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Not all pricey Javelin trains to be quicker than old ones
London's busiest rail operator is planning cuts for hundreds of thousands of commuters as it introduces its 140mph (225kph) Javelin trains this year.
- By Andrew Gilligan, The Evening Standard
- Published: 23:35 January 10, 2009
London London's busiest rail operator is planning cuts for hundreds of thousands of commuters as it introduces its 140mph (225kph) Javelin trains this year.
At the same time, it has been found some services along the £5.2 billion (Dh29.12 billion) high-speed line from Kent to St Pancras will be slower than those on the "old" lines at the moment.
Some existing services into London Bridge, Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Victoria will be slashed by up to 60 per cent.
Many passengers are winners, however, with 98 stations seeing overall peak-hour improvements, and longer journeys cut by up to 23 minutes.
The changes will be introduced in December by Southeastern Trains, which has imposed fare increases averaging eight per cent, Britain's highest, to pay for the new service.
Major stations losing out include Bromley South, whose morning peak service into Victoria will be cut by more than ten per cent; Dartford, with morning peak trains into London Bridge down five per cent; and Maidstone East, which will lose its service to Charing Cross altogether. None of these stations will be on the Javelin route.
Last week, the price of a weekly season ticket from Bromley South to Victoria increased by 11.6 per cent.
Bob Neill, Tory MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, said: "Bromley South is the busiest station on Southeastern's network apart from the London termini, yet we are being doubly fleeced. Not only are we paying for trains we will never use, we're losing our own trains to make way for them," he said.
In North Kent, the Medway Towns and Thanet, peak services on the existing routes will be slashed by up to 60 per cent and the off-peak service by up to 50 per cent. Some, though not all, passengers in these areas will be given new Javelin trains but they will be charged premium fares to use the service and most travellers will find that it takes them longer to reach the City or West End than it does now.
Government claims
The Transport Minister, Lord Adonis, has claimed the new trains, bought at a cost of £258 million, would "transform the journeys of large numbers of rail passengers".
A Southeastern press release called the new service "one of the most significant milestones in the history of Britain's railways". It will improve journeys for visitors to the 2012 Olympics. However, the timetable obtained by the Evening Standard shows that for commuters the Javelin will often be little, if at all, faster than existing services.
The fastest Javelin between Sittingbourne and St Pancras will take 61 minutes - one minute longer than the existing service into Victoria. The fastest Javelin between Chatham and St Pancras will take 43 minutes - again a minute slower than the fastest current service to Victoria, and two minutes slower than when the line was first electrified in 1959.
Even from Margate, the Javelin will only be one minute faster than the existing service. It is also expected to charge up to 35 per cent more than fares on existing lines - something likely to put it out of reach of most commuters.
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