22 June 2016
Many readers will have noticed that there has been no noticeable reduction in the number of train cancellations on Great Northern. They mostly occur at weekends (when the service is nominally only half-hourly in the first place) and during school holidays, reflecting the fact the fact that the chronic shortage of drivers continues. Punctuality also continues to be extremely poor.
Govia Thameslink Railway, the company behind Great Northern, is a joint venture between the Go Ahead.......
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29 May 2016
The installation of ticket gates at Palmers Green station almost certainly means that the exit from platform 2 to the car park will eventually be closed, which will cause significant inconvenience for some station users.
An unfortunate "side effect" of the installation of automatic ticket gates at National Rail stations in London and elsewhere has been that secondary side or rear entrance/exits to stations have been closed. This is not just to prevent people entering or leaving without a.......
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25 May 2016
The Department for Transport has confirmed that step-free access to the platforms at Palmers Green and Alexandra Palace stations is still planned, but not for another three or four years.
Joanne McCartney, London Assembly Member for Enfield & Haringey (and as of this month, Statutory Deputy Mayor of London), this week published a letter from the DfT assuring her that "Access for All" schemes "will be proceeding", but are "in the early stages of planning". The letter stated that.......
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11 May 2016
The rail company behind Great Northern has admitted that, despite boosting its training programme, it still does not have enough drivers to run all scheduled services, especially during periods of high annual leave (ie school holidays). And it would appear that planned service enhancements due in December will prolong this problem, as will the need to train drivers for new train fleets.
The article below is taken from www.thameslinkrailway.com (thanks to Donald Smith for drawing it.......
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25 March 2016
The body that represents public transport users in London is to ask the operator of Great Northern and Thameslink rail services to reconsider its proposed changes to ticket offices, including those at Palmers Green and Winchmore Hill.
The Board of London Travelwatch met on 22nd March to consider Govia Thameslink Railway's proposals, along with a report prepared by the London TravelWatch Secretariat and some 8,000 responses to the consultation from various organisations and individuals, plus.......
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20 February 2016
Govia Thameslink Trains has concluded a financing deal which will allow it to replace the current 1976-vintage trains that run on services from Moorgate, which include the Hertford Loop. The 25 new trains, built by Siemens, will enter service in late 2018.
The Moorgate service require special dual-voltage trains as the underground section, the "Northern City Line" between Moorgate and Drayton Park, uses a DC third-rail system, while the remainder of the route uses AC overhead power........
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17 February 2016
The Enfield Transport Users Group (ETUG) will be meeting at the Civic Centre on Tuesday 23rd February from 6.30pm to 8.30pm.
Representatives of both London Overground Rail Operations and Govia Thameslink Railway will be attending. The meeting is open to all people interested in improving public transport in Enfield.
The meeting will be in Room 3 at the Civic Centre.
Read the minutes of the meeting on 26 November 2016........
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05 February 2016
Govia, the company behind the Great Northern and Thameslink brands, is planning to close ticket offices at Palmers Green and other stations where average ticket sales are low. Instead, a station "host" will be available on the "concourse", selling a limited range of "popular" tickets. However, the plans do have a positive aspect - there would be a Host at the station from first to last train every day.
According to Govia's "Stakeholder Manager" (PR person?), these plans would only.......
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21 January 2016
"Inner suburban" services from Moorgate - presumably including those serving Palmers Green - are among a list of rail services which will be transferred to Transport for London (TfL) ownership and become part of the London Overground, if newly published proposals go ahead. However, this will not occur before 2021. It also appears that we will have to wait until then before seeing any serious attempt to smarten up the dismal stations along the tunnels between Moorgate and Highbury.
A "new.......
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23 December 2015
All three councillors representing Winchmore Hill Ward have issued an appeal to residents of N13 and N21 to respond to the Crossrail 2 consultation by indicating a preference for the New Southgate branch to be routed via Alexandra Palace rather than Wood Green. The consultation runs until 8th January.
