ONDON'S busiest rail operator is planning cuts for hundreds of thousands of commuters as it introduces its mph Javelin trains this year. 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 10 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 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.
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 Olympics. However, the timetable obtained by the Standard shows that for commuters the Javelin will often be little, if at all, faster than existing services.
The new Concierge service will ensure you travel on the ultimate trains with the most suitable ticket or rail pass. Javelin trains are streamlined for high speed service. Note that some seats are at tables, but most are airline style. The smart sliding doors allow for easy movement through the train.
Bistro Hot Food. Bar Cold Food. Double Deck. High Speed. First Class. Second Class. Rail passes and reservations. With their Japanese heritage, it wouldn't be surprising for future enhancements to the Javelin train experience for travelers to include the addition of some on board entertainment.
It's possible that interest in anything related to entertainment or online interests could see TV screens or PCs built in seat back units, giving travelers the chance to watch TV, movies, listen to music, or even play games for real money such as the wildly popular quiz app HQ Trivia with its free to enter, twice daily cash prize contests. We've seen the increases in rail travel numbers throughout the SouthEast and further into the North and other UK regions as a result of its introduction.
We've seen the increases in capacity on direct Javelin routes and other conventional track routes feeding UK towns. Even the London Underground has seen benefits as the network has grown. Run down areas such as Stratford have experienced considerable redevelopment. Ebbsfleet City has seen further announcements on its development plans. It would appear that the introduction of high speed rail services does have a number of positive impacts, not only for travelling times, but delivering knock on benefits to capacity in general and reliability all round, and not to mention the somewhat intangible - but nevertheless - positive impacts on the economy as a whole.
Economic growth brings rising house prices and desirability for those areas where the buying price of housing is more affordable. Strong rail connections to those areas are a vital piece of the puzzle. All of which is a pointer to the potential future success and growth of High speed rail throughout the UK, and in particular the current Javelin train service. Will we see the Javelin itself operating on other routes outside of the Southeast UK? That's debatable at this point. The next fast train service introduction is most likely to be the IEP, or Intercity Express Program - although there were some reports in early of track tests using Javelins to be carried out near Melton in Leicestershire.
For these track tests, Network Rail had submitted an application to allow the tests to run, given that the Javelins are the closest model currently running to the new IEP train models to be introduced from onwards. Who knows?
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