Southern Timetable Change September 2022

[Bikeman78]

Yes, that's what one might think, modern stock ought to be able to do the journey quite snappily due to faster acceleration, even if they wait a little longer at stations. Yet EPBs, already 30 years old, were pretty snappy back in the early 80s.

I don't have a timetable to hand for the early years of 455s on the Central (1985, 1986 or so) - would be interesting to see how they performed and whether they were even quicker than the EPBs. That said, I don't think they were timed any differently as in this era many routes had a mix of the two and there seemed to be no difference in the timings.

I doubt the 455s were any faster than EPBs because they had the same motors and similar power to weight ratio. The EPBs probably had shorter dwell times although the 455s had no hustle alarms in the early years. I'm gobsmacked at how slack the schedules are now. In the example I gave a few posts above, the 455 would have been hanging about at every station waiting time if it had not been delayed at the start of the journey. There is no need for this. There is very little slack on the Liverpool Street to Cambridge route but they still almost always run bang on time.

 

[Minstral25]

Seeing elsewhere that 171/4 and 171/2's are all off to EMR in September, that will leave Southern with 10x 2 Car 171/7 and 6 x 4car 171/8. Assuming 3 will be allocated to Marshlink normally 4 car sets. That leaves 3x 4car and 10x 2 car to run the 4 diagrams to Uckfield less maintenance spares. Guess that will mean some mostly 4 or 6 car formations to Uckfield then!

 

[LA50041]

Seeing elsewhere that 171/4 and 171/2's are all off to EMR in September, that will leave Southern with 10x 2 Car 171/7 and 6 x 4car 171/8. Assuming 3 will be allocated to Marshlink normally 4 car sets. That leaves 3x 4car and 10x 2 car to run the 4 diagrams to Uckfield less maintenance spares. Guess that will mean some mostly 4 or 6 car formations to Uckfield then!

The southern 171’s are being prepared to be reformed into 10 3 car and and 6 2 car units from the September timetable, so as you say there will be 3 allocated and 1 spare at st Leonard’s leaving 6 3 car and 6 2 cars in the London area. Can’t remember what the Uckfields are lengthwise, I’ll try and remember to look tomorrow

 

[Minstral25]

The southern 171’s are being prepared to be reformed into 10 3 car and and 6 2 car units from the September timetable, so as you say there will be 3 allocated and 1 spare at st Leonard’s leaving 6 3 car and 6 2 cars in the London area. Can’t remember what the Uckfields are lengthwise, I’ll try and remember to look tomorrow

Thanks that is interesting - didn't realise a reform was happening. Must have missed that elsewhere.

The Marshlink units seem to be a on a three day round trip from Selhurst. Day one they go down very early morning, then work back and forth for three days returning back to Selhurst late at night. Stabling overnight in Eastbourne Carriage Sidings. Although one unit seems to visit St Leonard's Works for a couple of hours in the evenings or is that to swap the spare and make it a four day round trip?

 

[Chrisgr31]

The southern 171’s are being prepared to be reformed into 10 3 car and and 6 2 car units from the September timetable, so as you say there will be 3 allocated and 1 spare at st Leonard’s leaving 6 3 car and 6 2 cars in the London area. Can’t remember what the Uckfields are lengthwise, I’ll try and remember to look tomorrow

Can they be reformed in to 3 car units? Someone somewhere suggested that it wasn’t technically possible, possibly due to the power cross fed between the units.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Aug 2022 ==

Why couldn't they have had the increased Norwood services stop at New Cross Gate instead.

A cynic would suggest that if more trains stopped at New Cross Gate that would enable passengers whose ultimate destination was Canary Wharf, or other docklands areas, to change at New Cross Gate and use London Overground instead of going in to London Bridge and using the Jubilee or South Eastern services to come back. That would mean they no longer needed a Zone 1 ticket and therefore result in a loss of revenue!

