I was at Ponders End station last week when I noticed something odd.
You can't get a train to the next station down the line.
The next station is Meridian Water, which opened in 2019 as a replacement for Angel Road.
It gets trains every 30 minutes during the day.
Ponders End also gets trains every 30 minutes during the day.
But none of those trains stop at both stations.
These neighbours aren't directly connected.
Trains serving Ponders End run on the Hertford East line.
Heading north they stop at the next station, Brimsdown, then every station to Hertford East.
But heading south the next stop is Tottenham Hale, skipping Meridian Water and Northumberland Park.
You can go one station north to Brimsdown, but you can't go one station south to Meridian Water.
The issue is that Meridian Water is the terminus for trains from Stratford, so they don't continue north.
Additional trains do stop here during the peaks, but then don't stop again until they've left London.
Meridian Water to Ponders End just isn't doable, not without changing trains.
Technically, if you get up really early two trains do stop at Ponders End then Meridian Water.
Brimsdown 0552 0608
Ponders End 0554 0610
Meridian Water 0557 0613
But that is the entirety of all the connections each weekday.
Two very early trains from Ponders End to Meridian Water.
And no trains whatsoever from Meridian Water to Ponders End.
I wondered, does this happen anywhere else in London?
» Sudbury Hill Harrow and Sudbury & Harrow Road are potential candidates. However that's because Sudbury & Harrow Road only gets four trains a day, and all four northbound trains do in fact stop at both stations.
» In early versions of the TfL Rail timetable no trains stopped at both Acton Main Line and Hanwell. However they fixed that later, also these two stations aren't adjacent so it never counted anyway.
» We're looking for skippy timetables on lines that don't have 'all stations' stopping trains, and I can't think of any others.
And I wondered does this happen anywhere else in the UK?
