The fast train London to Ramsgate or Margate. We really could be in (East) London in just over an hour.
Well, the actual timetable is to be confirmed later this year.
All we know for definate is at: www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/main.php?page_id=376
It says:
- Two trains an hour to East Kent:
- one calling at Stratford, Ebbsfleet, Ashford, Canterbury West, Ramsgate Broadstairs and Margate
- With additional trains at the peak period.
The NEW journey time to Ramsgate should be 1 hour 24 minutes from St Pancras Station, via Ashford. The good news if you want East London or the City or anywhere on the Central Line you would get off at Stratford, which would save more time. Yes we would be there in just over an hour!
Currently, the morning commute Thanet – London is over 2 hours! Although later in the day you can travel to either Charing Cross or Victoria in about 1 hour 48 minutes.
The predicted new journey time for London (St Pancras) to Margate is 1 hour 38, just about the same time as the current ‘fastest’ train to Charing Cross but a journey which is about 10 minutes shorter than a typical trip to Victoria Station. Not so much to get excited about!
Whereas Thanet is a mere 77 miles from the Capital, if you were to have a morning commute from York ( 212 miles) the journey would be – less than 2 hours!!!! With later trains taking a little longer.From Bristol (105 miles) you can travel for 1 hour and between 30 – 45 minutes.
And from Brighton (53 miles) less than 1 hour!
Amazing isn’t it. One day we might even get trains that an OAP cannot out run.
My Emma does the commute. It’s roughly 2 hours each way from Margate (just under I think). They put the fare up not so long ago so it’s about £100.00 a week now. Roger Gale (www.rogergale.com) has been doing a lot of campaigning about this and has the stats to show that there won’t actually be much more than a ten minute benefit for most people.
I’ve heard that the fare is going to be double for the high speed link and I don’t think it will be worth anyone’s while paying an additional £400.00 a month for the sake of 10 minutes a day (lets face it, you’ll just end up loosing 10 minutes sleep).
We used to live in Darlington (Up North) and Emma’s train did the three hundred mile trip in just 2.5 hours, that’s just a standard train, not one of these million mile an hour things – It makes no sense to me.
I don’t see why they didn’t spend the money improving the crap service that’s already in place?
The trains on the high speed line depart from St Pancras International in London and travel to Kent. They take around 15 minutes to London from Ebbsfleet International and 35 minutes to Ashford International. The high speed service will be available to the whole Kent coast by next year, speeding up journey times around Kent.
I worked on a contract for Southeastern until last month so can confirm.
Milly