"As a result of engineering work there will be no train service between
Finsbury Park and Stevenage via Welwyn Garden City at weekends from
17/18 September to 10/11 December inclusive. A replacement bus service
will operate instead. A reduced service will run between Kings Cross
and Hertford North/Cambridge and Peterborough. Trains serving Kings
Lynn will run between Royston and Kings Lynn only. There will also be a
bus service between Hertford North/Watton at Stone and Stevenage-on
Saturdays and Sundays."

The new Journey Check and Wagn live services don't mention this,
preferring to say "No train specific problems reported.". Well, quite -
no trains running AT ALL should mean there are little in the way of
problems. :)

So, what exactly are they doing - and where? It's meant to be overhead
line work, which seems to be a big problem - but the problems are
usually further north than WGC. Does anyone 'in the know' know if this
is the start of major work on the ECML?

Jonathan

"jonmorris"  wrote in message 
news:1126958696.513351.272750@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...


>
> The new Journey Check and Wagn live services don't mention this,
> preferring to say "No train specific problems reported.". Well, quite -
> no trains running AT ALL should mean there are little in the way of
> problems. :)


Isn't that because if it is a planned change, the bustitution IS the 
service, therefore when you look up a journey on the planner, or 
journeycheck, it will provide timetabled train/bus/train or whatever?

Paul

> Isn't that because if it is a planned change, the bustitution IS the
> service, therefore when you look up a journey on the planner, or
> journeycheck, it will provide timetabled train/bus/train or whatever?


You would think so. Use the website and it DOES show the buses. Use a
mobile phone and it just says "No trains due", which makes a nonsense
of putting all the information on mobile devices to help you plan
things when you're actually traveling! Wagn hasn't yet implemented
engineering work information on the Journey Checker, which SWT has.
This would make it quite clear that there are works and what the
alternative is (namely when the buses go, and where).

The engineering PDF on the website actually says the work starts NEXT
weekend, which maybe explains why the poster I saw on Thursday looked
like a last minute rush job (i.e. - "sorry, it's happening a week
earlier so here's some extremely short notice").

I don't know if Wagn will accept tickets from Hertford North (beyond
the Z6 of my season) as an alternative to taking a horrid, slow, bus
- but driving there to take the train would be a lot more sensible
for living between Potters Bar and WGC. Those who have cars, of course!

Jonathan

"jonmorris"  wrote in message
news:1126964927.984360.232800@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...


>
> The engineering PDF on the website actually says the work starts NEXT
> weekend, which maybe explains why the poster I saw on Thursday looked
> like a last minute rush job (i.e. - "sorry, it's happening a week
> earlier so here's some extremely short notice").


I was wondering if this was in relation to what happened a week last Friday
when the OHLE got struck in the evening with that really bad storm we had
down here.

Kev

I was told at the ticket office in Hatfield that I can use my season
from Hertford North during the weekend disruption. Wasn't totally
convinced though, so I'll probably find out tomorrow.

The website train departure information may show buses - but it's 2023
and still showing;

Alexandra Palace 09:23 BUS on time
Finsbury Park Lo 09:26 BUS on time
Stevenage 09:43 BUS on time
Welwyn Gdn City 09:52 BUS on time
Alexandra Palace 09:53 BUS on time
Finsbury Park Lo 09:59 BUS on time

If these are the same times past each hour, then maybe it's useful -
but it doesn't say.

I think the situation is a mess, but maybe it will be fixed by next
weekend when the work was actually meant to begin?

Jonathan

On 17 Sep 2005 06:01:42 -0700, "jonmorris" 
wrote:


>"As a result of engineering work there will be no train service between
>Finsbury Park and Stevenage via Welwyn Garden City at weekends from
>17/18 September to 10/11 December inclusive. A replacement bus service
>will operate instead. A reduced service will run between Kings Cross
>and Hertford North/Cambridge and Peterborough. Trains serving Kings
>Lynn will run between Royston and Kings Lynn only. There will also be a
>bus service between Hertford North/Watton at Stone and Stevenage-on
>Saturdays and Sundays."
>

Warning: long screed/rant follows!

I was caught by this. Since I only visit the station (Oakleigh Park)
on Saturdays, the first thing I knew of it was when I arrived there
this morning. The ticket seller said it was every half hour, at about
the same time as the train would have been, and indeed a double-decker
turned up at just before the scheduled time.

