Thameslink cancelled again all-day on Greenwich line

Another day and another problem for Thameslink has seen all services halted along the line through Greenwich, Woolwich and Abbey Wood to Dartford.

According to Thameslink problems will continue until the end of the day. There’s no service from Luton to Gravesend with only a shuttle from Gravesend to Rainham in operation.

Today’s problems follow Monday’s complete cessation of service on the Greenwich line for much of the day.

These ongoing problems lasting many hours throughout day raise questions over service recovery by Network Rail.

Poorer service

Problems with Thameslink along the Greenwich line are compounded with service cuts made by Southeastern in 2022 – with many still retained and continuing into the next timetable change running to May 2026.

Add in the ongoing “planning errors” on Thameslink causing cancellations and questions are asked of whether it’s caused more problems than its solved since the Greenwich line was added as a late addition to the overall programme.

When it did begin on the line Thameslink didn’t manage to provide two trains per hour as expected. For many months they only had enough drivers for a one train per hour service.

It’s a good service when it works – but a lot of the time it doesn’t. It’s handy for me personally but the impact on thousands along the line on a frequent basis is substantial and it impacts areas with thousands of new homes. Such an unreliable service alongside Southeastern cuts does little to encourage public transport use.

Skip stops

And even when it does work it skips three stations on the line to add enough padding to its timetable to reach the core past London Bridge. Unfortunately those three stations it serves are all set to grow with thousands of homes built around them.

Belvedere has thousands of homes planned. Just yesterday I spotted an image of another proposed beside the station.

Erith also cold see thousands of new homes. Again more are approved metres from the station. And finally Woolwich Dockyard has the 712-home rebuilt estate nearby as well as the first few hundred homes of the 8,000-home Charlton Riverside masterplan area. Parts of that site to the east have Woolwich Dockyard as the nearest station.

Skipping growing station again raises questions of whether it was the right call to add Thameslink to the line back in 2018.