Archived on 6/5/2022

Bakerloo line consultation 2019

ForestHull
16 Oct '19

Continuing the discussion from Bakerloo Line 2029:

A new consultation has been setup by TFL, closing on 22nd December.

The actual online survey is here: Have Your Say Transport for London

They also accept written feedback - see the website for details.

Jerry
16 Oct '19

I would welcome the Bakerloo Line extension, and hate to be negative, but this has been mooted at least since I first moved to South East London some seventeen years ago. Consultations and proposals are all well and good, but I for one won’t be holding my breath…

ChrisR
16 Oct '19

I thought that when the extension of the old East London Line was first proposed many years ago, and yet it happened eventually and we now have the London Overground!

Jerry
16 Oct '19

That’s a fair point, I am no expert but I suspect the costs associated with that project were much lower than an extension of the Bakerloo Line given the Overground effectively followed an existing railway line. There is also the debacle that is the Victoria Line in the background with its seemingly endless delays and costs rising out of control which may well result in delays or cancellations of other large scale London transport projects.

I would be willing to wager we wont see this for another ten years (this prediction may come back to haunt me, and in many ways I hope that it does!)

Sherwood
16 Oct '19

I think you mean Crossrail or the Elizabeth Line.

LilyDay
4 Dec '19

Even if you have signed the Back the Bakerloo petition, Transport for London (TfL) wants
your views on the latest proposals, including an extension through Catford to Hayes and
Beckenham Junction.

TfL is considering the case for a further extension along the existing Hayes line with stations
at Ladywell, Catford, Lower Sydenham and all stations to Hayes and Beckenham Junction.
Your views will help TfL to define the final proposal for the project which is expected to be
confirmed late next year.

The proposal will mean connecting the proposed Bakerloo line extension tunnels to the
current Hayes National Rail line between Lewisham and Ladywell at Wearside Road Council
depot. The project would provide:
● A train every 3-4 minutes direct to central London
● Journey times cut by up to 14 minutes
● Space for up to 27,000 more people every morning peak

There is also a chance to comment on other aspects of the detailed proposals, including the
names of stations along the Old Kent Road, proposed tunnel route and TfL’s preferred
worksite locations at New Cross Gate, Wearside and Old Kent Road.

To have your say and find out more, visit tfl.gov.uk/bakerloo-extension before Sunday 22 nd
December 2019. The question on the Hayes line proposal is question 9.

weepy
4 Dec '19

Ooh tube station at lower syd !

maxrocks
4 Dec '19

anything that gives us other options to get to the west end than the jubilee line is a good thing.
The canada water/jubilee interchange seems to become more overcrowded every year its grim

Sherwood
4 Dec '19

But we will lose the mainline trains if this goes ahead.

maxrocks
6 Dec '19

Oh lord! is that so??
I use the london bridge service a lot so I’m glad you’ve told me.

Sherwood
7 Dec '19

I think the plan is to allocate the slots to London Bridge currently used by the Catford Bridge/Hayes trains to other routes. That is why Bromley council oppose it.
The extension to Lewisham will be useful. people can always transfer to the Bakerloo line wherever the two lines connect.

maxrocks
7 Dec '19

I still object strongly to the loss of the London Bridge service.
its a bit of a lifeline for me as I really can’t deal with the overcrowding on the overground to and from Canada water

HannahM
8 Dec '19

The proposals suggest replacing the national rail trains in the London Bridge to Hayes line via Catford Bridge with Bakerloo line trains. It doesn’t seem to affect the Forest Hill trains in to London Bridge.

HannahM
8 Dec '19

Although obviously depending on where you livr in SE24 the Catford Bridge services may be closer.

I agree with you Maxrocks losing London Bridge services would be huge. I use those from Forest Hill a lot - train to London Bridge and then Charing X is a great way to get to the West End. Particularly if, like me, you are not a fan of the deep level tubes.

