Update from Arlesey Rail Users Group

Arlesey Rail User Group continues to act on behalf of passengers using Arlesey Station. In early December I attended a virtual meeting with various rail industry stakeholders to discuss punctuality and reliability given the appalling summer service last year. Here is what I learned:

The biggest cause of service delay are: Network over run issues, damage to infrastructure caused by the hot summer, and train crew shortages / delay in driver training. Seasonal flu is also affecting staffing now throughout the winter - we are seeing some cancellations as a result of this. GTR are now playing catch up on driver training, we were assured significant progress is being made on this now.

Speed restrictions are in place at Alexandra Palace, New Barnet, Stevenage and Peterborough – this is affecting all our services and if I’ve understood correctly these are speed restrictions that have been in place since the hot weather in the summer – long term track repairs will see this restrictions lifted over time. For the coming months GTR are building an emergency timetable that runs at 50 mph to cope with a hotter summer. This will mean there would be fewer trains in the system but they would run. Essentially less disruption. This timetable should be ready in February and can be implemented within a few days of a hot forecast.

There are seasonal peaks and troughs of trespass, school holidays is always a peak time. Stevenage is especially vulnerable and when trespass occurs at Stevenage it will affect our services at Arlesey. Stevenage and St Neots as they have been identified an emerging hotspot for trespass access, British Transport Police are providing some resource to patrol these locations in addition to new technology to alert staff to people crossing the platform threshold.

There are 46 junctions between London and Berwick that are still timber. During the hot temperatures some of these caught fire or posed a risk of catching fire which lead to closure of part of the route. Network Rail are aiming to address each wooden junction on a priority basis.

Work on the East coast mainline digital signal programme costing £1billion in signalling investment on the first 100 miles of the ECM has started. This involves removing the signals from the line side and moving to an in-cab digital signal. Essentially the driver receives a message on how far and how fast they can go. It will be the UK’s first intercity digital railway. In addition, new lineside equipment and technology was installed between Welwyn Garden City and Hitchin. This section of route is being prepared to become the first part of the East Coast Main Line to operate with digital signalling. This is ultimately good news for us.

There will be further work taking place at both locations over the weekend of February 18 and 19, which will mean no train services in or out of London King’s Cross, St Pancras via Finsbury Park or Moorgate on those dates. We will share more details of the changes - please check out the Arlesey Rail User Group facebook page for timely updates and the Thameslink journey planner app.

Essentially the meeting was a big apology for the terrible reliability last year. There was a concern amongst the RUGs that it might become perceived as OK for all services to run 5 mins late and that this get normalised as its better than no trains at all. We were assured this is not the case and running the advertised timetable is always the target.