Changes to Kent Coast trains

[itsjamierawr]

Being a student in Canterbury who has a lot of friends in London I'm often using the train between the two places.

I've noticed a few changes in January:

Canterbury West - Charing Cross (via Tonbridge) is now going to Victoria via Maidstone East and will take 2 hours 5 Mins opposed to 1 hour 50 mins before. This is also retimed from **:36 to **:06 (off peak)

Ramsgate - CBW - Charing Cross is unchanged (except obviously skipping London Bridge) but retimed, Margate - St Pancras high speed is exactly the same

Last trains home, there's now a 23:10 St Pancras Intl - Margate service (pro), but the 23:40 Charing Cross - Ramsgate/Dover Priory service is no more, instead only running to Dover Priory, instead there is a 23:10 Ramsgate service (con).
---
Canterbury East - London Victoria, now there is one service timed to run all stops after Gillingham - Bromley South and then via (and stopping at) Denmark Hill (seems odd to me), the other train an hour runs as it did before

Also (wrong sub-forum for this I know) there's an additional fare now a "Super Off Peak Day Return" on Highspeed (either that or I stupidly overlooked this before now!)

Question is - why are there such dramatic changes to the timetable? I know there's works at London Bridge and reduced paths etc but this seems awfully drastic and it seems there's no more splitting trains either?

 

[TheJRB]

Indeed lots of changes on the cards for January.

Canterbury West - Charing Cross (via Tonbridge) is now going to Victoria via Maidstone East and will take 2 hours 5 Mins opposed to 1 hour 50 mins before. This is also retimed from **:36 to **:06 (off peak)

That's the one which is all stations from Canterbury West to Maidstone East, then semi-fast to Victoria or as I've dubbed it, Ashford Crossrail.

The other Maidstone East line train will be fast Ashford to Bearsted, then slow to Victoria.

Ramsgate - CBW - Charing Cross is unchanged (except obviously skipping London Bridge) but retimed, Margate - St Pancras high speed is exactly the same

Note there's a very useful additional weekday only 09:32 Ramsgate to St Pancras via Canterbury West which omits Ebbsfleet and arrives at St Pancras at 10:46. That'll certainly help the crowding situation which occurs first thing off-peak.

Last trains home, there's now a 23:10 St Pancras Intl - Margate service (pro), but the 23:40 Charing Cross - Ramsgate/Dover Priory service is no more, instead only running to Dover Priory, instead there is a 23:10 Ramsgate service (con).

Realtime Trains indicates the 23:40 from Charing Cross will still detach a portion for Canterbury West at Ashford.

Canterbury East - London Victoria, now there is one service timed to run all stops after Gillingham - Bromley South and then via (and stopping at) Denmark Hill (seems odd to me), the other train an hour runs as it did before

The Denmark Hill call is for the purpose of providing an interchange with the East London Line.

Also (wrong sub-forum for this I know) there's an additional fare now a "Super Off Peak Day Return" on Highspeed (either that or I stupidly overlooked this before now!)

You're right, that's new. Apparently there will also be Advance fares on Southeastern at some point which is a great move I think.

Question is - why are there such dramatic changes to the timetable? I know there's works at London Bridge and reduced paths etc but this seems awfully drastic and it seems there's no more splitting trains either?

Apart from the changes you've mentioned, there's also going to be a High Speed loop service from St Pancras, either going out via Faversham, Ramsgate and returning via Dover and Ashford or vice versa. This will provide a useful connection between east and north Kent.

Dover-Ashford goes down to two trains per hour as it currently is at weekends which is a loss for Folkestone definitely.

Sheerness gains a couple of peak only services to and from Victoria.

Tunbridge Wells-Charing Cross services are diverted to Cannon Street off-peak so that London Bridge remains available from most of Kent either direct or with a change at Tonbridge.

The removal of splitting trains is apparently to ensure a more reliable service and to prevent confusion for passengers. It certainly reduces the dwell time, especially at Faversham.

