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Post by snoggle on Mar 6, 2019 19:15:56 GMT
Does anyone know when the month's free travel for GOBLIN passengers is going to happen? If I were a GOBLIN passenger, I'd be pretty p***** off that I was having to endure a dire service and squeeze onto trains which are less frequent for TFL saying 'It'll all come out in the wash' so to speak. On another note, whilst London Overground has certainly improved lines which were terrible before, its funny how we haven't heard any of the incompetent fools who Sadiq Khan surrounds himself with sorry, I think I'm supposed to call them deputy mayors even though there are about a hundred of them, asking Chris Grayling to transfer control of London's suburban rail network to TFL lately. I'm glad Khan and his cronies have been bought crashing back down to earth No one has details of the "free travel" scheme. Nothing has been said publicly and nothing has leaked. As I have said before I believe it will be set in such a way that establishing entitlement to the free travel will be difficult. Only people of PAYG will have a moderate chance of being able to show from their travel patterns that they used the GOBLIN. Travelcard holders will have a harder time, esp if they change at Blackhorse Rd but don't touch the pink route validator. Also the timeframe for showing you travelled on the line will be crucial. If TfL confine it to the period when the half hourly service is in operation that will restrict numbers too. If they have a long time period there is more risk of more people claiming and Bombardier will not have put a lot of money on the table for this "compensation". There is also the question of what do you get that's "free"? A special season ticket just on the GOBLIN or a free Z234 travelcard or something else? Who knows? I suspect you are exaggerating for effect but there are not and never have been 100 deputy Mayors. There have been two for Transport during Khan's Mayoralty just as there were two under Boris. I suspect if you added up all the Deputy Mayors since 2000 it would not reach 100 across 5 mayoral terms. The deputy Mayors do not go off and invent policy indepedently of the Mayor. Every Mayor of London has advocated the devolution of National Rail services to TfL control. It has been a long term aspiration of London Transport for years and years. LT taking control of suburban rail has been "a thing" since the 1930s in various forms. Ironic that it was the Major Government's implementation of rail privatisation that smashed BR into a million pieces that actually created a structure that allowed a progressive transfer of services. It is also worth pointing out that the push to electrify the GOBLIN began politically in Boris's term and that the order for the trains was placed in 2014! Now you can justifiably argue that the management of the impact of late train delivery has been far from satisfactory and that sits with Khan's TfL. However, for me, it is just part of an ongoing theme of poor performance over a wide range of issues at TfL and I've said plenty about the causes of that elsewhere. The Mayor was very ill judged when he made the claims of "wonder management" and taking over Southern and Thameslink when there were problems at London Bridge. I suspect people in the Labour Party told him to shut up because he just looked foolish. TfL completely cocked up the bid for South Eastern after Khan's regime took over. It was laughed out of the DfT because it was so bad. Therefore TfL making demands for rail devolution just don't wash anymore. Let's be honest NOT getting South Eastern is probably a massive escape for TfL. The franchise is clearly in trouble in terms of the next franchise award. There are looming risks around ridership because of Brexit potentially damaging Central London employment and also affecting the availability of train paths (more freight trains being needed). TfL also do not have the money to fund station improvements and new rolling stock on the S Eastern suburban network if they'd been granted the powers to contract a new operator. That's why it's probably a good thing for them financially not to have got their hands on the services. Finally if I believe "informed comments" on social media then Mr Grayling is deliberately delaying all policy decisions at the DfT - the place is a disaster zone. Even Mike Brown used the term "like pulling teeth" when asked very recently about getting info from the DfT about the possible takeover of the Great Northern inner suburban services. Given DfT themselves floated the idea of a TfL takeover of these routes this shows the state of things under Brexit obsessed Grayling's DfT regime.
