Central Line 30 March 2014 - defintely not a "good service"

There was a PUT at CHL about 17.00 but there were massive gaps in the service all evening. I stabled a train in West Ruislip depot about 21.30. The next EB train was at East Acton on the wesbound!!

Yes.

I understand that things such as people under trains will inevitably spell disaster for the service, sometimes for many hours after the incident is resolved. However this is no excuse for calling the disrupted service "good".

"Minor delays" I'd have quibbled with but not put in a formal complaint. "Severe delays" (which is what I experienced) and I'd have got the bus from Walthamstow.

As the current WTTs are on the new TFL website we can see exactly what a Good Service would have been at that hour:

23.04 Hainault
23.09 Epping
23.14 Woodford via Hainault
23.19 Epping
23.24 Hainault
23.29 Epping
23.34 Hainault
23.39 Loughton
23.44 Epping
23.50 Hainault

Obviously the timetable was shredded due to the two customer issues.
But as this was the final hour of service for the night, the gaps experienced could well have come from only a single cancellation (corresponding to either the 23.19 or 23.29 Epping trains) followed by just a bit of late running.

We all agree consecutive gaps of double the timetabled interval is not Good Service.
But could it just be that at such late hour the controller is primarily concerned with insuring the running of the last trains on each route as published? Knowing that those trains would run would there be any point in advertising delays?

(I know this is a well-worn question; I hope you don't mind indulging an infrequent visitor who, thanks to this site and others like it, finds it easier to use public transport in London, and trains between UK cities, than in his own USA hometown)

I suppose that would require the Station Super to manually override the automatic "good service" announcements, make up their own "not so good service" announcements and then switch them back once "good service" had resumed. While I was waiting at Hainault on Sunday the station PA was still saying that service had been suspended between Liverpool Street and Holborn about half an hour after we were back up and running.

I'm not complaining about the service being offered, I'm complaining about describing it as good.
If the customer will experience significant delays when they turn up to travel, then delays should be advertised even if later trains will run as scheduled. At that time of night it will mean people missing last buses (which run earlier than the last tube in/to Essex) and other connections.

Probably- you could make an FOI request to get a definite answer:)
Still it's yet another reason to slightly distrust TfL!

Problem: ignore. Solution: ignore.