Last week we mentioned that Wightlink were reviewing the timetable for their late night weekend catamaran service.
On the article, VB reader Mike, commented that the 2012 railway timetable, which previously showed all catamaran crossings – even those after the train service had finished – listed the last cat on Saturdays from Portsmouth as 22.15.
This is two hours earlier than the current timetable. We did our research and looked up the online version of the 2012 timetable to find that what Mike suggested was indeed, correct.
Why the discrepancy?
We got in touch with Wightlink to find out why the train line were saying the last cat to the Island on a Saturday from 2nd January was at 22.15, when Wightlink had already advised VB that they were still reviewing the timetable and no final decisions had been made.
Kerry Jackson from Wightlink told VB, “We had to supply our timetables early to Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) this year due to the Olympics next year, and because of this we submitted the ‘worse case scenario’ for both the Portsmouth/Ryde and Lymington/Yarmouth route as it is always easier to add sailings back into the system rather than not running sailings that have been advertised.”
“ATOC require a long lead-in time”
Kerry went on to say, “As the removal of Saturday night sailings post 2215 from Portsmouth and 2247 from Ryde was being discussed (and the possible withdrawal of late night/early morning sailings on the Lymington/Yarmouth route – these were not supplied to ATOC either) then we submitted timetables on this basis, as we didn’t want ATOC to publish sailings that didn’t exist – regrettably ATOC require a long lead-in time to input all timetables for the UK network into their system.”
“Still under discussion”
Kerry was able to confirm that despite the timetables published by the ATOC, “these sailings are still under discussion, and it is easier to add/operate sailings that are not advertised rather than not run sailings that are advertised.”
The two timetables have been embedded below for your convenience, 2012 first, followed by this year’s which runs out later this week.
As well as the train times, both timetables detail planned catamaran crossings too.
Click on images for larger versions
