Southeastern to run HS services this month

Southeastern have officially announced they are to run a preview High Speed service. This follows on from the story I blogged about here.

The service will begin on the 29^th June and uses Ashford International, Ebbsfleet and St Pancras stations. Journey times are 37 minutes from Ashford to St Pancras and just 17 minutes from Ebbsfleet. The official timetable can be accessed here.

Pricing

Using the HS service from Ashford gets an extra £4.40 single (£26.60) and £8.10 return (£48.70). Weekly ticket cause an extra £18.90 at £113.40.

Ebbsfleet prices are £12.20 single, £24.30 return and £82.30 for a weekly ticket to St Pancras

Northbound Services

Ashford sees trains leave at 06:48, 07:13 calling at Ebbsfleet and a direct train to St Pancras at 07:48.

Ebbsfleet sees trains at 07:08, 07:33 then gets a clock face departures at 05 and 35 minutes past the hour until 11:05 when HS1 track inspection happens. The service restarts at 13:05 and continues to the final HS train north at 18:35.

Southbound Services

There are trains leaving St Pancras to Ebbsfleet again on a clock face timetable at 07 & 37 departures starting at 07:37. Services are suspended after the 11:07 until the 13:07. The last three trains leaving at 17:37, 18:37 and 19:26 all continue to Ashford International.

The Southeastern page on this story can be accessed here.

395 early introduction?

Now Southeastern actually has services running into St Pancras and beyond (working jointly with First Capital Connect with some services even announced and displayed at St Pancras as South Eastern Trains), it seems thats Southeastern are planning on introducing some limited 395 services in the May 2009 timetable change. These are classed as taster to help with full introduction come the December's timetable changes. the service is planned to be a St Pancras - Stratford International - Ebbsfleet International shuttle service that will run inbetween existing Eurostar services running around every 3omins. Southeastern are also looking into doing peak hour trains from Ashford International into St Pancras as well.

Southeastern have recruited some of the staff needed for their high speed (HS) services and they expect to have all HS staff trained and ready by November this year. St Pancras and Starford staff will operate as one with a joint rota where as Ebbsfleet is being treated seperately.

The HS services are still under wraps as to timings but with nine months to go interest is begining to build as the new 395 140MPH EMU's start daylight testing and the final push in the media starts. I am looking forward to trying out these services as they will likely cut a cross London jounery for me and save me upto two hours when visiting my family in East Kent. However with pricing still to be announced, how popluar these services are actually going to be is still to remain.

2009 Transport Events

London Overground 378 Derby
Originally uploaded by kpmarek

Well as we start 2009 I though it would be good to look at the transport events we will see during the year.

January
*The first one will be the DLR's Woolwich Arsenal extension which open on the 10th
*The first 377/5 for FCC will be deliveried and tested

Febuary
*The first 377/5 begins passanger runs late this month

March
*Blackfriars Tube station closes for 35 months for complete rebuilding
*All things being well the Moorgate branch of Thameslink along with the bay platforms at Blackfriars will close to allow rebuilding at Farringdon and Blackfriars on the 22nd

April
*DLR re-open Tower Gateway

December
*SouthEastern begin services using the 395's on HS1 speeding up services from Kent into central London

Other events without dates
*New Overground platforms are finished and opened
*378 fleet for the Overground comes into service
* First 09TS on the Victoria Line comes into passenger service
*PAYG Oyster on all rail services before the years end

There are also alot of things that could seriously affect our travelling lifes during 2009. The Thameslink programme along with the Tube upgrade are making weekend travel more difficult in the short term as is works around Stratford for the Olmypics. The next few years see large part of the networks affect but once we get through to late 2011 we will have six months of things being quiet before the chaos that being the focus of the world will bring before we start down the major works road. If everything hold to course then come 2018 (mostly expect the Bakerloo Line) we will see serious improvements in travelling around London with the Tube upgrade finished and new trains on most of the lines (Circle, District, Met, Hammersmith & City and Piccadilly), Completed London Overground works with longer trains, finished Thameslink with much improved links across the South East and a new fleet of trains, Crossrail open, High Speed travels to Kent and many open access operators to North France and finally another DLR extension opened. Its a long road of basically a decade but when they're finished London will be transformed. Just in time for HS2, Crossrail 2 and many other planned rail links to start?

