Thursday 1 March 2012

December 2012 timetable earmarked for more highspeed services to Deal & Sandwich

This morning at London St Pancras senior Southeastern managers were available to talk to their customers, they call it 'Meet the Manager'. I took the opportunity to talk to them about the new highspeed train service for Deal and Sandwich.

Firstly I wanted to know if they agreed with me that the service had been a success?

They agreed it had already exceeded their expectations. Furthermore they agreed there was evidence to suggest there is significant potential for increasing passenger numbers from tourism to Deal and Sandwich via highspeed services. A remarkable turnaround from a year ago when the idea of stopping highspeed trains at Deal was dismissed by Southeastern.

Obviously this lead me to ask will you increase highspeed services for Deal and Sandwich?

The offical stance is that there will be an internal review of all highspeed services after the Olympics and if possible they will increase the number of highspeed services to Deal and Sandwich in the December 2012 timetable. Again another big change of attitude but remember the new 2014 Integrated Kent Franchise is approaching fast and all day services to Deal and Sandwich is a key priority.

No comments:

Post a Comment