Every once in a while, a bit of track that hasn't seen a service in many years ends up with trains being diverted over it. As far as railway enthusiasts are concerned, this is like Christmas: a chance to colour in a line you never thought you'd get to colour in.
On the May Day bank holiday weekend of 2018 in south-east London, I got to both a completely new bit of track (the Southwark Reversible), and a piece of track that's been there since 1899 but that I never thought I'd do (the Lee Spur), on the same train.
Saturday 5th May 2018 was a very good day.
The long-awaited rebuilding of London Bridge had recently been completed, with a new grade-separated route through the station for Thameslink trains instead of the previous series of flat crossings. By May 2018, the new layout was commissioned for use, but the main timetable change to take advantage of the new layout was still two weeks away.
As part of the upgrade works, the signalling control was transferred to a brand-new control centre down in Three Bridges. Control of the London Bridge station area itself had been moved over through the course of the works, but transferring the other areas controlled from London Bridge was a more gradual process. Over this bank holiday weekend, the Lewisham area was being transferred, meaning a complete block of all lines through Lewisham and forcing almost all Southeastern services to divert to Victoria.
Cannon Street station was also closed for engineering works, although Charing Cross and London Bridge remained open. With the block at Lewisham, however, the only line left open into and out of London Bridge was the line via Greenwich, which would ordinarily serve trains to Dartford and beyond.
Now, on the old layout trains to and from Greenwich could easily run in and out of Charing Cross, but the new layout was optimised for these trains to serve Cannon Street instead. While it is physically possible to run between Charing Cross and Greenwich, on the new layout this means crossing over the Thameslink lines on the flat. This is impossible with the current timetable, because of how many Thameslink trains run.
But back in May 2018 the vast majority of Thameslink trains were still running on the diversion via Herne Hill — and so a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a last hurrah of Charing Cross–Greenwich services materialised, which would also provide the first passenger trains over the "Southwark Reversible", the new connection between the Thameslink lines and Greenwich. (Thameslink services over the new connections would start two weeks later, with the new timetable.) The Southwark Reversible connections can be seen in light blue in the map below.
Naturally I wasn't going to pass up such an opportunity, but it was even better than that: some of the trains out of Charing Cross were using another existing piece of track, the Lee Spur. The Lee Spur is used every day by freight trains and empty stock moves between Grove Park sidings and the line to Sidcup, but there is almost never a use for diverting passenger trains over it, as in almost every other situation there would be no need.
However, on this bank holiday weekend, it was ideal. The line to Sidcup could not be provided with direct trains to London on their normal route, as that would require going through Lewisham. But trains could use the Greenwich line to head out of London, and then use the various curves near Dartford to head back along the Sidcup line, and then use the Lee Spur to avoid the Lewisham area and head to Orpington.
This can be seen in the map below: the usual main line is between Charing Cross and Orpington is shown in orange, with those parts closed for engineering works shown in dark red. Long-distance trains were diverted to London Victoria on the route shown in green, while stopping trains ran along the very convoluted route shown in blue.
A diversion over the Lee Spur would only make sense with total block through Lewisham but almost nothing else closed: if the block extended further towards London, or further south to Hither Green, then there would have been no possibility of diversions and there would simply have been replacement buses. I can find no record of there having been scheduled passenger services diverted over the Lee Spur for many years prior, and I suspect it will be many years before it happens again.
So this really was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, for me at least, and I was very excited to do these diversions — so much so that I spotted them and put them in my calendar two months in advance!
1102 (actual 1108) Brighton to London Blackfriars, arr 1221 (actual 1235)
Headcode: 1W26, operated by Thameslink using Desiro City 700152
Distance: 50½ miles
My Saturday morning began at home in Brighton, where I was going very much against the flow in getting a train away from the seaside on a very sunny bank holiday weekend. Two trains from London arrived just before 11am, on adjacent platforms, both about 10 minutes late and both completely and utterly rammed to the rafters with families and all-comers heading to the beach. It took a full ten minutes to get what I estimate would be over a thousand people through the ticket barriers, and only then could boarding commence for the two trains to head back to London.
The train in front of mine was the 10:58 to Victoria, which eventually departed at 11:05, and it featured my favourite and most ridiculous calling pattern of the 2015-2018 timetable on the Brighton Main Line: after departing Brighton it called only at Burgess Hill, Horley, East Croydon, Clapham Junction and London Victoria. Notable by their absence are calls at Haywards Heath and Gatwick Airport: nowadays trains not calling at Gatwick Airport are limited to peak trains only, but for some reason it happened every hour in the old timetable. If anyone can tell me why, I'm all ears!
