Southeastern and Thameslink train length info now more easily available

For some years most UK train companies have made the length of trains running easily available on popular websites – with notable exceptions including Southeastern, Thameslink and Southern in south London.

That’s just changed however and now you can see how long each train service is via the excellent Realtimetrains website.

It’s handy to see at a glance and whether it’s worth missing a short formed service if your normal 10-car is just four that day, for example.

With Thameslink it’s usually a given anyway, with 8-car on the Woolwich line and 12-car on many other routes.

Southeastern Metro though could be 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 or even 12-car.

Services

Observing all service train lengths at a glance does a good job to reveal just which services see shortest trains in the peaks and looking at all trains leaving London Bridge based on recent days during the afternoon peak across all operators and services it’s the Woolwich line rounders or those to Dartford via Woolwich Arsenal at 4 or 5-car.

Not a great surprise with the Elizabeth line now serving Abbey Wood and Woolwich, though it does mean when Thameslink sees problems (a very common occurrence) services to-and-from north Kent towns and the Elizabeth line interchange at Abbey Wood aren’t great.

Long waits between Dartford and Abbey Wood combined with short trains do little to encourage rail use from are of mass new housebuilding at Kent both in Dartford and nearby areas such as Stone Crossing and Northfleet to the Liz line.

Yesterday morning was a good example. Two 5-car Southeastern trains in the peak with a cancelled Thameslink in between. Result is a 30 minute gap serving densely built up urban areas.

By the way if you don’t do so I’d recommend always checking Realtimetrains before leaving home or at a busy station. It’s very handy for seeing what platform at train will call or depart before public information boards reveal that information. It sometimes helps avoid, for example, the Euston or Paddington rush.

It’s also an ever-rare example of a site that hasn’t suffered enshittification. All info displayed quickly and at a glance.

Yes, I’m aware of the irony of me saying that with the mess this site has recently been become. Still trying to sort it.

They’re a far better example than the National Rail live departure page now is. That worked well for giving a lot of info quickly then they ballsed it up with much scrolling now required. Pretty hopeless when rocking up at London Bridge and there’s disruption. You want to quickly see next 20-30 departures not a list of 5-10 across the entire station then having to click again.

As a test I’ve just clicked on National Rail’s live departure info and just the next four departures are on screen at first. Realtimetrains shows 14. Click on detailed and it shows about 25. National Rail lacks such an option.

It’s moments like that where Realtimetrains comes into its own – and now even better with train length listed beside services.