 

[Peregrine 4903]

Can they be reformed in to 3 car units? Someone somewhere suggested that it wasn’t technically possible, possibly due to the power cross fed between the units.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Aug 2022 ==


A cynic would suggest that if more trains stopped at New Cross Gate that would enable passengers whose ultimate destination was Canary Wharf, or other docklands areas, to change at New Cross Gate and use London Overground instead of going in to London Bridge and using the Jubilee or South Eastern services to come back. That would mean they no longer needed a Zone 1 ticket and therefore result in a loss of revenue!

Its because there is no capacity for the trains to stop at new Cross gate

 

[Minstral25]

Its because there is no capacity for the trains to stop at new Cross gate

It is often said but I have never fully understood why. Whilst I understand that Thameslink trains are putting on a fair old lick and stopping them would not be good, trains exiting London Bridge to leave/join the fast lines at New Cross Gate anyway I am sure there must be some capacity to stop them at New Cross Gate. Firstly as the trains coming from London Bridge can use Platform 2 (not Platform 3 on the main) then cross onto the mains just after New Cross. Then, is there really not enough time for a train heading to London Bridge to stop in platform 4 and then cross over almost immediately after leaving New Cross, particularly if they don't call at Norwood there should be a reasonable gap to avoid delay train behind.

 

[louis97]

Thanks that is interesting - didn't realise a reform was happening. Must have missed that elsewhere.

The Marshlink units seem to be a on a three day round trip from Selhurst. Day one they go down very early morning, then work back and forth for three days returning back to Selhurst late at night. Stabling overnight in Eastbourne Carriage Sidings. Although one unit seems to visit St Leonard's Works for a couple of hours in the evenings or is that to swap the spare and make it a four day round trip?

It's a 4 day cycle. The unit onto the depot at 2309 remains and then forms the 2357 departure to Eastbourne the following day. The unit on depot all day gets fuelled and its CET tanks emptied.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

It is often said but I have never fully understood why. Whilst I understand that Thameslink trains are putting on a fair old lick and stopping them would not be good, trains exiting London Bridge to leave/join the fast lines at New Cross Gate anyway I am sure there must be some capacity to stop them at New Cross Gate. Firstly as the trains coming from London Bridge can use Platform 2 (not Platform 3 on the main) then cross onto the mains just after New Cross. Then, is there really not enough time for a train heading to London Bridge to stop in platform 4 and then cross over almost immediately after leaving New Cross, particularly if they don't call at Norwood there should be a reasonable gap to avoid delay train behind.

Its no just capacity, stops at New Cross Gate will have a negative impact on the performance of Thameslink trains, and the big issue with your example is it doesn't work in the up direction.

I reckon its possible to timetable at least in the down direction but may be impossible in the up direction and the implications on performance will be to great.

 

[Mattyblob]

Like on a 455 with a good driver the doors close then a second later the trains pulls off, is there a technical reason why this is?

377 brakes go to emergency (4 bar) without interlock so you've got to wait for the pressure to release.

 

[Southern Dvr]

455, hold it in step 2 with doors released, close doors and drop to step 1. Wait for the interlock click and light, power 1 or 2 and release the brake. 455s would let you take power with the brake in step 1. Like a hill start.

 

[PGAT]

It is often said but I have never fully understood why. Whilst I understand that Thameslink trains are putting on a fair old lick and stopping them would not be good, trains exiting London Bridge to leave/join the fast lines at New Cross Gate anyway I am sure there must be some capacity to stop them at New Cross Gate. Firstly as the trains coming from London Bridge can use Platform 2 (not Platform 3 on the main) then cross onto the mains just after New Cross. Then, is there really not enough time for a train heading to London Bridge to stop in platform 4 and then cross over almost immediately after leaving New Cross, particularly if they don't call at Norwood there should be a reasonable gap to avoid delay train behind.

When the Horsham-Peterborough service was new it did stop at NXG, but I believe the May 2018 timetable made this nearly impossible, coupled with financial issues already mentioned on this thread.

It’s a shame because lots of money spent on newly installed lifts and the platforms themselves have gone down the drain.

 

[LA50041]

Thanks that is interesting - didn't realise a reform was happening. Must have missed that elsewhere.

