The December change appears to restore 6tph off peak to Kentish Town, and also delivers the promised 4tph all day to stations between Denmark Hill and Bickley.
However between 0800 and 0900, RTT currently shows you as only getting 4 trains, because the Kentish Town to Orpingtons are shown as extended to Luton during the peak as expected, but are currently listed as non-stopping KT, which seems a little odd, and possibly a mistake.
Thank you that’s good to know. I didn’t realise that this information would already be in RTT.
The bit about some trains missing out Kentish Town reminds me of a problem often to be found at West Hampstead Thameslink northbound.
Previously a train during the off peak was either fast to St Albans or called at all stations.
Usually the fasts all departed from a different platform anyway.
Now, most trains stopping trains call at Cricklewood and Hendon but 2 an hour (out of 6) miss only those stations out and go fast to Mill Hill then all stations.
Not sure why they do this. It causes more confusion as there is no easy way to immediately spot the difference in calling pattern from the main display board summary and if a train is in the platform the platform indicators can take too long to tell their story
Given than Mill Hill (zone 4) has a population size of 18261 and Hendon zone 3/4) has more at 18472 (2011 census) with cricklewood Zone 3) at 58035 (2001 census) it seems an odd decision to make the service so complex and to give areas of larger population closer to London less of a service.
I wonder if two very slightly faster trains from Mill Hill with a 3 mins shorter journey time to London St Pan really encourage much passenger growth from Mill Hill compared to the confusion and annoyance caused further down the line.