South Eastern
Southeastern is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. It began operations in south-east England on 1 April 2006 as franchisee for the Integrated Kent Franchise (IKF), replacing the prior publicly-owned operator South Eastern Trains on the former South East Franchise. It serves the commuter routes to south-east London, most of Kent, and parts of East Sussex.
Southeastern serve the main London stations of Charing Cross, Victoria, Blackfriars, Cannon Street, London Bridge and recently St Pancras. The Southeastern network has a mileage of 480, with 182 stations. About 82% of its services run to/from London.
It is owned by Govia, a joint venture between Go-Ahead Group and Keolis, who also operate the neighbouring Southern operating company which overlaps with Southeastern in some areas. The company’s formal name, under which it mounted its bid for the franchise, is London and South Eastern Railway (LSER). Although it continued to use the logo and livery of its predecessor for its first year of operations, a new company logo was adopted early in 2007 and stations, beginning with Waterloo East, have begun to be re-painted under the new corporate colour scheme.
The first Electrostar to receive Southeastern's revised livery was No 375624. This unit was seen at London Victoria on 24 January 2008, (the unit being delivered after repairs at Ilford on 4 January), and pictured in The Railway Magazine April 2008 issue.
History
Since the privatisation 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 14 October 1996 was Connex, who operated it under the name Connex South Eastern. Connex 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 IKF 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).
The opening of the second phase of High Speed 1 in November 2007 made available train paths that had previously been used by Eurostar, allowing Southeastern to increase services in December 2007. In December 2008, as part of the franchise agreement, responsibility for the Redhill to Tonbridge Line was handed over to Southern. Southeastern high-speed services began full service on Monday, 14 December 2009.
In March 2009 the bay platforms at London Blackfriars closed for reconstruction of the station as part of the Thameslink Programme. Services which previously terminated at Blackfriars were extended to Kentish Town, St Albans, Luton or Bedford. Southeastern operate these services jointly with First Capital Connect using 20 dual voltage Class 319 as well as newly built 377 Electrostars.
Rollingstock
Southeastern operate a fleet of about 322 trains, all of which are electrical multiple units.
Southeastern have, from the 22nd March timetable change, started to operate Class 319 dual-voltage units shared with First Capital Connect (FCC) to operate most services via London Blackfriars as part of the Thameslink programme. Southeastern operates the service south of Blackfriars, whilst FCC operates north. This restored services that initially operated when the Thameslink route was opened in the late 1980s. Southeastern will also share some of the 23 new dual voltage Class 377 units bound for the Thameslink route.