State of Southern (GTR)

[AzureOtsu]

Since the latest cutbacks/withdrawal of the 455s it appears Southern (and much else of the railway network) is currently experiencing a managed decline when passenger numbers are slowly creeping back.

I grew up in Brighton and familiarised myself with the idea of a direct London Victoria to Brighton southern service, but the fact they don't even have that now is really difficult to wrap my head around, despite the route still being advertised through promotional material on their website.

The platforms of Brighton station seem desolate with only about 2 or 3 trains in; the crowds however have remained the same, expecially on the west coastway in the mornings, and even more so with the withdrawal of the West Worthing service.

It feels like we've got to a point where it's a luxury to ride on a 377 on the BML even if it's to Preston Park to change for a Thameslink.

Class 700s are not designed for InterCity travel, yet they are currently used as the backbone of the BML for connections to destinations such as Peterborough and Cambridge.

Having to pay extra for the GEX just to get tables must be a massive put off for anyone travelling between Victoria and Brighton.

The Brighton to London corridor is already quite expensive in comparison to other cities from London.

The recent withdrawal of the 455s really didn't help as well, demanding trimmings on the network to the point of absurdity.

It feels like the railway is currently in a limbo state with things constantly getting more difficult for the average passenger.

A pessimistic view I know, but with the class 701 & 777 situation, the 379s going into storage and scrappage of the 365s, it feels like the railway as a whole is in a managed decline.

Things keep piling onto of each other and at this rate GBR is going to have quite the dilemma once they supposedly take over.

 

[JonathanH]

I grew up in brighton and familiarised myself with the idea of a direct london victoria to brighton southern service but the fact they don't even have that now is really difficult to wrap my head around, despite the route still being advertised through promotional material on their website. the platforms of brighton Station seem desolate with only about 2 or 3 trains in.

The current arrangement of separate services running to the West and East Coast sides of Brighton instead of splitting at Haywards Heath is much more sensible in terms of overall passenger loadings than before with 6tph still running to Brighton. There are only so many paths on the Brighton Main Line and 8tph for Brighton with the splitting services for Eastbourne / Hastings & Littlehampton led to overcrowding issues on the latter since one side had to have a 4-car portion.

Class 700s are not designed for intercity travel yet they are currently used as the backbone of the BML for connections to destinations such as peterborough and cambridge.

Do you suggest that Brighton should have fewer Thameslink services?

The brighton-London corridor is already quite expensive in comparison to other cities from London.

It really isn't - it is broadly in the pack against other places 50 miles from London - some more expensive, some cheaper. What are you basing your comparison against?

 

[Watershed]

The brighton-London corridor is already quite expensive in comparison to other cities from London

Much of what you say is true, but this really isn't.

Brighton to London is priced very similarly to other equivalent journeys into London - ranging from 14p per mile for a Super Off-Peak Day Return to 47p for an Anytime Day Return, and 19p for an annual season ticket used 5 days a week.

That compares to 24p, 49p and 23p respectively for Basingstoke; 17p, 45p and 25p for Milton Keynes; and 28p, 69p and 23p for Didcot - as with Brighton, these are all journeys of around 50 miles into London.

 

[AzureOtsu]

The current arrangement of separate services running to the West and East Coast sides of Brighton instead of splitting at Haywards Heath is much more sensible in terms of overall passenger loadings than before with 6tph still running to Brighton. There are only so many paths on the Brighton Main Line and 8tph for Brighton with the splitting services for Eastbourne / Hastings & Littlehampton led to overcrowding issues on the latter since one side had to have a 4-car portion.


Do you suggest that Brighton should have fewer Thameslink services?


It really isn't - it is broadly in the pack against other places 50 miles from London - some more expensive, some cheaper. What are you basing your comparison against?

I'm currently living in Bristol. I probably should have clarified that I'm basing that statistic in general transport between the cities. a coach from Victoria coach station to Brighton and vice versa is often times double the money for a coach to/from bristol in my experience of travelling from brighton to Bristol, its cheaper for me to buy a rail single to east Croydon then oyster to Victoria than it is to get a coach direct from brighton old steine to Victoria coach station. sometimes the super off peak railfare from Paddington to Bristol is almost £10 cheaper than the Victoria to brighton train. I'm only saying this from personal experience.

Do you suggest that Brighton should have fewer Thameslink services?

I'm mainly saying we shouldn't have to rely on thameslink as the main form of transport to London and cities beyond and pay the extra premium just to have tables on the GEX. class 700s simply do not have the comfort levels for anything other than commuting/short distance travel. they are metro trains.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

I'm not sure I'd agree with this. There are currently 6tph from London to Brighton which is a good amount. You can get 2tph more in, but that would mean the littlehampton and eastbourne would have to start splitting and joining at Haywards heath again, so I think the current timetable for long distance services is very good.

