Southern Timetable Change 2018

[hi2u_uk]

this whole exercise seems to be some sort of conceptual idea rather than delivering trains going where people want to go when people want to use them and with seats available. A lot of people who have been using set services for years are going to loose out

 

[KC1]

Are there actually any winners from this new timetable?

Yes me. Sutton trains running through the day and late night direct trains from London Bridge, with the last one being 10:55. Currently, the last direct train is 7.20pm

 

[GodAtum]

NR has thrown a fit, but I think I will be late for work at Guildford because of the times changing. I don't want to get up earlier.

 

[Ianno87]

NR has thrown a fit, but I think I will be late for work at Guildford because of the times changing. I don't want to get up earlier.

OK, so let's never change a train timetable ever again and waste £billions of investment and benefit to UK plc because somebody, somewhere might have to get out of bed a little bit earlier as a consequence. The mind boggles.

 

[cle]

OK, so let's never change a train timetable ever again and waste £billions of investment and benefit to UK plc because somebody, somewhere might have to get out of bed a little bit earlier as a consequence. The mind boggles.

Please talk us through the benefits to UK plc of this timetable change...

 

[Ianno87]

Please talk us through the benefits to UK plc of this timetable change...

Significantly relieving the Northern Line bank branch, improving ease of access to the Square Mile and its financial industry.

Enabling the Hertfordshire home counties to directly acess employment opportunities on the southern side of the London Central Activity Zone for the first time.

Regular Direct rail services from Gatwick to booming, international Cambridge for the first time.

Together with Crossrail, considerable improvement in access to Heathrow and Gatwick, Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf from a huge chunk of the home counties.


...Need I go on?

 

[KC1]

That very positive post makes me very excited about the forthcoming changes and I think I’m the only one here that is.

 

[zoneking]

The problem is that SWR has not significantly changed its timetable yet, so until December things will be considerably worse on some routes.

Most of the benefits go to Thameslink, rather than Southern.

 

[cle]

Significantly relieving the Northern Line bank branch, improving ease of access to the Square Mile and its financial industry.

Enabling the Hertfordshire home counties to directly acess employment opportunities on the southern side of the London Central Activity Zone for the first time.

Regular Direct rail services from Gatwick to booming, international Cambridge for the first time.

Together with Crossrail, considerable improvement in access to Heathrow and Gatwick, Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf from a huge chunk of the home counties.


...Need I go on?

Most of those are Thameslink (2000) benefits, which I am not challenging. I agree with all, although the Northern line is a little spurious other than Kings Cross itself.

But this thread and the gripes are about the Southern region, and timetable specifically - and most of the benefits are for those north of the core, as you state. There are a lot of disbenefits to regular users (slower and indirect journeys especially across Croydon and Redhill) - and the only material frequency upgrades are north of the core.

 

[JonathanH]

Most of those are Thameslink (2000) benefits, which I am not challenging. I agree with all, although the Northern line is a little spurious other than Kings Cross itself.

But this thread and the gripes are about the Southern region, and timetable specifically - and most of the benefits are for those north of the core, as you state. There are a lot of disbenefits to regular users (slower and indirect journeys especially across Croydon and Redhill) - and the only material frequency upgrades are north of the core.

The railway line through Croydon was already at capacity before these changes - there have been no changes there - the Brighton line is already at capacity. That is why Windmill Bridge Junction and East Croydon station both need to be completely rebuilt whenever funds can be justified. They can only do one project at a time.

 

[cle]

I think most of the southern gripes are to do with stopping patterns, opacity and the frantic scrambling rather than core frequencies - I think most people know Windmill is full. Given the fares too (Redhill here specifically) the downgrade in journey times is pretty terrible - and direct trains to Farringdon which take 20 minutes more to East Croydon are not really a trade-off.

Southeastern passengers have also seen a lot of deterioration too - which is crazy given the works at London Bridge, Borough etc, especially along the Greenwich line. But now somebody can go from Stevenage to Gatwick once a year.

 

[IKB]

Are there actually any winners from this new timetable?

Off the top of my head:
Beckenham Jnc and Birkbeck get an earlier AM peak service into London Bridge with no more Tulse Hill/South Bermondsey terminators.
Passengers living between Epsom-West Croydon get a fast all day London Bridge service
Caterham branch passengers get a faster all-day service into London.
Passengers on the South Bermondsey/Peckham/TulseHill/East&North Dulwich corridor get their direct link to East Croydon back.
A slightly less congested timetable (esp between Selhurst-Victoria) has increased headway times between trains at flat junctions, which should improve punctuality on the BML overall.

There are many more if you put your mind to it.

