Southeastern set to restore all-day link to Elizabeth Line in plan to reverse train cuts

Southeastern Metro trains in Greenwich and Bexley boroughs could mostly return to pre-Covid service levels by the end of the year – including a bringing back all-day direct link to the Elizabeth Line at Abbey Wood.

“Rounder” services that linked the Greenwich and Sidcup lines on Mondays to Saturdays until 2020 could be reintroduced as soon as December, while trains from Charing Cross via Bexleyheath are due to be restored to twice an hour.

The long-awaited reversal of the pandemic cuts means stations on the Greenwich, Bexleyheath and Sidcup lines will all have six trains per hour to central London during the day on Mondays to Saturdays, with Blackheath, Charlton, Woolwich Arsenal and Abbey Wood having eight once again.

Scott Brightwell, the safety planning and performance director for South Eastern Railway – which controls both Southeastern trains and Network Rail’s tracks – told Greenwich’s transport and place scrutiny panel that the plan to bring the services back in December was awaiting final-sign off.

However, direct trains from Lewisham and Blackheath to Charlton, Woolwich and Abbey Wood will not be returning yet, he said.

The return of the “rounder” trains means the link to the Elizabeth Line at Abbey Wood from stations such as New Eltham, Sidcup and Crayford will be fully restored. The service will also benefit Charlton fans attending matches at The Valley on Saturdays. 

Services were initially cut soon after the first pandemic lockdown in March 2020, but a new timetable in December 2022 – just a few months after the Elizabeth Line opened – removed the rounder trains altogether.

They have since been brought back during peak times, and Brightwell said that usage levels had reached a “tipping point” that indicated a full return would be financially viable.

“This is subject to our usual business planning and assurance processes, but I’m confident that we now have a business case that will make more money than it would cost,” he said.

Brightwell said the plan was to have a minimum of four trains per hour across the metro network – the Greenwich line has four Southeastern trains and two Thameslink services – but the company had to make sure that introducing the new trains would not cause wider service issues. “Our intention, as we sit here tonight, is to run those from December ‘26,” he said.

He called the return to a more frequent service would be a “massive, massive step” towards a “transformed” metro service that would help boost regeneration in southeast London. 

The cuts by Southeastern caused anger at the time, with residents packing out a meeting of the transport scrutiny panel to berate the rail company’s boss, Steve White. In contrast, only one member of the public showed up for Wednesday’s night meeting, where Brightwell revealed the news to councillors.

“I can tell my boss that I got a ‘woo-hoo!’,” he joked to the panel’s chair, East Greenwich councillor Maisie Cottell Richards, afer she expressed her delight. “A few years ago it wasn’t a ‘woo-hoo!’”

But Brightwell said rail usage on Sundays was still too low to justify a return of trains between Lewisham and Woolwich.

“You need to make a certain amount of revenue,” he said. “At this exact moment in time, Sunday numbers will not warrant the increase of those services now. I think I’ve been able to give this panel confidence that we continue to keep things under review and continue to adapt, but at this moment in time, that is not stacking up.”

Greenwich Peninsula councillor David Gardner proposed that the committee should call on the council to campaign for its return – but this was scuppered by a Labour colleague refusing to support it.

Cathy Dowse, who represents Mottingham, Coldharbour and New Eltham and was the only councillor from the south of the borough on the panel, said: “I’m well aware that finances are tight, and I’m not convinced that I feel that’s the best way of asking for it to be spent.” 

Brightwell said that Southeastern’s plans for new trains – which are still awaiting government approval – would help the operator save money as they would be cheaper to run than the Networker trains that make up much of its fleet, which date back to 1992, meaning money could be ploughed back into the service.

He asked for councillors’ help to lobby for the new trains, which the company hopes to be able to order this tear. 

“Anyone still got a Ford Sierra here?” he asked. “They were around when those trains were brought in. And if you do have a Ford Sierra, it won’t be the most reliable car.”

The councillors also heard from Martin Darby, the senior stakeholder manager for Govia Thameslink Railway.

He said that issues with staff shortages on the Luton to Rainham trains that run through Greenwich and Woolwich should ease after a recruitment drive meant there were now six per cent more drivers for the route.

Darby also said a backup signalling system was being installed on the core of the Thameslink route – the section through central London – that would help ease problems if the current system failed.

But there were no plans for the Thameslink trains to stop at Woolwich Dockyard, he said, as it risked making the whole service less reliable. Darby said delays on the route had increased following the addition of a new station at Brent Cross West two years ago. 

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