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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Change is afoot with our local Great Northern train services.

New connections at Finsbury Park

From May it will be possible to change at Finsbury Park onto Thameslink services serving St Pancras, Farringdon, City Thameslink, Blackfriars and London Bridge.

These trains are planned to run from Platform 2 at Finsbury Park, while Moorgate trains will call at Platform 1. So changing trains should be very easy.

There will be two to three trains an hour.

There should also be trains at the same platform to St Pancras, Farringdon, City Thamelink and Blackfriars for connections to Thameslink services to various south London destinations and to Gatwick Airport and the South Coast.

New Trains

There will be new 717 trains for our local services. 717s, say Great Northern,  will provide a metro-style layout with more capacity, improved reliability, air conditioning and passenger information systems that can be remotely updated to provide real-time travel information. Due to be run in permanent six-carriage formation, they will be introduced towards the end of 2018 and be fully in service by May 2019.

New Name

The bit of the Great Northern line we use will even have its own new name - Great Northern Metro!

New Timetable

From May 2018

A new timetable will be in operation from Sunday 20 May and the times of every train will change.

Welwyn Garden City: Off peak frequency will increase from 3 trains per hour (tph) (weekdays) and 2tph (weekends) to 4tph all day, all week.

Hertford North: Off peak frequency will double from 3tph to 6tph all day, Monday to Saturday.

Great Northern give the following warning:

In common with other train operators, Network Rail have not yet finished loading the full timetable to journey planners and we continue to support them as they do so. The majority of services are now available via the journey planners. Please sign up for emails for updates.

However, to allow you to check your new train times as soon as possible, we have produced PDF timetables showing the full service (attached).

These timetables are intended as a guide and we may need to make changes as we introduce new trains, new routes and new ways of operating

From May 2019

Extra peak services to/from Moorgate to ease overcrowding – up to 14tph will operate in the high peak period (up from 12tph today). Across the remaining peak hours trains will run more frequently – up to 12tph (currently 10tph).

Tags for Forum Posts: gatwick trains, thameslink

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Thanks for this, Hugh, really useful

MS

The new class 717 six-car trains are for the Moorgate service. The trains through the Thameslink tunnel will be 8 or 12 car class 700s.

We're not quite there yet with the timetable. In May there will be four trains per hour off peak on the Hertford line, only two of them stopping at Crews Hill and Bayford. I believe we're getting the extra two next year when there will be more capacity through the Thameslink tunnel. They will not stop at Hornsey or Haringey because they will be class 700s which are too long for those stations.

Thanks Chris. On rereading, I see that it wasn't quite clear that the new trains will be running on our local services. So I've made  small edit to clarify.

So it will be possible to get on a train at Finsbury Pk and get off it at Brighton?

That's how I understand it. It'll be on the Cambridge to Brighton route.

The forthcoming timetable does Harringay and Hornsey travellers no favours, on close inspection.


1) The off-peak trains currently run every 10 minutes. Try memorising the new times below.....

From May 20th, the times will be (mins past the hour) 00, 05, 20, 30, 35, 50 towards Finsbury Park.

On the return trip, the times at Finsbury Park will be   09, 14, 24, 39, 44, 54 past the hour.

Fifteen minute gaps twice an hour.


2) As for changing at Finsbury Park onto a Thameslink train for Brighton or Gatwick Airport/Horsham, the waiting times at Finsbury Park can be considerable.


Harringay                00       20       35

Fins. Park                03       23       38

[waiting time]       [05]      [15]     [14]

Fins. Park               08       38        52

St Pancras              14       44        59      

                     [Horsham]  [Horsham]  [Brighton]

Still, it beats trundling luggage through the maze of tunnels that is King's Cross St Pancras underground station I suppose.

Yeah, never did like those gaps. Are you saying they're about to get worse?

Yes because the current off-peak service is regular, it's only the morning and evening peaks where the local trains and connections are irregular. From May, it'll be permanent irregularity!

At a quick look, it seems to be because from May, only the Hertford Loop services will be calling at Harringay, whereas now we get Hertford, Letchworth and Stevenage trains stopping.

Up the line there's at least one active Rail User Group (RUG). Not my bag, but I'd think this woudl be something a Haringey RUG would put their mind to. There was a consultation last year, but I didn't hear about it. Did anyone else?

All four Hertford loop services will call, but only two of the four Welwyn services will call  -and they miss out Brookmans Park and Welham Green further north, I guess to speed journeys on the main line. Hence the big gap.

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