In uk.railway MIG wrote:
On 6 Feb, 18:56, "Yokel" wrote:
I personally had a go on the Guildford route once. Â*It was like one of
those enthusiasts' railtours - you got to see a lot of interesting track
and not a few junction curves, but unless you were out for pleasure or
had a phobia about the Underground it was a pretty pointless exercise.
Â*Anyone travelling to some purpose for whom journey time had any
importance could find a number of much quicker options.

I had a go too. It was something like a little under 1h30 from Guildford to
King's Cross. That was handy as we had luggage and didn't want to traipse
around the tube, but anyone who wanted to do it unencumbered was best going
to Waterloo.

Yokel's description chimes with my memory of it. I don't know if it's just
me, but unrefurbished 319s/455s slowly trundling around south London
stopping everywhere aren't my idea of a nice journey. (I tar all the
Guildford New Line services with the same brush)

But West Croydon and Sutton to Guildford is useful. Just saves
changing drivers and turning trains round. Similar to Victoria to
Portsmouth etc: plenty of demand along the route even if not much end
to end traffic.

Unless they've gone, there are still Guildford trains to London Bridge via
West Croydon, but they're peak hours only. I've certainly seen Electrostars
in platform 1 at Guildford, so they've been running fairly recently.

Theo