The two options for the New Southgate branch of Crossrail 2Councillors Barry, Hayward and Hurer have issued a leaflet explaining the advantages of a Crossrail 2 station at Alexandra Palace.......
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07 December 2015
Now that evenings are well and truly "drawn in", the problem of knowing how far you've got to on trains is affecting people travelling on Great Northern trains. Some of the stations are very poorly lit and don't have big enough signs with the station name.
There's a very simple solution, of course, at zero cost. The train company should just tell its drivers to announce each station - also helpful, of course, to people with eyesight problems at any time of day. .......
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04 December 2015
Timetables are now available for the (very slightly) improved Hertford Line service that starts on 13th December.
During the week the main change to Down (northbound) services is that the 20 minute frequency will continue slightly later into the evening and that all trains will start at Moorgate up to and including the 0018 from Moorgate. There will be one late train from Kings Cross, at 0105, not stopping at Crews Hill or Bayford.
For travellers from Palmers Green the evening Down.......
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01 November 2015
Transport for London (TfL) is continuing to develop its ideas for the routing of the proposed Crossrail 2 rail link and is putting new proposals out for public consultation. A recent development with implications for our readership concerns the routing of the spur between Dalston and New Southgate.
The main section of Crossrail 2 will run in a tunnel between Tottenham and Clapham Junction, via Dalston, Angel, Euston/St Pancras, Tottenham Court Road, Victoria and Kings Road Chelsea. .......
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27 July 2015
In recent months rail services serving both the west and east of Enfield borough have seen changes of operator, promises of improved services but, so far at least, precious few signs of improvements, and in some the service has actually deteriorated. In this article we report on what has occurred so far and what the future holds........
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22 February 2015
The Enfield Transport Users Group (ETUG) has expressed its disappointment about the delay on the part of Transport for London (TfL) in responding to an integrated package of bus route changes drawn up by ETUG on behalf of Enfield Council.
Enfield Council submitted the proposals set out in the Enfield Bus Review at the end of 2013. The Review recommended changes to 29 bus routes running wholly or largely within the borough, aimed at achieving a number of objectives without increasing the.......
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17 January 2015
“I never thought I would hear a passenger say to me bring back First Capital Connect." A quote from Anthony Smith, Chief Executive of the transport watchdog Passenger Focus, emphasizing how poor has been the performance of the Govia consortium since it took over the Great Northern and Thameslink routes last September.
Govia's bad start - three to four per cent of services failed to run in the first twelve weeks of the new franchise - proved to be only a prelude to its appalling.......
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14 January 2015
Caught up in train disruption to/from London Paddington or to/from London King's Cross on Saturday 27 December?
The rail industry must establish what went wrong and take steps to stop it happening again – that is a given. Passenger Focus, the independent watchdog, wants to know how well things were handled from a passenger perspective – in terms of information, of the alternative arrangements, of how you were looked after.
Passenger Focus will use this feedback to provide a.......
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03 January 2015
Since the Govia consortium took over services on the Great Northern routes out of Moorgate and Kings Cross in September 2014 there has been little sign of the promised improvements in service. There have been more of the delays and cancellations that we are familiar with from the bad old days of First Capital Connect and the usual half-hourly service in Christmas week.
Some of the problems can, of course, be laid at the door of Network Rail, but employing enough drivers is clearly Govia's.......
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16 December 2014
Palmers Green and Alexandra Palace stations are among a list of 26 stations where step-free access to platforms will be provided, according to an announcement made today by transport minister Baroness Kramer. The work, part of the Access for All programme, will be carried out by 2019.
The stations selected for the work were all nominated by the rail industry last year on the basis of criteria such as the number of passengers using the station or proximity to hospitals or schools for.......
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14 December 2014
Today (14th December) sees the start of the Winter timetables on the lines operated by Govia Thameslink, which include the Great Northern services out of Kings Cross and Moorgate.. Despite the publicity about "thousands more seats" on Great Northern trains, the improvements for commuters travelling from Palmers Green are far from dramatic: four weekday evening trains will have six carriages instead of three and "some of the busiest" services on Saturdays will have six carriages too........
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