Southern Timetable Change September 2022

[JonathanH]

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.

Who was it popular with? From London, the stopper is basically empty by Sydenham which just happens to be the route over which the London Bridge to Victoria train leaves the main line. Meanwhile connections can be made at Norwood Junction for East Croydon.

 

[30907]

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.

because doing so would make the turnround at Dorking impossibly tight

and why not also look at not stopping that train at Balham

possibly because passengers from the Epsom direction might want to go there - from memory the Gateway to the South is quite busy?

a big difference to anyone travelling to stations south of Dorking on their only one train an hour.

...of 3-4 minutes

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... then why can they not also review weekend services from Victoria to Horsham via Epsom ....this surely involves very little more cost ...but would double up on the weekend ticket revenue to be earned from passengers on the Dorking to Horsham route.

The DfT are intent on saving money not increasing revenue, like it or not.

 

[JonathanH]

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

No, but people are going to go to Crystal Palace instead of Anerley if the train timetable is suits them better at Crystal Palace. Anyway, I'm not sure what the fuss is about. Anerley and Penge West still both have four trains an hour.

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.

If Dorking had a half-hourly service to Waterloo, Bookham wouldn't have any rail service, which wouldn't go down very well with its users.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

The DfT are intent on saving money not increasing revenue, like it or not.

Indeed, and it’s not necessarily about saving money either, just not spending more.

Don’t forget the railway is not immune to increasing energy costs so you have to spend more to deliver the same service, or to fit within the existing budget you have to run less as the same money gets you less electricity/diesel.

 

[London Trains]

If Dorking had a half-hourly service to Waterloo, Bookham wouldn't have any rail service, which wouldn't go down very well with its users.

Well Dorking had 2tph and Bookham had a service pre COVID, so not so sure about that! The real issue here is SWR only running 2tph via Epsom, which was an awful service reduction.

Ideally though I would extend the 2tph London Bridge to Epsom service through to Guildford, providing lots of new connections and not breaking many journeys (Effingham Jct to Guildford have the much faster services via Cobham and Bookham passengers have an easy cross platform change at Epsom) and then just have SWR run all their services to Dorking, whether they are running 2tph or 4tph.

 

[BJames]

Must say - I'm glad to see Uckfield has been reinstated to hourly throughout the day - as one of my most regular trips in Southern land it's great to have a little more flexibility again.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

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.

It was done this way in order to preserve the connections at Sutton with Thameslink; quite a few people get off teh services from Epsom at Sutton and change onto the Thameslink which is five minutes behind in the same platform - and in the other direction they change off the Thameslinks onto the services to Epsom.

There is also the small matter of the pathing between Streatham Junction and Victoria.

 

[London Trains]

It was done this way in order to preserve the connections at Sutton with Thameslink; quite a few people get off teh services from Epsom at Sutton and change onto the Thameslink which is five minutes behind in the same platform - and in the other direction they change off the Thameslinks onto the services to Epsom.

There is also the small matter of the pathing between Streatham Junction and Victoria.

That's not true, you can't connect southbound from Thameslink onto services towards Epsom since the Southern service runs 4 minutes ahead of the Thameslink, the connection from the TL used to be about 8-10 minutes onto the now removed fast services.

Not sure how the Streatham Junction to Victoria pathing is relevant - they can run in the same paths whether they have additional stops or not, as seen during the peaks. Additionally there are less services on the slow lines anyway with the 2tph Victoria to Sutton via Selhurst not running now either.

 

[shakermaker_86]

Well Dorking had 2tph and Bookham had a service pre COVID, so not so sure about that! The real issue here is SWR only running 2tph via Epsom, which was an awful service reduction.

Ideally though I would extend the 2tph London Bridge to Epsom service through to Guildford, providing lots of new connections and not breaking many journeys (Effingham Jct to Guildford have the much faster services via Cobham and Bookham passengers have an easy cross platform change at Epsom) and then just have SWR run all their services to Dorking, whether they are running 2tph or 4tph.

