4-car class 378s on the GoBLin

Having the hot spare unit as a four-car will enable it to cover for faults for any defective 378 is an idea that has merit. Whether it's worth the hassle, cost and capacity loss though I don't know.

Transfer at Clapham Junction is straightforward but I thought the connection at Highbury was unelectrified?

If the GOBLin is driven by Willesden drivers (who IIRC had a little re-training when the cl378 were shortened) then a handful of short trains could be created and used on both the GOBLin and the DC; isn't the DC getting four car cl710 anyway?

The problem is the lack of extra trains. If they shorten 1 or more then they will need to cancel either NLL, WLL or DC services. We are already a breaking point.

Indeed - most curious. The third rail and overhead each seem to stop about 30m away from the footbridge. The footbridge must be high enough for catenary because the other two tracks are electrified on AC.

I looked at the sectional appendix the other day and could have sworn it was marked OOU?

Out Of Use.

<Insert: usual abbreviation reminder>

Does anyone have any info they can share regarding today’s incident involving a 378 on the GoBLin?

When I passed by (11.40), a 4-car 378 was stopped atop Barking flyover heading towards pfm.7. The cab door was open and the driver talking to a trackside official. Immediately behind it was a freight train.
Within 10mins the District Controller announced that a detrainment of a LO train was taking place in the Barking area “because of damage to the overhead wires”, and that eastbound trains should exercise caution in the area.

Another day, another set of problems. Seems a unit has failed at the Barking end of the route with brake problems. This has caused the route to be suspended between Barking and South Tottenham for many hours. Goodness knows what is wrong with the train for it to be causing 5-6 hours of service suspension.

And that my son is progress

There is no point in converting more. The fleet is being run so tightly now that only three trains can be spared for the GOBLIN. To be honest I'm surprised they found three "spare" trains. It is evident that the 378 fleet is not faring well. There are cancellations most days because trains keep conking out.

The GOBLIN lost service last Friday and also on Saturday due to wire and fleet problems. Even when a service could be restored with 2 units TfL run from S Tottenham to G Oak only despite the section from Blackhorse Rd to Barking being vastly busier. Despite the loss of service over two days there was no sign that the stand by buses were activated to provide a full replacement from Walthamstow Central to Barking. Instead the daft supplementary service from Leytonstone to Walthamstow ran instead.

London Travelwatch hosted a meeting about transport issues in Barking today. The service on the GOBLIN was raised. Needless to say little new information emerged. All we got from TfL is that driver training on the 710s has started, the instances of software faults is reducing BUT TfL could not give an in service date for the trains. They even went so far as to suggest that past statements from Bombardier had not been delivered against. Well colour me surprised!

There seem to be one or two 710s out most days on the GOBLIN - presumably for driver training. However the paths being run in seem to vary day by day. Mileage accumulation runs on the WCML are also continuing most weekday nights. It's impossible to ascertain from any of this what is *actually* going on. If anyone in TfL / Bombardier / ARL does know then they are not telling the public. The more this drags the more ridiculous and unacceptable it gets. The Mayor, Commissioner and senior Bombardier people apparently came to some sort of deal a couple of months ago. The deal has never been made public so it is completely impossible to determine whether it is being met and what action, if any, the Mayor and Commissioner are taking to ensure the deal is delivered as promised. If you were to be cynical you might imagine that actually there wasn't any such deal and it was all a nice bit of window dressing to shut people up. Otherwise you'd tell people what the deal was so it could be independently assessed and people held accountable as needed.

In another place I saw a remark that a contributor to Rail Magazine had said that Bombardier had submitted the paperwork to ORR seeking approval for passenger use of the 710s. I suspect that comment is not correct if, as TfL have said today, software problems are still being resolved by Bombardier. Not sure why you'd seen approval against a still variable software platform. I accept that the train software will almost certainly have ongoing iterations to clear bugs and glitches found "in service" but we simply don't know if all safety and operational glitches have been removed from the software yet.

The line suspension info is on realtimetrains and on Twitter via London Overground's account. There have been other cancellations but largely on the NLL and WLL routes. There was also one day when a train was cancelled on the Euston Watford route leaving 40 min gaps between trains. The basic point is that the 378 fleet is being run on "knife edge" spares margins and you will understand what that means. It is simply not sustainable in the medium to long term and we are already seeing the consequences in the short term.

Fair point about crew reliefs and breaks. However what that really points up is operational convenience outweighing passenger needs. It can't be beyond the wit of LO and TfL to secure alternative arrangements so that any partial service actually runs where passengers travel most.

Arriva are contracted to run the supplementary LO services - double decks on the Leytonstone route, single decks on the F Park - Gospel Oak service. It was supposed to be being enhanced but due to a cock up with the delivery of new buses to Metroline for route 393 [1] (they are far too long) this means Metroline are having to hire some of the old Arriva buses that used to run on the 393. These were apparently going to be used on a revised LO supplementary service that ran closer to stations because single decks can squeeze under all the low bridges on the route. Ensignbus have temporarily allocated a number of old Go Ahead London double deckers from their sales stock for the "stand by" service.

[1] Metroline recently took on the contract to run the 393 for five years from Arriva.

"operational convenience?  For starters drivers will still be booking on and off at Gospel Oak.

Let's say a driver books on at Gospel Oak but you're running a truncated service from Barking to South Tottenham (the only other crossover is at Woodgrange Park as far as I know).  They have to catch the NLL to Stratford, then get the Jubilee to West Ham and the District or c2c to Barking before they pick up a train, lets call that at least one hour "travelling time".  They work a few trips, have a meal break, work a few more trips then they have to leave at least an hour before their booking off time to travel back to Gospel Oak.

Now maybe London Overground already has a Barking to South Tottenham emergency timetable which means they can put Plan B into effect straight away but if not then someone has to sit down, check the travelling times for each duty, sort out which duty drives which train when they get to Barking, fit in meal reliefs and then agree the changes with the union reps.

And then cross their fingers that there is no problem on the NLL, the Jubilee or the District.

That is assuming there is sufficient space and facilities for drivers to have meal breaks, etc. at Barking.

Service was suspended around 11am Friday morning, resumed 7pm Saturday, hardly enough time to sort anything out.