Southern Timetable Change September 2022

[Surreytraveller]

Just looking at services today on Southern's live departures it seems the Metro changes have removed 4 coaches from most routes.

London Bridge to East Croydon Via Tulse Hill and London Bridge to Beckenham Junction are all 5 coach trains - I guess as running to Tulse Hill is every 15 minutes now so that provides capacity on busiest part of route
London Bridge to Caterham is mostly 10 car trains with odd 8 car presumably to enable the split at Purley
London Bridge to Epsom is same as Caterham as trains seem to interlink
London Bridge to London Victoria via Sydenham/Balham is mixed 10 car and 8 car services
London Victoria to West Croydon is same as LBG to VIC services
London Victoria to Epsom Downs via Norbury is 8 car services
London Victoria to Dorking/Horsham via Epsom are 8/10 car but at least one diagram seems to be a single 5 car

The two 4 car routes left are Watford Junction to East Croydon and Victoria to Reigate

Tulse Hills have all been 5 cars since May when the 455s went

 

[anthony263]

I can't even get the timetables to download. Off to burns in bognor regis in 3 weeks was wonder what time trains were

 

[London Trains]

Once I was at Sutton station at some point in June or July (I forgot the exact date) where an early morning Horsham train was a 12 car GX 387.

Bit of a waste there - the last 2 coaches would be off the platform everywhere apart from Sutton and Horsham. Would be a much more peaceful journey though.

 

[Southern Dvr]

Bit of a waste there - the last 2 coaches would be off the platform everywhere apart from Sutton and Horsham. Would be a much more peaceful journey though.

Diverted GatEx I would expect.

 

[ctrh136]

It looks like the Oxted line had benefitted slightly with a few more 12 car trains, especially in the evening peak.

 

[Minstral25]

Or the sidings (at the London end).

Stewarts Lane, Streatham Hill & Selhurst - plenty of space albeit not directly at the terminals
It's Thameslinks that don't have turn round opportunities.

Also seems like extra Reigate services are being extended to 8/12 coaches and running to Gatwick Airport. The only one I know of is the 0708 from Victoria but there’s presumably more I don’t know about

Sorry, I should have mentioned in the peaks Reigate's are extended between Victoria and Redhill with extra coaches going to/from Gatwick/Three Bridges as they always have been

Tulse Hills have all been 5 cars since May when the 455s went

Correct - I was just commenting on what they currently are

 

[London Trains]

Looks like Southern have already had to alter their reduced timetable, adding an earlier train from Dorking at 5:37 to replace the 5:36 from the old timetable. Awful timetabling though, it sits at Epsom for 10 minutes presumably so it remains in its old path south of Epsom.

 

[PGAT]

I posted previously about the error of the overlapping service at London Bridge at 07:14. Still shows on journey planners and at stations, but gets cancelled soon before expected departure leaving everyone at the station confused and enraged.

 

[JonathanH]

There is some impossible timing at Redhill at 0822 with a train to Tonbridge from platform 1 and another to Reigate from platform 3 both scheduled to depart at that time.

The Reigate train arrives and splits at 0815 but can't get out for 0820 (its time in the December 2022 timetable). Therefore, it looks like it will go at 0824, as it did before.

 

[LLivery]

The 08:02 West Croydon - H&I Overground is now awfully overcrowded as a result of this change. Standing room only at Sydenham, and leaves people behind at Brockley and New Cross Gate. Before now, the London Bridge service would be 3 mins earlier, but now Penge W & Anerley have no other option, it's the most crowded I've seen a train since pre-pandemic (excluding events).

 

[30907]

The 08:02 West Croydon - H&I Overground is now awfully overcrowded as a result of this change. Standing room only at Sydenham, and leaves people behind at Brockley and New Cross Gate. Before now, the London Bridge service would be 3 mins earlier, but now Penge W & Anerley have no other option, it's the most crowded I've seen a train since pre-pandemic (excluding events).

According to you, they get seats.
What's it like on the Palace services around then?
Not challenging your report, but from experience timetable changes take a few days (at least) before passengers work out the best option.

 

[LLivery]

According to you, they get seats.
What's it like on the Palace services around then?
Not challenging your report, but from experience timetable changes take a few days (at least) before passengers work out the best option.