As a user of Bookham station, whilst I'd prefer the 2nd tph to Waterloo to be restored, I would, as I'm sure most users of Bookham, would happily swap these for trains to London Bridge if it meant we got our 2tph back (Along with Boxhill and Dorking also benefiting from more trains to Waterloo in the process)

 

[JonathanH]

As a user of Bookham station, whilst I'd prefer the 2nd tph to Waterloo to be restored, I would, as I'm sure most users of Bookham, would happily swap these for trains to London Bridge if it meant we got our 2tph back (Along with Boxhill and Dorking also benefiting from more trains to Waterloo in the process)

Very unlikely to happen though. It isn't obvious why it was even mooted.

Southern traincrew no longer go to Guildford and Guildford provides traincrew for the routes via Leatherhead run by SWR.

 

[Edsmith]

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…

The LBG-VIC service is very useful for local journeys like Forest Hill to Streatham that are difficult by bus, obviously it's not intended for end to end travel.

 

[Capvermell]

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

Presumably because in the case of the South London Metro routes (whatever that is as it only seems to be an operational internal timetable planning convenience of Southern/GTR but not anything that is marketed on the ground any longer to passengers these days and it also makes no sense that services to any stations beyond Epsom are being caught up in it not least because Dorking to Horsham is only hourly) almost every single timetable since Southern took over as the operator has made services take longer and longer and longer to reach their destination (as in a 51 minute journey from Ockley to London Victoria has gone up from 51 minutes to 76 minutes in 30 years with 11 minutes more added to the fastest possible Ockley to Victoria service at 1624 on weekdays just by these latest September 2022 revisions) and added in more and more stops along the route (with Mitcham Eastfields, Micham Junction and Hackbridge now all part of the route all the time).

This is a proper South London Metro proposal at https://districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/30169/tube-south-london-metro-proposals and on the line to Dorking and Horsham (I don't know if this would also have seen South London Metro as part of the Overground) and on my line it doesn't run further south than Cheam as well as not including services to Waterloo from Dorking or to Victoria from Dorking and Horsham in the scope of the South London Metro at all. Or this is a different theory of what the South London Metro might be at https://anonw.com/tag/south-london-metro/ And hard to read this Southern Elliptic map at https://londonist.com/2013/09/an-alternative-map-of-south-london-train-routes but it definitely doesn't seem to run as far south as Dorking.

Can't finding anything about South London Metro on Southern's own websites at all these days. South London Metro posters and branding used to be used everywhere 20 or so years ago although still Epsom to Horsham was definitely never part of the South London Metro concept except that the stations south of Epsom happened to be served by trains that also ran through the vague and amorphous South London Metro area.

Perhaps I need to discuss all this (by email given that there is no longer any monthly Southern/GTR Meet The Manager session) with the local Area Manager, who's name has just appeared on the latest station specific poster at Ockley Station.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

Who said it had anything to do with it? Throw away comment on Sutton, but re-read please.
Was a comment on the Rainham - and yes conflict minimization.

Presumably because in the case of the South London Metro routes (whatever that is as it only seems to be an operational internal timetable planning convenience of Southern/GTR but not anything that is marketed on the ground any longer to passengers these days and it also makes no sense that services to any stations beyond Epsom are being caught up in it not least because Dorking to Horsham is only hourly) almost every single timetable since Southern took over as the operator has made services take longer and longer and longer to reach their destination (as in a 51 minute journey from Ockley to London Victoria has gone up from 51 minutes to 76 minutes in 30 years with 11 minutes more added to the fastest possible Ockley to Victoria service at 1624 on weekdays just by these latest September 2022 revisions) and added in more and more stops along the route (with Mitcham Eastfields, Micham Junction and Hackbridge now all part of the route all the time).

This is a proper South London Metro proposal at https://districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/30169/tube-south-london-metro-proposals and on the line to Dorking and Horsham (I don't know if this would also have seen South London Metro as part of the Overground) and on my line it doesn't run further south than Cheam as well as not including services to Waterloo from Dorking or to Victoria from Dorking and Horsham in the scope of the South London Metro at all. Or this is a different theory of what the South London Metro might be at https://anonw.com/tag/south-london-metro/ And hard to read this Southern Elliptic map at https://londonist.com/2013/09/an-alternative-map-of-south-london-train-routes but it definitely doesn't seem to run as far south as Dorking.

