At Amber Rudd’s Rail Summit today (Friday 14 September), Southern Railways announced the re-introduction from December of the MarshLink service arriving Ashford at 07.00. The loss of this service in the May 2018 timetable was high on the list of issues raised in MLAG’s passenger survey and was MLAG’s main issue to pursue with Southern for the December timetable.
This service will make an additional stop at Winchelsea (again as requested in the passenger survey) and provide good connections onto several ongoing services from Ashford: the direct service from Ashford to Charing Cross at 07.03 (so a very tight connection but, we are told, normally good); the 07.05 to Canterbury West; and the 07.06 12-car Javelin service to St. Pancras.
MLAG has taken a lead role (along with our colleagues in H&RRUGs) in discussions with Southern over the past few months about re-introducing this service from December 2018.
We will report on the other issues discussed in next week’s Rye News.
Image Credits: Rye News library .
Excellent news for Rye commuters! Well done Stuart for getting this result.
Glad that the rumour that been circling around the train has finally been confirmed.
Could results of passenger survey be published online or was this just done for local mps.
As know Rye commuters would like all morning and evening peak services to be rescheduled back to pre May timetable as was made quite clear in MLAG agm back in March.
Finally it a shame that MLAG does not involve local commuters in discussions but expect we are all at work when these meeting are scheduled like today”s rail summit
There is always email or twitter to communicate with commuters heard @marshlinktrains is quite good 🙂
Amber Rudd’s rail summit is held during the day time for, I expect, two main reasons: First, to avoid real commuters being able to take part and express their views. Second, because none of the train managers would be seen dead outside of office hours. The entire summit is for people who like to play trains, not those who have to use them. Meanwhile, if you read Amber Rudd’s tweets from the day, you will see the awful lot of rubbish and dreams being discussed. Not once did there appear to be a session dedicated to simply getting the existing timetable and trains to run on time.
As I write this, I see that 1247 from Rye to Ashford is cancelled (Saturday), and the one following at 1347. With cancellations heading west too. No reasons given. How hard can it be?