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December 2026 Timetable Change
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They've been around forever and some used to run to Farnham. I agree that it might be better to have a slightly faster pattern if they flight ahead of a Reading, for the likes of Camberley pax - they used to - but today this is basically a very local railway with high turnover between non-London places.
Ah ok, fair enough, I thought the equivalents (used to be at xx05/xx35 if I remember right) went at Covid and never came back.
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I presume the old 05/35 paths are no longer available? If the idea is to serve all the stations beyond Staines rather than provide fasts to the outer destinations, an even-interval service would presumably be the ideal situation rather than 2 trains within 5 mins.
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Windsor basically runs in that position now, rather than the historical 58/28, so that Reading and Windsor trains leave Waterloo fifteen minutes apart. Even 13/43 is shared by Aldershot and Shepperton, with both having Putney stops.
Makes sense I guess from the POV of fast services to Richmond, Twickenham and Staines, though if they ever brought back 4tph to Ascot in the peaks I can see it would be of benefit to retime the Windsors back to their old slot in the peak to provide the 15 min service to the stops beyond Staines (as they would also cover the aforementioned inner stations).
my son started travelling to/from Egham from this way for Uni and its a fairly crowded standing room only most days. More trains would be good, the new ones have more capacity thankfully. Very few people from Camberley travel to Waterloo that way, given how much faster services are from Farnborough and Brookwood.
evergreenadam
Member
- Joined
- 23 Nov 2013
- Messages
- 344
Crowded in the morning travelling towards London or towards Reading?
DaveHarries
Established Member
RealTimeTrains is now showing changes for Transport for Wales from 14th December and among them is that TfW will now operate services through to Bristol Temple Meads by extending certain services on the Milford Haven and Fishguard Harbour routes with some also starting from & terminating at Cardiff Central, Maesteg or Carmarthen.
Bristol TM trains operated by TfW:
- Mondays to Fridays: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...4/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=AW
- Saturdays: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...9/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=AW
- Sundays: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...3/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=AW
The trains have been loaded into the journey planners.
It seems that these ones for Milford Haven and Fishguard will, in some cases anyway, interwork with trains to / from Manchester Piccadilly so guess Class 196 DMUs will operate the services. I presume the 231s and 756s which TfW have will be deployed to other routes with the arrival of the tram trains.
Dave
Bristol TM trains operated by TfW:
- Mondays to Fridays: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...4/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=AW
- Saturdays: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...9/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=AW
- Sundays: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...3/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=AW
The trains have been loaded into the journey planners.
It seems that these ones for Milford Haven and Fishguard will, in some cases anyway, interwork with trains to / from Manchester Piccadilly so guess Class 196 DMUs will operate the services. I presume the 231s and 756s which TfW have will be deployed to other routes with the arrival of the tram trains.
Dave
waverley47
Member
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- 858
I didn't realise TfW had enough spare 196s that they could afford to send have what amounts a diagram east of Severn Tunnel Junction for the whole day.
It's a shame it's interworking with the Manchester services for now though, I forsee short notice cancellations and unit swaps at Cardiff until it's split properly.
brad465
Veteran Member
Canterbury East interestingly is getting a Sunday uplift that sees some semi-fast Victoria-Canterbury East services in addition to the hourly Victoria-Dover Priory, so most hours it will be 2tph towards London. There is no uplift off-peak Monday-Saturday, so this station will join those in having a better Sunday service than Saturday, which might make sense as a tourist city and on days Kent County Cricket Club are playing at home.
The additional up departures are 09:55, 10:55, 11:55, 14:55, 15:55, 16:55 and 17:55. There are also departures to Faversham only at 12:42, 13:42, 19:42 and 20:42, however these don't connect to anything useful at Faversham (though Faversham-CBE is a strong passenger flow anyway). None of these call at Selling, Teynham and Newington and are fast from Rochester to Bromley South.
