London Bridge re-development

[cromptonnut]

Add to this the rebuilding of the platform canopies at East Croydon where the scaffolding has reduced the width of the platforms which Seems to have taken forever and still no where complete this station also becomes heavily over crowded.

 

I believe that work was meant to have finished 18 months to two years ago but nobody seems to know why it hasn't.

 

Of course, we've also had the bonkers situation where they have closed the barriers at East Croydon to stop more people going down on to the platforms - but then every train that comes in people are getting off of the train to try and get a train to where they want to go, which may or may not be running and they can't leave the station to see if there are alternatives because they'll never get back on again!  That is, assuming of course, that they can actually get up to the barriers and through the crowds to get out of the station in the first place.

 

So many things are disasters waiting to happen, and it is the lack of strong management and information being given out that are the biggest frustration particularly in times of disruption.  Sadly, activating "do not enter the platform" flashing signs and sounding annoying sirens does not actually help anyone or anything.  Additional stops on all trains, to get people out of London and disperse the crowds to places like Norwood Junction, East Croydon and Redhill where trains can be turned round instead of adding to the congestion at London Bridge seems to be beyond their comprehension.  Of course they will say that it's so as not to increase disruption but the real reason we all know is to keep late trains below the 30 minute threshold to avoid triggering delay repay.

[roundhouse]

Its very frustrating when they decide to miss stops when trains run late.

 

I know that the offical reason is to try and get the next service back on time but quite often the train will sit much longer at the station such as East Croydon while the platform staff, gaurd and driver all reconfirm controls instructions then announce to passenger whats going ot happen etc resulting in the train being no quicker had it actually made those stops.

 

Add to this that platforms / concourse soon become very overcrowded due to these trains missing stops with more passengers now having to wait for the next service that will get them to where they want to be.

[cromptonnut]

Even more frustrating are watching mostly empty Gatwick Express trains coming through and even occasionally stopping without opening doors, when surely they could be downgraded at least to stop at East Croydon to let people on/off and help them on their way.

 

Of course, the premium fares mean that most passengers wanting Gatwick avoid these special trains, which take up valuable paths and platforms, and instead cram on to the overcrowded "slow trains".  It's completely lost on them that the "express" train is only six minutes faster and £4.60 more expensive single fare.

[cromptonnut]

Q11 should be interesting today, although I believe she is fighting for Southeastern passengers despite us on the Southern side being more disrupted.

 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmagenda/ob150305.htm

[The Stationmaster]

Evening Standards take on it.

 

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/mayor-and-mps-tell-rail-bosses-london-bridge-chaos-must-end-now-10084736.html

Oh dear - please save us from the 'instant fix' rubbish of clearly ignorant politicos!

Sadly, having sent someone to meet their maker at Purley Oaks in Connex days, it's all down to police response times and whether or not a "crime scene" exists. In days gone by, I'm sure a couple of willing track workers or the train crew would have removed the casualty to the cess to allow trains to continue running. As we all know, times change and that is not acceptable now. In my humble opinion, there will always be issues that can cause delay and/or cancellation, some beyond the operator's control, some not. It's when you get the "perfect storm" scenario of overlapping incidents that things fall apart to the extent that it's often half a day (or more) before any return to near-normality is possible. My continued sytmpathies with those having to negotiate London Bridge.

 

Absolutely on the money Pete - there is regrettably a total failure in some places to understand how various incidents react on each other and how things rapidly grow out of all proportion to the original incident.  As far as 'bodies' are concerned once upon a time we were allowed to shift the body (fortunately I never had to do exactly that) provided we marked the spot and got to it before the police.  Then things like that became 'potential crime scenes' and we were threatened with potential arrest if we 'interfered with evidence' so goodbye to the old idea of shift it or cover it and keep trains running.

 

What most non-railway folk don't seem to appreciate (especially the dumbo politicos) is that much of the old Southern network is running at, or in excess of capacity and the main reason for that is lack of investment (which goes back to the politicos - why else is Thameslink 2000 running so late, simples, no money forthcoming earlier.

I think "often" is the key word. Whilst I don't want to appear a hard-nosed, unemotional b*stard, I was back at work the next day and have never lost any sleep over the incident. By contrast, the route-learner that was in the cab with me decided it was not for him and eventually went on to a career in timetable planning (I think). Referencing the post above Phil's, I sincerely hope the 91 drivers off work are not from just one TOC! That must be nationwide, surely?

