No Dave your health is everything, believe me. Some late night arrivals tonight and no trains to London, not ideal by any means.

You are correct on both counts. The bespoke taxi service available seems able to cater, so far, for the numbers of pax missing the last train, although at £27.50 to Liverpool Street it's obviously not ideal. Apparently some train drivers at Ilford are being rostered onto 'airport duties' in the near future so whether that might mean earlier and later trains from May I don't know.

So as promised - Tried the Approach on RW27 at EGLC in the 737-800 simulator and lets just say we made it in but it weren't pretty! PM was calling unstable most of the way down the approach!! I think our VSI was around -1200ft or more, Flap 40 and Airspeed sat around 119kts!! Tanks were a tad over a tonne, I'll keep trying with some legal amounts but don't fancy my chances :-)

I read some Boeing blurb that a 737NG could be offered for LCY ops - I do think they were meaning the 737-700 with SFP not the 738

Smartwings land their 737-700's at Paros Island with payload restricted to 120 pax

Rumours seem to be growing that early and late trains on the Liverpool Street line might soon be introduced. The latest report suggests that these would terminate/originate at SEN and operate with limited stops from/to Liverpool Street.

reports from another forum has said that SEN has a notified RFF CAT 7 what ever that means(answers in plain English please)

Correct sir!

Can't happen. No crossover for the train. Could put one in or build a bay road (3rd platform), but that's not something that can be done overnight. Early trains to London are more than adequate, but there's nothing to hope for other than 1 additional train in the evening. There's an army of workers waiting to access the track every night after the last train, and every train has to be prepared for the next day's service.

Could be done. Not aware of where the nearest crossover is in the London direction but the whole line is signalled for single line working so it would not be too far away or single track working would be nigh on impossible After the last SOV train has run single line working could be employed from SEN to the first crossover. There wouldn't be too may trains to allow for this. As far as engineering possession goes, this may have to be shortened by an hour and a half or so each night; if this happens with this delay that means the last train could be at about 00:30. I have never worked on the railway so perhaps I'm talking rubbish. Just my thoughts on the subject.

Why can't they simply let the train continue to Victoria just two stations down the line (and in doing so, have some more punters going to/from Southend onboard)?

Depends on what limited stops means. If it was only going to stop at, say, Shenfield, Romford and Stratford on the way then there would probably not be enough at Southend Vic to warrant it. Also perhaps rowdy club goers on their way home wouldn't be welcome on what is intended to be an airport train, throwing up on foreign visitors for instance. If it does come about, and starts it's journey at SEN, then there must be some reason behind the decision. Part funded by Stobart??

I'm possibly being a bit thick, but what is there against the airport providing a subsidy to National Express or another coach company for early morning / late night ? It solves all the problems of rail engineering works, and means rather than one single train service with 300+ seats (and potentially a very long wait between services) you can instead have coaches spaced at regular intervals. Maybe set up some revenue sharing scheme so coach and train have interchangeable tickets. If these coaches can show up in the national rail timetable this would encourage potential passengers

Stansted had far more pax per year than Southend does before early morning / late night trains were introduced. I really think that some sort of interim and lower cost scheme is needed to ensure demand can be proven further to all the relevant stakeholders in a train service

National Express tried a late coach a couple of years or so ago. It only lasted a few months.

They will not wrong road a train that distance with Southend bound trains still on the down.

​​​​​​Anyway, the timetable changes in May and the last London bound train remains 23:05. Timetables are planned a year or so in advance, so the next revision - Dec 2019 - will be more or less set in stone by now.

If the train operator could get away with it they would simply run trains to London in the morning and back to Southend in the evening peak. They are contractually required to run an off-peak service, it's the only reason they do so.

The only way Southend Airport will get late night services to London is if it becomes a contractual requirement when the franchise comes up for renewal.

DJ is right. A coach service is required, I am surprised no one has come forward given the increased in pax
numbers.

"Hundreds of passengers stranded" last night with 8 flights diverting away due fog according to the Echo then.

It was very badly promoted and started in the low season. I eventually found the timetable at the Moneycorp desk in the check-in hall which is about the last place one would expect. Stobart decided they didn't want it costing them £20,000 per month for so little return and it was pulled.

There is currently a Andrews Taxi/Southend Airport joint experimental coach service from SEN to Upminster Tube station, apparently running hourly from 09.15 to 22.30 each day at a cost of £10. This is mentioned on the SEN website only in the 'Rail Replacement' notice so people thinking of using a coach during the day are unlikely to find out about it. Oh, and you can only get further information about it "from the Taxi Marshal" - very helpful if you wanted to book in advance. Not very impressive.