The Anonymous Widower

The Thameslink Sheduling Problem

I have been said by others, to know about scheduling. Admittedly, it is with respect to resources in large projects, but what is the difference mathmatically  between scheduling fitters, engineers, bedspaces, cranes and helicopters on a rig in the middle of the North Sea and the scheduling of passengers, trains and platforms in rural Surrey.

Probably not much in reality, except for one major difference; politics.

If you tell a body to turn up at Aberdeen Airport to get a helicopter to the rig where they are to work at 07:30, he or she probably won’t complain, but if you say that because of Thameslink all services from your station will be going to London Bridge and through the tunnel to Cambridge and there will be four trains an hour at two minutes past the quarter hour, he or she will probably write angrily to everybody from the local paper to his MP and trhe Archbishop of Canterbury. Judicial review will also be threatened.

Sadly with the Sutton Loop, Network Rail’s plans were overturned by Parliament, which sets a dangerous precedent. Network Rail may have been wrong anyway, but I am just using it, to show how sensitive scheduling of trains can be.

So there is a need to provide a service from all stations, that is all things to all men and women, their dogs, children and relatives from Peru and Timbuctoo.

In my view the two branch lines that I visited in A Trip To Tattenham Corner and A Trip To Caterham illustrate the problem well and also show the level of service required.

Caterham Station has an Off Peak service of two trains per hour into London Bridge and another two into Victoria.

It would appear that some of the Victoria trains can be used to get London Bridge with a change at Purley, which involved a wait of ten minutes or so.

When speaking as the man on the Dalston train, this is not good enough.

• I get four services an hour to each of Clapham Junction, Crystal Palace, New Cross and West Croydon every hour.
• If I want to get to East Croydon, the fastest route at any particular time may mean changing at New Cross Gate or Norwood Junction, often with a change of platform.

As can be seen, what I have is better than Caterham does, but it is still not perfect.

My route to anywhere in South London, should be the same every time I go that destination and it should be something like take a train to X, stay on the platform or walk across it and the train to your destination will arrive within a few minutes.

If the timetable is the optimal one, then the rules could be published.

So to return to Caterham and the Caterham Line to Purley.

An ideal service would be four trains an hour of a sufficient number of cars leaving the same few minutes after each quarter hour.

• Destinations would be a mixture of Victoria or London Bridge.
• Trains would probably stop as now, at all stations until Purley.
• At a station before or at East Croydon, there would be a convenient same platform interchange to services to other appropriate northern destinations of London Bridge, Cannon Street, Charing Cross, Victoria, Thameslink and Dalston Junction.

Possible interchange stations would be Purley, South Croydon, East Croydon, New Cross Gate and London Bridge.

My proposal may seem ambitious, but I believe it is possible.

It might even be easier, if all four services from Caterham went to a particular terminal or even only went as far as Purley or South Croydon. But anybody other than someone like myself, who is not part of the decision process, would be out of a job, once everybody protested about how will they get to Victoria.

Commuters have all the intelligence and stubbornness of sheep.

What they probably need is something like this.

• Four trains an hour leaving at easily remembered times.
• If necessary an easy interchange to their preferred destination.
• An alternative route, should something happen on the journey, like being called on their mobile phone to an urgent meeting away from the normal workplace.
• A flexible return journey.
• A seat, that is preferably by a window with a table!
• A twenty-four hour service to allow for social events after work.
• Lots of convenient on-platform services.
• Free wi-fi and power sockets.

Everybody will have their own version of this.

Interestingly the Thameslink Class 700 trains were designed without wi-fi and power sockets. This article in the Railway Gazette has details. This is said.

DfT ordered the Class 700 EMUs without wi-fi, seat-back tables or at-seat power sockets in standard class, but on February 11 announced that £50m would be made available for the installation of wi-fi on rolling stock operated by GTR, Southeastern, Chiltern and Arriva Trains Wales, Discussions are now ongoing between Siemens, GTR and Cross London Trains, which was awarded the DfT contract to finance, supply and maintain the new Thameslink fleet.

