and the world manages just fine with that.

433. @ Dave – many thanks for sharing that presentation. That’s certainly helped my understanding of what has been done and will be done at London Bridge. Given all the comment about NR competence on other threads I noted the organograms with interest. They certainly look to be pretty logical to me and nice to see proper integration of design and assurance personnel. That will help reduce risk around getting new phases of work into service when they’re ready. I also hadn’t appreciated that the lower concourse is brought into service in three phases. It’s entirely logical when you understand the progression of work in the overall programme. For some reason I’d thought the lower concourse came into service in two stages.

434. @WW ‘For some reason I’d thought the lower concourse came into service in two stages.’
     Well it depends on what you count as open for service. The planning app. drawings show the new escalator and stairs to P15 as being open by Jan. or May 2016 (Beginning of Stage 2A). The new presentation shows access for station staff by May 2016 but makes no reference to passengers.
     After that there are two big openings. Stage 3 gives access from St Thomas St. to P7 to 15 and then fully open at completion in 2018.

435. @ RayK – Thanks – I must be confusing the staff access stage with allowing passengers in. Therefore it is two stages so far as the passengers are concerned.

436. Old & re-cycled remark, perhaps, but I notice that there still seems to be no method of crossing Tooley St in the new dispensation, except “on the flat” – across all the traffic.
     As opposed to the very useful, if aesthetically-challenged concrete footbridge that is still in place.
     Given the pedestrian volumes involved, do the authorities still think this is a good idea?

437. @Greg,

     I suspect the idea is that they are anxious for pedestrians to enter at ground level and rapidly disperse within the ground level concourse. The ugly concrete bridge makes sense at present but due to the vertical level I suspect will not do in future as it will neither be at concourse level nor at platform level – except possibly for future Southern metro passengers (Thameslink passengers will effectively be the same as SouthEastern passengers).

     My guess is that the trouble with the concrete bridge is that it will encourage passengers to arrive/leave by the London end of the platform rather than disperse along the length of them. In fact just the sort of thing that is currently causing so much problem on the Southern side of the station.

     Of course it is not just pedestrian volumes but also future traffic volumes. We also do not know what plans, if any, Southwark Council has for Tooley Street.

438. Re Greg,

     As far as I understand the Aesthetically challenged concrete footbridges are staying – they are outside the TWAO boundary.

     The architects/PR lot have apparently chosen to hide them in the renders for being ugly…
     The SE gate line will be removed from the more easterly Hays/Cottons Bridge.
     Both Bridges will effectively be for Southern passengers as SE and TL passengers go to street level first.
     The Southern passengers come of worse because they lose the escalators from the current concourse to the tube so they need to travel in the 3rd car or behind in the future and go via the new street level concourse.

439. @ngh

     Of course there will always be passengers who don’t realise they would be better in the third carriage or behind and will therefore cause contraflow movement on the platform.

440. From Melvyn 2 February at 22:02 on XMAS Kings Cross thread.
     http://www.thameslinkrailway.com/download/8872.5/improving-performance-update-feb-15/
     From Page 1
     ‘our drivers and signallers had to err on the side of caution until they were familiar with the new layout.’
     A. This implies that when they have become familiar things will get better. (What do you mean they have already become familiar?)
     B. Given the number of people affected I would have thought it would have been worthwhile setting up a simulator(s) for signallers and drivers to work in real time for practice. This would have dealt with the unfamiliarity aspect. It may also have enabled them to iron our a few of the impossibles they had assumed in. The positive affect on passenger perception of NR alone would have been worth the expense.

     Having said that one of the major problems has been the people who have buried their heads in the sand and ignored all warnings/forecasts. What no amount of simulation will do is get people to change their habits. It often requires a shock of some sort to do that.

441. ngh
     Thanks
     I know it is old hat … but I still think not having a “Reading-style” footbridge at the new station is going to be a mistake.
     We will see, won’t we?

442. Re Theban,

     Thinking about it it is possible that the passengers at the front will aim for the current SE escalators (behind gate line currently) that drop down to directly to Joiner street, I presume these are being kept for access between bus station and tube etc.

     Upper concourse might be less of an issue post 2018 as most destination stations from the terminating platforms will have 4tph direct and some of the rest 4 tph if changes included so the number of waiting passengers could be lower.

443. Ray quotes “our drivers and signallers had to err on the side of caution until they were familiar with the new layout”

     A particularly stupid choice of phrasing by a PR person. Any driver or signaller who does not “err on the side of caution” all-day every-day will hopefully get the choice of a different career offered pretty smartish, before the disaster happens.

     All they presumably mean is that the new situation will take time to bed in, as people find out which of the many fully-safe ways of operating it actually works best. A task which could in theory be achieved by simulation before the fact, but in practice the simulation is pretty sure to reflect reality slightly less than perfectly.

444. I am not sure I have seen any comprehensive plans for what is to happen at street level. Tooley Street is currently an utter mess in the morning peak: traffic is completely chocka, whereas pedestrians are struggling to fit on the narrow pavements and crossing the road without any regard to the colour of the little man on the signal – ever. Dodging all this are hundreds of cyclists trying to get to work: though the ramp up to Borough High Street is quite steep, London Bridge itself is both wide and relatively level, making it a very popular route with cyclists.

     This will need to change: I already avoid the area on my way from work (preferring to cycle across the narrow Tower Bridge rather than face hordes of commuters crossing Tooley Street). I think a pretty decent solution to this would be the creation of a one-way system around London Bridge, with a loop around St Thomas Street, Bermondsey Street and Tooley Street. Given the volume of stopping and slow traffic (buses, cycles, taxis, minicabs, deliveries, etc.) this loop should hvae one lane for general traffic, and one for those who need to stop.

     The traffic arrangement will also need to have a really wide pedestrian crossing where the main concourse opens up into the street: at present pedestrians cross as they please as there is nowhere for them to wait for the green man. I quite like the pair of large, co-ordinated crossings at Cannon Street.

445. @Straphan
     Planning Drawing 186686_1.pdf shows two large crossings on Tooley Street – one for each entrance to the new concourse. The North West one gives access to the main ‘outside the gates’ concourse. The South East one gives access to a small ‘outside’ area with just seven gates into and out of platform access. If there really are only seven ( ie not just representative drawing) I can imagine them needing to add to them sooner rather than later.

446. Am I going bonkers or are they really building up the fill levels with polystyrene blocks before casting concrete on top of them…? Is this a new construction technique…?

447. @Dave. Perfectly acceptable to cast concrete over polystyrene blocks, if the concrete is reinforced. The alternative is an elaborate and expensive temporary structure made of timber which then has to be left in place beneath the concrete. Polystyrene blocks have also been used to construct parts of road embankments where the subsoil was weak and the loads had to be kept low. The blocks are covered in normal fill material afterwards.

448. Ray K 0944

     The signallers were on simulators for a couple of months as part of their training. It is, however, difficult to simulate the variations in train service performance and driving styles.

449. SFD
     Thanks for that. It’s good to know about. Do you know if they used the simulators to try out various possible service patterns or just to get the signallers used to the new layout?

450. RayK

     Not sure if the signalling simulator allowed variations, but they did send down someone who had modelled the timetable performance. He sat with the signallers during some peak shifts and talked them through methods for getting the best out of the timetable.

451. @Dave/Fandroid – have a look at that recently referenced ICE presentation – I think the polystyrene is all about managing acceleration/deceleration forces along the track. The presentation also discusses how these are handled over the new viaducts.

452. More timetable changes next week (w/c Monday 9th Feb)

     4 AM peak service alterations this time.

     Looks like the aim is to stop delays starting off early in the peak (more padding) to prevent delays then cascading later on.

     http://www.southernrailway.com/southern/news/changes-to-london-bridgevictoria-services-from-monday-9th-february/

     The 05.52 Victoria to East Grinstead service will depart from Victoria three minutes earlier at 05.47, Clapham Junction 05.54, East Croydon 06.06, and then three minutes earlier to East Grinstead

     The 06.08 London Bridge to Uckfield service will depart from London Bridge six minutes earlier at 06.02, East Croydon 06.18, Oxted 06.33, Hurst Green 06.36, Edenbridge Town 06.42, Hever 06.46, Cowden 06.51, Ashurst 06.56, Eridge 07.01, then from Crowborough as now

     The 06.16 London Bridge to Beckenham Junction service will depart from South Bermondsey at 06.21 then four minutes earlier to Beckenham Junction

     The 06.43 Streatham Hill to London Bridge service will depart from Streatham Hill four minutes early at 06.39, West Norwood 06.42, Gipsy Hill 06.50, Crystal Palace 06.50, Sydenham 06.54, Forest Hill 06.57, Honor Oak Park 07.00, Brockley 07.03, New Cross Gate 07.06, then as now arriving at London Bridge at 07.18

453. The 05.52 Victoria to East Grinstead service will depart from Victoria three minutes earlier at 05.47

     A silly little error but it doesn’t give you confidence.

454. Or the other little error on the the 4th amended service simultaneously departing Gipsy Hill and Crystal Palace…

     The 06.43 Streatham Hill to London Bridge service … Gipsy Hill 06.50, Crystal Palace 06.50,

455. Since we are in nitpicking mood I wish they wouldn’t refer to the East Grinstead service as the Oxted service in the original press release. Worse still they refer to “one each to Oxted and Uckfield services” giving the definite impression it is only going to Oxted.

     You can imagine how this happened. Only four trains involved. No need to get it proofread. What can we possibly get wrong in listing the timings for just four trains?

456. @ngh
     “service simultaneously departing Gipsy Hill and Crystal Palace”

     Maybe an attempt to reduce costs by running one 440-car train instead of fifty-five separate eight-car ones.

457. Progress is looking good in the big pit between the low level and high level platforms.

     The demolition of the west end of platforms 5 & 6 also seems to be proceeding apace…

     Something tells me that there will no service to Charing Cross at all over Easter or the first May bank holiday. Can anyone confirm this?

     Any chance of a follow up article?

458. Re Southern Heights,

     Looks like Blackfriars diversions for both long weekends.

     I suspect that Easter is a good time to prepare for swapping the Up Charing Cross line from the current up loop (track7) to track 5 (or at least put in the track connection across the bit of P5/6 island being demolished and then bring it into service over the early May weekend for low risk approach, if it all goes well over the Easter Weekend it could be in use after that?

459. Significantly there hasn’t been an announcement of further timetable modifications this week. If this continues for a few weeks maybe we will then see the gradual re-introduction of some of the less contentious West Croydon services.

460. ngh – the May work is for the track slewing, with the 6 up slewed into old platform 5 and then onto the up CHX. The up passenger loop (track 7) will be taken OOU at this point.

461. Re anonylon
     Thanks for confirmation on the later date I suspected that might be the case.

462. Rail industry costs south of the river:

     ORR latest financial report here with plenty to digest:
     http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/16997/gb-rail-industry-financials-2013-14.pdf

     The simplest metric to see why DfT appear not to want to “invest” more in SE services compared to the other south of the Thames franchises can be seen looking at the Government subsidy per passenger km (p/passenger km) (page 43 of report)
     SE 7p
     Southern 2p
     SWT -1p

     [Northern win the basket case award on 30p for comparison]

     The key questions are how much are SE stung by HS1 costs and how much more could be collected in fares?

463. Exactly, how much does HS1 skew that? What if looking at metro routes alone? Completely unfair for London routes to avoid much needed investment despite massive population growth due to a route that goes nowhere near London.

     Plus SE metro is the one of easiest TOCs in London to avoid paying for tickets. It’s like Silverlink used to be. No on-board staff and many stations have no staff or one person for a couple of hours, and barriers are left open almost all day long if they even exist. out of about 50 stations I can think of about 6 that are difficult to avoid fare evasion.

     When a VERY rare inspection happens there is a mass exodus of people from the carriage. It’s commonly known many aren’t paying.

464. @ngh:

     I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: South Eastern are hamstrung by Kent’s status as a coastal county. Short of inventing amphibious trains, they can’t run long-distance services to anywhere, because very few places in Kent are far enough away from London to count as ‘long distance’.

     This means South Eastern has none of that lucrative “inter-city” traffic that actually makes a profit for the other TOCs you listed. South West Trains and Great Western serve Cornwall, Wales, and even the West Midlands. South Eastern get to run trains from London into such diverse destinations as Kent, Kent and, er, oh yeah: Kent.

     As metro services tend to be loss-makers, it’s hardly surprising that they’re not paying a premium to the DfT. Nevertheless, these are also the very services without which London’s economy would grind rapidly to a halt were they to cease. Hence the subsidy’s very existence.

     Now, if South Eastern were allowed to run some commuter services into France…

465. Part of me wonders whether the DfT haven’t been proactive in providing extra stock in the past because they just look at the numbers and see Southeastern has the lowest PiXC in London/SE and also has the largest fleet…

466. Easter is bringing into use lines 3 and 4 between North Kent East Junction and approximately Blue Anchor Jn, decommissioning lines 5/6/7, plus some point work and track slues at each end.

     The second set of track slues, from Blue anchor inwards, including taking the up loop line out of service at London Bridge itself, and reinstating the line through the former platform 5, happens at the late May bank holiday.

467. @anomnibus: You seem to have forgotten that a lot if not most of the Hastings line is in East Sussex… Nor do you explain the difference between Southern and Southeastern…

     Is is there a tunnel from Eastbourne or Newhaven etc..?

468. @ Southern Heights – you beat me to it. Southern are just as constrained by the sea as South Eastern are. While there are plenty of people who have had a torrid time with Southern in recent months there are two things that seem a bit different to me (as an onlooker rather than regular user). Southern’s franchise has and will continue to have “added TfL sparkle” in terms of better Metro services running later into the evening. Extra station staff have also been funded and will be retained and expanded when TSGN take over in a few months. Perhaps the Metro services on Southern are not such a financial disaster area as those on South Eastern are? Perhaps a bit more spend on the boring basics like frequency, staffing and trying to run a half decent service does bring a return? I also wonder if Gatwick and Brighton do not really have equivalents on the SE network in terms of providing very solid flows every day of the week, all week? We have discussed before the massive employment pull of Gatwick and Brighton has regular visitor / tourist / weekender flows throughout the year. The Kent Coast seaside towns don’t really replicate Brighton’s pull despite considerable efforts in recent years to pull people into Whitstable and Margate. I understand the ORR numbers are for 2013/14 so do not reflect the terms of the Direct Award for South Eastern nor the TSGN management contract. It will be interesting to see next year’s report that might reflect recent changes.

     Given Kent is supposed to the “Garden of England” you’d think that a bit of joined up promotion and sensible ticketing between South Eastern and the bus companies could pull in vast numbers of visitors to visit the many gardens, orchards, farms, villages and towns which are a bit away from the nearest station. Try getting to Great Dixter or Sissinghurst for a day using public transport and you’ll soon give up because the combined bus and rail facilities are woeful. All this could be fixed with some concerted effort. Given more and more people in London do not have driving licences or access to cars there is a growing market for “easy” days out by public transport but the transport operators and tourist organisations / owners of attractions need to work together to pull in the extra people.

469. @WW

     Indeed, the Darenth valley should be chocker with rail travellers, as its has marvelous countryside, great attractions and 3 railway stations. I’m just glad it isn’t!

     In my carless years I walked to many places across muddy fields, but I enjoy the walk as much as the destination. I’d never attempt rail+bus in Kent.

470. I’d never attempt rail+bus in Kent.
     Which is why, presumably, the K&ESLtRly extendador proposal/project is towards Robertsbridge?
     [snip PoP]
     Yes, I know there are other reasons for not going to Headcorn ….

471. Re WW, Anonylon, Eddie, Anomnibus

     FCC Government Subsidy 1p /passenger km subsidy

     So the combined TSGN should come out about 1-2p before any changes, the Rolling Stock and hence TOC cost will go up with most routes TSGN routes getting newer stock on average but there should be more passengers combined with very slightly above inflationary fare rises.

     TOC cost/passenger km
     SE 14p (may contain some HS1 track access cost?)
     Southern 10p
     FCC 7p
     SWT 8p

     At the time of the figures Southern would have had about 70% of total stock were Electrostar (377) and FCC (TL+GN) about 15% for an inkling of what stock mix might do to costs.
     Post 2018 SN (inc GatEx) moves to just under 80% 377 and T+GN moves to 95% 377/700+ new Moorgate 313 replacement stock so the TOC cost element will shoot up on that part of TSGN.

472. @Greg: It’s a project and it’s moving forwards. They have reached Junction Road on the Tenterden side, this is in use on certain special event days. The track is fully done, at the Robertsbridge side as far as Northbridge Street (not very far I know).

     Station platform construction is underway in Robertsbridge with the foundations of the water tower and station building progressing.

     So not bad really! I believe the only problem is some of the trackbed just outside of Salehurst, but from what I can tell, there’s been progress there too…

     I was down there weekend before last for a look….

473. @ngh – SE costs do include a signifcant HS1 element. Indeed, the business case for HS1 depended on use by (and cross-subsidy from) the Thanets.

     Changing the rolling stock mix shouldn’t (unless it involves IEPs!) make much difference to the total rolling stock bill, as the underlying prices for new stock have not increased significantly compared with existing kit, in recent years, and the normal application of accounting for asset depreciation will have smoothed the differences anyway.

     @WW -Come off it! You’ll be arguing for integrated transport next…

474. @ Graham H – I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I shall go and bow down at John Hibbs’ gravestone and hail the wonder that is bus deregulation. Warning – late 1980s Thames News flashback on that link.

475. @WW – that’s all right; just say three “Hail Ridleys” and keep taking the tablets.

     I concluded that every single operator and virtually all the non-London routes shown in the news clip have gone under since. Nice, too, to see old footage of a slimline Rufus Barnes… (aka the “Great Survivor”)

     In view of the serious risk of Nostalgia, I will stop there…

476. Re Graham H
     SE – The HS1 track access cost would presumably show up in the TOC cost and not get added in to the NR cost as a special adjustment for comaprison purposes? – the NR cost is also high…

     Rolling stock.
     I assumed there would be some difference in leasing costs (average circa 30% of TOC cost) between ex-BR stock and and anything in the last 15years procured new by the ROSCOs or there wouldn’t be much ex-BR Stock left?
     There hasn’t exactly been much investment in the GN 313s or TL 319s (until the last year).

477. @ngh – yes, the HS1 costs wouldn’t show up in the NR access charges.

     Comparative rolling stock costs are bedevilled by the Rothschild indifference pricing formula which was designed to stop exactly the problem you describe (and so underpin the sales price of the ROSCOs). The trouble with that has been that, in the absence of a liquid market in rolling stock, once the price mechanism is rigged in that way, it is very very difficult to move to market pricing. Worse,bankers do not set – indeed, have to set – leasing prices with regard to the market. These prices are set by reference to an expected earning power of the assets – and those in turn are set by historical precedent. So, if the thing has earned £400k per coach pa in the past, it is expected to go on doing so for the rest of its life. Again. this regime can really be broken only if there was any serious liquidity on the supply side. (I have in fact studied this for a number of finance houses, and it is very difficult to demonstrate that the situation will change over the foreseeable future – why should it? For liquidity to emerge, the taxpayer would have to fund a float of rolling stock and that’s lot going to happen any time soon….) The banks are laughing all the way to the – err — bank.

478. @Graham H – “For liquidity to emerge, the taxpayer would have to fund a float of rolling stock”

     You mean all that sort of rolling stock we used to see in sidings ready to be brought out ‘at a moment’s notice’ for high days and holidays, diversions and other emergency cover and even, perish the thought, to accommodate regular peak requirements? What a retrograde thought I have, thinking that those days were better….

479. As previously mentioned, carriage allocations have been altered where possible. Changes will begin from this Sunday 8th March (read – Monday 9th March).

     http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/your-journey/timetables/march-service-changes/

480. Re Anonylon,

     Not much surprise that mostly Cannon Street services get lengthened and Charing Cross services shortened (given that there seemed to be plenty of standing room on some Charing Cross services).

     At least they outline the full changes an which services are going to lose capacity in detail.

481. I don’t know why the 16:56 Cannon Street to Sevenoaks is lengthened, there are normally spare seats after leaving LBG… It’s the next two that are overloaded….

482. No changes to train lengths on HS1 apparently. The problem seems to be that you can have either 6 or 12 coaches but none in between (that is my observation not a technical explanation..). So, in an attempt to introduce better frequency to more stations and with more stops, trains are fuller and taking longer than previously. No one has a right to a seat of course but without additional stock before too long HS1 will become as crowded as the metro and mainline services which takes away the appeal especially when there is only a modest time saving to be had compared to the traditional routes once you factor in where you need to get to in London.

483. @SHLR – If you can track the diagram of the 16.56 through the working timetable, it may be that its next outward working requires the longer train and there is insufficient time to add the extra stock.

484. @Phil
     Class 395s are six-car units – they can’t be formed in anything other than multiples of six. No other SE units can work on HS1 – incompatible signalling, and no capability to take power from the overhead.

485. Graham H and SHLR – will see if I can find out. My first thought was what you say, Graham. It goes on to form the 19:0X from Charing Cross, so may be easier to attach the 2 beforehand instead. Not having the diagrams to hand right now I can’t check.

486. @ Timbeau
     As I suspected. In which case it seems to be something of a fundamental error by adding more stations and stops using the limited stock and fixed 6/12 formations. I suppose they ordered so many at the outset without really knowing how well HS1 would be used but I would say even over the course of the last year it feels that passenger numbers have really ramped up. Don’t know if this is the same on the other lines or if they were already too busy to notice greater numbers.

487. Phil – I think the problem is that if you don’t add the extra stops (Deal, Sandwich, Snodland) you’re ‘ignoring’ the wants of your passengers. And if you want to take away some stops, to speed up overall journey times from other stations, there’ll be mass outrage at the reduction of service level. Those extra stops at Gravesend, though, are on services with room to accommodate the extra passengers.

     If HS1 to Hastings gets anywhere (!) then ultimately more stock will have to be ordered. There are doubts as to whether Hitachi would be willing to manufacture more 395s, but Southeastern have always committed to prepare the business case for more stock if so.

