Ideas for improving services to the east of Dartford

[cle]

Has Sidcup ever had an all day Medway service post HS1 (continuing after Gravesend)? I don’t think so. Highest demand has always come from Woolwich even pre Eliz Line.

mods note - split from this thread

I don't think beyond Gravesend, that I can recall. And certainly no need now Crossrail is with us. More should feed that service.

8tph feeding Abbey Wood is decent (2 from Sidcup, 2 TL/Rainham, 2 Dartford, 2 Bexleyheath?) - but ideally there would be more from east of Dartford. The Blackheath/Charlton 2tph to Dartford should probably swap with a Gravesend pairing (the Sidcup most likely could term at Dartford)

Ideally there would be more - also so that the Greenwich route had 8tph.

 

[Mattplans]

A

but ideally there would be more from east of Dartford.

greed. I was thinking the other day about how radical it would be if all Gravesend starters ran via Abbey Wood instead of other routes. But that would cut off their link to Charing Cross which isn't great.

 

[Krystal]

Agreed. I was thinking the other day about how radical it would be if all Gravesend starters ran via Abbey Wood instead of other routes. But that would cut off their link to Charing Cross which isn't great.

Perhaps we curtail the Victoria-Gravesend to Dartford instead like they did in 2022? Passengers from London can just board a fast Rochester train and change for a Javelin to Gravesend and change there.
But whatever service gets cut, Gravesend loses a service to a key station - whether Charing Cross or Victoria. Both options are a double edged sword.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2026 ==

Perhaps we curtail the Victoria-Gravesend to Dartford instead like they did in 2022? Passengers from London can just board a fast Rochester train and change for a Javelin to Gravesend and change there.
But whatever service gets cut, Gravesend loses a service to a key station - whether Charing Cross or Victoria. Both options are a double edged sword.

See, this is why the current service beyond Dartford as a whole is inadequate. The current state of TL services on the Woolwich line as the only way to get from Dartford to say, Gillingham, is poor - for example, the summer trains to and from Rainham have been cut to just one train per hour, and whenever the core falls on itself, the Rainham services are usually the first to get cancelled. And it's not like the service is useless either - lots of people live in the Medways and Dartford, plus Greenhithe serves Bluewater. Cramming everyone on a Javelin at Gravesend isn't the solution.

The cutting back of the service to Kentish Town from Luton might be a sign that the gig is up for this ill-thought service - services on this line ran much better under Southeastern with the Charing Cross-Gillingham service. Hopefully within two or three more timetable changes does TL realise this service is silly and hand it over to SE, or something to that effect.

 

[cle]

The cutting back of the service to Kentish Town from Luton might be a sign that the gig is up for this ill-thought service - services on this line ran much better under Southeastern with the Charing Cross-Gillingham service. Hopefully within two or three more timetable changes does TL realise this service is silly and hand it over to SE, or something to that effect.

Agree with everything - except that this should probably be to Cannon St (unless it runs via Blackheath, in which case, Charing Cross works) - but everything via Greenwich should go to Cannon St.

Interestingly there has been a return to Charing Cross services for the likes of the Bexleyheath and Hayes lines. They are wanted, for sure - when services are cut back, they matter. I accept that for right now. If there was ever a return to trying to maximize TPH on all lines, we'd need more stricter separation, per the London Bridge and Lewisham layouts. Rainham would be gone in that lens, complete outlier in the face of all the untangling done.

 

[NorthKent1989]

Perhaps we curtail the Victoria-Gravesend to Dartford instead like they did in 2022?

They did briefly have a CST-Blackheath-Woolwich-Gravesend service but that was gone by the Dec 2023 change for reasons unknown.

See, this is why the current service beyond Dartford as a whole is inadequate. The current state of TL services on the Woolwich line as the only way to get from Dartford to say, Gillingham, is poor - for example, the summer trains to and from Rainham have been cut to just one train per hour, and whenever the core falls on itself, the Rainham services are usually the first to get cancelled. And it's not like the service is useless either - lots of people live in the Medways and Dartford, plus Greenhithe serves Bluewater. Cramming everyone on a Javelin at Gravesend isn't the solution.

Yes All points on the Woolwich line are popular with those in Medway and Gravesend for the TfL interchanges, the fact that at the moment Medway has only 1tph to this line is ridiculous.
Yes HS1 is good but also at premium.

The cutting back of the service to Kentish Town from Luton might be a sign that the gig is up for this ill-thought service - services on this line ran much better under Southeastern

Agreed, I reckon we’re about 3-5 timetable changes away from being done with Thameslink on the line, and I can’t see SE keeping this as an all stopper from Medway to Slade Green either, the added stops happened to space out timings through the core, with Thameslink gone there’s no need to consider this anymore.