Can't finding anything about South London Metro on Southern's own websites at all these days. South London Metro posters and branding used to be used everywhere 20 or so years ago although still Epsom to Horsham was definitely never part of the South London Metro concept except that the stations south of Epsom happened to be served by trains that also ran through the vague and amorphous South London Metro area.

Perhaps I need to discuss all this (by email given that there is no longer any monthly Southern/GTR Meet The Manager session) with the local Area Manager, who's name has just appeared on the latest station specific poster at Ockley Station.

It's to save money and the dft are driving these changes.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

That's not true, you can't connect southbound from Thameslink onto services towards Epsom since the Southern service runs 4 minutes ahead of the Thameslink, the connection from the TL used to be about 8-10 minutes onto the now removed fast services.

Not sure how the Streatham Junction to Victoria pathing is relevant - they can run in the same paths whether they have additional stops or not, as seen during the peaks. Additionally there are less services on the slow lines anyway with the 2tph Victoria to Sutton via Selhurst not running now either.

Thameslink at Sutton to Epsom is still a 9 minute connection; arrival at Sutton is at xx.19 and xx.49 on Thameslink; the Epsom service is at xx.28 and xx.58. I agree that's not much good if you want to go below Epsom, of course, but most passengers changing at Sutton for Epsom are only going as far as Epsom.

The Streatham Junction bit... if you ran the fasts in their original times below Epsom but with the four extra stops, they wouldn't be arriving at Streatham Junction in their original paths.

 

[Capvermell]

It's to save money and the dft are driving these changes

I think its obvious that due to Covid related permanent cultural changes in working practices decimating peak hour commuting and/or the total number of work related weekday journeys in to London the DfT does not wish to have to provide the extra level of funding that would be needed to continue running these services at their former levels.

But in reality who decides the proposed timetable changes needed to fit budgetary requirements and is that the DfT or is it train planners, train planning software (working to management's requirements) and senior management and/or the Board at GT Railway (AKA Southern as one of its sub operating and franchisee brands) as I would strongly suspect DfT merely state the level of subsidy/funding they are still willing to provide to keep a basic level of services going and its then Southern/GT Railway staff and management that comes up with a timetable that will actually fit within the budgetary requirements of the DfT. So the people calling the shots in terms of what actually gets changed within the budget being agreed with the DfT are surely still the train planning staff and/or senior management or Board members of Southern/GTRailway?

Now of course if local politicians and others lobby the DfT hard about the decimating effect on the local economy and/or populace of some aspects of the proposed or already implemented changes/cutbacks then the extra funding needed to retain services at a level somewhat closer to that which prevailed before may perhaps be found in some cases by the DfT.

But on the unbranded, unmarketed but apparently still entirely extant South London Metro route services (although its existence in the past was more obvious to me because of the rubbish rolling stock we used to suffer with no loos on such a relatively long journey down to Horsham via Dorking before this was replaced by Electrostar units) there has been no active advertising of the changes made (not even at the stations affected) and no opportunity has been given to comment on them or to meet with senior Southern management about those changes at the apparently now totally abolished forever on the excuse of Covid, but formerly held monthly, Meet The Manager sessions.

Also why is it the South London Metro route to Dorking and Horsham that seems to be hit hardest of all and does that have anything to do with passenger numbers and therefore the level of subsidy needed by DfT to continue running train services on these routes?

 

[JonathanH]

Also why is it the South London Metro route to Dorking and Horsham that seems to be hit hardest of all and does that have anything to do with passenger numbers and therefore the level of subsidy needed by DfT to continue running train services on these routes?

Potentially because it was overprovided in the past. There are still six trains an hour from Epsom to London, and six (direct) trains an hour from Sutton to London, not allowing for the Epsom Downs service.

Consolidating the lower demand on the Epsom to Victoria route into one combined stopping service is a rational answer to the need to reduce the train fleet and save costs.

The savings in removing the 455s and not having to bring in a replacement fleet are very likely to be worthwhile.

But on the unbranded, unmarketed but apparently still entirely extant South London Metro route services

There were other cuts, not just on the Victoria to Epsom route.

Victoria to Sutton via Norbury, London Bridge to Coulsdon Town, and the Caterham extension of the London Bridge to East Croydon via Tulse Hill don't now run.