     Graham and SHLR – I’m none the wiser, I’m afraid. Current diagrams see 16:56 (and all other services on its diagram for the whole day) as 8 car. The only thing I can think of is if those 2 carriages are needed at the depot where that train ends up for the next morning, but that’s a stab in the dark.

488. Signal problems and a trespasser on the line yesterday afternoon cause chaos on the Southern side of London Bridge

     http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-bridge-commuters-leap-barriers-to-escape-overcrowding-amid-rush-hour-chaos-10083409.html

489. As yesterday’s Evening Standard shows:
     http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-bridge-commuters-leap-barriers-to-escape-overcrowding-amid-rush-hour-chaos-10083409.html
     It was much worse than that …
     However, this also shows that something, somewhere is fundamentally wrong, or more accurately, missing from the running & operation of the station.
     Namely, that there seems to be no joined-up plan, thinking or cmutual communication at all.
     As far as can be made out, “Southern” & NR are playing a blame-game of pass-the-parcel, between each other, whilst actually, err, doing something useful is not happening.
     Assuming the reports are correct, having the trains arriving & leaving half-empty, whilst passengers are confined in dangerous crush conditions, with barriers deliberately closed is, to say the least a major mistake.
     Usual caveats about reporting accuracy apply.

490. Greg,

     The Mayor said much the same thing on the BBC local news last night. He complained bitterly about the chain of command and the fact that there seemed to be no one person responsible. Sadly I can’t find the interview on the BBC website.

     I am now pondering as to whether or not you will be pleased that the Mayor endorses your sentiments and you have an ally in him (no reply necessary or wanted).

491. Although the situation at London Bridge was extreme, it seems normal practice at times of disruption to hold everyone penned in the concourse of terminal stations, whilst there are acres of empty platforms, as the controllers dither about which platform each train will go from until the very last minute, necessitating a mad scramble through all the crowds still waiting for other trains when the train is announced, a head-on scrum at the barrier line as the people going for their train come into conflict with the people who have just arrived on the incoming service, uneven loading as people sense the train is about to leave and haven’t time to get down the platform to the front of the train, and the last people to get to the platform therefore being unable to board because the rear carriages are full and the right away is give before they can get further down the train.

     Why can’t “control” decide – and announce – which train will be the next to leave from each platform as soon as the previous one has cleared it?

492. Re Greg,

     (Being a regular user of London Bridge and having been there at the time of all the crowding incidents so far, I even got 7 seconds of fame during the BBC clip while using the smart phone to see what was going on!).

     There was disruption Monday evening as well (not as bad) so people (and press) were prepared.

     1.. At 1600 and early peak due to earlier signal problems (x2) some services were arriving and departing 5-10 minutes late. others were running on time. Suddenly because of the Streatham incident some inbound trains were cancelled or arrived upto 90 minutes late leading to a build up of passengers who trains weren’t there. After 1730 only services via Tulse Hill seemed to be running with the via New Cross Gate service cancelled or disrupted until just before 1810 and running 30-45mins late after that till virtually the last services. Anything using the fasts at East Croydon was very disrupted, Caterham and Tattenham services on the ECR slows were less disrupted (some virtually on time!)
     [The Windmill Jn rebuild would have helped here see Sussex Part 7.]

     2. The platform and station staff are from NR and the 2 TOCs so it appears difficult to be flexible as in the BR era with the available staff as needed.

     3. The NR response was far better than the January incidents. They had already closed some of the front doors and the most gates to slow the flow down as soon they could after trains didn’t appear but things kept getting worse (no trains arriving) so they started closing more gates and preparing to close the remaining entrances (2 front doors and the escalators from the tube station). It appeared to take about 10 people (NR and BTP) to close each entrance (excluding staffing them after closure) with this one team closing the 3 entrances consecutively. The current measures for slowing entry form the tube station probably need looking at as that seemed to be the biggest issue.

     4. When the doors were closed it was actually ok crowding wise (unless you wanted to move anywhere!)

     5. When trains started arriving and being advertised passengers couldn’t get to them and started getting frustrated this is when the gate vaulting was happening for 5-10minutes max. Passengers wanting to get home on train they can actually see was the problem.

     The twitter photos used by the press could only have been taken during the worst 5 minutes
     I endured far worse crowding daily on the Moscow Metro without any safety issues or incidents – the coverage was OTT.

     6. After 2-3 trains had left the crowding dropped and everything improved, more gates opened, the platforms and concourse emptied.

     No more “exciting” photos to be had…

     7. the train (5th one after the long gap?) I got on was quieter than normal because the most of the passengers were on the forecourt but the others were very busy (some brave Southern staff doing the equivalent of a Japanese style white glove job on the last carriage of s South Coast service to help the doors on the 377 close!)

     8. Passengers need to be diverted away from London Bridge far far earlier if there are issues i.e. info boards on the pavement before they get to Monument Station and cross the bridge (and closer ones too).

     9. NR need to have multiple teams to close or restrict all entrances quicker (simultaneously not just sequentially)

     10. During pm peak disruption might the best option be to make exit via the Fire escapes at the Country end?

     11. The Southern Drivers unofficial work to rule over rest day working has lead to a number roof cancellation recently and probably didn’t help on Tuesday evening either. They needs to be pool of drivers at London Bridge (TSGN long term aim?) to help during disruption as lots of trains sitting in platform with no drivers (also during Mondays disruption). All Pool drivers should be trained on via Tulse Hill routes so they could pilot long distance services out via that route.

     12. Commuters in the pm peak don’t just disappear or chose to work from home instead so you need to work out how to store or divert 100k passengers before most get near the station. Choosing the “X” is already too busy option doesn’t work so we won’t sent them there because users will do it any way!

     13. TOC apps to feature PUSH based accurate info when disruption occurs including a disruption-o-meter pie chart for key stations red= %cancelled, yellow/amber shades= % delayed, green = %<5minutes delayed based on accurate predictions with bit of human overwrite (aka the big red button) if needed.

493. With regard to the pre-announcement of platform information, presumably this ceases at times of disruption because it is genuinely not known, and cannot be calculated, which platform will be used.

     In some other countries, they are much more cavalier about announcing platforms, and then changing them. On a recent trip to Europe, I had this happen to me at Hamburg, and also at Koebenhavn. Of course, not having gatelines is rather helpful for the panic traipse from platform X to platform Y.

494. Re Malcolm,

     This appears to be an issue during disruption as there are only 4 full length (12 car) at the moment so it can be very tricky to platform some of the “Mainline” services after a little disruption (i.e. train but no driver in 1 or 2 of those platforms) as it become 1 in 1 out which then causes queues on the approaches and more problems. Getting P10 to full length would be helpful for flexibility.

     Realistically August 2016 before we see a big improvement on the Southern side with the partial street level concourse opening.

495. @Malcolm
     “In some other countries, they are much more cavalier about announcing platforms, and then changing them”
     But at least it would be easier to change platforms if the concourse was not so crowded. And at many stations you don’t need to go through the barrier line to change platforms – Waterloo for example – and indeed London Bridge: although information about other platforms can be scanty once you are through the barriers.

     I don’t understand your “because it is genuinely not known, and cannot be calculated, which platform will be used” The platforming is not controlled by inscrutable supernatural forces, but by human beings. The problem is that they are only concerned with managing the trains, and do not have visibility of the people using them. Unfortunately they appear to be held in such awe by the staff “on the ground” that the lack of communication of their plans to the poor mugs who are paying for the service (and without whom here would be no point in running the trains in the first place) is accepted without question.

     However serious the disruption, they must be working to some plan, however extempore. All I ask is that they share it with us.

496. @timbeau

     Well if the signaller’s plan is “I am going to send train A, B, C or D into platform 5, whichever comes first”, then communicating that to the ground staff or to the passengers will not help at all.

     Actually I do not know exactly what goes on in signalling centres in times of disruption, and probably only those who have actually worked there do have sufficient understanding to comment definitively on questions like this. I am guessing, as perhaps most of us are. But my guess is that if the signallers had firm information about what trains would be on what platform, they would share it. Whereas your guess seems to be that they do know, but for some reason are withholding that information. That might be the case, but it does not seem very likely to me.

497. Re Malcolm,

     Those in signalling centers are unlikely to have all the relevant facts for example if the drivers for trains A & B are coming in on train C for the order would have to be A,C,B with B held some so it could get in the way.

498. I must admit, following this, I get the impression that people have a strange idea of how this works – or maybe I have got this wrong. It is many, many years since I worked at a station.

     The terminating platforms at London Bridge are controlled from Three Bridges regional operating centre which I presume has the very latest software. At a place like London Bridge trains would not have a route set to be routed out of a platform by either the signaller or the software until the all vital TRTS (train ready to start). This button (normally on the platform and protected by a key switch) would not be pressed until the train, complete with driver, and guard if necessary, was just waiting for signal clearance. To have it any other way would potentially cause one missing driver to lock up the entire throat to the station in the worst case scenario.

     Now if the signaller has a train waiting outside the station and no free platform and there is known disruption it makes a lot of sense to get that train into the first platform available – especially if there are further trains behind it. All he can do is wait for that button to be pressed. That of course depends on the driver being in place and of course at times of disruption you want people to get on the train to clear the platforms and the concourse but at the same time you also want to get the train away as quickly as possible.

     So the signaller (or the software) is waiting for that vital button. As soon as it is pressed one would expect the route to be set into that platform for the first train (assuming of course that the platform is long enough) even though it has not yet been made available. My understanding (which may be wrong) is that the system then spews out the information to all and sundry including the Network Rail Enquiries arrival information on the National Rail website as to the next arrival at that platform. It should then be the case that the departure information can be displayed once the current train has departed from the platform – but this may be deliberately suppressed for various “operational reasons”.

     Maybe Straphan can confirm or correct me.

499. Re PoP,

     My point was iillustrative – the “perfect” decision during disruption can never be made (on purpose at least) as the information needed for choosing overall optimum outputs isn’t available to those doing it. As you illustrate they have a limited data set of information. The traditional solution of extra capacity (platforms/drivers etc) for maximum flexibility to work round issues has been pared to the bone.

     (Unless you start tracking Drivers & Guards (passively if you know what service they are currently operating) or their company mobile devices if they have signed on but are traveling between services they are operating/waiting at terminus etc. to predict real time availability on upcoming services.).

500. DfT apparently considering a London Bridge compensation scheme:

     http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31749063

     The Conservative MP for Mid Sussex, Sir Nicholas Soames, told the House of Commons: “We all want to see improvements to these stations”.

     But he said Network Rail’s “deplorable failure” to manage the scheme and train operators’ timetable failings had caused “inexcusable delays” for his constituents.

     “Will you consider giving all those people who have had to travel into London Bridge during this period a compensation on the cost of their tickets to reflect the very, very serious conditions that they’ve had to deal with?” he asked Ms Perry, the MP for Devizes.

     The Conservative rail minister replied: “The reason the government is spending £38bn is for passenger improvements and I completely agree what is required is a compensation scheme and that is something we are currently looking at.“

     Might have been cheaper and more useful to spend it up front on actual mitigation!

501. @Malcolm
     “Well if the signaller’s plan is “I am going to send train A, B, C or D into platform 5, whichever comes first”

     As there are usually only one or two tracks until very close to the station throat, the order trains are going to arrive is usually readily predictable. I think it’s more likely that, as PoP says, that the signaller’s plan is “I am going to send train A (the first in the queue) into platform 1, 2, 3, or 4, whichever comes free first”.
     But that doesn’t explain a sea of free platforms (no trains) with no indication of which train is going to use it next.

     @poP
     “at times of disruption you want people to get on the train to clear the platforms and the concourse but at the same time you also want to get the train away as quickly as possible.”
     But these desiderata are not in conflict. How better to get the train away quickly than to have the people already on the platform waiting for it to come in? And how better to keep the concourse clear than to have as many people as possible on the platform as soon as possible?
     And if a platform alteration is required, it’s much easier to cross the concourse from one platform to another if there is no-one else on the concourse.

     @ngh
     “Those in signalling centers (sic) are unlikely to have all the relevant facts for example if the drivers for trains A & B are coming in on train C”
     Why should they not have those facts?
     I have been told, in all seriousness, that they can’t allocate a train and crew to a service until both have arrived (all three when there is a guard), as one or other of them may not be ready to go out again. With modern communications technology, there is no reason why the availability of both crew and rolling stock for an outward service cannot be determined whilst they are working their respective inbound services. If a crew member needs to go off duty, or there is a fault on the rolling stock, the crew should let Control know whilst hey are queuing up to get in, not spring it on them after arrival.

502. timbeau @ 10.24
     Why can’t “control” decide – and announce – which train will be the next to leave from each platform as soon as the previous one has cleared it? There’s an answer to that, a word beginning with “s” – but I’d better not say it …..

     ngh
     Passengers wanting to get home on train they can actually see was the problem. Yes, & I happen to think this is inexcusable – but see your own point #2 “NR + 2 TOC’s … ”

     PoP
     Entirely correct< I think … but …
     A train pulls in to a platform to turn around. The signallers ( @ 3 Bridges in this case) know what that train-set is going to form on its return outward journey.
     Yet it appears that said information is not getting to either the platform staff or the passengers.
     Why not, & what can/should be done about this failing?

503. @ngh
     “Unless you start tracking Drivers & Guards (passively if you know what service they are currently operating) or their company mobile devices if they have signed on but are traveling between services they are operating/waiting at terminus etc. to predict real time availability on upcoming services”

     But why is this not done already as a matter of course? Since someone in the system must know that Driver X is driving train 1B34, and the whereabouts of train 1B34 can be found on National Rail’s public website, (never mind the information available to the operator itself), it shouldn’t take a Sherlock Holmes (or a Mystic Meg) to work out where Driver X is.

504. Timbeau, I too don’t understand why the locations of drivers and guards is not known given that everyone works to a schedule of some description and the location of every train is (in theory!) known.

     However, I don’t think it’s fair to talk about front line staff being “in awe” of control’s decisions…every employee has a job description which outlines the limits of their authority and autonomy…you may find that front line staff just don’t have the authority to make and challenge seemingly poor decisions.

505. @GTR driver
     No indeed: it is for management to be told of the problems and get them fixed.

     I don’t know whether front line staff are too in awe of management to raise the issue, or management are in awe of the supposed dark arts of the boffins in Control, or both.

506. Timbeau,

     But these desiderata are not in conflict. How better to get the train away quickly than to have the people already on the platform waiting for it to come in?

     Based on that comment I find it hard to believe that you have ever, once even, actually used the current London Bridge station in the evening peak. What you have totally failed to grasp is that already on these trains, especially on a Thursday or Friday evening, there are a lot of people already on the train trying to get off. That is why they have the pig pen for passengers wishing to depart from platform 15. A photo showing this can be found within London Bridge: The First Sign Of Things To Come. If you can’t understand why not allowing for the passengers getting off is fairly disastrous then re-read John Bull’s account of the problems at King’s Cross this Christmas.

507. Meant to add that what is possible to be done about this conflict (that apparently isn’t) has already been done. So I used to have a direct train at about 5 p.m. starting from Tattenham Corner to London Bridge. Now the train (and subsequent peak ones) supposedly runs only to Purley. In practice they run to Purley where all the passengers are turfed off. Even by Purley it has picked up a fair few London bound passengers. The train then runs fast to New Cross Gate where it waits in the newly installed loop north of the station before picking up its original timing to arrive at London Bridge. All this so that a) passengers for the outbound service can wait on the platform b) the train can with a fair amount of certainty depart on time providing there isn’t other disruption.

     Meanwhile a few minutes after arrival, the passengers previously turfed off who haven’t decided to go via Victoria or Blackfriars now have a chance to observe the very train they got off at Purley because it was announced that “this train terminates here”. And before anyone asks, they do make sure everyone has got off.

     You can rest assured the issues affecting London Bridge station occupy a lot of senior management time. If there was a simple solution they would have implemented it by now. When a relatively simple solutions have been available, like reinstating some of the platform screens or minor timetable changes, they have expedited them pretty promptly for the most part.

508. @Anonylon: Many thanks follow for trying to find out… I guess I will have to content myself with being able to have a snooze on the way home during my normal journey home, after all there will be plenty of room for me to use three seats and have a lie down… I may tempted to put a pillow in my backpack…

     I’ll have to see when I get back next week!

509. I’ve heard some changes will be made to the London Bridge Low Level concourse by next week, not sure what though as it was a passing conversation.

     SHLR – colleague says it looks like the extra carriages on yours are so that they end up at Grove Park depot that night, so they can lengthen the 06:15 from Hayes and 08:17 from Sevenoaks the next morning (both services same diagram, stock originates at Grove Park). I think that highlights the complexities of how hard it is to just lengthen one or two services by two carriages – it involves diagramming the whole day before differently too.

     (p.s I’ve seen pillow wielding passengers before!)

510. Re anonylon,

     Hopefully it includes installing the “missing” monitors.
     The platform of my service tonight was announced on the “next fastest to” board but not the main ones as these can quickly fill with delayed services so you can’t see ones that are actually leaving on time. This will probably have been an issue on Tuesday as well.

     The crowd barriers on the forecourt have already been revised.

     Aparently the passenger numbers on Tuesday were much higher than normal due to Victoria and LO via NXG suspension due to a broken down LO service

511. @pop 1557 yesterday
     Apologies: my comments were about terminal operation in general and I appreciate that London Bridge with its narrow platforms is a more extreme case than the station I am most familiar with, Waterloo – where a particular problem is the sheer width of the concourse, making for some very long treks through the throng of people if your next train is at the far end (Shepperton and Loop trains in particular can go from platform 1, or from platform 19!) and you are given ninety seconds notice of its departure (not unusual). But even there the number of incoming passengers in the evening peak is enough to cause problems with conflicting flows, and delays in turnaround time as boarding passengers have to make space, and time, for them to get off.
     If the platforms at LBG are really so crowded that people can’t make space for incoming passengers to alight, the holding pen seems a necessary compromise. But the train still needs to be announced in plenty of time so that people can go to the right pen. Airports do it – we have probably all experienced the “hurry up and wait” strategy of calling you to the gate long before the plane is actually ready for you.

     This is going to be three years of aggro at London Bridge, for very little gain except for the Thameslink passengers (and they are being sent round the houses via Tulse Hill for the duration). I can’t help wondering if it’s all going to be worth it.
     For the first 150 years of its existence, the Brighton Line terminated at London Bridge and passengers for the City either walked or crossed over to Cannon Street – and for 80 years passengers for Kings Cross used the Northern Line. That was they way it was for generations. Then, thirty years ago, at a low point in rail ridership levels, the Snow Hill Link reopened. In order to find enough traffic for it, the only-recently-singled connection to Metropolitan Junction was [pressed into use to extend a few Brighton line trains.
     Now the tail is wagging the dog. And demand on the original LCDR route via Elephant can’t be satisfied because of the big Brighton Line cuckoo that has been let into Blackfriars – not to mention the loss of all Greenwich-Charing Cross services.
     If you take into account all the aggravation, delay and inconvenience, not just at London Bridge but throughout the core, it might have been cheaper simply to dig a new Crossrail-type tunnel between, say, Bermondsey and Barbican.

512. re Timbeau,

     It should start to improve significantly at very latest by the August ’16 blockade (i.e. max 18 months of the worst disruption per route) as the P10 and 15 will be full width and the hoarded off escalator spaces will have escalators and be in use along with the southern part of the new concourse in use thus allowing segregation of entry and exit if desired/needed. The new Charing Cross platforms will be in use so the disruption on the SE side should be less with the Cannon Street services not calling than currently.

513. @Timbeau

     The best strategy at Waterloo can be to get the very first train to Vauxhall and change there onto the actually desired train.

514. Closing the gates seems like the wrong move. When congestion gets that bad it would be better to abandon gate lines entirely and lock them open to make passenger flows as elastic as possible.

515. @ngh – Don’t forget that the escalators of which you write on the Southern side, bar Platform 10, will only be single escalators, so one crowd or another will have to descend/climb the stairs all the way between street level (that’s far down below on Tooley Street level) and platform.

     To remove the present escalators at the front of the Southern side will be another mistake in the making. I can guess that those who want the Underground from the terminating platforms will try to avoid that shiny new concourse with all its promised bling and access the Underground from the front of the station simply because the walk will be less than otherwise and thus more than today if enticed to use the new concourse.

     There’s a logic used by Theban at 00.34 which I have seen. Unblock the ‘health & safety barrier’ temporarily put in place by those following ‘the (imperfect) rules’ for fear of the worst and the crush of people sort themselves out.

516. @Theban
     three flaws with that:
     – The secrecy at Waterloo about which is going to be the next train out.
     – The difficulty of boarding any train at Vauxhall, when both the platform and the train you are trying to board are packed full.
     – (specific to Loop/Shepperton passengers) the difficulty of determining whether the next train will be on platform 3 or platform 8 at Vauxhall, and then getting there before the train has left.

517. “secret” departures …
     Yes, well, Waterloo isn’t the only place to do this.
     Paddington performs this operation too
     And it can result in some very angry shouting matches between the passengers (who have run up from the lawn to p-f’s 13+) & the platform staff, trying to close the doors in the faces of said passengers, who had less than 3 minutes warning (at the lawn) of which platform the train was supposed to leave from.
     Very clever, not.

518. Timbeau,

     If you take into account all the aggravation, delay and inconvenience, not just at London Bridge but throughout the core, it might have been cheaper simply to dig a new Crossrail-type tunnel between, say, Bermondsey and Barbican.

     I suspect with what we now know, the expected increase in passenger numbers and tunnelling advances, more consideration would have been given to that option if the issue were to be decided today – especially if there wasn’t a (much delayed) scheme already on the drawing board. If Thameslink 2000 had been implemented in the late 1990s, as planned, I believe you wouldn’t have been writing this.

     Nevertheless, London Bridge was becoming less and less fit for purpose so unless passenger numbers remained steady or declined, you would have probably have had to rebuild London Bridge anyway. Certainly the area would be due for resignalling which couldn’t be avoided – as acknowledged in the Audit Commission’s report.

     There is also the issue of serving London Bridge. The area is becoming a major destination in its own right (think Shard) from all directions and, as the first Thameslink public inquiry acknowledged, to not serve London Bridge, really killed the case for the scheme. The trouble is, as also acknowledged from that public inquiry, was that London Bridge was very difficult to serve without putting the platform tunnels very deep underground -very expensive and inconvenient for all. We have been through this before.

