May 2026 timetable

[Sad Sprinter]

A new whole country map of the May 2026 timetable can be viewed or downloaded as a pdf
from Paul's Rail Map

This is a first draft so helpful feedback to railmaps@balmer.uk will be appreciated.

Can’t seem to download the map, any changes to Southern Metro services?

 

[Barn]

A new whole country map of the May 2026 timetable can be viewed or downloaded as a pdf
from Paul's Rail Map

This is a first draft so helpful feedback to railmaps@balmer.uk will be appreciated.

Astounding work. Wonderful!

 

[dk1]

I don't like to draw conclusions from a sample of one, but this morning the diagram starting 2H07 0618 Cambridge-Liverpool Street has gone up from 5 cars to 10.

This continues 2H10/24/38 0754/1124/1454 Liverpool Street-Cambridge North and 2H21/35 0952/1310 Cambridge North-Liverpool Street.

The additional services at Cambridge from Stansted, Ipswich and Norwich are all shown as running on Real Time Trains.

It’s looking to be a win win timetable hear in the east. Unsurprisingly one commuter who obviously lives under a rock complained that he nearly missed his re-train this morning blaming lack of publicity for it

 

[wls1]

The 05:55 Gillingham-Cannon St, running all stations via Dartford and Woolwich, has gone from a 6-car Networker to a 5-car 376, according to tomorrow's allocations. Must be the first time in a very long time that a 376 has operated a passenger service from Gillingham. The 6-car Networker now does the 06:45 Gillingham-Victoria, presumably so the 8-car 377 previously doing it is available for the new Gillingham-Blackfriars' peak service.

Realtime Trains | 2A09 0555 Gillingham (Kent) to London Cannon Street | 18/05/2026

Real-time train running information for 2A09 0555 departure from Gillingham (Kent) to London Cannon Street on 18/05/2026. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

In addition, the Gillingham-Victoria stopper diagram (running all day) that starts with the 07:15 service is now 8-car 465 vice 8-car 377, presumably allowing for the 8-car 377 needed for the Maidstone-Blackfriars' service.

Realtime Trains | 2K60 0715 Gillingham (Kent) to London Victoria | 18/05/2026

Real-time train running information for 2K60 0715 departure from Gillingham (Kent) to London Victoria on 18/05/2026. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

There is similar in the evening peak where the Victoria - Gillingham services are formed of 465 stock rather than 377s to release enough units for the Blackfriars introductions.

In addition, there are additional services formed of 5 carriages on the Woolwich/Greenwich lines, 2I07 0658 Lee - Cannon St has gone from 8/465 to 5/376 and a small number of formation changes across the metro area.

 

[Urban-Savage]

Suspect the answer is somewhere in this chat or forum…. But was in Liverpool Lime St today…. And realised that the TPE direct services to Hull don’t seem to exist anymore or in the next few months… when did this happen and is it just for some of the TPE royte upgrade work ? Thanks

 

[hexagon789]

Suspect the answer is somewhere in this chat or forum…. But was in Liverpool Lime St today…. And realised that the TPE direct services to Hull don’t seem to exist anymore or in the next few months… when did this happen and is it just for some of the TPE royte upgrade work ? Thanks

I suspect it is the upgrade works, they seem to start running Hull to Manchester in June (currently they terminate at Leeds) and then resume running to Liverpool in July.

 

[brad465]

There is similar in the evening peak where the Victoria - Gillingham services are formed of 465 stock rather than 377s to release enough units for the Blackfriars introductions.

In addition, there are additional services formed of 5 carriages on the Woolwich/Greenwich lines, 2I07 0658 Lee - Cannon St has gone from 8/465 to 5/376 and a small number of formation changes across the metro area.

Yes the 18:12 Victoria-Gillingham is back to being an 8-car 465 rather than 377s (it was 465 pre-December 2025). In the evening there are now four services in a row (16:42 to 18:12 inclusive) that are 8-car 465s.

