Weekday Southeastern summer specials from Greenwich line to Kent coast return
Weekday services offering direct trains from the Greenwich and Woolwich line to various Kent coastal resorts resume on Monday 25th July.
Services will run over the summer holiday and offer a direct trains to resorts such as Whitstable, Herne Bay, Broadstairs, Margate and Ramsgate.
Weekend trains have been operating for a few weeks but not from Monday to Friday.
A train will leave Cannon Street at 09:24 before calling at all stations to Dartford including Greenwich at 9:37am, Charlton at 9:45am, Woolwich Arsenal at 9:56 and Abbey Wood at 9:56am.
Abbey Wood to Whitstable, to give one example, will take 1 hour and 22 minutes.
The advent of Crossrail also opens up quicker links from areas north of the Thames with a change at Abbey Wood. Of course, HS1 is quicker for those who can reach Stratford but is more expensive.
Southeastern tend to use their best Networkers on the route (ie the least grotty ones) with a brighter and more attractive interior.
Normally first class on these trains can be used by all passengers when running on Metro services, but I’m not sure about when running to the coast. Best to ask staff to avoid a fine.
Direct trains are also a boon to ever growing numbers of people moving to car-free developments in areas such as Woolwich and Greenwich.
All tracks lead to Abbey Wood
It’s quite impressive how many places can now be reached from Abbey Wood aside from the traditional Metro trains to the City at Cannon Street and West End at Charing Cross via Greenwich and Lewisham.
In the summer there’s the daily Kent coast direct trains, Thameslink will now take you through central London to places like St Pancras for Eurostar as well as up to Luton Airport directly (alongside various handy destinations in central London) and Crossrail now offers very fast and direct trains to Canary Wharf in 10 minutes and Paddington in less than 30 to name but two destinations.
In coming months it’ll also offer east access to Heathrow and out to Reading.
Quite the change from when I was growing up there not that long ago.