     Captain Hindsight always has 20/20 vision but I believe that, based on the information available at the time, the most appropriate decision was made given the facts then available.

519. @PoP

     I don’t think it is just Captain Hindsight speaking. I think 6 through platforms would have been sufficient in which case it’s hard to see why such major works at London Bridge were necessary. I recall the early presentations to Londoners about the London Bridge redevelopment. At the time I commuted in to London Bridge daily. The original presentation wasn’t about the operational needs but about a shiny new station for the area. I suspect that the reason for the current mayhem is that 20-odd years ago somebody had a vision for a modern station at London Bridge. It would, at a certain level, have been understandable. In comparison to the Shard, London Bridge was becoming so shabby as to be a drag on redevelopment. I don’t think it is coincidental that the Guys Hospital tower has also been reclad. I think, if one digs deep enough, a very large component of the original rationalisation for the London Bridge scheme is aesthetics.

     As with your comment on the cycling thread about the Green Party is is hard at this stage to follow a trail of cause and effect but I think any discussion of justification for the London Bridge works is incomplete if it fails to include aesthetics as a significant driver in the early stages.

520. @Timbeau

     I hadn’t identified that there was a specific problem with the Shepperton Loop. Sorry.

521. I would like to add to PoP’s words. Something existing for 150 years is not really a reason for nothing to ever change, is it? One of the major issues with our railway is that so much of it has been preserved in aspic thanks to decades of underinvestment, but the world outside has altered. There is effectively a third city centre in the Docklands. The South Bank area is far more active. As are Kings Cross and Farringdon. To say nothing of the Eurostar terminal. All connected by Thameslink. The City itself no longer dies completely after 6pm and at weekends. London Bridge could not have remained the same. Reopening the connection to Farringdon gave us a way of reducing the pressure on the terminating side of London Bridge and whole new underground line which has been a victim of its own success. And it’s not just about commuters arriving to work in the City. It’s about all the easier connections to other places that a frequent all day Thameslink service offers.

522. Theban, six through platforms are enough if you don’t want any Thameslinks at peak times or don’t want to want to divert any more services from the South Central network through to the core. Or are happy to see one Charing Cross bound train at platform six constantly hold up the trains behind it. As in, the unsatisfactory situation we had previously. Sometimes I suspect most of the posters on this forum don’t really want Thameslink at all so I can guess how they might respond to the above, but, the fact is that terminating platforms create bottlenecks, passengers frequently want to travel beyond London Bridge, and the six through platforms couldn’t handle the existing throughput due to the increasingly long dwell times. Hence the current scheme. And what’s wrong with being concerned about aesthetics? I give you some previous horrors – CLASP, the quite unbelievably ugly overbridge at London Bridge, the Holborn Viaduct demolished in 1990, Euston, the now removed extension at Kings Cross etc etc.

523. Theban,

     I suspect that the reason for the current mayhem is that 20-odd years ago somebody had a vision for a modern station at London Bridge.

     That someone was the inspector in charge of the first Thameslink public inquiry who gave one of his three reasons for rejecting it as the fact that merely modifying the existing dilapidated* London Bridge station was totally inappropriate for a major gateway London terminus.

     *probably not the exact word he used but it conveys the sentiment

     As noted by GTR driver, six through platforms would be woefully inadequate. Even the old arrangement really needed eight (CX up island, CX down island, CS up island, CS down island) to cope with the ever increasing dwell times. You think six is all that is needed but I would say ideally one would have ten and have completely segregated Cannon St Up and Cannon St Down island platforms. Unfortunately, with the space available and the tight curves that would be required, this really wasn’t practical.

524. @pop
     “If Thameslink 2000 had been implemented in the late 1990s, as planned, I believe you wouldn’t have been writing this.”
     Quite so – running fast to keep up, and fighting the next war with the weapons designed for the last one, have always been the bane of the railways.
     If Thameslink 2000 had been completed in – errrm – 2000, in anticipation of the upturn in passenger numbers instead of in reaction to it, it would have been a lot easier to achieve.

     Moreover, the attempt to re-use existing 150-year old infrastructure to get a second Crossrail on the cheap, rather than building new RER/Crossrail-type tunnels between the north and south London termini, has not only caused huge disruption whilst its done, but the final result will be saddled with awkward constraints like the flat junctions south of Blackfriars and at Wilberforce Junction (aka Canal Tunnel junction) – not to mention a Central London main line station with no Tube connection.
     I am reminded of the oft-repeated reasons why extending the Drain and/or NCL are Not A Good Plan, and why a roughly parallel Crossrail 2 is proposed instead. Not to mention the missed opportunities not to have built the two post-war Tube lines to main line gauge.
     But we are where we are, and the station will have to operated in the middle of a building site for several years. But it is disingenuous of the operators to try to mollify travellers by saying it will all be worth it in the end. That is small consolation to today’s travellers, many of whom – even if they are daily commuters – will have moved house, or changed job, or retired, before the project is complete.
     For the same reason I am unimpressed with the argument that fares have to go up to pay for future improvements – that amounts to a cross-subsidy from today’s travellers to those of tomorrow. Ford don’t put up the price of a superannuated model in order to fund the development of the new one: on the contrary they discount it to try and keep it selling. The development costs are funded by borrowing, which they expect to be paid off by the money made from the new model.

525. Realtimetrains will let you know the expected platform and confirm when your train is “at platform”. This is often flagged up well before the indicator boards show the platform number. Follow the link above as an example. It works for all the terminals.

     I often have family members phone me from the concourse to ask which platform to go to.

526. timbeau,

     I still think that overall Thameslink will be worth it in the end. The idea of it not happening is worse than a bit of disruption – all be it bad disruption. By 2018 that will probably be forgotten about. You also have to take into account the level of disruption that would have happened anyway to introduce longer trains (we could have hardly managed without) and to replace the mass of 40 year old signalling in the larger London Bridge area.

     As an illustration of the point about how quickly things are forgotten, before Thameslink had any impact on it, the notorious platform 6 at London Bridge was absolutely struggling on a daily basis to be anything like adequate for all the services that were using it and delays beyond five minutes in the morning rush hour were the norm not the exception. The Southeastern side appears to be running much better than before the Thameslink works. Apart from increased reliability there is also the fact that as well as losers there are in fact winners – anyone who get a direct train to Waterloo East or Charing Cross is currently substantially better off.

     Of course there is always the generation thing where one generation suffers to benefit the next generation. On could also ask how may people currently inconvenienced will benefit from the scheme at the end of it. It seems to me some groups of beneficiaries are distinct from some groups that have been inconvenienced. Not for the first time with Thameslink have we seen inconvenienced groups complain and groups that benefit stay silent simply because they do not yet realise that they will eventually benefit.

     I can only speak personally when I say that for me the ultimate benefits should far outweigh any suffering in the meantime.

527. Ianvisits the Bermondsey Diveunder http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015/03/07/a-look-at-bermondseys-railway-dive-under-construction-site/

528. I don’t agree that 6 through platforms were inadequate. The problem lay more in how they were used. The Bermondsey dive under and Borough Market widening do make sense and if platforms 1/2 had been dedicated to Canon St, platforms 3/4 to Thameslink and platforms 5/6 to Charing Cross things would have worked much more smoothly.

     More might have been better, but with segregation six should have sufficed.

529. @Theban

     Two platforms will suffice for the Thameslink services with a single class of stock using them; the Class 700s. This class will have high acceleration, fast opening wide doors, large vestibule areas and wide aisles. However for the Charing Cross and Cannon Street services two platforms would not suffice for either as they are served by mixed class stock with many having lower acceleration, slow opening and narrower plug doors and smaller vestibules and aisles.

530. Theban,

     I don’t agree that 6 through platforms were inadequate. The problem lay more in how they were used.
     What do you mean? That they were used for people getting on and off trains too much? A train could easily take a minute a platform 6 just to allow passengers to alight and board. You really ideally need two platforms for each non-Thameslink line just to maintain throughput.

     There is no point in widening the viaduct at Borough Market if you can’t pump additional trains through it. And you can’t pump additional trains through it if capacity is throttled by having just one platform at London Bridge per through line.

     Applying a similar logic, one could make do with just four platforms at East Croydon.

531. i.e. Significantly longer dwell times.

532. Time for a few facts

     The ban – London Bridge through platforms need 90 second dwell times because of the number of passengers getting on AND off. The signalling permits 90 second ‘reoccupation’ ie a train starts moving, and 90 seconds later the wheels of the next train stops. Therefore 3 minutes per train. Therefore max 20 tph per platform per direction with no scope for recovering any delay (even 1 second).

     So a pair of platforms serving each of CHX and CST restricts those termini to 20 trains an hour. Which trains are permanently cancelled?

     Re Tuesday. It was exceptional and unprecedented. The lines out of Victoria were effectively closed from 1615 to 1705, by the Streatham Common attempted suicide and heavily disrupted for hours afterwards. The ELL was suspended from 1650 to 1830. The lines into London Bridge were disrupted because of knock on to the Streatham Common incident (crews and trains in the wrong place) and a suspected broken rail at New Cross Gate.

     The ONLY route home for most people trying to get to South London, Sussex and East Surrey was therefore to go to London Bridge (or Blackfriars for a handful of destinations).

     Normally around 40,000 people use the London Bridge terminating platfroms during the evening peak. Current estimates are that getting on for 100,000 people turned up on Tuesday, for a train service that was disrupted. Hardly surprising that crowd control measures were implemented – indeed they would have been had this combination of events happened at anytime pre the rebuilding. Incidentally this is the first time there have been concurrent peak time closures of the ELL MkII and main line from Victoria.

     Finally, the concourse was not unsafe. It was very busy, perhaps uncomfortable for some, and certainly inconvenient, but it was safe. If that level of crowding is deemed unsafe we will have to ban pop concerts, football matches and the northern line.

533. Dan,

     I would challenge what you say. Network Rail think it will be a challenge, even with ERTMS, to get 24tph through the Thameslink core and are emphatic that this will not be increased above this. Even after Thameslink Upgrade the Up Charing Cross platforms will have to be able to handle 28tph – it was 29tph but that involved some trains using the Up Platform Loop and not being able to stop at London Bridge.

     Furthermore, if you get any kind of incident, which is quite likely at London Bridge, such as person being taken ill on a train, you really want an additional platform so that you can at least continue to run a degraded service. On top of that, London Bridge through platforms and lines has been designed to have at least some capability of acting as a terminus (including for trains from the north on Thameslink) in the event of being unable to maintain a service elsewhere.

534. Sad Fat Dad,

     London Bridge through platforms need 90 second dwell times because of the number of passengers getting on AND off. The signalling permits 90 second ‘reoccupation’ ie a train starts moving, and 90 seconds later the wheels of the next train stops. Therefore 3 minutes per train. Therefore max 20 tph per platform per direction with no scope for recovering any delay (even 1 second).

     It is not strictly true to say there is no scope for recovering for any delay. I cannot speak for the signalling but suspect it is no different from the dwell times. It not true to say it needs 90 seconds dwell times. At least I very much doubt it does. What is true is that it needs a dwell time that is more than 60 seconds and less or equal to 90 seconds.

     Unfortunately, incredibly in 2015, Network Rail seems to only be able to timetable to the nearest half minute which is no better than a hundred years ago. In contrast, London Underground, on their automatic lines, work to the nearest quarter minute in their timetables and, I suspect, by April next year they will be forced to timetable to the nearest 5 seconds on the Victoria Line. Furthermore, the target time for platform occupation on LU is calculated to the second for each platform on each station and it wouldn’t surprise me if this varied with the time of day.

     Train planning rules sometimes attempt to get around this coarse half minute measurement by delightful rules such as minimum of 90 seconds occupation time unless the previous train also had at least 90 seconds in which case it can be reduced to 60.

     So it is quite possible in your example there is, in fact, 58 seconds recovery time already build in between trains. I suspect in reality it is much much smaller than that but hopefully you get my point. This, of course, makes no difference to the fact that it is completely implausible that a single platform (without passing loop) at London Bridge could ever be adequate for the service that runs to Charing Cross in peak hours.

535. PoP – well yes, agreed. Half minute increments do hamper train planning somewhat, and they are now more of an average than a hard limit. Nevertheless, at London Bridge on the through platforms, 90seconds from wheels stop to wheels start is about the average, once you take into account the occasional ramp deployment etc. Certainly the case that more than 20tph has never been attempted off one platform to my knowledge with 12 car trains in the south east (although someone may correct me). Hence the need for ATO, new trains, etc etc for the core.

536. @PoP/SadFatDad – the original specification for the new TLK stock (as defined by DfT) envisaged 30 second dwells within the central core. Given the number of individual processes that take place between wheel stop and wheel start, this appeared to leave no more than 20 seconds at best for loading.* This was clearly undeliverable and the manufacturers said so; a great deal of time was then wasted with the lawyers to ensure that none of the liability for not delivering these fantasy dwell times fell on the manufacturers. Eventually, partial commonsense seems to have prevailed (or it may be that all the TLK bidders told DfT what the price of fish was…)

     As to the use of sub-30 second timings for train planning, most, if not all, of the widely used planning software packages such as railsys, work to the second, and planners can and do use small adjustments where appropriate.

     *But then DfT’s timetable advisers(the incumbent franchisee who might just have had an interest in spoiling the pitch for their potential competitors) also specified a timetable that envisaged one minute turnrounds at the outer ends – something else that caused much legal labour to ensure that the manufacturers were held harmless from that sort of nonsense.

537. Given that anyone these days might own a timepiece accurate to within 1 second, it occurs to me to ask which part of the departure procedure is supposed to occur at (or at any rate not before) the timetabled departure time. Is it pressing the button to start closing the doors, first train movement, or what?

     Obviously in real life passengers are advised to be on the platform 1 minute before the departure time, or not be aggrieved if they cannot get on. I ask not with the intention of provoking nitpicking, but just because somehow definitions like this seem important.

538. There used to be (perhaps still are but I don’t notice them) posters warning that doors may close up to thirty seconds before departure.

539. @PoP

     I am sorry but believe you are wrong. The Thameslink Core is intended to serve 24tph so presumably London Bridge could handle the same on its through platforms, especially if services had been segregated. The only problem child would then have been Charing Cross with an expected 28tph (http://planningonline.southwark.gov.uk/DocsOnline/Documents/186661_1.pdf). As shown though, only 20 stopping services are scheduled for 2018 the old layout could handle (at least) 30tph so 4 Kent Services could have been terminated at London Bridge (eg Hayes line). That would have still left unused capacity at London Bridge of 6tph or more.

     It’s not quite the whole story since the new layout will be able to handle 12-car trains on more platforms than before but the appearance is that overall capacity has been reduced and that with the track works at Bermondsey and Borough Market a tarted up London Bridge (rather than rebuilt) would have been better and avoided much of the present disruption. Yes, some changes were needed to connect through to the new Borough Market lines but that would really have only affected the old ticket hall: no platform works appear to have been necessary.

540. @Malcolm
     I have been told that “wheels start to turn” is what is supposed to happen at the moment the clock flips over to XX:YY:00 .

541. @Timbeau @Malcolm

     That will still beg the question of which clock since in my experience the time display on passenger information screens is not always accurate. Nor is a platform clock always visible to the dispatcher or driver.

     As you say, not nit-picking but if there’s a call to run timetables to seconds rather than minutes such issues might become relevant to reliability too.

542. Looking at pictures of people leaping over barriers its a pity ticket inspectors and railway police were not deployed to deal with these individuals at least long enough for their trains to depart without them !

     The rebuild of London Bridge is long overdue given the age of the station and the way it developed as a lean to station with bits added on over the years creating awkward interchange between trains that run on different levels .

     I suppose retention of old overhead interchange at country end of Southern Platforms until new ground level concourse was not an option ?

     The re-opening of Snow Hill tunnels was seen as a cheap way to create a new cross london link but nobody forsaw that it would become a victim of its own success !

     Lessons of London Bridge will need to be learned for development of Euston Station for HS2 a project which keeps chopping and changing but really needs to be as complete a rebuild as at London Bridge !

543. @Melvyn – and what might those lessons be?

544. @ Graham H To upgrade and rebuild Euston Square station and maybe create a joint station with Warren Street Station thus allowing tube users to have an alternative to using Euston Station before its rebuild. Thus reducing footfall inside the mainline station.

     Plans for a total rebuild are the only sensible option therefore recent plans which included a seperate entrance at country end suggest that this new entrance should be built first thus allowing a new concourse to be built ahead of changes to existing front entrance . These plans also need new entrance to tube platforms similar to at Victoria Station .

     There has been recent talk of connecting Crossrail to WCML to allow through services to reduce number of trains at Euston a decision on this needs to be taken by incoming government after election so work can get underway while Crossrail project team and workers are available .

     Another useful change would be to convert Overground DC lines into South of Willesden Junction into AC overhead in order to simplify station and its approaches with trains on this route converted to AC/DC . Whether their is still time for this to be included in train lengthening needs to be looked at !

     One final point if the new HS2 platforms were built first could they be used by existing PENDOLINOS while existing platforms were rebuilt ?

545. @Melvyn – I’m not clear how these conclusions flow from the London Bridge experience.

546. The Kings Cross rebuild seemed to proceed more smoothly than the London Bridge one. Arguably the Victoria Underground Station is another success. In both cases the emphasis has been on building new concourse areas before taking away old. So, yes, I think there are lessons for Euston although a country end concourse area would be pretty useless so I don’t think that is the solution. Other than that, like Graham, I don’t immediately see many other parallels.

547. SFD
     I assume your limit of 20 tph only applies if all trains are stopping?
     IIRC the peak up throughput of Bethnal Green is either 24 or 27 trains, but, of course, they are “flighted”, with only (most of) the Chingford & Enfield services stopping there, whilst the others run through.

     Melvyn
     Err … I’m not too sure about your suggestion of Ticket-grippers + RailPolice err “interviewing” people @ LBG under the circumstances – things were bad enough already, without deliberately inflaming tempers ….. [Meaning clarified. LBM]

548. Pedantic of Purley – Segregating Charing Cross from Cannon St has certainly helped improve reliability for SE, but the stats are also greatly helped by some nice fat padding which now seems more commonplace. Journeys between the last 2 stops on some metro routes, which take 3-4 minutes and were timetabled as so, are now timetabled as 10 minutes.

     There’s so much padding in routes to Gillingham, for example, that trains can arrive at Dartford 15 down and easily arrive ‘on time’. This is more prevalent since January. It all helps make passengers not trust the stats. A shame as I think the service in many ways is better but the the official stats are covering over a fair bit of lateness.

549. @Melvyn
     “Another useful change would be to convert Overground DC lines into South of Willesden Junction into AC overhead ”
     Some of the tunnels used by the dc lines between South Hampstead and the top of Camden Bank have very tight clearances and might not have room for ohle

550. timbeau has correctly spotted the flaw with using OHLE on the DC lines through their tunnels, but the rolling stock used is already dual voltage if it was necessary to use AC on the final approach.

551. If trying to make the Euston rebuild as painless as possible, it seems odd to me that one of the first suggestions should be a bit of project creep. The Crossrail work has certainly shown the benefits of firmly rejecting “Oh, and while you’re at it ….” Third rail conversion strikes me as very much a While-you’re-at-it.

552. Theban 11:21

     Well yes, if you have class 700 trains and not ones two generations earlier and if you have ERTMS installed over a wide area (and remember it is still untested in the real world with ATO) and if you aren’t concerned about recovery time or resilience and if you are confident a single platform will suffice and the island platforms can cope, crowdwise, with two trains arriving simultaneously (something that generally won’t happen if you have an island platform dedicated to the services from one feeder line) and if you don’t want to factor in any potential expansion capability and if you don’t mind losing 4tph to Charing Cross then I suppose what you say could work.

     However you would have to rebuild the station anyway because keeping the existing station was the fundamental reason for rejection by the inspector at the first public inquiry.

     Moveover, I cannot see the point. The current problems are neither brought about by the lack of terminating platforms nor because of the station rebuild. The problem lies with only having three track serving the terminating platforms and these are not currently capable of being efficiently utilised. You would still need to build the Bermondsey diveunder and it is the need to provide a worksite for that which is limiting the number of tracks available on the approach to London Bridge.

     Finally, I go back to the point that at the time of authorisation just getting 24tph through the centre was thought to be challenging. I am sure no-one would dream of committing to a scheme that relied on an untested means of signalling and ATO working for all trains using London Bridge. The words “Eggs”and “basket” spring to mind. More pertinent is an acute awareness of what happened to the WCML when they initially tried to upgrade the whole line relying on a signalling system that did not exist at that point. Many believe it was that which actually brought Railtrack down.

553. @Theban:

     London Bridge is a poor comparison for Euston or King’s Cross. It has no inter-city services to speak of, but it is a major junction station with both terminating and through platforms, and multiple routes diverging / converging at both ends of the latter. Operationally, this makes it much more complex than a standard terminus.

     From London Bridge, the next station could be Waterloo East, Cannon Street, Deptford, New Cross, New Cross Gate, or South Bermondsey. From King’s Cross, the next station is always Finsbury Park.

     Euston is very much its own beast. It’s not a through station, but it does serve a popular commuter route (the DC Lines), and it also has a large over-site development above it that will likely need to be removed and replaced. Furthermore, it’s also getting a brand new commuter railway (Crossrail 2) nailed onto it, not just HS2.

     I’d argue that the lessons to be learned are primarily from King’s Cross, Paddington, and Liverpool Street.

554. @anomnibus
     “London Bridge, the next station could be Waterloo East, Cannon Street, Deptford, New Cross, New Cross Gate, or South Bermondsey.”
     Or, indeed, Blackfriars – the addition of which on a regular basis is causing all the problems.

555. @Anomnibus

     I am not comparing London Bridge to either Euston or Kings Cross – Melvyn was.

556. 
     [Snip. Deviation – and discussed at length before. PoP]

     Anomnibus
     The comparator for London Bridge is … Manchester Victoria – next stations or stops are (quite a list)

557. @Theban:

     Oops, sorry. You’re right.

