Southern timetable changes consultation Coastway West

[ThameslinkUser]

This is exactly what the revenue checks have been doing without issue though.

Read post 374

 

[PedroHav]

There's definitely a lot of confusion with people that don't travel on trains regularly with regards to the 387s, Gatwick express trains, on the Southampton - Brighton. I've witnessed many at Havant and Chichester with luggage, presumably going to Gatwick, get on and then get off. Scratching their heads wondering what is going on. Yes the announcements say Brighton but it just courses confusion.
In my mind they definitely need to be repainted.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

Are West Coastway punters just more stupid than the East Coastway? No similar issues have arisen on the East, where these carriages have been in use since the start of Covid.

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

There's definitely a lot of confusion with people that don't travel on trains regularly with regards to the 387s, Gatwick express trains, on the Southampton - Brighton. I've witnessed many at Havant and Chichester with luggage, presumably going to Gatwick, get on and then get off. Scratching their heads wondering what is going on. Yes the announcements say Brighton but it just courses confusion.
In my mind they definitely need to be repainted.

Maybe they should eventually be put into a more neutral sort of livery, or if there the train said something along the lines of "I also work on Southern", sort of like London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway do for some of their trains. I think the former would be a better and more clear solution from a passenger point of view, but whether that happens likely depends on whether the next government and all their powers of micromanaging railways would be willing to send some or all of the Class 387s in for a repaint.
To be fair though, I was slightly confused when I went on the East Coastway line just over a year ago, and saw a Class 387 operating a Hastings service (as it was then, now the Ore service), until I could see that the DMI on the outside definately seemed to suggest it was a southern service, and the announcement on the train gave the implicit implication it was a Southern service (just because the Class 387 announcements don't mention operator in the announcements, unlike the Class 377s. I think that it proved a useful trip though in telling me why the Gatwick Express isn't worth the money, as soon as I has the dishonor of sitting on an ironing board seat.

Are West Coastway punters just more stupid than the East Coastway? No similar issues have arisen on the East, where these carriages have been in use since the start of Covid.

Maybe, but then again, they really haven't operated on the West Coastway that much, simply because the West Coastway had more Class 313s than the East Coastway (which generally only operated to Seaford), so that's more 4-car Class 377s assigned to East Coastway services compared to the West Coastway services (excluding any services to London on either of the Coastway lines), where the only such service was Brighton to Southampton. As a result, more shortages probably required more Class 387s to be used instead on more occasions, particularly considering many of the Class 387s would have otherwise ended up in storage over COVID. Don't quote me for certain on that however, but that would likely be my guess as to why. I also suppose more routes on the West Coastway can justify 3-car [electric] trains, such as all of the former local services west of Littlehampton, obviously gone now.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

Sounds like the Minister for Common Sense may finally have a purpose

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

Sounds like the Minister for Common Sense may finally have a purpose

Let's just hope its a meaningful purpose, like preventing confusion with clearly misliveried trains, not attempting to suppress trans people (or something along those lines). Either way, it won't be the current minister who does that, given all of these polls in the news suggesting a landslide defeat for the current tory government and the anti-rail DfT.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

Or encouraging people to employ common sense like asking themselves "does the GatwicK Express run to Southampton?"

 

[Kite159]

Or do away with the Gatwick Express all together and 'repaint' them as Southern services

Do the 387s operate to Southampton on Sundays?

 

[LA50041]

There's definitely a lot of confusion with people that don't travel on trains regularly with regards to the 387s, Gatwick express trains, on the Southampton - Brighton. I've witnessed many at Havant and Chichester with luggage, presumably going to Gatwick, get on and then get off. Scratching their heads wondering what is going on. Yes the announcements say Brighton but it just courses confusion.
In my mind they definitely need to be repainted.

The problem with that is at the moment they are not dedicated units, so do you repaint them every time they switch from GatEx - Coastway work?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jun 2024 ==

Or do away with the Gatwick Express all together and 'repaint' them as Southern services

Do the 387s operate to Southampton on Sundays?

No booked 387's to Southampton on Sundays

 

[PedroHav]

Are West Coastway punters just more stupid than the East Coastway? No similar issues have arisen on the East, where these carriages have been in use since the start of Covid.