Peak extras from Victoria to Tattenham Corner / Caterham and London Bridge to Sutton via Tulse Hill are also long gone.

Now of course if local politicians and others lobby the DfT hard about the decimating effect on the local economy and/or populace of some aspects of the proposed or already implemented changes/cutbacks then the extra funding needed to retain services at a level somewhat closer to that which prevailed before may perhaps be found in some cases by the DfT.

I am sure the DfT will be able to justify the level of service and point to the lack of suitable rolling stock and funding to restore the services. Is there really a chance that the cuts are decimating the local economy?

 

[cle]

From Epsom itself, but also Ashstead and Leatherhead to a lesser degree - due to the wonder that is Clapham Junction, and vaguely equal journey times now that stopping patterns are all slow, it's basically turn up and go.

Rock up and take the first train and change at Clapham depending on if you need Victoria or Waterloo. The lines don't matter as such. Frequency is freedom, and all that - and the wait at CJ will always be minimal. Also worth noting that Vauxhall covers Victoria off, if it's the Victoria Line you need, so again - any train works.

 

[30907]

It is interesting to note that suburban off-peak frequencies are now very similar to those of 40 years ago, except for Balham - East Croydon (only hourly). Sydenham - C Palace had no off-peak service back then (nor did Ockley etc).
Dorking lost its fast service around then

One factor not discussed is that the outer suburban stations AIUI are prime WFH territory so the inner ones have lost much less traffic.

 

[Minstral25]

But in reality who decides the proposed timetable changes needed to fit budgetary requirements and is that the DfT or is it train planners, train planning software (working to management's requirements) and senior management and/or the Board at GT Railway (AKA Southern as one of its sub operating and franchisee brands) as I would strongly suspect DfT merely state the level of subsidy/funding they are still willing to provide to keep a basic level of services going and its then Southern/GT Railway staff and management that comes up with a timetable that will actually fit within the budgetary requirements of the DfT. So the people calling the shots in terms of what actually gets changed within the budget being agreed with the DfT are surely still the train planning staff and/or senior management or Board members of Southern/GTRailway?

TSGN has always been a Management contract between DfT and Govia (GTR), so DfT bears the cost and receives the income. GTR role is to manage the services within the criteria set by DfT.

The DfT would have issued an edict to cut costs and GTR would have worked up a proposal to hit the DfT's aims. Which seems to mean removing one whole fleet by reducing trains lengths and cutting some services. If costs are to be cut, then something will have to lose out.

Also why is it the South London Metro route to Dorking and Horsham that seems to be hit hardest of all and does that have anything to do with passenger numbers and therefore the level of subsidy needed by DfT to continue running train services on these routes?

I'd suspect that GTR looked at passenger numbers and revenue received along all routes. They probably spotted duplication along the Epsom route and trains running far less than capacity. So, they took the decision to remove the Victoria to Epsom service and put extra calls in a parallel service. This of course makes the service take longer but that is the compromise to keep Dorking with 2tph.

Dorking and Horsham are not hit hard, they still have a 2tph service to London which is exactly what they had before, albeit it takes a few minutes longer. I think your 51 minutes from Ockley was a long time ago, the recent change added around 6-10 minutes to the previous journey time. Epsom also gets 2tph extra peak services.

I'd say that Tattenham and Caterham have been hit much harder. From 6tph peak service in 2018 to just 2tph now and Tattenham has lost its Sunday through service to a shuttle. But again, I suspect GTR has calculated there is sufficient service to cover passenger numbers.

When this service pattern settles down it will be interesting to see where they really need to reinforce and will they be able to do it.

 

[cle]

It is interesting to note that suburban off-peak frequencies are now very similar to those of 40 years ago, except for Balham - East Croydon (only hourly). Sydenham - C Palace had no off-peak service back then (nor did Ockley etc).
Dorking lost its fast service around then

One factor not discussed is that the outer suburban stations AIUI are prime WFH territory so the inner ones have lost much less traffic.

Also, Londoners do the more local jobs which can't be WFH: retail, healthcare, education, other key workers (police, fire etc) and so on. Lower paid and/or essential jobs. Cleaning services, security etc - all still going. School kids too. These people don't come in from Godalming.

