New Idea for Sutton Loop Services

[MontyP]

There is - but it's on the north side of the existing tracks, but I don't think the existing tracks can just be shifted over because the space only goes so far before suddenly running out.

There is no easy solution to anything on this thread without some major civil engineering somewhere or the other.

On the north side - do you mean where the cycle path is, or between the existing tracks and the cycle path? My understanding is that due to the major water pipes below, it wouldn't be possible to put anything on top of the cycle path

 

[redreni]

I've no particular wisdom to share on the merits of the various proposals to change the service.

What I would say is, as long as the service remains as it is, the information to passengers could be improved a lot. My experience of going to West Sutton this season was that the journey planner told me I needed to change at Sutton and that I would have four minutes for the interchange. All the on-board display screens and announcements indicated the train was terminating at Sutton, and this continued right up until the train pulled in and stopped at Sutton. Only some time after the doors had opened (and passengers had potentially got off looking for their non-existent connection) was it revealed that it would continue around the loop via Wimbledon.

As far as I'm concerned that's not how a suburban circular route should operate. It is extremely unhelpful for those who don't know. I can only assume it must also cause problems if they actually do want to take a train out of service at Sutton, because people have been conditioned to ignore all the indications that the train is terminating.

If you take a train doing the circular route Cannon St to Cannon St via Crayford and Slade Green, its advertised destination as you leave Cannon St is Slade Green via Crayford, but then once you pass a certain point (New Eltham, I think), the destination changes to Woolwich Arsenal and then once you pass another point (I think Crayford although it may be Slade Green), the advertised destination changes to Cannon Street. If anyone knows why Thameslink don't do something like this, I'd be interested to know?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

On the north side - do you mean where the cycle path is, or between the existing tracks and the cycle path? My understanding is that due to the major water pipes below, it wouldn't be possible to put anything on top of the cycle path

That's correct, and yes - the water pipe is a further obstacle as any use of that side would mean moving it at great additional expense.

That space was ironically originally intended for additional tracks which never got built.

 

[NSE]

I've no particular wisdom to share on the merits of the various proposals to change the service.

What I would say is, as long as the service remains as it is, the information to passengers could be improved a lot. My experience of going to West Sutton this season was that the journey planner told me I needed to change at Sutton and that I would have four minutes for the interchange. All the on-board display screens and announcements indicated the train was terminating at Sutton, and this continued right up until the train pulled in and stopped at Sutton. Only some time after the doors had opened (and passengers had potentially got off looking for their non-existent connection) was it revealed that it would continue around the loop via Wimbledon.

As far as I'm concerned that's not how a suburban circular route should operate. It is extremely unhelpful for those who don't know. I can only assume it must also cause problems if they actually do want to take a train out of service at Sutton, because people have been conditioned to ignore all the indications that the train is terminating.

If you take a train doing the circular route Cannon St to Cannon St via Crayford and Slade Green, its advertised destination as you leave Cannon St is Slade Green via Crayford, but then once you pass a certain point (New Eltham, I think), the destination changes to Woolwich Arsenal and then once you pass another point (I think Crayford although it may be Slade Green), the advertised destination changes to Cannon Street. If anyone knows why Thameslink don't do something like this, I'd be interested to know?

Yeah I’m with you on this. As a regular user I know how it works, but it’s not helpful for Joe Public.

Once it leaves Wimbledon heading south towards Sutton, it should flick over to having its destination as Mitcham Junction and then leaving West Sutton it should go to St. Albans. On the other way, it should be when the train leaves Mitcham Junction it changes to Wimbledon and leaving Carshalton to changes to St. Albans.

The only reason I chose these points is that it’s quicker to take the tram to between Mitcham Junction and Wimbledon and so having Wimbledon trains and trams advertised at Mitcham Junction could lead to people taking the slower option, which is why I suspect it’s currently as it is now, otherwise I’d have the destination changed upon leaving Streatham station.

 

[MarkyT]

IIRC the plan was to move the whole station east and have two islands, and re do the dive under. The current platforms are horribly substandard in just about every respect.

Width, gradient, curvature etc.
Here's a schematic for such a scheme.

 

[Farnborough]

• decent connections at Wimbledon between Thameslink and the South Western Main Line to Woking and beyond

Agreed...

From my neck of the woods, all routes to Wimbledon require a change at Surbiton (or Woking)

Given its hub-status, it would make sense (to me, anyway) that the outer-suburbans stopped at Wimbledon rather than Weybridge and/or Walton-on-Thames (which are already served by the stoppers)
... interestingly enough, the Sunday service *does* stop at Wimbledon

 

[BranstonJnc]

Can we just put Wimbledon - Sutton on the Croydon Tramlink yet? Yes, it wouldn't have a likely 'loop round' back to Croydon, but it would certainly be a better use of the Loop south of Wimbledon, few more stations could go in (Links Avenue, Stayton Road), up at the cricket club onto the Cheam Road, through town, and down the Brighton Road to the Royal Marsden. Perfect!

