ThamesLink

Avoid First Capital Connect ! Unreliable and often cancelled . Improvements promised but don't hold your breath.

It's important to note that "Thameslink" rail franchise no longer exists; it was subsumed into a larger franchise in 2006 that will run until at least 2015. That franchise is part of the First Group and is called First Capital Connect. The Thameslink name continues to live on, primarily because it existed in the pre-privatisation days of British Rail as the name of the ambitious project to connect suburban railway lines north and south of London. The hopelessly optimistic Thameslink 2000 project has now evolved into a contemporary project called simply "The Thameslink Programme". The Thameslink Programme takes the ambitions ...  Read the complete review

The Thameslink routes are the closest London has to a modern, cross-rail and high-speed metropolitan railway. But it still suffers from many of the ills found in the rest of the old British Rail system. Unlike every other mainline service in London, the Thameslink does not terminate at the edge of the centre and force you to use the crammed Underground or slow buses. Instead, it starts in Brighton, or Wimbledon, goes right through London, emerges the other side and carries on all the way to Bedford or Luton. The advantages of this are that you get delivered to your central destination directly, without the need to change to a different mode of ...  Read the complete review