Services that were withdrawn that should be reinstated

[swt_passenger]

But then you still run into the problems at Redhill (reversal, limited capacity) and of course there are still not enough paths south of Gatwick.

Beats me why so many people want to reinstate a service that was withdrawn for pretty sound reasons. It's symptomatic of the 'let's join the dots on a map' theory of service planning...

 

[yorksrob]

But then you still run into the problems at Redhill (reversal, limited capacity) and of course there are still not enough paths south of Gatwick.

In that case I'd go back to my original idea of diverting a service down the mid sussex.

 

[Eagle]

In that case I'd go back to my original idea of diverting a service down the mid sussex.

Which service? Still doesn't remove any trains from the Gatwick-Three Bridges doing that.

 

[yorksrob]

It's symptomatic of the 'let's join the dots on a map' theory of service planning...

Is that not the point of transport planning (provided the dots correspond with lots of people) !
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Which service?

Take your pick.

I go back to my points that:

• You only need a certain number of services between London and Brighton

• Not every service between London and the Sussex coast needs to go via Gatwick.

 

[Eagle]

Is that not the point of transport planning (provided the dots correspond with lots of people) !

Transport planning is more like "let's join the dots on the map, but only joining them with lines that cause the least conflicts between each other so that reliability is improved".

It's not just a case of "let's have a service between X and Y and Z", you have to consider the connections and conflicts and whether it's the best use of the capacity.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I go back to my points that:

• You only need a certain number of services between London and Brighton

• Not every service between London and the Sussex coast needs to go via Gatwick.

I assume you have at least basic understanding of passenger flows south of London to make those claims.

Gatwick is the main international airport for a large swathe of the population (being easier to access by public transport than Heathrow) and has huge numbers of passengers from Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey and Kent travelling to it. And passenger numbers between London and Brighton are increasing year on year.

 

[yorksrob]

Transport planning is more like "let's join the dots on the map, but only joining them with lines that cause the least conflicts between each other so that reliability is improved".

It's not just a case of "let's have a service between X and Y and Z", you have to consider the connections and conflicts and whether it's the best use of the capacity.

I agree entirely. I just don't think that it's necessarily the best use of the BML is to have seven trains in an hour from Brighton all going to London with none of them going anywhere else ! (Taken from NRE 10:00 next Thursday).

Perhaps one of the Gatwick Expresses could be cut back to Gatwick Airport again. I agree that in the rush hour, you'd need all paths going to London, but most XC passengers don't necessarily need to travel during the rush hour anyway, so just have them at other times instead.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I assume you have at least basic understanding of passenger flows south of London to make those claims.

Gatwick is the main international airport for a large swathe of the population (being easier to access by public transport than Heathrow) and has huge numbers of passengers from Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey and Kent travelling to it. And passenger numbers between London and Brighton are increasing year on year.

I do indeed. But the fact remains that there are already plenty of trains between the South Coast and Gatwick every hour. London is still the main generator of traffic, and Gatwick itself has been losing its prominence compared to other airports in the South East for years.

 

[Eagle]

I just don't think that it's necessarily the best use of the BML is to have seven trains in an hour from Brighton all going to London with none of them going anywhere else!

Personally, based on passenger numbers, I think that is the best use of capacity. Network Rail would seem to agree with me; in fact they think it should be upped to 8tph. (Of course there's also two trains an hour from London to Hove and beyond, and London to Lewes and beyond, using most of the BML.)

Then again, questions like this (is it worth removing service A to introduce service B?) are difficult without a full analysis, and we'll all have different solutions and answers.

 

[yorksrob]

Personally, based on passenger numbers, I think that is the best use of capacity. Network Rail would seem to agree with me; in fact they think it should be upped to 8tph. (Of course there's also two trains an hour from London to Hove and beyond, and London to Lewes and beyond, using most of the BML.)

Then again, questions like this (is it worth removing service A to introduce service B?) are difficult without a full analysis, and we'll all have different solutions and answers.

I suppose that is a point but it also depends on when those passengers appear. Are all these trains full between Gatwick and Brighton outside of the rush hour ?

(Genuine question as I don't tend to use the line so much these days).

My hunch would be that they probably are in the Peak, but not so much any other time.

