please empty your brain below

I think that the exiting service is OK. It runs late enough for theatre goers to get home, and people eating out have normally dined before 10pm. As for night clubs, if you stay until 3am it is not too long to wait for the first trains in the morning,(or get the bus).
Where there could be some improvement is airport services. If you have an early flight and need to be at the airport +or- 5.00am you do have a problem, especially if it is Gatwick, Luton or Stanstead airports.
Thameslink does do one train an hour all night to access Luton and Gatwick Airports. You just have to get to St Pancras or Farringdon or Blackfriars. Dare I suggest a little bit of walking or, heaven forbid, a night bus part of the way?
I don't see how a late-night tube is any safer than a night bus.
There would have to be regular closures anyway to get cleaning and maintenance done, but I can see a rationale for pushing the "last service" times later.

The last train from Farringdon is around 12:30 but Thaneslink continues to run north from St Pancras at least hourly.
Last train to Purley 00.35 ?

There ain't no last train to Purley. We have a 24 hour service. Admittedly only hourly during the night but I can live with that. I can assured your it is used.
Also last train to Caterham is 00.14. Tattenham Corner is an interesting case because it has a slightly later last service on Friday and Saturday nights. Obviously inhabitants of Tattenham Corner live life to the full. On Friday and Saturdays there is a portion of the last Caterham train which goes to Tattenham Corner and doesn't arrive until 01.22.
And as well as serving Purley, the all night trains from Victoria also stop at Clapham Junction and East Croydon, then continue beyond Purley to Horley, Gatwick and Three Bridges. Since the Thameslinks stop at East Croydon as well, there is definitely no "last train to Croydon".
As I recall there's trains through the night from Paddington to Ealing (and beyond)

Except Saturday night/Sunday morning. I'm sure this makes sense to someone. All I know is that when I used to live in Ealing, I got caught out by this absurdity more than once.

Karen - once you're on board, I can't imagine the tube being safer than bus either. I suspect the safety bit comes whilst waiting - as in it's safer to wait in a station than at a bus stop.

Whilst at Uni I had a lovely moment in Newcastle where I missed the half eleven train by minutes. Next train was half one. But - of course - the British Transport Police came round and turfed everyone out of the station and on to the streets! So much for public safety...

If only I'd known there was a bus just after midnight, that evening would have been a bit nicer.
indeed, Paddington -> Reading trains run hourly all night (but not Sunday mornings) meaning i can get home to Ealing in just 8 minutes, and avoid the dreaded N207.
Let's check out the competition...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_M%C3%A9tro#Opening_hours

Opening hours
The first train leaves the terminus at either end of each line at 5:30 am, although, on some lines, additional trains may also start from an intermediate station. The last train, often called the "balai" (broom) because it sweeps up remaining passengers, arrives at the terminal station at 1:15 am, except on Fridays (since 7 December 2007[11]), Saturdays and on nights before a holiday, when the service ends at 2:15 am.
For New Year's Eve, Fête de la Musique, Nuit Blanche, and other events, some stations of lines 1, 4, 6, 9 and 14 remain open with service all night long.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway

Though the subway system operates on a 24-hour basis, some of the designated routes do not run, run as a shorter route or run with a different stopping pattern during late night hours. In addition to these regularly scheduled changes, because there is no nightly system shutdown for maintenance, tracks and stations must be maintained while the system is operating. To accommodate such work, services are usually changed during midday, overnight hours, and weekends.[24]
... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYC_subway_late_night_map_June2010.svg
I use the last train to Epsom on occasion - and miss it on occasion too. It is always pretty full leaving Waterloo at 00:15, even mid-week, and I'm sure another one at say 00:45 would see reasonable loading. There's more to central London than just the West End, and getting from, say, the Barbican or Kings Place to the southwest in the late evening is a little chancy.
http://amsterdam.angloinfo.com/information/transport/public-transport/regional-public-transport/#bus

Amsterdam tram, bus and metro services run from 06:00-00:30. During the night, there are twelve night buses in operation. The night buses run 00:30-07:30.

http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/transport/barcelona-metro.html#metroOperatingHours

Monday-Thursday 05:00 - 00:00 midnight
Sunday & holiday 05:00 - 00:00 midnight
Friday 05:00 - 02:00
Saturday and day prior to 01 January, 24 June, 15 August and 24 September Continuous Service
Berlin - http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-g187323-c105026/Berlin:Germany:U.Bahn.And.S.Bahn.html

On working days U- and S-Bahn close at around 1am but there are buses that take over to cover the night hours until the next morning's reopening. On weekends all U-Bahns (except U4) run every 15mins all through the night.