I don't think so. It's just that up to the 2nd June there was a direct service from Southampton/Fareham to Gatwick and never a 387. And now the 'Gatwick Express' train comes along going to .... Brighton.

 

[Classic109E]

I've noticed that the Brighton to Southampton services that now run half-hourly, are often Gatwick Express 377 units. Does GX have excess stock or is Southern short? It's somewhat misleading at Southampton to see Gatwick Express trains that don't go to Gatwick.

 

[Jan Mayen]

GTR don't have enough Southern branded units, so use Gatwick Express branded units.

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

The problem with that is at the moment they are not dedicated units, so do you repaint them every time they switch from GatEx - Coastway work?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jun 2024 ==


No booked 387's to Southampton on Sundays

That's why they should be in a neutral livery, because that would avoid confusion either way, while allowing them to easily be swapped between Southern and GX as needed on any day. They would need to do that if they had some Class 387s officially and permanently classified as Southern units.

Or do away with the Gatwick Express all together and 'repaint' them as Southern services

Although then again, you have a point, where particularly post-covid, the Gatwick Express is simply a marginally faster duplication of Southern services as far as Gatwick Airport, then simply a relatively fast service to Brighton (with a call at Haywards Heath. In all honesty, given the only major difference is skipping Clapham Junction and East Croydon, they probably should do away with Gatwick Express altogether, and cut the fares charged to match with ordinary Southern fares, because its just a waste of money as far as I am concerned, with premium fares for a less comfortable ride than a 377, with an outrageously comfortable ironing board to sit on (when excluding overcrowding on southern trains going all the way to the coast that is).
By the way, does anyone know how far super off-peak travelcards are valid on Gatwick Express? I have been thinking on the way back from one of my daytrips to London, I should stop in Brighton (Going back towards Bognor Regis, with via Hove, and probably Brighton, nearly always being a legal route, even though its not the most practical), but I'm not sure whether Gatwick Express would be a legal route, or whether I would need to use Thameslink (and their wonderful declassified first class) from London Bridge (or one of the intermediate stations) instead.

Do the 387s operate to Southampton on Sundays?

Even if they were to do a special diagram, perhaps to replace a 377, the SWR staff at Southampton would probably have to give a dozen announcements that the train at platform 2/3 is definately a Southern service before people got confused around whether Gatwick Express had strangely introduced a new Southampton service.

 

[AlbertBeale]

That's why they should be in a neutral livery, because that would avoid confusion either way, while allowing them to easily be swapped between Southern and GX as needed on any day. They would need to do that if they had some Class 387s officially and permanently classified as Southern units.

Although then again, you have a point, where particularly post-covid, the Gatwick Express is simply a marginally faster duplication of Southern services as far as Gatwick Airport, then simply a relatively fast service to Brighton (with a call at Haywards Heath. In all honesty, given the only major difference is skipping Clapham Junction and East Croydon, they probably should do away with Gatwick Express altogether, and cut the fares charged to match with ordinary Southern fares, because its just a waste of money as far as I am concerned, with premium fares for a less comfortable ride than a 377, with an outrageously comfortable ironing board to sit on (when excluding overcrowding on southern trains going all the way to the coast that is).
By the way, does anyone know how far super off-peak travelcards are valid on Gatwick Express? I have been thinking on the way back from one of my daytrips to London, I should stop in Brighton (Going back towards Bognor Regis, with via Hove, and probably Brighton, nearly always being a legal route, even though its not the most practical), but I'm not sure whether Gatwick Express would be a legal route, or whether I would need to use Thameslink (and their wonderful declassified first class) from London Bridge (or one of the intermediate stations) instead.

Even if they were to do a special diagram, perhaps to replace a 377, the SWR staff at Southampton would probably have to give a dozen announcements that the train at platform 2/3 is definately a Southern service before people got confused around whether Gatwick Express had strangely introduced a new Southampton service.

What "super off-peak travelcards" do you mean? Appropriate super off-peak tickets are certainly fine on the Gatwick Express.

 

[ollie_hunt1660]

That's why they should be in a neutral livery, because that would avoid confusion either way, while allowing them to easily be swapped between Southern and GX as needed on any day. They would need to do that if they had some Class 387s officially and permanently classified as Southern units.