     @timbeau:

     I knew there was one I’d forgotten. I remembered it shortly after I clicked the “Post Comment” button. After toying briefly with the idea of adding another post, I decided to let nature take its course!

558. @greg
     Only three – Salford Central, Ashton under Lyne, and Moston. Possibly Deansgate in future if the Ordsall curve gets built. Before the trams took the Bury and Oldham lines over you could have added Crumpsall and Newton Heath.

     If you include the first stations at which longer distance trains call, both lists get longer very quickly (London Bridge gets Ladywell, Lewisham, Orpington, Sevenoaks…..)

559. @greg and tim

     It’s four: Salford Central (which only has platforms on the northern pair of tracks), Ashton under Lyne, Moston, and Eccles.

     The Northern Hub project will reduce that to three, by adding new platforms at Salford Central, which both trains towards Eccles and trains taking the new curve towards Deansgate will pass through.

560. Southeastern have published loading data today on peak services which makes interesting reading. Possibly a lot more green ie free seats than expected given all the discussion on this thread.

     http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/your-journey/how-busy-is-your-train/

561. Re Phil,

     Not too surprising – I see spare seats on virtually every Charing Cross service while I progress slowly into the terminating platforms at London Bridge every morning. No surprise the Cannon Streets (aka London Bridge Stoppers are far busier).

562. If Man Vic can count Eccles as an adjacent station because there are no platforms on the southern pair of tracks at Salford Central, London Bridge can raise you Lewisham, Ladywell and Hither Green because of a similar lack (in one direction at least) at New Cross.

563. Phil – SE only have weight monitors on a quarter of networkers so take it with a pinch of salt for metro routes.

564. @ E & @ Phil

     They had people physically counting passengers on trains at Lewisham a couple of weeks ago.

565. That’s good but not the most scientific method – certainly no substitute for weight measures. Them being at lewisham it wouldn’t be much good on the Greenwich line either, and I saw none along there.

566. @ED – “no substitute for weight measures.” Au contraire. The problem with self weighing trains is that (a) you don’t know – until you have checked physically – that the train has carried a “typical/average” load (school trips weigh less for example, and there are distinct demographic weight differences, too, and (b) the tare of the train will also vary depending on its physical state. There is also the issue of long term trends – people are getting fatter by the year, but again, with differentials by demographic.

567. Oh dear. How best to count passengers on trains? One of those touchstone subjects that sets people off.

     We have discussed this before. I think we more or less agreed that:

     – weighing has to be calibrated and for that you need to count

     – if the objective is accurate counting then generally there is no substitute for physical counts although this does only produce a snapshot which may or may not be typical

     – sometimes total accuracy is not the primary objective. So for real time data or repeated prolonged counts to establish trends where it would be prohibitively expensive to manually count it is much better to use some mechanical/software based means that produces “good enough” results.

     I think I am right in that Jonathan Roberts, who counts and analyses data for his livelihood, generally regards manual counting as very accurate and the best method but admits that in certain circumstances, where basically the counters are overwhelmed, it can be quite hopeless (and various subterfuges are resorted to in order to deduce a fairly accurate figure).

568. @Ed/Chris
     They say the loadings are based on passenger forecasts which is a little odd. Some of the trains have changed formations as a result of direct feedback/monitoring so you would expect the loading information to be based on similar observations. But if you read swathes of green (other than London Bridge!) meaning you will likely always get a seat which is highly suspect then I’m not sure what use the information will have. Perhaps it is simply to tempt people off of the busiest services with the promise of a seat.

569. I understand this to mean that they observed the loadings, have changed train formations to suit and this is their forecast of these changes. Hopefully, there will be new observations in a few weeks to check their predictions, and the effect of publishing this data.

570. @GF, 7 March 2015 01:37
     Re: Escalators at front of Southern side – there’s another route already open down to the Underground – cross at the Pelican Crossing in front of the station, and there’s escalators in front of Murdoch’s Mansion to/from the new corridor that exits between the Northern and the Jubbly entrances, to be a shopping arcade – presumably once it gets more than a dribble of people along it.

571. Part of the problem with overcrowding is that a train may appear overcrowded and actually have spare seats. Passengers heading to London in the morning will tend to be towards the front, those heading way will tend to be towards the back. As a Lewisham passenger should I accept standing for ten minutes or go to the back of a ten coach train and spend five minutes getting off the platform? Many people go for the former and some then grumble that they never get a seat.

     So assuming that the overcrowding figures are right I suspect we will still have “problems” with overcrowding even if there are in fact seats available.

572. First time commenter here and curious regarding the comment from PoP on 8th March 22.55 that: The current problems are neither brought about by the lack of terminating platforms nor because of the station rebuild. The problem lies with only having three track serving the terminating platforms and these are not currently capable of being efficiently utilised.

     An earlier comment posted a link to an ICE presentation: http://www.ice.org.uk/ICE_Web_Portal/media/eastofengland/Thameslink-KO2-London-Bridge-Presentation.pdf

     Slide 19 of this presentation shows the end game layout to still have just 3 tracks at the final approach into the 6 terminating platforms.

     Based on PoP’s point about it being just having 3 approach tracks that has been causing so much of the current problems at London Bridge, it is a concern to me that this seems to be embodied in the final layout.

     Hopefully a needless concern but I would be very interested in any reassurance that can be offered!

573. @ Timbeau – unlike tunnels at Kings Cross the tunnels at South Hampstead are a fair distance from Euston Station .

     So switch from DC to AC could be made South of tunnels and changeover could be done on the move just like Overground trains do in west London .

     The major benefit being that these trains would no longer be tied a one platform or other and thus could change platforms at building works progress .

     @ Malcolm Removal of DC at Euston is about simplification and if not done what happens if DC enabled platforms are closed for re-building as is occurring at London Bridge . Do we install more 3rd rail ?

574. Article in tonight’s Evening Standard re London Bridge Station

     http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/commuters-warned-to-expect-travel-chaos-at-london-bridge-station-10096309.html

     Article gives impression London Bridge rebuild cost £6.5 billion which makes HS2 seem a bargain for a whole new railway !

     As for my comment re police well it seems from tonight’s local TV news police have been deployed at London Bridge Station and my earlier comment was about dealing with those individuals who think they can leap ticket barriers at will something the majority were not doing !

575. Re Brockley Mike,

     There are 3 tracks and there are 3 tracks…
     Post Easter 2017 the 3 track section will be reduced to just a few hundred metres long not the current 2 miles long with lots of conflicting moves.

     If you look at slide 19 of that presentation the approaches then widen out to 4 (red) tracks all the way to Bricklayers Arms Jn. with the additional track going under the Bermondsey dive under to connect with the down slow.

     There are 3 tracks and there are 3 tracks that are actually 5+ tracks:

     Post New Year 2018 the Thameslink platforms (the new P4+5) open the fast services are then diverted in phases over 2018 from the terminating platforms to Thameslink platforms (the green tracks from Bricklayers Arms Jn inwards) leaving just the diesel Uckfield service from the fast lines going to the Terminating platforms. Thus from New Cross Gate the alignment is effectively between 4-6 tracks (ignoring the few hundred metres at the station throat.) with 18tph on the fasts at New Cross Gate (16TL +2 Uckfield which move to the slows = 18tph) and circa (and upto 18tph on the slows with 8tph (possibly 10) LO services going to Surrey Quays etc. leaving 6-8tph slow services + 2 tph Uckfield on the slows inwards of Bricklayers Arms Jn. with effectively 2 dedicated tracks (the section from South Bermondsey Jn inwards will operate in a partially flexible way) till 3 track section at the station throat (and the opportunity to stack some inbound services.) and circa 4 platforms (P10-13)

     You then get upto 8tph via South Bermondsey with effectively 2 semi dedicated tracks till the station throat with 2 platforms (P14-15).

     So the several hundred metre 3 track section is actually 5 tracks…

576. Re Melvyn,

     The TV Crew looked very bored tonight as there wasn’t any chaos!

     There were 3 PCSO and a PC on the concourse which isn’t to far of normal!

     As for the changes to the concourse mentioned last week it looks like replacing ineffective barrier outside and removing some more seats is it so far.

577. @Melvyn
     “So switch from DC to AC could be made South of tunnels and changeover could be done on the move just like Overground trains do in west London .
     The major benefit being that these trains would no longer be tied a one platform or other and thus could change platforms at building works progress .”

     The dc lines join the slow ac lines at the Euston end of the tunnels, after which the Overground trains run under the wires all the way to the platforms (which are all wired). So why is there any need for further wiring: surely the 378s can already do what you suggest.
     See page 25
     http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse%20documents/sectional%20appendix/london%20north%20western%20south%20sectional%20appendix.pdf

578. Thanks ngh! I do still feel that however many tracks there generally are, if there is a pinch point then then there will be issues. After all is that not the driver for the additional tracks through Borough Market?

     Also there must be some concerns about the modelling given the failure of the timetable after Christmas which it seems simply would not work with the longer section of three tracks. Will the modelling of throughput prove better for the short section of three tracks in the permanent scenario, I wonder…?

     And it would certainly be a shame after all the investment if any spare capacity on the terminal platforms cannot be exploited in future due to a pinch point, even if it can cope with the Day 1 timetable.

     I am not a railway expert (as I am sure is clear!), just a commuter with an interest in the railways (but also had some involvement in an earlier version of the station re-design – I recall all the passenger routes being sized to suit the predicted growth all the way up to the far distant 2016)!

579. @ Timbeau If wiring already exists then providing all trains on DC line Watford to Euston service are AC/DC that makes a case for removal of 3rd rail especially as its only used for this service at Euston and its removal would surely improve safety in station area .

580. Re Brockley Mike,

     Attempting to run so many parts of the system at 100% of the current capacity means there is no flexibility so the service falls over when a sparrow f*rts over the South Downs…
     The current 3 track section requires a very high level of choreography overall the future shorter 3 tracks doesn’t.

     The evening problems have been partially platform related in that the time taken to unload then load the trains is longer than in the morning and none of the trains can hit the allocated slots at key junctions required by the timetable. The modelling used some heroic assumptions which would need a timetable recast to attempt to sort out (for example how narrow can you get away with narrowing the platforms during the works was calibrated during the Olympics on P1,2,3 etc.which are /were not the same.

     The final terminating layout will have the elements operating far from 100% which should enable a more robust service. The biggest capacity issue on the terminating side in the future is probably LO services on the same tracks in places (especially with conflicting moves at Queens Road Peckham and Peckham Rye).

581. London Bridge was up the spout again this afternoon with everything to/from Croydon cancelled. From the lack of comments I assume it was cleared before the evening peak. A near miss then but seriously inconvenient for afternoon travellers. Faced with at least an hour delay we abandoned our journey plans.

     PS I am having problems with the site on Safari on an iPad. The title bar floats over the comment text entry box obscuring it.

582. Brockley Mike,

     And it would certainly be a shame after all the investment if any spare capacity on the terminal platforms cannot be exploited in future due to a pinch point

     Probably the next pinch point post-2018 will be East Croydon. Routes avoiding East Croydon probably have their own individual pinch points.

     Apart from the narrow platforms as mentioned by ngh, we currently have the situation where everyone has to exit at the buffer ends of the platforms. From August 2016 there will be stairs and an escalator serving the platforms further along so platforms should clear quicker.

     ngh gave a far more complete answer than I could but I would also point out that the current three track setup isn’t even optimised for maximum capacity in terms of flexibility such as bi-directional. Mind you I don’t know how much difference this would make. Remember there are only normally three tracks into London Bridge that serve Cannon St (currently there are only two) all the way from North Kent Junction where the Greenwich trains turn off and that isn’t an issue yet normally manages fine.

583. Theban,

     The problem was an engineers train having broken down. Now imagine that in future London Bridge station had only six through platforms and it had broken down in one of those platforms.

584. Thanks to ngh and PoP for the responses and it is good to hear there will be spare capacity in 2018 at the terminating platforms.

     A relatively easy way to exploit this with minimal conflicting paths would be to run trains from Crystal Palace (where there appears to be spare terminating capacity) to London Bridge. This would pick up the large and growing demand on the Sydenham corridor and be a more efficient use of paths than adding shorter Overground trains – but possibly would be seen as too short a shuttle route?

     I should probably avoid the temptation of planning the entire network around my own journey though!

585. @PoP

     Even with 9 platforms the effect would be the same if it broke down in Borough Market, or anywhere in the Thameslink Core or at New Cross Gate on the fast lines …. It doesn’t make the case for 9 platforms any more than it makes the case for six-tracking between New Cross Gate and Norwood Junction.

586. @Theban. Just one question. Given that rebuilding London Bridge is VERY expensive, why on earth would the rail industry be permitted to spend that much taxpayers cash building 9 through platforms if only 6 would suffice? Do you not think someone might have checked? (Ok that’s two questions).

587. @ POP In future it could be a 12 carriage train broken down in 6 platform Southern terminus . So how will station cope with 5 platforms ?

     @ Brockley Mike Extension of Overground service to Crystal Palace to Victoria Station allowing removal of LBG to Victoria shuttle via Crystal Palace would be a better option along with elimination of DMUs from London Bridge by extending 3rd rail to Uckfield !

     DMUs that could replace Pacers !

588. Melvyn – except that if Overgrounds to Palace were extended to Victoria they would have to cope with a far larger number of passengers than they were designed to cope with. Southern frequently run 8 and 10 cars on this route even between the peaks. This is why the London Bridge-Sydenham-Sutton trains were not entirely replaced by Overgrounds terminating at West Croydon. It’s also doubtful with the many low speeds and flat junctions on the line to Balham the route could cope with that many more trains.

589. Even with 9 platforms the effect would be the same if it broke down in Borough Market, or anywhere in the Thameslink Core or at New Cross Gate on the fast lines ….

     In the case of Borough Market or New Cross Gate it wouldn’t because you would have ways of getting past it or at least running some sort of service on the remaining lines. The layout at London Bridge and Borough market will be very flexible and you will be actually able to get to Thameslink via the Charing Cross Lines at Borough Market or vice versa.

590. Melvyn,

     In future it could be a 12 carriage train broken down in 6 platform Southern terminus . So how will station cope with 5 platforms ?

     The same as it would today. You run what you can into 5 platforms and cancel other services (or turn them short at places like East Croydon) according to a pre-arranged plan. The effect would not be nearly as bad as today because in addition you will have 16tph serving Thameslink platforms 4 and 5. So today that is one out of six terminating platforms knocked out of use, by 2018 that will be one out of six terminating platforms out of use but 16tph still going to the through platforms – a huge difference meaning that the effect will be minimal.

     In any case there is only 20tph ultimately planned for the terminating platforms. The track layout on approach (the real problem currently) will be much more flexible so it would not surprise me at all if come 2018 London Bridge could actually cope quite well with a terminating platform out of use.

     Next!

591. Melvyn, if a 12 coach train breaks down in one of the terminating platforms, then the other five are used. Delays are contained to Southern services, and they are relatively minor. This has happened several times since May 2013 when it went to 6 platforms.

     In an imaginary world with 6 through platforms, one pair for each of Cannon St, Thameslink, and Charing Cross, any train breaking down means complete suspension of service on that line. Yes there would be point work for trains to swap lines on the approaches, but that then guarantees significant delay to all trains on at least 2 of the 3 routes.

     Quite a difference.

592. @PoP

     You didn’t address the Thameslink Core so presumably you agree with that point? Even at Borough Market if trains were routed round the reduction in capacity would be very considerable so I think the point remains valid and your example wasn’t a justification for 9 platforms.

     @Sad Fat Dad

     In a world where HS2 is being proposed I think many people wouldn’t share your confidence that a scheme would be rejected if a cheaper scheme would work instead. Pushing back can be hard. You have seen PoP’s arguments against 6 platforms on this thread. It can be easy for such arguments to prevail because there’s little history of running very high frequency services on the NR network. It would have also meant terminating Hayes services at London Bridge but that probably wasn’t suggested because there’s a separate wish to remove Hayes entirely from the NR network by conversion to the Bakerloo line. So no, I don’t think that if 6,7 or 8 platforms would have been sufficient instead of 9 that that would necessarily have been the outcome.

     Nor, at one level should it be. We should be building in some extra capacity. The difficulty here is that it isn’t clear 9 platforms does give capacity to run greater tph than originally planned because the real bottleneck is Borough Market, the Thameslink Core and the terminating platforms at Charing Cross and Canon St.

593. Theban,

     Well obviously. If you have a busy two track railway and a train sits down on one track then you have problems – be it the Thameslink core or the only two available platforms for that service at London Bridge.

     We have been through this no end of times but Borough Market will not be a capacity bottleneck.

     Can I keep repeating dwell time, dwell time, dwell time. It doesn’t matter too much at terminating stations. OK it does at the moment at terminating platforms at London Bridge because of exceptional constrained circumstances. As trains get busier and people get older, dwell time will increase – especially at busy stations like London Bridge. Five seconds per train extra at London Bridge through platforms may not sound much but could have a significant impact to the point where you have to cut out trains. With the platforms now planned and being built this is one issue we can take off the critical list.

     Another point I keep repeating. This is not created by some woolly thinkers wanting to build a bigger better railway to satisfy their ego. There is a lot of very sophisticated modelling that, although imperfect, gives far better and far more accurate predictions of what will happen than armchair commuters, frustrated by their current fraught journey, could ever do.

594. Theban

     It is very clear that the additional platforms provide capacity to run additional trains. For the last 40 years, the maximum number of trains through the 6 platform (plus one loop) London Bridge has been 54 tph in the peak direction with no spare paths. The Draft December 2018 timetable has 66tph in the peak direction with 4 spare paths (at London Bridge).

595. I see via “Londonist” that RMT have come out annoyed that their members on “the front line” are suffering whilst:
     “Our members at London Bridge are furious that they are taking the full force of the anger of passengers while those responsible are tucked up snug and warm in their offices. – quote from Mick Cash.

596. This morning the platforms were so crowded because of the volumes detraining and the big white silent boxes on platforms 10-15 that boarding was prevented by people walking inside the length of the train. Is it possible to replace the boxes with metal plates?

597. Anonymous – nope. Approx 15mm behind each of the hoardings is a socking great hole, 14metres deep, with lifts and escalators in the process of being constructed.

598. More Southern Timetable changes from next Monday (16th March)

     (http://www.southernrailway.com/southern/news/changes-to-london-bridgevictoria-services-from-monday-16th-march/

     3 peak pm inbound services changed so they depart their origins slightly later and cut out stops typically arriving at LBG 3 minutes later so they spend less time in the platforms (all spend longer than average in the platforms so should enable a bit more flexibility). At least 1 is usually a 442.
     No changes to the times they depart LBG

599. I feel as if I have commuted through LB 100 times just catching up on the comments! It’s good to get some real insight into how bad (or not) the highly publicised problems actually were. I see we have had all sorts of knee jerk issues like the ORR’s Ian Prosser allegedly (but not really) denouncing ticket gates (not barriers please!), Boris going red in the face but being completely powerless to do anything, Auntie Val at City Hall writing to Uncle Patrick at the Commons telling him to do something about his railway and “new girl on the block” Claire saying she want’s a “Gold Controller” by this Friday (!) to manage things at London Bridge. While it is clear that people are getting mucked about and tempers are frayed and we have “election fever” brewing it is all a bit worrying that so much nonsense is being uttered when the reality is much more involved and an awful lot has been done already. We never get to hear about what *really* happened. I certainly wasn’t aware of the PoP example of “empty train from Purley to be on time leaving LB” tactic for example. It is also quite interesting that things on South Eastern, and I am tempting fate I know, appear to be relatively calm in terms of the service running even if people are enduring it through clenched teeth.

     It seems to me that there is a broad success story in that the big chunky bits of engineering are going pretty well at London Bridge. However the operational assumptions, planning, resilience and implementation have left and continue to leave something to be desired. More work needed there on getting the basics right and continually fine tuned as experience builds up.

     Can one of our resident “experts” say how many major timetable changes are linked to future project milestones at LB? I’m just wondering if there is not a real opportunity to learn from Southern’s problems with its LB services and avoid a repetition of the emergency rewriting of train plans when we get to the next big timetable switches.

600. Timetable changes due to London Bridge – 3

     September 2016, all Charing Cross trains will call, Cannon St trains ‘run through’

     January 2018, all Southeastern trains will call

     May 2018, Thameslink service reinstated, ECML and MML recast as a result.

     There are two others not London Bridge related:

     December 2015, complete rewrite of Southern and Thameslink outer suburban timetable south of London

     December 2018, 24tph through the TL core.

     None of these have the scale of change to the infrastructure combined with the immediate use of that infrastructure at 100% capacity, that the works this Christmas had.

601. “December 2015, complete rewrite of Southern and Thameslink outer suburban timetable south of London”

     Are those metro services? I.e. are those the ones that Boris and a few others want to bring under the TfL umbrella?

602. @ Sad Fat Dad – thanks for that info. The Dec 2015 recast south of the Thames is a TSGN franchise commitment isn’t it? I also hadn’t appreciated that Thameslink is “restored” over two timetable changes but it clearly makes sense not to go to 24 tph in the core straight away. Here’s hoping the worst timetable related disruption is behind us as we get more infrastructure in place that adds some flexibility for the operators.

603. Re Anon

     See

     http://www.southernrailway.com/southern/news/govia-thameslink-railway-launches-consultation-on-december-2015-timetable/

     So effectively everything running south of East Croydon on southern or thameslink is the main focus. Metros services should sort themselves to an extent when the LBG works are finished.

604. Metro timetable is left well alone, principally because it is constructed around LOROL services. And no one wants to upset Boris.

605. WW
     your comments reminded me of the article in the current Modern Railways about “Signalling in Crisis” & a conversation I had in the pub lst noght with my Sig-engineer friend …
     Over the next 4 weekends, he is doing 6 commissionings (!)
     Err …..

     SFD
     But Boris will cease to be Mayor quite soon, so it’s nothing to do with him – it will be up to whomsoever his successor is, won’t it?

606. Greg,

     Have you even known a time when signalling wasn’t in crisis? More particularly have you even known a time when it is wasn’t in crisis according to Modern Railways? I get the feeling it has been reported as being in crisis since the 1988 Clapham Junction crash. It was probably the same before that.

