Have been looking into quite a few historical (late BR/early privatisation) South Eastern things of late and have a few questions (other questions will appear on separate threads).
Something I swear I remember from around 2001 and have now confirmed was the case is the existence of a half-hourly Tunbridge Wells terminator. This can be seen for example on the Sep 2001 WTT on Network Rail.
However unlike the early Tunbridge Wells terminator of the late 80s, which served all stations from Petts Wood onwards, this one seemed to have limited utility.
There was a Hastings at xx05 and xx35, retimed from xx10/xx40 in previous years (which itself was a retiming from xx15/xx45, in order to create a free path for Eurostar, I believe).
This was followed closely by an xx10 and xx40 TW terminator. However oddly, the calling pattern to Tonbridge was practically identical, except one of the two also called at Hildenborough (which could have been done instead by one of the two Hastings services).
My question is: what was the point of these services? Reliefs for the Hastings? Would it have not been more efficient in that case to add extra coaches to the Hastings services?
Something I swear I remember from around 2001 and have now confirmed was the case is the existence of a half-hourly Tunbridge Wells terminator. This can be seen for example on the Sep 2001 WTT on Network Rail.
However unlike the early Tunbridge Wells terminator of the late 80s, which served all stations from Petts Wood onwards, this one seemed to have limited utility.
There was a Hastings at xx05 and xx35, retimed from xx10/xx40 in previous years (which itself was a retiming from xx15/xx45, in order to create a free path for Eurostar, I believe).
This was followed closely by an xx10 and xx40 TW terminator. However oddly, the calling pattern to Tonbridge was practically identical, except one of the two also called at Hildenborough (which could have been done instead by one of the two Hastings services).
My question is: what was the point of these services? Reliefs for the Hastings? Would it have not been more efficient in that case to add extra coaches to the Hastings services?