Another Train to Gatwick Question

Not all Southern services 'make many stops'. Many only make two or three before Gatwick and therefore are only marginally slower.

There are plenty of Southern trains that take only a few minutes longer than the Gatwick Express and cost considerably less. It’s up to you but most locals would say that there is little to any advantage in using the express over the regular trains. Just be careful to avoid those that do stop a lot.
Just looking at live trains now there is a 17.59 express taking 31 minutes. 6 minutes later there is a Southern train stopping at Clapham Junction and East Croydon taking 33 minutes. There’s another one leaving before the next Express stopping at Horley as well and taking 35 minutes.

For a domestic flight 2 hours should be adequate, but the advice all public transport operators will give you is to arrive 3 hours ahead, to cover unexpected delays, and that would be my advice.

You can never "be sure" you will arrive on time, regardless of it is a non stop, semi fast or all stations train. Anything can happen at a moment's notice- a signal failure, a track fault, a lineside fire, or more dramatic incidents such as someone having a mental health episode, the list goes on. Most of the time nothing will happen but the day you timetable with no recovery time is the day an incident occurs. Better to kill time at the airport rather than suddenly be racing around due to a delay, or even missing your flight.

It is your choice which operator you choose. If you want to use GX, which costs more, for whatever reason, that is up to you to spend the extra money. People should not be telling you "do not", just advise you on the best value choice and the range of options.

The two advantages that the Gatwick Express has in my mind are that announcements are made in many languages and there is a lot of room for luggage..

If you are not an English speaker and/or have a boat load of luggage these may be worth the extra cost.

The fact that they play loud ads at you is not a feature to me.

Thank you all - this helps. March and John, I didn't realize that we could choose how many stops the train we get onto makes. Duh... ? So it sounds like we get to the station and then choose our Southern Train by the time it is leaving and the # of stops will be listed?

And isn31c and Nigel -- as always, super-helpful. My husband would agree with you on getting there early and i can't argue, nor should I! And we do tend to have a lot of luggage so will compare the costs and see if worth it. In this time of Covid starting to tick up now, does anyone know if the Express Train might have fewer people and less crowding. Do either have windows that open?

Thanks again - this is really helpful.
Peggy

Yes the departure boards list the number of stops but bear in mind that few if any Southern trains terminate at Gatwick- they are all going further afield to all sorts of places- as far as Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings and Southampton and many other points. GX are the only ones (apart from GWR from Reading) to terminate there.

Possibly another reason to take GX as you can't be over carried if you nod off and will have plenty of time to get your luggage off.

You will be travelling in the contra-peak direction, in the shoulder peak (before day tripping starts) so IMO all the trains should be reasonably quiet- GX and Southern. From that point of view I doubt it makes a great difference.

By the way GX does not run on any strike day. If it is an RMT strike day Southern will run fairly good services. If it is an ASLEF strike day then there will only be a special Southern shuttle every 30 minutes from 5am non stop to Gatwick- on those days only terminating there, taking 30 minutes.

Apparently that strike day shuttle will be run by Southern but using GX trains, or so they were saying at Victoria 2 days ago.

Isn31c - don’t some or maybe all of the Gatwick Express trains run on to Brighton now?

Based on my experience last year at Gatwick, give yourself more time ahead of your flight - to flex for possible train drama, luggage drama, flight drama, etc. I took the Southern Train (without reservations) and it was just fine, only a couple of stops. Also, when I was there they didn't post the gate for my flight until pretty close to the flight time (less than half hour). So I advise that you pay close attention to the big departures board and when your gate is posted get moving right away - it can be quite a walk.

All Gatwick Expresses run to/from Brighton on a normal timetable. Often weekends they start / terminate at Gatwick during engineering work.

Thanks - all good to know. About the strikes - do they publish the days ahead of time? We will be taking the train on a Saturday, but at least it sounds like there will always be a train of some sort! I now figure we'll just buy tickets when we get to the train station. EARLY, haha. (And thus EARLY to Gatwick!)

Strike days are published a minimum 14 days ahead, by law.

Looks like we will be traveling on a strike day.....

Dang.
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-disruptions/gtr-strike-20230818/

An RMT strike day - sounds like we'll be able to get on a Southern train though.