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Post by Lukeo on Mar 7, 2019 2:07:42 GMT
Sorry that comparison does not conflate with what i have said. The Jubilee is an intensive metro service. The Overground is a quarterly suburban service. If the GOBLIN was every 2 mins then a reduction to 30 mins would be catastrophic to put it lightly. The GOBLIN will be losing two services (whilst two too many) not 34. Therefore i don’t accept what you have said at all. My paragraph is not to say that all passengers will be turn up for the route but it would be neive to expect that people can not retime their journeys to fit this reduced service. The service is not suspended but redcued and at simple to understand intervals with promises of units that will maintain existing capacity. That will good enough for quite a few who do not wishes diverting. I absolutely agree howver that to have prevented this situation in the first place would of been ideal. Although it seems to be a recurring pattern for transport infrastructure in London to be delayed and most strands lead to one culprit as an underlying cause for delay... As I understand it, the GOBLIN is extremely busy even with the 15 min service so I fail to see any defence in cutting it in half to 30 minutes other than TfL doing so through their own incompetence. To then say people should re-time their journeys is utter madness personally - why should passengers continually suffer the stupid mistakes of train operators or TfL in this case? In an ideal world, the new trains would have been in service before the old ones had to leave. As we all know, this is sadly not the case, but TfL cannot realistically do much more at this stage. The GOBLIN may well be 'extremely busy' but that's irrelevant because the 378s which'll be running are probably around double the capacity of the 172s, so there isn't any/much loss of capacity on the line. This is a much better outcome than the full-on closure of the line that was rumoured just a few weeks back imo, and there's nothing wrong with telling people to re-time their journeys as a result of this temporary service change.. it's the logical thing to do.
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Post by snoggle on Mar 12, 2019 12:47:30 GMT
For the first time in a few days there is a 710 on daytime test runs on the GOBLIN today (12/3/19). Night time WCML runs have continued for several nights although one seemed to go wrong late last week - big delay in one of the trains running. Wonder if there was a fault and the "fault free clock" had to be reset? EDIT - TfL have published the temporary timetable that applies from next week. Rather appallingly there is no base weekend timetable at all - just a "check the website" reference. How the hell are people supposed to plan their travel with that sort of uncertainty? content.tfl.gov.uk/gospel-oak-to-barking-temporary-timetable-march-2019.pdf
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Post by zebedee104 on Mar 12, 2019 18:06:45 GMT
And a supplementary bus has been confirmed now, one running at the Gospel Oak end (possibly the same route J as before). At (my) Eastern end, the supplementary service is every 30 minutes between Walthamstow and Leytonstone calling at Leyton Midland Road and Leytonstone High Road. Not super useful.
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Mar 12, 2019 18:15:21 GMT
And a supplementary bus has been confirmed now, one running at the Gospel Oak end (possibly the same route J as before). At (my) Eastern end, the supplementary service is every 30 minutes between Walthamstow and Leytonstone calling at Leyton Midland Road and Leytonstone High Road. Not super useful. What sort of bus service is that? You can take a service bus for that sort of journey. One of the reasons the Goblin is even used is because of the unique links it provides that buses do not make.
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Post by richard on Mar 12, 2019 19:30:51 GMT
And a supplementary bus has been confirmed now, one running at the Gospel Oak end (possibly the same route J as before). At (my) Eastern end, the supplementary service is every 30 minutes between Walthamstow and Leytonstone calling at Leyton Midland Road and Leytonstone High Road. Not super useful. Who will be running the replacement bus?
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Post by smoothcriminal on Mar 12, 2019 21:02:47 GMT
As I understand it, the GOBLIN is extremely busy even with the 15 min service so I fail to see any defence in cutting it in half to 30 minutes other than TfL doing so through their own incompetence. To then say people should re-time their journeys is utter madness personally - why should passengers continually suffer the stupid mistakes of train operators or TfL in this case? Im not defending the reduction in service. Simply pointing out that services reduction does not equal desertion of the line. As my orinigal post falls just short of saying TfL are not advising people to solely seek alternative route, they are saying capacity will be maintained which may not put people off, so many will simply turn up at adjusted times. Im suggesting people should change there timings but some will where allowed in their schedule. The problem you have is that to the most vocal users and the usergroups of the goblin it's a major line but in the grand scale of things it's a minor branch line with alternatives for travel. A service that runs with a 2 car 172 with hardly any standing space is obviously going to seem busy. You have some people advocating cutting ell and nll services to make stock available for the goblin to run a 4tph with 4 car 378 which is frankly madness when people are being left on platforms with 5 car 378s already on thr nll/ell, when a 4 car 378 is well over double the capacity of a 2 car 172 even at a x30.
