There are still six trains an hour from Brighton to London.
That's only half the truth there, as four of these services are Thameslink trains going through the core. Regarding Gatwick Express, they're treated as a premium service, with certain fares restricting passengers to travel on one operator only. Furthermore, GX non-stops to Gatwick Airport after leaving Victoria, so if passengers change from SWR or LO trains at Clapham Junction, they are faced with indirect services in order to get to Brighton.
As always its a compromise. With the new service patterns there's a lot more badly needed off peak capacity from London to Brighton and both Coastway routes. The West Coastway gets direct off peak services to Preston Park, Hassocks and Burgess Hill. The whole timetable is more robust because splitting/ joining trains don't have to be overtaken by a fast service at Haywards heath to maintain line capacity. Clapham Junction passengers have a more frequent service to Haywards Heath where its a same/ cross platform interchange for a frequent service to Brighton.
No the Thameslink services still call at Redhill and East Croydon. It only affects Clapham Junction of the intermediate Stations previously served.
Still a major retrograde step for passengers who now have to put up with either a change of train, or a longer journey with reduced quality seating on a Class 700.
Well, you'd need to travel on the Littlehampton service to change at Hove. Travelling on the Eastbourne service you'd change at Lewes.
Personally Id say its a minor retrograde step for Clapham junction Passengers for the reasons Ive stated above but its a major Improvement for passengers to all the East and West Coastway stations, Brighton Main line intermediate stations and for reducing knock on effects of disruption as far away as Southampton, ECML & MML.
If you're stopping at Gatwick then there's a strong argument the East Croydon stop is superfluous as you can get a Fast Thameslink from Gatwick. However direct Brighton-Clapham Junction services should really be available, it's not like there's a lack of demand for travel between the South Coast and Surrey/Berks area.
It's also not like there isn't a perfectly reasonable way of passengers still being able to make those journeys.
Most of the Surrey Berks areas have a better access via the North Downs Line and Gatwick tbh.
There are two fast trains per hour direct from Clapham Junction to Basingstoke, and one to Winchester, Southampton Central, Bournemouth and so on. There always have been, with only minor exceptions related to the PM peak or engineering works. So I don't see how it's comparable really.
Those didn't traditionally stop at Clapham Junction. The stops were only introduced in 2005 once the services were run by 377s. Throughout NSE days they stopped only at East Croydon.
Indeed. Sounds fairly straightforward. Obviously not as straightforward as a direct train, but as people have pointed out, there is some degree of compromise required.
And this is the key - there's simply not enough capacity to serve every route and so some compromise must be made.
It's usually a same-platform change at East Croydon.
To be fair it would be an appropriate compromise for one of the Brighton Express services to pick up and set down at Clapham Junction rather than passing through. This wouldn't be difficult to time.
Doesn't changing at Haywards Heath (usually) result in an easier cross platform connection?
I always tried to change at Haywards Heath where I could, although there are some Brighton trains that don't stop there.
