Another day and another Thameslink train on the Woolwich line due to a “planning error”. An all too familiar occurrence.
With a poor service for years and negative impacts upon Southeastern services it runs alongside is it time to ask, was the decision to run Thameslink via Greenwich and Woolwich Arsenal a mistake.
Compounding the feeling is another Southeastern timetable change set to bring minimal improvements to areas of major growth across south east London and north Kent from December.
Late addition to plans
If we look back to the time before Thameslink’s upgrade was complete there was no plan to run along the Woolwich line into north Kent and Medway. It was a decision made late on before the project’s completion.
An issue arose whereby Thameslink had too many trains and not enough routes to operate. While some routes to Southeastern destinations had been proposed such as Maidstone and Ashford this never happened. In addition changes to services on the Wimbledon loop ensured some last minute changes to intended service patterns
And so Thameslink came to the Woolwich line.
Not very successfully (at first) it must be said. For a long time just one train ran per hour operated due to a lack of drivers. When the full two services each hour did finally commence services skipped three stations between London Bridge and Slade Green by sailing through Woolwich Dockyard, Belvedere and Erith despite running no faster than all-stopping Southeastern services that call at all three.
City Thameslink station
This is due to the nature of Thameslink having to run through the route’s central core between London Bridge and St Pancras resulting in all trains needing to meet their selected path and so additional padding is built into services. In south east London that means skipping three stations seeing many new homes – and set to see many more.
Lopsided service
It also impacted the regular, clock face times of services that previously ran along the line. As an example, Abbey Wood saw eight trains off-peak per hour to London Bridge of which six went via Greenwich and two via Lewisham. The Greenwich trains would depart at, say, 02, 12, 22, 32, 42 and 52 past the hour with a regular 10 minute gap.
Thameslink blew that away through the need to accommodate it by threading between Southeastern services. Still, it wasn’t terrible. Gaps weren’t too bad though Thameslink reliability remained and remains very poor.
Driver shortages persist and any issue in the core or north of London and that’s a cut for services in south east London and north Kent.
Southeastern cuts
Things however took a turn for the worse when cuts to Southeastern services were made in 2022 with the removal of two trains per hour off-peak along the Woolwich line via Greenwich.
From six Southeastern trains per hour before Thameslink through Greenwich to four Southeastern and two Thameslink, it then became just two Southeastern and two Thameslink.
Greenwich station saw six Southeastern services per hour. Now just two with two Thameslink resulting in net reduction
With trains bunched three minutes apart it led to 27 minute gaps at stations such as Greenwich and Deptford when for years they’d been every ten minutes.
That’s now improved but far from the standard seen a decade or more ago of six trains per hour running every ten minutes. And plenty more homes have and are being built around these stations.
North Kent housing growth
Southeastern also now operate no trains linking major growth areas such in north Kent past Dartford to the Elizabeth line at Abbey Wood which is instead operated by the flaky two trains per hour Thameslink service. They operate just two per hour from Dartford to Abbey Wood.
With Dartford borough a major growth area and seeing some of the highest levels of new residential construction in the entire country, such a poor service to the Elizabeth line is a bit of a nonsense.
Hundreds pile off frequent Liz line trains at Abbey Wood for low frequency connections to north Kent
Cuts also exacerbate Thameslink not calling at Woolwich Dockyard, Erith and Belvedere along the line. Stations it must be said that in major housing growth areas.
In the past year Thameslink stated they may possibly be able to stop at one station of the three in future.
Yet that’s not really a long term solution given Woolwich Dockyard is near the eastern end of the 8,000-home Charlton Riverside masterplan and sees other development sites nearby including the major Morris Walk estate rebuild now all but complete in places, while Erith is seeing hundreds of new homes.
Woolwich Dockyard is the closest station to new homes here. Thameslink doesn’t call
Belvedere has nearly 2,000 on the drawing board, and Bexley Council propose thousands more at both towns.
This all results in a feeling that Thameslink as it is simply isn’t a long-term realistic proposition for the area if housing continues to rise.
1,250 homes planned in Belvedere near the station. Thameslink doesn’t stop. Southeastern services reduced
Which brings us back to the question of whether it’s time to go back to service levels in the early to mid 2010s before Thameslink and before Southeastern cuts which saw eight trains per hour through Woolwich and six through Greenwich and Deptford?
Improved connections to Elizabeth line
It could also permit more services from north Kent to Abbey Wood rather than the meagre two per hour operated by Thameslink at present.
With eight trains per hour through Abbey Wood as existed before Thameslink, four could run to Medway/Gravesend with four rounders offering two trains per hour looping round to both the Sidcup and Bexleyheath lines connecting to Abbey Wood for the Elizabeth line.
Much of this was once on the cards when the goal was to link many stations to Abbey Wood for interchange possibilities. That then faltered and we’ve got the poor service levels seen today.
New homes in Dartford.
The main goal of ditching Thameslink being to both improve links to the Liz line from north Kent and other areas of SE London as well as restore six well-spaced trains calling at Greenwich and Deptford where thousands more homes are proposed near both stations.
If that means removing the somewhat last minute and unplanned addition of Thameslink to the north Kent line, it may be a price worth paying. As someone who uses Thameslink regularly to reach stations on the core as well as interchange to take trains north it’d be a pain personally but the benefits appear to outweigh the negatives. And I’d miss the air con in summer.
Yet we know Thameslink won’t call at three skipped stations despite housing growth around each due to the need to reach the core. That’s an intractable problem. They also cannot exactly cut many stations in north Kent now seeing hundreds if not thousands of homes rising.
Threading Thameslink trains through Southeastern services was a compromise almost a decade ago when announced. That will only increase with new housing and development.
