Thameslink to Maidstone East

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Thameslink's 700 route maps on board, still state 'services for this route are being planned', despite the aforementioned: 'It's Dead'.

This has little grounds for excitement seeing as internal maps on 455s still advise that international services run from Waterloo.

 

[JonathanH]

She said this a few weeks ago however:

Ah, that was hidden away. I see she is still holding out hope for a through train onto the Thameslink route.

 

[WizCastro197]

This has little grounds for excitement seeing as internal maps on 455s still advise that international services run from Waterloo.

Not excited at all, as previously mentioned, it has been downgraded from ‘services will begin on 2023’ to some vague message with no time fixture on it. The maps have been replaced though in the Dec 2022 timetable change.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jan 2023 ==

Ah, that was hidden away. I see she is still holding out hope for a through train onto the Thameslink route.

Yes, it was tucked away in her ‘2023 reflections’ page. I did look up ‘Helen Grant Thameslink’ and the article did come up, but I didn’t think there would be anything about Thameslink in there. Seemingly there was, and as you mention, she still wants the service it appears, but the previous sentence suggests she isn’t so bothered anymore due those services to Charing Cross and London Bridge.

 

[Stephen42]

If I recall, wasn't one of the reasons for the delay to the Maidstone service to do with a new depot at Ashford. I guess that could actually be an incentive to sort it if the intention was to relieve the pain on three bridges.

For interest Hornsey is a fairly major depot, what can three bridges do that Hornsey can't? (Thinking that the units allocated there are shorter so it could be as simple as they can't work on an 8 car sets. The 387s can go as 4 and the 717s are only 6 cars. But that is the reason for the question, the 717s are not miles apart from the 700 are they mechanically?

The new depot at Ashford (which itself seems to have gone quiet) was stabling for Southeastern freeing up space elsewhere at Ashford. It wouldn't have been any sort of heavy maintenance and only 6 trains would be at Ashford at any one time.

I ma sure they must’ve been replaced in December, with the new message, indicating it isn’t exactly dead just the growth of the plan is extremely slow. Thameslink would’ve removed the whole dotted route of the map if the whole plan was well and truly dead.

The message was originally December 19, the current version of the map on the website with no timeframe specified is dated as March 2021. It's nearly 2 years later and aside from various politicians saying they are pushing for it nothing has actually happened.

 

[WizCastro197]

The message was originally December 19, the current version of the map on the website with no timeframe specified is dated as March 2021. It's nearly 2 years later and aside from various politicians saying they are pushing for it nothing has actually happened.

Apologies for the confusion, I meant the maps on the train. They still seem to hold out hope.

 

[Stephen42]

Apologies for the confusion, I meant the maps on the train. They still seem to hold out hope.

Ah haven't looked at them lately. Either way the answer is the same, no one wants to publicly say it's not happening so any existing references are left in place but no one is actively making it happen or stopping things that would make it harder to introduce if the priorities were to change in future.

 

[Skimble19]

Apologies for the confusion, I meant the maps on the train. They still seem to hold out hope.

The on board maps weren’t updated in December, they’ve been as they are now for quite a while longer than that. I suspect they’ll be updated soon though for the new Brent Cross West station.

 

[WizCastro197]

The on board maps weren’t updated in December, they’ve been as they are now for quite a while longer than that. I suspect they’ll be updated soon though for the new Brent Cross West station.

I think they have, South Croydon now shows as a regular stop.