Thameslink expansion

[Relativenewbie]

Clearly there's a lot of hype about the new rolling stock, longer trains and station redevelopment (esp. blackfriars) but does anyone have any information on exactly which routes are going to be added to Thameslink as part of the Thameslink Programme?

 

[ushawk]

http://www.thameslinkprogramme.co.uk/cms/pages/view/30

Although it isnt confirmed yet, although it wont be going down to Eastbourne now

 

[swt_passenger]

The best information is to be found in the latest Route Utilisation Strategies, (RUSs), but you need to read three or four of them, because the Thameslink plans impact on so many areas. The drawing on the Thameslink programme site is not particularly up to date, indeed could now be considered misleading, because places such as Eastbourne, Guildford and Littlehampton no longer figure in the later RUS versions. Kngs Lynn is no longer Thameslink and will apparently be served by IEP, and the Wimbledon trains will no longer run through Blackfriars and in all probability will be transferred to another TOC.

Try looking at South London, Kent, and Sussex for plans south of the river, and the ECML 2016 capacity review for what is planned for the GN routes.

The RUS index is here:

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browseDirectory.aspx?dir=\RUS Documents\Route Utilisation Strategies&pageid=2895&root=

Not much change is expected on the existing MML, as the service frequency is basically unchanged under the 24 tph plans, ie the extras are basically on the GN.

Another point is that other than the existing Brighton - Bedford through trains being expected to carry on at 4 tph, they have said that there is no need to formally 'connect' particular destination/origin pairs yet. What I mean by that is that there is no need to decide exactly where trains from say Cambridge or Peterborough end up in the SE or SN areas. However what does seem likely is that each long distance origin will have a 2 or 4 tph service to 'somewhere', eg all Cambridge services will go to the same place.

 

[tempests1]

Guildford features in the extension plans. Orignally the town had a Thameslink service in the late eighties/early nineties that went to Luton.

 

[swt_passenger]

Guildford features in the extension plans.

Not any more - it isn't even mentioned in the Sussex RUS.

 

[tempests1]

Not any more - it isn't even mentioned in the Sussex RUS.

It may not say it in the current London & Southeast RUS, but it probably would be thought about towards the end of the Thameslink programme as per thameslinkprogramme.co.uk, The nature of RUS is that it adds & removes parts as time progresses. The document is designed to last up until 2031. I imagine that we will be on about Generation 10 by that stage!

 

[cyclebytrain]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why should Guildford be in the Sussex RUS? It isn't in Sussex

 

[swt_passenger]

It may not say it in the current London & Southeast RUS, but it probably would be thought about towards the end of the Thameslink programme as per thameslinkprogramme.co.uk, The nature of RUS is that it adds & removes parts as time progresses. The document is designed to last up until 2031. I imagine that we will be on about Generation 10 by that stage!

I actually emailed the people running the thameslink programme website a couple of years ago, and they confirmed that the info on their diagram is stale, and isn't being updated to comply with the various RUSs. They agreed that the service patterns described in the various RUSs accurately reflect current intentions.

But anyway, following the decision to exchange the layout of the Blackfriars approaches so that it's 99% certain trains from the Sutton/Wimbledon direction terminate in the west side Blackfriars bays, it's only trains from the current SE network (via Denmark Hill) that can run through the core via Elephant and Castle - therefore there isn't even a practical route for services from Guildford to take - unless they go via West Croydon and Norwood Jn - and all the Thameslink paths on that route seem to be already allocated.


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Perhaps I'm missing something, but why should Guildford be in the Sussex RUS? It isn't in Sussex

Because it is referring to NR's 'Sussex route' which is basically the SN network less the inner London area.

NR also have a 'Wessex route' and there's no such place...

 

[cyclebytrain]

What I meant was I thought Guildford was in the "Wessex" region, so you wouldn't expect to see it in the Sussex RUS

 

[swt_passenger]

What I meant was I thought Guildford was in the "Wessex" region, so you wouldn't expect to see it in the Sussex RUS

Ah right. No as far as I can see there is plenty of overlap between RUS coverage - so you'd expect a service to Guildford which was mostly via the Sussex area would get mentioned - it's similar to the way they deal with through trains such as Reading to Gatwick after all.

 

[cyclebytrain]

You're using logic when discussing the railways??? I would have _guessed_ (perhaps hoped, looking at it from a rather selfish perspective) that a thameslink to Guildford would be (say) one Sutton service per hour extended through Epsom and Effingham junction.