Now you can run a quarter-hourly Wimbledon service into a terminal platform, and that would double the frequency at places like Tooting.

Now the one that people don't think about which would be genuinely game-changing, is to rip up the Herne Hill area service. E.g.:
- Orpington to Victoria via Herne Hill stoppers become Thameslink services to St Albans, running every 15 minutes, and with the 'gained minute' by not following a fast train from Victoria and calling at Brixton, you'd actually probably hit Shortlands Junction 90 seconds earlier on the down and improve punctuality.
- If this doesn't work, run the Orpington services into the bay platforms at Blackfriars, removing conflicting moves at Loughborough Junction, allowing the Catford services to run seamlessly into the Core all day.
- Services from Victoria to Herne Hill then run off down to Tulse Hill, and onwards from there. Having presented on the 'correct' side of Tulse Hill, these could just be the quarter-hourly service to Wimbledon, meaning you've got a standard quarter-hourly train from Brixton to Streatham, and also a much better set of connections via Tulse Hill to Crystal Palace, or to somewhere like Mitcham.
- Instead of a Blackfriars - Beckenham Junction peak-time service, you'd have it from Victoria. That way, the Victoria service is kept from, say, 06:30 - 09:30 and 16:00 - 19:00. There's also a net benefit here as the empty stock which has to run is already at Victoria, for Grosvenor Sidings, not trying to go round Canterbury Road.
- You could technically have parallel departures on the up (Tulse Hill - Victoria and Orpington - Blackfriars), and on the down you could probably have a 120 second headway.
- A slight remodel at Herne Hill and the down move can be parallel as well.

This would also have the excellent benefit of opening up a lot of diversionary route knowledge on the Southern side into / out of Victoria, and, if you wanted, you could always cross stuff over at Voltaire, down the Stewarts Lane and up onto the Sussex side at Battersea Pier.

The main thing is the entirety of the South London network actually wants ripping up and going again. The current web of crumby 30-minutely services, would be better as more quarter-hourly ones, with good connections at places like Tulse Hill, Herne Hill or Norwood Junction. A good example would be a quarter-hourly Victoria - Balham - Crystal Palace - Norwood - East Croydon, and a quarter-hourly Victoria - Balham - Selhurst - West Croydon - Sutton (- Epsom Downs every 30 minutes), with London Overground picking up some of the slack, and the Croydon Tramlink.

 

[cle]

I've thought this before - Victoria to Wimbledon/Sutton loop and consolidate TL at Orpington/Sevenoaks. I'd move it to Southern too, so you could interwork with, or extend to Epsom/Downs/Dorking etc if needed - vs being part of Southeastern. Also better with the London Bridge / East Dulwich route, and again some opportunities to coordinate.

Supposedly would be a lot of objections. I think with a nicer change/experience at Elephant, you'd enable some more tube connections there. And with Farringdon on EL now, it's a different offering there.

I think you'd have to call some outer services at Herne Hill and Beckenham (as in old days) - but maybe these peak extras would do that job too.

 

[Bald Rick]

Can we just put Wimbledon - Sutton on the Croydon Tramlink yet? Yes, it wouldn't have a likely 'loop round' back to Croydon, but it would certainly be a better use of the Loop south of Wimbledon, few more stations could go in (Links Avenue, Stayton Road), up at the cricket club onto the Cheam Road, through town, and down the Brighton Road to the Royal Marsden. Perfect!

Now you can run a quarter-hourly Wimbledon service into a terminal platform, and that would double the frequency at places like Tooting.

Now the one that people don't think about which would be genuinely game-changing, is to rip up the Herne Hill area service. E.g.:
- Orpington to Victoria via Herne Hill stoppers become Thameslink services to St Albans, running every 15 minutes, and with the 'gained minute' by not following a fast train from Victoria and calling at Brixton, you'd actually probably hit Shortlands Junction 90 seconds earlier on the down and improve punctuality.
- If this doesn't work, run the Orpington services into the bay platforms at Blackfriars, removing conflicting moves at Loughborough Junction, allowing the Catford services to run seamlessly into the Core all day.
- Services from Victoria to Herne Hill then run off down to Tulse Hill, and onwards from there. Having presented on the 'correct' side of Tulse Hill, these could just be the quarter-hourly service to Wimbledon, meaning you've got a standard quarter-hourly train from Brixton to Streatham, and also a much better set of connections via Tulse Hill to Crystal Palace, or to somewhere like Mitcham.
- Instead of a Blackfriars - Beckenham Junction peak-time service, you'd have it from Victoria. That way, the Victoria service is kept from, say, 06:30 - 09:30 and 16:00 - 19:00. There's also a net benefit here as the empty stock which has to run is already at Victoria, for Grosvenor Sidings, not trying to go round Canterbury Road.
- You could technically have parallel departures on the up (Tulse Hill - Victoria and Orpington - Blackfriars), and on the down you could probably have a 120 second headway.
- A slight remodel at Herne Hill and the down move can be parallel as well.