When it arrives at Sydenham, quite a lot are already standing. But it's a challenge for Forest Hill and Honor Oak Park pax, Brockley is a mare and NGX is impossible. The East Croydon - London Bridge service was perfect for people working in the city as it gave people around 30 mins to walk to the office. It's a shame one or two 'peak busters' couldn't be re-introduced. (Well, maybe they could?)

I haven't used the following LO service from Palace yet, but must be much better. It's unfortunate that it's after the West Croydon, rather than before. Despite the loss of the East Croydon service (which is missed), having the London Vic - London Bridge back is certainly welcome.

Hopefully, it improves over the next couple of weeks as people get used to the change, but it's clearly getting busier again, so I'm not that sure it will improve by much.

 

[JonathanH]

What should eventually solve any issues on the route via Forest Hill is the long planned extra allocation of 378s for Crystal Palace London Overground services released by 710s working on the North London Line, not really a Southern problem from here really.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

What should eventually solve any issues on the route via Forest Hill is the long planned extra allocation of 378s for Crystal Palace London Overground services released by 710s working on the North London Line, not really a Southern problem from here really.

What do you mean by that?

 

[JonathanH]

What do you mean by that?

The six 5-car 710s were, as I understand it, procured by London Overground to operate North London Line services which would release six 378s to bolster the London Overground service from Crystal Palace. The previous poster was talking about overcrowding on London Overground services. With the reduction in frequency of Southern services on the Forest Hill corridor, maybe there is now space for that London Overground plan to be enacted.

https://railforums.co.uk/threads/class-710-lo.145774/page-26#post-3713617
https://railforums.co.uk/threads/class-710-lo.145774/page-58#post-4160274

 

[Peregrine 4903]

The six 5-car 710s were, as I understand it, procured by London Overground to operate North London Line services which would release six 378s to bolster the London Overground service from Crystal Palace. The previous poster was talking about overcrowding on London Overground services. With the reduction in frequency of Southern services on the Forest Hill corridor, maybe there is now space for that London Overground plan to be enacted.

https://railforums.co.uk/threads/class-710-lo.145774/page-26#post-3713617
https://railforums.co.uk/threads/class-710-lo.145774/page-58#post-4160274

Not going to happen. The only potential future services on the ELL are an additional 2tph to Clapham Junction and those will not happen either.

 

[Capvermell]

The VIC-Dorking/Horshams from September are a mixture of 5/8/10 cars

Having suffered the very substantial disenhancements of this totally unconsulted (eg what has become of Meet The Manager as it has not been reintroduced by Southern/GTR post Covid having disappeared when Covid started and not been moved online then as it could have been) new service pattern from Ockley station since last Monday I can report that Southern has in fact also managed to start running 4 carriage Electrostar trains instead of the previous 5 carriages on the 2325 service from Victoria and this now goes from platform 13 (Gatwick Express platform) in front of some other out of service train instead of from platforms 9 or 10 as it always did before (improving your chances of not catching that last train if you are running slightly late). And these 4 carriage Electrostars also don't have any power sockets at passenger seats either when previously all services that ran to Horsham via Dorking and Epsom seemed to have power sockets at the seats. I think some other 5 carriage services from Victoria to Horsham via Dorking may also have been swapped out for 4 carriages only but I haven't caught enough of the services yet to be sure (unless there is a trains website that will give me that information as Southern certainly don't provide rolling stock information on their website). Longer trains are definitely still provided in the mornings southbound and I think those are still 10 carriages rather than 8 carriages but the last train on Friday night was quite full compared to normal, even though of course no one actually had to stand up.

The first question I immediately have is why is the slow service from Victoria to Epsom that has been extended to Horsham now calling at all stations and why not extend the other half hourly service down to Dorking that at least does not call at Ewell East or Boxhill & Westhumble and why not also look at not stopping that train at Balham (which enjoys five other direct services an hour from Victoria) to try and get services to Horsham via Epsom to Dorking at least within 60 minutes (although that is still much too slow given that semi fast trains used to manage Ockley to Victoria in 51 minutes back in 1992, so Dorking to Victoria in circa 40 minutes, when I first knew the line). Of course I don't actually want the last train of the night to Horsham via Epsom to be at 2300 (when the current last Dorking only train leaves) so basically why not swap round the faster and slower services to Dorking from Victoria so that the 41 minutes past the hours are the faster services missing out at least Ewell East and Boxhill and preferably also Balham (which I note already enjoys five other trains an hour in to Victoria as well as being on the Northern line too) and the 11 minutes past the hours to Dorking call at the couple of extra stations (this surely makes no difference to people living in Dorking or north of Dorking but makes a big difference to anyone travelling to stations south of Dorking on their only one train an hour).

