Your suggestions for the next Southeastern franchise

[Barn]

As far as I know current plans* are for it to be exclusively GTR. SE will retain existing rounders and Dartford terminators.

A knock-on benefit of this will be networker stock freed up for 12 car operations during the peak and perhaps to reduce the number of 6 car Orpy - Vic and Vic - Dartford workings.

*plans which are difficult to find out about, and are prone to changing by the minute.

Hang on, though, the GTR service is via Greenwich. So what services, if any, will use the Blackheath tunnel?

 

[Bromley boy]

Hang on, though, the GTR service is via Greenwich. So what services, if any, will use the Blackheath tunnel?

I understood the current SE Gillingham semi-fasts (via Blackheath and Charlton) were being replaced by GTR services.

 

[danorak]

The confusion that reigns on this thread underlines one of the big issues around Southeastern - the appalling communication.

Greenwich line users sort-of-understood that we were losing Charing X services. We weren't happy about it but were under the impression that we'd have the same number of trains as before, just that they were all going to Cannon St (ie that trains were diverted not withdrawn). And initially that was pretty much the case.

When we had a dramatic reduction in peak trains to the current inadequate service, we gritted our teeth and told ourselves it was only while trains were diverted so they could still call at London Bridge. If this is the new permanent timetable, and not just while work is completed, people are going to feel pretty cheated. 25 minute peak gaps are seriously not good enough when you can 'turn up and go' at other times.

The fact no-one seems able to answer with any degree of certainty what is planned for the Blackheath tunnel services does not fill me with confidence.

 

[Malcolmffc]

I have no idea where to get the information from. hence asking.



PPM is the accepted measure of performance. Whilst I don't agreew tih PPM it is based on actual statistics. If you want to complain about reliability then using PPM is the best method. It shows in black and white what the reliability figures are, rather than a highly subjective passenger survey.



Which is purely subjective data. Less than 2k passengers were surveyed. How is that remotely representative of the millions of passengers SE shift every single day.

Basic statistical theory tells you that 2000 people is a sufficient sample to get an accurate rating of customer satisfaction to within +/-1.5%

 

[Pumbaa]

I understood the current SE Gillingham semi-fasts (via Blackheath and Charlton) were being replaced by GTR services.

Yes - and these services will run via Greenwich.

I assume it will be up to bidders on SE how to replace the link from Blackheath - Charlton; the smart money says diverting the Victoria - Dartford via Bexleyheath that way and backfilling appropriately with Cannon St trains.

 

[rosschap]

Daily SE commuter here (Maidstone to London, £4000pa). On the whole, the franchise has improved over the past few years. Electrostars had a deep clean and refresh, and some of the networkers had a mild refresh last year with disabled toilets.

There are plenty of problems still, but as someone who understands how this industry works, I get why a new franchise won't solve them. Examples:

Last year passengers complained that the heating on networkers (only programmable at the depot) was left on too late in the year resulting in high temperatures. This year, they decided to turn off all heating in all networkers in April or so. Cue cold snap, more complaints to SE saying this time it was too cold. Communications on twitter were good, guards were okay (usually just said "write to SE to complain"), but station communication was non existent. In addition overall communication with the majority of passengers is still poor with passengers sometimes receiving the conflicting information online, at stations and on trains.

Fare increases on season tickets are always unpopular, of course thats DfT regulated.

Short formation of trains during peaks, but all available stock is being used.

Removing first class would be popular because it is rarely used and would free up seats for standard passengers during the peak - this has been recommended in the recent DfT consultation.

Just my "two cents"

 

[ComUtoR]

Last year passengers complained that the heating on networkers (only programmable at the depot) was left on too late in the year resulting in high temperatures. This year, they decided to turn off all heating in all networkers in April or so. Cue cold snap, more complaints to SE saying this time it was too cold. Communications on twitter were good, guards were okay (usually just said "write to SE to complain"), but station communication was non existent.

Firstly, by complaining and tweeting SE the passengers made the situation worse. Because of the need to appease the minority all the time, something stupid was done.

