16-01-2015, 03:25 PM
Line down again. 3rd time today.
19-01-2015, 12:07 PM
Are the trains working well today?
19-01-2015, 12:37 PM
The morning trains were reasonably prompt (at least mine at 9.01 was, and the preceding trains were reported as leaving on time)
19-01-2015, 03:23 PM
9:12 arrived at 9:15 but then took 35 min to LB.
19-01-2015, 03:47 PM
The 0750 arrived 2 mins late and got to London Bridge 3 mins late at 0816. Needless to say that represents a significant improvement on recent performance, but I find it difficult to get too excited about it taking 26 mins when it should really be about 15.
19-01-2015, 03:57 PM
As people have previously mentioned, it is the evening rush hour where the real problem is because of the cancellations of W Croydon and Caterham trains. If my maths is right we have gone from 6 Southern trains per hour to FH during evening peak in 2014 down to 2 in 2015.
In the morning the problem is the length of time the journeys are taking. The 901 arrived at 903 this morning but took 20+ mins to get to LB which i understand is now about the advertised time.
Surprisingly they ran a full service (and seemed to be on time) this weekend when one might have thought they would spend the weekend sorting out these issues and restoring a full weekday service.
In the morning the problem is the length of time the journeys are taking. The 901 arrived at 903 this morning but took 20+ mins to get to LB which i understand is now about the advertised time.
Surprisingly they ran a full service (and seemed to be on time) this weekend when one might have thought they would spend the weekend sorting out these issues and restoring a full weekday service.
19-01-2015, 04:51 PM
9.37 to Victoria was 15 minutes late and went a a crawl to Victoria, so I missed my connection out twice...
19-01-2015, 09:40 PM
The 0735 FH to Victoria was cancelled this morning with no explanation.
I've noticed the the LO northbound 0715 to 0745 trains for this year are as busy as the 0800 to 0830 trains from last year. I reckon 80% of the train gets off at Canada Water. I'm lucky enough to get a seat to Whitechapel after Canada Water.
As for moving the New Cross LO trains to Crystal Palace, don't think it will happen as they offer South-Eastern commuters an alternative route to London Bridge.
I've noticed the the LO northbound 0715 to 0745 trains for this year are as busy as the 0800 to 0830 trains from last year. I reckon 80% of the train gets off at Canada Water. I'm lucky enough to get a seat to Whitechapel after Canada Water.
As for moving the New Cross LO trains to Crystal Palace, don't think it will happen as they offer South-Eastern commuters an alternative route to London Bridge.
19-01-2015, 10:22 PM
Minor inconvenience, but recently the 0801 train to LB seems to have changed to one of the older types and is one or two carriages shorter. Odd as this is never acknowledged anywhere.
20-01-2015, 03:02 AM
Just to flag up that the Chair of the London Assembly's Transport Committee Caroline Pidgeon has been taking some of these issues up with Network Rail. I've posted an update she sent to me at https://upinforesthill.wordpress.com/201...rcrowding/ and have also emailed her back drawing this thread to her attention as providing evidence of the completely un-joined up response of the rail companies to this issue. Will let you know if I hear anything useful back.
George
George
20-01-2015, 11:43 PM
Quote:
As people have previously mentioned, it is the evening rush hour where the real problem is because of the cancellations of W Croydon and Caterham trains. If my maths is right we have gone from 6 Southern trains per hour to FH during evening peak in 2014 down to 2 in 2015.
No, we had four per hour in the evening peak, 2 to West Croydon and 2 to Victoria. Caterham trains don't serve Forest Hill or HOP during the evening peak.
Since the recent problems, we're left with just the Victoria trains in the evening peak.
21-01-2015, 09:37 AM
the 7:35 this morning simply disappeared - it wasn't even cancelled. It was on the board as arriving later and later then simply disappeared without trace.
Got to about 7:50 & I, politely and calmly, enquired at the ticket office if they had any information - do they know whether it has left London Bridge or passed through New Cross Gate? They had no information and I was informed that they are 'London Overground' staff not Southern.
