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Southeastern Train Services Information

Southeastern is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. It began operations in south-east England on 1 April 2006, replacing the former publicly-owned operator South Eastern Trains and serves the commuter routes to south-east London, Kent, and parts of East Sussex. Southeastern operate a fleet of about four hundred trains, all of which are electrical multiple units.

The London termini of its services are Charing Cross, Blackfriars, Cannon Street, and Victoria. Southeastern operate on 773 mi (1,244 km) of track, with 182 stations. 82% of its train services run into London.

Beginning in December 2009, Southeastern will operate high-speed domestic services on High Speed 1, including the Olympic Javelin service that is to run during London's 2012 Summer Olympics.

A fleet of twenty-nine six-carriage Shinkansen-derived high-speed ‘A-trains’ have already been ordered from Hitachi for this route. This is Hitachi’s first train sale in Britain. They will be known as Class 395 when in service. The first train will be named after Dame Kelly Holmes, a British gold-medal athlete, with further trains to be named after British personalities associated with speed.

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History of the the Southeastern Trains Franchise

Since the privatisaton of British Rail, the franchise to run trains in this area has changed hands three times. The first company to win the South-Eastern Franchise on 14th October 1996 was Connex, who operated it under the name Connex South Eastern. The company gained bad publicity, and their franchise was cut short on 9 November 2003. Train services were then taken over by South Eastern Trains, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Strategic Rail Authority/Department for Transport, until the bidding for the new Integrated Kent Franchise was due. This would see the existing South-Eastern Franchise combined with the new high speed services to be operated on High Speed 1 (formerly known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link).

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Southeastern Future Expansion

High Speed 1 and Olympic Javelin - More information - Click Here

Beginning in December 2009, Southeastern will operate high-speed domestic services on High Speed 1, including the Olympic Javelin service that is to run during London's 2012 Summer Olympics.

A fleet of twenty-nine six-carriage Shinkansen-derived high-speed ‘A-trains’ have already been ordered from Hitachi for this route. This is Hitachi’s first train sale in Britain. They will be known as Class 395 when in service. The first train will be named after Dame Kelly Holmes, a British gold-medal athlete, with further trains to be named after British personalities associated with speed. The colour scheme for the high-speed trains will be dark blue - using the same corporate colour as their logo.

High-speed services are expected to begin in December 2009, but the first four trains were delivered in 2007 for testing and driver training.

The new company have made a point of advertising part-owner SNCF’s experience operating and integrated high-speed train services on the French TGV network.

Current plans call for the company to operate up to seven high-speed trains per hour at peak times, with four trains per hour off-peak. These trains will only run at high speed on High Speed 1 itself; at some point each will switch over to conventional track and need to run at reduced speeds alongside conventional trains. In the table below, stations falling on the high-speed portion of the trip are boldfaced.

Southeastern are due to receive two major new types of train for its expanded operations from the end of 2008. The twenty-nine 6-car Class 395 units are new high speed trains which will operate the CTRL-DS services along HS1 from 2009. Southeastern are also due to receive 20 Class 319 dual-voltage units cascaded from First Capital Connect which will operate services between Sevenoaks and Kentish Town via the Thameslink route. This will restore services that were initially operated when the Thameslink route was opened in the late 1980s.

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