We could switch the heaters on and off whenever we wanted. Now we can't. This only changed this year. Whoever told you that it could only be changed in the depot mislead you. The heating was isolated by fleet this year, completed a couple of weeks ago. If there is another cold snap then its tough **** on the passengers. When the season changes this year it will be the reverse. We can't put the heating back on. Again, tough on the passengers. It will take a few weeks to reinstate them heaters too rather than being instant off and on. It will also have a cost to do this, rather than the zero cost it had before. Yay for customer service.

 

[ScotGG]

Ah thanks, so it sounds like the line will still have as many trains to central London, just some will go to a different bit and be run by a different TOC.

Even with Thameslink services at 2 per hour it's still a net peak time reduction for many stations on the line from service levels before 2015. Posibly the same for bexleyheath line too.

EDIT: Ah sorry I see it was mentioned. Some stations that see net reductions compared to before work begun - Erith, Belvedere, Maze Hill, Westcombe park, Greenwich and Deptford. If peak time Charing X via Charlton also are reduced/removed then all stations lose out.

Given the area it serves is projected to have the highest housebuilding rates in London Crossrail may be a short term fix.

In terms of stations staffing - I took a trip a couple of weeks ago on that line and EVERY station past London Bridge was open and unstaffed up to Dartford that i could see (and it is possible to see most from the train). Even Woolwich Arsenal had the side gate open. Talk about revenue lost and undercounting passengers.

 

[danorak]

A very quick scan of the May 2018 consultation timetable suggests the peak service on the Greenwich line will be returning to something resembling normality, so that's all good.

 

[pete_m911]

Wow this is going to be hugely unpopular for the Medway Valley lines. Some of the stations are having their journeys slowed down by 11 minutes to Victoria at peak!

 

[CeeJ]

Hopefully Govia lose out on this franchise. The over-padding of services to make PPM look better, poor communication, lack of staff at stations, failing to uphold the franchise agreement, etc. Well overdue.

Of course, it's sad that the DfT veto'ed the TfL takeover option for Metro services, but a new franchise should change things up.

 

[Class 170101]

To those of you who want Govia not in the franchise competition just remember that if the incumbant is thrown out they will start cost cutting / reduce service quality now for several months knowing they have nothing to lose. Better to keep them in and let them lose at the award stage rather than at the qualification stage.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I understood the current SE Gillingham semi-fasts (via Blackheath and Charlton) were being replaced by GTR services.

Well I guess you're in a better position than most of us to have an idea of that.

I have to admit that if it's true, I'd find that disappointing and surprising. I remember reading the consultation that suggested 2 trains per hour from Rainham via Greenwich through the Thameslink Core. I don't recall the consultation saying anything about how these were intended to replace the CHX-Gillingham trains - I'd assumed they were going to be additional trains.

The current Gillingham trains provide an extremely useful link from the Woolwich line to Lewisham, and the fact that they run semi-fast obviously means faster journey times than an all-stops train could achieve. If they do get removed, I can see that inconveniencing quite a few people.

To be honest, I never really understood the point of the Thameslink-Rainham trains anyway. If you already have a 10-minute frequency on the route from London Bridge to Slade Green, putting in an extra train every half hour calling at exactly the same stations just gives you an irregular timetable. You save a few people changing at London Bridge, but that's hardly going to be a big deal once the rebuild there is complete. It'll also give a few more conflicting moves between London Bridge and Deptford. If there really are two trains an hour looking for something to do South of Blackfriars, I'm sure there must be more suitable places for them to go.

 

[urpert]

Wow this is going to be hugely unpopular for the Medway Valley lines. Some of the stations are having their journeys slowed down by 11 minutes to Victoria at peak!

The Medway Valley line doesn't have any services to Victoria.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Firstly, by complaining and tweeting SE the passengers made the situation worse. Because of the need to appease the minority all the time, something stupid was done.

To be pedantic, surely if something stupid was done to appease people who were complaining, the fault lies with whoever at SouthEastern took the decision to do something stupid, not with the people who were complaining.

