Govia Thameslink Railway

Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) began operations in September 2014. It oversees Thameslink as well as the Great Northern, Southern and the Gatwick Express airport services

GTR is a subsidiary of Govia, a joint venture between the British Go-Ahead Group and French company Keolis.

Rolling stock
All the trains on the Thameslink route are now new Class 700 Siemens trains, with the entire fleet being replaced and brought into service on September 18 2017.

By the end of 2018, a total of 115 trains will have been delivered. Siemens will take over the complete long-term servicing and maintenance for this new fleet of trains.
‘Thameslink is now a Class 700-only route marking a significant milestone in our journey of modernisation towards a new high-frequency service through central London’ said GTR engineering director Gerry McFadden.

From May next year hundreds of thousands of new passengers from Sussex, Cambridge and Peterborough will be plugged into the cross-London route when the Thameslink network expands.

Modernisation
From May 2018 passengers will see a transformation in services, much of it delivered through the £7 billion Thameslink Programme, which will deliver brand new, reliable timetables, extended routes, additional services and new trains.

Govia Thameslink Railway’s 387118 and 387117 heading south along the West Coast Main Line near Stafford.
Photo: Geof Sheppard

The programme is being sponsored by the Government and will add capacity into London for 35,000-40,000 more passengers in each three-hour peak across the whole GTR network. Alongside the new trains, there will be new links to Gatwick Airport, Eurostar at St Pancras and an interchange at Farringdon for Elizabeth line Crossrail services across central London from December 2019.

Other benefits include the return of cross-London Thameslink services at London Bridge – up to twelve trains per hour at peak times, including Bedford to Brighton services.