Southern do not have a stock shortage. They have reduced their timetable which matches the stock available. Where is the evidence that they can't deliver that timetable?
The reduction of the Southern fleet size has drawn in part on the capacity still offered by the fixed formation Thameslink units. It has eliminated old units from the network and settled on a consistent fleet of trains. To do that without bringing in more trains and still offering broadly the same timetable is a masterstroke.
What is sad about it, if that broadly matches the demand? It is nothing different from what happened elsewhere - eg 8-car trains on SWR with the removal of the 456s.
I imagine it will be redistribution of the fleet, with information about passenger loadings used to balance supply with demand.
I would have to agree with the above 100%.
It probably won’t look that interesting. Southern keep their electrostars for the next couple of decades when their time is up.
Could more services and units be justified? Absolutely.
Is anything going to be done? No.
PS: it’s leaning closer towards a 5 car railway rather than an 8 on the metro routes
I think some bi modes might be ordered to see off the diesels, as London pushes more and more towards removing pollution from the city.
If you are referring to the class 171 units, then as these are only 20 years old then the current fleet will be either kept for another twenty years with the possibility of them being powered by Hydrogen, as per the test class 168 with Chiltern or be replaced with bi - mode trains that are battery/3rd rail electric, but that probably will not happen until at least 2043. The same will be true of replacing the class 377 fleet as well, I doubt that it would be treplaced much before 2043.
A lot of TOCs have been suffering from stock shortages, but Southern in particular seem to be quite stuck on this issue. The SWR fleet, for example, is currently quite stretched, but they have new trains on the way (eventually)... meanwhile Southern have apparently declined taking back some of the 377/5s from SE, and are withdrawing the 313s without replacement. It is quite sad to see that they are essentially reverting back to an 8-car railway as a result, and some of the overcrowding on their services is not insignificant. In my eyes SOMETHING has to give eventually, be it a new order or some cascades, so what will that end up being do we think?
As the above posts show, when it comes to passengers numbers post covid, I don't believe there is the demand for 8 coach trains, so having 12 coach trains would not be cost effective.
Should the passenger numbers increase, as been been discussed on other threads if GTR could broker a deal with the ROSCO that owns the class 379 fleet, then these could replace the class 387's with Great Northern and the class 387 units could then move South to Southern. However, I do not see that happening.
You also have to remember certainly from Sussex, Southern have all pretty much given up running stopping services from Brighton to London Victoria. The only stopping services to London Victoria come from either Hastings, Eastbourne and Littlehampton. So if you are at Brighton Station and want to get to London Victoria, then you have to take the Thameslink service to Haywards Heath.
) but we are still in early days of the covid recovery, and whilst I cannot say that commuting is going to come back in the same form as it did pre-covid, I think it would be a healthy bet to say that there still is a lot of general recovery of passengers still to come. There's no room for any kind of service improvements in the current timetable, and whilst this is purely anecdotal, I have seen some horrendously overcrowded 8-car trains in the peaks.
