This is just mind blowing. How can a railway company not know what routes its drivers sign? Or what engineering works are coming up?
If this attitude exists throughout GTR then it explains a lot!
There does seem to be a lack of training for staff on routes they ought to know, and to maintain that knowledge to save money. Whilst money remains the main guiding point this is not going to change.
Having said the GTR should have known that in advance, surely they select Drivers for shifts and must have records of drivers knowledge.
I think having a Drivers depot at Horsham causes no end of issues and that depot has been a problem since the start, when it was opened in 2018. They did not have enough Drivers there then and I don't think it has ever caught up.
The point seems to be that control simply doesn’t have the resources to plan an optimised set of duty schedules. So you’re always going to get something heavily slimmed down. Agree that the real problem is GTR’s management of crews, which seems to be constantly lacking. To be fair their planning isn’t bad most of the time, this doesn’t seem to be the sticking point.
Of course they don't - Control is run based on normal service with no capacity spare when issue come up at the best of times, so expecting a stretched team replanning a whole service on teh fly is not going to happen. Again lack of resources is the problem in this cost cutting environment.
Honestly, if they can't extend it due to Reigate, then they either need to attach more carriages at Redhill like they used to or scrap the service and replace with an 8-377 from Redhill, with good connections to GWR. These booked 4 carriage formations are ludicrous.
For most of the time, four coach Reigate services work adequately. Clearly they are augmented in the peaks. Weekend mornings can be an issue.
At Reigate 4 coaches are fine, its further up the line at Coulsdon and Purley when they are full. Having said that Reigate generates a lot of London bound traffic and thus justifies the direct service throughout the day. It would be difficult to replace effectively with a connecting service from GWR, without a sharp loss of overall custom. 2018 proposals included a shuttled from Reigate to Redhill which no-one wanted either.
The slam doors used to run on to the level crossing before departure in order to clear the trailing cross over and the signal at the Redhill end of the down platform. I think the up platform is already eight cars long so a facing crossover to allow trains to run straight into the up platform would be a quicker solution. Make sure that it's at least 12 cars away from the level crossing to allow for future extension if desired.
What happened before May 2018 when Horsham to London Bridge was 377s? Divert to Victoria or attach to Reigate train at Redhill?
The difference is that in the last 20 years traffic on the A217 has become extremely busy so keeping the Gates down for a long time creates traffic chaos in Reigate. Even now when GWR pass queues still build back half a mile or more through the town centre.
Before 2018, Redhill was served by Southern only (well mostly a couple of peak Thameslinks), so the 4 car Tonbridge or Reigate to London Bridge was supplemented by a 4 car Horsham to London Bridge. At Peak times services would reduce to 2tph with trains splitting into up to 3 parts at Redhill.
Victoria services were Arun Valley trains calling at Redhill off-peak and extras on the Victoria to Horsham/Reigate/Tonbridge axis (also splitting) during Peak.
This wasn't a planning or train crew IR issue and the matter should be directed at the very well paid managers that supposedly run GTR but DafT won't be interested nor will the local MP as he's off so as usual GTR get away with it again. At least AWC were taken to task over their lamentable failures.
DfT will not help, just want costs cut. Local MP is gone too, effectively banned from parliament and representing his constituents but at least his office still helps chase up. DfT do not reply though.
Until we have a change of Government there is no hope of improvements on any public service and of course when it changes there will be years and years of work just to get back to the Status Quo