People who do those types of 'civic' and retail jobs in Kent will live in Kent, and so on. People tend to commute further for better earning potential and/or specialist sector work.

Finally, the system can start to favour actual Londoners again. Adding stops to mid distance services is a good start.

 

[Andy1673]

RTT shows some anomaly of the new timetable
this is about 1L53 East Grinstead 18:06 to Victoria (12 car), 1H55 Littlehampton 18:13 to Victoria (4 car), 1H57 Littlehampton 18:40 to Victoria (8 car) and down 1H60 Victoria 20:45 to Littlehampton (must be 8 car). All platform 19.
Front unit of 1L53 detached upon arrival, middle and rear units form 1L58 19:20 to East Grinstead. Later 1H55 + 1H57 + detached unit off 1L53 all together forming 1H60 which should be 8 car not 16 because 1H60 itself forms 5H60 to Littlehampton Outside shed where attached to 5H58 to form next morning 5H03 12 car!
What`s wrong with my observation or RTT doesn`t show anything?

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Nice to have a 387 on the Seaford's the other day. Mind you, Brighton were meant to be playing Crystal Palace at home and thus 377's are usually substituted with 2 x 313 pairs running the crowdbuster specials in the late afternoon

When was the last time a red 387 ran down the branch?

 

[Hophead]

Actually, Albion's postponed match against Palace is this coming Saturday. Last Saturday, they weren't away to Bournemouth .

 

[Capvermell]

Having had to live with this new considerably slower service from Ockley to and from Victoria stopping at two extra stations (Balham and Ewell East) on all services apart from the last service of the night at 2325 (that used to call at all these stations anyway) and also now calling additionally at Mitcham Eastfields, Mitcham Junction and Hackbridge (compared to all the services that were formely so called semi-fasts, even though only the 1624 from Ockley to Victoria was an appreciably 5 minutes faster than all the other Up services because it was able to cross over on to the fast lines somewhere near Balham according to a train driver on the service I spoke to 6 or 7 weeks ago) I find its most maddening feature is that even though all trains from Ockley to Victoria now call at all stations the train times London bound from Ockley on weekdays are also not consistent and vary substantially, even though they are absolutely consistent at the same minutes past each hour and taking the same amount of time coming down from Victoria except for the last service of the day at 2325.

So in the morning the 0625 train from Ockley to Victoria that is surely only popular with eager beaver office warriors wanting to make an early start on their day takes a quite ridiculous 81 minutes for 29 railway miles at a time of day when lines would surely not yet be at their very busiest Yet the next train is at 0730 and takes 6 minutes less to cover the same stations in an only slightly less miserably slow 75 minutes. But after that the 0829, 0929, 1029, 1129 and 1229 from Ockley all take 76 minutes for the journey to Victoria until we get to 1324 when suddenly the train has to leave 5 minutes earlier than the previous 5 hourly services and so takes 81 minutes to get to Victoria at 45 minutes past the following hour for no explicable or at least explained reason. This last one I found particularly annoying having missed my train up to London on Wednesday last week only because I naively thought that 29 minutes past the hour going Up and 51 minutes past the hour going Down on weekdays were new consistent times at Ockley given that all trains stop at exactly the same stations and they are all now SuperSlows, something that only the last train of the day at 2325 from Victoria used to be (the only one previously to stop at all stations after Clapham Junction). But just to add to this theme of malevolent and substantial inconsistency in journey times to cover the same stops (5 minutes more on top of 76 minutes is nearly 7%) I see that the 2029 also takes 1 minute longer to get to Victoria from Ockley than any other services in the afternoon and evening (after the inexplicably 81 minutes duration 1324 service) so does not arrive until 2146, even though this is surely not a busy time of day at Victoria.

Yet coming down from Victoria on weekdays every single train takes a significantly shorter 70 rather than 76 minutes to cover the same distance and number of stops to Ockley except for the last train at 2325 that takes 72 minutes, although perhaps that is to do with it leaving Victoria at the old 25 minutes past the hour instead of 41 minutes past the hour that all the other trains now leave at (noting that all Down train times on weekdays are consistent except for the final 2325 service, very much unlike the Up services on the line). But this does also create the ridiculous and very stupid anomaly that there is only a 44 minute gap between the 2241 and 2325 service from London Victoria (on what is otherwise now a consistently hourly service on weekdays coming Down from Victoria) with I'm sure the result that the 2241 service will have a lot fewer passengers on it south of Epsom.