Madrid - http://www.metromadrid.es/en/viaja_en_metro/red_de_metro/

The metro is open to the public from 6:00 AM to 1:30 AM every day of the year, except for the Pitis station (line 7), the section between Puerta de Arganda-Arganda del Rey and accesses with special opening hours.
The last train on a Saturday is usually the more problematic, as once Saturday night becomes Sunday morning the trains have a way of vanishing (not so sure about the tubes)
We get the point, Brian. You're good at googling. Well done.
Steve: God forbid getting some facts into a discussion.
From 2015 the tube will close an hour later and open an hour later at the weekend on all lines except the Piccadilly where Heathrow have said they need the early trains to get workers in. Any later and we lose engineering hours which means less inspections and less maintenance which leads inevitably to more system failures.

Another thing the report also suggested was that a separate agency be set up to run the West End, just what London needs, another level of bureaucracy to add to the GLA and the Councils!!
I was a bit surprised to see the very last train of all was to Surbiton, at 0105. That is, in fact, the time it leaves Waterloo (I suspect many of the other south west quadrant times are also times from Waterloo). To catch it from within your "triangle" you would need to catch the last rain out of Charing Cross at 0048
As a non-Londoner who loves to spend time in London my frustration is with long distance trains. On a weekday my last train North is the stopper at 2225 or the last express at 2055, which is fine if it's a school night and you need to work the next day.

At a weekend though when staying out late is more desirable the last one is the 2055. The first train on a Sunday morning is 0847. OK so that's just one line (East Midlands Trains from St Pancras) although I think others are similar and yes I know that's what hotels are designed for. But if people could return at a slightly later hour I'm sure more people would do day visits to London. I accept, as DG says, they've got to find time for their engineering works, but it is frustrating.
TfL doesn't seem to know about some of the extra Friday and Saturday night metro services. Last train to Sutton on a Friday or Saturday is at 00:34. Your time is correct for the rest of the week.
I don't think running trains late at night each evening is sensible, but I do think trying to run an all night service on Friday and Saturday nights would be sensible. I appreciate this might cause engineering problems although other cities such as New York do manage to provide a 24 hour service. Not sure why the report feels the need to single out Thameslink. Why just this one rail service out of all those that operate in London?

I'm lucky to some degree though that the last train I can get home is the latest in DGs table (01:05). Although I would point out this train (01:05 Waterloo to Southampton) does also call at Wimbledon (to set down only), so the last time for Wimbledon is not 00:35), see http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/uploads/pocket10dec12%5B2%5D.pdf
Something fishy in the Journey Planner DLR times. Compare Shadwell to Beckton with http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/shadwell-timetable-information.pdf for example.

(I'm pretty sure you can do Beckton and certainly points to Gallions Reach later than that)

dg writes: Gallions Reach you can get to a lot later, but I think then all the last trains go into the depot, missing Beckton.
Jon Combe - the New York Subway has two sets of track in both directions so they can divert trains onto one while working on the other. London doesn't, we can't run trains in the tunnels and carry out work or inspections, that is why we can't run 24 hours without sacrificing engineering hours and less time for engineering means more failures.
JC - Thameslink is the only mainline services that currently runs through London rather than starting and finishing at one of the big termini like Euston, Victoria, etc, etc. Crossrail will make a second.
Isn't the reason that New York can run 24 hours, because it was designed to run 24 hours a day - as in it has the redundancy and features required to do it? I have never been to New York but I understand some of their lines have four tracks, and I guess they may have the ability to route overnight trains down a single line etc

Lets face it - London was never designed in that way. Indeed it was pretty much built on the cheap!
Thameslink does run 24 hours a day doesn't it? But like, into Paddington, not 24 hours a day seven days a week as there is no service early Sunday morning. Even if the track is up-to-date and needs no maintenance it still has to be checked occasionally.