Also during the rail strikes I have managed to persuade Southern via their Customer Liaison department that it was pretty unreasonable to run no trains at all from Dorking to Horsham for the whole of each day after a rail strike (where that day was not a Saturday or Sunday) so they are now putting on an hourly shuttle between Dorking and Horsham on those days starting from Dorking somewhere around 8am and finishing a little after 9pm coming back from Horsham. This shuttle service between Dorking and Horsham also ran under the main Covid lockdown timetable in 2020 Off Peak although finished later around 2300). So my question is if Southern and the DfT can suddenly make all these other wholesale drastic changes in services on the line to Mole Valley (the justification for which seems very poor indeed with South West trains having also just axed one of its two faster hourly services to Dorking from Waterloo) then why can they not also review weekend services from Victoria to Horsham via Epsom with a possible view to running trains once every 2 hours on both Saturday and Sunday (rather than only hourly on Saturday currently until a last train out of Victoria before 6pm) and also running them in to the evenings until just after 11pm on both days (although last return from Horsham somewhere after 9pm as currently on weekdays). This surely involves very little more cost (especially if they were also to change the relatively modestly used Dorking to Horsham via Epsom service to run once every two hours after the 1942 service on a Weekday - saving 10 trains a week that could be used on a Sunday at the weekend instead) but would double up on the weekend ticket revenue to be earned from passengers on the Dorking to Horsham route section.

Extending the slow service from Victoria to Epsom all the way to Horsham slow and stopping at all stations from Mitcham Eastfields rather than extending the slightly faster existing Dorking service from Victoria on the other half hour (missing out Ewell East plus Boxhill & Westhumble) also doesn't make sense and that slightly faster service could surely at least also omit Balham too.........

 

[Capvermell]

So Dorking gets nothing but (almost) all stations services to London, whichever terminal you're aiming at. Unusual for a commuter-belt town of that sort of size and distance from London to not have any semi-fast services to London at all.

The equivalent on other approaches to London with a similar kind of service, I guess, would be the Reading-Waterloo calling at St Margarets, North Sheen, Barnes, etc. Or the East Grinstead serving Streatham Common, Norbury, Thornton Heath etc.

The reason the other half hourly service to Waterloo from Dorking has been lost is because the car driving only local MP (Sir Paul Beresford) doesn't seem to see the point of trains and so has failed to properly contest the halving of the service with South West Trains. This is despite the fact that many local residents and commuters are up in arms about the matter.

Re Reading surely the point is that this is also served by the much faster services in to London Paddington as well as by slower Elizabeth Line services so services to London overall from Reading are pretty good and the connectivity in to the West End theoretically better due to the Elizabeth Line.

 

[London Trains]

Honestly I don't understand why Southern didn't just add stops on the fast Dorking/Horsham services (25 and 55 from Victoria) at Mitcham Eastfields, Mitcham Junction, Hackbridge and Ewell East instead of the current mess. This can be done without changing timings anywhere else (as shown at peak times) because of the ridiculous amount of pathing time these services have anyway.

This even has an additional benefit of giving Mitcham Eastfields, Mitcham Junction, Hackbridge and Carshalton decent intervals between services instead of the 4-26-4-26 intervals they currently have (and had before the timetable change) in both directions with the Thameslink service.