Sherwood
8 Dec '19

I used to use the mainline trains from Forest Hill when they were every ten minutes. Now they are every fifteen minutes. I now use Catford Bridge station directly to Charing Cross. The Bakerloo line extension, if it goes to Hayes will replace the mainline trains to London Bridge, Cannon Street & Charing Cross. I would have no objection to additional underground trains on the same line, but the plan is not for additional trains, but a complete replacement.

Sherwood
8 Dec '19

More bad news.

The trains to Cannon St are already scheduled for closure in 2022 by DfT.

Also, how many know about the absolute chaos the building of this will cause to central Catford. There is a proposal that the Jubilee Sports Ground (St Dunstans School ground) will be a TFL work site for 8 to 10 years. Should cause complete misery on a scale not seen before.

Sherwood
8 Dec '19

Bromley Council’s main objection centred on losing direct trains from Hayes to the City of London. However, TfL says that the Department for Transport plans to remove Cannon Street services from the Hayes branch in 2022, replacing them with Victoria trains.

Forethugel
8 Dec '19

On trains to Cannon Street, do you have any verified sources confirming this? [EDIT:noted your point re TfL’s statement]

Your statement regarding Jubilee Sports Ground is rather misleading. I went to a consultation event last week. The preferred construction site to start the tunnel is at New Cross Gate by the big Sainsbury’s. The site at Catford is an alternative that has only been shown to demonstrate what the less favourable options would be, but it’s certainly not the plan to use this site. The consultation material is also pretty clear on this.

On London Bridge trains, while losing them would be annoying, TfL have shown a map that journeys would become faster to all other Central London destinations. That sounds like a worthwhile benefit to me. Trains would be tube frequency as well including weekends, so no more need to check the timetable. Bromley will eventually get behind once someone has explained to them the uplift on property values…

Anyhow, this is proper long grass stuff, I guess must of us would be retired by the time it opens. It’s in TfL’s queue behind a hand full of other tube lines to sort out, with repeated suggestions that TfL got no money. Still worth drumming for support, this would be once in many generations opportunity for South East London.

Sherwood
8 Dec '19

I quote " DfT plans for the future of the Hayes line could see the end of Cannon Street National rail trains by 2022, with the terminus of these services moved to Victoria."
I have only just become aware of this. I think the franchise is going out to tender with the replacement of trains to Cannon Street with trains to Victoria.

Apologies if I have misread the material that has been published by TfL.

Most of my journeys are to and from Charing Cross. We used to have direct trains to Charing Cross from Forest Hill before the Overground came.

I have never know tube journeys being quicker. They stop at every station. Some mainline trains go directly from Ladywell to London Bridge.

Sherwood
8 Dec '19

Currently my journey from Catford Bridge to Charing Cross takes 24 minutes.
TfL are saying the journey will be 14 minutes quicker. Therefore, I can expect to get from Catford Bridge to Charing Cross via the Bakerloo extension in 10 minutes.

rbmartin
9 Dec '19

The advantage of replacing the Southeastern trains with Bakerloo line ones outweigh those who wish to go to London Bridge. If people really prefer to stay overground, they’ll be able to change at Lewisham and continue to use Southeastern or whoever the TOC franchise goes to by the long time it comes to Lower Sydenham with a much more frequent service than now on the Hayes branch.

I heard that they wanted to send the Cannon Street services to Victoria before 2022 (instead they went via Sidcup). Now while it sees a cut in the service to LB from 4tph to 2tph, there will still be frequent services by changing at Lewisham, while adding new connections to Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill from Lower Sydenham. There is of course still a frequent service to London Bridge from Forest Hill and Sydenham.

ThorNogson
26 Feb '20

Lewisham ‘baffled’ by Bromley Council opposition.

Sherwood
26 Feb '20

I don’t see why we must lose the mainline trains, if the Bakerloo line comes to Catford Bridge. Forest Hill has the Overground and Southern Region mainline trains.

