Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatch reponse to RUS
 

Tom Anderson:
How much time does that save over running in service?

Clive Feather:
12.5 minutes.
[Moorgate to WGC: 46 minutes in service, 33.5 minutes ECS.]

Mark Brader:
What if they ran back in service, but nonstop?

Clive Feather:
I suspect the number of passengers wanting to go end-to-end contra-peak
is tiny...

Maybe, but if the train has to make the trip anyway, why not earn a
bit of revenue and benefit those passengers? Anyway, my question is,
would it affect the trip time if they did?

compared with the confusion caused by having just two or three
non-stop services in an otherwise clockface timetable.

I'm not familiar with the timetable, but from what's been said in
this thread, it's already asymmetrical.
--
Mark Brader "The routes 'London' and 'not London' are
Toronto not necessarily mutually exclusive."
--Tim Stevens for ATOC, UK

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatch reponse to RUS
 

In article . com, MIG
writes
That's not my question. I am saying why is it everyone getting on at
Moorgate who wants all stations and everyone getting on at Kings Cross
wants fast or semifast?

It isn't.

I can't see why there couldn't be a pattern at any time of day that
included some stopping and some less-stopping from both Moorgate and
Kings Cross.

You could do that, yes.

In this case, you don't want 313s to go too far as they aren't designed
for long distance (e.g. no toilets).

More generally, it's easier to design a robust service if each route is
consistent and you have an easy interchange, than if the two services
have to interlink. You get rather less "performance pollution".

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
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Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatch reponse to RUS
 

In article , Mark Brader
writes
I suspect the number of passengers wanting to go end-to-end contra-peak
is tiny...
Maybe, but if the train has to make the trip anyway, why not earn a
bit of revenue and benefit those passengers?

Two reasons.

Firstly, passengers can cause delays - the most obvious example being
someone who uses a wheelchair. The trains we're talking about run as
class 3: "ECS to be given priority over any late workings, even class 1
expresses, because it forms a key service". They don't want to risk
delaying the next with-peak working.

Secondly, I believe that TOCs have to pay track usage charges for all
passenger services but get a certain number of ECS workings thrown in
free. So it's cheaper.

Anyway, my question is,
would it affect the trip time if they did?

A little bit, because you have to make the station stops - each probably
costs about 40 seconds. In this case, there are quite possibly *no*
passengers wanting to go end-to-end and not use any intermediate
station.

compared with the confusion caused by having just two or three
non-stop services in an otherwise clockface timetable.
I'm not familiar with the timetable, but from what's been said in
this thread, it's already asymmetrical.

There are more with-peak trains, yes, but the basic pattern of service
is the same - all stops from Moorgate to WGC, Hertford North, Stevenage,
or Letchworth.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatch reponse to RUS
 

On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:55:46 -0700, jonmorris wrote:

Currently the only way to run the 0136 train on Saturday
night would be to use a bus ALL the time!

Which is roughly what Silverlink do, so "can't be bothered" is
probably the explanation.

I doubt any TOC would ever schedule a service that is ALWAYS booked as
being run by a bus. Nor am I sure they would be allowed to anyway! I
mean, how could you propose to run a service when the railway isn't
available to you? I know First run buses, but imagine if all TOCs got
the idea of running buses instead of trains on a regular basis. Time
to close the railways altogether and to hell with timetables and quick
journey times.

If Silverlink are doing this then shame on them - but are there not
similar circumstances (long term engineering or a 'set in stone'
possession by Notwork Rail)?

IIRC, for a while the 0200 EUS-MKC on Saturday nights was only a train
as far as Watford Junction, where it turned into a bus, but it's now
back to being a train throughout.

Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatch reponse to RUS
 

On Wed, 3 Oct 2007 13:52:13 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:

There are more with-peak trains, yes, but the basic pattern of service
is the same - all stops from Moorgate to WGC, Hertford North, Stevenage,
or Letchworth.

There is some variation in stopping pattern north of Finsbury Park
during the peaks at least: some trains skipping Harringay and Hornsey
and a few running non-stop between Finsbury Park and Palmers Green.
Still, I can see that longer non-stop runs would be confusing,
especially as at present all trains stop at all stations along the
Northern City Line.

