No trains on Saturday / Limited trains on Sunday

Due to engineering work all lines between New Cross Gate and Crystal Palace / East Croydon and West Croydon are closed on Saturday.

On Sunday it appears the line will reopen from New Cross Gate to Sydenham and Crystal Palace. This enables Southern to run their usual half hourly Sunday service between London Bridge and Crystal Palace via Sydenham. However for some inexplicable reason London Overground are not operating their Crystal Palace services as well!

• London Overground services will start and finish at New Cross Gate all weekend
• Southern will not be operating any services between London Bridge via New Cross Gate towards East or West Croydon on Saturday but will operate between London Bridge and Crystal Palace via Sydenham on Sunday.
• Bus replacement services are scheduled to run on Saturday calling at all stations to New Cross Gate, Crystal Palace and West Croydon but at different times and less frequently than the last 2 weekends.

SATURDAY (Rail replacement bus services )
From Forest Hill towards New Cross Gate every 10 minutes from 0535 to 2305 then every 15 minutes from 2320 to 0005 then 0036
From Forest Hill towards Crystal Palace / West Croydon every 10 minutes from 0538 to 0008 then 0014, 0028, 0033, 0049 and 0108

Bus replacement services for stations to New Cross Gate will use Stop E in Dartmouth Road (by Stanford Estates where 122 stops) and for stations to Crystal Palace/West Croydon will use Stop B on London Road (by Guava Kitchen).

From Honor Oak Park towards New Cross Gate departures are 5 minutes after Forest Hill times above and to Crystal Palace/West Croydon 5 minutes before Forest Hill times above.
Use bus stop HA on Honor Oak Park for buses towards Crystal Palace / West Croydon
Use bus stop HB on Honor Oak Park for buses towards New Cross Gate

SUNDAY Trains to London Bridge (change at New Cross Gate for London Overground)
From Forest Hill to London Bridge at 0805 then every 30 minutes at 01 and 31 past each hour from 0831 to 2301
From Forest Hill to Sydenham & Crystal Palace at 22 and 52 past each hour from 0752 to 2252 and then 2324

From Honor Oak Park to London Bridge at 0808 then every 30 minutes at 04 and 34 past each hour from 0834 to 2304
From Honor Oak Park to Sydenham & Crystal Palace at 19 and 49 past each hour from 0749 to 2249 and then 2322

From London Bridge to Honor Oak Park and Forest Hill at 08 and 38 past each hour from 0738 to 2238 and then 2311

However for some inexplicable reason London Overground are not operating their Crystal Palace services as well!

NR Weekly Operating Notice for this weekend specifies that LO are able to run to Crystal Palace, also TfL line closures has LO operating to Crystal Palace, but nothing has been added to timetable.

0100 SAT TO 0600 SUN
RAIL REPLACEMENT ROAD SERVICE IN OPERATION BETWEEN LONDON BRIDGE AND WEST CROYDON VIA
SYDENHAM AND CRYSTAL PALACE.
ARL SERVICES WILL TERMINATE AND START BACK AT NEW CROSS GATE
0600 SUN TO 0400 MON
RAIL REPLACEMENT ROAD SERVICE IN OPERATION BETWEEN WEST CROYDON AND CRYSTAL PALACE
ARL SERVICES WILL TERMINATE AND START BACK AT CRYSTAL PALACE
ARL TO RUN 6TPH TO/FROM CRYSTAL PALACE
GTR TO RUN 2TPH TO/FROM CRYSTAL PALACE

It has happened before when last minute changes have resulted in correct trains showing online on the day, so unable to view beforehand. If not then someone in train planning/diagramming has cocked up.

Thanks for the info Flor.

So LO could run a service on Sunday but aren’t?

What’s the excuse? Got the planning wrong? Prioritising profit over service? Staffing issues?

They can’t blame it on engineering works anyhow, so I think we should be given reason.

I wonder how Southern are getting on with their plans to reinstate the LB to Victoria train, as clearly nobody has forgotten about it like they may have hoped

Thanks Flora. Very interesting!
There are certainly no LO services south of New Cross Gate coming up on either TFL ‘plan a journey’ or NRE journey planner on Sunday:

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Yeh that’s the weird bit, yet if you look at Sunday only on the Status Update page you get the following:

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Once you’re versed in TfL line closure speak, they’re saying there’s no Claphams, no West Croydons, which leaves a Highbury to New Cross/Crystal Palace service. Just had a chat on phone to my nephew who drives for them, all trains terminating at New Cross Gate. It’s a planning mistake. Probably saw Saturday no service beyond New Cross Gate and assumed Sunday to be the same minus Claphams.

They can’t blame it on engineering works anyhow, so I think we should be given reason.

Considering the fact that they were supposed to run 6 trains per hour to Crystal Palace, absolutely!

And the Southern details don’t seem correct either as they’re only running to Crystal Palace with bus replacement bus services from there to West Croydon! It will be interesting to see what actually runs on Sunday although looking at the weather forecast I don’t think I’ll be venturing very far!!