The remaining dividing trains are as follows:

Ashford
2R10 0710 London Charing Cross to Ramsgate & Dover Priory
2R12 0740 London Charing Cross to Canterbury West & Dover Priory
2R42 1410 London Charing Cross to Ramsgate via Canterbury West & Ramsgate via Dover Priory
2R46 1510 London Charing Cross to Ramsgate via Canterbury West & Ramsgate via Dover Priory
2R50 1610 London Charing Cross to Ramsgate via Canterbury West & Ramsgate via Dover Priory
2R52 1640 London Charing Cross to Ramsgate & Dover Priory
2R66 1910 London Charing Cross to Ramsgate via Canterbury West & Ramsgate via Dover Priory
2R84 2340 London Charing Cross to Dover Priory & Canterbury West

Faversham
1S56 1727 London Victoria to Ramsgate & Dover Priory
1S58 1757 London Victoria to Margate & Dover Priory
1S60 1827 London Victoria to Ramsgate & Dover Priory
1S62 1857 London Victoria to Ramsgate & Dover Priory

Also 1H93 1737 London Cannon Street to Hastings & Hastings divides at Tunbridge Wells with a fast and slow portion as it does in the current timetable.

 

[berneyarms]

Being a student in Canterbury who has a lot of friends in London I'm often using the train between the two places.

I've noticed a few changes in January:

Canterbury West - Charing Cross (via Tonbridge) is now going to Victoria via Maidstone East and will take 2 hours 5 Mins opposed to 1 hour 50 mins before. This is also retimed from **:36 to **:06 (off peak)

Ramsgate - CBW - Charing Cross is unchanged (except obviously skipping London Bridge) but retimed, Margate - St Pancras high speed is exactly the same

Last trains home, there's now a 23:10 St Pancras Intl - Margate service (pro), but the 23:40 Charing Cross - Ramsgate/Dover Priory service is no more, instead only running to Dover Priory, instead there is a 23:10 Ramsgate service (con).
---
Canterbury East - London Victoria, now there is one service timed to run all stops after Gillingham - Bromley South and then via (and stopping at) Denmark Hill (seems odd to me), the other train an hour runs as it did before

Also (wrong sub-forum for this I know) there's an additional fare now a "Super Off Peak Day Return" on Highspeed (either that or I stupidly overlooked this before now!)

Question is - why are there such dramatic changes to the timetable? I know there's works at London Bridge and reduced paths etc but this seems awfully drastic and it seems there's no more splitting trains either?

You can still get from Canterbury West to Charing Cross at xx:06 each hour, changing at Ashford International and taking 1 hour 44 minutes.

You effectively have from Canterbury West:
xx:06 Direct to Victoria via Maidstone East (2 hours 1 min)
xx:06 Change at Ashford to Charing Cross (1 hour 44 min)
xx:25 Direct to St Pancras (56 min)
xx:45 Direct to Charing Cross via Tonbridge (1 hour 37 min)
xx:45 Change at Ashford to St Pancras (1 hour 9 min)

In the opposite direction the off-peak times are:

xx:12 St Pancras (direct) (56 min)
xx:37 St Pancras (change at Ashford) (1 hour 11 min)

xx:10 Charing Cross (direct) (1 hour 39 min)
xx:40 Charing Cross (change at Ashford) (1 hour 45 min)

xx:22 Victoria (direct) (2 hours 3 mins)

The changes all revolve around the works at London Bridge and the Thameslink programme - it requires a reworking of the service.

Efforts have been made to encourage more people to use the High Speed service by providing a St Pancras-Faversham-Margate-Ramsgate-Sandwich-Dover-Ashford-St Pancras service.

 

[itsjamierawr]

Indeed lots of changes on the cards for January.


That's the one which is all stations from Canterbury West to Maidstone East, then semi-fast to Victoria or as I've dubbed it, Ashford Crossrail.