The Marshlink units seem to be a on a three day round trip from Selhurst. Day one they go down very early morning, then work back and forth for three days returning back to Selhurst late at night. Stabling overnight in Eastbourne Carriage Sidings. Although one unit seems to visit St Leonard's Works for a couple of hours in the evenings or is that to swap the spare and make it a four day round trip?

Got the numbers slightly wrong yesterday but the right gist - the September permanent gives us 13 3 car and 3 2 car units.
4 are on the Marshlink, as Louis mentioned they are on a 4 day rotation with one unit spare on St Leonards all day with just a single ECS to Eastbourne.

on the Uckfield peaks to London
0531 8 car
0633 8 car
0703 9 car
0833 8 car
0933 8 car
From London Bridge PM peak
1607 8 car
1707 8 car
1807 8 car
1907 8 car

Off peak is an hourly 3 car.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Aug 2022 ==

Can they be reformed in to 3 car units? Someone somewhere suggested that it wasn’t technically possible, possibly due to the power cross fed between the units.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Aug 2022 ==

Well you'd like to think that the fleet specialists that maintain these day in day out know what they are talking about - it's definitely the plan (although there is still 3 weeks to change their minds )

 

[paul1609]

Considering that the Marshlink 4 cars units on summer Sat's mornings were having to have the doors closed 5 mins before departure because of dangerous overcrowding again this year at Ashford International it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Rye for Camber Sands has more entries and exits than Skegness in the Orr figures but doesn't receive any Seaside relief specials.

 

[Minstral25]

Got the numbers slightly wrong yesterday but the right gist - the September permanent gives us 13 3 car and 3 2 car units.
4 are on the Marshlink, as Louis mentioned they are on a 4 day rotation with one unit spare on St Leonards all day with just a single ECS to Eastbourne.

on the Uckfield peaks to London
0531 8 car
0633 8 car
0703 9 car
0833 8 car
0933 8 car
From London Bridge PM peak
1607 8 car
1707 8 car
1807 8 car
1907 8 car

Off peak is an hourly 3 car.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Aug 2022 ==


Well you'd like to think that the fleet specialists that maintain these day in day out know what they are talking about - it's definitely the plan (although there is still 3 weeks to change their minds )

Thank you that is informative

Are they taking one of the Scottish trailers or have Southern found another trailer laying around spare?

Doing the Maths, excluding Scottish units Southern currently they have 6 4-car sets (171/8's) and 10 2-car sets (!71/7s). The four cars have two identical centre cars so presumably taking out 6 from 4-car sets and inserting into 2-car sets gets 12 3-car units and 4 2-car units. So to get to 13 they must have another trailer to insert in a two car set or be taking one of the Scottish ones - meaning EMR get 3 x 3car and 1x 2car.

On the train service, the Uckfield peaks the 5:31 also forms the 8:33 so they will have three long sets out. Assuming all 4 sets on Marshlink are 3 car, assuming 13 3 car sets that leaves 9 3-car and 3 2-car for Uckfield. That service needs 7 3-car and 2 2-car to run meaning 1 of each length under maintenance daily.

 

[Southern Dvr]

You can’t use an ex Scotrail vehicle in an original southern unit. There’s also no trailers, all Turbostar vehicles are powered. If you put a Scotrail trailer into a Southern unit you’d lose the Cross Feed if one of the engines failed.

 

[LowLevel]

The ScotRail vehicles are all moving to EMR.

 

[PGAT]

How does this work? On the new timetable it shows 2 services both going via Peckham Rye leaving the exact same time from London Bridge.

Realtime Trains | Departures from London Bridge around 0714 on 05/09/2022

Train information at London Bridge around 0714 on 05/09/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Peregrine 4903]

How does this work? On the new timetable it shows 2 services both going via Peckham Rye leaving the exact same time from London Bridge.

Realtime Trains | Departures from London Bridge around 0714 on 05/09/2022

Train information at London Bridge around 0714 on 05/09/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Will be a publication failure, one of those trains is supposed to be cancelled for the remainder of the timetable.

