Southeastern finally taking the fight to the Elizabeth line?
Last week’s news that 30 Southeastern trains would see the addition of toilets was a rare sign of investment over the past decade in beleaguered Metro routes as the Elizabeth line approved.
This had me wondering; are the company and the Department for Transport starting to compete with the Elizabeth line rather than roll over as had previously seemed the case?
First let’s go back to 2022 when the Elizabeth line opened. After delays the new line opened from Abbey Wood to Paddington and was an immediate success.
In response Southeastern almost immediately cut Metro services including through Abbey Wood and Woolwich to London Bridge and central London. Because most will switch to the Elizabeth line right? However this also reduced services linking to the Elizabeth line from areas such as North Kent.
That also saw gaps up to 27 minutes along the line in places far from the new line, with service intervals the biggest for decades.
Hasty cuts without any timetable alterations saw long gaps between services in inner London such as Deptford and Greenwich.
Sure enough usage dropped – and dropped more than other modes impacted by the Elizabeth line such as the DLR and London Overground where services didn’t see similar treatment.
Since then some alterations for the better have been made. Services through Greenwich went back up to previous levels before 2022 cuts during peak times and off-peak changes to the timetable no longer see two trains bunched within three minutes before a 27 minute gap.
It’s still not “turn-up-and-go” of a maximum 15 minute wait, but it is better than it was.
Benefits of Southeastern Metro
Recent news suggest a realisation that Southeastern could work towards their strengths – of which there are many.
As for installing toilets on 30 trains, that wasn’t expected.
Anecdote alert! Some of my elderly relatives will only travel if a toilet on board. So they’ll use Southeastern to reach central London but not the Elizabeth line. Southeastern can’t compete on speed but they can on facilities – and anyway it’s only a ten minutes difference in journey time compared to the Elizabeth line.
Toilets onboard are also something I’ve become much more aware about since being a parent. I was a bit ignorant before then – as well as seeing the impact on relatives as they got older.
Then there’s my old favourite subject: housebuilding and destinations.
Southeastern Metro serves many popular destinations with strong demand that the Elizabeth line just doesn’t. To give examples, major town centres such as Greenwich, Lewisham plus buzzing Zone 1 areas such as London Bridge and Charing Cross which can be handier for parts of central London than Tottenham Court Road on the Elizabeth line.
Likewise in the City, Cannon Street is someway from Liverpool Street. If people work in the southern part of the City, Southeastern Metro is a handy route. It may take 10 minutes longer on Southeastern to the City from, say, Abbey Wood but that could be negated by 15 minute shorter walk to the office on arrival.
Then we get to housebuilding. There’s many, many projects underway or planned around many Southeastern stations. I’m planning a post on all new developments underway around Southeastern stations but here’s a few right now:
Deptford: Tidemill school redevelopment nearing completion. Many others on the drawing board.
Greenwich: Saxon Wharf. Rising as we speak.
Woolwich Dockyard: Morris Walk estate rebuild now well underway with first occupations imminent.
Plumstead: Lombard Square and two nearby sites totalling 2,600 homes. First homes approaching completion.
Erith: 850 homes at Erith Quarry underway.
And on it goes at various stations across the Metro routes from Crayford (work now started on 559 homes beside station) to Lower Sydenham (work now underway on hundreds more homes beside stations) and of course areas with thousands of new dwellings such as Lewisham and Kidbrooke.
Despite close proximity to Southeastern Metro stations does it mean most future residents will use them even if taking rail? Probably not in places like Abbey Wood and Woolwich. But some will even there and that total rises further at locations without such convenient Elizabeth line services and so improving trains, frequencies and staffing levels will all help capture more of the growing pie.
After many years of stagnation on Metro routes it appears Southeastern realise this – and crucially the DfT who call the shots and hold the pursestrings – and in future Great British Rail may do too. Staff shortages are better and we no longer see station number in triple figures across the network lacking staff.
Still, there’s issues with 52 stations at the time of writing and many Metro stations in major growth areas are included. Most of it is a lack of staff. Kidbrooke yet again is evident. On many Southeastern station the ticket office staff are the only staff on site – so if they’re not there no one is.
Kidbrooke seems to see this almost daily despite 6,000 homes being built around it.
Certain measures such as toilets on trains will help. Adding a drip feed of further services since those steep, short sited 2022 cuts does help.
However there’s still huge scope to entice and increase passenger numbers on Metro routes. Serving areas with some of the highest housebuilding rates in the country is a massive potential success story. Many roads are congested with the rail network begging for investment to capitalise.
Embrace it are the area’s rail has a bright future – Elizabeth line or not.
Southeastern should not have the services on the Woolwich and Greenwich Line to Charing Cross. This was a very popular service and well used bringing tourists from Central Lodon to Greenwich. Also local residents used the services to reach the West End
From a performance standpoint I can understand why Southeastern and Network Rail sought to split routes by destination especially in the peaks.
TfL had proposed the same in their attempts to devolve power and control though crucially TfL had sought to compensate via increased Metro services to capture growth from new housing. Southeastern instead cut services along all Metro routes as soon as the split was made.
I cannot understand why Southeastern didn’t at least have late trains past 10pm head from Charing Cross and not Cannon Street along the Greenwich line as demand is far greater from the West End at night. That seemed a baffling way to put off passengers. At night far fewer trains are running so performance risk is minimal. It can be done (as sometimes is during engineering work).
EDIT: I’ve just looked at the last train tonight from London Bridge to Greenwich and it’s at 11:30pm. Pretty rubbish for one of the biggest cities in the world. To make that it’s a train from Charing Cross then change at London Bridge. Far worse than it was a few short years ago. Last trains were later if I recall correctly and required no change.
Is it because of the Elizabeth Line wants to extend to Dartford and Gravesend. And Southeastern to lose some of the outer-suburban services. Whilst Thameslink will continue on with the Rainham and Rochester services.
They also say they can not run services correctly in the heat as the heat bends the rails. More investment in the system is needed and to be prepared for the different types of weather we have in this country when I asked someone at the station why they don’t use snow ploughs he said we had a snow plough and it didn’t snow for Five years so we got rid of it. This shows tgat they are more concerned with profit than providing a service. I think nationalisation is a good idea.
Southeastern is already state owned as is Network Rail who operates infrastructure.
Metal expands in heat and I believe rails are stressed to be able to cope with a set range of expected temperature differences but that doesn’t include some of the super hot temperatures we’ve experienced in recent years.
As for snow ploughs, they don’t have one for the same reason most drivers don’t put snow chains on their cars. Snow is such a rare occurrence in the south of the UK it’s simply not worth it.
And in any case it’s the conductor rail getting iced up that causes more issues in winter weather.
A bit of insider knowledge there?
They should prioritize clamping down on fare evasion.
Run trains to charing cross. From abbey wood having to change at London bridge . Makes the journey stressful