Agree with everything - except that this should probably be to Cannon St (unless it runs via Blackheath, in which case, Charing Cross works) - but everything via Greenwich should go to Cannon St

If ran via Blackheath then it should be to Victoria, CHX hasn’t any space I don’t think, as much as I’d like CHX trains returning to the Woolwich line, but you’d be linking linking several corridors that are 2tph: Vic-Lew, Lew-Charlton, then Gravesend-Medway with Charlton-Gravesend being the essential core flow with 6tph CST-Slade Green and 6tph Dartford-Gravesend.

Might be an unpopular opinion but all beyond Dartford trains would run via Woolwich, Lewisham and Greenwich, with Bexleyheath and Sidcups being the Dartfords and rounders only, Sidcup would have all day rounders to connect with the EL, since the Bexleyheath line does have more feeder buses to Abbey Wood and Woolwich for the EL/DLR connections

CST-Gravesend would be 4tph all stops
Vic-Medway would be 2tph semi fast particularly beyond Abbey Wood

complete outlier in the face of all the untangling done.

The Medway is the outlier, Charlton-Blackheath will never be more than 2tph, Medway-Gravesend has the HS1 and Victoria top ups, its far better to isolate this from the more metro focused Sidcup, Bexleyheath and Greenwich lines which should be 6tph.

Ideally there would be more - also so that the Greenwich route had 8tph

I wonder if perhaps the Greenwich line could go 7tph? An hourly shuttle between CST (or maybe Blackfriars to keep the Thameslink connection up?) to Plumstead, could it be done? Plumstead-Charlton would then be 9tph

 

[wls1]

Perhaps we curtail the Victoria-Gravesend to Dartford instead like they did in 2022?

The issue with this is turnaround time at Dartford, at the moment the Victoria services arrive at 26 and depart at 31/32 which is pushing minimum turnaround times, however with running across at Lewisham they normally end up picking up a few extra minutes on the way down. It also adds more complexity if they are locked out and ran into/out the sidings with more conflicting movements.

Performance of the 2Uxx services has improved with adding the extra 30 minutes at Victoria however the turnaround at Gravesend helps with performance and also gives the option of terminating at Northfleet.

 

[Mattplans]

It also adds more complexity if they are locked out and ran into/out the sidings with more conflicting movements.

I imagine 2L/2As will be extended to Gravesend - in this plan - so that 2Us have the platform space?

however the turnaround at Gravesend helps with performance

Meh. I often see 2Us running fast between Lewisham and Dartford. My most egregious experience was when SE pressed the skip stop button for a train only running 6 minutes late. Then they will run as booked between Dartford and Gravesend. They should be running as booked until Dartford where possible, then turning short at Dartford if they can't make it to Northfleet/Gravesend in time. Always a disappointing day when the service starts late from Victoria and they manage to maintain Victoria - Lewisham stops and Dartford - Gravesend stops, but miss the busiest commuter stations in between.

2U must be the most finicky metro service operated by Southeastern and it shouldn't have been extended to Gravesend.

 

[Stephen42]

The cutting back of the service to Kentish Town from Luton might be a sign that the gig is up for this ill-thought service - services on this line ran much better under Southeastern with the Charing Cross-Gillingham service. Hopefully within two or three more timetable changes does TL realise this service is silly and hand it over to SE, or something to that effect.

The cutting back is more to do with the Sutton loop. The newish Brent Cross adds time into schedules and the turnback at St Albans can't easily absorb that. Peak some St Albans services go semi-fast and off peak dwells are reduced impacting punctuality which quickly spreads to other services. Both the subsequent train for the turn back and the fast/semi-fast services around it.

Extending half the Sutton services to Luton allows longer dwells off peak, more time in the turnback for recovery or at Luton. It prevents either Luton or St Albans being available for the Rainham service to turnback so that is at Kentish Town. Despite 2 fewer trains per hour between St Albans and Kentish Town it only saves 1 unit off peak as rest swallowed up by recovery/dwells on the Suttons. In the evening peak many Rainham services will run through to Bedford to maintain capacity and those 8-cars go into Bedford CS.

Switching Rainham trains back to Southeastern will take considerable time and money. Far more Thameslink drivers sign Abbey Wood to Gillingham than Southeastern ones.

Agree with everything - except that this should probably be to Cannon St (unless it runs via Blackheath, in which case, Charing Cross works) - but everything via Greenwich should go to Cannon St.

Interestingly there has been a return to Charing Cross services for the likes of the Bexleyheath and Hayes lines. They are wanted, for sure - when services are cut back, they matter. I accept that for right now. If there was ever a return to trying to maximize TPH on all lines, we'd need more stricter separation, per the London Bridge and Lewisham layouts. Rainham would be gone in that lens, complete outlier in the face of all the untangling done.