Yet on a Saturday every train from Ockley from 0829 to 1829 leaves at the same 29 minutes past the hour and takes the same 76 minutes to reach Victoria (the typical time of departure and arrival of the majority but not all services on a weekday) but coming down from Victoria to Ockley all trains leave Victoria at 41 minutes past the hour and arrive 70 minutes later at 51 minutes past the hour so taking 6 minutes less for the same journey than the vast majority of Up trains, clearly begging the question why all journeys can't be accomplished in 70 minutes and what it is about going in to London Victoria from Ockley, stopping at all of the same stations now involved on all services, that makes the journey take up to 11 minutes longer than in reverse?

So the huge question for Southern's train planners has to be why is it that even though we understand you have merged slow services to Epsom with former semi fast services to and from Horsham that Down journeys from London Victoria to Ockley all only take 70 minutes on all services apart from the 2325 on weekdays taking 72 minutes (when you would have thought the lines were clearer and trains could go faster at that time of night) while Up services on weekdays vary between the miserably slow 81 minute 0625 and 1324 services and the quickest 75 minute service at 0730 taking 1 minute less than most others. And what in particular is the explanation for the super slow services from Ockley to Victoria on weekdays at 0625 and 1324 taking 81 minutes and why even on Saturday, when journey times in each direction are consistent throughout the day, does it take only 70 minutes to get from Victoria to Ockley but 76 minutes to get from Ockley to Victoria.

Southern has simply imposed these substantially revised services on the travelling public without any consultation or explanation whatsoever (in particular through their now inexplicably abolished Meet The Manager and quarterly online Passenger Panel question asking opportunities) and some of the changes such as the inexplicably extra long (for the same stops) 0625 and 1341 services from Ockley to Victoria on a weekday look like possible mistakes. Also can Southern give any good explanation as why it now takes 6 minutes longer on the vast majority of its pitifully slow services to make the journey from Ockley to London Victoria than it does in the reverse direction coming out of Victoria to Ockley?

Of course other stuff goes on that does not seem to even be explained to passengers waiting at the station such as that last night the 2325 from London Victoria to Ockley left Dorking (where I was connecting from a Gatwick service to Dorking Deepdene) at a scheduled 0030 hours rather than the usual 0026 hours but can I presume this is due to some diversion or other in the normal train route or alternatively due to a lowered line speed caused by temporary works along the route. Anyway I see that today the train leaves Dorking at the usual 0026 timing towards Horsham that predates the institution of the new timetable on 5th September as nothing about the 2325 service was revised or altered by that new timetable (but under which journeys from London Victoria to Ockley still take 2 minutes longer on the 2325 service than all the others all stations services from Victoria leaving at 41 minutes past each hour taking 70 minutes).

But anyway I think that its clear that we have not even gained a boringly consistent and memorable timetable at the same minutes past each hour out of the new timetable imposed on 5th September but we have lost half hourly morning services including the much missed (I'm told by Southern Railway station workers in particular) 0556 from Ockley completing the final coup de gras on top of half hourly evening weekday services south of Dorking never coming back post COVID.

So we have suffered a further substantial reduction in morning rush hour services and a substantial increase in all journey times apart from the 2325 service from London Victoria on weekdays without so much as a poster of any kind from Southern explaining their justification for the substantial disimprovements on services south of Epsom post September 5th and no opportunity to discuss them through the now abolished without explanation Meet The Manager In Person (at Victoria and London Bridge) and Online quarterly Passenger Panel question asking opportunities to senior members of the Southern/Go Via management team responsible for planning Southern's train services.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

Having had to live with this new considerably slower service from Ockley to and from Victoria stopping at two extra stations (Balham and Ewell East) on all services apart from the last service of the night at 2325 (that used to call at all these stations anyway) and also now calling additionally at Mitcham Eastfields, Mitcham Junction and Hackbridge (compared to all the services that were formely so called semi-fasts, even though only the 1624 from Ockley to Victoria was an appreciably 5 minutes faster than all the other Up services because it was able to cross over on to the fast lines somewhere near Balham according to a train driver on the service I spoke to 6 or 7 weeks ago) I find its most maddening feature is that even though all trains from Ockley to Victoria now call at all stations the train times London bound from Ockley on weekdays are also not consistent and vary substantially, even though they are absolutely consistent at the same minutes past each hour and taking the same amount of time coming down from Victoria except for the last service of the day at 2325.