 

[pete_m911]

The Medway Valley line doesn't have any services to Victoria.

My bad, Medway Towns.

 

[urpert]

My bad, Medway Towns.

Ah, got it, sorry. Will need to have another look at the proposals

 

[swt_passenger]

I have to admit that if it's true, I'd find that disappointing and surprising. I remember reading the consultation that suggested 2 trains per hour from Rainham via Greenwich through the Thameslink Core. I don't recall the consultation saying anything about how these were intended to replace the CHX-Gillingham trains - I'd assumed they were going to be additional trains.

The latest consultation that came out this week (being discussed in another thread) does confirm the above service is replaced: http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=148065&page=3

 

[Bromley boy]

Well I guess you're in a better position than most of us to have an idea of that.

Not necessarily.

Unfortunately information sharing is absolutely minimal. There is still a lot of uncertainty around the SE/GTR depot situation, what will happen to those SE drivers who drive GTR services. Will they be offered a transfer to GTR, continue driving them as SE drivers or lose the work entirely?*

I fully agree with the rest of your post.

I think it's probably fair to say the LB rebuild won't have many major benefits for SE commuters (and was never really intended to). The biggest one is probably the loss of the bottleneck on the Charing + side of the station. This does seem more than a little unfair given the years of disruption people using the SE network have had to put up with.

*the current arrangement is beneficial for GTR as SE drivers have Sundays inside their working week and are cheaper than GTR drivers. This is the reason all weekend GTR services from sevenoakes - Blackfriars are driven by SE drivers.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Not necessarily.

Unfortunately information sharing is absolutely minimal. There is still a lot of uncertainty around the SE/GTR depot situation, what will happen to those SE drivers who drive GTR services. Will they be offered a transfer to GTR, continue driving them as SE drivers or lose the work entirely?*

I fully agree with the rest of your post.

I think it's probably fair to say the LB rebuild won't have many major benefits for SE commuters (and was never really intended to). The biggest one is probably the loss of the bottleneck on the Charing + side of the station. This does seem more than a little unfair given the years of disruption people using the SE network have had to put up with.

*the current arrangement is beneficial for GTR as SE drivers have Sundays inside their working week and are cheaper than GTR drivers. This is the reason all weekend GTR services from sevenoakes - Blackfriars are driven by SE drivers.

Thanks for the info.

To clarify, I've now had a chance to look at the PDF linked to in the other thread. It seems my previous post wasn't quite correct to the extent that there will still be half-hourly service via Lewisham and Woolwich, and the overall numbers of trains on the Woolwich line off-peak won't change.

What is proposed is that the six tph Cannon Street-Greenwich-Slade Green all stops trains will be reduced to 4tph. To that will be added 2tph Luton-Greenwich-Rainham, which will run semifast between Charlton and Dartford but be all-stops everywhere else.

The current CHX-Gillingham will be replaced east of Dartford by the above mentioned Thameslink train, and West of Dartford by a half-hourly all-stops CHX-Lewisham-Woolwich-Dartford train.

In my view this is still bad because, although it represents the same numbers of trains at each stop along the Greenwich line, it's a more fragmented service pattern than the line sees today, and with this timetable it will be impossible to keep the regular 10-minute service pattern to Cannon Street that all stations currently get.

 

[Class 466]

Not necessarily.

Unfortunately information sharing is absolutely minimal. There is still a lot of uncertainty around the SE/GTR depot situation, what will happen to those SE drivers who drive GTR services. Will they be offered a transfer to GTR, continue driving them as SE drivers or lose the work entirely?*

I fully agree with the rest of your post.

I think it's probably fair to say the LB rebuild won't have many major benefits for SE commuters (and was never really intended to). The biggest one is probably the loss of the bottleneck on the Charing + side of the station. This does seem more than a little unfair given the years of disruption people using the SE network have had to put up with.

*the current arrangement is beneficial for GTR as SE drivers have Sundays inside their working week and are cheaper than GTR drivers. This is the reason all weekend GTR services from sevenoakes - Blackfriars are driven by SE drivers.