The other Maidstone East line train will be fast Ashford to Bearsted, then slow to Victoria.

Aha you could be right on that Well I suppose it means we've gained a direct train to Maidstone now which is nice - trouble is this has combined the old AFK-Victoria service with that so unless they add more carriages it'll be crowded. I assume this will be run with 375s and not 465s?

Note there's a very useful additional weekday only 09:32 Ramsgate to St Pancras via Canterbury West which omits Ebbsfleet and arrives at St Pancras at 10:46. That'll certainly help the crowding situation which occurs first thing off-peak.

That's useful actually, and that might explain the "super" off peak fare below as that train isn't valid on that new ticket

Realtime Trains indicates the 23:40 from Charing Cross will still detach a portion for Canterbury West at Ashford.

Excellent! I must have chosen a day with engineering works or something when I looked on Realtime trains, this actually means a half-hourly service in the evening which wasn't there before (we had just the **:40 from CHX after 20:40)

The Denmark Hill call is for the purpose of providing an interchange with the East London Line.

Ah okay, again another useful link I guess - could've done with that last year actually, I ended up going to STP, then Thameslink to Denmark Hill

You're right, that's new. Apparently there will also be Advance fares on Southeastern at some point which is a great move I think.

That could be interesting, though I prefer the flexibility to come back when I want (and sometimes accidentally the next day as I've said in posts in the past)

Apart from the changes you've mentioned, there's also going to be a High Speed loop service from St Pancras, either going out via Faversham, Ramsgate and returning via Dover and Ashford or vice versa. This will provide a useful connection between east and north Kent.

Dover-Ashford goes down to two trains per hour as it currently is at weekends which is a loss for Folkestone definitely.

I'd heard about this - that makes sense that it's happening, I guess this releases a lot of 375s to run more services 8 car now they don't split or free up a few 465s for metro services

The removal of splitting trains is apparently to ensure a more reliable service and to prevent confusion for passengers. It certainly reduces the dwell time, especially at Faversham.

That's fair, plus gets rid of those repeated announcements about being in the right part of the train

Thanks for the advice!

@berneyarms - that would make more sense, thanks for the advice too

 

[Hadders]

Apparently there will also be Advance fares on Southeastern at some point which is a great move I think.

I disagree. Advance fares on what is effectively a 'commuter' TOC causes a couple of issues:

1. The trains become reservable via a 'counted place' system. This causes problems on through Advance fares to further afield where Southeastern is the connecting TOC because a mandatory reservation for the connection is issued preventing a passenger from taking an earlier connecting service.

2. Advance fares are tied to a specific train which isn't really compatible with a frequent turn up and go service. How many people end up getting the wrong train and getting penalised?

Far better to have a super off-peak day return at, say, £20 discountable with a network railcard to £13.20 than take pot luck with Advance fares at, say, £6 each way with no railcard discount.

 

[466.networkers]

Advance fares up to London will save people who use less busier off peak trains money especially booking in advance and/or with a railcard discount!

 

[telstarbox]

Virgin Trains do Advances on the London-Birmingham and London-Manchester services which have a frequency of 20 minutes so it shouldn't be an issue. Assuming that SE will follow Southern and only offer Advances for longer distances, most of the Kent Coast routes don't have turn up and go frequencies.

 

[Hadders]

Fair enough but what about the issue it causes for connections on Advance tickets?

There have been a number of threads about this recently in the fares advice section?

 

[TheJRB]

Fair enough but what about the issue it causes for connections on Advance tickets?

There have been a number of threads about this recently in the fares advice section?

I certainly agree with your point. Often when I've been booked on a train from London, I've boarded the train before the one necessary at Ashford just in case or to deliberately give extra time. It'd be a shame for this not to be possible.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

When I used to live in Canterbury years ago, I remember (from CBW), all stations to Ashford (as it was then known), then Tonbridge, then fast to Waterloo East. Amazing service!

