Timetable Changes

[davidp]

In case you haven't noticed, the DLR sneaked in some timetable changes from last weekend. The annoucement of the changes was only made on the Friday AFAIK and the timetables were only made public from the Saturday - i.e. after the changes had started.

Just looking at the DLR's timetable page, it appears that the majority of changes are around the peak services with the morning peak service between Bank and Lewisham now every 4 mins; Tower Gateway and Beckton every 8 mins; Bank and Woolwich Arsenal every 8 mins; Canning Town (not Blackwall as previous) and Woolwich Arsenal every 8 mins and Stratford to Canary Wharf every 6 mins with alternate trains extended to Lewisham.

In the evening peak, the only changes that I can see are that the Stratford trains operate no further south than Canary Wharf and the 'extra' trains on the Woolwich Arsenal branch start and finish at Canning Town rather than Blackwall.

The press release also states that there are changes to some changes to first and last train times, but I haven't spotted any yet.

So the Stratford branch is now almost completely segregated from the rest of the network with only some of the morning peak service (south of Canary Wharf) and the evening/weekend service (southbound platform at West India Quay) sharing any track with any other line.

[Deleted]

It is generally difficult to identify timetable changes on the DLR because about 2 years ago they stopped putting up proper departure time notices on station platforms, replacing these with first, last, and "every 2 to 12 minutes" (ie useless) type notices instead. When this change first came along there was an excuse printed that it was "temporary".

The recent progressive reduction of the through Stratford service is undesirable. When it ran through to Greenwich and Lewisham at weekends, alternate trains with the Bank service, we noticed just as many passengers at Greenwich Cutty Sark letting the Bank service go, waiting for the Stratford train, as did the opposite. And these trains were certainly well loaded passing Canary Wharf.

On the too-frequent weekends when the Jubilee is not running beyond North Greenwich, to get to Canning Town you now need to change to Heron Quay (the recommended point), and at Canary Wharf, and at Poplar. That's three changes in less than a mile.

The reduction of one-third in the service into Blackwall from the east may seem irrelevant, but there is a substantial peak period movement from the Jubilee at Canning Town connecting to the DLR westbound to East India, and then walking on the footbridge across the Limehouse Link to the very large office complexes that have built up in recent years on the north side. Maybe 100 passengers per train or more.

The evening enhanced service eastbound on the Beckton line as far as Gallions Reach, between about 18.30 and 19.30, has also been lost, quite unannounced, as these were trains returning to the depot after the rush hour, although still at a busy time for going home, which nowadays are three-unit trains and therefore no longer allowed to carry passengers east of Canning Town. It is very galling for Beckton line passengers to see trains they used to get home at the end of the day now being driven empty past them.

[Deleted]

So, I can assume that there is now 30tph Shadwell to Westferry, and 22.5tph from Canary Wharf to Lewisham? Not bad!

[davidp]

Jul 15, 2010 10:28:34 GMT @stephenk said:

So, I can assume that there is now 30tph Shadwell to Westferry, and 22.5tph from Canary Wharf to Lewisham? Not bad!

I make that 20 tph between Canary Wharf and Lewisham in the morning peak (x 4 mins from Bank and x 12 mins from Stratford) but with the Bank trains all being 3-car trains then the capacity is pretty impressive. It's a shame though that the evening peak service is now only 13.3 tph. (x 4.5 mins from Bank), only slightly up from the daily daytime service of 12 tph (x 5 mins from Bank).