Forethugel
26 Feb '20

Our Overground is the same as a train in technical terms, but the Bakerloo Line isn’t. While there might be a technical solution to make both use the same tracks (I don’t know if there is), it would certainly make the project far more complex and therefore expensive. At the same time you would likely lose many benefits. So it’ll be one or the other.

Sherwood
27 Feb '20

I believe that underground and mainline trains have previously run along the same lines. There may have been two sets of tracks. Personally I favour the extension to Lewisham. It will then be like it was on the Forest Hill line where about 50% of the passengers got off at New Cross Gate and got on the East London Line trains.

oakr
27 Feb '20

One thing for sure, if this does get even to just New Cross Gate, we will have some great connections from Forest Hill \ Honor Oak.

Bakerloo from NCG
Jubilee from Canada Water (an I guess London Bridge)
Crossrail from Whitechapel (as well as Hammersmith and City, District)
Not to mention trains in London Bridge, Overground into essentially Canary Wharf and the City and 2 Catford stations and Crofton Park within reasonable distance for most, plus 171, 172, 185 and 122 routes taken us to these stations if required, looking good!

and of course we can get out of London as well!

ThorNogson
28 Feb '20

The New Cross problem looks as though it is solved.

Sherwood
29 Feb '20

Surely, a new supermarket could be part of the new development.

ForestHull
3 Dec '20

Last month TfL published a report on the latest Bakerloo Line Extension Consultation, which can be read in full here: Have Your Say Transport for London

Beyond the executive summary is a lot of text with some handy infographics:

89% of respondents made positive is supportive responses, while 7% were opposing it’s negative.

Unsurprisingly there were more negative or opposing contents from those that live above the proposed tunnels:

Opposition to the line of route is higher for respondents who live above the line of route of the tunnels: 11 per cent are in opposition compared to four per cent of all respondents [to Question 3].

Breaking from Internet tradition, the name ‘Tubey McTube Face’ was not a well supported choice of name for the station at site 1 or 2:


Beyond statistics on responses to each question, specific comments from societies, councillors and stakeholders of various sorts are also listed in a later section of the report:

After 110 pages, the report ends with a summary of the next steps:

starman
3 Dec '20

TfL have effectively delayed the project with no kick off in the foreseeable future. It’ll be a few years before we see this come back I’m betting.

Sherwood
3 Dec '20

I hope it goes ahead to Lewisham.
But I prefer to keep the larger mainline trains from Catford Bridge.

ChrisR
5 Mar '21

A small sign of hope that the Bakerloo line extension hasn’t been completely forgotten about :

maxrocks
5 Mar '21

Am I being daft here? I dont see how this will benefit residents of Forest Hill.
Lewisham already has the DLR and if Lewisham was convenient to get to from here I’d go there and get DLR then central line to work rather than go through the nightmare I had on Monday when a fire near the line meant no trains from Forest Hill going east-leading to 2 hours to get to work with 2 bus changes and a walk (meaning I arrived an hour late and therefore had to stay late to make up the time.
THEN this evening on my way home at 7.45pm (I left home at 8 this morning) at New X gate the overground train told us all to get off-signal failure no trains going south…
to cut a long story short I finally got home at 9pm this evening.
I left work at shortly after 7pm.
Thats twice this week its taken me 2 hours to get into zone 1.
It really sucks especially as New X Gate feels like the twilight zone with no direct route back to FH

Michael
6 Mar '21
  1. Faster access to Oxford Circus and Paddington via New Cross Gate (certainly more direct than the Whitechapel interchange to Elizabeth line)
  2. Slightly faster route to Waterloo and Charing Cross and less crowded than the Jubilee
  3. Prospect of further extention south of Lewisham to Bell Green - adding a new station serving eastern SE23 (also helpful if stranded at New Cross Gate wih no trains going south, as described)
  4. Further extention south might also connect to Bromley town centre - bringing Bromley residents to the shopping paradise of Bell Green
HillLife
6 Mar '21

I completely feel your pain. I work long hours away from home. Those people not WFH definitely have been slapped in the face by public transport during the pandemic. Fare hikes, reduced services and some routes just completely cancelled.