Caterham (and Tattenham Corner) are restricted to 8-car length, whereas the Slow aline stations into Victoria are now 10-car. Therefore it makes sense to match Caterham services into a remaining 8-car corridor (i.e. via Tulse Hill). It helps avoid the current faff of a 10-car service arriving at Victoria in the peak, then having to be split down in the platform at Victoria to be short enough to form an off-peak service back to Caterham, then vice-versa in the evening peak. Hopefully no longer havimg to do the above will be a good thing for performance.

Spot on.

Because of the odd stopping patterns, most drivers think they will all be off track by the end of the first week for stopping/ not stopping out of turn.

I'd wager on a fair few wrong routes, missed station stops, misread diagrams etc in the first month or so!

 

[43074]

A slightly less congested timetable (esp between Selhurst-Victoria) has increased headway times between trains at flat junctions, which should improve punctuality on the BML overall.
...
There are many more if you put your mind to it.

I think this is one of the key points here: the Brighton Mainline should work much more reliably than is currently the case precisely because things like junction margins and headways have increased. At the same time, a simpler service pattern has been introduced which should make the service much more consistent and reliable - e.g. over 20 variations of Southern metro routes reduces to 8 core off peak routes and 12 peak hour routes, with much less interworking of units between them. What you might lose in terms of a direct service or a slightly longer journey time you should gain from a more reliable service overall.

Even on the Thameslink side the increase in core frequencies aren't that dramatic this time around; only 14 per hour to 18 per hour in the high peak with gaps of up to 7 minutes between trains and only 3 per hour from the ECML so no reason it won't work at all. Whether it will ever reach the full 24tph - who knows, that's very different, but I think people have been very taken in by the whole 24tph through the core thing forgetting that actually the increases on the individual branches really aren't that big, particularly at peak times.

IMO there's a significant amount of scaremongering over how things will actually turn out; OK some of the marketing material has been very OTT (like claiming it's a transformation in rail) and some of the decisions over things like traincrew route knowledge and stopping patterns are a bit strange, but I think a larger part of it's a fear of change more than anything else.

 

[cle]

Have many of the metro frequencies increased overall? Or is it still lots of sets of 2tph?

 

[Starmill]

Have many of the metro frequencies increased overall? Or is it still lots of sets of 2tph?

The Catford loop stations have now got 4tph rather than the current 2. Hertford North has 6tph rather than 3 and Welwyn Garden City stoppers 4 rather than 3. I think that's it?

 

[43074]

Have many of the metro frequencies increased overall? Or is it still lots of sets of 2tph?

Carshalton, Reedham and Coulsdon Town get increased to 4tph but still based on pairs of 2tph, that's it as far as frequency improvements go on Southern Metro. There are also some journey time improvements to Caterham/Tattenham and Epsom because of the fast London Bridge services though.

On Thameslink stations between Mill Hill Broadway and St Albans get 6tph and a fast service to West Hampstead and St Pancras off peak.

 

[Starmill]

Oh of course I should have remembered Carshalton at least - I think it actually moves up to 6tph?

 

[387star]

Portsmouth to Vic trains will be routed via Horsham on Sundays attaching at Barnham rather than Worthing which gives more consistency with a weekday

 

[700007]

I think a lot of posters on here have forgotten that a completely new schedule will be flawed slightly, but as with all other timetables you are used to, this will iron out eventually.

As for the increased journey times, that's obviously a reliability measure. I can understand a few minutes extra can be irritating but obviously you would rather your train arrived on time and not late. The network has become more congested as a result of increasing passenger demand so dwell times and running times cannot be as short as they used to be without jeopardising the robustness of the timetable.

I think for the most of it, the new timetable will bring a lot of benefits regardless especially on the ThamesLink front. A new train timetable will mean a new commuting timetable for everyone, hence the loud hurrah about it. But take my word for it, things will get better.

 

[cle]

The Catford Loop increases are very welcome.

It's the traditional South London metro stations of zones 2-4 which I think are so underserved, e.g. the lines through East Dulwich and Norbury. Increases at the extremities such as Caterham are marginal in the grand scheme of things. The Caterham stations in total only have 2m users a year!

Ridership on all of those inner London stations has declined massively, even as many areas of Southeast London have boomed, due to taking the brunt of the London Bridge works. And now, little benefit or payback. A shame - but at least Baldock has two more stations to London so never mind a worse service for 20x the people...(Streatham Common to Selhurst is ~12m, even stunted). Usual home counties bias.

 

[RJ]

The Catford Loop increases are very welcome.

It's the traditional South London metro stations of zones 2-4 which I think are so underserved, e.g. the lines through East Dulwich and Norbury. Increases at the extremities such as Caterham are marginal in the grand scheme of things. The Caterham stations in total only have 2m users a year!