They were helpful and one member said that he'd try finding out, went inside and didn't return. I waited 5 minutes or more and then went to check the busses, but the traffic was heaving. So I returned to the platform and, by coincidence, so had the member of staff. Surprisingly he said he hadn't been able to find anything out
Got to about 7:50 & I, politely and calmly, enquired at the ticket office if they had any information - do they know whether it has left London Bridge or passed through New Cross Gate? They had no information and I was informed that they are 'London Overground' staff not Southern.
They were helpful and one member said that he'd try finding out, went inside and didn't return. I waited 5 minutes or more and then went to check the busses, but the traffic was heaving. So I returned to the platform and, by coincidence, so had the member of staff. Surprisingly he said he hadn't been able to find anything out
21-01-2015, 09:50 AM
It looks like it ran fast:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W74634/2015/01/21
Southern like to pretend that this isn't a cancellation.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W74634/2015/01/21
Southern like to pretend that this isn't a cancellation.
21-01-2015, 10:17 AM
lacb - thanks for that.
Scandalous - at least inform waiting passengers so that they can make alternative arrangements.
Scandalous - at least inform waiting passengers so that they can make alternative arrangements.
21-01-2015, 10:38 AM
I would definitely recommend using realtimetrains in that type of situation, as its information appears earlier than it goes up on the monitors or on the live departures site.
It's also good for finding out what platform the LB trains will leave from before they appear on the monitors, though they sometimes make a late change.
A friend who lives in Streatham recently spent half an hour waiting for the 17.52 to Victoria to turn up, as the monitors progressively increased the delay until it disappeared at about 18.20. I got on this train at LB and it was always listed as terminating at Sydenham. So clearly their communication systems are not up to scratch somewhere.
It's also good for finding out what platform the LB trains will leave from before they appear on the monitors, though they sometimes make a late change.
A friend who lives in Streatham recently spent half an hour waiting for the 17.52 to Victoria to turn up, as the monitors progressively increased the delay until it disappeared at about 18.20. I got on this train at LB and it was always listed as terminating at Sydenham. So clearly their communication systems are not up to scratch somewhere.
21-01-2015, 11:00 AM
I got an email response from Southern Railways about some of the mess on our line at present.
I'm not sure it tells us much new, but it does put their perspective very well. We can only hope that our trains are reinstated soon.
I'm not sure it tells us much new, but it does put their perspective very well. We can only hope that our trains are reinstated soon.
Southern Railway wrote:
I can fully understand your disappointment about the service to and from London Bridge since the New Year and I’ll try below to cover your specific points.
Firstly on the reinstatement of the West Croydon services - at the moment we can only confirm that these will remain out of the timetable for the next four weeks (as of the end of last week). There is understandably a reluctance to remove services from the timetable given how busy peak trains are but we decided this was necessary and we also made the changes on Monday so that trains that were planned to join up in London Bridge come in already fully formed (which reduces the number of movements into the station and reduces the time these trains spend in the platform). We are now working on a more permanent plan for the operation at London Bridge while Network Rail also reviews the capacity modelling and the method of operation to see how we can optimise it.
Since the station reopened the added delays and disruption particularly to peak services have stemmed mainly from reliability issues and the new layout. Some equipment, for example a set of points at a junction east of London Bridge station near New Cross Gate, has proved unreliable. We understand this equipment needs adjustments as it settles in and Network Rail has a team of engineers out each night checking this to ensure this equipment remains reliable. However, even without incidents the revised infrastructure has struggled to deliver the timetable. In terms of your point about predicting these events, modelling of the new reduced track layout showed that we should be able to run a maximum of 22 trains per hour. However we have found that trains gradually become later during the peaks because minor delays lead to trains quickly queuing at the station which then creates more significant delays. In practice therefore, we have simply not been able to get this number of trains into and out of London Bridge successfully during peak hours despite amending the train service in anticipation of the infrastructure reduction.
Finally, can I assure you that my colleagues are working very hard on an alternative plan for this and as soon as I have something that I can share I will be in touch.
Firstly on the reinstatement of the West Croydon services - at the moment we can only confirm that these will remain out of the timetable for the next four weeks (as of the end of last week). There is understandably a reluctance to remove services from the timetable given how busy peak trains are but we decided this was necessary and we also made the changes on Monday so that trains that were planned to join up in London Bridge come in already fully formed (which reduces the number of movements into the station and reduces the time these trains spend in the platform). We are now working on a more permanent plan for the operation at London Bridge while Network Rail also reviews the capacity modelling and the method of operation to see how we can optimise it.