Sherwood
6 Mar '21

I think it will just give an option to change at Lewisham instead of London Bridge, for a train to Charing Cross. Also, it will give an extra option of taking a bus to Lewisham and catching the train from there. Otherwise, I cannot see an advantage to us.

maxrocks
6 Mar '21

But you have to get to Lewisham 1st and the traffic is often so bad getting through Catford that It could easily take 25mins in rush hour traffic to get to Lewisham.
My other point is that it seems a little absurd having to travel 3.5 miles to Lewisham when my place of work is 7.5 miles door to door.
My dream would be for the No 12 bus to terminate at Forest Hill rather than Dulwich Library ! :laughing:

ChrisR
7 Mar '21

Years ago the 12 bus did serve Forest Hill directly! In fact I think it used to terminate at South Croydon. Before I moved here I used to take it at weekends all the way from Shepherds Bush!

HonorOakBloke
7 Mar '21

I seem to recall in the dim & distant past that the 12 bus route was the longest in London, with the southern terminus at South Croydon and the northern terminus somewhere up in North London - Harlesden if memory serves.

I’m not sure if there was ever a single run which took in the full route from one end to the other - and if there was there would obviously have been a change of drivers/conductors somewhere in the central London area…

ChrisR
7 Mar '21

Charing Cross is already a stop on the Bakerloo line so changing from London Overground to the Bakerloo extension at New Cross Gate would take you straight there! However as the Bakerloo doesn’t directly connect with any of our current services from Forest Hill it will also enable journey options with just one change to stations such as Oxford Circus.

ChrisR
7 Mar '21

I think you may be right about Harlesden. When I was taking it in the late 80’s I think Acton Town was the furthest north!

marymck
7 Mar '21

My dreams would be to catch the 176 to Oxford Circus, as we had till fairly recently.

And the 63 from Kings Cross to the top of Sydenham Hill. When we moved here it ran from Crystal Palace to Kings Cross. But now we have to change at the windswept corner of Elephant & Castle where only those with the sharpest elbows can fight their way through the scrum to board a 363, while on average ratio of 5 to 1 no 63s pass that will terminate at Honor Oak. If you change there it’s a dark and lonely wait.

It does make tfl look as though passengers are making twice as many journeys though, whereas in reality we’re just taking twice as many buses to travel the same distance.

But my biggest dream of all would be a bus service from Sydenham to the top of Kirkdale!

maxrocks
7 Mar '21

I remember a couple of years before I moved here spotting a 176 bus with the destination "Penge’ written on the front at Oxford Circus and thinking “where on earth is that?!”-I lived in west london then so south of the river was a mystery !
If only they would reinstate it to Oxford Circus rather than feeling the 12 bus is sufficient.
Funnily enough I remember getting the 12 when I was a teenager from my parents home near Bayswater Road to Either Shepherds Bush where I was at College or Oxford Circus
I had no idea where it went after Oxford Circus then because my life never really stretched beyond there until my 20’s!

ForestHull
9 Mar '21

No timescale was given for completion of this or Crossrail 2 according to the full article.

DevonishForester
9 Mar '21

We’re not supposed to talk politics here, but under the current regime/s we’ve lost a lot of important services recently and I’m not convinced that anyone is fighting our corner:

  1. Direct bus to West End with no changes
  2. Direct trains to East Croydon
  3. Trains to London Bridge
  4. Trains to Victoria
  5. Not something we’ve lost, but arguably something we should have benefited from – the late running of Overground services at weekends.
maxrocks
9 Mar '21

I totally agree with all points made.
Living here is hard work for those who have to commute to the West End or indeed Victoria/SW london