bramling
Veteran Member
First it has been announced that the GTR timetable won't be changing in December. We don't know yet when the full May timetable will be running.
Despite what GTR have been saying though, the May timetable (and the current interim July one) are very similar to the originally announced full timetable with the phased services removed.
So the "missing" Littlehampton trains are the 06:22 Littlehampton to Bedford (08:12 at Blackfriars) and the 16:14 Bedford to Littlehampton (
17:19 at Blackfriars). Yes a whole 1 train each way. So assuming that they manage to run the full May timetable at least on weekdays in the Autumn, I would guess that they would get added in May 2019.
As far as the GN side is concerned, the only change planned for December would have been the second Cambridge/Brighton service. In consequence of this the remaining Stevenage via Hertford services would have been cut back to Watton-at-Stone (except perhaps those running from/to Letchworth sidings at the start and end of service?), plus possibly the handful of Royston 365 services being cut back to Baldock.
What's the betting the current interim service remains until December, and December is simply the next attempt at re-introducing the May timetable?
Weekends is more of an issue, as the weekend service is pretty poor - especially with quite a few Reduced Length Undesiros floating around. Thankfully they seem to have diagrammed quite a few 365s as well, which are vital to maintain seating capacity -- especially if people do start actually using the service again.
The current M-F GN service isn't too bad but is still suffering from erratic performance to some destinations due to late running from the core. The current 3tph to/from the core, and remember that is 3tph some but not all hours, is just about manageable. They should just change one of the three to be a Welwyn stopping service and be done with the whole thing, and introduce anything further as a King's Cross service. This particularly applies to the second Cambridge semi-fast service.
One other change which *may* presumably happen - the current mid-morning Letchworth reverser may well revert to Cambridge at some point. I'm presuming it only goes round at Letchworth to facilitate a freight path from/to Barrington - which will end some time although I'm not sure when. Unless they decide to keep the path open for freight. 2tph stopping to Cambridge is a little overkill at that time of day, so it wouldn't be a problem if they did keep it as a Letchworth.