Thanks for the update Chris. It’s fairly annoying for people working at weekends - my other half is working all weekend in Covent Garden, so at least there is some service on Sunday (Thameslink from Crofton Park is running on Saturday, but not Sunday)…

Hi Suze - As I live on the Perry Vale side of Forest Hill If I needed to get to Covent Garden on Saturday I would take a 185 or 171 bus to Catford Bridge and then the direct train from Catford Bridge to Charing Cross. Or as you mention Crofton Park if you’re near there you could also take the 122 to Ladywell and pick up the direct train to Charing Cross from there. On Sunday as Southern are running trains to London Bridge I’d probably do that and then change onto a Charing Cross train there. Alternatively on Sunday although there is no direct service from Catford Bridge to Charing Cross you can change at Lewisham with a quick connection. It’s only about 10 minutes walk from Charing Cross to the central area of Covent Garden.

this is quite a mistake to make, you’d have thought it would have to go through a few checks to actually close a whole line.

Thanks for the updates @ChrisR and @Flora_Noris - keep them coming!

Thats the bee in my bonnet-a sizeable amount of local people do work weekends.
I work weekends and two of my colleagues live in Honor Oak Park and FH respectively.
Last Saturday the girl on a late shift had to take an uber home which cost her £40!
as a young woman travelling alone home from work at 9.30pm she just couldn’t face waiting for busses or a taxi at New X gate and decided it was worth the money to get home safely.

LO/Southern should be providing a service that works for everyone and that includes providing a service at less profitable times/days which I assume are weekends and evenings.

If the LO is not running this weekend because they got their panning wrong, well, that is not acceptable and action should be taken. Who is LO ultimately accountable to - the mayor? I think this needs a proper investigation. I can’t help but feel that the reason the service is so poor in comparison to other parts of London is just because they know they can get away with it. This is zone 3 of London and we should have a train service that reflects that.

Coming into the Winter it will be super important that there are trains for us to use.

Hopefully we will get an update with some honest info and timeframes for when the service provided by both Southern and the LO will be back to running a reliable and frequent service (and this includes the LB to Victoria line).

Does anyone know if trains are running this Sunday?

Leisurely cycle to Shoreditch this past Saturday, 12mph average - door to door in 40 mins including traffic lights and a park detour.

Very nice - that looks like most of my (old) regular cycle commute. This is for a family trip to the Museum of London, and only two of us have bikes!

Then you need to wait for @ChrisR to distill this weekend’s forecast for us! Shadwell then DLR to Bank if you’re lucky, else LB & a bus or a walk… have fun

Interestingly I just looked on Google Maps, and asked it for a route with an arrival time aligned with our museum entry time on Sunday, and it proposed only routes involving a bus from here then a train from elsewhere. So it would appear Google is up to speed, and that the trains are down this weekend.

It doesn’t look like it!

TFL are showing no London Overground service between Highbury & Islington and New Cross / Clapham Junction / Crystal Palace / West Croydon all weekend and they are running rail replacement buses from Highbury & Islington to New Cross Gate.

National Rail Enquiries are showing there is no Southern service operating to London Bridge, Crystal Palace or East Croydon and there will be rail replacement buses between West Croydon and New Cross Gate.

As often happens there is conflicting information being given by TFL and National Rail Enquiries but in my experience of the last few months the National Rail Enquiries website is usually closer to the truth!

TFL journey planner and National Rail Enquires are also listing other options as well for Sunday! As the rail replacement buses from Forest Hill are only going to New Cross Gate and not through to London Bridge and there is another rail replacement bus service from New Cross Gate to London Overground stations it is quicker to get a bus to another rail station that is not on our line!

Thanks - that’s really helpful.

London Bridge trains were running yesterday, but only 2 per hour and Southern only put 4 carriage trains on. So my other half had to get a train home from work and it was incredibly busy…

Weekly Operating Notice for this weekend show full closure on Sunday, but no engineering posession on Saturday, with Southern able to run.

Hi, for anyone who hasn’t already seen this, a few people have written to our MP about the lack of transport out of FH at weekends.

You need to give your address as she can only reply to people in Lewisham. Most people probably don’t need to use the trains at weekends, but for those who do it is a nightmare.

Below is the email. The overground has been down pretty much every weekend since March, with weekend service cancellations through to 2021. Southern have cut the LB to Victoria line, and for 4 weekends in a row, are providing no service.

ellie.reeves.mp@parliament.uk

Thanks - that’s really helpful! We may bring the journey forward to Saturday.

Just had another look on a few different sites (they all feed off the same data so no idea why I checked multiple sources), but yes, there are Southern services running on Saturday every half-hour between London Bridge and Coulsdon Town.

There is a full closure on London Overground over the entire weekend, so will be doing works on it that prevent operating a service (such as around depot or critical junctions etc). There is also a need to add in a new signal at Shoreditch High Street. There is a new construction by Holywell Curve that is going to obscure a signal on the tight left hand curve in to the station, so a Banner Repeater is going to have to be installed and tested. Currently, because of the construction, a 20mph speed limit has been introduced on to the approach to Shoreditch High Street when coming from Hoxton. Once the Banner Repeater has been installed, speed should return to normal. (There is a minimum amount of time that drivers are allowed to have to sight a signal, if it’s below that amount, speed is reduced or if not possible, a banner repeater is put in place. A BR is a signal that gives advance warning to drivers whether the signal ahead is at danger (red) or not.

If it was that works or Whitechapel Station being culprit, then LO would be operating a service to Shadwell. So it must be around New Cross Gate depot or Silwood Junction that works are taking place on to warrant a full line closure.