Southern franchise consultation starts
The current Southern franchise expires in September 2009, and the DfT have just published the consultation document for its replacement. Of note:
- The mooted handover of London area services to TfL/London Overground is off, though TfL are being consulted heavily both before and during the franchise.
- London Overground style frequency and operating hour increases are suggested, as is gating of stations (required to operate full time) and monitoring ticketless travel.
- East London Line phase 2 is still treated as not confirmed, but something about the language makes me think they're assuming it's likely to happen.
- Future Southern services on the West London Line are likely to be Milton Keynes-East Croydon augmented by Shepherd's Bush-East Croydon services, as well as the future 4 trains per hour run by London Overground. Full details are given in the document.
- They expect Oyster PAYG to have been implemented before the end of the current franchise.
12 comments:
In fact one of the proposals in the document for the West London Line is for 2 tph Croydon to Shepherds Bush and one tph Milton Keynes to Clapham Junction (because they cannot get the paths to match up between the WCML and South Central.
And there are various other snippets of information scattered through the document about various ideas.
JJB
As I understand, the proposed off-peak service patterns are as follows:
Jan 2009
MKC-ECR 1tph SC
SPB-CLJ 2tph LO
Dec 2009
MKC-CLJ 1tph SC
SPB-SCY 2tph SC
SPB-CLJ 2tph LO
Dec 2010
MKC-CLJ 1tph SC
SPB-CLJ 4tph LO
In addition:
The SC service to/from Milton Keynes Central from Jan 2009 is still 'subject to final confirmation', and will only operate beyond Dec 2010 'if it has been successful'. During the peaks it may well continue to terminate/begin at Clapham Junction as it does now (and that extends to off-peak services from Dec 2009).
The single SC morning peak service from East Croydon to Kensington Olympia (Shepherds Bush when it opens) will continue until at least Dec 2009.
The SC service between Shepherds Bush and South Croydon will be limited to peak periods from December 2010.
Edvid: I believe all the services terminating at Shepherd's Bush are to be run by Southern, in addition to London Overground services to Willesden Junction and Stratford. There's a table on page 40/41 of the PDF. They mention an endgame of 7 tph in the peaks.
Hold on, ignore me. The only thing missing from your analysis is that the LO trains will start beyond Shepherd's Bush. But I'm sure you already knew that.
"London Overground style frequency and operating hour increases are suggested..."
Oh dear - coming down to three trains an hour Mon-Sat and two an hour on Sundays like the Euston-Watford DC line of London Overground, eh?
I suspect the good burghers of South London could do without that sort of 'improvement'.
I think it's a shame they can't do Milton Keynes - Brighton or at least keep Watford Junction - Brighton. With the XC two a day Manchester Picc - Brightons going it seems like an opportunity lost to have more longer distance trains avoiding London by using the WLL and also to have trains linking the WCML to the Southern. I've only caught the XC once but it was rammed, perhaps overall the demand is minimal though?
Mr Thant - thanks for reminding me about Willesden Junction. I wonder how I left that out...
Anyway, I digress. I wonder why direct services between Shepherds Bush and South Croydon will be restricted to peak periods after one year - is there a problem with extending half of the off-peak LO services southwards to South Croydon?
Any talk of Southern platforms at Willesden Junction?
Me again - does the 4tph at Clapham mean they're going to reimplement platform 1? Or just operate all from platform 2?
anon - platforms at CJ
They don't need platform 1 until ELLX phase 2 via the SLL gets the go ahead. All the indications are that the WLL will then use platform 1, and the ELLX 2/SLL will use platform 2, giving cross platform transfer, but no through running.
Meanwhile any Southern contribution to the service that runs through south of CJ will have to stay at platforms 16-17.
Notwithstanding Long Distance services from the south-east to "the rest of the world" beyond Watford Junction...
CrossCountry services will no longer be stopping South of Reading, and thus, NO Strategic service out of the South East. With the hassle getting across London through local and visitor traffic, being ripped off if one has not an Oyster card between tremini surely there is a need for a 'West Coast Mail Line /West London "ThamesLink"'going further south?
There used to be a BR Inter-City Service from Dover and Ashford (International)
Time for an Open-Access bid?
Brighton/Hastings - Birmingham?
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But, as long you stay up, keep your head up right, do your homework like the Mister that wrote this well written piece did.
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