Worthing - London this Saturday

[southernyoshi]

Hello - I intend to go to London from Worthing on Saturday 28 January, leaving at around 09:00 & aiming to arrive back at around 16:00-16:30. I know that the Brighton - Three Bridges section of line is being blocked so, in theory, the train should go Worthing - Arun Valley - Gatwick (indeed, doing the Arun Valley is one reason for doing this trip on Saturday). But National Rail is telling me that the only way is to take a local to Brighton, wait 30 minutes, then a Gatwick Express from there to Victoria, on its regular timetable, up the closed line (!). So what I want to know is simply, what is going on with trains from Worthing on Saturday, I know the regular London trains via Burgess Hill aren't running, but are the Brighton-Victoria trains calling on their way via Littlehampton & the Arun Valley, as normally happens when the main line's out? Thanks

 

[IrishDave]

I suspect that the end of the ASLEF overtime ban has resulted in some incorrect information in the system. In particular, the Gatwick Express extensions to Brighton were cancelled off the system well in advance - and now it appears they've been reinstated without checking that there's engineering works and they can't run! I've tweeted Southern and hopefully they'll figure out what's going on and get it sorted.

When the overtime ban was still in place over the weekend of 7/8 January, they didn't have enough crews to run the usual Brighton-Victoria diversions via Littlehampton and Horsham. Nonetheless, both the Southern and National Rail websites say this for 28/29 January:

If you are travelling with Southern, trains are diverted between Three Bridges and Brighton / Lewes via Littlehampton and will run to a reduced service. Buses will run between Three Bridges and Brighton / Lewes.

If the diversions do indeed run then those will undoubtedly be your best option - my memory is that the journey time between Brighton and Victoria on such trains is more or less exactly two hours, so Worthing ought to be about 1h45-1h50 or so. If the diversions don't run, your best bet would be to change at Barnham, not Littlehampton.

 

[southernyoshi]

Yeah I know you can also change at Barnham, which is why I'll look at whether the 09:22 GWR to Malvern will be running, as that is a very useful service to Barnham & all points west (including Havant, another place where I could change to get to London, although a lot slower ). I also don't know what happens to the regular Arun Valley trains from Chichester etc, I presume their normal timetable is altered by the presence of the exiled Brightons.

 

[southernyoshi]

The NRE journey planner is now even more absurd - you type in Worthing - Victoria on 28 January, & it gives all the half-hourly options via the Brighton Gatwick Express services as before, only now with an information box telling you about the closure of the Brighton - Three Bridges section - that they've just told you is the only option for the journey! Is the contingency timetable from the January 7 works available anywhere? I presume, given that the closure area is the same, that that timetable would be used again - with the key difference that everything in it should run this time

 

[LBSCR Times]

Now finally uploaded to show the alterations!

 

[southernyoshi]

Aha - better late than never. I thought they'd take longer than that though, positively surprised. Now let's hope the weather holds - thanks all