I do agree there is an element of managed decline on metro and coast way services.

 

[AzureOtsu]

I'm not sure I'd agree with this. There are currently 6tph from London to Brighton which is a good amount. You can get 2tph more in, but that would mean the littlehampton and eastbourne would have to start splitting and joining at Haywards heath again, so I think the current timetable for long distance services is very good.

I do agree there is an element of managed decline on metro and coast way services.

My point is not the frequency of service, but the quality. The Brighton-London Victoria was arguably southern's flagship service. GEX doesn't count in this regard because its a seperate entity.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

My point is not the frequency of service, but the quality. The Brighton-London Victoria was arguably southern's flagship service. GEX doesn't count in this regard because its a seperate entity.

It seems your main complaint is the class 700s then.

Personally I really like the class 700s, and I actually get the impression the travelling public do as well.

 

[JonathanH]

The Brighton-London Victoria was arguably southern's flagship service.

That hasn't been true since the old Victoria - Clapham Junction - East Croydon - Brighton service was consolidated with Gatwick Express over ten years ago.

 

[AzureOtsu]

It seems your main complaint is the class 700s then.

Personally I really like the class 700s, and I actually get the impression the travelling public do as well.

they lack basic features that are expected on trains for 50+ mile distance travel, tables & plug sockets especially since they are new build. right now from brighton to get a train with these you have to pay extra for the GEX. my complaint isn't about the class in general, they are perfectly suited to the metro style routes they are on, but to flat out replace the southern service to Brighton is harmful to the comfort of distance travellers. Imagine a 707 taking you all the way to Portsmouth Harbour and it being the only train to serve that station from the PDL. (besides the fact the class has no toilets) I suspect once southern takes on more rolling stock they will reinstate the brighton-victoria route but my point is recognising the decline and that is one example of trimming. I believe this is fully the impact of southern losing the 455s without an immediate replacement. the big stock shuffle that people are anticipating just seems to get more and more complicated with every day especially with the GWR tender. As time goes on as well the 313s will be in a state where they cannot run in public service and at the current rate of things there will have to be even more cuts if these units cannot run/are not replaced.

 

[JonathanH]

I suspect once southern takes on more rolling stock they will reinstate the brighton-victoria route but my point is recognising the decline and that is one example of trimming. I believe this is fully the impact of southern losing the 455s without an immediate replacement

That Southern don't offer a Brighton to Victoria service is not down to stock shortages. It is because the demand from the Eastbourne and Littlehampton routes (for both capacity and journey times) can't properly be catered for by trains that split at Haywards Heath and a decision has been made to run Gatwick Express as the Brighton to Victoria service.

they lack basic features that are expected on trains for 50+ mile distance travel, tables & plug sockets especially since they are new build. right now from brighton to get a train with these you have to pay extra for the GEX. my complaint isn't about the class in general, they are perfectly suited to the metro style routes they are on, but to flat out replace the southern service to Brighton is harmful to the comfort of distance travellers

...or you could see it as a discount to get 700s, which don't have the features you refer to. If any tickets are going to be withdrawn, you might well expect it to be the remaining "Thameslink only" tickets, which would have been abolished in 2015 had things played out differently.

 

[gabrielhj07]

Is Gatwick Express not the same entity as Southern (GTR), but with a different brand name? I seem to remember reading somewhere that because of this, tickets marked ‘Not valid GX’ could in fact be used.

 

[JonathanH]

Is Gatwick Express not the same entity as Southern (GTR), but with a different brand name? I seem to remember reading somewhere that because of this, tickets marked ‘Not valid GX’ could in fact be used.

Yes, but in this case the issues being cited are a) advance fares not being sold on GX trains whereas the Southern trains were reservable and b) the fares into Victoria being more expensive than those into the Thameslink side. There aren't any 'Not Gatwick Express' fares involved.

 

[Minstral25]

Surely excluding whether we like 700s ot not (I don’t) the key error of the OP is to state paying a premium to use GatEx trains. There is no premium from Brighton on GatEx to either Gatwick or Victoria, only from Gatwick to London has a premium to use their services

 

[Watershed]

Surely excluding whether we like 700s ot not (I don’t) the key error of the OP is to state paying a premium to use GatEx trains. There is no premium from Brighton on GatEx to either Gatwick or Victoria, only from Gatwick to London has a premium to use their services

Yes there is - the "Any Permitted" fares are quite a bit more expensive than the "Thameslink only" fares.

There are no longer any "Not Gatwick Express" fares for this flow, but I agree with the OP that this doesn't excuse charging a premium (to the wider public who are unaware of the true validity of the fares) for the only comfortable trains.