 

[Bedpan]

I agree that would be good....but (a) as they don't actually terminate at Sutton (but continue round the loop one way of the other, to do so would deprive West Sutton - Wimbledon - Tooting of a corresponding service, and (b) as the loop service is almost certainly going to terminate at Blackfriars, even if they did, it would only be a Guildford - Blackfriars service.

Isn't there a Victoria - Guildford service already that goes via Sutton and would there be room to reroute this onto Thameslink via West Croydon and London Bridge?

 

[JKJimar53]

Maybe the East London Line could take over the top half of the Wimbledon loop. This was proposed during the 90's and trains could run to Highbury or Dalston.

 

[OxtedL]

I have always been a little intrigued by this proposal. East Grinstead does not need a better service than it currently has (outside the peaks), yet I have the impression that there is a proposal to run trains from Peterborough!

In the peaks I can understand however, as the service is currently arranged very neatly into additional half hourly trains to London Bridge at these times.

I hope they don't run empty trains all the way to East Grinstead for the sake of a nice service pattern!

 

[swt_passenger]

I have always been a little intrigued by this proposal. East Grinstead does not need a better service than it currently has (outside the peaks), yet I have the impression that there is a proposal to run trains from Peterborough!

The same basic point applies to the Brighton - Bedford service that has run for years. The rationale is basically that they are running 4 tph to London from both Brighton and Bedford, and by connecting them together the whole thing operates more efficently. In the last year or two we have had the reinstatrement of through services from certain 'SE origins', but the vast majority of passengers from those areas probably aren't at all concerned where the trains go to north of London, because they all get out at Blackfriars or City.

Ultimately it will be the same for East Grinstead - probably a majority of peak passengers will not travel further than the core stations.

The advantage for the rail system as a whole is that 24 extra tph from north and south can't be easily terminated in the existing stations - that sort of frequency needs 6 -8 terminating platforms to run reliably - so by linking across London and sending relatively empty trains to the other end of the route everything runs reliably. For the Thameslink 'inner pairs' of stations of course a down train can return full again in the same peak period - this isn't necessarily the case if they pair off say Brighton and Peterborough of course.

It would be intersting to know roughly what fraction of current Thameslink passengers ever travel through from end to end - I suspect other than airport traffic there aren't many doing the whole route. That leads me to believe that at individual passenger level it doesn't matter where the new services go once through London...

PS - I don't think the peak services, say 4 tph, will actually run all day. All the RUS proposals I've seen are pretty clear that they are describing the morning peak service patterns - as it is always the most complex, and everything else is easier to manage...

 

[radamfi]

A large part of the South East will be connected with each other with one simple change at Farringdon once the Thameslink Programme and Crossrail are finished, eliminating many tedious Tube connections across London. For example Cambridge to Heathrow, Brighton to Romford. Farringdon will be like Châtelet-Les Halles in Paris.

 

[Bedpan]

It would be intersting to know roughly what fraction of current Thameslink passengers ever travel through from end to end - I suspect other than airport traffic there aren't many doing the whole route. That leads me to believe that at individual passenger level it doesn't matter where the new services go once through London...

I assume that by "from end to end" you mean from, say, north of St Pancras to south of London Bridge/Elephant and Castle. When I use the train I invariably travel through the core and generally speaking there are generally one or two people in my carriage travelling through, although the majority don't, although sometimes (at least pre 2009) particularly in the summer holidays/weekends there have been a surprising number of families going for a day at the seaside.

However there are a sigificant nomber of people going south from St Pancras and Farringdon and north from London Bridge and Blackfriars., so it could perhaps be argued that with available infrastructure (which of course there isn't) it would be sensible to terminate northbound trains at St Pancras and southbound trains at London Bridge. In fact this is what happens at the moment up to a point, with the Kentish Town - Sevenoaks route in the off peak - when I go to St Mary Cray (which I do sometimes) I simply have a convenient connection at one of the central London stations. (Or Blackfriars prior to 2009). And as Radamfi says, a convenient interchange for a huge part of the south esat will be opened up at Farringdon when the Crossrail and Thameslink projects are fully complete.


The current late evening and weekend closures are a reminder of how useful the route is aand what a pain it would be without it. Gatwick Airport for holidays, Brighton for days out, East Croydon for work from time to time and Wimbledon for interchange onto services to Kingston/other south west London stations are all used by members of my family.