Since the station reopened the added delays and disruption particularly to peak services have stemmed mainly from reliability issues and the new layout. Some equipment, for example a set of points at a junction east of London Bridge station near New Cross Gate, has proved unreliable. We understand this equipment needs adjustments as it settles in and Network Rail has a team of engineers out each night checking this to ensure this equipment remains reliable. However, even without incidents the revised infrastructure has struggled to deliver the timetable. In terms of your point about predicting these events, modelling of the new reduced track layout showed that we should be able to run a maximum of 22 trains per hour. However we have found that trains gradually become later during the peaks because minor delays lead to trains quickly queuing at the station which then creates more significant delays. In practice therefore, we have simply not been able to get this number of trains into and out of London Bridge successfully during peak hours despite amending the train service in anticipation of the infrastructure reduction.
Finally, can I assure you that my colleagues are working very hard on an alternative plan for this and as soon as I have something that I can share I will be in touch.
On a different point, although stepover is wrong about 6 trains per hour in the evening peak in 2014, we did have 6 trains per hours back in 2011 or 2012, but two of these were the Caterham trains and ran within 5 minutes of the Victoria trains. Their removal hardly impacted passengers because they had been scheduled so closely together, and because trains got longer at the same time.
The problems with the cancellation of half of evening services, at least temporarily, have a massive impact, especially when the remaining services are often subject to fast running, cancellation, and delays. Hopefully the signaling issues and delays will be reduced soon, and they might even be able to bring back our cancelled trains.
21-01-2015, 12:27 PM
WBD, it's a not unusual situation lately. Was there a train that passed through the station on the slow tracks (i.e. next to the platform) rather than the fast ones? I've been at the station a couple of times lately where the usual announcements about "the train now approaching Platform 1...." fire off as normal, and indeed the train approaches......but then declines to actually stop!!
22-01-2015, 02:44 AM
Quote:
On a different point, although stepover is wrong about 6 trains per hour in the evening peak in 2014, we did have 6 trains per hours back in 2011 or 2012, but two of these were the Caterham trains and ran within 5 minutes of the Victoria trains. Their removal hardly impacted passengers because they had been scheduled so closely together, and because trains got longer at the same time.
They went to Crystal Palace rather than Caterham. I remember them vividly as I'd use them instead of the crammed train ahead!
Caterham trains during the peaks always operate fast to London Bridge in the morning and to Norwood Junction in the evening.
In the past we also had evening peak services to Guildford, Dorking and Epsom.
22-01-2015, 05:49 AM
Southern's reply should not be allowed to pass without comment:
'However, even without incidents the revised infrastructure has struggled to deliver the timetable. In terms of your point about predicting these events, modelling of the new reduced track layout showed that we should be able to run a maximum of 22 trains per hour.[i] However we have found that trains gradually become later during the peaks because minor delays lead to trains quickly queuing at the station which then creates more significant delays[/i].'
Isn't that possibility something that a modelling system should have built into it? It's hardly, one would think, something that has never arisen in running a railway. In any case, the key thing in using a computerised system is the interpretation stage.
'However, even without incidents the revised infrastructure has struggled to deliver the timetable. In terms of your point about predicting these events, modelling of the new reduced track layout showed that we should be able to run a maximum of 22 trains per hour.[i] However we have found that trains gradually become later during the peaks because minor delays lead to trains quickly queuing at the station which then creates more significant delays[/i].'
Isn't that possibility something that a modelling system should have built into it? It's hardly, one would think, something that has never arisen in running a railway. In any case, the key thing in using a computerised system is the interpretation stage.
22-01-2015, 06:57 PM
Some slight changes from Monday.
0710 to LBG will now depart at 0713.
If you travel FROM Caterham in the evening peak, those stopping services via East Croydon will now start from Tattenham Corner or will join with the existing Caterham train.
0710 to LBG will now depart at 0713.
If you travel FROM Caterham in the evening peak, those stopping services via East Croydon will now start from Tattenham Corner or will join with the existing Caterham train.