By the time the Victoria train departed first, we left six minutes late at 11:08, and we stayed about five or six minutes late until the outskirts of London, where we came to an unceremonious and unscheduled halt at Purley. The very Victoria train that had left Brighton in front of us was held up at East Croydon because someone had pulled the passenger alarm, and a queue of trains formed up behind it.
After ten minutes waiting at Purley, we moved on once the Victoria train resolved its difficulties, and we proceeded onwards, now about 15 minutes late. All Thameslink trains were still being routed away from London Bridge, so we had to crawl through the suburbs of south London at a snail's pace, via Crystal Palace, Tulse Hill, Herne Hill, and Elephant & Castle, as every Thameslink train had had to do for the previous three years. (I couldn't wait for Thameslink trains to be routed via London Bridge again!)
Eventually we arrived into Blackfriars, a station which now straddles the River Thames, platforms suspended over the river, with lifts and stairs at both ends down to the river banks below. Historically the station had been entirely north of the river, and indeed that is where the adjoining tube station still is; but the Thameslink Programme works had created a new entrance on the South Bank, making access to that area much easier.
I had allowed what seemed like a generous 28 minutes to walk from the new South Bank entrance at Blackfriars to Waterloo East. But we didn't make up any time after East Croydon, even being stopped for a minuter or two at Herne Hill to let a stopping train from Sevenoaks take precedence heading into Blackfriars, and as a result my 28-minute walk turned into a 13-minute dash.
Fortunately, I had a cunning plan to avoid having to wend my way through the back streets to get to Waterloo East. I headed for Southwark tube station, just 8 minutes walk from Blackfriars, where I met my friend Matt: using the fact that we had travelcards, we headed through one entrance of Southwark tube station, and came out the other end into Waterloo East. Here, there is the bizarre situation of two sets of ticket barriers just a few meters apart — one, for leaving Southwark tube station; the other, for entering Waterloo East station — with the remote possibility you could be stuck between them!
Fortunately that didn't happen, and between the shortcut through Southwark tube station, and the fact the train we were aiming for was running a few minutes late, meant we easily made it to Platform B at Waterloo East for our next train. The platforms here are numbered with letters A to D, to avoid any confusion with the adjacent mainline station at Waterloo.
1249 London Waterloo East to London Charing Cross, arr 1253
Headcode: 2B30, operated by Southeastern using Networker 465249*+465172
Distance: ¾ mile
It will likely seem bizarre to most people that we walked from Blackfriars to Waterloo East to get a train from there to Charing Cross, when the District Line from Blackfriars to Embankment would have done the same job much more easily. But, of course, there was track to be had!
For reasons I will explain below, the limited service running into and out of Charing Cross all had to use platforms A and B at Waterloo. To get between those two platforms and platform 4 at Charing Cross, some very rarely-used crossovers between the two stations had to be used, and I hadn't done those crossovers — and indeed they are rarely used for scheduled services, though they are definitely not the rarest bit of track from this day.
Nonetheless it was definitely worth the detour to tick them off, and we made sure the platform starter at Waterloo East had the diagonal white lights above it illuminated to indicate the train was taking the crossover before boarding it for the very short journey over the Hungerford Bridge, over the desired crossover at what is apparently known as Belvedere Road Junction, and into Charing Cross, arriving into platform 4 as scheduled.
At this point Matt and I went and got some lunch and had a bit of a catch-up (even though we'd seen each other only a couple of days previously!), and then headed back to Charing Cross for the main event.
1433 London Charing Cross to Petts Wood, arr 1554
Headcode: 2O40, operated by Southeastern using Networker 465187*+465042
Distance: 32¼ miles
This train from Charing Cross to Orpington ranks as probably the most convoluted route between those two stations that has ever been devised as a timetabled through service.
First of all, we left from platform 4 and crossed over on the other crossover at Belvedere Road Junction to gain platform A at Waterloo East, the reverse manoeuvre of what we'd done to get into Charing Cross earlier. This was necessary because only from platforms A and B could we do what we needed to do next.
Instead of staying on the Charing Cross lines, we carried straight on at Ewer Street Junction, against the normal flow of traffic here: normally we would have crossed from the Down Charing Cross Slow to the Down Charing Cross Fast line, but instead we effectively crossed from the Down Charing Cross Slow to the Down Snow Hill. This put us on the lines reserved for Thameslink trains, and meant we then called in platform 4 at London Bridge: a first for Southeastern services, and one not repeated since this weekend two years ago!
We then used Line 4 out of London Bridge, designated for Thameslink trains towards East Croydon but peeling off at the last minute before the new flyover (at Corbetts Lane Junction). This put us parallel to the new Southwark Reversible, although technically that name only applies to the other track; nonetheless this was my first time over this rearranged piece of track since the remodelling had been completed.