This would also have the excellent benefit of opening up a lot of diversionary route knowledge on the Southern side into / out of Victoria, and, if you wanted, you could always cross stuff over at Voltaire, down the Stewarts Lane and up onto the Sussex side at Battersea Pier.

The main thing is the entirety of the South London network actually wants ripping up and going again. The current web of crumby 30-minutely services, would be better as more quarter-hourly ones, with good connections at places like Tulse Hill, Herne Hill or Norwood Junction. A good example would be a quarter-hourly Victoria - Balham - Crystal Palace - Norwood - East Croydon, and a quarter-hourly Victoria - Balham - Selhurst - West Croydon - Sutton (- Epsom Downs every 30 minutes), with London Overground picking up some of the slack, and the Croydon Tramlink.

How do you get from Sutton, Hackbridge, Carshalton, Mitcham etc to Thameslink?

 

[BranstonJnc]

How do you get from Sutton, Hackbridge, Carshalton, Mitcham etc to Thameslink?

Well either by a change at Streatham, or Tulse Hill, or Herne Hill. If this is a long term project, you would reasonably assume that the Tramlink taking over Wimbledon to Sutton, and the Crossrail 2 route going through Balham, would mean there would be a natural change to passenger behaviour from Sutton, Carshalton and Mitcham anyway.

 

[Bald Rick]

Well either by a change at Streatham, or Tulse Hill, or Herne Hill. If this is a long term project, you would reasonably assume that the Tramlink taking over Wimbledon to Sutton, and the Crossrail 2 route going through Balham, would mean there would be a natural change to passenger behaviour from Sutton, Carshalton and Mitcham anyway.

Seems like a lot of chopping around, and breaking existing well used connectivity, for no obvious benefit.

Crossrail 2 was going to go via Tooting, in any event.

 

[Farnborough]

4tph to Sutton (loop) would help this, but it's all quite low density. There are hardly 1.5m users on the whole route (excluding Wimbledon and Sutton) - so it's barely viable.

Given that for many of us (ie those West of Woking, whose trains do not stop at Wimbledon) it is quicker to change at Clapham Junction for Sutton, than it is to change at Woking or Surbiton and again at Wimbledon, I don't think 4tph will help.

I'm guessing there's a good reason why (eg) the Basingstoke-stopper doesn't stop at Wimbledon (and of course not stopping at Clapham Junction is a different, or maybe the same, issue)?

 

[Zomboid]

guessing there's a good reason why (eg) the Basingstoke-stopper doesn't stop at Wimbledon (a

They're on the fast lines by then aren't they? They'd probably get in something's way if they called, not to mention the platform fencing. They can presumably stop at Clapham because the train behind is usually also stopping there - or there is only one station stop of margin in front of a train that stops at neither Clapham or Wimbledon.

 

[cle]

Given that for many of us (ie those West of Woking, whose trains do not stop at Wimbledon) it is quicker to change at Clapham Junction for Sutton, than it is to change at Woking or Surbiton and again at Wimbledon, I don't think 4tph will help.

Sorry I'm not following. Talking about the Sutton loop frequency (doubling it to compensate loss of core services) - doesn't really relate to the lack of peak connections due to fast services having to miss Clapham. They don't tend to call at Wimbledon either, Surbiton they move to the slows. But I acknowledge it's an issue on the SWML.

Unless you're saying there is big demand from west of Woking to Sutton? I don't think many people have really even heard of Sutton outside of the area its in.

 

[NCT]

When Sutton Loop services were supposed to terminate in the Blackfriars bays as part of the original Thameslink plans, was 4tph around the loop in each direction ever formally part of the package? Was there timetabling work done that concluded definitively whether 4tph in each direction could be timetabled at Wimbledon and across Tulse Hill and Herne Hill?

Given the apparent large numbers of people going 164 - Northern Line, if 4tph in each direction is feasible, surely that would encourage a lot more people to go Sutton (West) Loop - Wimbledon - SWR?

(In a 4tph Sutton West Loop scenario I'd expect most passengers to change at Wimbledon for the quick route to Waterloo / Vauxhall rather than stay on for the scenic way to Blackfriars)

 

[Bald Rick]

When Sutton Loop services were supposed to terminate in the Blackfriars bays as part of the original Thameslink plans, was 4tph around the loop in each direction ever formally part of the package? Was there timetabling work done that concluded definitively whether 4tph in each direction could be timetabled at Wimbledon and across Tulse Hill and Herne Hill?

