Agreed. There’s a lot of travelcards in the data.
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Thameslink core broken - 13th July 26 - what could be done to improve things?
- Thread starter ModernRailways
- Start date
Agreed. There’s a lot of travelcards in the data.
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rmHawk765
Member
So what about all the families that are not going to Brighton or Gatwick? Are they just irrelevant and have to suck it up using the Tube? What about the South West destinations which require multiple Tube changes for Waterloo? And do the South East and West require running to Brighton instead of just London Bridge? What about the lower Eastern coastal destinations getting to which usually requires changing in London? The mere fact that the direct connections exist does not change someone's mind on where they are going on holiday. Families living in Cambridge can also get annoyed when their train has been cancelled because of a fault at Brighton or Gatwick, and now instead of waiting half an hour (often an hour because GTR) they'll probably just get the next fast train to King's Cross (even if they are actually going to Brighton or Gatwick). The purpose of the direct connection is defeated if the service cannot reliably run and it does not seem like Cambridge to Brighton is a particularly dependable service (to no-one's surprise). And as usual none of this even takes into account motor vehicle travel to those same destinations.
If the aim was genuinely for better connectivity we would link everything up. With Brighton it just so happens to fit into the Thameslink network, and that doesn't mean everyone is going to start flocking to Brighton in the summer.
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zwk500
Veteran Member
Have you ever been to Brighton on a moderately hot day?
uglymonkey
Member
- Joined
- 10 Aug 2018
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- 707
I get a Thameslink from London Bridge to Baldock in the evening peak, it is full leaving City Thameslink and standing only until Hitchin when it empties. I for one would not use the train if I had to train- tube-train rather than change trains at London Bridge.
It very definitely does. St Albans has 22,000 trips a year to Brighton (direct, 2tph)
The next recognised ’seaside’ location on the list is Eastbourne (simple same platform change required, 2tph), with fewer than 1000. Bournemouth, of a similar size as Brighton (and a better beach) has 600. Margate (easy change at St Pancras, 2tph) has 400.
rmHawk765
Member
Yes, and I have also been to other coastal towns which I think I can reasonably say are pretty popular too.
bramling
Veteran Member
On the rare occasions I use a Thameslink service I will join London Bridge in order to sit where I prefer. That doesn’t mean Thameslink is popular with me, I’d prefer to join at King’s Cross if the train originated there. I’m far from the only person who does this.
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Not entirely sure one can make this link. Eastbourne and Margate have a reputation for not being great places to visit, and Bournemouth is a much longer journey plus the issue that the station is very inconveniently sited.
In any event there’s much nicer seaside places than all these, though generally only reachable by car.
Not from St Albans in under two hours! My guess is that most trips by any mode from ‘Thameslink North’ to Brighton / Bournemouth / simialr places a couple of hours away are 1-3 day trips. My Brighton trips are for the day. I wouldn‘t do it without Thameslink.
We do, mainly through the road network. What the railway does well is where large numbers of people want the same connectivity. The railway has to identify where there is enough connectivity required to justify trains.
Airports are a classic example of lots of people all wanting the same connectivity. At Gatwick 43 million a year of them.
Of all the places in the East of England, the place that most wants connectivity with Gatwick is Cambridge. Furthermore, various other places along the route also want connectivity with Gatwick, and they want connectivity with Brighton too.
For Cambridge, connectivity with Gatwick is not about UK people going on holiday. Cambridge is now an important UK business destination, in addition to the traffic it generates as a consequence of being a university city with a global reputation. As a result Cambridge has a very diverse population. A lot of traffic between airports and Cambridge is Cambridge people visiting families abroad, and people abroad visiting their families in Cambridge. Bedford and Luton have very diverse populations too, though for different reasons.
William3000
Member
I regularly travel from Cambridge to Southampton to get to the port with luggage. Thameslink is invaluable for avoiding the tube with heavy luggage. We travel from Cambridge to London Bridge, London Bridge to Waterloo East and then short walk to London Waterloo. The presence of through core Thameslink services facilitates this
People do day trips to Brighton from Cambridge too.
Cambridge has long standing affinity with seaside resorts in Norfolk and Suffolk, but no direct trains. From Cambridge the seaside numbers are:
Brighton 26884
Yarmouth 6269
Lowestoft 2503
Cromer 2339
Sheringham 2116
Eastbourne 1716
Felixstowe 1336
Bournemouth 1237
rmHawk765
Member
What about international destinations? What about car travel?
However the Stansted flow is actually much larger than Gatwick, so while I certainly can't dispute airport connectivity as a benefit, Gatwick specifically is less relevant here (unsurprisingly given the journey times).
And I agree that the idea of linking mainlines is very useful. For the ECML Thameslink is most useful on its section between East Croydon and Finsbury Park, as this links all Southern and Southeastern journeys to the ECML with only two changes (one at each end).
With the same logic that Brighton is so popular due to its direct links, doesn't this justify linking other seaside destinations as they would theoretically also be as popular? Again without factoring in road usage you can't just say that Brighton dwarfs everything else from the outer Thameslink stations and that's it.
And I'm not arguing against that, in fact I'm all for the core existing. I'm talking about where trains go after it.
bramling
Veteran Member
Of those three places, Cambridge has an airport barely a few miles away, and as for Luton it has its own on the very doorstop, Bedford only being a few miles away. I realise it’s never that simple, however it would be a lot more sensible to attempt to match journeys with these nearer airports as far as possible, especially with rail (and road) capacity being so scarce.
zwk500
Veteran Member
Brighton's Road links are among the best of any seaside resort in the country except Blackpool. The M23/A23 provides a high-capacity motorway/expressway from the edge of the city to the M25 (the less said about the connections through South London the better...) and the A27 a HQDC distributor/bypass road of the main conurbation (although the Worthing section and Lewes bypass limit it's usefullness.