     My perception is that whatever crisis there may be there is a great signalling good news story with the advance of ECTS/ERMTS but even that gets reported as a crisis, untested technology (well of course it is – some of the advanced things are only a the specification stage) and horrendously expensive (only at development and first implemention stage – it is actually cutting costs substantially). I think I’ll start worrying when Modern Railways doesn’t report signalling as being in crisis – it is then clearly stagnating.

     Sad Fat Dad probably should not have mentioned Boris by name. I am sure that, whoever the Mayor is, the ELL Overground service will be sacrosanct and any attempts to vary the 15 minute service in order to tweak other, non-TfL, services will be heavily resisted.

     It does seem daft that, if what people write here is to be believed, the casting of the timetable for South London seems to be based on the half-hourly Wimbledon Loop and a five-car trains service on the East London Line with everything else having to fit in with those two.

607. @Greg
     Johnson’s mayoral term lasts until May 2016. He is likely to be elected to Parliament this May; he also has journalism commitments. In the event of a second general election before his mayoral term is up or if the Conservatives are clear losers of the first election (in which case there is a vacancy for the top party job), then there is a possibility he could resign as mayor. Otherwise, unlikely.

608. It should be remembered that services between Waterloo East and London Bridge used to be delayed by getting Thameslink trains to/from the single track Blackfriars link.

     This will not happen with the new track layout.

     In addition, the two track section over the new Borough Market bridge will widen out to four tracks afterwards.

     I think it would have been sensible to replace the signalling on the Southeastern side before the current works.

609. Re Chris Patrick,

     “I think it would have been sensible to replace the signalling on the Southeastern side before the current works.”

     And then bin it during the works???

     SE users start to experience the disadvantages of the the new signalling equipment in the near future as the track is replaced on the SE side in phases.

610. @ngh – presumably commencing when lines 3 & 4 start coming back into use (from Easter ??) ?

611. Re Mike P

     I think it might be May bank holiday – especially as 3&4 will be running in the opposite directions (for while) to what they were before they were taken out and the track replaced…

612. @ngh I meant either side of London Bridge.

     When you start fiddling with old bits of signalling Mondays (after weekend track works) tend to have lots of delays

613. Re Chris Patrick

     “@ngh I meant either side of London Bridge.

     When you start fiddling with old bits of signalling Mondays (after weekend track works) tend to have lots of delays”

     Plenty of us have experience of this on the Southern side!
     The difference on the SE side is there there would appear to be less weekend work and most track and signalling changes taking place at the blockades but with the track ans signalling having been worked on for several months before the blockade hopefully with the potential for more testing to occur before it comes into use.

614. @ngh

     not sure if you accept no Charing Cross trains at weekends for most of the year as less work than Southern.

615. Chris Patrick,

     Can we please be factual?

     There are very few Saturdays when Charing Cross is without trains. Even if the Thameslink Programme wasn’t happening there would be some weekends either with no trains or a shuttle service to Cannon St due to routine engineering works.

     You concept of “most of the year” is different to mine. The National Rail website shows Sunday trains to Charing Cross from mid-May onwards. From June onwards the data is not loaded.

616. And the works seem to be general maintenance, not (necessarily) TL project-specific, judging by the worksite adjacent to Flatiron Square.

617. Is anyone able to verify the accuracy of the SET crowding projections based on their daily journey?

     http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/your-journey/how-busy-is-your-train/

618. MikeP,

     Probably a large element of truth in that. I understand a lot of stuff that had to be done anyway has got lumped with the Thameslink Programme for convenience and efficiency.

619. Pedantic of Purley
     My comment was based on the content of a pre-start leaflet which indicated that weekend services to/from Charing Cross would be limited throughout the year.

     Sorry but it ended up in the bin.

     We’ll have to wait & see what happens.

620. 3&4 reinstated at Easter from New Cross end to (roughly) Spa road Jn, ie just past the new dive under site.

     From there to and through the station is reinstated late May BH.

621. Could see from the famed InfraRail presentation that 3&4 came back in 2 phases – I’d guessed that would be Easter and one of the May BHs. Nice to have it confirmed. So for the pessimistic/realistic that’s your cue for signal failures 🙂

622. Chris Patrick,

     To add to the confusion, SouthEastern is reporting that this Sunday trains will not be going to Waterloo East and Charing Cross due to emergency engineering works. I think that the explanation for making a drama out of business as usual is that this Sunday trains were due to run to Charing Cross (as on a couple of other Sundays including the day of the marathon) but something has presumably cropped up.

     I have to admit the whole Charing Cross closure on Sunday thing has been underplayed and treated as if it were just normal weekend engineering work – it just so happens that there are a lot of consecutive Sundays affected – which I think is rather misleading. The sort of good thing about it is that it means that on Sunday all Southeastern trains that go through London Bridge actually call there.

623. @ngh
     “When you start fiddling with old bits of signalling Mondays (after weekend track works) tend to have lots of delays”
     Plenty of us have experience of this on the Southern side!”

     Not just Southern: replacement of all the pointwork around Wimbledon over several weekends has had similar effects on SWT’s Monday morning reliability – occasionally, as today (Friday 13th) spilling over later into the week.

624. Timbeau – today’s fun on SWT is nothing to do with the work at Wimbledon.

     Re the new signalling near London Bridge post Easter – it is roughly 10% of the size of the signalling amendments at Christmas. So less to go wrong, acknowledging that if it does it will not be fun. Lots of extra precautions being made.

625. Re Boris resigning.

     If Boris resigns more than 6 months before next May’s election then there will be a by-election. If he resigns within 6 months of May (so anytime after early November) the Statutory Deputy becomes the Mayor. This as per the original GLA Act.

     Boris appoints the Statutory Deputy but they have to be an elected member of the GLA. He can change the SD anytime he likes.

     Victoria Borwick is the current SD so assuming she is still SD she would take over as Mayor. She has expressed an interest in being the Tory candidate for Mayor next year.

     She is also on the Tory short list for Kensington candidate in the General Election (candidate to be decided tonight). If she became an MP (and decided not to stand for Mayor) she could resign as AM and the next Tory on the list would assume her place on the GLA. If she was a GLA constituency member there would have to be a by-election but only if she resigned before the 6 month cut off otherwise the seat would be left vacant.

     Depending on then the Tories select their Mayoral Candidate and IF that person is an existing GLA member then Boris could appoint that person as the SD. Boris then resigns in early November (within the 6 months no by election period) the SD then becomes the Mayor and goes into the 2016 election as the Incumbent Mayor.

     So expect some musical chairs in May and then possibly November!

626. An interesting article on Ian Visits, following up on his recent site visit to the Bermondsey dive-under site with a visit to the nearby remains of Southwark Park Station which closed 100 years ago today:

     http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015/03/15/remains-of-a-disused-station-uncovered-by-network-rail/

627. @Chris C – Re. Deputy Mayor Victoria Borwick:

     http://www.itv.com/news/london/story/2015-03-14/londons-deputy-mayor-chosen-as-conservative-candidate-for-kensington/

628. Trouble again at London Bridge Station this evening see link below –

     http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-bridge-rush-hour-delays-commuter-services-hit-by-signal-failures-again-on-the-same-day-new-measures-were-brought-in-to-ease-congestion-10112049.html

     Fortunately I chose a train to Victoria today but less fortunate were passengers I saw crammed on a 4 carriage train to Brighton !

     Yet I bet shuttle to London Bridge from Victoria was 10 carriges mostly empty !

629. Re Melvyn,

     “Yet I bet shuttle to London Bridge from Victoria was 10 carriages mostly empty!”

     I wasn’t on the shuttle but everyone in my carriage had a bay of seats to themselves. Plenty of space in the other trains that were running too.

     The station was deserted as loads had gone elsewhere but plenty of customer service assistants in pink hi-vis tonight (whether they actually had any useful info on the paper in the clipboards when it all went wrong was another matter).

     Delayed or cancelled earlier services clogging the display boards so the best source of info is the “next fastest train to” boards (again for the nth time this year). When it goes really wrong passengers care about what is actually running rather than what isn’t.

630. Has anyone actually died, or been injured, yet?

     Just curious. It’s been over two months, yet all I’ve seen, read, and heard in the news media is that doom and catastrophe might happen, yet no credible evidence has ever been provided to support such claims.

     Frankly, the footage of heaving crowds at London Bridge doesn’t look that much different to the heaving crowds that build up around Victoria’s Underground station (hence the work being done there.)

     Crowds aren’t unusual at stations, especially on match days. The process of crowd control doesn’t tend to look pretty, but that doesn’t mean it’s not safe.

631. @Rational Plan et al

     I’m not keen on newspaper link comments on LR on day to day operations or political hay making. Major announcements and actual news are fine.

     As Anomnibus replied, there was nothing new in the Evening Standard London Bridge article.

632. Quite interesting how various politicians (is there an election coming?) and union officials (is there an election coming?) have waded in. Yet not one of them has proposed, suggested or even hinted at anything that could or should have been done differently. Apart from improving information, but that is an industry wide issue and everyone knows that already (and if it was easy, it would have been sorted?)

633. @ Sad Fat Dad – I think it depends which set of politicians you’re talking about. If you are referring to MPs then I think we are seeing the entirely predictable “shoot from the hip” type of response that is trying to raise the MP’s profile while targeting their opponents. The SoS is trying his best to keep out of the firing line while poor old Claire Perry (Rail Minister) is doing her stock in trade “we really care about the passengers” line of meaningless drivel. We’ve also had Chuka Umunna declaring that if TfL ran everything none of this would have happened. Quite how he has missed the umpteen broken freight trains, derailments, signal failures etc on the existing Overground network I don’t know. TfL can’t prevent such things and to suggest otherwise is just daft. Can you tell I’m really impressed (not)? ahem. I would actually be shocked if any of our politicians (barring the occasional noble Lord ex of British Rail) came up with anything meaningful about how to run a railway properly. It’s not going to be their core skill set.

     I have a bit more time for the Assembly Members who actually use the services day in, day out. They have experienced the chaos at first hand, have been delayed, been thrown off trains mid journey and have had to struggle with the poor information provision. Some of them even admit to being transport geeks which makes them a bit more human! The Transport Committee have kept an eye on Thameslink for many years and have good contacts with Network Rail and have asked lots and lots of good questions about the project. They’ve also had a lot of promises made by NR / Southern which have not entirely been delivered. On that basis I think they’re right to complain as politicians and as individuals. I’m sure they have also been inundated with complaints from constituents (for those representing South London). Of course Labour AMs are trying hard to show Boris has been ineffective etc and will be aligned with whatever the national party line is. That’s to be expected. To be fair Boris has zero control and minimal influence over London Bridge matters and has just “huffed and puffed” in public as we might expect. He might also have shouted down the phone at the SoS at DfT but he’s never going to admit that.

     I note with interest that the Transport Committee has called a special supplementary public meeting solely on London Bridge matters for Friday 27th March. That’s very unusual but perhaps reflects the seriousness of the situation (as they see it). I don’t think I’d wish to be the Network Rail rep for that meeting.

634. Walthamstow Writer,

     What was really interesting is Sir Peter’s comment at the most recent TfL board meeting where this came up as it was mentioned in the commissiomer’s report.

     His comment (possibly not quite word for word) was:

     “If this was under TfL’s control we would be doing a lot more to make sure passengers were more suitably compensated.”

     He then when on to criticise the poor compensation arrangements and said he felt that passengers had been let down in this matter.

     So, from the boss of TfL himself, there was no claim that they would have prevented the situation, or that they could have handled it better, but there was an acceptance that more should have been done, as basically a gesture, to recognise what passengers were having to go through. Of course, it is easy to say this when you don’t have shareholders.

     I have to agree with Sad Fat Dad it is hard to see what could be done differently – other than have a less useless ThameslinkProgramme website which only seems to deal with long term stuff and is rarely updated.

     In retrospect clearly the modelling of the timetable needed to be better but, until you encounter a scenario when it doesn’t correctly forecast what will happen, how was anyone to know that ?

     I do wonder if a lot of the problem is down to many more people travelling into London Bridge in the evening. I don’t know if it is my imagination but I don’t remember being like it is now. If so, this probably could not have reasonably been foreseen although it could have been considered as a risk factor and modelled for the consequences. Also, if more more people are arriving by train at London Bridge in the evening, the rebuilding and delays do not seem to be putting this group of people off.

635. Talking of timetables, the August 2016 Southeastern timetable, accounting for the Cannon Street run-through, will go out for consultation next month (April 2015). I wonder how many in September 2016 will turn round and say ‘we weren’t consulted about this’ as they did in January…

636. @ PoP – as you say it is easy for TfL to say what they would do in a hypothetical situation. I am not aware that TfL has splashed the cash beyond the normal arrangements when things have gone badly wrong on the tube and Overground. I recognise a small subset of Twitter messages is not representative but there are a lot of very fed up people who do use TfL services and who are not happy with the lack of compensation arrangements for their particular circumstances. As ever you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

     I don’t use services at London Bridge so am not affected by the problems but I get a sense from the informed comments here that a lot of good basic stuff has been done and is being done. For whatever reason it has yet to fully gel but I’m sure the relentless external pressure on Network Rail will get it sorted. It’s just agonising in the short term. I appreciate that South Eastern’s timetables have been padded out and the trains are very crowded but that has proved to be far less controversial (publicly at least) than the Southern side of things.

     On your final point about contra peak flows well I’d hope that someone somewhere at Southern is monitoring their Oyster, ticket sales and gateline stats to get a view as to what’s going on as well as doing surveys over many months prior to the changes. Now there may have been a sudden change but Graham H has spoken many times about this phenomenon on South Western so we shouldn’t be shocked to see it elsewhere.

637. Re. Communications…

     The rail privatisation process actively discourages dialogue between many of the parties involved in running the railway. This has rather less effect on the more self-contained networks, such as those north and east of London, as they have very few interfaces with each other. (The North London and GOBLIN routes are among the few exceptions, and it’s no surprise to find that they get a lot of complaints about service quality.)

     South of the Thames you have a veritable spiderweb of interconnected networks: If a train breaks down on the Brighton Main Line, causing Thameslink services to back up all the way through the central core and up beyond to Kentish Town, who, exactly, is responsible for communicating what, and to whom? If this led to trains being stuck either side of London Bridge during its rebuild, this could have ramifications as far afield as Gravesend and Hastings if not addressed quickly.

     Perhaps there is a case to be made for a unified “Network Status Service” that would be responsible for keeping all parties updated on the network’s status. In the earlier example, this would mean Southern would inform Network Rail that their train had failed. (Line controllers would see a stopped train on their system, but wouldn’t necessarily know why.) The Network Status Centre would have a knowledge-base telling them which other services would be affected by a failed train at this location, and communicate the information accordingly, speeding up recovery and informing waiting passengers as well.

     This would eliminate an awful lot of the rump-covering and buck-passing endemic to the franchise system, which does little to encourage ‘joined-up’ operations. It’s also something that could be heavily automated, so wouldn’t necessarily require a large staff.

638. Anomnibus
     “Never argue Religion, Politics or Delay Attribution Minutes” is a saying I’ve heard …..

639. Ooh dear more politics and MP meetings sounds like announcing what was already known about.

     http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-31952392

     [Selected excepts minus political waffle for LBM]

     “Rail minister Claire Perry said changes would take place immediately, following talks with MPs.
     She said carrying out work on one of the UK’s busiest stations was like doing “open heart surgery on a marathon runner but what you have to do in that process is make sure people who are using that station every day to get to work, to get home, who want to be home to relieve the nanny* or to see their kids, actually have a reliable service,” Ms Perry said.

     She said former London Underground chief operating officer Phil Hufton was made gold commander for the station, a new station plan had been formed, and Southern rail operator had a new timetable to give people predictability and reliability.

     Ms Perry said compensation for passengers was being looked at.

     So any bets for which trains are going to get removed in the May timetable. change then?

     * yes there were plenty of nanny complaints…

640. @ngh – not merely waffle but plagiaristic waffle at that – we’ve heard this “open heart surgery” stuff applied to LBR before ….

641. RE Sad Fat Dad 18 March 2015 at 20:06
     “Yet not one of them has proposed, suggested or even hinted at anything that could or should have been done differently. … (and if it was easy, it would have been sorted?)”

     Precisely doing anything significantly different would require a step change in resource (people & money) Getting politicians to acknowledge that (as a prelude to getting the cheque book out) as a first step would be helpful.

     One easy (effectively free!) item might be to have the NR staff not stand and have a chat to BTP in the narrow pinchpoint by the railings next to the buffers on P15 like they were doing this morning. By contrast Southern staff have learnt to stay out of the way to improve passenger flow like they did this morning.

     On the TfL & compensation front – auto-refunds for oyster users is something TfL could really help with implementing if they want to actually help! It would also save Southern a lot of money in processing delay repay claims for Oyster users. most metro area delay repay has go to cost more to process than the amount claimed…

642. Re Graham H
     The … on a marathon runner… bit was new to me,the rest is indeed reused. Too amusing not to remove that bit. Politicians accepting that voters will get annoyed and stating there will be disruption rather than duck ‘n’ cover and hope the worst doesn’t happen until after it has.

643. @ngh -a truly bizarre image of surgeons and their theatre support running alongside a patient with his open chest pinned back. As someone who has had the non-athletic version, I was left feeling very queasy.

     Cynical, toi? (Hope so).

644. nmot seen the marathon runner before, but I have seen footage of minor running repairs being done to a Tour de France competitor’s machine whilst on the move

645. Ngh – I’ll have a tenner on certain trains being amended in May, but fear I would be up before the beak on insider trading…

646. RE Anonylon 18 March 2015 at 22:10

     Talking of timetables, the August 2016 Southeastern timetable, accounting for the Cannon Street run-through, will go out for consultation next month (April 2015). I wonder how many in September 2016 will turn round and say ‘we weren’t consulted about this’ as they did in January…

     The Cannon Street platforms being closed should probably be less disruptive to passenger journeys than the Charing Cross platforms being closed. i.e. walk to Bank for Northern line Bank Branch interchange, DLR to Canary Wharf etc, Central Circle and District line for west end options as an alternative to West Bound Jubilee or a short walk across the Bridge back to London Bridge station.

     The difficulty will presumably come from shortening some of Cannon Street services (that have been lengthened recently) to add more capacity to Charing Cross services???

647. The best analogy I’ve seen (principally because I devised it) is that rebuilding London Bridge is equivalent to rebuilding Wembley, in Central London, and still staging four cup finals a day.

648. Re Anon,

     That sounds much better but far too quantitative for a politician (and on the LR the argument would be whether it was 3.9 or 4.0…)

649. @ Anomnibus – you seem to be unaware of the role of the National Rail website which posts incident information and updates. This is also all relayed via Twitter and via their app. You don’t one control room – you simply need information to flow which it does in large part. I can sit at home and be aware in seconds of train delays anywhere in the country and a few clicks later can find more detail. Others have carefully explained why somewhere like London Bridge can get into a mess very quickly.

     There has also been the use of LU style “status boards” by many TOCs for years now so again you can see pretty quickly what route groups are affected by problems and which aren’t.

     None of the above solves a basic issue which is the “where is *my* train and why is it late?” question. If you’re in the midst of an incident it can be immensely difficult to get timely and accurate info that won’t be rendered useless 5 minutes later. It’s that “in the middle of a mess” scenario which is difficult for any operator. TfL haven’t fixed it for buses, the Tube, DLR or Overground and it’s not fixed for National Rail. I’d argue it’s probably not fixable and therefore an honest discussion with passengers is needed that explains the issues and sets some limits on what can honestly be done. That might well go down like a lead balloon but why make outlandish promises about better information which are impossible to achieve? That’s just stupidity on one level and a downright untruth on another.

650. WW ” I can sit at home and be aware in seconds of train delays anywhere in the country” is, I would suggest, the problem! If you are by a connected computer you can easily find out what is happening – but not if you are standing on a platform wondering where the 7:42 to work has got to (or, worse, sitting in a train stopped in the middle of nowhere.)

651. @Alison
     That is indeed the problem, only slightly mediated by the availability of smartphones. No wifi capability at my local station or on the trains. It is quite ridiculous that if my best-beloved needs information on trains at a busy main line station, it is more reliable to ring me up at home and get me to check online than to ask a member of railway staff.

652. alison W & timbeau
     Made worse if you have a smartphone & a twitter account – but, oh dear …
     1) You haven’t the faintest idea how to get twitter on to said phone
     2) Twitter account seems to have been hacked
     3) Can’t get in touch to kill account & open new one …
     4) Then find out how to put on phone & how to use it.

     Since I am fully computer-literate, to the extent of remembering real “core” store” & programming in old-fashioned code ( FORTRAN_IV ) this does not auger well!

653. timbeau:

     I agree that staff, if any, should have the best available information, if any.

     But the apparent ridiculosity of phoning home is partly a result of our upbringing, which makes any phone call seem onerous. If you are standing next to the beloved, then there seems nothing wrong with asking them for any information they happen to have, whether from their head or a smartphone.

654. And talking of outlandish promises, I see Ms Perry also recycled “compensation for passengers was being looked at.” which, as any fule kno, means the probability of it actually happening is about 10%.

655. @Mike P – “being looked at” is a classic phrase for “not doing anything” as in “the file is being looked at” (ie it can be seen on top of the filing cabinet if you choose to glance at it)

656. @Graham H – not far remote from “the matter is in hand”, then (to be put on top of the file on the top of the filing cabinet).

657. @Walthamstow Writer:

     Forgive the tone of what follows, but UX and interface design are subjects I do know something about…

     The thing is, there are standard procedures for getting services back up and running after an incident. These procedures are—or bloody well should be—written down somewhere, and that means they can be translated into a form a computer can understand:

     “EVENT: Gatwick Express failure at Purley. AFFECTS: all routes via BML Down Fast. Services diverted to BML Down Slow. Delays to all affected services until failed train removed. IMMEDIATE EFFECTS: Southern, Thameslink (BML services). ESTIMATED TIME TO CLEAR TRAIN: 30 min. POTENTIAL EFFECTS WITHIN 30 MIN: South Eastern Services via London Bridge [Charing Cross routes] and South London Line due to delayed services on other lines.”

     And so on.

     ALL of that is perfectly doable right now. The technology exists today. In fact, it existed a good ten years ago.

