How could the Southeastern network be improved?

[TrenHotel]

Moderator note: split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/southeastern-problems-post-timetable-change.242429/

A petition for TfL to take over Southeastern Metro, as was planned in 2016.

Archived Petition: Transfer responsibility for Southeastern metro services to Transport for London

Southeastern routes are often more expensive than TfL's, yet are a worse service. Southeastern's December 2022 timetable lumbered us with infrequent and unreliable services, disrupting lives and businesses. It is time to devolve SE London's services to TfL, which has a proven record in local rail.

petition.parliament.uk

 

[zwk500]

A petition for TfL to take over Southeastern Metro, as was planned in 2016.

Archived Petition: Transfer responsibility for Southeastern metro services to Transport for London

Southeastern routes are often more expensive than TfL's, yet are a worse service. Southeastern's December 2022 timetable lumbered us with infrequent and unreliable services, disrupting lives and businesses. It is time to devolve SE London's services to TfL, which has a proven record in local rail.

petition.parliament.uk

If TfL did take it over would they have the cash to invest in the stations and trains as they did with others, all will they just run the same service with the same trains and the same problems?

 

[island]

Oh, not this old nonsense again. The local politicians here have been selling TfL as the answer to all of SE London's woes and implying it would mean the 465s get replaced by air conditioned 378s, stations get barriered and staffed first to last train, and all that. None of which is remotely likely to happen. And that's before you start considering where the border between Overground and Southeastern should be, because there will still be some (many) through services on, at least, the Dartford and Orpington lines.

 

[43066]

Oh, not this old nonsense again. The local politicians here have been selling TfL as the answer to all of SE London's woes and implying it would mean the 465s get replaced by air conditioned 378s, stations get barriered and staffed first to last train, and all that. None of which is remotely likely to happen. And that's before you start considering where the border between Overground and Southeastern should be, because there will still be some (many) through services on, at least, the Dartford and Orpington lines.

Yes absolutely. Daryl Chamberlain who originated the petition appears to be some sort of journalist with an axe to grind. Presumably he doesn’t know much about railways!

 

[Geogregor]

Oh, not this old nonsense again. The local politicians here have been selling TfL as the answer to all of SE London's woes and implying it would mean the 465s get replaced by air conditioned 378s, stations get barriered and staffed first to last train, and all that. None of which is remotely likely to happen. And that's before you start considering where the border between Overground and Southeastern should be, because there will still be some (many) through services on, at least, the Dartford and Orpington lines.

At the moment TfL wouldn't be able to take over a service of 1 train per day on a rural line. They are broke.

But in the long term taking over increasing number of Southeastern's metro services by the TfL might make sense. But I agree it is not a magic solution by itself. SE London railways have so many unresolved issues...

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Has it happened again since the work was done? Disappointing if so.

Unfortunately big concrete layouts do seem to suffer from settling in problem and with the tolerances on detection switches being so tight it doesn't take much movement for them to drop out of detection. Mind you with the level of train movements across the layout should quickly stabilise but you have to look after concrete layouts especially ones with split bearers as they are less tolerant than woods. Anyhow as they don'y swing anywhere near as often as they used pre timetable change is probably a good thing.

 

[bramling]

Yes absolutely. Daryl Chamberlain who originated the petition appears to be some sort of journalist with an axe to grind. Presumably he doesn’t know much about railways!

Yes I’ve never felt the case for Southeastern metro going to LO stands up to scrutiny.

Indeed the West Anglia LO routes haven’t been a wonderful success under TFL, and would have probably ended up with new trains anyway had they remained part of the GA franchise.

I can get the case for the North London, West London and East London lines being part of TFL, likewise offshoots like Barking-Gospel Oak. The difference is these are orbital routes which form a useful network in themselves. Likewise Crossrail simply because of the cross-London tunnel (though I’m starting to pick up waves of discontent regarding performance especially on the west side). But routes which run to a traditional London terminus don’t sit well with TFL in my view. Why on earth would anyone think it’s a good idea to hive off a fleet of trains, potentially split crew and train maintenance depots and leave some stations served by multiple operators?

In any case, TFL is broke, so the last thing which is needed is to start adding to their empire. They have enough on their plate just keeping LU running reliably, with plenty of overdue projects on there, such as Bakerloo fleet replacement, Piccadilly resignalling, keeping some of their other mid-life trains working reliably and in good condition (Central, Jubilee lines for starters), etc etc.

