Improving HS1 Services to Medway

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm pulling this discussion out of the thread, overcrowding-due-to-parsemonious-rolling-stock-policy.247817, since this discussion of HS1 to Medway seems interesting in its own right.

At some point (I'm not sure when?) SouthEastern reduced the HS1 service to Rochester/Faversham/etc. to 1tph, which means the service is likely to be very unattractive to commuters. I'm not sure how good passenger numbers were, but it seems to me that, from Medway, the service offered little time saving over the Victoria service, but much higher fares, which may have caused passenger numbers to be small. If you live in Gravesend, then it would provide a very good way to get to London, but probably not if it's only hourly.

Running the service only hourly also seems to have had the side-effect that the Faversham-Canterbury-Dover line now only sees 1tph, which is again not ideal and likely to be driving at least some people away from the railway.

So what can realistically be done to make it better? Is there any way you could justify returning it to half hourly? Any other improvements you could make?

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

Tricky because, there's no way to fit faster paths in West of Dartford, so the only way you could do it would be by extending some of the stopping metro services that run between London and Dartford/Gravesend. That means you'd end up with a service that isn't actually very fast, and uses metro stock that's unsuitable for those kinds of long distances, and I doubt SouthEastern have any spare metro stock anyway. HS1 already gives a connection to the Elizabeth Line at Stratford (albeit requiring a short walk from Stratford International so not a brilliant connection) and could probably give you much faster journey times.

 

[Doppelganger]

The service was reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic and never really reinstated.

It would be nice to see a proper fast Victoria service which after Chatham, would call at Bromley South and then Victoria (it would skip Rochester), like it once used to.

Since HS1 was introduced, there was a deliberate effort on South Eastern's part to slow down the "classic" lines with extra stops thrown in and thus make HS1 appear more attractive.

The reality is Victoria, and once Charing Cross before direct trains were removed, is a far more attractive destination for commuters and tourists. Victoria offers great access to a lot of Government departments which are only a walk away and the West End is also a lot easier to access (better from Charing Cross of course, but Thameslink has seen that off).

HS1 only really is beneficial if you work near the King's Cross area or you want rail connections north or to switch to Eurostar.

 

[Mikey C]

Isn't the problem that "high speed" service going through north Kent via the Medway Towns don't use enough of HS1 to make the premium worth it, unless you're happier to go to St Pancras or Stratford?

And surely if there are fewer HS1 services through the Medway towns, people will just travel to Victoria or Charing X instead, like they did before? It's not as if it's the only route to London.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Whenever I've used the 1tph HS1 services via Medway recently (off-peak), they've been pretty well filled, even with standing passengers on some services. So people are definitely using them. Whether there are enough to justify 2tph off-peak I couldn't say - might be a chicken and egg situation.

 

[MPW]

I have no solution to suggest but I always find the journey to east kent via medway to be painfully slow! Agree that the high speed section makes less impact than having a better connection to wherever you want to go in London

 

[ScotGG]

Could very high track access fees on HS1 be a factor in the DfT refusing to fund service improvements?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Could very high track access fees on HS1 be a factor in the DfT refusing to fund service improvements?

But don't the track access fees in effect go back to the Government? (Indirectly because they are paid to Network Rail, and that offsets against any subsidy Network Rail need from the Government).

When everything was franchised and paying a track access fee was a business decision by a privately owned TOC, then trying to minimise those fees arguably made sense for a TOC that was trying to maximise its own profits. But in a post-franchise World, it doesn't seem to make so much sense for the Government to worry about paying track access fees.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 May 2023 ==

It would be nice to see a proper fast Victoria service which after Chatham, would call at Bromley South and then Victoria (it would skip Rochester), like it once used to.

Well at the moment, there are 2tph fast trains from Chatham to Victoria. One calls at Rochester and Bromley South, the other at Rochester, Meopham, Longfield and Bromley South. It seems a bit harsh on Rochester people to have them lose one of their London services in order to save, maybe 2 minutes for Chatham people. Rochester is after all about as important as Chatham, and has a similar number of passengers (1.4M against 1.7M for Chatham in 2021-22).

Since HS1 was introduced, there was a deliberate effort on South Eastern's part to slow down the "classic" lines with extra stops thrown in and thus make HS1 appear more attractive.

Deliberate attempt to make HS1 attractive, or an attempt to provide a more frequent service to some of the other classic line stations?

HS1 only really is beneficial if you work near the King's Cross area or you want rail connections north or to switch to Eurostar.

Or if you work near Canary Wharf - much easier to get to from Stratford than from Victoria! Or in the financial district around Bank, which is easy to get to from Stratford or Kings Cross. OK, but a bit of a trek on the Circle line from Victoria.

 

[Doppelganger]

Well at the moment, there are 2tph fast trains from Chatham to Victoria. One calls at Rochester and Bromley South, the other at Rochester, Meopham, Longfield and Bromley South. It seems a bit harsh on Rochester people to have them lose one of their London services in order to save, maybe 2 minutes for Chatham people. Rochester is after all about as important as Chatham, and has a similar number of passengers (1.4M against 1.7M for Chatham in 2021-22).

Maybe, but Chatham was always the main station out of the 2 and the fact remains, that even the "fast" train is slower than it used to be before HS1

Deliberate attempt to make HS1 attractive, or an attempt to provide a more frequent service to some of the other classic line stations?

Deliberate attempt. Before HS1 the trains were faster and with fewer stops.

Or if you work near Canary Wharf - much easier to get to from Stratford than from Victoria! Or in the financial district around Bank, which is easy to get to from Stratford or Kings Cross. OK, but a bit of a trek on the Circle line from Victoria.

Canary Wharf is a fair comment, but the City is accessible via Cannon Street in the rush hour.

 

[MarkyT]

It seems a bit harsh on Rochester people to have them lose one of their London services in order to save, maybe 2 minutes for Chatham people. Rochester is after all about as important as Chatham, and has a similar number of passengers (1.4M against 1.7M for Chatham in 2021-22).

I'd say with the relocation, Rochester station is now both vastly more attractive and better sited than its spartan predecessor whose platform buildings had all been demolished years ago due to subsidence. The new station's pedestrian routes to the High Street, Cathedral and Castle area could still be improved some more IMHO for the tourist trade particularly. Missing any one of the stations through the conurbation would not really save any significant time anyway, as speed is limited to 30mph max through much of the area for passenger services.

 

[HSTEd]

But don't the track access fees in effect go back to the Government? (Indirectly because they are paid to Network Rail, and that offsets against any subsidy Network Rail need from the Government).

HS1 track access fees go to the Ontario Teachers Pension fund, who owns the concession last I checked.