Cannon Street throughput is constrained by the junction at its throat. To truly maximise TPH on all lines some trains should cross onto Thameslink from the Cannon Street lines, especially taken together with constraints near East Croydon. That is less of a concern now giving the slightly reduced TPH at peak times.

I imagine 2L/2As will be extended to Gravesend - in this plan - so that 2Us have the platform space?

That was what was tried in 2022. It didn't work well as the Victoria trains couldn't turnaround for the next service and needed to shuttle to the sidings. The 2L/2As ran pretty close to the Rainham trains limiting the benefit of an addition 2tph. The shuttling introduced unreliability for many trains at Dartford and it was swapped over a timetable or two later as a result.

Meh. I often see 2Us running fast between Lewisham and Dartford. My most egregious experience was when SE pressed the skip stop button for a train only running 6 minutes late. Then they will run as booked between Dartford and Gravesend. They should be running as booked until Dartford where possible, then turning short at Dartford if they can't make it to Northfleet/Gravesend in time. Always a disappointing day when the service starts late from Victoria and they manage to maintain Victoria - Lewisham stops and Dartford - Gravesend stops, but miss the busiest commuter stations in between.

2U must be the most finicky metro service operated by Southeastern and it shouldn't have been extended to Gravesend.

While 6 minutes may not sound a lot, is enough to delay the Rainham and two HS trains at Gravesend with only Greenhithe available to skip and little time saved as a result. Other option is to put behind the Rainham get even later as that is all stops and impact the next Gravesend terminator from the Sidcup line. There isn't time to empty out at Dartford without impacting other trains and those disruptions spread quickly.

There's no easy answer, trains could perhaps form for different routes at Dartford but that constrains length and disruption on one line spreads to another. If want more frequent and well spaced connections between certain places, fewer trains or poorly spaced trains are needed elsewhere. That option also goes down like cold sick.

 

[43074]

The cutting back is more to do with the Sutton loop. The newish Brent Cross adds time into schedules and the turnback at St Albans can't easily absorb that. Peak some St Albans services go semi-fast and off peak dwells are reduced impacting punctuality which quickly spreads to other services. Both the subsequent train for the turn back and the fast/semi-fast services around it.

Extending half the Sutton services to Luton allows longer dwells off peak, more time in the turnback for recovery or at Luton. It prevents either Luton or St Albans being available for the Rainham service to turnback so that is at Kentish Town. Despite 2 fewer trains per hour between St Albans and Kentish Town it only saves 1 unit off peak as rest swallowed up by recovery/dwells on the Suttons. In the evening peak many Rainham services will run through to Bedford to maintain capacity and those 8-cars go into Bedford CS.

Switching Rainham trains back to Southeastern will take considerable time and money. Far more Thameslink drivers sign Abbey Wood to Gillingham than Southeastern ones.

Worth adding to this (very good) summary that the Rainham services are just as prone to poor performance as the Sutton Loop services - on the MML section they follow the Bedford to Brighton services from Luton, which themselves are often regulated against late running EMR Sheffield services at Harpenden which then triggers lateness on the Rainham. Coupled with short running times either side of Brent Cross (as indicated by amount of performance allowance in the remaining MML inners from December, visible in RTT) many are at least 3' late if not more by West Hampstead.

Northbound Rainham services are often held outside St Albans whilst terminating services are locked out before the shunt to the centre siding, which in turn causes lateness which knocks onto the departure of the Brighton service from Harpenden and so on. Hence the removal of Rainham services north of Kentish Town entirely was the best way to address this, especially given the loadings don't need 6 x 8-car 700s per hour off peak on the MML inners in the first place.

 

[Mattplans]

There's no easy answer

i see this.. there needs to be changes to timings of other services in the area to fix these issues. I can see how this is easier said than done.

I think that there has to be better service (recovery) available to passengers than cancelling the busiest stops between Lewisham and Dartford, and keeping Dartford - Gravesend stop. Every time they are doing this they are almost always inconveniencing/displacing a larger amount of passengers.

This is a daily challenge for the 2U service which at least a couple times a week is curtailed to Northfleet or skip stopped, while this is relatively rare on the 1D/1N services.

Worth adding to this (very good) summary

Agreed, it is very good. Thank you to @Stephen42. And yourself for the MML perspective!

The Rainhams are prone to poor performance and so are the 2Us. Like I say it's a finicky route without being extended to Gravesend; so why that was chosen to be extended up to Gravesend just 6? minutes before the Rainham service departs is a question in itself.

 

[brad465]

Open Sharnal Street on the Isle of Grain branch and extend the Charing X-Gravesend via Sidcup services there once battery stock arrives.