Tight connection at Redhill with pram & luggage

[James H]

On Saturday my wife and baby daughter and I will be travelling from Tonbridge to Bournemouth. We have Advance tickets.

Because of the Waterloo engineering work we are routed via Redhill and Clapham Junction.

The only mandatory train on our Advance ticket is the 13:40 from Clapham Junction to Bournemouth.

Our itinerary only gives us 5 minutes to change at Redhill (but with enough buffer at CLJ to still make it with a change at East Croydon if necessary)

Any tips for making the connection as smooth as possible?

We’d prefer to avoid leaving Tonbridge an hour earlier, and the extra change at East Croydon would be best avoided though does give us a plan B

 

[JonathanH]

With no reservations, the connection must be
1201 Tonbridge to Redhill 1235
1240 Redhill to Clapham Junction 1310
1340 Clapham Junction to Bournemouth

Thameslink trains through Redhill are reservable.

The connection is planned to be from the north end of platform 1 to the middle of platform 0 which will take a few minutes to complete, particularly if lifts were to be used.

In the event of missing the 1240, then the fall back is

1248 Redhill to East Croydon 1303
1315 East Croydon to Clapham Junction 1326

This is, in fact, eminently easier, being cross platform at Redhill, and same platform at East Croydon, still leaving 14 minutes at Clapham Junction.

GTR have an easement, discussed in other threads, which allows different trains to be used as part of the use of their reservable trains, when they are the connection to the main journey.

 

[James H]

Thank you that is helpful! I feel a bit more relaxed about it now

 

[James H]

just to report back, we made the 1240 at Redhill with seconds to spare (whistles being blown).

At Clapham Junction SWR was in chaos but that’s another matter.