 

[387star]

Having suffered the very substantial disenhancements of this totally unconsulted (eg what has become of Meet The Manager as it has not been reintroduced by Southern/GTR post Covid having disappeared when Covid started and not been moved online then as it could have been) new service pattern from Ockley station since last Monday I can report that Southern has in fact also managed to start running 4 carriage Electrostar trains instead of the previous 5 carriages on the 2325 service from Victoria and this now goes from platform 13 (Gatwick Express platform) in front of some other out of service train instead of from platforms 9 or 10 as it always did before (improving your chances of not catching that last train if you are running slightly late). And these 4 carriage Electrostars also don't have any power sockets at passenger seats either when previously all services that ran to Horsham via Dorking and Epsom seemed to have power sockets at the seats. I think some other 5 carriage services from Victoria to Horsham via Dorking may also have been swapped out for 4 carriages only but I haven't caught enough of the services yet to be sure (unless there is a trains website that will give me that information as Southern certainly don't provide rolling stock information on their website). Longer trains are definitely still provided in the mornings southbound and I think those are still 10 carriages rather than 8 carriages but the last train on Friday night was quite full compared to normal, even though of course no one actually had to stand up.

The first question I immediately have is why is the slow service from Victoria to Epsom that has been extended to Horsham now calling at all stations and why not extend the other half hourly service down to Dorking that at least does not call at Ewell East or Boxhill & Westhumble and why not also look at not stopping that train at Balham (which enjoys five other direct services an hour from Victoria) to try and get services to Horsham via Epsom to Dorking at least within 60 minutes (although that is still much too slow given that semi fast trains used to manage Ockley to Victoria in 51 minutes back in 1992, so Dorking to Victoria in circa 40 minutes, when I first knew the line). Of course I don't actually want the last train of the night to Horsham via Epsom to be at 2300 (when the current last Dorking only train leaves) so basically why not swap round the faster and slower services to Dorking from Victoria so that the 41 minutes past the hours are the faster services missing out at least Ewell East and Boxhill and preferably also Balham (which I note already enjoys five other trains an hour in to Victoria as well as being on the Northern line too) and the 11 minutes past the hours to Dorking call at the couple of extra stations (this surely makes no difference to people living in Dorking or north of Dorking but makes a big difference to anyone travelling to stations south of Dorking on their only one train an hour).

Also during the rail strikes I have managed to persuade Southern via their Customer Liaison department that it was pretty unreasonable to run no trains at all from Dorking to Horsham for the whole of each day after a rail strike (where that day was not a Saturday or Sunday) so they are now putting on an hourly shuttle between Dorking and Horsham on those days starting from Dorking somewhere around 8am and finishing a little after 9pm coming back from Horsham. This shuttle service between Dorking and Horsham also ran under the main Covid lockdown timetable in 2020 Off Peak although finished later around 2300). So my question is if Southern and the DfT can suddenly make all these other wholesale drastic changes in services on the line to Mole Valley (the justification for which seems very poor indeed with South West trains having also just axed one of its two faster hourly services to Dorking from Waterloo) then why can they not also review weekend services from Victoria to Horsham via Epsom with a possible view to running trains once every 2 hours on both Saturday and Sunday (rather than only hourly on Saturday currently until a last train out of Victoria before 6pm) and also running them in to the evenings until just after 11pm on both days (although last return from Horsham somewhere after 9pm as currently on weekdays). This surely involves very little more cost (especially if they were also to change the relatively modestly used Dorking to Horsham via Epsom service to run once every two hours after the 1942 service on a Weekday - saving 10 trains a week that could be used on a Sunday at the weekend instead) but would double up on the weekend ticket revenue to be earned from passengers on the Dorking to Horsham route section.

Extending the slow service from Victoria to Epsom all the way to Horsham slow and stopping at all stations from Mitcham Eastfields rather than extending the slightly faster existing Dorking service from Victoria on the other half hour (missing out Ewell East plus Boxhill & Westhumble) also doesn't make sense and that slightly faster service could surely at least also omit Balham too.........

I tried this line twice to Victoria from Horsham recently after driving to Horsham from Chichester in order to see a late night concert (last Chichester train is a ridiculous 2235)

The scenery is spectacular as far as Leatherhead so I didn't mind the extra journey length. However the second time was after the change and stopping at Hackbridge the Mitchams and Balham was a little too arduous! Took around one hour 30 from Horsham the same time a fast takes from Chichester!

I note a recent Saturday saw coastal services diverted via Dorking and running fast from there to Horsham.

 

[Capvermell]

why can they not also review weekend services from Victoria to Horsham via Epsom with a possible view to running trains once every 2 hours on both Saturday and Sunday (rather than only hourly on Saturday currently until a last train out of Victoria before 6pm) and also running them in to the evenings until just after 11pm on both days (although last return from Horsham somewhere after 9pm as currently on weekdays).