The Bottleneck between London Bridge and Ewer Street Jn will still exist with 4 lines through LBG going down to 2 before going back to 4 at Ewer Street Jn

 

[swt_passenger]

The Bottleneck between London Bridge and Ewer Street Jn will still exist with 4 lines through LBG going down to 2 before going back to 4 at Ewer Street Jn

IIRC it has been pointed out, (by one of the insiders), that that is not the real bottleneck, it is the number of terminating platforms at Charing Cross that limits the timetable.

I also recall that it has been explained somewhere that the two track section makes it easier to change from the paired by direction (u/u/d/d) layout at London Bridge to the paired by use (u/d/u/d) layout at Waterloo East.

 

[Clip]

I wonder if all the planners at NR who must use professional modelling equipment and been at this for years are reading this and scratching their heads wondering how they got it so wrong.

 

[ScotGG]

Thanks for the info.

To clarify, I've now had a chance to look at the PDF linked to in the other thread. It seems my previous post wasn't quite correct to the extent that there will still be half-hourly service via Lewisham and Woolwich, and the overall numbers of trains on the Woolwich line off-peak won't change.

It's good that the link remains but why stop services at Dartford instead of Medway. There's Thameslink at 2 tph but also keeping the SE service going to Gillingham would give 4 tph from Medway to Abbey Wood Crossrail. As it is, no more trains to connect with Abbey Wood than now.

 

[Bromley boy]

The Bottleneck between London Bridge and Ewer Street Jn will still exist with 4 lines through LBG going down to 2 before going back to 4 at Ewer Street Jn

The historic bottleneck that has been removed was the old LB platform 6 with the passing Loop, and having to squeeze GTR services through 5 and 6 on top of SE services.

As someone else has commented, the limiting factor on the LBG/WE/Ch+ section will now be platform capacity at Charing +.

 

[Bromley boy]

It's good that the link remains but why stop services at Dartford instead of Medway. There's Thameslink at 2 tph but also keeping the SE service going to Gillingham would give 4 tph from Medway to Abbey Wood Crossrail. As it is, no more trains to connect with Abbey Wood than now.

Speculating here but it may well be a desire to keep the stock in the busy metro area. SE stock that was previously run down to Gillingham can now turned back at Dartford and used more intensively.

Incidentally, quite a few SE metro drivers don't sign beyond Gravesend.

 

[ScotGG]

Speculating here but it may well be a desire to keep the stock in the busy metro area. SE stock that was previously run down to Gillingham can now turned back at Dartford and used more intensively.

Incidentally, quite a few SE metro drivers don't sign beyond Gravesend.

Maybe they will train more drivers to be ready for Dec 2018 and it changes again. A big thing has been made of people from Kent/Medway changing from SE to Crossrail at Abbey Wood but with no increase in services above 2tph how many will?

 

[Barn]

Maybe they will train more drivers to be ready for Dec 2018 and it changes again. A big thing has been made of people from Kent/Medway changing from SE to Crossrail at Abbey Wood but with no increase in services above 2tph how many will?

Yeah. Also, that 2tph is the Thameslink service. If passengers are heading to the City or Farringdon areas it'll be interesting to see if they switch at Abbey Wood for the faster journey or just stay on board due to the inertia factor / retaining a seat / not wishing to climb stairs / simply preferring direct trains.

 

[ScotGG]

Yeah. Also, that 2tph is the Thameslink service. If passengers are heading to the City or Farringdon areas it'll be interesting to see if they switch at Abbey Wood for the faster journey or just stay on board due to the inertia factor / retaining a seat / not wishing to climb stairs / simply preferring direct trains.

Good point. Now it's not a cross platform transfer to Crossrail at Abbey Wood it'll be a 5-10 minute change which negates a lot of the time benefit of Crossrail, and as you say if someone has a seat already why risk it? Also passengers would need a travelcard and not a point-to-point which will be more expensive, meaning even less change?

It's one reason I don't think SE routes will clear out as much as perhaps expected.

 

[absolutelymilk]

Wasn't the ITT for Southeastern supposed to have been released in September?