Martin

Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatch reponse to RUS
 

There's a mechanism by which Ken can specify and pay for additional
services on NR routes in the London area. I wonder if, probably once
....

i think it would be very successful, and might convince FCC that such a

The cynic in me wonders what would be in it for FCC to improve the service
in this way. They already blame overcrowding on a their customers holding
flexible tickets and the same argument could be made here - they would make
little extra income from the traffic. They'd probably also leave the
stations unstaffed and ticketless travel would be rife.

Sad they can't seem to see the bigger picture, and whilst Ken might see
beyond this and pay for the services, I bet he'd end up paying forever...

Cheers,
Dave

Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatch reponse to RUS
 

On Oct 4, 2:00 pm, DaveP wrote:
They'd probably also leave the stations unstaffed and ticketless travel would be rife.

3 of the 5 stations are LUL run and don't have any obvious FCC staff,
and unlike King's Cross they do have barriers. The RUS puts the cost
of running all weeknight trains to Moorgate at £170,000/year, mainly
for extra staff to keep the line open. It also suggests Saturday
running might be needed to free space at KX.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatch reponse to RUS
 

On 4 Oct, 14:00, DaveP wrote:

Sad they can't seem to see the bigger picture, and whilst Ken might see
beyond this and pay for the services, I bet he'd end up paying forever...

First are very pro-active on protecting revenue on the trains, which
is why they do set up regular late night on-train checks and gateline
checks at night (right up to the last train). I've seen many people
panic when they're suddenly presented with RPIs that usually go
straight to the first class compartments. It seems to work though, as
I've followed them through a late night train and there are actually
now relatively few people not carrying valid tickets. It goes to show
that if you can make people think there's a slightly higher than
average chance of being caught, they won't chance it.

FCC seemed keen to run later trains, and I'm sure that if they worked
with TfL as part of the 'bigger picture' on late night travel in and
around London, they could possibly get some subsidy but it wouldn't
have to cost that much. Most money would come from fares - and these
trains aren't exactly running half empty even on a Monday or Tuesday
night.

Jonathan

Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatchreponse to RUS
 

On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, DaveP wrote:

There's a mechanism by which Ken can specify and pay for additional
services on NR routes in the London area. I wonder if, probably once
...

i think it would be very successful, and might convince FCC that such a

The cynic in me wonders what would be in it for FCC to improve the
service in this way. They already blame overcrowding on a their
customers holding flexible tickets and the same argument could be made
here - they would make little extra income from the traffic.

Bear in mind that most of the additional traffic, i think, will come from
people out and about in the City - Shoreditch - Islington area going home,
not commuters coming home later. I doubt many of the revellers have
seasons on that line. They might have travelcards, in which case FCC's
share of the travelcard pie would go up. Most of them are probably PAYG
users, in which case FCC would be selling them tickets. Either way, more
money for FCC.

They'd probably also leave the stations unstaffed and ticketless travel
would be rife.

Moorgate, Old Street, Essex Road and Highbury & Islington are underground,
so section 12 applies - they couldn't be run unstaffed. And as U points
out, three of those are currently run by LU anyway, with no FCC presence
needed. Drayton Park could be run unstaffed, but not many people are going
to be getting on there, as it's more of a destination than an origin, so
fare losses would be minimal.

tom

--
Tubes are the foul subterranean entrails of the London beast, stuffed
with the day's foetid offerings. -- Tokugawa

Great Northern inner surburban services - London travelwatchreponse to RUS
 

On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Mr Thant wrote:

The RUS puts the cost of running all weeknight trains to Moorgate at
£170,000/year, mainly for extra staff to keep the line open.

Aha. Assuming passengers buy singles costing an average of 2.50 each
(Moorgate - Finsbury Park is 2.10, Moorgate - New Southgate is 3.10, so
this is ballpark right), that would need 68 000 passengers (ticket sales,
anyway) to break even. Over 52 weeks, that's 1308 people a week. That
sounds like quite a lot, but plausible.

tom

--
Tubes are the foul subterranean entrails of the London beast, stuffed
with the day's foetid offerings. -- Tokugawa