[Brighton] Daily am rush hour trains Brighton to London Bridge

Cosmic Joker said:

Except the times you are quoting from @Uter are Brighton to City Thameslink, not LB. The equivalent station in 1912 would be Holborn Viaduct; how long did it take to get there and how many changes? Yes the May 2018 service to LB will only be a few mins quicker at 1hr 02 for a fast peak service but four 12 carriage trains an hour carrying thousands more passengers. Curse these damn facts.

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Chicken Run said:

Having read through the thread it seems improvements all round from May, what’s the significance for this month and is it both Southern and TL rolling out better services?

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Cosmic Joker said:

Its the completion of the Thameslink programme, which has been going on for years. The new platforms four and five at LB will open in service and will be exclusively used by Thameslink, who will have their own pair of dedicated tracks from just north of New Cross Gate where they split from the tracks to the terminating LB platforms and fly over the mainline from Kent to Charing Cross at Bermondsey, running parallel through London Bridge and over Borough Market to head to Blackfriars. These lines are now in place and are starting to be used for test trains and driver training. The new tunnel just north of St Pancras will also open up in service in May providing trains from Brighton to Cambridge and from Three Bridges/Gatwick to Peterborough. Soutern Services to Victoria will largely stay as is, but some Southern services to LB, such as the Horsham - Redhill - LB stoppers, will transfer to Thameslink and run through to Bedford or elsewhere.

Beyond that, the frequency through the central Thameslink "core" of Blackfriars/LB to St Pancras is due to increase in future, but won't affect services to the Brighton Line as East Croydon is already stuffed with as many trains as it can handle. Long term there are plans to add two more platforms to East Croydon and extra flyovers to the junctions between there and Norwood Junction to allow for more trains, but no confirmed timescale or funding for that yet.

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