Of course, we all know that having high frequency services is good for the passenger and will generate a certain amount of traffic - but should this be at the expense of serving a better range of destinations.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Which service? Still doesn't remove any trains from the Gatwick-Three Bridges doing that.

He won't run it that way; he intends to use the Streatham - Epsom - Dorking - Horsham route to access the mid Sussex at Horsham.

I think to counter that, I'd do something leftfield, like divert one of the Thameslink services down the mid Sussex line via Dorking..

 

[transmanche]

Gatwick itself has been losing its prominence compared to other airports in the South East for years.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'prominence'; but Gatwick handles 34.3 million passengers per year (up 2.3 million over the past three years) which is about 25% of the London & SE market and is the busiest single-runway airport in the world.

And since BAA was forced to sell the airport, it's competing directly with Heathrow and Stansted - rather than complementing them.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'prominence'; but Gatwick handles 34.3 million passengers per year (up 2.3 million over the past three years) which is about 25% of the London & SE market and is the busiest single-runway airport in the world.

And since BAA was forced to sell the airport, it's competing directly with Heathrow and Stansted - rather than complementing them.

Gatwick has been veering further towards the lower value package market for some time.

Either way, I still stand by my assertion that not every train between London and the West Sussex coast needs to call there.

 

[transmanche]

Gatwick has been veering further towards the lower value package market for some time.

That's as maybe. But if the passenger numbers are rising, then (whatever their 'value') demand for rail services will rise too.

 

[Voyager 2093]

I would just like my good old Southern Service back .

However this time maybe it should call at the following;

Rugby, Northampton, Milton Kenyes, Watford Junction, Harrow & Wealdstone, Wembley Central *Event days only*, Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Aiport, Hayward's Heath & Brighton. These can be every 45 mins in paths permit.

We could then have a stopper service starting from Milton Keynes, calling at the following;

Leighton Buzzard, Watford Junction, Harrow & Wealdstone, Wembley Central, Shepherd's Bush, Kensington Olympia, West Brompton, Imperial Wharf, Clapham Junction, East Croydon and Gatwick Airport.

These could be run hourly.

I've diagramed it as such so that passengers can garauntee a train going towards the West of London and beyond within 30 minutes of missing the previous one.

 

[Eagle]

Interesting; it was mentioned in the London and SE RUS that Southern's service on the WLL should go up to 2tph, although both would need to be all stops being as the purpose is to reduce crowding on existing WLL services, not to cater for long-distance passengers.

 

[yorksrob]

That's as maybe. But if the passenger numbers are rising, then (whatever their 'value') demand for rail services will rise too.

Be that as it may, I'm sure there is scope for additional services from the West Sussex Coast to go via Dorking. Divert one of the Brighton Thameslink services that way outside of the peak and use the path for a cross country (which btw would bring more of the country within a direct service to Gatwick).

 

[MCR247]

I would just like my good old Southern Service back .

However this time maybe it should call at the following;

Rugby, Northampton, Milton Kenyes, Watford Junction, Harrow & Wealdstone, Wembley Central *Event days only*, Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Aiport, Hayward's Heath & Brighton. These can be every 45 mins in paths permit.
.

Every 45 minutes

 

[Eagle]

Every 45 minutes

Hey, if it works for the Abbey line...

 

[SussexSpotter]

Those mentioning about a Brighton-Milton Keynes service making a comeback, if BML2 ever happens (which it probably won’t) it would be interesting to see if the service got extended from South Croydon to the coast. Although you’d have to electrify the line south of Hurst Green, can't see them running it with a 171 turbostar!

 

[ushawk]

Those mentioning about a Brighton-Milton Keynes service making a comeback, if BML2 ever happens (which it probably won’t) it would be interesting to see if the service got extended from South Croydon to the coast. Although you’d have to electrify the line south of Hurst Green, can't see them running it with a 171 turbostar!

Theres probably more chance in Network Rail saying "Right, were going to demolish Gatwick Airport Station and give the land over to a nature reserve" than BML2 happening !!

