Southern Rail peak time service to Guildford what stock?

SN try (note the word try) and run 2 trains in the morning and evening, however they quite regularly don't turn up due to a multitude of different reasons. A waste of time and it's only there for an ORCATS/lennon raid, nothing more.

If they bother to turn up, the first one is a 10 car, the second one is a 4 car 455, in the evening it's seems to be either a 10 & 8.

 

The Southern workings are the remnants of a long gone Thameslink service from north of the river via West Croydon (it loaded only modertely - and the stock was borrowed to run 4 tph all day to Gatwick and Brighton)

 

0630 Sutton-Guildford & 0723 Guildford-London Bridge are a 10-car 377 (377/3x2+377/4)
0635 London Victoria-Guildford, 0816 Guildford-London Victoria, 1637 London Victoria-Guildford & 1822 Guildford-London Victoria are all 1 4-car 455
1725 London Bridge-Guildford & 1904 Guildford-Sutton are a 8-car 455

All the services load well when they actually run.

 

And they should stay there on their own patch as they're always late or cancelled.

As for the Thameslink service to Guildford, it was never promoted properly, it started too late in the day IIRC 0859 was the first, finished mid afternoon (IIRC 1459), followed stuff here, there & everywhere, was slow as a sloth when they did run, then they restarted after the peak had finished (IIRC 1859) and of course that's simply not going to load well either.

And it's been noted that Guildford has been dropped from the so called "New & Improved" Thameslink (Or TGSN) network proposals.

All we need now is AXC to go forth & multiply and everything will be well & good.

 

If im not mistaken the Luton to Guildford service originally ran via Crystal Palace (super slow) but then was changed to run via Selhurst (still just as slow). Got the feeling this may have been swapped over a few times over the years.

 

Which ever way it went it was pretty dire, shame really as it had the potential to lift a considerable amount of revenue & custom away from what is now SWT.

If it were to return it would ideally need to start around about 0500 & finish around 2230, it could still extract a nice amount of custom and provide the perfect linkage for the sailors from Portsmouth, soldiers from Aldershot & a considerable number of ordinary folk going to the city and for Eurostar/EMT & East Coast services, without all of the hassle of taking kids/luggage through the tube system.

But hey ho, that's much too sensible.

 

Do Southern services to Guildford require a guard west of Leatherhead, or are they DOO?

 

If you work into SWT land a guard is required as none of the stations on SWT are set up for DOO-P and long may it stay that way too.

 

A friend worked in Croydon for time and found the Southern services useful. It was a pain when they were cancelled as they would have to wait at Epsom for a connecting train. I don't think the connection was a good as the through service.

During one of the rare SWT driver or guard strikes, the only trains running via London Road were the Southern trains. I used one to get to a concert. I then returned via Dorking and a FGW night bus. This being when such things to run on the North Downs Line.

 

A mix of 455s (yay!) and 377s for that service, as has been mentioned

Night buses ran along the NDL?! Wow, I've been getting that line fairly freqently for 22 years and never knew about them!

 

Yes for a period of time they ran buses to Gatwick Airport during the night. I don't know how well they were advertised but I'd heard of them and used them once. Don't remember how I came across them.

They went so I can only assume they were not popular enough. Not sure why.

 

Yes, here it is showing on my 1992 Network SouthEast map ... I used to use these services between Selhurst and Farringdon, but I think they'd already been cut to West Croydon by then.

 

Looking at that map reminds me how far Heathrow airport was from the GWML in those days !.

 

Looking at the figures, they almost always do reach Guildford. However, punctuality is indeed poor on certain services, in bold below.

During May:

• 2U95 0630 Sutton (Surrey) to Guildford: Dep 0636 arr 0716 until 15 May, then dep 0630 arr 0712. Ran all 19 days and arrived right time all except one day last week where it was 1 late.
• 2U98 0722 Guildford to London Bridge: Used to be 0723 before the timetable change, ran all 19 days, missed PPM on two days, one before the TT change and one after. Right time on 12 out of 19 days.

• 2S52 0635 London Victoria to Guildford via Crystal Palace: Ran all 19 days, but missed PPM on 8 out of the 19 days and never right time at Guildford!
• 2E95 0816 Guildford to London Victoria via Mitcham Junction: Arr 0933 until 15 May, then 0934. Ran all 19 days and missed PPM once before TT change (6 late). Right time 7 out of 19 days.

• 2S96 1637 London Victoria to Guildford via Crystal Palace: Ran 17/19 days. Cancelled throughout on 7 May and terminated at Ashtead on 29 May due to no guard. Missed PPM two days. Right time 10 out of 19 days.
• 2S63 1822 Guildford to London Victoria via Crystal Palace: Arr 1953 until 15 May, then 1954 afterwards. Ran 17/19 days. Cancelled throughout on 7 May and started from Leatherhead on 29 May due to no guard. Missed PPM twice, once before and once after the TT change (6 late and 5 late). Right time on 7 out of 19 days.

• 2U91 1725 London Bridge to Guildford: Dep 1728 arr 1846 until 15 May, then dep 1725 arr 1844 (1 less minute!). Ran 17 out of 19 days. Cancelled throughout on 20 May and 27 May due to no driver. Missed PPM three times, once before TT change at 18 late and twice afterwards at 11 late and 5 late. Right time 9 out of 19 days.
• 2U92 1904 Guildford to Sutton (Surrey): Ran 17 out of 19 days. Cancelled throughout on 20 May and 27 May. Missed PPM three times. Right time just twice!

 

The Southern services to Guildford are going through a decent period of reliability at the moment. Around December last year the 1637 Victoria-Guildford and 1822 Guildford-Victoria was lucky to reach Guildford once a week.

 

Some memories from a couple of years back.

The 0722/0723 used to be the 0724 (or was it 0728) used to be a 2 x 4 car 377. Very civilised train it was too leaving Guildford platform 1. It made an appear in he metro 'love crush' so i used to thnk of it as the love express as it runs 'fast' between london road and effingham junction ... though it would never seem to get up any sort of speed and usually catch up with an SWT stopper by Horsley.

The Southern 455's PIS had tredemondous trouble with 'Clandon'. From memory they couldn't say it or display it and down ones would skip it out even if stopping there.

As the regular xx:17 SWT from epsom to guildford was replaced by a 18:10 Southern to guildford and 18:17 SWT to effingham junction I had a habit of mistakenly taking the 18:17 and being dumped on the desolateness of effingham junction ... watching fast through rain whizz down and empty 450's zoom up ....