     Furthermore, such a system could also be linked to similar monitoring systems for bus and Underground services, allowing reasonable advice to be given regarding alternative routes for passengers who are likely to be particularly badly affected.

     The trick is presenting that information in a timely manner to those who need it, and without relying almost exclusively on social media and smartphone technology. The time will come when the latter becomes utterly ubiquitous, but it’s a struggle to get even a basic signal on much of the Tube network, let alone 4G data. If a major incident occurs, such as a derailed freight train somewhere near Clapham Junction, you’re also going to have hordes of passengers all trying to access the same mobile data at the same time. This rarely ends well.

     So there are two parts to this: the first is the creation of a computerised ‘expert system’, as described above. Not only would it be able to maintain an up-to-date flow of information, but the same system could also be linked into the signalling centres to help with the process of getting things back to normal again.

     The second part is to design displays that can show the affected lines and routes in a clear—most likely geographic or diagrammatic—format. These would be located in concourses and other larger circulation spaces. On the platforms, you’d rely on automated PA announcements—if you’ve ever used Siri, or Cortana, you’ll know that synthesised voices have come a long, long way since the one used by Prof. Stephen Hawking, so there’s no need to pay a voice artist to pre-record every possible announcement you can think of—and improved PIDs.

     Executive summary: “Where the hell is my train?” is not an intractable problem.

     Unlike buses, which have to contend with White Van Man, cyclists, and pedestrians, as well as a myriad other vehicles, railways have orders of magnitude fewer interfaces with other modes of transport. The only thing likely to get in the way of a train is another train.

658. @Graham H
     To quote Sir Humphrey Appleby

     “under consideration” means “we’ve lost the file”;

     “under active consideration” means “we’re looking for it”.

659. @timbeau – we did, of course, recommend Yes Minister as a training film to our new entrants. May I draw particular attention to the formulation “we will be seeking to review” – perhaps the weakest form of promise. You’d be surprised (well, no, you wouldn’t) how many are taken in with that.

     BTW, whatever the faults of a paper based system (hush anomnibus) it couldn’t half retrieve stuff if trodden on hard enough: when we renationalised LT, I asked Registry to open a new suite of files, only to be told that we could use the pre-1948 series, which were duly presented to me. (This wasn’t the most extreme case either: once, when dealing with homelessness, in 1975, I ill-advisedly asked for earlier papers on hostels; I was sent a series of files that had last been used in 1899. It was tempting to resume the correspondence from that point – ” Thank you for your minute of 6 June 1899; I am sorry for the delay in responding; there have been a number of staff changes since.”

660. Graham H
     lol you have brightened my night cheers Alan O

661. @ Anomnibus – while I take your point I have read hundreds and hundreds of incident reports on the tube in order to resolve attribution disputes. I can tell you that your idealised view of incident management and durations rarely materialises in reality. We have had posts earlier in this thread explaining the disconnects between signalling centres, staffing decisions and rolling stock at London Bridge. Incidents are rarely straightforward and that makes the management and comms processes more involved than you imagine. It only takes one or two “silly” things to happen or be done and your “30 mins to resume” becomes 90 minutes within the space of a couple of minutes.

     We can bore each other to death if we want but let’s agree to disagree. Getting better accurate and timely information is definitely needed but it is not easy to guarantee it which is what the stakeholders are demanding. I’d just prefer that people in power / positions of responsibility talked about reality rather than blandishments about some never arriving nirvana of rail services. No wonder the passengers get fed up.

662. @Graham H: After leaving school I briefly had a casual job at Marsham Street, winnowing down some cabinets full of paper (generated, I think, by the passage of a bill) into definitive files for the store. The pay of a casual AO didn’t feel like great pocket money: the job of a permanent AA down in the lightless registry looked really ghastly. Pulling up files from the 19th century was probably the highlight of some poor sod’s working year.

663. @HTFB -I’m sure you’re right, though “we upstairs” lived in fear of the Chief Registrar, just as we did of the chief dragon in charge of the typing pool,if we wanted anything done in a hurry. At the risk of prolonging this diversion,things in the old MHLG registry had degenerated into a degree of tradition and complexity that files had 20 or more character references,separated by up to six obliques. Nobody questioned this until one day an extreme example landed on the desk of the then Perm Sec, Dame Evelyn Sharp (the first woman Perm Sec and notoriously , er,formidable). She forthwith personally went down to see the Chief registrar and equally personally sat down and revised the entire filing system on the spot. The disadvantage of that was that no one ever after dare challenge the new system because the Dame had devised it.

     For real filing clunkery, the MoD still ran until c1980 a system whereby every minute you created was sent to registry for recording, and adding to the appropriate file. the file would then be sent to the minute’s addressee and so on. No unrecorded minutes, no clerks allowd to add to files off their own bat…

     As a final (Ed: it better had be) leckerbissen on the matter, I once had to correspond with my Austrian oppo Dr Emil Peschorn, who not only dressed in a three piece tweed suit that would have suited your average Vienna school psychoanalist in about 1910,but whose file references all began Eisenbahn Direktion XIII etc. Somewhere, the ghost of Franz Josef seemed alive and well. [Quite why the Austrians required 13 railway directorates, when we managed with one, was never obvious = perhaps they still kept shadow organisations dealing with Galicia amd the Sanjak of Novibazaar.]

664. @Graham H

     Re MoD are you referring to minutes or loose minutes? Minutes were inscribed on the minute sheet on the left side of the file (and numbered M(1)…M(n)) while loose minutes were typed on a separate sheet of paper and then distributed via the registry. with the file copy eventually arriving on the registered file and the file being booked back to the originator.

     Unless it was a S or TS file minutes tended to be addressed to a single post within the ambit of the relevant registry or were a note for the record, so it wasn’t quite as clunky as all that.

665. @Paying Guest – loose minutes. The practice of registering loose minutes had fallen into decay within DoE by about 1970 and even the requirement to number and list minutes was beginning to disappear. Registry tried to enforce this and wouldn’t accept a file for storage unless the papers had been correctly listed and numbered and some of my clerks spent too much time dealing with this. The system did however, prove its worth in the conviction of Pottinger – one of the few very senior civil servants to have been imprisoned for corruption (in this case, in the wake of the T Dan Smith scandal) . Pottinger removed from the files the incriminating papers and tried to conceal what he had done by cutting off the corners of the remaining papers which had the document numbers. This was foolish and merely showed how out of touch some senior staff were with what was going on below them; as my filing clerks remarked at the time, they often spent their time renumbering papers and all Pottinger need have done was cross out the old numbers and close up the gaps, and no one would have been any the wiser.

     How did we get on to the arcanity of registry practices in relation to LBR blockades?

666. Anomnibus (Lewisham People’s Front [Catford Branch]) @ 11.04; when I was at the driver training school, one of the trainers said that if any of us come up with a way of supplying accurate updated information during disruption, then we should speak up, because after 170 years, the railway still hadn’t managed to do so. The technology might be there to locate every train, but that doesn’t mean that it will be known exactly when it will reach the destination; exactly how long it will take to turn it round/fix it; how long it will take for a fitter to reach it by road etc etc. Even if a relatively accurate estimate of time can be supplied, situations change rapidly and information becomes out of date and it can be difficult to disseminate it. I once had to work a train into Victoria and straight out again. I noticed while changing ends that it was particularly full. Suddenly the train on the adjacent platform left to howls of dismay from the passengers. It was only then that I was told that the driver of the other train had reported a fault, informed the passengers of a rough estimate of time to fix and that my train was the next to be going their way. So they all changed trains. But then the fault was fixed more quickly than anticipated so off he went. Now that seems daft at first. But the alternative was to inform me what had happened, me announce to my train that the other train would go first, and while half of them changed trains again, this would then delay the first train a bit longer and then my train too – and then other trains after me and at strategic points such as Balham Junction. This way the overall delay and damage to the train plan was reduced relative to what seems like the ideal solution for the sake of a slightly longer journey for the faulty train’s passengers. Now try accurately quantifying all of that and running a model that can always predict which train will run when. It’s even worse in the peaks because of the number of movements involved and higher possibility of crew having to take breaks to avoid breaking the rules. Far from perfect I know.

667. @GTR Driver:

     I appreciate your points, but as you say yourself in your example of the unexpectedly quick train fix, there are rules—even if they are (apparently) unwritten—involved in deciding what to do in such situations.

     I’m not implying such a system as I described would attempt to give highly precise information along the lines of “17:33 South Eastern service to Dartford delayed by exactly 12′ 17s.” Instead, it would be more along the lines of: “Minor delays of up to 20 minutes expected to South Eastern services to Dartford.”

     The key is to provide sufficient information for people to make an informed decision about their journey. This is the only goal worth aiming for.

     For example, tying the system into TfL’s own databases would allow additional advice to be offered. An example message for a passenger trying to get to Lewisham might then be: “Extensive delays to all services via Lewisham from London Bridge due to points failure at New Cross. SUGGESTION: Take next Cannon Street service to Greenwich. Change at Greenwich for DLR service to Lewisham. Next scheduled service to Greenwich departs in six minutes from platform…” etc.

     The idea is to provide enough information to allow people to make a decision on how best to proceed with their journey. The trick is collating all the necessary information, not only on timetables and normal journey times, but also on what the procedures are for the many potential failure cases.

     Building such a knowledge base will take time given the complexity of the network, but as it is built, the system will also become increasingly useful in picking up the pieces after an incident. As it becomes increasingly refined and improved, the end result will be a system that could, potentially, even automate the process of service recovery across all affected routes. This would be done according to a predictable set of finely tuned algorithms developed by actually talking to the people who do it right now and using extensive case studies to nail down which methods work and which don’t. (A common cause of the collapse of many IT projects is a complete failure to do either of those.)

     Once you factor in future technologies, such as the later ERTMS phases, the use of mobile phones for NFC payments, and so on, the potential benefits of such a system increase dramatically.

     I’d be very surprised if there isn’t anyone already working on this. If that is indeed the case, I’d like anyone with the necessary funding and desire to get on it to consider my hand raised and to picture me jumping up and down shouting “Ooh! Me! Me! Pick me!” in a voice suspiciously like that of Eddie Murphy.

668. @ Anomnibus – alternatively you could simply ask passengers to employ a bit of time and common sense and ask them to plan and, if necessary, write down / print off two or three alternative routes for their usual commute. I’m blessed with a ludicrously detailed knowledge of the transport network which resides in my brain. Therefore I can usually replan instantly in my head a way to get round a delay. In years of commuting I only got stuck once. Sometimes I took the “wrong” decision as a delay cleared just as I stepped on my alternative tube or bus but such is life. I lost track of the numbers of colleagues at LU who had no idea what the alternatives were for their journeys or even that things like bus spider maps existed.

     I realise most normal people don’t fill their head with the transport network so the alternative for them is to have something planned and stored away. Ideally they can test the alternative out on a day when they’re not in a hurry so they can familiarise themselves. People get cross and frustrated when their journey stops. The trick to get rid of the anxiety is to get moving and keep moving. The planning tools already exist in the form of Journey Planners etc. TfL and others could provide a simple guide to alternative route planning and give simple hints and tips to get round problems. Sometimes it’s sensible to go backwards to go forwards in order to get on uncrowded routes or buses. I know it might be a somewhat patronising message to give to people but it’s better to educate people on how to help / prepare themselves in the event that things go wrong. I know things should not fail in an ideal world but they do, even on the best of systems.

     I have an image lodged in my head of an old BBC news interview with a woman at Victoria Station who got caught up in the aftermath of a big power failure on the tube which stopped a large part of the system. She was ranting away about it taking 90 minutes by bus from Leicester Square to Victoria. At this point I was shouting at the telly because she could have walked it in about 20 minutes. That’s what a lack of sense and preparation does – makes people helpless (not me yelling at the box 🙂 ) and then they look stupid if interviewed by the media.

669. Regarding civil service filing practises, my father explained how the habit of using 2-digit years on memos was discouraged; the example he gave referred (in the 80s) to a search through a filing system for a precedent of some kind – apparent success with a memo dated something like 12/3/69, apparently just what was needed, until some context (perhaps mention of an official’s name or something) revealed that the memo had actually been written on 12/3/1869, and was still in the files.

670. @anomnibus
     “Extensive delays to all services via Lewisham from London Bridge due to points failure at New Cross. SUGGESTION: Take next Cannon Street service to Greenwich. ”

     If only – far too often passengers on, say a Shepperton train will be given no information about anything other than other Shepperton trains – not a thought that people might be able to use almost any other local train if they are only going to Raynes Park, or e.g a Surbiton train if they are going to Kingston.

671. @Malcolm – Ah, the (in)famous Y1.9K bug. See, everyone prepared for it so well that the world didn’t end.

672. @Malcom – and why wouldn’t a precedent of 1869 still be relevant? [In the example I cited, for instance,the leading piece of legislation was the Vagrancy Act 1824, and, slightly more on topic, the UK is still cursed with the Tramways Act 1870].

673. @Graham H

     Good point. Perhaps the precedent was relevant. The lesson I took is that the files had been so well kept for over 100 years (and systems so seamlessly preserved) that the fact that the memo was so old almost escaped notice.

674. It looks like Thameslink Programme has finally discovered Cameras

675. The video of Assembly Members grilling NR and TOCs on London Bridge will be archived here at some point soon:

     http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/webcasts

     Transport Committee – Fri 27 March 2015, 3pm

     The message from NR was no major improvements till 2016, lots of minor ones in the interim.

676. @ Ngh – judging from the tweets I read the T’port Cttee were absolutely livid. Mr Hufton of NR (ex LU) and Charles Horton (long ago ex LU but a Govia stalwart) got an absolute pasting from the politicians. I didn’t watch the webcast live but the responses given were ridiculed and I think there was a misjudgement on the part of the railway people as to how to “play” such a session even if there are legitimate constraints on what can be done. One comment on the session suggested that the tactic was “no one’s to blame, no one is at fault” which was never going to work well given the backdrop of the last 18-24 month’s worth of reassurance and promises.

     Based on what Tom Edwards (BBC) reported there do seem to have been some elementary errors around assumptions used in modelling track capacity, station management techniques and there have been asset failures on the approaches to LB.

     Val Shawcross (Labour AM) asked for daily performance info to be provided. Apparently someone “sighed” and said they already gave it to TfL on a daily basis. Val then “suggested” that it also be sent to City Hall. TfL people have learnt that the right answer is to immediately say “we will send that to you” or “we haven’t got it today but we will write after the meeting to give you what you need” before any of the politicians have a chance to ask for the info. I don’t know if the Network Rail regulars were also at the meeting but if they weren’t it seems no one had the wit to ask them how to “work” the committee in an effective way. To top it all off Caroline Pidgeon, chair of the committee, had her train home after the meeting cancelled! Oh dear.

677. @WW – used to be standard industry practice to role play such encounters but from what my spy tells me about Govia these days, the thought wouldn’t have occurred to them. You are right – always agree with one’s interrogators -their agenda is invariably to find the leverage for the maximum publicity (it’s their only opportunity, poor dears, as they are not ministers – Margaret Hodge makes a very successful third career out of it)and they look for every fissure and crack to get leverage on that.

678. It seems to me that the only thing that could, even remotely possibly, be done to ease matters would be for the opening of the fourth Southern track to be advanced. If that is possible it would probably put something else back so the end point would be delayed. It would also probably increase end costs. Again, if it is possible, and the option was offered to politicians and commuters I suspect that both would choose jam today over jam tomorrow. (Especially the politicians who may not be around tomorrow.)
     I don’t know whether similar benefits could be gained with an extra track on the SE tracks. I suspect the bottleneck there is in LB station itself.

679. @ Graham H – the Committee asked commuters to send in their views and experiences prior to the meeting. There was extensive use of social media to encourage responses so anyone with half a clue could see the “emotional pressure” of real life feedback was going to be used. In that situation the only reaction is to concede “defeat” rather then somehow waffle about “I also pay fares” or “if we pay passengers more generous compensation that reduces the money to the Treasury” [1] which I understand was part of a reply to Committee. I’ll watch the webcast at some point so I can see just how dire it was.

     [1] as this is a management contract and not a risk bearing franchise I wonder about the relevance of this athough I guess all revenue goes back to govt. It was also said recently that Govia were in effective “default” on the TSGN franchise because of the poor performance as a result of driver shortages.

680. @WW – Don’t think I was defending the operators’ responses! They were – such is the nature of the occasion – faced with a choice of least worst options: either you confess, look weak and incompetent, and then shot (in the manner of Stalin), or you bluster about how good things will be in the future sunny uplands, and get slated for being out of touch, and then shot anyway (also in the manner of Stalin).
     There is NO answer to the conundrum – refuse to go, and you will be shot (Stalin shot would be escapees, of course); go and you face the choice of eternal damnation or eternal damnation .

681. @ RayK – I think the Assembly Members do understand that it’s a big complex project and that there will be difficult phases. What has enraged them is that the train service has not stabilised, that information is poor and that promises aren’t being met. People will put up with planned disruption provided the advertised service runs and runs reliably. Note that South Eastern don’t appear to be in the firing line – it’s Southern and Thameslink. When it all goes to pot people have no tolerance left.

     The other impact is that people feel that their jobs are at risk because they’re repeatedly late for work. Most employers don’t tolerate that sort of thing for very long. Caroline Pidgeon was shown on the news reading out one comment “I have started a new job. I keep being late for work. Your incompetence is making me look incompetent to my new employer”. Where do you go when faced with that sort of feedback?

     @ Graham H – I know you weren’t defending the operators. As you say it’s a dire situation to be in and you’ll get shot. The issue is how many times are you shot and can you persuade your attackers to put the guns down? I think the responses encouraged the AMs to put down their pistols and pick up machine guns and keep firing!

682. If the modelling / station assumptions had elemental errors, how come the southeastern side is working well? It must have been the same modelling…

     And notwithstanding the politicians comments, the stats show that reliability at London Bridge for the last month or so is at least as good as it was for the equivalent periods for the last few years, and considerably better than at Victoria.

     One is tempted to ask why London politicians are making so much noise about this in the run up to the election. Pushing for more TfL control perhaps?

683. @Sad fat dad

     “the stats show that reliability at London Bridge for the last month or so is at least as good as it was for the equivalent periods for the last few years,”

     which suggests they are not measuring the right things. So what if the train ran on time, if half the people who should have travelled on it couldn’t reach it because of the crowds on the concourse/lack of information/whatever?

684. I would say that the service has settled down in recent weeks. It only falls over if an external event happens (I mean not directly related to London bridge). However when it falls down it goes big style which is where the differences lie. Mondays seem to be the biggest morning issue from my perspective. There are some timetable issues however I suspect that the commuters would not find the alternative of still less trains any more palatable.

685. @timbeau. The concourse has suffered overcrowding on three evenings. January 5th, January 6th and March 3rd. The latter was nothing to do with any issue at London Bridge itself, but because more than twice the normal number of people turned up as the ELL was shut and the lines from Victoria heavily disrupted. To say half the people missed their trains is rather an exaggeration.

     Lack of info is a different matter, but by no means exclusive to London Bridge.

686. @ SFD – it was Network Rail who said the modelling assumptions about using 3 tracks on the approach to LB had been incorrect. Nothing from the politicians. Network Rail have the misfortune that several Assembly Members use LB daily and even if not one of their constituents had complained the AMs themselves have been thrown off trains, delayed, suffered cancellations, been stuck in the jammed concourse. Realistically what do you expect them to do? Keep quiet? No point in having a modicum of power and influence and not using it. It is perfectly clear that a lot of people have suffered a great deal of inconvenience and they’ve complained. As the TOCs and Network Rail seemingly don’t care very much given their poor public stance on the matter it’s no wonder the politicians have intervened. If the situation had been proactively managed with clear results with these being *publicised* then there would have been fewer grounds for complaint.

     Of course there is a subtext here. Firstly the AMs have been asking for reassurance about the works for two years. They had a load of promises and only some of those have been met. That’s error number 1 on the part of the railway. Secondly of course the politicians want TfL to control suburban services. That lead comes from Boris who has had that as a policy since 2007. Passengers have long moaned about South Eastern and Southern’s reputation has been declining in recent years. Thameslink was dire for years with First suffering repeated problems and bequeathing TSGN with a driver shortage. Complaints to govt ministers and the DfT have made no difference. Heck, several MPs raised London Bridge / Brighton Line issues at the last PMQs of this parliament. They got the usual weasel words answer.

     TfL operation doesn’t make the railway immune from delays or cancellations but there is a general sense in which it is more accountable, it sorts problems more quickly and there is obvious investment in new trains and better services. Compensation is also more generous and automatic. It’s no wonder that people are attracted by that.

     I don’t doubt you are absolutely right about there being improvements in the underlying service. Unfortunately it takes time for that to become obvious to people who are enraged about weeks of shoddy service.

687. SFD & WW ‘it was Network Rail who said the modelling assumptions about using 3 tracks on the approach to LB had been incorrect.’
     Unfortunately this statement is rather too vague to be useful. It’s vagueness leaves the AM’s to make what they wish of it. We need to know what assumptions were incorrect. Was it just those that applied to resilience (or lack of it) or something more fundamental. Do we know that resilience was modelled? The evidence would appear to suggest not. Is that the implied incorrect assumption? We need to know if this statement was just personal opinion made in the wrong place or if it is really true. A negative statement needs just as much verification as a positive one. Too many of the wrong sort of questions from the AM’s.

688. @Walthamstow Writer:

     People were warned! And for years in advance, not a few weeks or months. There was no lack of information about it, and I’m not just talking about the informational posters put up at London Bridge station and others on the network.

     This week, I shall be mostly blaming the Royal Numismatic Society.

689. @RayK – in one sense, the modelling assumptions for assessing the timetable’s robustness ought to have been straightforward – application of standard rules used in the construction of a timetable plus iteration of the timetable against a a comparator portfolio of delays. It’s most likely that if there were any errors in the modelling assumptions, it would be in the selection of the latter. [One of my perpetual concerns about Railsys and its stablemates is that you tend to tell the model the results you want at the outset…] On the other hand, I would be astonished to hear AMs debating whether the model should be calibrated against delays based on Charing Cross versus Waterloo, or whatever.