Best we can hope for with services from Birmingham/MKC to Brighton is an easier connection at East Croydon, possibly with the extra Southern slot on the WLL running fast from Balham to East Croydon. Theres also the option to have XC services running from Reading to Brighton via Eastleigh - or even better re-introducing a Brighton - Basingstoke - (Reading) service, this was probably more of a loss to Brighton than losing the XC services.

Doesnt also help that the FGW services to/from Brighton (which are always well-loaded) may also be withdrawn in the coming years.

 

[SussexSpotter]

Theres probably more chance in Network Rail saying "Right, were going to demolish Gatwick Airport Station and give the land over to a nature reserve" than BML2 happening !!

Yes I think you might be right.....Knocking down Sainsbury's?.....nil chance! Also isn't their suggestion for running more services into London by running it alongside the Croydon Tramway?....can't see that happening either.

Best we can hope for with services from Birmingham/MKC to Brighton is an easier connection at East Croydon, possibly with the extra Southern slot on the WLL running fast from Balham to East Croydon. Theres also the option to have XC services running from Reading to Brighton via Eastleigh - or even better re-introducing a Brighton - Basingstoke - (Reading) service, this was probably more of a loss to Brighton than losing the XC services

Yes, the withdrawal of the through service between Reading and Brighton was the biggest loss and nothing more than short-sightedness by the Dft.

Doesnt also help that the FGW services to/from Brighton (which are always well-loaded) may also be withdrawn in the coming years.

Funny you should mention this, I think their time is short lived even though I strongly believe a through link between Brighton and Bristol should be retained connecting 2 important cities and as you say the services are well loaded. It's just the service FGW now provide to Brighton has become pretty poor in all honesty, and I think ''why bother?''. It is almost as though they are winding it down to their withdrawal. The fact the afternoon service ever makes it to Brighton 'ON TIME'....or even at all is one thing but the other is how FGW seem persistent to stick a 150 on it every now and then instead of using a 158 Sprinter......a 150 suitable stock for a long distance service like this?.....I think not!

 

[CC 72100]

Funny you should mention this, I think their time is short lived even though I strongly believe a through link between Brighton and Bristol should be retained connecting 2 important cities and as you say the services are well loaded. It's just the service FGW now provide to Brighton has become pretty poor in all honesty, and I think ''why bother?''. It is almost as though they are winding it down to their withdrawal. The fact the afternoon service ever makes it to Brighton 'ON TIME'....or even at all is one thing but the other is how FGW seem persistent to stick a 150 on it every now and then instead of using a 158 Sprinter......a 150 suitable stock for a long distance service like this?.....I think not!

I don't think they stick a 150 on it out of choice or spite... they probably use 150s on it from time to time to cover non-availability of the 158s. Plus, it probably effects less people by using the 150 on this diagram as opposed to the busier Portsmouth - Cardiff route.

We know that 150s aren't suited to long distance runs, but the fact of the matter is that they're better than no train at all. In hindsight we'd have ordered a lot more class 158s, simple.

 

[yorksrob]

Knocking down Sainsbury's?.....nil chance! Also isn't their suggestion for running more services into London by running it alongside the Croydon Tramway?....can't see that happening either.

Quite why everyone's so attached to some tu'ppenny ha'penny supermarket I will never understand.

That said, I'm not convinced about the London end of the BML2 concept.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

or even better re-introducing a Brighton - Basingstoke - (Reading) service, this was probably more of a loss to Brighton than losing the XC services.

Did they have a lot of these ? I had the impression that this was a rather long winded, single train a day affair of little interest outside of short journeys and the enthusiast fraternity.

 

[northwichcat]

No paths for either and you cannot use the Wolves bay from the north end without a double shunt.

The next WCML recast could see a Manchester-Wolverhampton stopper but it would actually be a Manchester-Stoke-Stone-Birmingham stopper and the XC Bournemouth service would be diverted via Crewe to allow a path for it, with Crewe-Euston services diverted away from Stone.

 

[RochdalePioneers]

In the late 80s I regularly used to bash 304s which took me from Stockport to Bescot without a change! Man - Stoke stopper then formed Stoke - Brum stopper which went forward to Walsall.

I'd be up for reinstating that. But only if formed of a 304 with stops at Etruria, Wedgewood, Barlaston and Norton Bridge....

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[SussexSpotter]

Quite why everyone's so attached to some tu'ppenny ha'penny supermarket I will never understand.