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Post by snoggle on Mar 12, 2019 22:29:38 GMT
Im not defending the reduction in service. Simply pointing out that services reduction does not equal desertion of the line. As my orinigal post falls just short of saying TfL are not advising people to solely seek alternative route, they are saying capacity will be maintained which may not put people off, so many will simply turn up at adjusted times. Im suggesting people should change there timings but some will where allowed in their schedule. The problem you have is that to the most vocal users and the usergroups of the goblin it's a major line but in the grand scale of things it's a minor branch line with alternatives for travel. A service that runs with a 2 car 172 with hardly any standing space is obviously going to seem busy. You have some people advocating cutting ell and nll services to make stock available for the goblin to run a 4tph with 4 car 378 which is frankly madness when people are being left on platforms with 5 car 378s already on thr nll/ell, when a 4 car 378 is well over double the capacity of a 2 car 172 even at a x30. Err no one here has advocated sacrficing the NLL service to achieve a 4 tph service on the GOBLIN. I haven't seen the user group suggesting that either to be honest. They suggested use of redundant class 315s a very long time but that idea was rejected. Now OK there are significant issues with that idea *but* when first suggested there was time, given what has happened since, to have put the necessary supporting measures in place to preserve the service level. I think it is a tad insulting to say that the GOBLIN is just a branch line. I think you can levy that accusation at the Romford - Upminster line but not the GOBLIN. The route itself serves a load of busy areas, connects with umpteen bus routes as well as tube and other rail services. It is also an important freight artery. I wouldn't want to see how many car transporters would have to lumber through East London streets instead of just one of the long freight trains from the Ford plant. To suggest the GOBLIN is not busy is to underestimate how many people use it and also the undoubted huge amount of suppressed demand that will be unleashed once we get 4 car trains working at the required frequency. Those 2 car 172s are wholly inadequate for the task which is why they are full to bursting point and leaving people behind in the peaks. It's like running 16 seat Ford Transits on the 12.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Mar 13, 2019 11:03:15 GMT
And a supplementary bus has been confirmed now, one running at the Gospel Oak end (possibly the same route J as before). At (my) Eastern end, the supplementary service is every 30 minutes between Walthamstow and Leytonstone calling at Leyton Midland Road and Leytonstone High Road. Not super useful. Who will be running the replacement bus? Arriva London
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Post by redbus on Mar 14, 2019 13:31:35 GMT
As I understand it, the GOBLIN is extremely busy even with the 15 min service so I fail to see any defence in cutting it in half to 30 minutes other than TfL doing so through their own incompetence. To then say people should re-time their journeys is utter madness personally - why should passengers continually suffer the stupid mistakes of train operators or TfL in this case? In an ideal world, the new trains would have been in service before the old ones had to leave. As we all know, this is sadly not the case, but TfL cannot realistically do much more at this stage. The GOBLIN may well be 'extremely busy' but that's irrelevant because the 378s which'll be running are probably around double the capacity of the 172s, so there isn't any/much loss of capacity on the line. This is a much better outcome than the full-on closure of the line that was rumoured just a few weeks back imo, and there's nothing wrong with telling people to re-time their journeys as a result of this temporary service change.. it's the logical thing to do. I think it is more a case of in a normal world the new trains are in service before the old ones leave. It is quite exceptional for this not to be the case. As you say, I agree that TfL can't do a lot more at this stage, but the keywords here are 'at this stage', because there's a strong argument that they could have done more at an earlier stage. For example with better planning perhaps redundant class 315s could have been used, yes there would be lots that would need doing to make that possible as discussed elsewhere here, but had this been planned earlier it probably could have been achieved.
You are right about capacity, but that is not the issue here, the issue is the halving of the frequency from 15 to 30 minutes. If you had a single deck bus route running at x15, how would you feel about it becoming double deck at x30? If you are relying on this as a connection on your way to work you'll spend a lot more time waiting with a lot of inconvenience. Not a good result for passengers, although as you rightly point out, much better than a closure. As for telling people to re-time their journeys, that is really no way to treat your customers. Also I note there is silence on the weekend service.