Ridership on all of those inner London stations has declined massively, even as many areas of Southeast London have boomed, due to taking the brunt of the London Bridge works. And now, little benefit or payback. A shame - but at least Baldock has two more stations to London so never mind a worse service for 20x the people...(Streatham Common to Selhurst is ~12m, even stunted). Usual home counties bias.

The East Dulwich line was 6tph, reduced to 4bph when the London Bridge to Smitham service was canned. It is still 6tph in the peaks however.

Agreed about the Catford Loop - the improved service is very welcome indeed. Hopefully it will tip the case to invest in a second exit for Denmark Hill station. The station suffers from particularly dangerous crowding problems exacerbated by daily platform changes with one minute's notice and an insistence on leaving the gates closed and unable to accept certain valid smartcards!

 

[southern442]

I think really one of the main problems is the big Selhurst/Norwood Junction to East/West Croydon complex. It seems like if you have to transfer between East and West Croydon lines in the morning, you're f***ed. I now literally cannot commute to school on the train in the morning because of the awful timings, however luckily I have been using the buses for a while now anyway because the reliability issues were getting to me.

 

[387star]

The Southern Victoria to Brighton services will offer a standard pattern of Clapham East Croydon (as now ) Gatwick Haywards Heath Burgess Hill Hassocks

Currently they skip Haywards Heath and the non Horley ones Gatwick? And call Hassocks or Burgess Hill

 

[DPQ]

The Southern Victoria to Brighton services will offer a standard pattern of Clapham East Croydon (as now ) Gatwick Haywards Heath Burgess Hill Hassocks

Currently they skip Haywards Heath and the non Horley ones Gatwick? And call Hassocks or Burgess Hill

It's about having a standard 1/2 hourly pattern (where possible) on the Brighton Mainline. Winners include Balcombe, losers Horley (No fast train anymore)...

 

[cle]

It's a shame they cannot integrate the Gatwick Express fully, and offer 6tph to Brighton (perhaps two to Hove) - with varying stopping patterns to ensure 2 fast trains each hour between Victoria, Clapham, East Croydon, Gatwick and a smaller place or two - and then Brighton.

And I would say Three Bridges and Haywards Heath is well served by Thameslink, and by Coastway services, if speed was a concern (in the peaks).

 

[DPQ]

It's a shame they cannot integrate the Gatwick Express fully, and offer 6tph to Brighton (perhaps two to Hove) - with varying stopping patterns to ensure 2 fast trains each hour between Victoria, Clapham, East Croydon, Gatwick and a smaller place or two - and then Brighton.

And I would say Three Bridges and Haywards Heath is well served by Thameslink, and by Coastway services, if speed was a concern (in the peaks).

Once finished there will be 8 trains London to Brighton (4 Southern/GatEx & 4 Thameslink). Anymore would be a huge capacity risk at Brighton as there are only 4 platforms available for Mainline. (3/4/5/6).

 

[Minstral25]

It's about having a standard 1/2 hourly pattern (where possible) on the Brighton Mainline. Winners include Balcombe, losers Horley (No fast train anymore)...

Redhill also loses as connections at Gatwick to Brighton are much worse and journey times up by 12-16 minutes more each way, plus the peak services for Brightonians to work in Redhill or Reigate have gone meaning that everyone has to change at Gatwick. Gatwick of course station marked by its excellent passenger ambiance and customer information systems or NOT!

That combined with Victoria services going up from 28 minutes to 37-9 minutes the service from Southern is much worse.

We'd thus appreciate a Southern Victoria to Brighton services calling at Redhill

 

[cle]

Redhill has definitely go the short straw, especially when you consider its value as an interchange, as a decent sized town (inbound and outbound) - and the fare structure. Very unfair and some peak fasts to both Victoria and Brighton (and London Bridge, currently via Coulsdon South no?) should be beefed up.

Again, if they would consolidate demand to Gatwick and Brighton better across the GatEx, SN and TL services - and local demand between the stations - they should be able to come up with something better given the overall governance of all TOC brands now.

 

[Kite159]

A little change I've noticed in the Southampton area on Sunday mornings is that the current 08:27 Southampton - Brighton service isn't routed via Southampton Airport (and hence allowing the 08:19 Romsey - Brighton GWR semi-fast to loop it), instead it's retimed to be the 08:21 Southampton - Brighton (running via Hamble), staying in front of the Romsey - Brighton semi-fast service (which arrives at Brighton at 10:26 with what appears to be large amounts of pathing allowances compared to 10:05 today, the Southern stopper getting into Brighton at 10:22 so I suspect that the GWR will be very stop/start as it endlessly catches up).

 

[RichardKing]

Is there any way of finding out how many coaches each service will have post 20 May? I'd hope most of the stock allocations remain roughly similar (or longer, in some cases), but, GTR being GTR, you never know what surprises they have in store!