High Speed Trains to Kent Coast for the Open and beyond

[Mark Chaplin]

High quality links golf is about to get a little closer to London and it's visitors as SouthEastern trains today announced the extension of the high speed train service to Deal and Sandwich, the journey time will be around an hour quicker than the current 2.5 hour journey into Charing Cross.

SouthEastern have also announced high speed services for the Open at Sandwich with trains leaving from 0428 on the Thursday and Friday.

[Scott Warren]

Whoa, hang on a sec there Chapski.

There are 2h10m services from Charing Cross to Deal, which means roughly 2hrs on the dot from London Bridge.

The fast trains are out of Kings Cross St Pancras, which is great for those in North London, but if you're south of theThames where all the cool kids live, the time you save by catching the fast train is almost cancelled out by the extra time it takes to get to Kings Cross. it's still a bit faster, but probably not worth the difference in cost.

Before the high speed trains you could go to Deal and back for under 20 quid. Now it's over 30 for the fast train and if you catch the regular train out of Charing X or Ldn Bridge it's still 28 or so. But of course they've slashed the frequency of the slower trains to push you onto the high speed.

It's good news for some, but the introduction has still left some worse off than before.

[Mark Chaplin]

Scott - HS1 has given me a worse service but it will be good for the economy with Pfizer saying goodbye to a £1b investment and disappearing.