Gatwick Express services

[Minstral25]

That is why I say that the Class 377's should be doing the Brigton - Gatwick - London services and the Class 442's doing the Express Brighton - East Croydon - London services.

The 442's should not be doing any stopping service bar Inter-city style trains as the door layout is wrong.

My point is that the service shouldn't be using any of the Brighton Services to provide the Airport Services as they are already pretty full on arrival at Gatwick or waste time connecting trains up.

I think they should be replaced with a non-premium stopping service Gatwick, East Croydon, Clapham Junction and Victoria, which will provide an airport service but also relieve the severe overcrowding between East Croydon and Victoria. This will allow more space on the other outer-suburban and coast services between Victoria and East Croydon instead of them being rammed in this section all day long.

 

[Robsignals]

Talk about going round in circles. I was a commuter on the Brighton Line in the 80s and remember Gatwick being served by half-hourly portions on semi-fasts and half-hourly dedicated non-stoppers. Gatwick Express was introduced to solve the many problems of a shared service and that was with a fraction of current traffic.

Portion working means minimum 4 minute dwell which will be unacceptable to longer distance travellers, anyway the problem is lack of capacity for them so less than full length trains make no sense! Airport traffic needs large amounts of luggage space, at least 3 min dwell to get it on/off and there will always be doors, aisles, bays and seats blocked with luggage. Mixing the traffic will be a disaster and I for one will stop going to London by train.

The new Gatwick Down Fast Loop, Plat 7, will allow P5 & 6 to be dedicated to GX making it less disruptive, if journey time is increased to 33 mins four extra paths can be provided. I suspect there may be a 'softening up' process going on for reducing GX to half-hourly and directing pax without heavy luggage to SN services.

 

[HH]

Gatwick Express will be part of the new Thameslink franchise. Gatwick is lobbying very heavily for an improved offer, as currently NPS scores are going down faster than a Thai Ferry. OFC any change from that process won't happen for another 3+ years.

 

[The Barlow Boy]

According to my old magazine file (Modern Railways Oct 1984) the GLC sponsored the development of the scheme to improve north south links across London and BR pursued it when it realised how much money it could save by not terminating trains both sides of London with the later the more important reason by far.

The original services were (1988 NRT);

Bedford - Brighton/Gatwick (1 per hour each)
Luton - Purley (2 per hour)
Cricklewood- Orpington/Sevenoaks (via Bromley South, 1 per hour each)

Sorry, late reply, have only just found this. There were two trains per hour between Gatwick and Bedford. One started from Gatwick (40" past the hour P6) and one ran up from Brighton (13" past the hour off P1) These Brighton originators also stopped at Redhill (hooray) but after a couple of years the stop was omitted(boo). The Luton to Purley services used the pathway of the last Holborn Viaduct to Smithams (in lieu of the closed Coulsden North).
Originally a Guard was on the train as far as Farringdon then as the NRN was extended the man used to get off at Gatwick - DOO from there. There used to be all sorts of pranks at Gatwick with the doors until it was realised that if the Guard released the doors then took his 21 key out the Driver couldn't then close them. First Boxing Day that Gatwick Express wanted to operate trains ended up in Victoria Drivers refusing to work unless triple time and a day in lieu was offered - effectively quadruple time. That was neatly sidestepped by offering the Drivers at the *turkey farm double time and a day in lieu and the service was operated half hourly by 8X319s with the Senior Conductors riding selling tickets. The next Boxing day saw the Victoria Drivers on duty on the same terms as the turkey farmers.
Happy days!


* Selhurst, they were always on the gobble for overtime.

 

[Rick1984]

The 442's certainly are a nightmare having used one from gatwick with 4 bags of heavy luggage between me and my wife! Why they didn't use them on a longer distance route and use a train with double doors! (and the re-furb isn't great either) nice trains though!

 

[LE Greys]

Speaking of going round in circles, was there as much fuss when the 4-VEGs were replaced with (essentially) modified MkIIs which had many of the same problems?

 

[bnm]

Speaking of going round in circles, was there as much fuss when the 4-VEGs were replaced with (essentially) modified MkIIs which had many of the same problems?

No. Because when folk have got their rose tinted specs on, a rake of loco hauled MkIIs is the dog's whatsits!