However, returning to Kings Cross at 18:50, I found that Hertford
North was served by a train at 19:14 and the Welwyn side by a train at
19:44 to Alexandra Palace (six carriages but only a single road
coach!), followed by a bus service [1] calling at all stations to WGC.
The representative at AP, when I mentioned that the printed timetable
for next weekend had express services [2] listed, said that there was
such a service, from Finsbury Park. This surprised me and many people,
since no mention was made at Kings Cross, on the train or at Finsbury
Park.

Getting home, I checked the online timetable [3] for Sunday
(Saturday's was no longer there), and I find that there is such an
express service. Here we find a smell of cordite and a sharp pain in
WAGN's foot: it leaves Finsbury Park at xx:49; the xx:44 arrives there
at about (you guessed it) xx:49, leaving at xx:50. The connection is
with the xx:39 to Cambridge via the loop, calling at FP at xx:44. 
WAGN, get your staff and the announcer at Kings Cross to come clean
about this, or retime it to connect with the xx:44.

A query occurs: why is the whole line from FP to WGC closed every
weekend, when there are reversing facilities at New Barnet and Potters
Bar, both of which have been used previously in passenger service
(after the Potters Bar and Hatfield disasters)?

Still, it could have been worse: early Sunday retains the previous
practice of running buses from Kings Cross to WGC without an express
-- a journey of an hour for me and just over *two hours* throughout.

For me, I shall be going by car every Saturday, despite my preference
for train and (folding) cycle.

[1] This was a coach, the driver of which said that he had come up
from Gatwick, and after arriving at WGC (and a break) would be
providing a service (from Stevenage?) to Peterborough. Not
surprisingly, he didn't have any idea of the route apart from a
smallish-scale map. Methinks WAGN has been dropped in it by NR
(again), and this is the best they could do at short notice.

[2] Calling at Potters Bar and Hatfield only -- the calls made by the
xx:06 and xx:36 trains in more normal times.

[3] Note to WAGN: when a link to a PDF is clicked, either open in a
new window or at least break out of the frame. Leaving it in the
source frame makes the usable area tiny and wastes a lot of screen
real-estate.

Whew, rant over! Time for bed!
-- 
Clive R Robertson -- AS/400 Programmer.

Webmaster of http://www.osterleypark.org.uk/ -- this describes 
a beautiful National Trust property in West London.

Clive R Robertson wrote:

> [3] Note to WAGN: when a link to a PDF is clicked, either open in a
> new window or at least break out of the frame. Leaving it in the
> source frame makes the usable area tiny and wastes a lot of screen
> real-estate.


Whoever does the website for Wagn doesn't have a clue. It started out
as a pretty decent, simple, layout but over time it's had loads of
stuff added to it and it's become a real mess.

I've contacted Wagn twice to tell them that you can't use 'Wagn' in the
URL as mobile browsers are case sensitive and will give 404 errors.
Then, I contacted Nexus Alpha, assuming that they would know the right
people to inform. It's still wrong, so most people probably haven't yet
been able to access the Journey Check service from their
phone/smartphone (just as well, when it has NOTHING about the weekend
bus replacement on it).

National Express spent loads of money producing the new 'Tracking'
newsletter when they put in their franchise bid. Now the last one was
produced in May! I think they've pretty much given up on the network in
many ways, especially if it's true that they may lose the franchise
because of their ownership of the Gatwick Express service.

Jonathan

I agree about National Express' attitude to WAGN - as a commuter from
Letchworth my attitude is that a service seems to be provided in spite
of them; their 365s are desperate for a refurb after nearly 10 years in
service, for example.

As for the general issue of bus substitutions, I found myself at
Stevenage at about 2345 last night (Saturday) as trains were being
turned back there. The main road in front of the station was
chock-a-block with buses and there was one unfortunate individual using
a loud-hailer to direct people to the appropriate bus, as some were
serving stations to Peterborough and some stations to Cambridge. As
this was a planned blockade, I wonde if temporary barriers could not
have been put up and separate queues organised for different
destinations. A bus to Letchworth did appear in a few minutes,
fortunately and the driver was very helpful. Interestingly enough, the
vehicle was owned by First!

I understand that the requirement for these blockades is OHLE work but
I wish NR would do something about the pway on the Hertford line - our
train gave a very vicious lurch as it crossed over the points south of
Gordon Hill and in general the pway is in poor condition on that line.

jonmorris wrote:

> 
> Whoever does the website for Wagn doesn't have a clue. It started out
> as a pretty decent, simple, layout but over time it's had loads of
> stuff added to it and it's become a real mess.


I was planning a trip from Kings Cross to Cambridge and downloaded the
emergency timetable, but it was useless. A poster-sized sheet was
reduced to one page of A4 and the text was about half a millimetre high.

-- 
John Ray, London UK.