Recent letter from Stuart Cheshire, Passenger Service Director, Thameslink / Great Northern:
Dear Sir Oliver
Thank you for your questions regarding Letchworth services
You specifically asked for clarification about the following points:
- Whether Letchworth can retains its stops on the ‘Cambridge flyer’ in the evenings after 19.00, and Letchworth and Royston retain their stops on the ‘Cambridge flyer’ in the shoulders of the peak, in the interim timetable that Govia are planning for mid-July and also in all subsequent permanent timetables.
As explained at APPG last week and elsewhere, since the introduction of the new timetable in May this year we have been working hard to re-introduce a stable and reliable service for our customers.
We have now published an interim timetable that will be introduced from Sunday 15 July. This will prioritise peak trains, giving customers more certainty to plan their journeys to and from work. The timetable is now available to view and download from the Thameslink and Great Northern websites and the process to update online journey planners is also underway. In addition, the timetable has now been agreed with our drivers and the unions, which means at this stage we are unable to make further changes to our now published interim timetable.
Given the above, our primary objective going forward from July 15th will be to ensure we are delivering a stable, reliable and consistent service for our customers across the network. Whilst we do fully appreciate the points you raise it is unfortunately not possible at this point of implementing the interim timetable to make any further amendments. We need to let the July 15th timetable run and settle down before we start to adjust it. Anything else would be folly and only give us a last minute set of problems that characterised the May introduction.
Looking further forward I can assure you we are keeping a record of all requests that we have received and once stability in service has been achieved we will look at opportunities to further improve services but at this stage we cannot make any commitments beyond the July 15 launch date for the interim timetable.
Kind regards
Stuart Cheshire, Passenger Service Director, Thameslink / Great Northern