Which is the *worst* FGW route.....

[whole diary]

[fanara]

The North Downs route must come high on the list. It should be an important connection between Gatwick Airport and Bristol, South Wales and the West Midlands.
That's what I use it for. The trains are slow, infrequent, often crowded, lack the luggage space needed for airport services. There is one toilet per train, often 'out of use'.
As for Sunday services (remember airports operate 24/7) the last two occasions I attempted to travel from Cheltenham to Gatwick, to arrive by 1245, the line was closed.

[grahame]

The North Downs route must come high on the list. It should be an important connection between Gatwick Airport and Bristol, South Wales and the West Midlands.
That's what I use it for. The trains are slow, infrequent, often crowded, lack the luggage space needed for airport services. There is one toilet per train, often 'out of use'.
As for Sunday services (remember airports operate 24/7) the last two occasions I attempted to travel from Cheltenham to Gatwick, to arrive by 1245, the line was closed.

Gosh ... this is an old thread ... sad how little things seem to change ...

From my point of view:

Reliabilty: North Downs Line (Reading - Redhill/Gatwick Airport)
Overall:   TransWilts

[Surrey 455]

As for Sunday services (remember airports operate 24/7) the last two occasions I attempted to travel from Cheltenham to Gatwick, to arrive by 1245, the line was closed.

As a student in the 80's I took a summer job in Heathrow Duty Free and I can recall that Sundays were Heathrow's busiest days. Don't know if that's still the case or if the same was true of Gatwick. If it is then shouldn't the North Downs line run more frequently on a Sunday than it currently does?

[Southern Stag]

The service on the North Downs on a Sunday isn't that bad really. The first three services at Reading on a Sunday are all North Downs trains, two to Gatwick and one from Gatwick. Services start running at around 0600 from both ends, earlier than on most lines on a Sunday, although it is later than Monday-Saturdays still. Even though the service is only hourly throughout the whole line the trains don't seem to be too crowded on Sundays in my experience. Often on North Downs trains I find one end of the three-car unit is busy but the other end empty.

[stuving]

What's more, once you work out the timing margins for catching a plane, the weekday service is not much better than one an hour. You can end up using a slow train with the fast one as back-up, as the other way round does not work.

However, we will have two through trains an hour once the builders have done at Gatwick. Now, will they be one fast and one slow? Both half-fast as now on Sunday?  And on Sundays?

[Southern Stag]

Indeed, if you're travelling to Gatwick the difference in journey times between the stopper and the fast services does make the service not much more than 1tph. I guess the pattern would remain similar to now, just with the Redhill trains extended to Gatwick Airport. It would require one extra unit to do that though. Potentially if the stops were more evenly spread between the two services you could manage to run the service with 6 units still, but it would require tight turnarounds at both ends of the line. Finding different paths through the Guildford area and Redhill-Gatwick would probably be difficult as well.

[BerkshireBugsy]

From my point of view:

Reliabilty: North Downs Line (Reading - Redhill/Gatwick Airport)
Overall:   TransWilts

Ollie, I'm surprised about your comment ref the North Downs line in terms of reliability having travelled it for two years i found it to be pretty good!  I must caveat this by saying you are better placed than I am to analyze data and my experience is based on specific regular journies

[stuving]

From my point of view:

Reliabilty: North Downs Line (Reading - Redhill/Gatwick Airport)
Overall:   TransWilts

Ollie, I'm surprised about your comment ref the North Downs line in terms of reliability having travelled it for two years i found it to be pretty good!  I must caveat this by saying you are better placed than I am to analyze data and my experience is based on specific regular journies

Be fair, that was five years ago!

Before we drift any further into the territory of the North Downs Line topic, I note that overcrowidng on Sundays was flagged there by someone last year. That's really a capacity issue rather than the service issue we have just been discussing.

Also, as far as I can see, the Gatwick remodelling itself has never been mentioned in this forum (nor the work at Redhill). This should add far more capacity to the relief lines than one extra Reading service per hour, so paths on the Redhill-Gatwick leg should be no problem.

