Silver Cobra
Member
Thameslink Control didn't paint themselves in a good light yet again this afternoon.
Following the disruption caused by the signal failure at East Croydon, I caught the late-running 9S42 Brighton-Cambridge service at Farringdon with the intention of changing at Hitchin for the following delayed Peterborough service (9J50) to Arlesey (I opted to do this rather than just wait for 9J50 at Farringdon in case it was either terminated before reaching Arlesey or skip-stopped from Finsbury Park). Approaching Finsbury Park the driver announced that he had been informed by Control that after Finsbury Park he would be running non-stop to Cambridge, so everyone wanting the intermediate stations needed to alight at Finsbury Park. Once we got into the station, while everyone who didn't want Cambridge was trying to alight, a large number of passengers were trying to board, as the platform screens showed the train would still be calling at Stevenage and Royston. So cue mass confusion amongst passengers not knowing what exactly where the train would be stopping at or what information to trust. It got to the point where both the driver and another member of Thameslink staff had to ask the platform staff to check with Control where the train would actually be stopping, with Control confirming that it would indeed be stopping at Stevenage and Royston en-route to Cambridge, so contrary to what they originally told the driver prior to us arriving into Finsbury Park. Overall this added around another 10 minutes delay to the service.
I appreciate that managing disruption is not an easy task at all, but situations like this really don't help when the driver is being told one thing yet the passenger information says something completely different. One lucky element to this situation is that the platform staff double-checked with Control before removing a disabled passenger in a wheelchair off the train (this passenger was heading to Royston, so the staff had the ramp ready to remove them off the train), as that would have caused much worse delays.
Following the disruption caused by the signal failure at East Croydon, I caught the late-running 9S42 Brighton-Cambridge service at Farringdon with the intention of changing at Hitchin for the following delayed Peterborough service (9J50) to Arlesey (I opted to do this rather than just wait for 9J50 at Farringdon in case it was either terminated before reaching Arlesey or skip-stopped from Finsbury Park). Approaching Finsbury Park the driver announced that he had been informed by Control that after Finsbury Park he would be running non-stop to Cambridge, so everyone wanting the intermediate stations needed to alight at Finsbury Park. Once we got into the station, while everyone who didn't want Cambridge was trying to alight, a large number of passengers were trying to board, as the platform screens showed the train would still be calling at Stevenage and Royston. So cue mass confusion amongst passengers not knowing what exactly where the train would be stopping at or what information to trust. It got to the point where both the driver and another member of Thameslink staff had to ask the platform staff to check with Control where the train would actually be stopping, with Control confirming that it would indeed be stopping at Stevenage and Royston en-route to Cambridge, so contrary to what they originally told the driver prior to us arriving into Finsbury Park. Overall this added around another 10 minutes delay to the service.
I appreciate that managing disruption is not an easy task at all, but situations like this really don't help when the driver is being told one thing yet the passenger information says something completely different. One lucky element to this situation is that the platform staff double-checked with Control before removing a disabled passenger in a wheelchair off the train (this passenger was heading to Royston, so the staff had the ramp ready to remove them off the train), as that would have caused much worse delays.
