Re: 458s on Alton line

The Good Doctor wrote:
On 31 Mar, 19:08, Spyke <n...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As far as I know, the plan was to use them on the Guildford-Ascot
services (trains for which, I believe, are provided from Farnham Depot)
but not the Alton-London services.
Whether this has changed or not, I don't know.


In BR and Network SouthEast days, the Guildford -Ascot services were
always the poor relation of all the South West Lines services, with
old rolling stock and probably among the lowest average speeds on
NSE.

Has anything changed?


They now use the same rolling stock as the rest of the SW division (450s or 458s) but the speeds are still quite poor, especially on the single track section between Ash Vale and Frimley. Through journeys from one side of Aldershot to the other are very slow due to the turnaround time at Aldershot.

The service runs 2tph for most of the day, tapering off to 1tph in the late evening (I know this is an improvement on a few years ago, but I don't know what the NSE service pattern was).

The biggest problem with them at the moment is that they connect so badly with Alton-London services, after the SWT timetable change.
Up Ascot services now leave Aldershot 4mins before the train from Alton arrives, and services from Ascot arrive 4mins after the train to Alton has left, meaning a journey like Alton-Camberley or vv takes a lot longer than it used to.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: 458s on Alton line
    ... side of Aldershot to the other are very slow due to the turnaround time ... badly with Alton-London services, ... Up Ascot services now leave Aldershot 4mins before the train from Alton ... I always felt that slow journey times wer a big ...
    (uk.railway)
  • Re: 458s on Alton line
    ... Up Ascot services now leave Aldershot 4mins before the train from Alton ...
    (uk.railway)