Overcrowding due to parsemonious rolling stock policy.

[zwk500]

I do wonder how many pay the premium for the high speed train just because they like the experience of travelling on a very fast train on a fairly new rail line, even if the time saving is minimal? I am guessing the size of such a market is a lot bigger than just train enthusiasts.

Fairly new, it's 16 years old! The javelins must be more than halfway to their mid-life refresh now. I expect anybody wishing to bash the line has done so by now, outside of edge cases.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I guess my question is how *essential* are both these factors?

If we ignore the signalling, how much of a showstopper are these issues? The time difference between 110mph and 140mph isn’t that great from a Kent passenger’s perspective - most of the time saving on HS1 is achieved through fewer stops and not having to negotiate low-speed sections of line like the London approaches, Rochester, Tonbridge, etc. All this would apply just the same to a 110mph train.

To add to that: Do trains on the HS1 Medway route actually spend any significant time at 140mph anyway? I'm guessing, not at all between St Pancras and Stratford, and for a couple of minutes at most between Stratford and Ebbsfleet. If I'm correct, then the difference 140mph running (compared to 110mph running) makes on that route must be something like a minute or less.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I think a lot of people use hs1 trains even from Medway because whilst the journey time to Victoria is not much longer particularly on the one service an hour that is fast from Rochester to Bromley the range of connections offered at STP is significantly better and despite rebuild it's not unknown for Victoria l u station to become horrifyingly busy and at Extreme times like next Saturday when old Charlie boy gets his crown officially for example the station will close at least once during the day I suspect. Not saying there isn't crowding at king's cross st pancras because there is but you also have Thames link and long distance intercity connections as well. They're certainly seems to be enough people in the queue at the booking office at Chatham, which is now my local station as of two months ago buying high speed products. I tend to base my usage of high speed based on where I'm going for stop my most common journey nowadays is via abbey wood and again that's where we could do with a bit of fiddling around with service patterns, the fact that the Chatham to Abby rod train stops at every grannies front door and uncle Burke's garden shed on the way he's very frustrating, the fact that it's formed over 700 is a further big problem for me but appreciate this is not something that your average commuter will be so concerned about

But going back to topic there is definitely good usage of hs1 trains and I have known the 140 mph speed capability to gain time back when a service has been late coming up from the coast or indeed late leaving st pancreas as happened the other week, onboard manager went sick and had to be replaced and we were all sat on the train expecting it to be cancelled but no it ran and absolutely flu down the section between Stratford and ebbsfleet

 

[bramling]

I do wonder how many pay the premium for the high speed train just because they like the experience of travelling on a very fast train on a fairly new rail line, even if the time saving is minimal? I am guessing the size of such a market is a lot bigger than just train enthusiasts.

It was probably okay paying a premium back when the service started. Indeed newspapers were talking about these services being happy trains - high speed, everyone getting a seat, etc. Didn’t last!

Personally I always thought the Medway services were rather pointless. As an aside, it is more the likes of Ramsgate, Margate, Deal, Dover, Folkestone and other parts of a east Kent which really needed the regeneration the high-speed service would have been expected to bring. Kent is a very unbalanced county - some very wealthy rural areas, but some very deprived towns.

 

[JonathanH]

As an aside, it is more the likes of Ramsgate, Margate, Deal, Dover, Folkestone and other parts of a east Kent which really needed the regeneration the high-speed service would have been expected to bring.

That is all 'via Ashford' stuff though. It doesn't bring more HS1 services on the Gravesend route.

 

[bramling]

That is all 'via Ashford' stuff though. It doesn't bring more HS1 services on the Gravesend route.

That’s what I mean. Personally, I’d have concentrated the service on the Ashford route, and not bothered with Medway - apart from maybe the odd peak extra. As regards where things are now, ditching the Medway service would release units to allow more Ashford services to be 12-car, though what the economics of that would be I don’t know.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

To add to that: Do trains on the HS1 Medway route actually spend any significant time at 140mph anyway? I'm guessing, not at all between St Pancras and Stratford, and for a couple of minutes at most between Stratford and Ebbsfleet. If I'm correct, then the difference 140mph running (compared to 110mph running) makes on that route must be something like a minute or less.

Having watched the speeds with a GPS unit ( not a phone app - an actual GPS thingy ) on a large number of journeys on them, it's typically 3 to 5 minutes at or close to 140 mph between Stratford and Ebbsfleet and between Ebbsfleet and Ashford it's close to 75% of the journey being covered at or close to 140 mph.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Having watched the speeds with a GPS unit ( not a phone app - an actual GPS thingy ) on a large number of journeys on them, it's typically 3 to 5 minutes at or close to 140 mph between Stratford and Ebbsfleet and between Ebbsfleet and Ashford it's close to 75% of the journey being covered at or close to 140 mph.

Yeah on doing a bit of estimating, that sounds about right. From Google maps, it turns out it's a bit further than I was thinking from Stratford to Ebbsfleet - a bit over over 16 miles, and the train is scheduled to make the trip in 11 minutes. If we call it 16.5 miles and say 10 minutes, allowing for curves in the track that my quick measurements wouldn't pick up and for 1 minute stopped at a station, then the services would be doing the trip at an impressive average speed of 99mph. I would think that, allowing for acceleration and deceleration, they would need to be spending about half the trip at 140mph to achieve that. I would also therefore guess they are doing it something like 1-2 minutes faster than if the top speed was 100mph.

 

[Blindtraveler]

So, hypothetically if you removed all the hs1 services from the Ramsgate Margate via faversham and Medway corridor with the exception of a few peak extras in the mornings and evenings and on busy event weekends, would there be sufficient capacity in the networker and 375 fleets to make everything 12 car most of the time and would there also be another fourth path between swanley and a London terminal, doesn't have to be Victoria and might actually be better if it wasn't without penalizing services from the Tonbridge or seven oaks or Maidstone East limes unduly? I suspect on the second point the answer could be no, but I'm no expert here so would be interested in answers

Also how possible would it be to introduce a semi-fast path between faversham or rainham or Gillingham and Abby wood so that passengers could connect in and out of the Elizabeth line without a bone achingly slow journey calling it all stations between via Dartford and Gravesend? And could the Elizabeth line cope with all the additional passengers this might bring, particularly though is changing at Whitechapel for Stratford if you killed the Stratford service direct

 

[class 9]

If you're going to use big words for your thread at least spell it correctly...parsimonious!!!!