South Eastern leaf fall timetable

[Timmyd]

For the last few years SE have amended suburban services so that they omit stops at certain stations off peak during the leaf fall period, which causes quite a bit of customer inconvenience. The bit I don’t get is surely leaf fall on the tracks would be worst first thing in the morning, and the potential delay impact greatest in the morning peak (eg trains missing their slot through the flat junctions like Herne Hill), so whats the benefit of starting doing this at 930 or so?

My stop isn’t affected by the skip stopping but is the one after one of the missed stations - all that happens is that trains consistently arrive early and on a number of occasions I’ve noticed leave early too, which obviously isn’t good.

Do other TOCs do this on a pre-planned basis? I’ve never seen it elsewhere.

 

[Watershed]

Why should it be worst early in the morning? Railhead treatment trains (RHTT) usually try to cover the network during the small hours of the day (although of course this is not always possible). So, in fact, the morning is going to be the least affected period, as it's typically going to have been only a short while since an RHTT cleaned the rails.

Leaf fall contamination means that drivers have to accelerate and brake much more cautiously to prevent wheelslip (which can cause significant damage to track and train, requiring either to be taken out of service to be repaired), or else station overruns (which are considered a moderately serious incident). So there is certainly logic to removing stops to prevent the more sluggish performance of trains from impacting the timetable at key junctions as you say.

Consider also that the unit diagrams might be tighter outside of peak times, where there are no peak extras. So even a small delay in presenting at a key junction might result in a further delay whilst awaiting a clear path. That in turn could spiral into more and more delays as you are then late at the next junction, miss your platform at the terminus etc. until you have to cancel services or turn around early.

Southeastern certainly aren't the only TOC to do this. I know that West Midlands Trains and their predecessors have done something similar on the CrossCity line in Birmingham for many years, mainly because it runs on a very tight timetable at the best of times, so there's little slack for the sluggish performance you inevitably get during leaf fall season.

The biggest issue in my view is that the leaf fall timetable rarely overlaps completely with the leaf fall season, as the season naturally doesn't "fall" at the same time each year! But these things have to be planned a long way in advance so it's difficult to just say "leaf fall is over, let's go back to the normal timetable" once the trees are bare.