690. @Anomnibus, people weren’t warned that, for example, to recover an evening rush hour service running five minutes late, a stopping train to West Croydon would run non-stop to either East Dulwich, Tulse Hill or even Norwood Junction; or of consecutive cancellations due to lack of train crew — in one recent instance there were no trains via Peckham Rye AT ALL between the 21.55 and the 22.40 (which actually left late at 21.42). It’s nothing to do with PR and/or communications, it’s simply the continual and unreliable lack of service.

691. DavidG
     ‘there were no trains via Peckham Rye AT ALL between the 21.55 and the 22.40’
     You mean you usually get trains at that time of day. AND they are usually more frequent than every hour. OOOOh! Aint you lucky.

692. @RayK
     Are you suggesting it’s better to be let down by the failure to deliver a service than not to be promised it in the first place?

693. @various. I happen to know which modelling assumptions were incorrect, and no I’m not publishing them here, you’ll have to wait for my memoirs. But they are relatively minor, and have been in the models for years, previous runs of which have been reasonably accurate.

     In fact, current performance is better than what the model predicted, and has been for some time now. In the first few weeks, with the same layout, same drivers, same signallers and essentially the same timetable, performance was much worse than predicted. How so?

694. @RayK – so your not going to get any closer than my suggestion,I fear. The modelling techniques are – naturally – based on probability and there are two consequences to that – for obvious reasons, there is always a chance that the actual results will fall outside the predicted results; and the number of modelling runs may have been too small.

695. @Anonymous
     “In the first few weeks, with the same layout, same drivers, same signallers and essentially the same timetable, performance was much worse than predicted. How so?”
     Experience.
     As the staff (and passengers) get used to the arrangements, they no longer need to check or look up or ask know where to go, and what to do, and learn where the critical points in the prescribed processes are and where some flexibility is possible (or necessary).

696. Just for information, my ‘model’ was simply looking at the track plans for the Southern side and immediately coming to the conclusion that it won’t work, particularly under stress (late running, points failures, &c.) but there again I’m not employed in the field. I did, however, pass my thoughts to some who I believed needed to know. They in turn admitted they were subservient to others in charge of infrastructure. Outside consultants come into this, too.

697. @Graham F – The NR performance modelling would implicitly allow for the sort of incidents you describe, and their likely frequency. NR generally do most of their performance modelling in house these days, but it would be for them to explain who their internal client for the modelling was (project? infrastructure?ops?) and who would have been in the driving seat so far as decisions on the suitability of the infrastructure might be

698. Video of Assembly Members grilling NR and TOCs on London Bridge last Friday (27 March 2015, 3pm) now on line:

     http://www.london.gov.uk/webcasts/40563/asx

699. Quick summary of the Assembly Transport session on Friday:

     New Cross Gate Points – Installation issues, retraining of installation teams

     Track circuits – Earthing problem with the power supply in 1 equipment room finally resolved weekend 14-15 March? The other equipment rooms were working reliably.

     Am peak working ok 22tph

     Pm peak didn’t work so reduction to 20tph, modelling did not identify all constraints.

     TSGN ideally want to run 24tph but understand it needed to be less but how much less agreed on 22tph…

     Removal of services to create a viable timetable based on:
     Alternatives
     Crowding on others services
     Reliability improvement on other services

     Further changes in May
     no overall reduction in services [so swaps]

     Economic costs to economy calculated
     Tube strike cost £50m a day but NR trying to calculate.

     Possible issues with 442s and the signalling but modifications to the stock (happening anyway) may have sorted the issues.

     Positioning of visible staff not appropriate (now changed).

     Phil (ex-LU) Gold commander for crisis management. Aim to eventually change from Response and recovery to predict and prevent.

     Start with getting get basics right in customer service at the station
     Staff all on same radio channel
     More information screens
     More passenger modelling from same consultancy as GLA use.

     Pan London incident management between TfL & NR.

     NR Operations (day to day running and maintenance) and infrastructure departments are split and this may not have helped things.

     DfT asking NR what are you doing not telling them what to do.

     Phil – No massive improvements till post August 2016 and 4th track is back (the down slow through the dive under.)

     Timetable improvements 90% on time in am peak.

     PM peak 12th+13th March best days for ppm for several years.

     3 pronged improvement:

     Driver + signal famalarity

     Point + track circuit reliability

     Timetable tweaking

     LBG not unsafe no recorded injuries

     “Raspberry” tabbards – another 3 months till all full trained to desired level.

     Diverting passengers elsewhere can only be limited i.e. Victoria tube overloading issues.

     80% of delays at London Bridge due to issues away from London Bridge area i.e. Purley and Windmill Bridge etc.

     Issues arround reversible lines on the 3 track sections not working as well as was anticipated.

     Modelling “nothing wrong with the modelling” just some of the assumptions.
     2-3second delays make the difference between being able to 20 and 22tph in the evening peak variability between signal going green and train departing causing issues.

     May Timetable – change diagramming and rostering for improved reliability.

     20% increase in use of Tfl services (LO, Jubilee, Bus etc) for diversionary purposes. (Mainly for SE side of the works)
     Increased TfL costs, NR picking up.

     Travel Demand Management board to coordinate NR TfL and TOCs.

     Compensation
     19,000+ claims every 4 weeks for delay repay. Historically only estimate 10% delay repay.
     £3.2m paid out since Christmas. £0.5m recieved from NR but the figures aren’t comparible.

     Southern in revenue support, T+GN not.

     Hot summer & lack of air-con on all the trains – “Hot train process” don’t trap trains without aircon.

     It didn’t sound like the scale of grilling alleged on twitter.

700. “80% of delays at London Bridge due to issues away from London Bridge area i.e. Purley and Windmill Bridge etc.”

     Well slap me sideways with a moist cod.

701. Re Anomnibus,

     I think the point being made by NR was that before the London Bridge works there was plenty of room for service recovery at London Bridge unfortunately the works have removed that ability so issues elsewhere are being magnified and highlighted. If reliability of the track circuits is “sorted” then that number could go up quite a bit focusing attention elsewhere on network performance, they might have to publicise this a bit more to deflect attention from London Bridge.

     As an example my regular am peak service has been cancelled once, delayed < 10mins 4 times but has run on time the other 92% of the time this year (the pm peak is a different matter!) I take an earlier one than previously, chosen very carefully! That service could hit 96% on time if the track circuit issues were excluded. Later am peak services are less reliable.

     See PoP's Sussex part 7 (&*..)

     The other big issue has been the reliance of Southern and T+GN (and FCC) on regular driver overtime to run services – this was recognised as unsustainable in the TSGN ITT but it takes around a year to recruit and train new drivers and they have 188 in training mentioned to the assembly.

702. Isn’t it the job of a terminus to provide service recovery time by allowing variable dwell times at the platforms? Making the service more brittle by removing this is a valid concern. Modelling that shows things will work if all goes well is of limited use if the inevitable noise in running a railway grows rather than being damped down.

703. @ngh:

     My point was that disruption at London Bridge was commonplace long before the rebuild work began. It fell over frequently. Much of the work being done is precisely to stop these problems happening in future. It’s the wholepoint of this exercise!
     [Overly emphatic language snipped. LBM]

704. ngh
     Phil (ex-LU) Gold commander for crisis management. Aim to eventually change from Response and recovery to predict and prevent.
     Start with getting get basics right in customer service at the station
     Staff all on same radio channel
     More information screens
     Pan London incident management between TfL & NR.
     And it took all this public disruption, before they did something that simple?
     Oh dear.

     John B
     And, there are fewer terminal platforms, so less wriggle room, too.
     As well as the “three track” problem.

705. Actually the radio channel issue for one is far more complicated than that. It is easy to trivialise all this and think it is obvious.

     There is a considerable disadvantage in making radio groups too large. (It is really meaningless to talk of channels in this digital age.) On an open “channel” you get a lot of talk which is irrelevant to most and then people switch off to background chatter. You also get the situation where, to maintain radio discipline, people are having to wait for other conversations to finish before they can get on air with their, possibly moderately urgent, message although there are procedures for interrupting if necessary. Also, the larger the radio group the more you have to spend time formalising radio use through training sessions.

     As an alternative to the open channel you can have it secure with conversations not being overhead and there is a danger that staff don’t get a feel for what is happening.

     Conversely there can be a danger in making radio groups too small and the bigger picture isn’t seen.

     If it wasn’t actually a problem in the past then there could be good arguments for leaving it as it is. Separating Network Rail and TOC staff may well have appeared to be an obvious sensible way of doing it that had stood the test of time until now. An obvious alternative at London Bridge is to have separate talk groups for through and terminating platforms but that brings its own disadvantages. There is no perfect solution.

706. @ Greg – looking at the list of proposed changes there is something of a “LU” feel to them but then Mr Hufton is merely importing that experience.

     Thinking about the London Bridge station issue I think that one of the problems is that Network Rail have many decades of experience of stations typically “looking after themselves”. They may get busy but there is often a lot of space and layout flexibility. Train loads and departure demand would be well understood. Contrast this with LU which tends to have more constrained station layouts and which has been dealing with big congestion issues day in, day out for years. What the London Bridge works have done is make that station much more constrained and like a tube station in terms of a lot of demand in a reduced space and less flexibility. Therefore NR and the TOCs have genuinely faced a learning curve compared to their accumulated experience of running terminal stations.

     Before anyone reels off a list of busy NR stations then please note I am not saying NR doesn’t have crowding issues or a need to manage congestion. Clearly it does at places like Clapham Junction but terminals have tended to be easier in comparison.

707. “terminals have tended to be easier in comparison”
     Not necessarily easier, but certainly different. At through stations you have much less dwell time, but at least you have a fairly good idea as to the order in which trains are going to depart, and can be fairly sure it will be fully crewed, and that the train is not going to sit down and sulk!

708. Walthamstow Writer,

     I think there is a lot of truth in what you write. In particular LU have mastered the art of managing crowds in a way that Network Rail never have been as LU are used to dealing lots of people in confined spaces. They are also not afraid to intervene to prevent a problem developing (even if unpopular with passengers). What I think is more critical is that on LU their staff seem to instinctively know the right and wrong place to stand and are not afraid to direct passengers or shout at them if need be. For this purpose they always seem to have ready access to a megaphone or radio-mike if one is required. In contrast, my experience at London Bridge is that the staff really don’t know what to do in this respect and we even get reports of them being in an inappropriate place and making this worse as passengers have to navigate around them.

     During the run-up to the Olympics LU deliberately sent staff to stations like Wembley Park on match days to get those that weren’t used to dealing with large crowds more familiar with what is involved. It was recognised as a skill that needed to be learnt and learnt on the job by going to somewhere where it does work and not by being thrown in the deep end at somewhere it doesn’t.

     Much is made of the crowding at London Bridge (Network Rail) yet my experience is of similar levels of crowding just a few yards away at London Bridge Underground but no-one seems concerned by that.

709. @ PoP – wasn’t aware of the Wembley Park training thing but it makes sense. It can be difficult to be in a crowd of passengers and not being afraid to intervene or to help those who look a bit marooned. Seen a little bit of that when doing strike day cover in the past. And of course the moment you appear to know what you’re doing you’ve got an instant queue – I had that at a bus stop on the Strand on Sunday. I helped one person and all of a sudden another 4 people wanted help!

     One difference with LB is that people queued at gatelines probably want a specific departure and it’s the sense of “missing my train” that caused some of the gateline leaping. Specific departures are not really a concern on the tube itself although some people will be on tight journey times to make a connection somewhere else (main line station, airport). As you say LU has the accumulated experience of knowing when to stop people or divert them and also the alertness to spot changes in the service that require intervention.

710. @PoP & WW – Wembley Park – I have LT Traffic Circulars “Special Traffic Notices” dating back to the 1970’s, when comparatively frequently (but not regularly) extra entrances/exits were opened, especially onto Wembley Way, and extra staff were drafted in to deal with all manner of sober and otherwise folk coming from all over the country who had never used the Underground before. Thus PoP’s bit about “During the run-up to the Olympics LU deliberately sent staff to stations like Wembley Park on match days to get those that weren’t used to dealing with large crowds more familiar with what is involved.” doesn’t really resonate as such because surely staffing arrangements would have been no different from other big match days at Wembley. Indeed, the capacity (90,000) of Wembley is less, is it not, than back in the 1970’s? The stadium I remember held c. 100,000, then reduced to 82,000 but was originally 127,000. If PoP is saying that staff were drafted in off LU remote from the Met. Line, then that could have caused difficulties on its own through lack of staff awareness of the operation of and connections available from the railway routes serving Wembley Park. I’m only asking.

     In those days I mention, there were lots of extra trains laid on, of course, on the Metropolitan and neighbouring routes. As for Millwall’s ground next to South Bermondsey, by comparison, they’ve got lots of less trains any day or time of the week and that’s unlikely to change any time soon, if ever, even to reach the service intensity that once was possible during the same era at South Bermondsey (12tph to London Bridge – today 4tph and a bit more at peaks and perhaps 8tph in the future after completion of the Thameslink work, depending on cancellations and remembering that 4tph are London Overground via Surrey Quays, not via South Bermondsey). But 8tph is not 12tph and nothing I can see in the Thameslink ‘improvement’ work at London Bridge is likely to overcome that failing. In other words, the South London Line will forever have restricted access to London Bridge as compared to what was possible before ‘modellers’ seemingly forgot the SLL and concentrated on the Brighton main line via New Cross Gate (and the local services on that route don’t come off much better). Just lucky, then, that London Overground emerged to provide some relief to “Thameslink 2000”.

711. Graham Feakins,

     At one of the talks on Olympic preparations (I think by Peter Hendy but cannot be sure) much was made of the fact that staff on stations had been deliberately rotated to make sure all station staff at relevant stations had practical experience of dealing with large crowds of a one-off nature. I mentioned Wembley Park simply because it was chosen as an example of a station people would be sent to and the one mentioned in the talk. I am not saying it hasn’t been the case for many years that staff have been drafted there on match days. What was different was the reason behind it – to prepare the staff for the Olympics. The relevance of it to London Bridge was that it was giving staff experience in a real world setting of how to handle large crowds.

     As a more general point, perhaps I should have also mentioned the very pro-active approach TfL staff have to other events such as Notting Hill Carnival. Also in central London a lot of preparation and active crowd control is done for events such as the Marathon and New Years Eve. Even the DLR (and agency) staff come out in force on event days at Excel. Whilst Network Rail and the TOCs obviously do this as well the images one recalls are not positive ones. There was that day that of the Royal Barge on the Thames where Network Rail and South West Trains blamed the queues and chaos on an unexpected rain shower at the wrong time and of course the images of the people queueing at Finsbury Park after Christmas with rarely a member of staff to be seen on the outside of the station. Of course London Underground have had some pretty bad scenes at Oxford Circus in the past few months and they have the distinct advantage of being able to redirect passengers to an alternative nearby Underground station – a luxury Network Rail and the TOCs don’t have at London Bridge.

712. @Graham F
     “Thus PoP’s bit about “During the run-up to the Olympics LU deliberately sent staff to stations like Wembley Park on match days to get those that weren’t used to dealing with large crowds more familiar with what is involved.” doesn’t really resonate as such because surely staffing arrangements would have been no different from other big match days at Wembley. ….. If PoP is saying that staff were drafted in off LU remote from the Met. Line, then that could have caused difficulties on its own through lack of staff awareness of the operation of and connections available from the railway routes serving Wembley Park. I’m only asking.”

     I think you may have misunderstood PoP’s point – I understood him to suggest that the staff were sent to Wembley Park to gain experience of handling large crowds, not because the station needed more help than usual.

713. That was my reading too – TFL sent staff to e.g. Wembley for training as there were known (regular) events – football, concerts etcin the run up to the Olympics so there was a good opportunity to expose staff to large crowds arriving and departing in a short space of time.

     Dealing with 90k passengers over a whole day is totally different to them all arriving 1 hour before event start and leaving in the hour after it ends.

     I assume similar happened at e.g. the O2 and Excel which again have large crowds so provide a good training opportunity.

714. One further thing to add is that there were a lot of non operational staff plus volunteers drafted in to help with the Olympics. I can’t say whether they went to Wembley Park too but it would have made sense if some of them did if only for familiarisation / awareness purposes.

715. @PoP : ‘Much is made of the crowding at London Bridge (Network Rail) yet my experience is of similar levels of crowding just a few yards away at London Bridge Underground but no-one seems concerned by that’.

     The key difference (also relevant when comparing LU dealing with peak crowds at Wembley and so on) is that being held at an Underground barrier generally lasts a few minutes in my experience and everyone can understand that the platforms are excessively crowded but will clear shortly – ie the service is basically running but can’t quite cope with a surge crowd – whereas the headline crowding at London Bridge National Rail is typically when the service has collapsed and no-one has any confidence about their individual journey timing, so the crowd psychology is very different I would think? And far harder to manage or control, especially if those tasked with that have access to basically the same information on when service will resume.

716. @brockley Mike
     “whereas the headline crowding at London Bridge National Rail is typically when the service has collapsed and no-one has any confidence about their individual journey timing”
     As with other national rail stations, with services often at half hourly intervals a few minutes delay can quickly multiply to thirty. If a significant number of people are waiting 30 minutes when they were expecting to wait less than five, there will be six times as many people on the concourse! So the station will then be clogged up with people waiting for the next train to their destination to be announced, so exacerbating the crowds.

717. @timbeau. my basic point (picking up on PoP’s) is that the major crowds at, say Wembley after a match arise because of everyone arriving too much at the same time, not generally because there is a problem with the train service. At London Bridge terminal platforms the major crowd problems are a direct symptom of a problem having arisen with the train service. so at LBG people see a crowd, know there is a service issue and then feel uncertain about their journey outcome – and to me managing this type of crowd is a very different problem and harder to manage than dealing with the dispersal of a surge crowd at Wembley. Also with the tube there are typically only one or two route options and so everyone can move forward in turn without the confusion of seeking which platform they need for a wide choice of destinations.

718. Sad day today.

     The guy who runs the newsagents in the ticket hall at Woolwich Arsenal has decided to close after many years. Last day today.

     All the weekends without trains has taken its toll and he can’t make a profit. Made worse by Select Service Partners selling papers & magazines in the previous just catering unit on the up platform.

     The true cost of the Thameslink project is way beyond the work at London Bridge.

719. The big difference with a NR rather than a tube station is the multiplicity of destinations. A tube line often has a single direction nearly all passengers want, so a queueing system is fair and easy to understand. To be stuck at the back of a mob with your train due to depart in 5 minute is very frustrating, as you suspect everyone else is waiting for a different service. This is why everyone desires to get on the platforms, where the competition to get through a particular door is clear.

     Organising separate queues would be near impossible, as many could take alternate trains that are going their way, or just lie to ensure they got onto the platforms to wait for the train they really wanted, well before the saps who waited politely.

720. @John B (amplified by WW)

     Your point about the role of terminals being the governor (in the mechanical, steam engine sense) of timetables is well made, and the point about the undesirability of making that brittle is an excellent one. One I have missed in the past – as have many others here – when suggesting terminals ought to handle a greater tph. We have suggested that in the past about Victoria and the BML but the London Bridge situation, and your entirely excellent observation, shows that it might be rash to assume terminal stations could handle a greater frequency of services by being more efficient. May be they could on good days but also perhaps – only perhaps – those seeming inefficiencies embed a certain tolerance to service disruptions which could prove disastrous if removed.

721. @Graham Feakins

     Don’t run your own “model” down. Over the years I have done a fair bit of modelling (of industrial and commercial processes but also of a transport system) and a model doesn’t need to be terribly sophisticated to show that there’s potentially a problem.

     Where models need to be vastly complex is when you have a 95% or 99% reliability target across the system, probably couple with targets against excessive delays to any one process iteration / service and against the 1 in 10000 chance of meltdown. In fact, professionally and despite working with some top management consultants, I have never professionally seen a model that sophisticated. Maybe someone like NASA operates models like that, but I don’t know.

     One key question for Assembly Members to ask of TfL, NR, TOCs etc is “What analysis have you done to demonstrate that your reliability targets will be met?” I suspect that would get very evasive answers because even if all input parameters to a model are correct (which again is highly unlikely), accessing a systemic reliability figure might require an infeasible number of iterations of a stochastic model or high level statistics.

722. Re Theban,

     Full Stochastic Monte Carlo is probably over the top, some simple sensitivity analysis early in the process to assess how critical the variance in input parameters is would be incredibly insightful before a lot of effort is potentially wasted or expended perhaps?

723. Thanks Theban. I suppose my ‘modelling’ came from almost daily experience of using the route over many years. What was not made clear in all the puff/excuses was that in fact it was ‘six’ tracks (not four as often quoted) reduced to three – they are four from New Cross Gate (up and down slow and fast tracks = 4), merging briefly into two, widening out again to three, before joining with the two off the South London Line, with just three from there to the London Bridge throat.

     So, we have a double-track junction with the SLL and one track out of the remaining three being reversible for no less than c. 2km from that junction all the way to the throat. Even before Christmas, a short stretch of reversible, single track was introduced between the throat and just Tower Bridge Road and my experiences there were sufficient to spark concern, since most incoming trains off the SLL had to hold on until a train exiting the station had cleared that comparatively short stretch single track.

     Now that that single track goes all the way to Bermondsey, one can appreciate how long it needs for one or more trains (sometimes in flights) to clear that length before any train can be accepted in the opposite direction. It does not take much to imagine what late running will do – and hence my ‘model’. Restricted or what?

724. @ Theban – on your “reliability target” question I doubt you’d get a holistic answer because Network Rail will have targets for its assets / signalling staff and the TOC will have their target based on staff availability and an assumed achievement by their rolling stock supplier. Quite who has any accountability for an overall “service reliability” target on the main line network I am not sure given how the responsibilities are split.

725. @ngh

     That makes sense.

     Still the point remains that I doubt there’s robust analysis as to whether a reliability target can be achieved or not.

726. Any news around on how the Christmas/New Year work has gone on moving the Charing Cross lines to their new alignment ?

727. Not much other than this tweet

728. All going well so far, test trains have been running on the new layout this morning.

729. SFD: Damn and blast! That means I lugged my laptop home before Christmas for nothing!

730. Was fascinated to see the signals down the new lines within the station already operational (well, displaying an aspect anyway…) as far back as 17th December.