[Southern Stag]

The Gatwick remodelling will remove conflicts at Gatwick on the relief lines with the Gatwick Express services. At the moment though the Redhill terminators arrive at xx25, so they'd have to follow the xx30 Portsmouth service I imagine. They depart Redhill at xx34, there's an xx36 arrival from Horsham so they'd have to arrive early enough so as not to delay that.

[paul7575]

Although the Gatwick additional platform is expected to be finished during CP4^▸ (Control Period 4 - the five year period between 2009 and 2014) (Jan 2014), there are alterations planned at Redhill during CP5^▸ (Control Period 5 - the five year period between 2014 and 2019) as well:

This key output shall allow for full operation of the proposed post KO2 timetable (December 2018). In addition to Thameslink services via Blackfriars, this includes additional Victoria services splitting/joining at Redhill and additional Reading to Gatwick via Redhill services.
Scope of works
 Provision of an additional 12-car 270m platform scheme at Redhill.
 Provision of platform accommodation including WCs^▸ (Wiltshire Council (Unitary Authority)), canopy (90m), waiting shelter
and stairs / lift connection to the existing subway and ticket hall.
 Alterations to track and signalling infrastructure required for parallel move
functionality.

So all in all a lot busier than now.

Paul

[stuving]

From what I've seen about the Redhill platform 0 plan, it's justified mainly to improve reliability of the current timetable rather than to increase capacity. When they are joining trains and one half is late, the extra platform helps to avoid knock-on delays or cancellations and stock dispalacement. However, having altered these two stations, no doubt some unexpected new ways of using the new arrangement will emerge from the timetabling process.

[Ollie]

From my point of view:

Reliabilty: North Downs Line (Reading - Redhill/Gatwick Airport)
Overall:   TransWilts

Ollie, I'm surprised about your comment ref the North Downs line in terms of reliability having travelled it for two years i found it to be pretty good!  I must caveat this by saying you are better placed than I am to analyze data and my experience is based on specific regular journies

That was in 2007, it certainly isn't the opinion that I have now.

[paul7575]

From what I've seen about the Redhill platform 0 plan, it's justified mainly to improve reliability of the current timetable rather than to increase capacity. When they are joining trains and one half is late, the extra platform helps to avoid knock-on delays or cancellations and stock dispalacement. However, having altered these two stations, no doubt some unexpected new ways of using the new arrangement will emerge from the timetabling process.

Additional frequencies at Redhill resulting from Thameslink (2 tph each from Horsham & Three Bridges AIUI^▸ (as I understand it)) have been described in the relevant RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) (Sussex, 2010). The entry in the latest CP5^▸ (Control Period 5 - the five year period between 2014 and 2019) enhancements list (Jan 13) goes on to say:

It is understood that the capability provided by this project is a key assumption of the
Thameslink KO2 timetable. 

I'd say more trains through Redhill is a dead cert, not just a possibility...

Page 77 of this .pdf document from Network Rail gives the full context: http://bit.ly/16TG47Z

Paul

 

Moderator note: edited to shorten link. bignosemac

[Fourbee]

However, we will have two through trains an hour once the builders have done at Gatwick. Now, will they be one fast and one slow? Both half-fast as now on Sunday?  And on Sundays?

Hmmm.. interesting questions. There could be some scope to improve the existing offering. It's not an inconvenience to me, but travelling between minor stations on the off-peak pattern without doubling-back looks a bit tricky without a frequent all-stations stopper.

I suppose if Guildford had more capacity there might be even more possibilities like letting a fast overtake a stopper.

And, of course, in the old days they used to go to Tonbridge...

[Southern Stag]

At the moment though the service pattern at Guildford is about a 25/35 minute gap between services, so it isn't really feasible to loop a stopper for a fast. The stopper at the moment is most stations Guildford-Reading too, so not much scope to add stops. It's between Guildford and Redhill where the service is currently skip stop, with differing patterns over two hours. If you make the stopper and fast services closure together at Guildford to allow for overtaking then you lose the roughly half hourly Guildford-Reading service which is very useful at the moment. The old service pattern would have been more useful for the minor stations between Guildford and Redhill with hourly Reading-Shalford stoppers and two hourly Guildford-Redhill all station services. Reverting back to that wouldn't provide 2tph to Gatwick though.