 

In many respects I think your quote is the most relevant here Pete - I never lost a day after having to spend the previous one picking up the bits.  But some folk are not as hardy as others and things can prey on their minds and I have known a few Drivers very much like that so I don't dismiss it completely.  However the figure of 91 sounds incredible to be honest even if it includes anyone under investigatory suspension (which shouldn't take more than a week at the most for any suspected drug or alcohol related incident as the labs can turn round samples within 2-3 days at most for most substances).

[roundhouse]

What most non-railway folk don't seem to appreciate (especially the dumbo politicos) is that much of the old Southern network is running at, or in excess of capacity and the main reason for that is lack of investment (which goes back to the politicos - why else is Thameslink 2000 running so late, simples, no money forthcoming earlier.

Couldnt agree more.

 

If Thameslink 2000 had happened when it was first proposed then it would have been easier to accommodate the rebuilding works rather than leave it so many more years when the system was straining even more especially with the Thameslink route now being so popular. I remember being able to easily get a seat from East Croydon through to St Albans back in the evening in the early 90's when the company I worked for had an office there.

 

Now everybody including the TOC's, Network Rail let alone the passengers are now suffering for it.

[phil-b259]

There was an incident a year or so ago where the person who jumped went clean through the end for of the Electrostar trapping the driver in the cab till the body was removed. Saw the photos of the damaged unit after it had been cleaned.

 

Wouldn't wish that or any other suicide on any driver.

 

What is clear is that London Bridge is struggling to cope under a normal days operation but when something else happens on the Southern / Thameslink routes the whole system grinds to a halt. This is happening way too often and passengers are going to get hurt either due to the shed frustration / anger of other passengers or just sheer over crowding. Most days a train pulls out alongside us as we queue along the platform in the morning to get towards the concourse. It would only take a simple nudge and that moving train will catch someone and drag them off the platform.

 

Add to this the rebuilding of the platform canopies at East Croydon where the scaffolding has reduced the width of the platforms that seems to have taken forever and still no where complete this station also becomes heavily over crowded. Soon the rebuilding at Redhill station and Gatwick will add to this sheer misery for many. There are often scuffles on trains around here these days.

 

There was a rather large Police presence at London Bridge last night despite trains running fairly well.

 

You are not wrong with your analysis, the dilemma is what to do about it.

 

Reducing the number of services (which are currently far grater than the 1980s installed signalling can realistically cope with) for example would give more slack to recover from incidents - yet with London Bridge services packed to the gunnels taking out any more is impossible to implement. Taking on more drivers only actually has any effect 6 months or more after they start their training, while any change to the rebuilding schedules at London Bridge (or platform 0 at Redhill) only puts back the significant improvements they will provide even further and prolonging the agony of regular travelers.

[roundhouse]

No less than four EWS liveried class 66s on NR trains along the South Eastern tracks this evening. Unfortunately most shots I took on my iPad are blurred.

[cromptonnut]

You are not wrong with your analysis, the dilemma is what to do about it.

 

Reducing the number of services (which are currently far grater than the 1980s installed signalling can realistically cope with) for example would give more slack to recover from incidents - yet with London Bridge services packed to the gunnels taking out any more is impossible to implement. Taking on more drivers only actually has any effect 6 months or more after they start their training, while any change to the rebuilding schedules at London Bridge (or platform 0 at Redhill) only puts back the significant improvements they will provide even further and prolonging the agony of regular travelers.

 

Easy option?  Kill the "Gatwick Express services".  Four trains an hour being often half full trains waste staff, platforms and valuable paths (plus the stock can be reused elsewhere), as it is only 6 minutes quicker than the regular services from Victoria that stop at Gatwick.  The premium price means many airport travellers cram on to the already overcrowded normal trains, with the addition of luggage which takes up more space.

 

Second easy option?  Increase trains that stop at places like Norwood Junction and Redhill (most stop at East Croydon) to help move people out of London where they can change on to other services.  Also add in New Cross Gate for another easy interchange with London Overground (because let's not forget we now have all of those clogging up the Brighton Main Line through that vital pinch point of New Cross to Norwood Junction) and that's more trains that allow people to get other options out of London terminals.