This route led us to cross over at Surrey Canal Junction (from Line 4 to Line 2) and at North Kent East Junction to gain the line to Greenwich — easily done with no other trains around, but much more difficult to timetable in among all the trains to and from Cannon Street. Nonetheless, this manoeuvre is now repeated every half-hour by Thameslink trains to Rainham!
Having gained the line to Greenwich, we sat back and relaxed for nearly an hour as no fewer than 19 station calls were timetabled before the final piece of rare track. The first twelve, through Greenwich, Woolwich, and Abbey Wood (where we saw the almost-but-not-quite completed Crossrail station next to us) took us out of London towards Dartford.
But after the final station before Dartford, Slade Green, we turned right onto the Crayford Spur, to head back west again, through Crayford and Sidcup. At these seven stations, there was some confusion, as the only trains to London were leaving from the opposite platform from usual — we were heading away from London on the platforms normally used by trains into London! Fortunately most passengers seemed to understand eventually.
A full hour after leaving London Bridge, we finally arrived at Lee. As I've just explained, trains on this line would continue straight on to Hither Green and into London, but instead we proceeded from Lee to turn left onto the Lee Spur, avoiding Hither Green and instead allowing us to join the main line heading south to Grove Park and onwards to Orpington. Even at the very slow speed limit of 15mph, the very sharp curve (the curve radius being only 250m or so) caused some wonderful flange squeal as we turned from heading west to south-east.
And then, after just a couple of minutes, we joined the Down Slow line and, once the back end of the train had wended its way across the pointwork, sped up again to carry on to Grove Park and onwards to its destination at Orpington.
Obviously, we wanted to head back and do it all over again in the other direction, and we could just have carried on to Orpington and waited for the train to head back. But there wasn't any more interesting track left to do on this train, so we decided to stop one station short at Petts Wood, where we could simply cross the platform and head back into London after a short wait, saving us half an hour.
1601 Petts Wood to London Waterloo East, arr 1723 (actual 1739)
Headcode: 2I48, operated by Southeastern using Networker 465170+465036*
Distance: 31½ miles
We headed back from Petts Wood as far as Grove Park. After departing Grove Park, we were held at the signal protecting the Lee Spur: although the Spur itself is double track, the junction at the Grove Park end is only a single-lead junction, so we had to wait for a couple of minutes for another Orpington-bound train to come round the Lee Spur before we could continue.
And then we traversed the Lee Spur again, this time on the other track, and carried on to Lee. And that was it: a manoeuvre not likely to be repeated for many years, if ever, I was very satisfied to have done it, and that I could colour it in on my map.
We relaxed for another hour or so as we retraced our steps, heading back out through Sidcup to Crayford, taking the Crayford Spur, calling at Slade Green, and carrying on back into London, until we got to Greenwich. Unfortunately, at Greenwich, there was a problem with the monitors used by the driver to see the CCTV pictures needed for them to safely close the doors: as a result, we had to wait nearly ten minutes for members of station staff to come and assist the driver in dispatching the train safely.
That put us nearly 15 minutes late, but no matter: we still had one last piece of brand-new track to do. To get from Greenwich to Charing Cross, we crossed over at North Kent East Junction to Line 3, and then at Surrey Canal Junction we finally gained the brand-new Southwark Reversible line.
This took us away from the lines to Cannon Street and under the new Bermondsey Diveunder, allowing us to get to Line 5 into London Bridge (otherwise known as the Up Snow Hill) without having to cross Line 4 on the flat. This is now used every day by Thameslink trains from Rainham: while there are conflicts with Cannon Street services, the diveunder avoids any conflicts with other Thameslink services, which is a major improvement.
After calling in platform 5 at London Bridge — never used before or since by Southeastern services! — we carried on to Ewer Street Junction, where again we went straight on, but effectively crossed from the Up Snow Hill line to the Up Charing Cross Slow line. With our use of rare track complete for the day, we arrived back into platform B at Waterloo East and disembarked to head home.
Again, I should have had a nice 29-minute walk to Blackfriars, but we were 16 minutes late arriving into Waterloo East due to the problems at Greenwich, so I had to briskly retrace my steps back to Blackfriars in order to make my train home.
1752 London Blackfriars to Brighton, arr 1910
Headcode: 1W49, operated by Thameslink using Desiro City 700111
Distance: 50½ miles
Fortunately, I made my train home, and I sat back and relaxed as we wended our way back through Herne Hill, Tulse Hill and Crystal Palace for one of the last times I'd use this diversionary route, with all trains (in theory) being routed through London Bridge from the timetable change two weeks later.
I arrived back into Brighton in time for dinner after one of the most enjoyable and memorable days of track-bashing I've done in years: it's not every day you get to do both a completely new bit of track, and a bit of track you never thought you'd get to do, all on the same train!