731. We in SWT land are about to experience something of what Southern and South eastern commuters have had. A Big Bang of three weeks to extend four platforms at Waterloo.

     But as far as I am aware a complete three week shutdown of two lines (including six stations losing their service altogether, and another having no peak hour service) is unprecedented. SWT have hidden it well, but it’s there if you dig.
     And yet they continue to sell annual season tickets for the affected stations and routes, despite the fact that the tickets will only be usable for 49 of the 52 weeks, without any warning of this fact.

     https://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/plan-your-journey/planned-improvements/wswupgrade/
     (and try a few stations in the drop down menu in the suburban area)

     It is not at all clear why such drastic measures will be necessary anyway, as Network Rail are currently busy working on reopening the International station, which was supposed to provide an extra five platforms to allow the four that are to be extended to be closed for the work to be done.

     The facile comment that people can plan their holidays around it – are they proposing that all the local businesses shut down for three weeks?

732. Re: Timbeau on the subject of London Waterloo: is this in the LR planner for an article? Happy to help but others may be better qualified.

733. The 3 week closure is platforms 1 to 9 and also involves replacing the points etc in the throat which puts a different picture on things.

734. The glitzy videos, with animations of trains being picked up and moved sideways, suggest only five platforms are involved, but clearly if there are really nine that does make a difference. However, SWT are not really making it clear quite how drastic the cuts are going to be – I was expecting a thinning out of peak hour services but not, as would now appear, the complete closure of six stations (seven in the peaks) and two complete lines.

     We are told to wait until December for the complete timetables, which is reasonable, (you would normally have to wait until May) but they should be able to give an indication of the general level of service with more precision than “significant reduction”. What does this mean? 10%? 50%? 90%? certain days of the week only? (Note that in normal circumstances a 45 minute gap in a nominally 15 minute interval service isn’t enough to trigger even a “minor disruption” warning)

735. @ Timbeau
     This :-
     http://www.networkrail.co.uk/wcip/
     has been available since soon after March this year. Whilst it does not spell out the details that have now been released, there are no surprises in the recent announcement which is well ahead (ten months) of the work requiring the closure. Give yourself more time to evaluate the options you are being presented with and how best you can use them.
     I’m sure that you realise that the work being done is necessary and that they have thought long and hard about what you are being offered.

736. @RayK
     Hmm, I’ve spotted a couple of errors in that Network Rail page:

     However, during August 2017 we need to temporarily close platforms 1-8 for 23 days so works can take place to enable 10-carriage trains to run on the Reading and Windsor lines.

     Firstly, the fact that they talk about platforms 1-8 directly contradicts SWT who claim that platform 9 also needs to be closed. Second, (and more worrying) is that they say that this is to allow 10 coach trains on the Windsor lines when it has nothing to do with them. This is all about the suburban lines via Wimbledon.

737. @RayK

     I was aware of that Network Rail page, (including the errors!) But I doubt that many regular users would be. In any case, it gives no useful detail about the level of service that will be provided.

     You talk about evaluating the options presented.
     I am sure most people will imagine they will cope by enduring more crowded trains, or perhaps working at home two or three days a week, or avoiding the peaks.

     But these strategies will not work if there is no service at all, which appears to be the case on at least two lines. That is an essential piece of information that SWT should be spelling out in foot high letters., Certainly to anyone buying an annual season ticket covering the affected line over the relevant period.

738. Timbeau
     Certainly to anyone buying an annual season ticket covering the affected line over the relevant period.
     Indeed. Is there not a case for all those affected by a total line closure to demand [ And I mean demand, not “request” ] a suitable extension to their season-tickets ??

739. Anon E. Mouse at 09:11
     ‘Hmm, I’ve spotted a couple of errors in that Network Rail page:’
     Hmm, indeed. The first ‘error’ seems to me to be a difference between a March and a September document. Six months is plenty of time for them to realise that they need to close one more platform than originally planned. The second error does seem to be just that; unless they have simply tried to hard to be concise and failed to make their point.
     Timbeau,
     You say ‘We are told to wait until December for the complete timetables, which is reasonable’ You then go on to say just how UNreasonable it is. They have promised more details.
     NR has given a lot of detail here :-
     http://www.networkrail.co.uk/wswupgrade/
     With headings of :-
     Stations closed during the works.
     Significantly fewer trains will call at the following stations from 5-28 August 2017.
     Stations with impacted services. (Includes as afield as Exeter)
     ‘I was aware of that Network Rail page, . . But I doubt that many regular users would be.’ Many regular users will only be aware of what comes over there headphones or (sadly) what the ES says. Many will be unaware of what is happening until it does. Short of kidnapping them and forcing them to be aware some will just think it’s the TOC screwing things up again. They are giving ten months notice in the hope that the news will permeate through to more than just a few. The best that we can do is see that we keep above PANICKING HEADLINE standards and keep to facts rather than conjectures. This should be easier for us as we are not selling anything.

740. @RayK
     “The first ‘error’ seems to me to be a difference between a March and a September document. Six months is plenty of time for them to realise that they need to close one more platform than originally planned.”

     Fair point. The second link you provided does also mention platforms 1-9. Therefore, I take back that first bit of criticism.

741. @RayK

     It is reasonable to wait until nearer the time to know the exact timings of the trains that will be running. But it is not reasonable to be misled into believing there will be a service when there won’t be.

     And “significantly fewer” can mean anything from just removing the peak hour extras, to complete cancellation of all but one of the routes using that station.

742. With the caveat that hindsight is a wonderful thing, it is a shame Platforms 1 to 4 at Waterloo were shortened in the first place, many years ago.

743. @Stephen Taylor
     Indeed – and there appears to be little future proofing in the current project as many inner suburban lines (SET for example) have already been extended to take twelve-car trains. Twelve cars has also been the standard length of Southern Region outer suburban and long distance trains ever since those lines were electrified, in some cases over eighty years ago. (Classes 442 and 444 formations are of ten cars, but are the same length as standard twelve-car trains as the individual cars are longer)

     At the end of the 19th Century, Waterloo was a hotch potch of various additions to the original structure, and it was extensively redeveloped in the early 20th century, starting at the south side, with the intention of eventually having one long range of platforms under one roof. However, the newest annex, the “North”, “Khartoum” or “Windsor” building, still less than forty years old when the LSWR ceased to exist, was never incorporated into the main building, eventually being swept away by the Eurostar terminal in the 1990s.
     The Windsor Line trains were then moved into former main line platforms (space having been created for four extra platforms in the main train shed by removing the cab road and the offices that separated the main station from the old Windsor Line platforms, and by eliminating the recently-redundant locomotive siding) and thus it is already possible to run longer trains on the Windsor lines.

744. I am confused on this train length for Waterloo. Train lengths are often described as “x-car”. To understand this properly, I would prefer to assume that, in such an expression, 1 “car” is 20m of train length – it is obviously easier to handle, discuss and recognise numbers under 20, so this is probably easier than referring to the lengths in metres (let alone feet). (However, my preference may not be shared, of course).

     The Waterloo train announcements (or such of them as I have read) refer to allowing 10-car trains. Does this really mean trains limited to a length of 10 “standard cars”, i.e. about 200m? If so, it does seem to be remarkably un-future-proof, as timbeau says. Or are the platforms actually going to be 230 or 240m long, but this is described as “10-car” to avoid (or cause) confusion?

745. @ Malcolm in answer to your question South West Trains had favoured extending platforms 1 to 4 to take 12 car trains (240 metres) Network Rail and DfT pushed for the shorter extension as 240 metre long platforms would cost more. It can be done but means tackling the road bridge at the station throat. I suspect like so many things it will ultimately be seen as a false economy. National Rail though still seems to assume that the growth in railway travel will peter out and favours doing as little as possible in the meantime.

     It’s like Blackfriars they should have used the other bridge supports to construct two additional platforms and whilst in theory this could still be done it will doubtless be seen as prohibitively expensive.

746. @Malcolm

     As I understand it the Waterloo slow line platform rebuild is going to cater for 10x20m trains. Any more was impractical due to constrictions in the throat area. The remainder of the station should be able to take 12x20m trains, which at 240m are similar in length to 10x23m trains that also operate routinely at the station. platforms 1-6 may one day achieve ’12 car’ i.e. 240m but that is more likely to involve an extension at the buffer stop end across the concourse. That will have to wait until a much more comprehensive redevelopment of the station and offices, when alternative access can be provided, perhaps from below or from a new concourse area where the taxi rank is today.

747. @ RichardB
     It’s not simply ‘tackling’ the bridge. We’re talking a major land take and the throat is on a very sharp curve at that point. It would be very large increase in scope and might be unnecessary if a bigger station commercial development could solve the problem at the bufferstop end.

748. @Malcolm
     Extensions at other stations on the South Western suburban network route have only been to 10 car length, so there is no evidence of future proofing there. Extension of platforms 1-4 beyond 10 car would probably require widening of the viaduct, with expensive compulsory purchase issues to resolve. (Westminster Bridge Road passes under the approaches on the skew, so although the existing 12 car platforms don’t extend as far as the road, extensions to platforms 1-4 probably would.)

     A new concourse at the Westminster Bridge end of the station with access to the extended platforms would help to remove pressure from the existing concourse, and help to reduce crowding at the London end of trains. I imagine it would also be quite popular with parliamentarians and civil servants living in the SW Home Counties, as it would save them quite a walk, or a crowded Jubilee Line journey, so funding might be relatively easy!

     Carriage lengths – in the mark 1 era there were two standard frame lengths for rolling stock – 56 feet and 63 feet. Different manufacturers’ construction methods meant that the overall lengths (over buffers) varied a little, but all were around 57 or 64 feet. The shorter length was used for dmu classes 100-111 and emu class 501, the non-compartment hauled stock for the Widened Lines – longer stock could not negotiate the Hotel Curve). The longer length – about 20m in new money, became the de facto standard length.

     There are rarely any compelling reasons to build new stock to different dimensions to those they replace – everything from gauge clearance to depot layout is designed for that length.

     The arrival of the mark 3 carriage in the mid-70s heralded a new 23m standard length. This had advantages for long-haul stock, where the weight saving from fewer wheelsets outweighed the slight loss of width because of gauge clearance on corners. The reduction in the number of doorways (two per car, but there are fewer cars) also increased the amount of seating space, albeit at the expense of increases in dwell times. The new length was adopted not only for the mark 3 rolling stock itself (HST, hauled stock and Class 442) but also for most second generation dmus (classes 153 onwards). The Class 444s which replaced the 442s, and the Voyagers and Pendolinos (which essentially replaced mark 3 hauled stock), are also of a similar length.

     However, EMUs have generally stuck with the shorter 20m length. On the former Southern Region the only 23m electric stock you will find are classes 442 and 444.

     The Pacer dmus are about 15m – the rigid two-axle wheelbase makes longer vehicles impractical.

749. @ Timbeau – I am somewhat struck by the lack of forward planning in terms of what is being built. This is largely just from reading the blurb on the website about the works – “usage has doubled since 1996 and is forecast to increase again by 40%”. The implication of adding just 30% now is that they’re just catching up with the past and not doing terribly much for the future. Obviously extra platforms do help once the former Eurostar terminal eventually reopens but it does feel like a lot of effort when something far more substantial will be needed in the future. I recognise there are issues as explained in posts above but I do wonder just how quickly any “spare” capacity will be gobbled up. And then we have the issues of what happens if CR2 proceeds. I wonder what the overarching strategy is in terms of residual suburban services into Waterloo post CR2? I know the plan is to bolster longer distance services but it’s the suburban stuff that’ll use the rejigged P1-4 in future years.

750. timbeau: thanks for the comprehensive summary of carriage lengths (which I didn’t ask for, but which is useful background nonetheless). And thanks to all who have made it clear exactly how long the lengthened platforms are going to be, this time. (It does occur to me that a length difference mainly based on power source may be co-incidental, and may not persist into future trains. Carriages should be built to a length that best meets the real requirements, not one that avoids confusing me!).

     If the best way to later extend the platforms to 240m is likely to be at the concourse end, then a decision to do the 200m work first, and do it now, makes a bit more sense, because presumably very little “heavy” work will have to be redone in the later (and still hypothetical) phase. Even the duration of platforms closures, and how many are closed at a time, will probably be quite different.

751. The last estimate for making plats 1-4 at Waterloo was done about 4 years ago, and was well to the north of £1billion. It’s fair to assume that if it was re-estimated now in the post Hendy world it would begin with a 2. Going to 12 car has rather significant implications for the bottom end of Lower Marsh.

     There is also the issue of the station itself. Waterloo is already congested at peak times, and onward travel in the morning peak is often difficult. (Routine queuing for most buses, the Jubilee and the line-that-must-not-be-named).

     The removal of most retail from the main concourse was in anticipation of a 10car suburban railway. A concourse ‘extension’ is providing space for the longer and additional Windsor line trains. 12 car trains on the main suburbans may well be enough to trigger a complete rebuild of the concourse itself. And how would the extra passengers leave the station? They can’t all want to use the Bakerloo.

     Hence Crossrail 2, which takes more than half is the main suburban commuters out of Waterloo altogether, and takes them where they actually want to go. And neatly avoids (or at the very least postpones for decades) a multi billion rebuild of the approaches, a separate multi-billion rebuild of the station, and the need for some new form of onward distribution.

752. Re Malcolm, WW, Timbeau, Mark T, Richard B, Ray K, et al.

     Lack of forward planning (or rather not if you look and think more carefully).

     Note that the old 10 car P1-4 platforms were for the 64′ EPB etc length – a 10 car 455+455+456 is 7.7m longer than 4+4+2 EPB and all the newer Siemens, Alstom and Bombardier “20m” units are even longer than a 455/456 combination and none would have fit in the old 10car P1-4.

     There are range of options open to increase the capacity on the Wimbledon slow lines services non of which are mutually exclusive and mostly additive in this sequence:

     1a. 10 car P1-4 including the key point that hasn’t been mentioned so far – the increasing line speed over the switches and crossings in the throat so train can enter and especially exit quicker… (which helps offset the the longer trains taking longer to clear the junctions.) SWT only have enough stock to run circa 50% of Wimbledon slow train at 10 car when the work has been done.
     1b. Replace the 455s and 456s so 100% of services can be 10car also needed to help with dwell times, acceleration and 2.

     2. 1+ Resignal with ATO (ETCS) to complement higher line speeds in the throat to increase the number of slow line trains by circa 3tph to 22tph at 100% 10 car with the new throat. The area is due to be resignalled in the mid 2020s.

     3. Crossrail 2 hopefully diverting lots of Clapham Jn – Vauxhall (and other) users releasing lots of capacity into Waterloo overall. [2033]

     4. If more capacity is then needed:
     a) move substation equipment gradually as it come up for replacement for passive provision.
     b) remove the 1 remaining siding (1 is already going as part of the 10 car works).
     c) demolish the buildings on the corner of Lower Marsh and Westminister Bridge Road (The Walrus buildings)
     d) widen alignment and replace some existing bridge decks
     e) rebuild Slow line throat again
     Which gets you 12 car but a high performance one.

753. @nlg 21.30
     QUOTE Note that the old 10 car P1-4 platforms were for the 64′ EPB etc length UNQUOTE

     According to Faulkner, `LSWR` in the 20th Century, Page 23 quotes the lengths as. Plat 1 to 4 as 696, 695, 683 and 685 respectively, so they may have been long enough with the shortest at 683 feet being 208.18 metres long.

     I remember them being shortened as I commuted into these platforms from 1976 until 2013.

754. Re Anonymous @23:38. I forgot to overwrite my name – Steven Taylor

755. @Steven Taylor

     Why would a 455+455+456 not have fitted the old ten car platforms? According to Mr Wiki a class 455 is 81.16m long, but doesn’t give a length for a 456. However, two and a half class 455s are only 202.9m, so even if a 456 is slightly longer than half a 455, it would have to be more than 5m longer not to have fitted fit the shortest platform.

     The hydraulic buffer stops take up a bit of length, but surely not 5 metres.

756. @timbeau 00:50
     QUOTE Why would a 455+455+456 not have fitted the old ten car platforms? UNQUOTE

     My post has been misunderstood – I was stating the platforms were long enough.

     My post was to advise that, notwithstanding NLG post, they would fit, so I agree with your observation.

     Basically, I was being `too polite`. Having received abrupt posts on other sites, (NOT this one), I almost never say `must`, but `it looks like`. Sorry.

757. Terminating platform usable lengths are normally a minimum 5m longer than the train (5m to include allowance for stopping short of the buffers and signal sighting when leaving.)

     A 456 is 41.36m as the 456 cars are longer than the 455 driving ones and they have the space for an extra row of seat compared to a 455 driving car (and did have before SWT got hold of them!)
     The total 455+455+456 length is 203.68m which rounds up to 204m so needs a minimum of 209m usable platform length.

     OLD platform lengths pre shortening:
     P1 212m
     P2 212m
     P3 208m (< than the min. 209m)
     P4 208m (< than the min. 209m)

     Hence P3&4 not meeting the current criteria if they had still existed…
     (Both also fail even if the rounding is ignored)

     The platform lengths are of course the red herring as the expensive bit of the work is the track work (and signalling) in the throat which will probably cost at least £5.5m.

     P9 not being in use look like because there is no easy way to get trains out of it without reducing capacity elsewhere (at P10-14) which rather defeats the point of having it in use during the blockade.
     The 3 southern most approach tracks Up and Down Slow and Down Fast are out of use during the blockade so trains from P10-14 will all exit on the Reversible on the other side of the Up Fast which is virtually impossible to get to from P9…

758. @ngh 10:22

     Thanks for response. Although about 30 (?) years ago, I recollect speaking to an BR official who advised that one reason the platforms were shortened was to enable `standard` switches and crossings to be used, as the track work immediately beyond Platforms 1 to 4 was certainly bespoke.

759. Re Steven Taylor,

     That was indeed the main reason and part of the reason for the scale of the work this time round is to enable standard S&C (and with higher line speed) to be used for 10 car and also easier use of P5-7 for slow line services when needed too. As a result one of the South Sidings (near the substations/old portakabin offices) will disappear as the S&C all moves west reducing the available length there.

760. What went wrong with the engineering work today? A big overrun messed up services for hours on the SE side.

761. Re Ed,

     Equipment failure mid works.

     Probably best for current London Bridge stuff on the current article.

762. Timbeau – I’m sorry to be a pest, but the title of this thread is “London Bridge – The First Major Blockade”.

     Doesn’t it seem a bit odd, therefore, to start posting on platform lengths and three-week blockades at Waterloo? Does the forum have a mechanism for starting new threads?

763. JohnMF,

     As has been said many, many times, we are not a bulletin board. Really, if people want to discuss Waterloo they should have gone to one of the Rail UK boards and started a discussion there.

     It is unfortunate that we have not had time to cover what is happening at Waterloo – or a number of other topics we would like to cover. You, or anyone else, is at liberty to write a short article about Waterloo and submit it for inclusion.

764. JohnMF: No, this site is not a forum, and it has no mechanism of the kind you describe.

     Comments are supposed to be related to the articles. People who might be interested in writing an article should follow the link marked “I want to write”, visible on the right hand side of the main menu page. If you only wish to comment, then you will have to wait for an article to which your comment can relate.

     Comments do sometimes drift away from the original topic, and that is how Waterloo has been reached from London Bridge. Moderators will often discourage such diversions, sometimes enforcing this by removing off-topic comments. At other times such drifting is tolerated, particularly if the off-topic material happens to be particularly interesting, and particularly if on-topic comments are becoming sparse.

     It is quite in order for commenters to point out, as you have done, how far away from the original topic the discussion has moved. Such pointing-out may sometimes provoke moderators into action. Or it may discourage the off-topic talk. But it is also possible, sometimes, for neither of these things to happen.

     [Addendum: Pedantic and I happened to compose our answers simultaneously. Normally something like this happens, I would remove mine, particularly as Pedantic’s version is much more concise. However, I am leaving mine this time, as it forms a good example of “great (?) minds thinking alike”. Malcolm]

765. Apologies for the drift, I was originally drawing comparisons between the situations at London Bridge and Waterloo (which would be on topic).

     If anyone knows more about the Waterloo project I would be very interested to see an article on it.

     All I will add is to correct an error in ngh’s comment. The extra space in the passenger saloons of 456s is because the cab doors are next to the driver’s position rather than behind it as they are in the 455s. The extra length is accounted for solely by the drawgear.

766. Even with its low speed limit, the current 8-car throat layout with its scissors crossovers near the platform ramps is as short as such a junction could be, so a departing train from any platform can clear the entire throat as quickly as possible, The layout also provides the maximum possible parallelism a flat configuration could provide. It’s simple too, with only ten simple turnouts and three fixed diamonds. Unfortunately extending to 10-car leaves insufficient room to simply replicate that layout exactly a little further out as the sharp left hand curve on departure and significant alignment narrowing of the viaduct and road bridge soon start to limit the affordable options available. To maintain all the connectivity and parallelism of the original layout, as well as connect better into the additional slow group platforms (#5, #6) , the new throat is more spread out, i.e longer, than the existing one. This means that certain combinations of movements would be in conflict for longer even if 8-car trains were to be retained. 10-car trains will only add further to the conflict time. Fortunately some moderate improvement in turnout speed may have been possible to mitigate this, and combined with future capacity aspirations, longer clearance time will have helped to justify adding #5 and #6 into the dedicated slow platform group.

767. PofP and Malcolm – thanks for your posts, and gentle explanations.

     From the distance of Edinburgh, I’d be poorly qualified to write about Waterloo, but I’d encourage someone better placed than I am, to do so. I’d be very interested to read about the plans for Waterloo from one of your well-informed correspondents.

     I was a daily user, from Claygate, in the early 1980s, in the good old days when arrivals were greatly facilitated by having a second up fast line from just beyond Vauxhall. Trains from the Guildford New Line ran every ten minutes in the peaks – 8-VEP, we all got seats – and took the fast lines from Surbiton to arrive in Waterloo in 24 minutes. Now they’ve been crowded off the fast lines by the long distance commuters from beyond Guildford and Basingstoke, and take about ten minutes longer.

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