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Post by greenboy on Feb 13, 2022 19:43:42 GMT
I think it would have been 6tph all Cannon Street on the Bexleyheath line, it would have been the same on the Woolwich line except it may have still kept the Thameslink service at 2tph via Greenwich, although the ITT at the time made no mention of Thameslink. The whole thing is a non starter anyway, Charing Cross will always be a popular station, even the Thameslink trains have passengers getting off at London Bridge to get a CX train from platform 9/10, there are still Greenwich line passengers who still want the return of CX trains after all this time! The promise when rebuilding London Bridge was that they were going to untangle the lines and achieve faster journeys by removing one of the worst blockage in the country. Cutting the Woolwich/Bexleyheath trains to Charing Cross wouldn’t be progressive with what was promised. We were promised faster journey times, these seem slower now, with so much headway built in, my train sits in London Bridge for 4 minutes. The Woolwich line can only have 2tph to Charing Cross via Lewisham, it's not possible to run them via Greenwich anymore.
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Post by route53 on Feb 14, 2022 14:54:18 GMT
I think it would have been 6tph all Cannon Street on the Bexleyheath line, it would have been the same on the Woolwich line except it may have still kept the Thameslink service at 2tph via Greenwich, although the ITT at the time made no mention of Thameslink. The whole thing is a non starter anyway, Charing Cross will always be a popular station, even the Thameslink trains have passengers getting off at London Bridge to get a CX train from platform 9/10, there are still Greenwich line passengers who still want the return of CX trains after all this time! The promise when rebuilding London Bridge was that they were going to untangle the lines and achieve faster journeys by removing one of the worst blockage in the country. Cutting the Woolwich/Bexleyheath trains to Charing Cross wouldn’t be progressive with what was promised. We were promised faster journey times, these seem slower now, with so much headway built in, my train sits in London Bridge for 4 minutes. I think at the time they were talking about the bottleneck of Lewisham Junction and trying to solve it by sending everything to and from the Blackheath side to Cannon Street and leaving Charing Cross & Victoria to the Ladywell/Hither Green side. Yes the whole point of the London Bridge works was to untangle the mess outside the station and was also supposed to relieve the Lewisham Junction area too by double tracking the Tanners Hill fly down, but they fudged that up by sending Thameslink trains through to Greenwich as a half hearted consolation prize for that line losing access to Charing Cross by having that service take the exact same conflict junction as previous Charing Cross trains from that line took. Over the last four years since the big changes on the Woolwich line, I’ve noticed that Charing Cross trains are considerably busier and have fewer available seats than the Cannon Street & Thameslink trains do, and less people change at London Bridge from a CX train too, where as both CS and Thameslink trains are emptied out at London Bridge as most passengers want Charing Cross presumably, the Thameslink is an interesting one as after Blackfriars the majority of Greenwich/Woolwich line passengers have alighted at London Bridge/Blackfriars, it’s only the Luton passengers that carry on through and even then I’ve seen such passengers decamp at London Bridge for a faster train to Luton.
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Post by buspete on Feb 14, 2022 15:34:16 GMT
Greenwich has mainline trains to Cannon Street or DLR to Bank, which are yards from each other, a small choice in rotten apples.
I said before on here, bet I will mention again, 2-3 years ago the Bexleyheath Line had the current 2tph to Charing Cross. However this was supplemented by the Blackheath/Woolwich train, where I could jump on that and change on a ex Victoria train behind that train at Blackheath, it was really convenient, however they switch the trains around, where the ex Victoria train comes in front of the Woolwich train, so that link is now lost, but benefits people on the Woolwich Line, as they have an option now coming from Victoria, which is all well and good but the Woolwich Line has a really good service and options will get much better when Crossrail opens. Even the Sidcup Line has 4tph to London Bridge.
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Post by buspete on Feb 14, 2022 15:35:12 GMT
Just seen a Thameslink train go through St Johns.
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Post by route53 on Feb 15, 2022 11:42:26 GMT
Greenwich has mainline trains to Cannon Street or DLR to Bank, which are yards from each other, a small choice in rotten apples. I said before on here, bet I will mention again, 2-3 years ago the Bexleyheath Line had the current 2tph to Charing Cross. However this was supplemented by the Blackheath/Woolwich train, where I could jump on that and change on a ex Victoria train behind that train at Blackheath, it was really convenient, however they switch the trains around, where the ex Victoria train comes in front of the Woolwich train, so that link is now lost, but benefits people on the Woolwich Line, as they have an option now coming from Victoria, which is all well and good but the Woolwich Line has a really good service and options will get much better when Crossrail opens. Even the Sidcup Line has 4tph to London Bridge. To be honest I feel that those on the Greenwich line use the DLR mainly to get to the Docklands, Canary Wharf & Stratford, Cannon Street is only a hop/skip/jump away whereas the DLR is more circuitous, plus they have Blackfriars and City Thameslink as additional City terminals. The Woolwich line does have a good service, and once CrossRail has opened up I can see the Thameslink being dropped, since it really only benefits a small section of the line, those in Medway & Gravesend can use HS1 then a East Midlands train to Luton, with Those in the Dartford/Erith/Belvedere areas switching to CrossRail which will be much faster to Farringdon.