 

It adds 10 minutes to a journey to Brighton?  Tough.  Better than waiting 45 minutes for a train you can actually get on, for the rest of us.  There is more to the Brighton Main Line than Brighton itself.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

The other issue with the Gatwick Express is the clogging up around Gatwick itself. Often my morning train is caught up by 'congestion in the Gatwick area'. The addition of platform 7 helped, but there are still issues. We also suffer the knock-on effects of the now infamous 07:39 Brighton - Victoria (the one which managed to arrive on time twice in 2014...according to the media). Whether exactly true or not, it is often late...our train follows it up from Three Bridges to Croydon. Net result, our train is an average of 5 minutes late into London Bridge; with the obvious effects on a very busy station.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

No less than four EWS liveried class 66s on NR trains along the South Eastern tracks this evening. Unfortunately most shots I took on my iPad are blurred.

Colas 66s have been on the track recovery trains this week. Yesterday had a Colas/GBRf double-header at the 'country end'.

[cromptonnut]

Colas 66s have been on the track recovery trains this week. Yesterday had a Colas/GBRf double-header at the 'country end'.

 

... and every time I've gone past there's been a unit in the way preventing me from nabbing the numbers.

[roundhouse]

Colas 66s have been on the track recovery trains this week. Yesterday had a Colas/GBRf double-header at the 'country end'.

The Colas ones have been lifting the Southern lines but I have been sitting on the wrong side to get photos. Of course tonight they have gone!!

[roundhouse]

The biggest problem for us in the morning is the 07.04 Victoria service which starts at Havant and Brighton, combines at Three Bridges where most days it gets delayed. It then delays the following Reading service that then affects the Thameslink which then affects our LBG service.

If our LBG service is more than 3 - 4 minutes late it then gets delayed further now that a Tattenham Corner or Caterham service was made to run a few minutes earlier from Purley with the January tweeks.
So now our service often crawls behind it.

Since January, 5 minutes have been added to our arrival time into LBG but we are often far later than that once we lose our booked oath making what was once a 35 minute journey a 50 minute journey.

So really I should now be catching the 06.43 service (now that the 06.56 service has been withdrawn) but that train is normally fill and standing and often gets terminated at Redhill or Eadt Croydon (and occasionally at Norwood Junction) if it's a few minutes late so it's not really an option for us as the busses also just miss it at Redhill.

Of course my boss drives to London Bridge from West London and has his own parking space for his BMW so he doesn't really give a S**** about the rest of us using LBG and as most people in our office don't use Southetn they don't get it.

[cromptonnut]

So really I should now be catching the 06.43 service (now that the 06.56 service has been withdrawn) but that train is normally fill and standing and often gets terminated at Redhill or Eadt Croydon (and occasionally at Norwood Junction) if it's a few minutes late so it's not really an option for us as the busses also just miss it at Redhill.

 

The 06.43 is the most reliable service - and most likely to arrive around "on time" - but as you say it is a target for cancellations for no particular reason when the next direct Redhill to London Bridge is now the 07.15 after they cancelled several of the inbetween services for the January timetable.  Of course their solution is to take another train and change at East Croydon for one of the many trains that unnecessarily bypasses Redhill up the Quarry Line instead of calling at Redhill, which as we all know is one of Southern's top 10 busiest stations. But as anyone who has had to change at East Croydon will know, it's awful for changing.

 

You make a very good point about our own employers senior management not "getting" the problems at London Bridge, a bit like Vietnam "unless you were there you just don't understand it man".

[Claude_Dreyfus]

... and every time I've gone past there's been a unit in the way preventing me from nabbing the numbers.

 

Well, the GBRf 66 was 66715 

[roundhouse]

The 06.43 is the most reliable service - and most likely to arrive around "on time" - but as you say it is a target for cancellations for no particular reason when the next direct Redhill to London Bridge is now the 07.15 after they cancelled several of the inbetween services for the January timetable.  Of course their solution is to take another train and change at East Croydon for one of the many trains that unnecessarily bypasses Redhill up the Quarry Line instead of calling at Redhill, which as we all know is one of Southern's top 10 busiest stations. But as anyone who has had to change at East Croydon will know, it's awful for changing.

 

You make a very good point about our own employers senior management not "getting" the problems at London Bridge, a bit like Vietnam "unless you were there you just don't understand it man".

I would say from my observations that the 06.43 is cancelled or terminated short far more often than the 07.15 but with the 07.15 being 12 cars it has a much bigger effect when it is cancelled or diverted up the Quarry.

 

Last Tuesday they diverted both the Vic 07.04 and the thameslink 07.11 up the Quarry but luckily we were standing in the right place for our 07.15. However, these days it's a bit of a scrum to get that spot to get the last seats on the LBG service even when getting there 20 minutes beforehand!!!