So in the morning the 0625 train from Ockley to Victoria that is surely only popular with eager beaver office warriors wanting to make an early start on their day takes a quite ridiculous 81 minutes for 29 railway miles at a time of day when lines would surely not yet be at their very busiest Yet the next train is at 0730 and takes 6 minutes less to cover the same stations in an only slightly less miserably slow 75 minutes. But after that the 0829, 0929, 1029, 1129 and 1229 from Ockley all take 76 minutes for the journey to Victoria until we get to 1324 when suddenly the train has to leave 5 minutes earlier than the previous 5 hourly services and so takes 81 minutes to get to Victoria at 45 minutes past the following hour for no explicable or at least explained reason. This last one I found particularly annoying having missed my train up to London on Wednesday last week only because I naively thought that 29 minutes past the hour going Up and 51 minutes past the hour going Down on weekdays were new consistent times at Ockley given that all trains stop at exactly the same stations and they are all now SuperSlows, something that only the last train of the day at 2325 from Victoria used to be (the only one previously to stop at all stations after Clapham Junction). But just to add to this theme of malevolent and substantial inconsistency in journey times to cover the same stops (5 minutes more on top of 76 minutes is nearly 7%) I see that the 2029 also takes 1 minute longer to get to Victoria from Ockley than any other services in the afternoon and evening (after the inexplicably 81 minutes duration 1324 service) so does not arrive until 2146, even though this is surely not a busy time of day at Victoria.

Yet coming down from Victoria on weekdays every single train takes a significantly shorter 70 rather than 76 minutes to cover the same distance and number of stops to Ockley except for the last train at 2325 that takes 72 minutes, although perhaps that is to do with it leaving Victoria at the old 25 minutes past the hour instead of 41 minutes past the hour that all the other trains now leave at (noting that all Down train times on weekdays are consistent except for the final 2325 service, very much unlike the Up services on the line). But this does also create the ridiculous and very stupid anomaly that there is only a 44 minute gap between the 2241 and 2325 service from London Victoria (on what is otherwise now a consistently hourly service on weekdays coming Down from Victoria) with I'm sure the result that the 2241 service will have a lot fewer passengers on it south of Epsom.

Yet on a Saturday every train from Ockley from 0829 to 1829 leaves at the same 29 minutes past the hour and takes the same 76 minutes to reach Victoria (the typical time of departure and arrival of the majority but not all services on a weekday) but coming down from Victoria to Ockley all trains leave Victoria at 41 minutes past the hour and arrive 70 minutes later at 51 minutes past the hour so taking 6 minutes less for the same journey than the vast majority of Up trains, clearly begging the question why all journeys can't be accomplished in 70 minutes and what it is about going in to London Victoria from Ockley, stopping at all of the same stations now involved on all services, that makes the journey take up to 11 minutes longer than in reverse?

So the huge question for Southern's train planners has to be why is it that even though we understand you have merged slow services to Epsom with former semi fast services to and from Horsham that Down journeys from London Victoria to Ockley all only take 70 minutes on all services apart from the 2325 on weekdays taking 72 minutes (when you would have thought the lines were clearer and trains could go faster at that time of night) while Up services on weekdays vary between the miserably slow 81 minute 0625 and 1324 services and the quickest 75 minute service at 0730 taking 1 minute less than most others. And what in particular is the explanation for the super slow services from Ockley to Victoria on weekdays at 0625 and 1324 taking 81 minutes and why even on Saturday, when journey times in each direction are consistent throughout the day, does it take only 70 minutes to get from Victoria to Ockley but 76 minutes to get from Ockley to Victoria.