The additional up departures are 09:55, 10:55, 11:55, 14:55, 15:55, 16:55 and 17:55. There are also departures to Faversham only at 12:42, 13:42, 19:42 and 20:42, however these don't connect to anything useful at Faversham (though Faversham-CBE is a strong passenger flow anyway). None of these call at Selling, Teynham and Newington and are fast from Rochester to Bromley South.
swt_passenger
Veteran Member
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- 34,308
Are these the trains that GW objected to, resulting in the thread here:
GWR accused of disrupting Wales-England train links by Welsh Government
Are there industry rules that say GWR have to help out with route learning? Feels a bit surprising given the objections that they would essentially be facilitating the services by helping with route learning given those objections. I don't understand their objections at all. GWR are a service...
www.railforums.co.uk
So does the appearance on RTT mean they’re definitely happening, or is it still to be approved?
moonarrow458
Member
Those services that only run from Canterbury East to Faversham do actually have good 6 minute connections onto the Javelin services to St Pancras, so are not as useless as one might think
Kite159
Veteran Member
So back to something similar to 2019 before the Timetable of a Thousand Cuts during the Covid era axed the 2tph service at Canterbury East?
Yes, the main line service to Victoria could do with being improved.
brad465
Veteran Member
Okay I think the problem is I picked a day (10th January) where HS1 services are either not running or have just not entered RTT yet. On the 17th they are in and you're correct.
One thing to note is this route is notorious for Sunday engineering work that would sever the service at the Medway Towns, Sittingbourne or Faversham, so won't run when this is the case.
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Whilst welcoming the long-awaited and much needed reinstatement of 4tph off peak on the Hertford loop it looks like the service after around 2130 reduces from the current half hourly to hourly. This effectively makes the line useless for returning from London evenings out. Who wants to wait for up to 59 minutes at a station with zero facilities such as Moorgate or Old Street? These are busy trains!
Intercity_225
Member
Real Time Trains (https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...26-12-17/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt) is saying that that's due to engineering works, not the regular timetable.
Good to know, thanks. Christmas party season…
DaveHarries
Established Member
Class 196 DMUs was my guess but I have heard on a FB group that TfW are doing thorough checks on their 158s at Canton Depot so it could be we see 158s. TBH as long as the trains are not formed of 150s I don't mind.
Dave
A class 150 through the hole is quite something, in a noisy low quality way. The racket from the tunnel sump to the exit is unbelievable, especially with open windows.
Hourly really isn’t unusable! If you don’t want to wait 59 minutes just get there 1 minute earlier.
It becomes unusable when the last trains are too early to do what you want/need to do
brad465
Veteran Member
Two changes for Cannon St-Ashford peak services are the introduction of a new service at 16:58, while the 18:28 CST-AFK is extended to Folkestone Central. The potential rolling stock for the former could be interesting: naturally it's a 375/377 route, however the ECS moves after take the stock to Grove Park for the night, which could imply a Networker allocation, as Grove Park doesn't normally hold 375/377s overnight, only between peaks.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Presumably all these references to TfW 196s actually mean 197s?
lookingatstell
New Member
It looks like the previous additional services on the ELL London Overground at peak times have been removed?
As you say, it's 4tph to Hertford North until 19:46.
However, there are three Gordon Hill terminators, so there's 4tph to Gordon Hill until 21:16.
Following pressure from the Stevenage MP, the 2240hrs and 2333hrs LNER weekday services from Kings Cross will revert to open stops at Stevenage, rather than pick up only, from the December timetable change. Given the often poor performance of GTR, this is a very welcome development for those, including myself, who live in Stevenage.
evergreenadam
Member
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- 23 Nov 2013
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- 344
Sounds good, a very practical solution.
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Andrew Griffith MP reports that some GTR services from the south coast to the City will be reinstated in advance of the timetable change:
Constituents have written to me about the loss of key commuter services between Littlehampton and London Bridge, there has been a noticeable decline in the service since the government took over the running of Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) (Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express).
As a result, commuters have been facing longer journeys, additional changes and the inconvenience of having to change trains.
These time amendments have a real impact on people travelling to and from work, particularly those who rely on these services every day. I have raised this directly with GTR and have been advised that the 17:33 from London Bridge to Littlehampton and the 06:37 Shoreham-by-Sea to London Bridge, (which had been withdrawn in the summer), are expected to be reinstated by 12th October.
I am cautiously welcoming this good news; commuters deserve a service that allows them to get to work and home efficiently and reliably without unnecessary additional changes or extended journey times. I will remain on the case and continue to press for these services to be fully restored on behalf of constituents who rely on them every day.
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