The 5-car 376 to form that morning service now appears to be fed by the 376 that finishes the lone Victoria-Gravesend 376 diagram the night before; rather than running empty to Grove Park, it now runs empty to Gillingham (although last night's unit 376035 is not the same this morning, 376031).

I hope the 5-car vice 8-cars are enough for those services in the peak, although Abbey Wood of course sees lots of passengers alighting, freeing up space for passengers boarding beyond Woolwich.

 

[Kilopylae]

A new whole country map of the May 2026 timetable can be viewed or downloaded as a pdf
from Paul's Rail Map

This is a first draft so helpful feedback to railmaps@balmer.uk will be appreciated.

This is spectacular! I'm enjoying just scrolling around it. You've done a great job making London and Birmingham intelligible without distorting the overall shape of the national network too much that it becomes unrecognisable.

 

[MeAgain]

This is spectacular! I'm enjoying just scrolling around it. You've done a great job making London and Birmingham intelligible without distorting the overall shape of the national network too much that it becomes unrecognisable.

Fitting all the trams in around Manchester was tricky too.

Thanks for the great feedback from everyone letting me know of corrections. I expect there are still a few more to find so please keep looking and letting me know at railmaps@balmer.uk

I've just uploaded a new DRAFT 005 of Paul's Rail Map which can be downloaded as a pdf
from Paul's Rail Map

 

[duffield]

A new whole country map of the May 2026 timetable can be viewed or downloaded as a pdf
from Paul's Rail Map

This is a first draft so helpful feedback to railmaps@balmer.uk will be appreciated.

Chrome blocks the download for me because it's an http link that redirects to an https link. If you amend the link to go direct to the https download it works.

 

[Welshguy1048]

I can't download the map pdf

Chrome is blocking it.....

 

[duffield]

I can't download the map pdf

Chrome is blocking it.....

Right click on the link. Select "open in new window". It will still be blocked but the url is displayed and you can now change http to https in the address bar, then press enter and it will download to the downloads folder (by default) and you can open it from there.

 

[Starmill]

Fitting all the trams in around Manchester was tricky too.

Thanks for the great feedback from everyone letting me know of corrections. I expect there are still a few more to find so please keep looking and letting me know at railmaps@balmer.uk

I've just uploaded a new DRAFT 005 of Paul's Rail Map which can be downloaded as a pdf
from Paul's Rail Map

View attachment 204651

That's incredibly impressive.

 

[Welshguy1048]

Right click on the link. Select "open in new window". It will still be blocked but the url is displayed and you can now change http to https in the address bar, then press enter and it will download to the downloads folder (by default) and you can open it from there.

@duffield

Thank you

Appreciate your help.

Dave

 

[Mattplans]

he 05:55 Gillingham-Cannon St, running all stations via Dartford and Woolwich, has gone from a 6-car Networker to a 5-car 376, according to tomorrow's allocations.

That's a shame. There aren't a lot of 466s running about anymore. I had the opportunity to use this service, on one of the last days of the previous TT, on it's 2T working which I assume came after the 2A working into London from Gillingham. It did feel a bit smoother and it's always nice to use a train you don't regularly see.

I hope the 5-car vice 8-cars are enough for those services in the peak, although Abbey Wood of course sees lots of passengers alighting, freeing up space for passengers boarding beyond Woolwich.

I have noticed some passengers complaining on Twitter about this.

I also only noticed very recently that there tends to be no City Beams via Greenwich at all during the week (or at Cannon Street), and the one that does run around is swapped at Dartford for the Sidcup/Hayes services at the start of the evening peak. Even with 2 DLR lines, the Jubilee line in close proximity and the Elizabeth line, the line via Greenwich is still very busy. I think the running assumption is that it is less busy than the neighbouring lines due to the other TfL services, but they're still getting shafted a bit in my opinion. New rolling stock can't come soon enough. For all the hate Thameslink gets, at least when they are running it is with a stable 8 car service with air con on the route.