Although then again, you have a point, where particularly post-covid, the Gatwick Express is simply a marginally faster duplication of Southern services as far as Gatwick Airport, then simply a relatively fast service to Brighton (with a call at Haywards Heath. In all honesty, given the only major difference is skipping Clapham Junction and East Croydon, they probably should do away with Gatwick Express altogether, and cut the fares charged to match with ordinary Southern fares, because its just a waste of money as far as I am concerned, with premium fares for a less comfortable ride than a 377, with an outrageously comfortable ironing board to sit on (when excluding overcrowding on southern trains going all the way to the coast that is).
By the way, does anyone know how far super off-peak travelcards are valid on Gatwick Express? I have been thinking on the way back from one of my daytrips to London, I should stop in Brighton (Going back towards Bognor Regis, with via Hove, and probably Brighton, nearly always being a legal route, even though its not the most practical), but I'm not sure whether Gatwick Express would be a legal route, or whether I would need to use Thameslink (and their wonderful declassified first class) from London Bridge (or one of the intermediate stations) instead.

Even if they were to do a special diagram, perhaps to replace a 377, the SWR staff at Southampton would probably have to give a dozen announcements that the train at platform 2/3 is definately a Southern service before people got confused around whether Gatwick Express had strangely introduced a new Southampton service.

I think GX now purely exists as a tourist trap.

 

[JonathanH]

Isn't it the other way round?

GTR have more Gatwick Express branded units than are needed to operate the now half hourly service from Victoria to Brighton because the Gatwick Airport shuttles aren't needed, so the units are available to operate other services.

GTR have planned their network around the available rolling stock. It would be fairly silly to put the Gatwick Express stock in sidings just because it is in the wrong colour scheme.

 

[paul1609]

That's why they should be in a neutral livery, because that would avoid confusion either way, while allowing them to easily be swapped between Southern and GX as needed on any day. They would need to do that if they had some Class 387s officially and permanently classified as Southern units.

Although then again, you have a point, where particularly post-covid, the Gatwick Express is simply a marginally faster duplication of Southern services as far as Gatwick Airport, then simply a relatively fast service to Brighton (with a call at Haywards Heath. In all honesty, given the only major difference is skipping Clapham Junction and East Croydon, they probably should do away with Gatwick Express altogether, and cut the fares charged to match with ordinary Southern fares, because its just a waste of money as far as I am concerned, with premium fares for a less comfortable ride than a 377, with an outrageously comfortable ironing board to sit on (when excluding overcrowding on southern trains going all the way to the coast that is).
By the way, does anyone know how far super off-peak travelcards are valid on Gatwick Express? I have been thinking on the way back from one of my daytrips to London, I should stop in Brighton (Going back towards Bognor Regis, with via Hove, and probably Brighton, nearly always being a legal route, even though its not the most practical), but I'm not sure whether Gatwick Express would be a legal route, or whether I would need to use Thameslink (and their wonderful declassified first class) from London Bridge (or one of the intermediate stations) instead.

Even if they were to do a special diagram, perhaps to replace a 377, the SWR staff at Southampton would probably have to give a dozen announcements that the train at platform 2/3 is definately a Southern service before people got confused around whether Gatwick Express had strangely introduced a new Southampton service.

Personally Ive been on a lot of 387 on the Eastbourne to Brighton East Coastway service, at coastway speeds I cant say Ive noticed any difference in the ride between a 387 and a 377. The seats are fine for a journey of around an hour. Arent the GX 387s on the coastway being largely replaced by Great Northern 387s when they get the 379s in to service?

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

What "super off-peak travelcards" do you mean? Appropriate super off-peak tickets are certainly fine on the Gatwick Express.

One of these kinds, which i have used legally on services to Littlehampton to visit my grandparents who live in Littlehampton (via Hove), and i have no doubt they would have been valid on former Southern services from London Victoria to Brighton, but i have never tried then on Gatwick Express services to brighton.

 

[paul1609]

It used to be the case that seasons, anytimes, off peak tickets and super off peak travelcards from south of Balcombe and Christ Hospital were routed "Any Permitted" and valid on the Gatwick Express. North of there the tickets were cheaper than the Gatwick Express to London Victoria so were routed "not gatwick Express" as were the Super Off Peak Day Returns (ex Pricebusters) to London Victoria/ Bridge from the South Coast.

