Rupert Candy wrote:
Bob Wood wrote:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...662717,00.html

PREMIUM ROUTES

Likely candidates for peak pricing:

Liverpool Street to Chelmsford
St Albans to King's Cross
Elephant and Castle to Blackfriars
East Croydon and Tulse Hill to Blackfriars/London Bridge
Twyford and Maidenhead to Paddington
Sevenoaks to Charing Cross/Cannon Street

That's a very interesting list. Are they really the busiest routes in
the country? (As a daily customer of Thameslink between Tulse Hill and
Blackfriars I can well believe it, but Maidenhead to Paddington?)


I thought that as well. I would have thought there were some obvious
pinches, like Lewisham to Charing Cross (which has a reduced service in
the peaks compared with off-peak and is generally packed solid).

At least SET has finally made some suburban trains as long as they were
when they were slam-door. The peak trains to London Bridge via East
Croydon and Tulse Hill tend to be six coaches I think, and certainly
never more than eight, yet they are not more crowded then the ten-coach
SET services they are in parallel with on the approach to London
Bridge.

Where there is overcrowding on Southern, it is due to short trains,
like a four-coach evening peak train I caught to Brockley a while back.

MIG wrote:

At least SET has finally made some suburban trains as long as they were
when they were slam-door. The peak trains to London Bridge via East
Croydon and Tulse Hill tend to be six coaches I think, and certainly
never more than eight, yet they are not more crowded then the ten-coach
SET services they are in parallel with on the approach to London
Bridge.

The peak Thameslinks through Tulse Hill are almost always 8 coaches
(except on Monday, when everything was in the wrong place because of
the problems near Bedford, which meant overcrowding that was dangerous
rather than just uncomfortable!) The SET peak trains to Blackfriars via
Herne Hill are generally 6 and busy but not overcrowded.

Where there is overcrowding on Southern, it is due to short trains,
like a four-coach evening peak train I caught to Brockley a while back.

There used to be a London Bridge - Beckenham train at about 6.30 that
was booked for a 2-coach 456, and every day the driver made an
announcement that the train was *not* short formed. That was not a
pleasant ride.

There used to be a London Bridge - Beckenham train at about 6.30 that
was booked for a 2-coach 456, and every day the driver made an
announcement that the train was *not* short formed. That was not a
pleasant ride.

So I'm thinking, where trains are overcrowded due to being too short,
they'll use the congestion charge to pay for more vehicles, so the
trains won't be crowded any more and the congestion charge will be
withdrawn?

I wonder.