 

[brad465]

That's a shame. There aren't a lot of 466s running about anymore. I had the opportunity to use this service, on one of the last days of the previous TT, on it's 2T working which I assume came after the 2A working into London from Gillingham. It did feel a bit smoother and it's always nice to use a train you don't regularly see.

I have noticed some passengers complaining on Twitter about this.

I also only noticed very recently that there tends to be no City Beams via Greenwich at all during the week (or at Cannon Street), and the one that does run around is swapped at Dartford for the Sidcup/Hayes services at the start of the evening peak. Even with 2 DLR lines, the Jubilee line in close proximity and the Elizabeth line, the line via Greenwich is still very busy. I think the running assumption is that it is less busy than the neighbouring lines due to the other TfL services, but they're still getting shafted a bit in my opinion. New rolling stock can't come soon enough. For all the hate Thameslink gets, at least when they are running it is with a stable 8 car service with air con on the route.

Come the December timetable I wonder if more 376s and 707s move across to Cannon St services to cater for the reinstated Sidcup rounders; these will suck up a lot of passengers for the Elizabeth Line, with demand for Charing X services going down, so 8-car services maybe enough for these off-peak. 376s are also currently impacted by their refurbishment work, which sees two units OOA at a given time. If this is in addition to normal unit utilisation levels, then some services will be short-formed.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Has this anomaly been mentioned?

Realtime Trains | 1O68 1725 Manchester Piccadilly to Bournemouth | 28/05/2026

Real-time train running information for 1O68 1725 departure from Manchester Piccadilly to Bournemouth on 28/05/2026. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

No call at Stockport despite running via it!

 

[jfollows]

May 2026 timetable

Generally I have found that driver-opening doors take slightly longer at some stations, as drivers are told not to open immediately and to manually check they are in the correct position and correct side. At more complex stations such as Leeds, I believe the driver has to input the position and...

www.railforums.co.uk

Post #305

 

[Timmyd]

Come the December timetable I wonder if more 376s and 707s move across to Cannon St services to cater for the reinstated Sidcup rounders; these will suck up a lot of passengers for the Elizabeth Line, with demand for Charing X services going down, so 8-car services maybe enough for these off-peak. 376s are also currently impacted by their refurbishment work, which sees two units OOA at a given time. If this is in addition to normal unit utilisation levels, then some services will be short-formed.

Single 376s seem to have become normal on Victoria to Gravesend services, which is a big reduction from the 8 car 465 formations it has always been before. They can probably manage most of the time but must be cosy in the peaks. It also seems there's an extra diagram on this route as they now seem to leave alternately from 7 and the dreaded 8 at Victoria while the next service has a longer layover

 

[jonnyfan]

Has this anomaly been mentioned?

Realtime Trains | 1O68 1725 Manchester Piccadilly to Bournemouth | 28/05/2026

Real-time train running information for 1O68 1725 departure from Manchester Piccadilly to Bournemouth on 28/05/2026. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

No call at Stockport despite running via it!

Before the May timetable change it called at Stockport and ran through Crewe non-stop, now it calls at Crewe but not Stockport!

 

[brad465]

Single 376s seem to have become normal on Victoria to Gravesend services, which is a big reduction from the 8 car 465 formations it has always been before. They can probably manage most of the time but must be cosy in the peaks. It also seems there's an extra diagram on this route as they now seem to leave alternately from 7 and the dreaded 8 at Victoria while the next service has a longer layover

There's normally only one diagram all day that is a 5-car 376 Mon-Fri, and it is timed to avoid the busiest peak flows. Down trains leave Victoria at 16:33 and 19:33. In the morning the 5-car diagram doesn't actually start properly until the 10:33 VIC-GRV; before this the 05:24 Dartford-VIC service is a 376, but this is very early so again avoids the biggest peak flow. I'm not sure why they decided to extend the layover at Victoria, other than possibly to get more resilience.