 

[BayPaul]

Yes there is - the "Any Permitted" fares are quite a bit more expensive than the "Thameslink only" fares.

There are no longer any "Not Gatwick Express" fares for this flow, but I agree with the OP that this doesn't excuse charging a premium (to the wider public who are unaware of the true validity of the fares) for the only comfortable trains.

As others have said, surely it's a discount for the less comfortable trains, which feels quite sensible really.

 

[Javelin_55]

As time goes on as well the 313s will be in a state where they cannot run in public service and at the current rate of things there will have to be even more cuts if these units cannot run/are not replaced.

I'm hearing that the 313s will be gone before the end of the year, presumably replaced with 377s.

 

[ar10642]

The current arrangement of separate services running to the West and East Coast sides of Brighton instead of splitting at Haywards Heath is much more sensible in terms of overall passenger loadings than before with 6tph still running to Brighton. There are only so many paths on the Brighton Main Line and 8tph for Brighton with the splitting services for Eastbourne / Hastings & Littlehampton led to overcrowding issues on the latter since one side had to have a 4-car portion.


Do you suggest that Brighton should have fewer Thameslink services?


It really isn't - it is broadly in the pack against other places 50 miles from London - some more expensive, some cheaper. What are you basing your comparison against?

The Hastings line is far worse for that. Mad prices.

 

[swt_passenger]

As others have said, surely it's a discount for the less comfortable trains, which feels quite sensible really.

As you say, and it’s a discount that DfT clearly wanted the combined TSGN franchise to remove.

I bet they didn’t expect the fares to be averaged out, or the ‘any permitted’ to be reduced…

 

[dastocks]

You can get 2tph more in, but that would mean the littlehampton and eastbourne would have to start splitting and joining at Haywards heath again, so I think the current timetable for long distance services is very good.

The issue is actually that two platforms are out of action at Gatwick Airport while the station is being redeveloped.

Yes there is - the "Any Permitted" fares are quite a bit more expensive than the "Thameslink only" fares.

There are no longer any "Not Gatwick Express" fares for this flow, but I agree with the OP that this doesn't excuse charging a premium (to the wider public who are unaware of the true validity of the fares) for the only comfortable trains.

Until the direct "Southern" service to Victoria was removed there were three basic fares sold for Brighton to London - price order cheapest first:
Thameslink Only
Not Gatwick Express
Any Permitted

When the direct Southern service was removed to accommodate the construction work at Gatwick the Any Permitted fare was reduced to be the same as the former Not Gatwick Express fare, which is no longer sold. The pre-pandemic plan was that when all platforms are available at Gatwick the pre-pandemic/Gatwick development timetable and fares would also be restored.

As a user the major irritation is that from Brighton you are always sold a ticket to either Victoria or the London Thameslink destinations. If you want a ticket valid to any of the London Terminals on any train - e.g. to get to Waterloo or Charing X - you're sold a Travelcard regardless of whether you need to use TfL underground or buses. There are ways around this...

 

[Peregrine 4903]

The issue is actually that two platforms are out of action at Gatwick Airport while the station is being redeveloped.

Erm, no it isn't. The 2 platforms being out at Gatwick affects the other 2tph from Victoria - Gatwick being able to run.

You could run another 2tph into Brighton, but you would then have to go back to having the Littlehampton/Eastbourne's split/join at Haywards Heath again.

 

[Bayum]

Do Southern not run Victoria to Brighton services anymore then? RTT suggests they do?

 

[Peregrine 4903]

Do Southern not run Victoria to Brighton services anymore then? RTT suggests they do?

They do all day on Sunday and on Monday - Saturday but branded as Gatwick Express, so would need to pay a higher fare.

There are also some late evening and early morning services on Monday - Saturday that run from Victoria - Brighton branded as Southern.

 

[Minstral25]

Yes there is - the "Any Permitted" fares are quite a bit more expensive than the "Thameslink only" fares.

There are no longer any "Not Gatwick Express" fares for this flow, but I agree with the OP that this doesn't excuse charging a premium (to the wider public who are unaware of the true validity of the fares) for the only comfortable trains.

But that’s not new, Thameslink fares are a leftover from competition before it was all swallowed by GTR

Do Southern not run Victoria to Brighton services anymore then? RTT suggests they do?

On Sundays only - weekdays it is only a few special services late night

 

[thedbdiboy]

Yes there is - the "Any Permitted" fares are quite a bit more expensive than the "Thameslink only" fares.

There are no longer any "Not Gatwick Express" fares for this flow, but I agree with the OP that this doesn't excuse charging a premium (to the wider public who are unaware of the true validity of the fares) for the only comfortable trains.

