Trains dropped from service....

Must be those A stocks getting unreliable... Roll on the S Stocks eh? ;D

Seriously though... My favourite "Fast Baker St" (HoH ex 1735) has been doing funny things recently - Often morphing the Aldgate that would generally join behind it at Neasden, picking up its driver at Wembley pk. I attributed this to lack of a replacement train. My impression as a passenger is that there are less delays into Baker street without that extra train however.

Given the poor platform indicators at Harrow and the odd all stations thrown into platform 6 to confuse us further it's been harder to read the service (for example today it was unclear if the Fast had been sent through early as it sometimes is) Of course We got stuck at Wembley whist the fast that has been running behind us regained its place in the sequence.

Ho Hum.....

There are 2 main issues at present.

Firstly, a minor maintenance issue has presented itself, requiring more than usual A-stocks to be kept in depot until the issue is rectified. Add this to the scheduled maintenance that is carried out on a day to day basis, and that makes for a fair number of A-stocks requiring attention in Neasden Depot.

Secondly, as mentioned elsewhere, the industrial action. Depot staff are working to rule and have enforced an overtime ban. As such things are moving much slower than normal in the depot. This ultimately results in a huge reduction of stock available for service.

Once the stock caught up with the minor issue are given the all clear, the situation may ease, but until the industrial dispute is resolved, there will be delays to the general day-to-day stuff.

Just to add to the fun, one way in which we have to manage the service is to use trains that would normally stable at Neasden depot just after the peak to make up previously cancelled trains. The knock-on effect is that, whilst late evening commuters do not suffer delays, the stock is later getting back to depot (or doesn't reach depot at all) and thus the scheduled work is not carried out on time for the next day's workings.

On Monday evening we were around 6 trains short. Yesterday this figure rose to 8 (plus a couple of trains becoming defective later on.) This evening we ran with a total of 12 trains short.

The scheduled timetable was kept in place, but in order to avoid huge gaps to any station, an immense amount of juggling was needed.

The upside was that at no point did any station get a gap of more than the equivalent of 1 train cancellation (so roughly 10 minutes maximum instead of what could easily have been 20-30 minutes without juggling).

The downside (if it really could be seen as that) was that many trains were diverted, had altered stopping patterns, or appeared to be delayed en-route (normally as a result of the train being pulled back into another path.)

No decision has been taken lightly, although as the Met is fundamentally a commuter railway between the suburbs and the city, the morning peak will always have efforts concentrated on providing as many services as possible in the city-bound direction, with the opposite occuring in the evening. We try not to make this too noticeable to those travelling against the main flow, but unfortunately there will be times where the majority will be served over the minority.

"a minor maintenance issue "

I would hardly describe cracks appearing in shoe beam pockets as " minor". After the alert on the District line, they started checking the Met, and look what they found....

Unless you are the chief LU engineer*, who are you to say what is minor and what is not??

The fact is that no train with this fault has been involved in any accident whatsoever, no passengers or staff have been injured and the fault is being corrected without the whole fleet having to be withdrawn from service. And seeing the fuss made by other "minor maintenance issues" recently and the resulting rumpus, those who actually are responsible for the engineering must think it's trivial rather than minor. And as for the public, even BobCrow has been ignored by the press so they too must think there's no story.
Scaremongering again, by one who should know better. Please don't overstep the line - you're right on it with this comment (even if it's a quote from the public domain).


*Or a journalist for the London Evening Standard.

It didn't run too badly this morning, although we had 11 cancelled. Thanks to the night turn LIS, who left us with a plan this morning that worked perfectly, leaving all the early stablers cancelled and a full service on the road. Unfortunately, the depot then requested 4 trains back!

What WAS going on today?Met line up the creek,severe delays.No Jubilee southbound from West Hampstead.Central line ?Delays on the Picc. and Northern
Great start to the working week.

Yep.

5052/5102 are due there To have all the trucks lifted out, for wheel turning, or as its known with the trade...."a minor maintenance issue "
;D
At least one more will follow...

Next they'll be sending them to Derby on the return workings of S8 Deliveries =P

Don't worry jn114, I got the joke - even if our resident "pint is half empty" champion chose to tread all over it ;D

Some of the industrial dispute has been "resolved." Yesterday we ran with just 6 short during the peak, and the depot also offered additional spare trains in the evening - unheard of over the last few weeks.

Hopefully, given the fact they have the weekend with not much running, they can catch up a bit, and maybe from next week the situation will be much improved.