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Post by greenboy on Feb 15, 2022 12:08:52 GMT
Greenwich has mainline trains to Cannon Street or DLR to Bank, which are yards from each other, a small choice in rotten apples. I said before on here, bet I will mention again, 2-3 years ago the Bexleyheath Line had the current 2tph to Charing Cross. However this was supplemented by the Blackheath/Woolwich train, where I could jump on that and change on a ex Victoria train behind that train at Blackheath, it was really convenient, however they switch the trains around, where the ex Victoria train comes in front of the Woolwich train, so that link is now lost, but benefits people on the Woolwich Line, as they have an option now coming from Victoria, which is all well and good but the Woolwich Line has a really good service and options will get much better when Crossrail opens. Even the Sidcup Line has 4tph to London Bridge. To be honest I feel that those on the Greenwich line use the DLR mainly to get to the Docklands, Canary Wharf & Stratford, Cannon Street is only a hop/skip/jump away whereas the DLR is more circuitous, plus they have Blackfriars and City Thameslink as additional City terminals. The Woolwich line does have a good service, and once CrossRail has opened up I can see the Thameslink being dropped, since it really only benefits a small section of the line, those in Medway & Gravesend can use HS1 then a East Midlands train to Luton, with Those in the Dartford/Erith/Belvedere areas switching to CrossRail which will be much faster to Farringdon. I don't see why Thameslink should be dropped, it's a useful tube type service to Greenwich even if it's not at tube type frequencies. It could be curtailed at Dartford or Gravesend with the Charing Cross via Lewisham service returned to Medway Towns but it would be pretty much all stops and not fast like it used to be, swings and roundabouts really.
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Post by route53 on Feb 15, 2022 15:03:10 GMT
To be honest I feel that those on the Greenwich line use the DLR mainly to get to the Docklands, Canary Wharf & Stratford, Cannon Street is only a hop/skip/jump away whereas the DLR is more circuitous, plus they have Blackfriars and City Thameslink as additional City terminals. The Woolwich line does have a good service, and once CrossRail has opened up I can see the Thameslink being dropped, since it really only benefits a small section of the line, those in Medway & Gravesend can use HS1 then a East Midlands train to Luton, with Those in the Dartford/Erith/Belvedere areas switching to CrossRail which will be much faster to Farringdon. I don't see why Thameslink should be dropped, it's a useful tube type service to Greenwich even if it's not at tube type frequencies. It could be curtailed at Dartford or Gravesend with the Charing Cross via Lewisham service returned to Medway Towns but it would be pretty much all stops and not fast like it used to be, swings and roundabouts really. Medway is too far out for an all stations service, that’s my main critique of the Thameslink service by all means curtail it to Gravesend, but the old CX-Gillingham was more useful
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Post by greenboy on Feb 15, 2022 15:21:39 GMT
I don't see why Thameslink should be dropped, it's a useful tube type service to Greenwich even if it's not at tube type frequencies. It could be curtailed at Dartford or Gravesend with the Charing Cross via Lewisham service returned to Medway Towns but it would be pretty much all stops and not fast like it used to be, swings and roundabouts really. Medway is too far out for an all stations service, that’s my main critique of the Thameslink service by all means curtail it to Gravesend, but the old CX-Gillingham was more useful It's going to be pretty much all stations whether it's a Thameslink or Southeastern service to Gillingham and Rainham.
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Post by buspete on Feb 15, 2022 15:47:51 GMT
Never understood why they axed the Gillingham - Charing Cross service, this should have complemented the Thameslink service. Of which would it not be better if the Thameslink service started at Maidstone East and the fast Charing Cross reinstated. I could see more people from Maidstone/MedwayTowns wanting to travel to Abbey Wood rather than staying on to London.
I find it baffling why some parts of London you can have a good Underground service with trains more than every 5 minutes, but some parts of London such as Bexleyheath there is a service every half hour, complete postcode lottery.