Just to clarify what I meant was why can't services from Victoria to Horsham via Dorking only extend down to Horsham once every 2 hours on both a Saturday and Sunday instead of every hour on Saturday only up to just after 5pm out of Victoria as at present. As the current service pattern from Victoria to Horsham is complicated anyway and doesn't involve the same train just running up and down the route (instead different trains arriving at Victoria from other destinations become the next train to Horsham via Dorking every hour due to the fact the service is hourly but takes well over an hour to reach Horsham) this should in principle be possible.

On the other hand given Southern's proclivity for cancelling trains to Horsham via Dorking of late on the excuse of lack of route knowledge I may live to regret this if a once every 2 hours service on a Saturday becomes a once every 4 hour service due to a route knowledge or lack of train crew excused cancellation. On the other hand the just after 5pm cut off on the return from Victoria on Saturday means I either don't go to London on a Saturday anyway or have to pay for an Uber or Bolt home from Horley or Three Bridges so in reality I would be better off with aonce every 2 hour service on both days (Saturday and Sunday) than an hourly service on Saturday daytime only that doesn't run at all on Saturday evenings...........

 

[Capvermell]

Honestly I don't understand why Southern didn't just add stops on the fast Dorking/Horsham services (25 and 55 from Victoria) at Mitcham Eastfields, Mitcham Junction, Hackbridge and Ewell East instead of the current mess. This can be done without changing timings anywhere else (as shown at peak times) because of the ridiculous amount of pathing time these services have anyway.

This even has an additional benefit of giving Mitcham Eastfields, Mitcham Junction, Hackbridge and Carshalton decent intervals between services instead of the 4-26-4-26 intervals they currently have (and had before the timetable change) in both directions with the Thameslink service.

The slightly faster hourly service (56 minutes instead of 59 minutes) to Dorking from Victoria now seem to leave at 11 minutes past the hour and the Horsham service (taking 3 minutes longer to Dorking due to the extra stops at Balham and Ewell East) departs at 41 minutes past except for the last train, which is crazily still at the old 25 minutes past the hour at 2325 so that there is only a 44 minute gap between the 2241 service and the 2325. So we haven't even gained a later last train of the night south of Dorking out of all these other vast increases in journey time on an already outrageously slow journey time that has been getting slower and slower on Southern's watch year after year for the last 20 or so years.

Southern have got away with making trains on the Mole Valley line slower and slower and stopping at ever more stations for years with impunity and they seem to suffer no consequence whatsoever for doing so. From their behaviour one can only presume that they save more money on Delay Repay by providing ever more recovery time in the timetable than they lose by having to pay for more driver time to complete most train journeys on their network.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Having suffered the very substantial disenhancements of this totally unconsulted (eg what has become of Meet The Manager as it has not been reintroduced by Southern/GTR post Covid having disappeared when Covid started and not been moved online then as it could have been) new service pattern from Ockley station since last Monday I can report that Southern has in fact also managed to start running 4 carriage Electrostar trains instead of the previous 5 carriages on the 2325 service from Victoria and this now goes from platform 13 (Gatwick Express platform) in front of some other out of service train instead of from platforms 9 or 10 as it always did before (improving your chances of not catching that last train if you are running slightly late). And these 4 carriage Electrostars also don't have any power sockets at passenger seats either when previously all services that ran to Horsham via Dorking and Epsom seemed to have power sockets at the seats. I think some other 5 carriage services from Victoria to Horsham via Dorking may also have been swapped out for 4 carriages only but I haven't caught enough of the services yet to be sure (unless there is a trains website that will give me that information as Southern certainly don't provide rolling stock information on their website). Longer trains are definitely still provided in the mornings southbound and I think those are still 10 carriages rather than 8 carriages but the last train on Friday night was quite full compared to normal, even though of course no one actually had to stand up.