 

[Minstral25]

You can’t use an ex Scotrail vehicle in an original southern unit. There’s also no trailers, all Turbostar vehicles are powered. If you put a Scotrail trailer into a Southern unit you’d lose the Cross Feed if one of the engines failed.

Of course they are Motor Open Seconds - my error calling them trailers

So where is extra MOS coming from assuming no Scotrail units can be used or will there be 12 3-car and 4 2-car

 

[BrianB]

Will be a publication failure, one of those trains is supposed to be cancelled for the remainder of the timetable.

Both the NRT table 163 and the Southern web table H show the correct movements, the 0714 to Beckenham Junction runs, the 0714 to Caterham does not. This was queried and confirmed with GTR before either publication was made public, the cancellation simply hasnt made it in to data systems yet

 

[Peregrine 4903]

Both the NRT table 163 and the Southern web table H show the correct movements, the 0714 to Beckenham Junction runs, the 0714 to Caterham does not. This was queried and confirmed with GTR before either publication was made public, the cancellation simply hasnt made it in to data systems yet

No, that's not quite the case, I can't say what's actually happened here but its much more complicated than the cancellation hasn't made it in to data systems yet.

 

[PGAT]

No, that's not quite the case, I can't say what's actually happened here but its much more complicated than the cancellation hasn't made it in to data systems yet.

It’s the only Caterham service of the day that’s shown there

 

[BrianB]

No, that's not quite the case, I can't say what's actually happened here but its much more complicated than the cancellation hasn't made it in to data systems yet.

sorry, bad phrasing on my part, should have said that 2J09 0714 SX London Bridge to Caterham has not had its dates of operation clipped to end in Sep like everything else has, still wrongly shown as running to Dec

 

[SE%Traveller]

How does this work? On the new timetable it shows 2 services both going via Peckham Rye leaving the exact same time from London Bridge.

Realtime Trains | Departures from London Bridge around 0714 on 05/09/2022

Train information at London Bridge around 0714 on 05/09/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

There appear to be some Ghost Caterham trains in there. I think all trains via Peckham Rye and Selhurst are supposed to terminate a East Croydon going forward

 

[Islineclear3_1]

A cynic would suggest that if more trains stopped at New Cross Gate that would enable passengers whose ultimate destination was Canary Wharf, or other docklands areas, to change at New Cross Gate and use London Overground instead of going in to London Bridge and using the Jubilee or South Eastern services to come back. That would mean they no longer needed a Zone 1 ticket and therefore result in a loss of revenue!

Wasn't Shoreditch High Street brought into Z1 a few years ago on LO?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Its no just capacity, stops at New Cross Gate will have a negative impact on the performance of Thameslink trains, and the big issue with your example is it doesn't work in the up direction.

I reckon its possible to timetable at least in the down direction but may be impossible in the up direction and the implications on performance will be to great.

Thats todays timetable but the industry bangs on about connectivity as being key to drive modal shift and thus revenue growth and that means interconnection nodes like NXG are key. Nothing much stopped on the mains at Stratford years ago but almost everything does now and that's why its now the busiest station on the network.

What we need is an overarching policy that connectivity and station connection times are key inputs into timetable design and even though it would take many years to realise in the long run we would have a more useful network to drive revenue growth.

 

[JonathanH]

Wasn't Shoreditch High Street brought into Z1 a few years ago on LO?

No need to go via Shoreditch High Street to get to Stratford or Canary Wharf from New Cross Gate though.

I guess if they were particularly worried about revenue Canada Water (and Bermondsey) could likewise be put in Zone 1.

New Cross Gate would still be a useful additional stop.

 

[ctrh136]

I've noticed that according to RTT the LBG-EPS services now share diagrams with the CAT/TAT services - will these all be 8 car now?

 

[louis97]

I've noticed that according to RTT the LBG-EPS services now share diagrams with the CAT/TAT services - will these all be 8 car now?

No, a mix of 8 and 10s.