That said, I'm not convinced about the London end of the BML2 concept.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Well, it is not just the supermarket what about the loss of the Spa Valley as well? I won't get started on the Lavender Line as they could probably reach some deal with the Bluebell Railway

Did they have a lot of these ? I had the impression that this was a rather long winded, single train a day affair of little interest outside of short journeys and the enthusiast fraternity.

One of the problems with the Reading extensions to the Brighton-Basingstoke pattern was that they were usually 170 turbostars as the section between Basingstoke and Reading isn't electrified (yet!)...so was a bit of a squeeze and the service ran every 3 hours...(I think???).....but the Basingstoke runs were normally a 450 Desiro. We all know how crowded the 171's get between Brighton and Ashford International on the East Coastway. Class 159's did also work the Reading services and 3 car's were fairly common if I recall. I even remember seeing a 170/159 hybrid at Brighton once but that was fairly rare.

One of the bonus services which SWT used to run at weekends was the Brighton-Paignton/Exeter Central services which went via Portsmouth & Southsea. Not sure how well loaded these were, but certainly a useful service for people making through journey's to the West of England. I'd imagine they would have been quite popular with the elderly.

 

[David Goddard]

Did they have a lot of these ? I had the impression that this was a rather long winded, single train a day affair of little interest outside of short journeys and the enthusiast fraternity.

From the 2007 timetable:

This ran broadly hourly Basingstoke - Brighton with five per day starting from Reading (0656, 1004, 1301, 1604, 1901) The through journey took a bit over two hours, and the 0957, 1257, 1557, 1857 ex Brighton continued to Reading.

It used two Cl170s for the Reading diagrams, those entirely on the juice being covered by Desiros.

The two 170s were stabled at Fratton, resulting in two early morning (0501 and 0805) Portsmouth Harbour to Reading workings, an evening return trip at 2155 and a 2308 Brighton – Southampton.

The 0827 from Basingstoke was an extension of the 0712 Waterloo-Basingstoke, meaning that a London-Brighton ticket was valid on this train via Basingstoke and Fareham.

 

[yorksrob]

Well, it is not just the supermarket what about the loss of the Spa Valley as well? I won't get started on the Lavender Line as they could probably reach some deal with the Bluebell Railway

Obviously I'd hope the Spa Valley could be given a little help with relocating !

One of the problems with the Reading extensions to the Brighton-Basingstoke pattern was that they were usually 170 turbostars as the section between Basingstoke and Reading isn't electrified (yet!)...so was a bit of a squeeze and the service ran every 3 hours...(I think???).....but the Basingstoke runs were normally a 450 Desiro. We all know how crowded the 171's get between Brighton and Ashford International on the East Coastway. Class 159's did also work the Reading services and 3 car's were fairly common if I recall. I even remember seeing a 170/159 hybrid at Brighton once but that was fairly rare.

One of the bonus services which SWT used to run at weekends was the Brighton-Paignton/Exeter Central services which went via Portsmouth & Southsea. Not sure how well loaded these were, but certainly a useful service for people making through journey's to the West of England. I'd imagine they would have been quite popular with the elderly.

Was the Basingstoke/Reading service popular with through passengers ? (I'd have though the WOE through services would have been more useful).

I can see how a 2 car 170 would get rather crowded on the West Coastway though !

 

[David Goddard]

One of the bonus services which SWT used to run at weekends was the Brighton-Paignton/Exeter Central services which went via Portsmouth & Southsea. Not sure how well loaded these were, but certainly a useful service for people making through journey's to the West of England. I'd imagine they would have been quite popular with the elderly.

0957 Brighton-Paignton arr 1514
1002 Paignton-Brighton arr 1512

Very useful for holidaymakers to either resort as leaving after breakfast and arriving in good time for tea.

 

[Eagle]

Obviously this was in the days when Southern services weren't as frequent on the West Coastway. Currently there are now 5tph between Havant and Barnham (mainly 377s, some 313s); I think back then it was only 3tph by Southern?

 

[dannypye9999]

XC should extend some of their Bournemouth services to Weymouth on Summer Saturdays just like old times. Weymouth is still very popular with holidaymakers at this time of year.