Direct weekday trains from south east London to Kent coastal towns begin next month

Southeastern’s summer special services running directly to the Kent coast from various south east London town is set to start running next month.

They currently operate on weekends but will run during weekdays across the school summer holidays.

Trains operate along the Greenwich and Woolwich line to various towns including Whitstable, Herne Bay, Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate.

One train runs on weekday mornings which calls at all stations between London Bridge and Dartford en route to the coast, calling at:

Greenwich: 9:04

Charlton: 9:12

Woolwich Arsenal: 9:18

Abbey Wood: 9:24

It stops at all other stations and the above are merely the busiest stations along the line.

There appears to be no return service in the afternoon.

Times

From Woolwich Arsenal it takes one hour and thirty one minutes to reach Whitstable. Margate is almost two hours.

Looking at timings it’s not the fastest with a substantial amount of padding added into the timetable. Abbey Wood to Dartford, for example, is timetabled at a very slow pace at nearing 20 minutes.

That was eight minutes on a semi-fast and not much above 10 on an all-stopper for years.

Such sluggish speeds and long stops at stations aren’t great if in a non-air conditioned train on a hot summer’s day.

Even Woolwich Arsenal to Abbey Wood is timetabled at six minutes. That was four minutes on a stopper and three on a semi-fast for decades.

I’m not sure ever slower journeys do anything to entice people to ditch cars. The flipside argument is running ever slower ensures reliability.

Another option was to take air conditioned Thameslink trains to Medway and change onto air conditioned Southeastern trains, but this government have decided to halve Thameslink services over the summer along the Woolwich line.

So much for aiding tourism and wider economy eh?