 

[Trainguy34]

Fitting all the trams in around Manchester was tricky too.

Thanks for the great feedback from everyone letting me know of corrections. I expect there are still a few more to find so please keep looking and letting me know at railmaps@balmer.uk

I've just uploaded a new DRAFT 005 of Paul's Rail Map which can be downloaded as a pdf
from Paul's Rail Map

View attachment 204651

Just saw this, this is an extremely impressive map with (presumably) an extremely large amount of research required, particularly for headcodes! Major kudos for this one, I'll be using this alot!

 

[Barn]

Just for anyone (like me) who continues to be enthralled by this wonderful map and staggered at the amount of work it must have taken, I note that Paul has created a new DRAFT 008 of the map:

https://www.balmer.uk/paulsrailmap.pdf

Paul has kindly added one very minor correction that I reported to railmaps@balmer.uk so I'm sure he'd be pleased to have any further suggestions.

 

[Cambrian359]

Just for anyone (like me) who continues to be enthralled by this wonderful map and staggered at the amount of work it must have taken, I note that Paul has created a new DRAFT 008 of the map:

https://www.balmer.uk/paulsrailmap.pdf

Paul has kindly added one very minor correction that I reported to railmaps@balmer.uk so I'm sure he'd be pleased to have any further suggestions.

Is there’s a website or social media pages for this to follow do you know?

 

[MeAgain]

Is there’s a website or social media pages for this to follow do you know?

I'm not planning a website or social media pages for this - all the useful discussion about timetable changes is already on this forum.

I'll continue to update the map in response to the helpful feedback when someone spots something which isn't right or suggests an improvement in the presentation.

If everyone likes it then I'm likely to produce a major update for the December timetable change.

It's several days since someone emailed me with an update so please keep looking, there must still be a few mistakes on the map.

Just keep downloading the latest version from
https://www.balmer.uk/paulsrailmap.pdf
and emailing railmaps@balmer.uk when you spot an error.

Most phones and browsers won't zoom in enough to see the details. It's best to download the pdf file and view on a computer using Acrobat Reader.

 

[ponponjo]

I'm not planning a website or social media pages for this - all the useful discussion about timetable changes is already on this forum.

I'll continue to update the map in response to the helpful feedback when someone spots something which isn't right or suggests an improvement in the presentation.

If everyone likes it then I'm likely to produce a major update for the December timetable change.

It's several days since someone emailed me with an update so please keep looking, there must still be a few mistakes on the map.

Just keep downloading the latest version from
https://www.balmer.uk/paulsrailmap.pdf
and emailing railmaps@balmer.uk when you spot an error.

Most phones and browsers won't zoom in enough to see the details. It's best to download the pdf file and view on a computer using Acrobat Reader.

Thanks for producing this great resource. One correction - the London Charing Cross - Hastings route is marked as/has the headcodes for Charing Cross - Dover Priory.

 

[MeAgain]

Thanks for producing this great resource. One correction - the London Charing Cross - Hastings route is marked as/has the headcodes for Charing Cross - Dover Priory.

Thanks for letting me know. I've updated the map to show HGS-CHX 1HH SE and DRAFT 009 is now ready for downloading from
https://www.balmer.uk/paulsrailmap.pdf

Please notify corrections to railmaps@balmer.uk if possible as I don't look at this forum every day and there can be a delay in spotting corrections posted here.

 

[sh24]

@MeAgain - what a phenomenal effort. Harry Beck would be impressed!

 

[Mattplans]

SE Blackfriars - Maidstone East are having very poor performance at the moment.

 

[ricoblade]

I suspect it is the upgrade works, they seem to start running Hull to Manchester in June (currently they terminate at Leeds) and then resume running to Liverpool in July.

I was just looking for my daughter who wants to go from Hull to Manchester later this year and there don't appear to be any Hull to Manchester directs into September.