Even from Canterbury East, the semi stopped at Faversham (attach), then Sittingbourne, Rainham, Chatham - then Bromley South and Vic

How things have changed over the years (sigh)

 

[SF-02]

I disagree. Advance fares on what is effectively a 'commuter' TOC causes a couple of issues:

1. The trains become reservable via a 'counted place' system. This causes problems on through Advance fares to further afield where Southeastern is the connecting TOC because a mandatory reservation for the connection is issued preventing a passenger from taking an earlier connecting service.

2. Advance fares are tied to a specific train which isn't really compatible with a frequent turn up and go service. How many people end up getting the wrong train and getting penalised?

Far better to have a super off-peak day return at, say, £20 discountable with a network railcard to £13.20 than take pot luck with Advance fares at, say, £6 each way with no railcard discount.

Advance fares will be a big boost to many Kent seaside towns. Currently for Londoners to get there costs a lot more than seaside towns in other counties with SW trains or Southern. Kent resorts need the help. Off-peak Kent coast trains from London are not busy and can take extra passengers easily.

Kent coast trains are not turn up and go in the main, which is a minimum of 4 trains per hour.

Super off-peak is not far better if you have no railcard. Southeasterns fares for years have been very high on HS1 and 'classic' lines for day trips to, or from, London, compared with other TOCs. A Londoner can go Brighton for £6 with many available advances through Southern, or the Kent coast for twice as much if lucky enough to catch the rare southeastern sales (normally in winter and not good for resort towns). A standard return from London terminals to Margate is £46.90 return and no advances on that route for years. Most will choose Sussex and Brighton which does Kent no good at all. With much cheaper tickets many will take a punt on visiting Kent.

 

[telstarbox]

I suppose they've considered that people might stop short on Advances if they undercut walk-up tickets - many SE stations are unbarriered and unstaffed after the morning peak.

 

[Busaholic]

Advance fares will be a big boost to many Kent seaside towns. Currently for Londoners to get there costs a lot more than seaside towns in other counties with SW trains or Southern. Kent resorts need the help. Off-peak Kent coast trains from London are not busy and can take extra passengers easily.

Kent coast trains are not turn up and go in the main, which is a minimum of 4 trains per hour.

Super off-peak is not far better if you have no railcard. Southeasterns fares for years have been very high on HS1 and 'classic' lines for day trips to, or from, London, compared with other TOCs. A Londoner can go Brighton for £6 with many available advances through Southern, or the Kent coast for twice as much if lucky enough to catch the rare southeastern sales (normally in winter and not good for resort towns). A standard return from London terminals to Margate is £46.90 return and no advances on that route for years. Most will choose Sussex and Brighton which does Kent no good at all. With much cheaper tickets many will take a punt on visiting Kent.

Might help foot passenger traffic on the cross-channel ferries too.

 

[Hadders]

A standard return from London terminals to Margate is £46.90 return

Where are you getting those prices from?

2014 prices from Avantix Traveller Margate-London Terminals:

Super off-peak Day Return 25.40
Off-peak Day Return £33.70
Off-peak Return £35.10
Anytime Day Return £37.90
Anytime Return £70.00

The above are the 'Not HS1' fares. The HS version is around £5-7 more.

I suspect they'll market Advance fares from £10 single. Of course availability at that price will be limited. Sounds great but not so good when you consider the price of the super off-peak with a railcard or groupsave discount.

 

[SF-02]

I used national rail and chose a random late January day from Charing Cross to Margate leaving at 11am.

The super off-peak there isn't bad but still double the cost to Brighton with advances. A lot of people I know who go to the coast by train are in their 20s & 30s and don't have any railcards. They're people with disposable income and use the train a lot, but many will balk at paying those fares to Kent resorts when Brighton offers so much, and is quicker to get to. Margate has tried to get such people to visit an 'unfashionable' resort with the turner gallery but it needs a helping hand from southeastern.