As others have said, surely it's a discount for the less comfortable trains, which feels quite sensible really.

The 'Thameslink only' fares are a legacy of Thameslink and Connex/SouthCentral/Southern having been separate TOCs pre 2007. They were an 'ORCATS' raid by Thameslink that meant that they could charge a lower fare but not lose income because they kept all the money. Southern, as 'Lead Operator', had to set 'walk-up' fares that were valid on all operators on the Brighton main line, and had to share the money with other operators. When the franchises were combined, if the rules in the TSA had been followed the Thameslink fares would have disappeared, but the DfT wanted to avoid making an unintended fares increase so they were left in place.
Brighton line fares are a real mess and there is an excellent opportunity to simplify them but the need to agree what level the 'combined' fares should be means that there is complete decisional paralysis at the DfT (and with Treasury). Meanwhile, it still says in the Williams-Shapps review that 'fares will be simplified'...

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Since the latest cutbacks/withdrawal of the 455s it appears southern (and much else of the railway network) is currently experiencing a managed decline when passenger numbers are slowly creeping back. I grew up in brighton and familiarised myself with the idea of a direct london victoria to brighton southern service but the fact they don't even have that now is really difficult to wrap my head around, despite the route still being advertised through promotional material on their website. the platforms of brighton Station seem desolate with only about 2 or 3 trains in. the crowds however have remained the same, expecially on the west coastway in the mornings, and even more so with the withdrawal of the west worthing service. it feels like we've gotten to a point where its a luxury to ride on a 377 on the BML even if its to Preston Park to change for a thameslink. Class 700s are not designed for intercity travel yet they are currently used as the backbone of the BML for connections to destinations such as peterborough and cambridge.
Having to pay extra for the GEX just to get tables must be a massive put off for anyone travelling to Victoria from brighton. The brighton-London corridor is already quite expensive in comparison to other cities from London. The recent withdrawl of the 455s really didnt help as well, demanding trimmings on the network to the point of absurdity. it feels like the railway is currently in a limbo state with things constantly getting more difficult for the average passenger. a pessimistic view I know, but with the class 701 & 777 situation, the 379s going into storage, scrappage of the 365s it feels like the railway as a whole is in a managed decline, things keep piling onto of each other and at this rate GBR is going to have quite the dilemma once they supposedly take over.

Brighton used to have a fast and a semi fast via Redhill 35 years ago now it has three times as many trains with far better journey opportunities.

I regularly swap at GTW into the fast Gatex to Brighton which outside of the summer season doesn't load that well during the day although it is 12 cars. Yet the slower Thameslink services load pretty well through the day. The fact that the Gatex doesn't call at C.Jcn is missing journey opportunities.

 

[Surreytraveller]

The reason for the lack of direct Southern trains from Victoria to Brighton is due to the rebuilding of Gatwick station, which began before covid.
The old Brighton pathways are now used by the Eastbourne trains, which is why the splitting and attaching at Haywards Heath has now ceased

They do all day on Sunday and on Monday - Saturday but branded as Gatwick Express, so would need to pay a higher fare.

There are also some late evening and early morning services on Monday - Saturday that run from Victoria - Brighton branded as Southern.

Don't 'need' to pay a higher fare. GTR/DfT want people to pay a higher fare. There is currently a case going through the courts to decide whether this practice is lawful or not

 

[bicbasher]

We're stuck with the Thameslink 700 ironing boards at East Croydon, but at least we get cheaper tickets and even with the stopper services, they still get into Brighton in less than an hour.

 

[Minstral25]

Brighton used to have a fast and a semi fast via Redhill 35 years ago now it has three times as many trains with far better journey opportunities.

I regularly swap at GTW into the fast Gatex to Brighton which outside of the summer season doesn't load that well during the day although it is 12 cars. Yet the slower Thameslink services load pretty well through the day. The fact that the Gatex doesn't call at C.Jcn is missing journey opportunities.

As a fellow regular from Redhill I'd agree with that - South of Gatwick Thameslink trains do seem much busier than GatEx services.

Big fail in 2018 timetable was loss of through services from Redhill.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The reason for the lack of direct Southern trains from Victoria to Brighton is due to the rebuilding of Gatwick station, which began before covid.
The old Brighton pathways are now used by the Eastbourne trains, which is why the splitting and attaching at Haywards Heath has now ceased

Makes sense but does it need more stock than previously as i guess they are running as cars all day?

 

[Surreytraveller]

Makes sense but does it need more stock than previously as i guess they are running as cars all day?

Yes, and some of the 387s ended up on the East Coastway, as they obviously weren't required for the Gatwick Expresses