Reduced service - Commissioning of SMA 2

Yes the lies have started today. Disappointing but not unexpected.

The 1741 won't start at Baker Street, but will start 27mins earlier from 10 mins up the line?

So Looking ahead...... When future Met line areas are converted to the new signalling, do all of the train ops need to undergo six assisted trips on the new section or will the existing training suffice?

I must say I wholeheartedly disagree that these are lies.

The criteria for service status has been well documented on these forums before so
I don’t see a need to go into it again however it needs to be appreciated that it is a general picture and at peak times south of Harrow on the hill a service interval has to reach three times the usual headway to count as minor delays.

& contrary to popular beliefs; there are _still_ no targets or bonuses for managers for displaying a good service on the board. Targets are based around actual measured performance such as lost customer hours and similar things involving numbers.

It’s worth bearing in mind that some of us have a lot more insight into the reality of what is happening than most. I’m aware that this might come across as ‘holding all the knowledge’ but at the same time we do need to respect the sources we have for such information, and indeed our jobs.

I don’t have the time to work out what is actually running versus what the plan is (and there is a hugely detailed daily plan that has existed every day since the system went live, service control colleagues have spent a lot of time using resources available to minimise double cancellations and protect trains from the top of the Met) but this morning’s plan should see things go to Minor Delays as prescribed by the service status guidance (see mentions above).

There was an earlier non-communicating train at Baker Street which shut things down for around thirty minutes - because of how Restricted Manual (RM) moves have to happen this affected Baker Street as a whole area, further delaying the Met through the City and leading to Severe Delays (on all lines, for reference). Convention is that the ‘bigger’/root delay will be displayed - in this case it is unlikely that the Met would have gone to Severe Delays had there not already been delays due to the driver issue. Both lines should recover (to Minor/Good respectively) within the next hour or so.

For the record, there are only thirteen cancellations in this morning’s peak - a significant reduction from last week. One of these is due to Operator Not Available and unconnected with CBTC training.

There is no conspiracy. It is accepted that driver training could have gone smoothly but the opportunities to do this were limited. The delays to the programme have had a knock-on effect, but that’s not the be all and end all. It is appreciated that it is an inconvenience for passengers relying on services but there’s no easy fix. Staff on the ground don’t think “Let’s disrupt the railway for some fun” - it causes them significantly more work too, as I’ve alluded to above.

The situation will improve and, in time, CBTC will bring huge benefits and improvements to the railway as a whole. The early days were always going to be tricky - but they will soon be forgotten. How many people (enthusiasts aside) genuinely remember the difficulties of the Jubilee resignalling, or indeed the woes of the ‘Misery’ line before that upgrade? (Hint: not as many as you’d think).

Which, as we’ve said many times in the pages above is not accurate, the signalling system is working fine, it’s the lack of qualified trainstaff that require conducting by I/Os.

In some ways reading this thread reminds me of the issues on Thameslink last year with the new timetables - the specific facts are different but the end result (massive disruption for the travelling public) has been the same.

So once again the official TFL Status currently shows - "a good service on all lines"

Meantime tonight's official TFL Metropolitan Line twitter updates list the following..

The 18:30 Uxbridge to Baker Street service will be cancelled.

The 18:29 Baker Street to Watford service will be cancelled.

The 18:44 Baker Street to Uxbridge will not run from Baker Street.

ℹ️ The train will enter service at Harrow-on-the-Hill at 19:05.

The 19:17 Baker Street to Uxbridge service will be cancelled.

The 19:20 Watford to Harrow-on-the-Hill service will be cancelled.


Hopefully none of these changes have nothing to do with the new signalling system, at which point we have to ponder whether the planned service levels programmed into the signalling system are actually untenable and perhaps it is time to reduce their timetable to reflect whatever service levels they are actually able to deliver.

To my knowledge there is nothing wrong with the signalling.

They have had little issues but nothing to stop it working, there is a lot of redundancy built into it so total failures should be quite rare.

In theory it can run more trains then currently in the timetable and faster, but to stop the start stop routine of trains getting really close it can self regulate itself to try and avoid that.

The general public won’t notice too much difference until they complete an entire line or at a minimum a bigger section

3x does seem a very high number for both low frequency services and for line sections with very high patronage.

How are those numbers calculated or modeled? Is there a thread where the decisions that define this have been discussed, rather than just how the perception of it from passengers perspective seems frustrating?

Here is the relevant doc, greater rail minds may conclude I have misinterpreted it:

foi.tfl.gov.uk/FOI-1233-1718/FOI-1233-1718.pdf

It varies by branch and I only posted the core section peak hour information.

Which is a bit different to what they were saying at KX earlier today which was laying the blame squarely at the system:

Announcements at Finchley Road this afternoon and early evening were apologising for train cancellations whilst the new signalling system is being established, so presumably there were such cancellations today. The Uxbridge services were terminating at Harrow due to the planned track work, but they didn't cite that as the reason for cancellations.

Hopefully it is all sorted soon, and perhaps today is indeed the last day of cancellations.

Good to hear - it was an automated message, so probably not amended.