Southeastern has made changes to its Bexleyheath and Sidcup line timetables after responding to feedback from customers – including backlash relating to a huge cut in services back in December.
Based on what customers have told Southeastern, it is adjusting the summer timetable from May 21 and will now operate 29 additional trains every weekday, and 34 additional trains on Saturdays compared to December 2022.
On each weekday, 25 of Southeastern’s trains will now have more carriages in order to provide extra capacity on the busier services.
The trains do not have first class “so that every seat is available for every customer”.
Southeastern has said that it is “committed to a better, safer and more accessible railway and your feedback is vital in shaping that”.
An initial change which sparked huge amounts of customer backlash occurred on December 11, 2022 after Southeastern introduced a timetable which made alterations to a number of services - including a reduction and changes to existing services in and out of central London.
Many customers responded to these changes, claiming services have become “unreliable” and “dangerously overcrowded” – which has lead to the more recent alterations.
Here are the full details of the new timetables:
Bexleyheath Line changes:
Southeastern explained: “From May, on the Bexleyheath Line, every weekday and on Saturdays we will offer an hourly direct off-peak service to Charing Cross.
That will mean over 300 direct services will run weekly on that route."
Sidcup Line changes:
On the Sidcup Line Southeastern are introducing additional peak services on weekdays including:
7.03am Crayford to Charing Cross via Sidcup - this should mean the 6:40am Strood to Charing Cross is less crowded 5.43pm Charing Cross to Dartford via Sidcup - providing more capacity at the busiest time of day.
5.24am / 5.54am / 6.24am / 6.54am – the Dartford to Charing Cross service will start now from Crayford.
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