Wrong Stick?

I wonder what happened here?

Seems as a
promotional event they got one of the new Javelin trains into Stratford Market Depot on London Underground's Jubilee Line. As you can see from the two pictures they managed to fit a bus in there as well. The depot is LU's newest on the eastern end of the Jubilee and on the edge of the Olympic site.


All good and well now as a
promotional event for the 2012 London Olympics but these pictures show a white Javelin with a tellow nose rather than bule with a yellow nose. Does this mean that SouthEastern is repainting all these new trains once they have finished testing them? Why didnt they just have them painted when they were making them?

Just incase you don't what the Javelin's are all about they are the the new high speed trains. Basically the only way they could get Kent's councils to drop any challenge to building the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) or HS1 as it now known was to promise to provide high speed trains from Kent towns to Central London using new trains with a maxiuium speed on HS1 of 140MPH. Quite an improvement for some people, I.E. Ashford will drop from 83mins to 37mins, Some towns will only get minor gains like Chatham goes from 47mins to 43mins. But with connections to Stratford and St Pancras International means the Kent traveller willing to pay extra for this service will have great onwards connections. For me it means I can visit my mums in about an hour with one train compared to two Tube trains and one train for about 2hrs 30mins. Quite a saving for the extra 30% they will be charging. But we have to wait till decenber 2009 before these trains will run. This is partly because Stratford International isn't safe to let passengers use as its currently in the middle of the Olympic building site construction. This won't be helped when it opens in december 2009 as it still won't have an links to anywhere really. The DLR extension isn't supposed to open to mid 2010. I can see it now, people walking the half mile as the nice new shiny DLR train run in test mode empty. Or will the DLR work its magic and have the extension finished ahead of time again?

New Thames tunnel

It has come to light that Metrotidal LTD are planning on building a new tunnel between Medway (Kent) and Canvey Island (Essex). What is werid is that they plan to use it for Crossrail. The plan is for a £2-4bn tunnel link for cars as well as a tunnel linking a pretty rural area of Kent with the wetlands of Essex. Seems the announcement surpised alot of people, least of all the planning boards in Kent. Seems they expected to be told about this before Metrotidal went to the DfT. According to the Kent Messenger, the first the parishes heard of the plans was in the news. Not a good sign really especially from a project of this scale. The RSPB are not amused either with possible affects it will have on the wetlands. And the plan isn't for a nice tunnelling machince, the idea is to sink the tunnel parts in the Thames and then remove the water afterwards. Seems a bit cheap plus the affect on the Thames traffic. The company claim its better for the environment based on the fact that trains are greener. Personally I think this isn';t they big interest but a carrot for the DfT to ok the plan. A new tunnel would help ease the congestion on the Dartford toll. And I think this is the key reason for them to make the tunnel. A nice new tunnel that will bring them cash for the foreseeable future. But we will have to wait and see won't we.

It also see that Metrotidal are hoping that Crossrail gets extended back to Ebbsfleet. They are quoted as saying that the tunnel will link into Crossrail at Ebbsfleet. Now forgive me but that isn't Crossrail, its offical dropped. Its actually the location of the HS1 station and will be, from December 2009, part of Southeastern's high speed rail services from Kent to St. Pancras International using HS1. so as far we have a company wanting to spend billions of punds and yet they haven't got there information correct. And I would love to post a link the Metrotidal's website and quote straight from them but for some reason they haven't got a website (, well Google can't find it).

As you might be able to tell I'm not convinced with the whole scheme. Seems to have come out of no-where, not talking to the revelant people and then not going much details (and even then some errors). Time will tell.


Oh and on a minor note theres a new Tube map out for February 2008. Thats the 4th one in 4 months. Hmmmmmm.