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

It used to be the case that seasons, anytimes, off peak tickets and super off peak travelcards from south of Balcombe and Christ Hospital were routed "Any Permitted" and valid on the Gatwick Express. North of there the tickets were cheaper than the Gatwick Express to London Victoria so were routed "not gatwick Express" as were the Super Off Peak Day Returns (ex Pricebusters) to London Victoria/ Bridge from the South Coast.

I just aimed a tweet at Southern and Gatwick Express to see whether that is still the case, so let's just see if these rules have survived to the present day.

 

[nw1]

I think GX now purely exists as a tourist trap.

Probably yes. The main non-cynical rationale for the service IMO nowadays is to maintain a fast service from London to Brighton.

 

[swt_passenger]

I just aimed a tweet at Southern and Gatwick Express to see whether that is still the case, so let's just see if these rules have survived to the present day.

I wouldn’t rely on a TOC twitter team. They’re far less likely to know than people here…

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

Probably yes. The main non-cynical rationale for the service IMO nowadays is to maintain a fast service from London to Brighton.

Indeed, although I think it would be useful if they did call at Clapham Junction and East Croydon. That would only in reality add on around 2-3 minutes, when comparing Coastway bound services from London Victoria (which take 34 minutes) to the Gatwick Express (which takes around 32 minutes).

I wouldn’t rely on a TOC twitter team. They’re far less likely to know than people here…

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I wouldn't say that in absolute terms, because the southern team have managed to solve some of my genuine queries, and their advice has often helped me get back. Would you consider this advice they just gave me reliable or not?

 

[swt_passenger]

Indeed, although I think it would be useful if they did call at Clapham Junction and East Croydon. That would only in reality add on around 2-3 minutes, when comparing Coastway bound services from London Victoria (which take 34 minutes) to the Gatwick Express (which takes around 32 minutes).

x.com

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I wouldn't say that in absolute terms, because the southern team have managed to solve some of my genuine queries, and their advice has often helped me get back. Would you consider this advice they just gave me reliable or not?

No idea. I’m not on Twitter and therefore cannot see your question or their answer. I just get the impression from many posts here that Twitter responses are not as reliable as you’d hope.

 

[nw1]

Indeed, although I think it would be useful if they did call at Clapham Junction and East Croydon.

Clapham, especially.

 

[LCRTrainfan979]

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jun 2024 ==

Clapham, especially.

Good point, particularly if they could only add one of them, particularly since Brighton already has Thameslink services to East Croydon

 

[MrJeeves]

Isn't it the other way round?

GTR have more Gatwick Express branded units than are needed to operate the now half hourly service from Victoria to Brighton because the Gatwick Airport shuttles aren't needed, so the units are available to operate other services.

Yes.

The 387s are booked to run all the Brighton to Southampton services from the June timetable change.

 

[ollie_hunt1660]

Honestly I think they should just scrap the GX service altogether and reinstate a Victoria to Brighton semifast.

Indeed, although I think it would be useful if they did call at Clapham Junction and East Croydon. That would only in reality add on around 2-3 minutes, when comparing Coastway bound services from London Victoria (which take 34 minutes) to the Gatwick Express (which takes around 32 minutes).

x.com

x.com

I wouldn't say that in absolute terms, because the southern team have managed to solve some of my genuine queries, and their advice has often helped me get back. Would you consider this advice they just gave me reliable or not?

 

[MrJeeves]

Indeed, although I think it would be useful if they did call at Clapham Junction and East Croydon.

No thanks.

One of the main benefits to GX is also a quicker and quieter journey. You don't get the many people using the service to get from VIC to CLJ or ECR this way.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jun 2024 ==

Honestly I think they should just scrap the GX service altogether and reinstate a Victoria to Brighton semifast.

Isn't that basically what the GX is...?

 

[ollie_hunt1660]

No thanks.

One of the main benefits to GX is also a quicker and quieter journey. You don't get the many people using the service to get from VIC to CLJ or ECR this way.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jun 2024 ==


Isn't that basically what the GX is...?

Sorry, was a bit unclear there. A service from Victoria to Brighton calling at Clapham, Croydon, Gatwick, Haywards and Bruges would be nice.