London to Gatwick (on a Sunday)

[darkgs]

On the 6th October Im off on holiday and need to be at Gatwick for around 5.
Usually I fly from Heathrow so its usually a Heathrow Express trek (I rather like the class 332).

However this time I am going Gatwick so have a few questions about the journey.

I am not fussed about going from either Victoria or London Bridge, but want to avoid First Capital Connect as their trains in my experience come up busy and I note that on the 6th October they will be running every 30 minutes.

So this leaves Southern (I'm not willing to pay extra for the Gatwick Express):

So for those of you with experience on this route, how busy do the Victoria / London Bridge services get on a usual Sunday around 15:00?
Also, how many carriages are the trains usually formed of and do the Southern Class 377s have luggage space on board for suitcases or will it be a case of us squeezing into seating bays with them?

I hope you can help.

DGS.

 

[yorkie]

So this leaves Southern (I'm not willing to pay extra for the Gatwick Express)

Since late 2008, Southern operate the Gatwick Express route (see map)

So for those of you with experience on this route, how busy do the Victoria / London Bridge services get on a usual Sunday around 15:00?
Also, how many carriages are the trains usually formed of and do the Southern Class 377s have luggage space on board for suitcases or will it be a case of us squeezing into seating bays with them?.

It would depend on the destination of the train. There are also different sub-classes of 377.

If you were to take a Southern service on the Gatwick Express route, I'd not be surprised if you get the front coach to yourself.

I am not too sure about the other trains, others will know better than me, but perhaps a Brighton stopper may be less crowded (Sundays tend to be comparatively busier with people doing longer-distance journeys rather than shorter journeys) and they're pretty fast as far as Gatwick.

 

[LondonJohn]

There are approx 4 non express trains an hour from London Victoria on a Sunday afternoon assuming there are no engineering works. Some have 4 coaches, some 8 and some 12 as they split en route to their destinations. (all portions calling at Gatwick). If you aim to arrive at the station approx 15 mins before departure as I would do, you should be able to find an empty carriage. There are limited luggage racks on most parts of the train.

Don't think of attempting to board at Clapham Junction or East Croydon unless you want to stand in a scrum with luggage piled around you. As a tip, buy your return ticket before you travel, now that you can no longer buy Express tickets on the train its always been a bit of a nightmare to queue for ticket machines and the ticket office at Gatwick Airport station (or to collect prebooked tickets). Lesson learnt once with that one.

 

[sarahj]

When getting on at Victoria, walk down the platform to about the second/third coach from the front. Will be more space, and when you get off at Gatwick you will be closer to the lifts etc.
Its amazing at victoria to watch em all pile on the rear coaches, piling in the bags. It gets busy at the back, and then they have a nice long walk at Gatwick.
Most trains will be 8/9/10 or 12 coaches.