 

My boss hates public transport hence why he has the only company parking space but likewise he has no interest in train delays and doesn't want to hear about it!!

 

Chelsea's scores are a completely different matter and we can talk about that till the cows come home.

[John M Upton]

Speaking as a guard of over seven years who the other Saturday night struck a suicidal person at Bedhampton I can now tell you from experience it takes a good two to three hours for not only the body to be shifted once the BTP etc have done their bit but there is also the requirement to await fitters to examine the train for damage before anything can move again.

 

The passengers on board enjoyed the glow sticks I handed out though!  Most of them got taken home by the passengers afterwards.

[caradoc]

There is also the time required to get a relief Driver to site.

Removing the body will be affected by how badly disrupted it was; I wonder if those delayed by the recent fatality in Kent which affected Eurostar thought about what happens to the human body when struck by a large and heavy object travelling at 150 plus mph ? Those involved in such horrible incidents, both the Driver and other staff on the train and those who have to clear it up (railway and Emergency Services) deserve our utmost sympathy and thanks.

[The Stationmaster]

There is also the time required to get a relief Driver to site.

Removing the body will be affected by how badly disrupted it was; I wonder if those delayed by the recent fatality in Kent which affected Eurostar thought about what happens to the human body when struck by a large and heavy object travelling at 150 plus mph ? Those involved in such horrible incidents, both the Driver and other staff on the train and those who have to clear it up (railway and Emergency Services) deserve our utmost sympathy and thanks.

I can assure you that when a human body is hit by a train travelling that fast the biggest problem is finding the remains.  Very often the Driver might know no more about it than feeling/hearing the impact and the other on-train staff will definitely not know any more about it than the passengers (travelling some years ago on an HST on the ECML we came to a rather sudden stop from 125 mph and the Guard started to head through the train, from the rear,apologising for the delay and saying he didn't know why we had stopped - I was travelling in the second coach from the rear and I told him exactly why we had stopped as even that far back in the train it was obvious that we had hit a person).

 

None of this of course makes it any easier but it isn't necessarily essential to relieve the Driver (although they should always be given the option and it is in any case prudent to provide someone to ride with him) and usually in my experience of such incidents the biggest problem is trying to make sure the train is fit to move /can be moved.  In the case of that HST that was the biggest delay - waiting for technical chaps to reach the site to ensure the train was fit to proceed.  That can be a major cause of disruption but then comes the real problem and time consumer for the railway because the police treat it as a crime scene and their first step has to be to ascertain how many people were hit, and that is not necessarily a  simple task if the train was travelling at c.75mph or faster. 

 

The regrettable situation is that fatalities, apart from great personal tragedy, can have a  massive effect on train operation and the opportunity to recover from such events are very limited and almost inevitably, even after lines are reopened, have to involve train cancellations because stock and crews aren't in the right places.

[jamie92208]

I had the experience of clearing up after such an event.  It i very easy to criticise the police for treating it a a crime scene and I appreciate the very great pressures to get things cleared up.  I did manage to speed one incident up by using my own , county police resources, rthaer than waiting for BTP. I even used the signal post phone and arranged a possession so that we could speed things up. A helicopter with infra red search helped loacate

one of the major limbs but it stilltook 90 minutes to clear the tracks. The damage to the HST took longer to fix as the brake cock had been damaged and it had come to rest just

fouling a set of points. This was at a scene where I took the decision not to treat it as a crime scene.

 

However a colleague of mine had to make the opposite decision very close by when a young man being hounded for drug debts had been hit.

 

As always it is easy to criticise but without knowng the full facts, many of which will not be made public due to sensitivity issues. My thoughts are always with those involved in the clear up, both on the railway and the emergency services.

 

Jamie

[roundhouse]

Some photos from this morning taken from our train near South Bermondsey station so not the best but shows a bit of what's going on there at the moment.

[roundhouse]

And a couple this evening near South Bermondsey showing the track lifting.

[dp123]

Schenker train is 6N61 (or N66, one of the two came off last night and I can't remember which), GBRf train is 6G24 which is coming off tonight.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Has anyone seen the culprit for today's disruption? A 'broken down engineers train' was the cause for delays of nearly an hour today, but I could see nothing on the approach to London Bridge...indicating that it has been shifted. It sounded pretty serious whatever the problem was.