This week the daytime Southeastern service to Dunton Green and Knockholt has been halved – from two trains stopping each hour in each direction to one an hour. And once a hour the train will speed through without stopping. This is being done because of a forecast of “Leaves on the Line”. But, while customers will suffer, the change won’t adversely affect Southeastern’s performance statistics.

Update: The amended timetable has been extended for a second week, until Friday 18 November. The same stops will be skipped.

Southeastern have introduced a new timetable for week commencing Monday 7 November because of “expected poor rail conditions” (the current railway industry euphemism for “Leaves on the Line”). There’s an opaque announcement on their website telling customers to check journey planners – that enables a check of individual trains, but makes it virtually impossible to see the whole picture.

We’ve found that half the daytime Sevenoaks to London and London to Sevenoaks slow trains won’t stop at Dunton Green or Knockholt. That means only one train an hour in each direction. The other train in each hour will run fast through Dunton Green and Knockholt, and be non-stop between Sevenoaks and Chelsfield. In total that’s 15 day-time trains removed from each station.

Southeastern are doing the same across the “Metro” network – in total it seems that 651 stops have been removed each day this week. This in addition to the longer journey times and reduced stops already introduced in the Autumn timetable in October.

Southeastern say that they “are skipping stops on a planned basis to maintain the integrity of the timetable” and is “based upon trading off directly impacting a small number of passengers to improve the service for the majority.” That will be cold comfort for Dunton Green passengers who have to wait an extra 30 minutes on the bleak, amenity-free, station or who find themselves paying an unexpected and expensive visit to Sevenoaks when their train doesn’t stop.

Southeastern say that Delay-Repay can be claimed by reference to the original (October?) timetable. That’s good news – but it is not clear on their website and you’d have to convince the claims department that you were trying to catch a train that’s not in the timetable they have.

Strangely issuing a new timetable by 2200 the night before that cancels trains or cuts stops the next day does not count against Southeastern’s PPM performance measure* – although the PPM measure would suffer if the train or the stop were in the timetable and Southeastern cancelled it on the day. Indeed the effect on the PPM figure is leveraged: not only will the cancelled stop not count, but the more reliable service to other stations can reduce knock-on delays. That creates a perverse incentive to take trains out of the timetable in advance at the slightest hint of forecast bad weather or excessive leaf fall – meaning that passengers suffer even if the weather is fine.

* The PPM measure is not part of Southeastern’s franchise commitment, but it is the measure that they put on posters at stations and on their website.