The Southern service used to run to Bournemouth but was cut back to Southampton as the reliability of such a long service from London Victoria was poor. Certainly worth reviewing now that the Southern service starts from Brighton instead.
Totally agree - see also the current two 2tph to Epsom. Richmond to Kingston should be 4tph. A Metro concept for South West London is urgently required.
The Hounslow loop services need not only reinstating what existed pre-covid but even improving upon that. The 1tph that exists on the hounslow loop on a sunday morning before 13:00 is ridiculous for the greater Lobdon area, and that has been like that for at least the last decade if not longer. Really the Hounslow loop should have at least 2tph from start of service on a sunday morning.
Agreed with all that.
That's one of those instances which when all other pathing, connectivity and platforming (at Waterloo) are taken in to account, is probably the best (overall) that can be achieved without compromising something elsewhere. A minor point also that the barriers might only have to come down twice per hour instead of four times, not that Wellesley/Tower Road is very busy..
100% agree. Feels like this is something that ought to be rectified without having to wait for the full SWR timetable rejig, since it's just a reinstatement of what was there pre-2020 - so long as there are now enough 701s in service to make this reliable (commuting from Mortlake in 2019 it seemed there were a lot of cancellations/alterations, perhaps due to the 455s being too slow to board/alight/accelerate?).
This won’t happen until SWR have enough traincrew to run these services. Both the Epsom Line and the Hounslow Loop ought to have their previous services brought back, but SWR can’t until they have enough staff to reliably run these services. There is a big recruitment drive going on for this year which will continue into the next, particularly for drivers, so hopefully they get into a position where these services as well as peak extras etc can be brought back.
Ah OK, thanks for the reply - fingers crossed!
That I suspect is well out of the scope of near future initiatives. I believe the main aim at present will be working towards getting the base plan as per pre covid, or something similar, back up to strength before projects of a more major nature can be considered.
Agree with all of this.
Once you add Southampton Central (500,091) and Southampton Air PW (295,703) it just about edges beyond Winchester (692,962). And I'm not going to add them up, but I'd assume the stations beyond Southampton towards Weymouth have more passengers than those beyond Cambridge towards Kings Lynn. Ely and King's Lynn combined have the same numbers to London as Bournemouth (though there's more travel to Cambridge than to Southampton from their respective further stations).
I agree. I was going to write about swapping the half of the hour the Winchester terminating stopper is in and extending it to Reading (need disel units though for the unelectrified section; maybe just to Basingstoke), but it would probably have a worse path than currently making it pointless for the new through journey opportunities.
They basically need to (as a minimum) revert to the pre-2020 suburban off peak pattern. On the Wimbledon side this means putting the Earlsfield stops back into the Shepperton services and restoring 2 per hour on the Guildford via Epsom and Dorking services.
As long as they still kept the same departure time from Twickenham to permit people to change from the Reading services to intermediate stations like mortlake
I think they’d need to, to get the right headway leaving St Margarets. Perhaps using some of that hanging around at Teddington & Kingston?
The SWT at Reading topic is interesting - as on Sundays, the service from Reading-Salisbury is an interesting connection and could possibly live on during the week as a frequency add between Basingstoke and both Reading and Salisbury. And feed local stations onto fasts in off hours/half-hours.
Nothing like as well used as the Southern Brighton - Southampton services are now. The odd few GW services over the day, (only 2 arrivals and departures at Brighton per day, one was only from Fratton), ran in the SWT paths in the few hours they ran. A couple of SWT services therefore terminated at, or started from, Fareham. Brighton wasn’t served by SWT in the peak flow directions, the SWT ran to/from Portsmouth instead. Lastly, over the whole day, Reading to Brighton only operated a limited number of times at least 3 hours apart, the majority of the service was to/from Basingstoke. (Only 4 Brighton to Reading, but 5 Reading to Brighton.)
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It’s a service that I have often thought should be provided but you would need sufficient DMUs to operate it and they are in short supply for existing services.
Back in the days when this type of service was diagrammed to 4TC + 33/1 on Sundays, it needed four sets + loco's to cover the hourly service.
Would be easier if Basingstoke to Reading West junction was electrified, but whether you choose overhead or third rail you end up with a changeover point between the two systems at one end or the other. Some types of dual voltage rolling stock needs to come to a complete halt on the line to do the changeover which limits line capacity and others can do it on the move. I guess the West London Line north of Shepherds Bush Station is the equivalent scenario, but it is acknowledged that it is more efficient for the changeover to occur at a station when the train pauses anyway like at Acton Central. Unfortunately on the Reading to Basingstoke Line there is not an intermediate station at which all services call. You would need a separate dual voltage sub fleet to operate an electric service.
Swapping the Shepperton and Loop paths in one direction would fix it. On the Richomd side the affected loop trains could use the paths currently used (in the peaks) by the Shepperton via Richmond services.That's one of those instances which when all other pathing, connectivity and platforming (at Waterloo) are taken in to account, is probably the best (overall) that can be achieved without compromising something elsewhere. A minor point also that the barriers might only have to come down twice per hour instead of four times, not that Wellesley/Tower Road is very busy..
I know the station/area very well indeed.
Your first point is the sort of detail that will need to be worked up to establish the detail if there is to be a complete re-write, or they may stick broadly to the pre covid scenario? Also to be remembered that plats 1 to 4 became slightly less flexible than previously when they were extended in 2017. This was most apparent during the peaks when the peak additional's ran. Part of the trade off for having 10 car services/platforms.
I have often thought that a 4tph 5 car Shepperton to Kingston shuttle, plus 4tph on the Kingston Loop and 4tph on the Hounslow line would represent the best use of limited resources to benefit as many passengers as possible.