New timetable and more trains for Crofton Park
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| New trains come into service soon |
And since there is nothing harder and more confusing than trying to write about train timetables for a service you don't use, the Cinderella Line campaign for better rail services through Crofton Park has summarised it instead. They say:
Thanks to everyone, from 21st May we will be enjoying our well-deserved 4 trains an hour on the Cinderella Line, doubling current capacity and giving us vital new services across London.
Here are the key changes:
Our core service
4 trains an hour all day every day Monday – Saturday. Sunday will initially have 2 trains an hour increasing to 4 once Network Rail have completed some engineering works that will allow Thameslink to run the full service on Sundays too.
You can read more about the engineering works here.
Two of our services will terminate at Blackfriars and two will go beyond to Kentish Town, linking us up to Farringdon for Crossrail and Kings Cross St Pancras.
Weekday mornings into London
On weekday mornings we will have 4 trains an hour and Crofton Park and Bellingham will also have some direct services to London Victoria:
The 4 Thameslink services will be spaced at 10 and 20 minute gaps. This is to pave the way for eventually increasing our service to 6 trains an hour and we're going to be pushing for this to happen.
Just imagine: a train every 10 minutes!
But there is a catch if you want to go to Victoria
From Crofton Park there are currently three direct services to London Victoria on weekday mornings departing at 7:36, 8:23 and 8:43. In the new timetable from May, these times have been amended to depart at 7:46, 8:15 and 9:21, so our third service will be more than 30 minutes after it currently is.
We have raised this with Southeastern Railway and the reason for this is that under the new timetable with all of our core services through Blackfriars, it is not currently possible to have a train that stops at Crofton Park at around 8:45 to Victoria as this could cause a knock-on delay to other services.
And the new services won't be fully operational straight away
From 11th June the initial phasing will be complete and our services will run as planned. During the phasing in period, some of our services will either start from Blackfriars or Terminate there, but after 11th June they will run the full length of the route.
For the full rundown of changes, click here.