 

[mister-sparky]

Why do people think that if TfL take over the metro lines then there’s magically going to be 10tph from every station to every london terminal. It’s not going to happen! All that will change is the colour of the signs and the staff uniform! If they can afford to do even that. There will still be the same capacity constraints

 

[WizCastro197]

Why do people think that if TfL take over the metro lines then there’s magically going to be 10tph from every station to every london terminal. It’s not going to happen! All that will change is the colour of the signs and the staff uniform! If they can afford to do even that. There will still be the same capacity constraints

(My bold)

Who ever said that? I think the main argument for the handover was that the service may improve, not that we’ll ever know anyways.

 

[43066]

(My bold)

Who ever said that? I think the main argument for the handover was that the service may improve, not that we’ll ever know anyways.

People only think that because of what happened when TfL took over and launched London Overground, and that was night and day different from what went before. That has nothing to do with the situation on Southeastern metro. There’s no way TfL would be able to pay for an increased station staff presence equivalent to LO, for example.

The service is heavily interweaved with Southeastern mainline and it wouldn’t make a lot of sense operationally to change that. The service on my part of the metro network is still reliably decent, even post timetable change, with trains in/out of central London at 15 minute intervals from roughly 0500 until later than 2400 on weekdays.

 

[Horizon22]

If TfL did take it over would they have the cash to invest in the stations and trains as they did with others, all will they just run the same service with the same trains and the same problems?

No and therefore yes. People forget that where people applaud for instance, London Overground, it has come with a substantial uplift in funding.

 

[miklcct]

Oh, not this old nonsense again. The local politicians here have been selling TfL as the answer to all of SE London's woes and implying it would mean the 465s get replaced by air conditioned 378s, stations get barriered and staffed first to last train, and all that. None of which is remotely likely to happen. And that's before you start considering where the border between Overground and Southeastern should be, because there will still be some (many) through services on, at least, the Dartford and Orpington lines.

When TfL took over the former lines to become Overground and Elizabeth line, all those things happened, one after the other. So the concrete evidence is that all of the above will happen when lines are taken over by TfL as it always happened in the past.

Therefore TfL won't take over lines if it can't provide metro-standard stocks, first-to-last staffing, and the uplift of most lines to 15-minute frequency except the end of branches which may remain at 30-minute frequency. Failure to provide these will damange TfL's reputation.

 

[ScotGG]

Why do people think that if TfL take over the metro lines then there’s magically going to be 10tph from every station to every london terminal. It’s not going to happen! All that will change is the colour of the signs and the staff uniform! If they can afford to do even that. There will still be the same capacity constraints

Pretty much no one has said that.

It's about utilizing the assets as they are to the best of their ability. Yes that requires funding and right now TfL don't have it.

There's no doubt though that the network is unloved for years under DfT control either via franchises or direct control.

The agreement in 2016 did have some excellent ideas and managed to get everyone on board. Kent County Council, the DfT and others were all supportive at long last. Then Grayling arrived.

As things stand even the basics are poor. Pretty much every station is open and sees minimal staffing apart from terminals. Revenue is bleeding away. As an urban network the Metro routes has many journeys that never need go into central London.

When TfL took over management of Abbey Wood station the number of counted passengers shot up immediately as it was finally well staffed with barriers in operation. Something like 1m extra passengers a year and that was with no changes in services as the Elizabeth line didn't start until 3 years later TfL took over the station.

Similar could be seen at a number of stations which are open, pretty much unstaffed and where paying is optional.

 

[matt_world2004]

People only think that because of what happened when TfL took over and launched London Overground, and that was night and day different from what went before. That has nothing to do with the situation on Southeastern metro. There’s no way TfL would be able to pay for an increased station staff presence equivalent to LO, for example.

The service is heavily interweaved with Southeastern mainline and it wouldn’t make a lot of sense operationally to change that. The service on my part of the metro network is still reliably decent, even post timetable change, with trains in/out of central London at 15 minute intervals from roughly 0500 until later than 2400 on weekdays.

Reading the report into the original plans for metroisation on the southeastern. It claimed that when tfl took over the abellio greater anglia routes fare evasion fell by 86% the presence of gatelines and a stronger financial incentive on the operator to minimise fare evasion seems to drive revenue which can pay for first to last train station staffing.

 

[ScotGG]

Yep that seems pretty accurate.

The added benefit of staffing more stations with barriers is not only do many people who chance it (and let's face it on much of what is now LO and Southeastern Metro currently you will get away with it) end up paying but the added security helps limit anti social behavior which in turn encourages more people to use rail.

I still think the Abbey Wood example stands as a great example of how much money was and is being lost by those in charge not bothering with the basics. Woolwich Arsenal for example is also open barriers pretty much day and night.

 

[Craig1122]

Yep that seems pretty accurate.