For me the logical thing to do would have been to have something in the 172 contract so that they could have been kept indefinitely until the 710s are in service. Failing that earlier planning as I say could have resulted in the use of other trains to maintain the service. Better still this option would not need 378s, so you'd still have your spares and the whole Overground 378 service would not be on a knife edge in case of a breakdown.
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Post by redbus on Mar 14, 2019 15:07:16 GMT
The problem you have is that to the most vocal users and the usergroups of the goblin it's a major line but in the grand scale of things it's a minor branch line with alternatives for travel. A service that runs with a 2 car 172 with hardly any standing space is obviously going to seem busy. You have some people advocating cutting ell and nll services to make stock available for the goblin to run a 4tph with 4 car 378 which is frankly madness when people are being left on platforms with 5 car 378s already on thr nll/ell, when a 4 car 378 is well over double the capacity of a 2 car 172 even at a x30. Err no one here has advocated sacrficing the NLL service to achieve a 4 tph service on the GOBLIN. I haven't seen the user group suggesting that either to be honest. They suggested use of redundant class 315s a very long time but that idea was rejected. Now OK there are significant issues with that idea *but* when first suggested there was time, given what has happened since, to have put the necessary supporting measures in place to preserve the service level. I think it is a tad insulting to say that the GOBLIN is just a branch line. I think you can levy that accusation at the Romford - Upminster line but not the GOBLIN. The route itself serves a load of busy areas, connects with umpteen bus routes as well as tube and other rail services. It is also an important freight artery. I wouldn't want to see how many car transporters would have to lumber through East London streets instead of just one of the long freight trains from the Ford plant. To suggest the GOBLIN is not busy is to underestimate how many people use it and also the undoubted huge amount of suppressed demand that will be unleashed once we get 4 car trains working at the required frequency. Those 2 car 172s are wholly inadequate for the task which is why they are full to bursting point and leaving people behind in the peaks. It's like running 16 seat Ford Transits on the 12. You can probably blame me here as there is a little confusion. I came up with the question of whether there were spare Bakerloo line trains which would enable the Bakerloo line to be extended to Watford Junction with no loss of service on the rest of the line. If the Watford Junction service could have been provided by the Bakerloo line, and more Bakerloo line trains north of Queen's Park, then perhaps the Euston - Watford Junction service could be shortened (not axed) and that may have released another 378 or two. The whole idea as has since been said is a complete non starter as the extra Bakerloo line trains simply don't exist.
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Post by snoggle on Mar 14, 2019 18:54:25 GMT
You can probably blame me here as there is a little confusion. I came up with the question of whether there were spare Bakerloo line trains which would enable the Bakerloo line to be extended to Watford Junction with no loss of service on the rest of the line. If the Watford Junction service could have been provided by the Bakerloo line, and more Bakerloo line trains north of Queen's Park, then perhaps the Euston - Watford Junction service could be shortened (not axed) and that may have released another 378 or two. The whole idea as has since been said is a complete non starter as the extra Bakerloo line trains simply don't exist. Nor is there fourth rail north of Harrow and Wealdstone which also rather scuppers the idea of extending Bakerloo Line trains. Furthermore the Bakerloo Line fleet is subject to a large scale refurbishment programme which means some trains are out of use in the short term (not withstanding the overall point about insufficient trains).
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Post by snoggle on Mar 15, 2019 12:11:43 GMT
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Post by SILENCED on Mar 15, 2019 12:25:16 GMT
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Post by snoggle on Mar 15, 2019 13:12:06 GMT
Possible I guess. I had vaguely pondered for a second or two where the buses might come from but nothing sprang to mind other than rusting Cadets sat at Edmonton garage. Still begs the question where the drivers will come from as I assume some ex393 will transfer to Metroline and others could easily be rostered to other routes given all operators have a staffing problem. If they're going to put something as small as ENS on the supplementary RRS they can't be expected many to use it. To be fair the western RRS, when I used it, was woefully underused off peak. I had a whole RATP Trident to myself. The eastern one from Barking was better used but part of that was savvy locals getting a free express ride rather than use a normal bus.
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