Yes and Yes.

 

[NCT]

Yes and Yes.

Does this mean it was deemed technically feasible to run 4tph in each direction?

My recollection was those 'in the know' knew about the 4tph, but it was so poorly communicated that the great unwashed only heard the 'terminating at Blackfriars' part and not the 'double frequency' part.

 

[Farnborough]

They can presumably stop at Clapham because the train behind is usually also stopping there - or there is only one station stop of margin in front of a train that stops at neither Clapham or Wimbledon.

Both of the half-hourly Basingstoke stoppers run fast from Surbiton to Waterloo with no other stops, other than one of them stops at Clapham Junction -

Unless you're saying there is big demand from west of Woking to Sutton?

It's a route I do quite often...

 

[westcoaster]

I always wondered if you could run some of the loop services out of Waterloo via the Linford Street curve to Brixton and Herne Hill then the loop and return to Blackfriars. Creating a Waterloo to Blackfriars service.

Even crazier would be waterloo to Waterloo say 2tph one anti clockwise out to Wimbledon around the loop to Herne hill, Brixton, Linford Street curve and Waterloo.
But clockwise you'd need to Traverse the whole SWML at Wimbledon West junction. All infrastructure in place to run this.

 

[Bald Rick]

Does this mean it was deemed technically feasible to run 4tph in each direction?

Yes, a timetable was produced.

My recollection was those 'in the know' knew about the 4tph, but it was so poorly communicated that the great unwashed only heard the 'terminating at Blackfriars' part and not the 'double frequency' part.

It was clear in the consultation that it was double frequency. The independent comms produced by those who didn’t like it, of course, didn’t highlight that part. But the railway had no control over that.

 

[NCT]

Yes, a timetable was produced.

It was clear in the consultation that it was double frequency. The independent comms produced by those who didn’t like it, of course, didn’t highlight that part. But the railway had no control over that.

All very unfortunate. I'm not sure the railway (DfT at the time) really publicised the double frequency bit. You have to wonder if Norman Baker fully understood the consequence of his intervention ...

Could the Sutton Loop have worked if, say, the east loop came from St Albans but the west loop terminated in the bays?

 

[Bald Rick]

Could the Sutton Loop have worked if, say, the east loop came from St Albans but the west loop terminated in the bays?

Almost certainly. Various options were looked at along those lines. Some included West Croydon.

 

[NCT]

Almost certainly. Various options were looked at along those lines. Some included West Croydon.

Quite frustrating - if one side came from the core and the other side terminated in the bays you could sell it as passing the 'Sutton loop still goes through the core' political test. Sounds like the railway capitulated prematurely.

 

[Bald Rick]

Sounds like the railway capitulated prematurely.

“The railway” argued long and hard, but was ultimately instructed.

There was a great deal of post-decision grumping.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

It was the local Sutton area MPs who scuppered the 4tph service simply because they didn't like the idea of them terminating at Blackfriars and they insisted the service ran through the core; apparently the core could not cope with the extra 2 tph on top of all the other proposed services which had been agreed - although not all of those currently run - so the service became 2 tph.

I do not see any reason why they couldn't just overlay the extra 2 tph round the loop by starting and terminating half the services at Blackfriars;

 

[NCT]

I do not see any reason why they couldn't just overlay the extra 2 tph round the loop by starting and terminating half the services at Blackfriars;

Seems like a plausible compromise solution - obviously technically less neat.

 

[cle]

Why can’t this be reversed or at least reviewed now? We’ve had several changes in government and at NR.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Why can’t this be reversed or at least reviewed now? We’ve had several changes in government and at NR.

I suspect the Treasury won't allow the extra 2 tph as it will see it purely as additional expenditure ( even though a 15 minute frequency would probably more than double usage and revenue on the loop ).

 

[devon_belle]

Would the Streatham Jnc to Sutton line cope with an extra 2 tph Thameslink while Southern's Dorking/Horsham trains (plus most of the peak extras) stop at all the stations along that line? 6 tph doesn't sound like much, but the timetable seems tight as it is from my experience. And what about if the Epsom stoppers are ever split out again – that's then 8 tph?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Would the Streatham Jnc to Sutton line cope with an extra 2 tph Thameslink while Southern's Dorking/Horsham trains (plus most of the peak extras) stop at all the stations along that line? 6 tph doesn't sound like much, but the timetable seems tight as it is from my experience. And what about if the Epsom stoppers are ever split out again – that's then 8 tph?

Isn't that what was originally planned anyway when the loop service was created?

In which case I would imagine it was modelled and found to be workable?