The added benefit of staffing more stations with barriers is not only do many people who chance it (and let's face it on much of what is now LO and Southeastern Metro currently you will get away with it) end up paying but the added security helps limit anti social behavior which in turn encourages more people to use rail.

I still think the Abbey Wood example stands as a great example of how much money was and is being lost by those in charge not bothering with the basics. Woolwich Arsenal for example is also open barriers pretty much day and night.

I'd be curious to know the stats for revenue at Abbey Wood as well. Similarly what the cash figures are for fare evasion, an 86% drop in evasion doesn't mean that much in itself if the base level is relatively low. Doubtless it went up but not counting a passenger isn't necessarily the same as lost revenue, for example someone could have a weekly ticket which isn't counted.

Not disagreeing at all about best practice, but I presume that South Eastern & Greater Anglia's calculations (when they stood to benefit from revenue collection) must have been that the cost of collecting the lost revenue outweighed the income. It would be interesting to see conclusive proof of which approach is right.

 

[Mikey C]

I'd be curious to know the stats for revenue at Abbey Wood as well. Similarly what the cash figures are for fare evasion, an 86% drop in evasion doesn't mean that much in itself if the base level is relatively low. Doubtless it went up but not counting a passenger isn't necessarily the same as lost revenue, for example someone could have a weekly ticket which isn't counted.

Not disagreeing at all about best practice, but I presume that South Eastern & Greater Anglia's calculations (when they stood to benefit from revenue collection) must have been that the cost of collecting the lost revenue outweighed the income. It would be interesting to see conclusive proof of which approach is right.

Anyone commuting into Central London would need to touch in somewhere to avoid being charged the maximum fare anyway, so the key is making sure that enough of the major "destination" stations are gated.

It's the revenue for "non central London" travel which is being lost. If I was travelling between two ungated stations, what are the chances of being caught? Especially as since COVID, I suspect the number of ticket inspectors and inspections has decreased.

 

[ScotGG]

It was non existent before covid in the London area. I had one on board check in about 12 years. Very rare checks at stations and even then on approach you could see at most stations it was happening so if someone hasn't paid stay on to the next stop.

Southeastern's lack of station staffing makes getting a zone 1-2/3 season ticket worth it (eg to Greenwich or Hither Green) for those who don't want to pay regardless of where they're going beyond. For all other trips not involving central London paying is pretty much optional. As soon as outside London they were hotter which seems to confirm they don't really care about London metro routes.

Personally I don't really care who runs it if they did even a half decent job. There's no doubt in my mind the suburban lines are deeply unloved and not cared for under the Department for Transport-let franchises for many, many years so it's no wonder many clamour for something - anything - different.

Every time devolution comes up some people say this or that could be done under the existing system which is true but each and every time it never has been when franchises awarded, extended or taken under Operator of Last Resort.

 

[matt_world2004]

I'd be curious to know the stats for revenue at Abbey Wood as well. Similarly what the cash figures are for fare evasion, an 86% drop in evasion doesn't mean that much in itself if the base level is relatively low. Doubtless it went up but not counting a passenger isn't necessarily the same as lost revenue, for example someone could have a weekly ticket which isn't counted.

Not disagreeing at all about best practice, but I presume that South Eastern & Greater Anglia's calculations (when they stood to benefit from revenue collection) must have been that the cost of collecting the lost revenue outweighed the income. It would be interesting to see conclusive proof of which approach is right.

Thing is even if the cost outweighs the income for southeastern the same may not be said for tfl who had their whole network to protect. People are probably using southeastern trains to gain access to the rest of the network

Before tfl gated the western end of the Elizabeth line, I could have travelled from Hayes and Harlington Station in middlesex to Hayes Kent without passing a gateline. That's a considerable distance to get no revenue for

There is also non ticketing financial benefits of gating a station, less service disruption from suicides and anti social behaviour. For which gating acts as a casual deterrent and not counting the human cost of these problems.

 

[lookingatstell]

Why do people think that if TfL take over the metro lines then there’s magically going to be 10tph from every station to every london terminal. It’s not going to happen! All that will change is the colour of the signs and the staff uniform! If they can afford to do even that. There will still be the same capacity constraints

Please read the TfL case study for it: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/strategic-case-for-metroisation.pdf

Nobody is expecting that - it requires investment and TfL have produced a business case to support it

 

[Taunton]

I see (current Modern Railways) SE MD Steve White had to tell relevant MPs in a letter that the issues were caused by, among others, infrastructure failures, thus neatly sticking it on Network Rail instead. If they want to do something about same then they could consider starting with the complex Lewisham flat junction, supposedly a critical infrastructure point which one would have thought extra care would be taken with, which has long looked like a farm meadow but in recent times the weeds have now made it look as if it's going to be shipped off to The Eden Project as an example of what the Amazon jungle looks like. Just wait until summer!