Southern has simply imposed these substantially revised services on the travelling public without any consultation or explanation whatsoever (in particular through their now inexplicably abolished Meet The Manager and quarterly online Passenger Panel question asking opportunities) and some of the changes such as the inexplicably extra long (for the same stops) 0625 and 1341 services from Ockley to Victoria on a weekday look like possible mistakes. Also can Southern give any good explanation as why it now takes 6 minutes longer on the vast majority of its pitifully slow services to make the journey from Ockley to London Victoria than it does in the reverse direction coming out of Victoria to Ockley?

Of course other stuff goes on that does not seem to even be explained to passengers waiting at the station such as that last night the 2325 from London Victoria to Ockley left Dorking (where I was connecting from a Gatwick service to Dorking Deepdene) at a scheduled 0030 hours rather than the usual 0026 hours but can I presume this is due to some diversion or other in the normal train route or alternatively due to a lowered line speed caused by temporary works along the route. Anyway I see that today the train leaves Dorking at the usual 0026 timing towards Horsham that predates the institution of the new timetable on 5th September as nothing about the 2325 service was revised or altered by that new timetable (but under which journeys from London Victoria to Ockley still take 2 minutes longer on the 2325 service than all the others all stations services from Victoria leaving at 41 minutes past each hour taking 70 minutes).

But anyway I think that its clear that we have not even gained a boringly consistent and memorable timetable at the same minutes past each hour out of the new timetable imposed on 5th September but we have lost half hourly morning services including the much missed (I'm told by Southern Railway station workers in particular) 0556 from Ockley completing the final coup de gras on top of half hourly evening weekday services south of Dorking never coming back post COVID.

So we have suffered a further substantial reduction in morning rush hour services and a substantial increase in all journey times apart from the 2325 service from London Victoria on weekdays without so much as a poster of any kind from Southern explaining their justification for the substantial disimprovements on services south of Epsom post September 5th and no opportunity to discuss them through the now abolished without explanation Meet The Manager In Person (at Victoria and London Bridge) and Online quarterly Passenger Panel question asking opportunities to senior members of the Southern/Go Via management team responsible for planning Southern's train services.

I reckon there are test trains, freight trains and seasonal trains in the way that meaning the trains have inconsistent paths, and had to fit around those trains. Might not be the only reason, but will defintley be some of the reason.

 

[PGAT]

Might be getting ahead of myself here, but does anyone have an idea when the new timetable from December 12th get released?

 

[Class 466]

Might be getting ahead of myself here, but does anyone have an idea when the new timetable from December 12th get released?

It's all shown in downstream systems now. No idea when TT's will appear on websites etc but from what I've seen not much changes really.

 

[PGAT]

It's all shown in downstream systems now. No idea when TT's will appear on websites etc but from what I've seen not much changes really.

Seen some minor changes on TL (on RTT) where Bedford to Three Bridges stop at South Croydon but no change on Southern yet.

 

[Class 466]

Seen some minor changes on TL (on RTT) where Bedford to Three Bridges stop at South Croydon but no change on Southern yet.

Only other big TL change I've seen is more EGR trains and the curtailment of the once a day Littlehampton service at London Bridge.

 

[Capvermell]

I reckon there are test trains, freight trains and seasonal trains in the way that meaning the trains have inconsistent paths, and had to fit around those trains. Might not be the only reason, but will definitley be some of the reason.

I very much doubt its any of those as neither out of test trains or freight trains seem to be regularly recurring weekday daily events (only the leaf clearing trains are as of a few weeks time from now) and I am also not aware of any seasonal special trains on the line from Victoria down to Horsham via Sutton, Epsom and Dorking. The 1324 almost looks like a possible timetable creating mistake given that 1324 is the time of the recurrent former hourly off peak semi-fast services leaving Ockley northbound.

But the point is Southern/GoVia and/or the DfT just imposes a drastically altered new timetable from Horsham to Dorking (after all it is only Horsham to Dorking that has lost its half hourly morning services via this latest September 5th timetable) without any explanation or justification whatsoever for what has just taken place.

And my other point is we have also suffered a substantial worsening of journey times without any clear gains at all that could so easily have been given to sell the whole package such as the last train of the night from Victoria being changed from 2325 to 2341 to tie in with the other new hourly departure times from London Victoria at xx41 instead of xx25. Also no attempt to at least provide services on a Saturday to the same time as on weekdays, even though in a world of radically reduced commuting that might be a logical thing to do.