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Post by greenboy on Feb 15, 2022 16:02:23 GMT
Never understood why they axed the Gillingham - Charing Cross service, this should have complemented the Thameslink service. Of which would it not be better if the Thameslink service started at Maidstone East and the fast Charing Cross reinstated. I could see more people from Maidstone/MedwayTowns wanting to travel to Abbey Wood rather than staying on to London. I find it baffling why some parts of London you can have a good Underground service with trains more than every 5 minutes, but some parts of London such as Bexleyheath there is a service every half hour, complete postcode lottery. I think it was basically a case of providing a better service at stations the Gillingham to Charing Cross train didn't stop at, there might also have been an element of persuading more people onto the HS service. It's Maidstone West that's served by the Medway Valley line. There's more than a half hourly service on the Bexleyheath line nowadays but it's always been a more frequent service on the tube.
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Post by route53 on Feb 15, 2022 16:12:25 GMT
Never understood why they axed the Gillingham - Charing Cross service, this should have complemented the Thameslink service. Of which would it not be better if the Thameslink service started at Maidstone East and the fast Charing Cross reinstated. I could see more people from Maidstone/MedwayTowns wanting to travel to Abbey Wood rather than staying on to London. I find it baffling why some parts of London you can have a good Underground service with trains more than every 5 minutes, but some parts of London such as Bexleyheath there is a service every half hour, complete postcode lottery. I think it was basically a case of providing a better service at stations the Gillingham to Charing Cross train didn't stop at, there might also have been an element of persuading more people onto the HS service. It's Maidstone West that's served by the Medway Valley line. There's more than a half hourly service on the Bexleyheath line nowadays but it's always been a more frequent service on the tube. Those stations did have a good service though, 6tph isn’t something to be sniffed at, Plumstead is hardly in need of 8tph it’s quiet off peak
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Post by route53 on Feb 15, 2022 16:13:20 GMT
Never understood why they axed the Gillingham - Charing Cross service, this should have complemented the Thameslink service. Of which would it not be better if the Thameslink service started at Maidstone East and the fast Charing Cross reinstated. I could see more people from Maidstone/MedwayTowns wanting to travel to Abbey Wood rather than staying on to London. I find it baffling why some parts of London you can have a good Underground service with trains more than every 5 minutes, but some parts of London such as Bexleyheath there is a service every half hour, complete postcode lottery. This is my argument as well, a faster service to the CrossRail interchange at Abbey wood from Medway is far more useful than the Thameslink
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Post by greenboy on Feb 15, 2022 16:32:50 GMT
I think it was basically a case of providing a better service at stations the Gillingham to Charing Cross train didn't stop at, there might also have been an element of persuading more people onto the HS service. It's Maidstone West that's served by the Medway Valley line. There's more than a half hourly service on the Bexleyheath line nowadays but it's always been a more frequent service on the tube. Those stations did have a good service though, 6tph isn’t something to be sniffed at, Plumstead is hardly in need of 8tph it’s quiet off peak A more intensive service means that fast trains would just get stuck behind slow trains anyway.
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Post by buspete on Feb 15, 2022 16:42:43 GMT
Never understood why they axed the Gillingham - Charing Cross service, this should have complemented the Thameslink service. Of which would it not be better if the Thameslink service started at Maidstone East and the fast Charing Cross reinstated. I could see more people from Maidstone/MedwayTowns wanting to travel to Abbey Wood rather than staying on to London. I find it baffling why some parts of London you can have a good Underground service with trains more than every 5 minutes, but some parts of London such as Bexleyheath there is a service every half hour, complete postcode lottery. I think it was basically a case of providing a better service at stations the Gillingham to Charing Cross train didn't stop at, there might also have been an element of persuading more people onto the HS service. It's Maidstone West that's served by the Medway Valley line. There's more than a half hourly service on the Bexleyheath line nowadays but it's always been a more frequent service on the tube. At present there are 4tph off peak trains on the Bexleyheath Line, so handy if you want to go to Lewisham. However the Victoria and Charing Cross service to compliment each other, you can either use one train or the other and not connect with each other that was the point I made earlier in this thread. I would gladly lose the Victoria service to the Sidcup/Bexleyheath line for extra trains to London Bridge/Cannon Street.
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Post by greenboy on Feb 15, 2022 17:06:07 GMT
I think it was basically a case of providing a better service at stations the Gillingham to Charing Cross train didn't stop at, there might also have been an element of persuading more people onto the HS service. It's Maidstone West that's served by the Medway Valley line. There's more than a half hourly service on the Bexleyheath line nowadays but it's always been a more frequent service on the tube. At present there are 4tph off peak trains on the Bexleyheath Line, so handy if you want to go to Lewisham. However the Victoria and Charing Cross service to compliment each other, you can either use one train or the other and not connect with each other that was the point I made earlier in this thread. I would gladly lose the Victoria service to the Sidcup/Bexleyheath line for extra trains to London Bridge/Cannon Street. I suspect opinions will vary, a lot of people probably find the Victoria service very useful also for Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill. I think there should be 4tph between Lewisham and Victoria.
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