 

[zwk500]

I see (current Modern Railways) SE MD Steve White had to tell relevant MPs in a letter that the issues were caused by, among others, infrastructure failures, thus neatly sticking it on Network Rail instead. If they want to do something about same then they could consider starting with the complex Lewisham flat junction, supposedly a critical infrastructure point which one would have thought extra care would be taken with, which has long looked like a farm meadow but in recent times the weeds have now made it look as if it's going to be shipped off to The Eden Project as an example of what the Amazon jungle looks like. Just wait until summer!

Lewisham junction was completely relaid over the christmas break, was it not?

 

[ScotGG]

It was.

Both NR and SE are responsible for problems with the new timetable. SE now claim they were taken by surprise at passenger numbers in London which is somewhat odd as other metro systems and TfL modes were growing late last year and into 2023.

The new timetable now has really odd gaps even during the peaks which places pressure on the network even without NR infrastructure faults.

 

[Bald Rick]

If they want to do something about same then they could consider starting with the complex Lewisham flat junction, supposedly a critical infrastructure point which one would have thought extra care would be taken with, which has long looked like a farm meadow but in recent times the weeds have now made it look as if it's going to be shipped off to The Eden Project as an example of what the Amazon jungle looks like. Just wait until summer!

You haven’t been there this year then!

 

[NorthKent1989]

Anyone commuting into Central London would need to touch in somewhere to avoid being charged the maximum fare anyway, so the key is making sure that enough of the major "destination" stations are gated.

It's the revenue for "non central London" travel which is being lost. If I was travelling between two ungated stations, what are the chances of being caught? Especially as since COVID, I suspect the number of ticket inspectors and inspections has decreased.

Exactly this, I went to visit a friend in Orpington recently and decided to return home via Penge East to Victoria, not only was the ticket barrier at Orpington open but it appeared that the entire line, except for Bromley South (which is a major mainline station) all the stations probably either had no ticket barriers or had them left open, so you can basically travel for free from Orpington to Brixton, change there for a Victoria line and tap in to pay only a zone 2 fare even though you’ve travelled half way across South London for free! It’s insane.

 

[ScotGG]

Same on Woolwich line. Every station after London Bridge is open every day except Abbey Wood which TfL manage until Dartford. That's about 12 stations even in the peak.

That includes busy stations like Charlton, Plumstead, Deptford etc.

The Sidcup line will have a couple more staffed until early evening but still about 6 stations wide open.

Not sure the Hayes or Bexleyheath lines are much different. Across the three Dartford lines and Hayes at least 80 per cent are open all day every day.

Not all will be worth staffing or even possible but more than a few are.

 

[Edsmith]

Exactly this, I went to visit a friend in Orpington recently and decided to return home via Penge East to Victoria, not only was the ticket barrier at Orpington open but it appeared that the entire line, except for Bromley South (which is a major mainline station) all the stations probably either had no ticket barriers or had them left open, so you can basically travel for free from Orpington to Brixton, change there for a Victoria line and tap in to pay only a zone 2 fare even though you’ve travelled half way across South London for free! It’s insane.

Yes Bromley South is the only station between Orpington and Victoria with ticket barriers, and they're often left open. In fairness the layout of most of the other stations isn't ideal for ticket barriers.

 

[island]

Not sure the Hayes or Bexleyheath lines are much different. Across the three Dartford lines and Hayes at least 80 per cent are open all day every day.

From memory the only Bexleyheath line stations that even have ticket gates are Eltham and Bexleyheath, and I can’t think of any Hayes line station at all with them.

 

[WizCastro197]

Twitter post No.3 dragged up a point that we just discussed, about a TfL takeover. The thing that puzzles me the most is the how they go on to blame Southeastern, for something that was completely out of their control:

Overcrowded platforms at London Bridge yet again today. Quicker and safer to get to Lewisham via Jubilee and DLR.
@TfL
actually able to run a rail service. Can they take pls take over SE Metro services as
@Se_Railway
and
@SteveWhiteRail
failing miserably

 

[Kite159]

.

From memory the only Bexleyheath line stations that even have ticket gates are Eltham and Bexleyheath, and I can’t think of any Hayes line station at all with them.

And hasnt one of those stations on that one which does have barriers but due to a lift free footbridge has a ramped side exit which is completely open? So all the pay when challenged simply avoids the main entrance and uses the side entrance.