 

[Hadders]

Anyone in their 20's or 30's, living in the south east, who has disposable income and uses trains a lot should get a Network Railcard (or a 16-25 if they're in their early 20's!)

Advance tickets are great where you can arrange things in Advance and accept the inflexibility they offer.

Consider London-Brighton. There are three tiers of Advance tickets available £5, £8 and £11. No Network Railcard discount.

If you can get £5 Advance tickets both ways fair enough but you'll probably need to commit several weeks ahead to get this price.

Far more common is you can get £5 in one direction and £11 in the other. Never mind, £16 is still decent an you still managed to get a cheap £5 fare.

But, the buy on the day off-peak day return with a Network Railcard (or Groupsave if 3+ are travelling) is £17.70. This gives massively more flexibility than Advance tickets.

I know which ticket I'd buy!

 

[Cletus]

I notice the 1st day of the round Kent High Speed trains and already there are delays that wouldn't normally occur for customers from Dover/Folkestone.
http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/ldbdetails/Bkg5rrami8gxf98P0jCvBg==

 

[notadriver]

Any idea why this is happening ?

 

[berneyarms]

Any idea why this is happening ?

The works at London Bridge.

 

[itsjamierawr]

@Cletus - your link there isn't working

 

[Cletus]

I suppose because the train has terminated, the link was a "live departure".

This was the train.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W55012/2015/01/12/advanced

 

[Cletus]

I've noticed this service that appears daily from mid-May.

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W21294/2015/05/18/advanced

Basically it's schedule is:
commence Dover Priory 1033
dep Ashford Int 1056
dep Stratford Int 1125
arr St Pancras Int 1132
omitting both Folkestones and Ebbsfleet.


I was wondering if it will be an actual service or not?

 

[JonathanH]

I've noticed this service that appears daily from mid-May.

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W21294/2015/05/18/advanced

Basically it's schedule is:
commence Dover Priory 1033
dep Ashford Int 1056
dep Stratford Int 1125
arr St Pancras Int 1132
omitting both Folkestones and Ebbsfleet.


I was wondering if it will be an actual service or not?

It has a balancing working so no reason to think that it isn't a normal service.

The down working
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W21288/2015/05/18/advanced

takes the place of a current empty stock train
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W51035/2015/03/20/advanced

Instead there is a later working to Ashford Down Sidings (which happens to be shortly after the working gets to St Pancras even if it isn't the same train)
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W22104/2015/05/18/advanced

Given the 59 minute timing, it looks like a headline grabbing train that will enable Southeastern to say that London is less than an hour from Dover. Presumably it acts as some kind of relief to the 1048 train from Dover Priory to St Pancras.

I hope it is worthwhile for them.

 

[yorksrob]

As someone who's used trains around Ashford for about thirty five years, I've noticed that the extension of Maidstone East services towards Canterbury seems to come back and dissappear every few years. Sort of makes sense as Canterbury is far and away the main destination in the area to go for a day out. I would imagine a fair few might go there from Maidstone, Malling etc.

 

[Cletus]

I've noticed this service that appears daily from mid-May.

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W21294/2015/05/18/advanced

Basically it's schedule is:
commence Dover Priory 1033
dep Ashford Int 1056
dep Stratford Int 1125
arr St Pancras Int 1132
omitting both Folkestones and Ebbsfleet.


I was wondering if it will be an actual service or not?

This service seems to have disappeared from RTT and isn't in the new timetables

 

[notadriver]

I think that was for cruise ship passengers and is no longer required.

 

[backontrack]

This seems to have slipped through the net, but now all the trains that serve Sandwich, Deal, Walmer and Martin Mill seem to be High Speed except for the odd few.

Rejoice, however, for that parly service up the coast via Minster is still there.

 

[Cletus]

The high speed trains stopping at Walmer/Deal/Sandwich has been going all year as part of the "rounder" service.