The first question I immediately have is why is the slow service from Victoria to Epsom that has been extended to Horsham now calling at all stations and why not extend the other half hourly service down to Dorking that at least does not call at Ewell East or Boxhill & Westhumble and why not also look at not stopping that train at Balham (which enjoys five other direct services an hour from Victoria) to try and get services to Horsham via Epsom to Dorking at least within 60 minutes (although that is still much too slow given that semi fast trains used to manage Ockley to Victoria in 51 minutes back in 1992, so Dorking to Victoria in circa 40 minutes, when I first knew the line). Of course I don't actually want the last train of the night to Horsham via Epsom to be at 2300 (when the current last Dorking only train leaves) so basically why not swap round the faster and slower services to Dorking from Victoria so that the 41 minutes past the hours are the faster services missing out at least Ewell East and Boxhill and preferably also Balham (which I note already enjoys five other trains an hour in to Victoria as well as being on the Northern line too) and the 11 minutes past the hours to Dorking call at the couple of extra stations (this surely makes no difference to people living in Dorking or north of Dorking but makes a big difference to anyone travelling to stations south of Dorking on their only one train an hour).

Also during the rail strikes I have managed to persuade Southern via their Customer Liaison department that it was pretty unreasonable to run no trains at all from Dorking to Horsham for the whole of each day after a rail strike (where that day was not a Saturday or Sunday) so they are now putting on an hourly shuttle between Dorking and Horsham on those days starting from Dorking somewhere around 8am and finishing a little after 9pm coming back from Horsham. This shuttle service between Dorking and Horsham also ran under the main Covid lockdown timetable in 2020 Off Peak although finished later around 2300). So my question is if Southern and the DfT can suddenly make all these other wholesale drastic changes in services on the line to Mole Valley (the justification for which seems very poor indeed with South West trains having also just axed one of its two faster hourly services to Dorking from Waterloo) then why can they not also review weekend services from Victoria to Horsham via Epsom with a possible view to running trains once every 2 hours on both Saturday and Sunday (rather than only hourly on Saturday currently until a last train out of Victoria before 6pm) and also running them in to the evenings until just after 11pm on both days (although last return from Horsham somewhere after 9pm as currently on weekdays). This surely involves very little more cost (especially if they were also to change the relatively modestly used Dorking to Horsham via Epsom service to run once every two hours after the 1942 service on a Weekday - saving 10 trains a week that could be used on a Sunday at the weekend instead) but would double up on the weekend ticket revenue to be earned from passengers on the Dorking to Horsham route section.

Extending the slow service from Victoria to Epsom all the way to Horsham slow and stopping at all stations from Mitcham Eastfields rather than extending the slightly faster existing Dorking service from Victoria on the other half hour (missing out Ewell East plus Boxhill & Westhumble) also doesn't make sense and that slightly faster service could surely at least also omit Balham too.........

The 377/6's were waisted on the Horsham/Dorking services and are better being redeployed elsewhere where capacity is more constrained. Once all the electrostars are refurbished you will get sockets.

Good work getting Southern to react and shows its not that difficult if there is will to make it happen.

 

[Capvermell]

The 377/6's were waisted on the Horsham/Dorking services and are better being redeployed elsewhere where capacity is more constrained. Once all the electrostars are refurbished you will get sockets.

Which Electrostars do we have now and do we have the same type for all the London to Horsham via Dorking stopper services that now run on the line as certainly train length still varies by individual service.

Of course I know can get the type of each individual train by looking at the front of the train but to a lay observer the main differences are whether they have power sockets or not and whether the overhead lighting consists of those unimpressive looking black fly grille covers or is the more expensive looking and more cosmetically pleasing hard metal cover type which also has extra lights in the middle of the ceiling. Of course there are other differences I have noticed like some Elecrostars have door operation buttons on either side of the door and others only have them on one side of he door. Also the trains with the power sockets have cctv cameras and those without power sockets at the seats don't. Also what date is the end of the Electrostar refurbishment program? Southern's deployment decisions on trains with power sockets always seemed very odd as none of the over 2 hour long Victoria to Portsmouth services ever seemed to be run by units with at seat power sockets. Can't find any website on Southern's Electrostar fleet that is that detailed.

Good work getting Southern to react and shows its not that difficult if there is will to make it happen.

I think the Sunday timetable thing all day after each strike day is pretty outrageous and so therefore quite hard to defend (a late start to the day can however be justified due to the hours of the strike), especially on the handful of routes where Sunday service all day after a rail strike day means another day with no rail service at all hence doubling up on the strike's paralysing effect.