On Summer weekends, Road and Rail are well beyond capacity with daytrippers and weekenders on a very regular basis.
what about them?
People don't always fly from the nearest airport because airlines only fly on routes where they can fill planes (airlines are much better at doing this than railways). For many flight destinations, there isn't a choice on which airport to use. To continue the example of my neighbour's Spanish family, they flew from Gatwick because there are no flights from Stansted to where they live in Spain. Going to Stansted would be like turning up at Paddington instead of Kings Cross and expecting to get a train to Newcastle.
Where flights to a destination are available at both Stansted and Gatwick, then most Cambridge people will choose Stansted, but there are plenty of destinations where they don't have that choice. If that choice isn't available, the difference in journey time between Stansted and Gatwick is irrelevant.
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izvor
Member
The obvious answer to the Thameslink paradox is to build a vast new underground station at, say, Farringdon where trains from the north and trains from the south can meet, head on (almost literally), and any cross-London passengers can transfer seamlessly. Reliable service restored, the vast majority catered for without interchange, and poor old users in Sandy no longer losing all their trains every time there is a points failure at Three Bridges.
But it absolutely isn't, because there are few or no turnback facilities to be used in the event of (currently far too frequent) disruption. Somehow the operation has to be rationalised, hence my rather flippant comment. All well above my competence, but I'll continue reading this thread in the hope of solutions!
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It might, but I've a feeling the people of Eastbourne etc would be quite happy not to be linked into Thameslink, given its current issues.
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Thanks @Magdalia for the figures on Cambridge to Brighton vs. Great Yarmouth. They are quite astounding.
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marshlinker
Member
Brighton is the only southern coast destination where the market is big enough to support direct trains to both Victoria (West End) and Thameslink (City). From all the other seaside resorts the primary flow is to Victoria rather than the city. Even where they have peak hours services to London Bridge these have always going back many years been the quiet peak services.
The same platform change to Thameslink at East Croydon/ Gatwick/ Three Bridges/ Haywards heath plus a 2tph service to Victoria is the optimal solution for most of the coast.
Genuine question - what are the consequences for the droves of passengers travelling from/to Cambridge and Gatwick Airport or Brighton cited earlier within this thread when the Cambridge-Brighton and v.v. service is regularly and hastily binned at the first hint of disruption anywhere on its line of route?
bramling
Veteran Member
They clutter up other services instead.
Guess its possible to change onto Peterborough-Horsham at either Hitchin or Kings Cross/St Pancras.
One of the advantages of being north of Shepreth Branch Junction is having the Liverpool Street line as an alternative.
change at Kings Cross and walk 200m to St P low level.
Which is fine if you are able-bodied and reasonably confident of finding your way. Two weeks ago I took a family friend to Cambridge South for the first leg of her journey to Cornwall. On the face of it, ideal: ten minutes drive from our home, uncluttered drop-off area, and she is familiar with the interchanges at Farringdon and Paddington, as she does that trip two or three times a year. However, the Brighton train which was shown as on time when we left home had been cancelled by the time we got to Cambridge South, and it soon became clear that all the following ones had as well. Now the catch: she is of a certain age, encumbered by a suitcase, not a confident traveller, and has worsening vision problems. So changing at King's Cross and finding either Thameslink or the Hammersmith and City line filled her with dread in a way that may be difficult for readers of this forum to grasp. In the end I drove her to Stratford, got her on to the Elizabeth line and travelled to the first stop (Whitechapel) with her to be sure she had a seat and could count the stations to Paddington. What may seem like a piece of cake to many of us (self included) can be totally daunting to others.
No doubt, and sorry to hear about that experience. It is, however, a small minority of such travellers that have that experience.
I’d also argue that it is not much different in difficulty / wayfinding to get from Kings Cross to St P Thameslink (southbound) than it is to get from Thameslink (southbound) to the Elizabeth Line. Only one change of level rather than three, and similar walking distance.
Agreed; it was above all anxiety about the unfamiliar rather than the familiar. As an aside, she is someone who has come to the railway late in life. She lives in Cornwall, a good distance from any station. When her husband was alive and her vision OK they would both drive everywhere: it was almost the only option. As we live longer, and especially if the requirements for driving beyond the age of 70 become more stringent, you could reflect that we're likely to see more people in that situation. But that's a long way off-topic: sorry.
I was about to say the same. I used to commute pre-Covid to St Albans and got on at Blackfriars on the way home as it was the last stop where a seat could be guaranteed peaktime.
Looking at the extreme of Bedford to Brighton or Gatwick doesn't capture what for most passengers is the benefit of Thameslink - being able to use any of the stations in the core. Indeed I go to Elephant & Castle and walk when I go to the cricket at Lord's, Blackfriars this weekend when I'm going to the Southbank, and changing at Farringdon to the Elizabeth when I want to go East or West of the Thameslink line. These are all much more convenient that having to change to a tube at St Pancras.
Before St Pancras Low Level opened in 2007 it was the Victoria Line with two very long walks, including bits that were not step free.
HQ is a long way from E&C, especialyy when its not to far from W Hampstead!
(Presume you meant t’Oval).