By the way that is why the service is so rubbish on Sunday mornings into Waterloo. It is the only time they can close half the station approach and check the track. And for Waterloo there is no alternative London terminus station to use. Which does partially explain why the service was so rubbish on the morning of the Royal Flotilla - even so they could have done better.
I guess my question would be, why not check the track on Monday morning? If time's an issue, do it on Tuesday morning as well.

If you're going to run trains through the night, it makes sense to me to run them on a night where they'll be busy. The current arrangement gives an absurd situation where one of the busiest nights of the week is the one the trains don't run on!
Sometimes it seems that many people expect others to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week but not them!
Andrew Bowden – inspections, maintenance and repairs are performed every night, seven days a week, the Tube is 250 miles long so the track is done in sections. If trains run overnight then you either have the option of employing more engineering staff or having less frequent checks which would naturally mean more failures. Losing Saturday night/Sunday morning would be a significant loss as with first trains starting a couple of hours later on Sundays this is the longest period of “engineering hours”.
Hello everyone

Just to clarify, these aren't the last trains from central London, these are the last trains from the West End. No walking further out. No nightbuses.

That means late trains out of Charing Cross count, but late trains from London Bridge and Victoria don't if the tube's stopped running.

Although there are 24 hour train services out of London, none of them run directly from the West End.

I did make a mistake with Surbiton, so I've changed that to a more realistic 00.15.
Whilst most of my friends complain about my part of SE London being the "middle of nowhere", not until this table did I realise (Thameslink apart) I live on the latest service out of the West End...
The Ewell station you list is Ewell West served by SWT from Waterloo. There is also Ewell East (along with Cheam) served by Southern from. Victoria. The last train here is a frustratingly early 23:26 departure, Friday evenings excepted, when there is one more service at 00:21 to Epsom. But not a useful one (for me) around midnight.
DG: TfL still misses a lot of connections. Embankment to Balham at 00:21 to catch the 00:47 to Sutton, for example. (and one I've used a lot) And that's giving a generous 8 minutes to walk up an escalator and two flights of stairs. For the slow, there are three earlier Northern Line departures that will make the same connection and are still later than 00:04.
I think you've gone to the other extreme with Surbiton now - the last train out of Charing Cross (0048) gets to Waterloo East with quarter of an hour to spare to catch the last (0105) service to Surbiton.
Unfortunately the comments by ASLEFShrugged regarding changes from 2015 are wholly inaccurate: they are repeating the proposition that was proposed to start in May 2007.
Trains after 6pm! You Londoners don't know you're born
Yes it would make a difference as so much of London's nightlife is poorer for closing early, not just compared to pretty much every other world city but also those across the UK.

This is because of the need to rush off for a train/tube to avoid tortuous bus trips if living past zone 3. This also often requires a change, and not being able to get on another bus at places like Elephant & castle due to them being too busy, leaving up to a 30 minute for the next time in addition to the wait for the first which you couldn't get on, the first trip to that location. It's such a drag quite a few people I know wont stay out.

Because of that it's hard to get late night cinema showings (eg midnight) as you get all over other UK cities and the world. Also pubs, shopping, bars, live music, restaurants etc all shut too bloody early and the economy suffers.
One other thing is that up until the 90s the UK rail network had a much more extensive late night service like European cities do. It was a great shame to lose it.

24 hour running is obviously not going to happen on such an old network. An hour or 2 later on a Friday and Saturday could be accommodated on tube and train. New routes such as the DLR, London Overground (particularly the old East London line) and Crossrail definitely should. you name a largish city in Europe and they will have a late night service. London should too.


Occassional RRBS Driver - Ken’s proposal was to run the Tube half an hour later on Fridays and Saturdays along with starting an hour later on Saturday mornings but this was shelved because Heathrow said they wouldn’t be able to get the early shift in. The latest idea is that we close an hour later Fridays and Saturdays, open an hour later on Saturdays and Sundays on all lines except the Piccadilly which will carry on as normal in order to keep Heathrow sweet.

Or at least that is what the notice that's been put up on the boards at all the Central Line depots tells us. Whether it happens or not remains to be seen but LUL seem to think it will.
24 hour running is obviously not going to happen on such an old network.










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