But interesting to prove that Southern have no real issue running a Dorking to Horsham shuttle alongside a Sunday timetable on the rest of the route from Victoria to Dorking. And for Horsham to Dorking the Friday service after the strike day I travelled on at 2114 after connecting from Portsmouth at Horsham was comparatively well used.

I think the September timetable revisions on Victoria to Horsham have been snuck in completely by stealth with no posters at any of the stations to justify or explain the changes that have been made.

 

[Capvermell]

I tried this line twice to Victoria from Horsham recently after driving to Horsham from Chichester in order to see a late night concert (last Chichester train is a ridiculous 2235)

The scenery is spectacular as far as Leatherhead so I didn't mind the extra journey length. However the second time was after the change and stopping at Hackbridge the Mitchams and Balham was a little too arduous! Took around one hour 30 from Horsham the same time a fast takes from Chichester!

Yes the scenery is beautiful south of Dorking (I live halfway between Dorking and Horsham) but Southern have slowed the train times down horribly in their 20 or so years in charge of the route in their apparent attempt to avoid as many Delay/Repay claims as possible. They seem to have no ambition to provide anything more than an all stations stopping London Underground type service on the route except that even the Metropolitan Line has Fast and Semi Fast services running out to Amersham.

I note a recent Saturday saw coastal services diverted via Dorking and running fast from there to Horsham.

We also get fasts from Dorking to Horsham on Sundays a couple of times a year when services from Gatwick are diverted our way due to line closures up the Horley and Redhill route. But they only actually save 5 minutes by doing the journey in 15 minutes instead of 20 by not stopping due to the maximum line speed of 70mph.

 

[PGAT]

Why does every timetable make us SOMEHOW miss the last one? Last time they did a decent job was December 2020 where they nearly got back to pre-pandemic levels

 

[WizCastro197]

I suppose the last one did make more sense, from a London Bridge Perspective, the new LBG-VIC is a little useless as now it will not connect to East Croydon easily and those wanting to get from Bridge to Victoria would be more than happy to take the tube for a lot cheaper and quicker bear in mind…
Of course I would like to see some peoples opinions



It is only really Metro than has changed
Mainline frequencies have changed slightly but most are the same…

 

[PGAT]

I suppose the last one did make more sense, from a London Bridge Perspective, the new LBG-VIC is a little useless as now it will not connect to East Croydon easily and those wanting to get from Bridge to Victoria would be more than happy to take the tube for a lot cheaper and quicker bear in mind…
Of course I would like to see some peoples opinions



It is only really Metro than has changed
Mainline frequencies have changed slightly but most are the same…

From the perspective of Southern the LBG-VIC is far more profitable because during peak hours both directions are filled since they go to the termini. Why would they keep a service which is mostly served by the Overground and the 2 stations (Anerley-10/15 walk to Crystal Palace) (Penge West 5 min walk to Penge East) are easy distance to others?

 

[WizCastro197]

From the perspective of Southern the LBG-VIC is far more profitable because during peak hours both directions are filled since they go to the termini. Why would they keep a service which is mostly served by the Overground and the 2 stations (Anerley-10/15 walk to Crystal Palace) (Penge West 5 min walk to Penge East) are easy distance to others?

Alright. Taken aboard. But that is from a business perspective, the ECR stopper was very popular and now is is harder to reach intermediate stations from say LBG.
East Croydon as you are very aware is a large interchange so is handy for those living on the London Bridge to East Croydon via Forest Hill route

Sorry but no one is going to get off at Anerley and walk to Crystal Palace?

 

[nw1]

The reason the other half hourly service to Waterloo from Dorking has been lost is because the car driving only local MP (Sir Paul Beresford) doesn't seem to see the point of trains and so has failed to properly contest the halving of the service with South West Trains. This is despite the fact that many local residents and commuters are up in arms about the matter.

Re Reading surely the point is that this is also served by the much faster services in to London Paddington as well as by slower Elizabeth Line services so services to London overall from Reading are pretty good and the connectivity in to the West End theoretically better due to the Elizabeth Line.

My point was that the Waterloo-Reading (a similar type of service as the Dorking, arguably) does not stop at all shacks - it's fast Clapham to Richmond, for example - while the Dorking does. So was suggesting that Dorking "ought" to, perhaps, have a service with a similar number of stops as the Reading. Sorry if this was unclear.