According to Siemens, the installation of wi-fi would not be difficult, but there would be a significant weight gain from adding power sockets. The cost and practicality of seat-back tables is also being discussed.

So don’t always blame the train company. In this case blame the Department for Transport under Blair’s Government.

If we take  Tattenham Corner  and the Tattenham Corner Line, it should expect nothing less, than Caterham and the Caterham Line.

After Thameslink is completed there will be two twelve-car Class 700 trains, so there’s two London Bridge services an hour, which makes a nice four from Purley if you have two from Caterham.

As sometimes trains for the two lines split and join at Purley, I do feel that passengers who use the two lines would not be averse to some form of interchange at Purley.

The completed Thameslink seems to be designed like this, with respect to Purley,

There are five services which run twice per hour all day, which are the backbone of the route.

1. Bedford to Brighton – semi-fast
2. Bedford to Gatwick Airport – via Purley and Redhill
3. Cambridge to Brighton – semi-fast – via Purley
4. Peterborough to Horsham – via Purley and Redhill
5. Cambridge to Tattenham Corner- semi-fast – via Purley

All of these services go through the core, London Bridge and East Croydon.

But none seem to be calling anywhere else between London  Bridge and Purley.

According to Wikipedia, this is the service pattern from Purley towards London.

• 2 to London Victoria, calling at Purley Oaks, South Croydon, East Croydon, Selhurst, Thornton Heath, Norbury, Streatham Common, Balham, Wandsworth Common, Clapham Junction and Battersea Park (faster services to Clapham Junction and London Victoria are available by changing at East Croydon)
• 8 to London Bridge, of which

4 call at East Croydon and Norwood Junction

2 call at East Croydon, Norwood Junction and New Cross Gate

2 call at Purley Oaks, South Croydon, East Croydon, Norwood Junction, Anerley, Penge West, Sydenham, Forest Hill, Honor Oak Park, Brockley and New Cross Gate

And this is the pattern towards the Coast.

• 4 to Caterham, calling at Kenley, Whyteleafe and Whyteleafe South
• 3 to Tattenham Corner, calling at Reedham, Coulsdon Town, Woodmansterne, Chipstead, Kingswood and Tadworth
• 1 to Tonbridge, calling at Coulsdon South, Redhill, Nutfield, Godstone, Edenbridge, Penshurst and Leigh
• 1 to Reigate, calling at Coulsdon South, Merstham and Redhill
• 2 to Horsham, calling at Coulsdon South, Merstham, Redhill, Earlswood, Salfords, Horley, Gatwick Airport, Three Bridges, Crawley, Ifield, Faygate and Littlehaven

After Thameslink opens there will be eight Thameslink services, made up of two each of the four out of five services (All accept 1) that call at Purley in both directions.

In my view Thameslink need to answer the following questions.

Given that Thameslink is unlikely to stop at New Cross Gate, Norwood Junction and any other station on the East London Line, what is the recommended route between Purley and stations on the East London Line like Whitechapel, Shoreditch High Street and Dalston Junction?

This is obviously something that I am interested in.

Everything I seem to read seems to say that the East London Line has nothing to do with Thamwalink and it’s up to Transport for London to sort.

At Purley, will there be improved interchange between lines?

I am thinking if in particular, whether there will there be same platform or walk across interchange between.

• Services going along the Caterham and Tattenham Corner Lines,
• Thameslink services
• Those to and from Victoria?

At present the interchange may be step-free, but the subway isn’t the best.

Get Purley station right and it might be the key to providing four trains per hour to Caterham and Tattenham Corner.

At it’s simplest it could even be a shuttle service from both branches, that met the Thameslink and Victoria services.

Conclusion

It does seem to me that at present the route planners have a very difficult problem and are struggling to find a solution that suits all passengers; regular or occasional.

I suspect that this part of Thameslink isn’t unique to the service in that respect.

 

 

February 17, 2016 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Caterham Station, Tattenham Corner Station, Thameslink