No Train services between New Cross Gate and CP/East & West Croydon *Updated Sat 26 Sep @ 1115*

From National Rail website:

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Rail replacement bus services calling at all stations between New Cross Gate and West Croydon and are scheduled to operate in both directions as follows:

SATURDAY
From Forest Hill towards New Cross Gate every 10 minutes from 0540 to 0120 (5 minutes later from Honor Oak Park)

From Forest Hill towards West Croydon every 10 minutes from 0553 to 0113 (5 minutes earlier from Honor Oak Park)

From New Cross Gate towards Forest Hill every 10 minutes from 0540 to 0100

SATURDAY UPDATE: As per comments from @fran below (thanks Fran) the buses to New Cross Gate are getting severely delayed due to the traffic queuing for the petrol station in Brockley which will probably have a knock on effect on all the replacement services!
For those living on the borders of SE23 who have to travel today you might want to consider other stations in the area that you’re able to get to without relying on buses! E.g. Catford Bridge for trains to London Bridge (4 per hour), Cannon Street (2 per hour) and Charing Cross (2 per hour), Crofton Park, Nunhead and Peckham Rye for services to Elephant & Castle and Blackfriars (2 per hour) or Penge East and Sydenham Hill for services to Brixton and Victoria. There are also 2 trains per hour from Crystal Palace to London Bridge via Tulse Hill which takes 28 minutes!

SUNDAY
From Forest Hill towards New Cross Gate: every 10 minutes from 0630 to 0020 (5 minutes later from Honor Oak Park)

From Forest Hill towards West Croydon every 10 minutes from 0653 to 0003 (5 minutes earlier from Honor Oak Park)

From New Cross Gate towards Forest Hill every 10 minutes from 0640 to 2350

For stations towards New Cross Gate the buses will use Bus Stop E on Dartmouth Road (by Stanford Estates where 122 stops) and bus stop HB on Honor Oak Park

For stations towards West Croydon the buses will use bus stop B in London Road (by the Guava Kitchen) and bus stop HA on Honor Oak Park

From New Cross Gate the buses will use bus stop R in New Cross Road

Thank you for this! On the Southern site it says to use Overground services and on the TFL site it says to use southern services. So thank goodness I can come to se23,life to get the right picture. Thanks Chris!
Although seriously this has been going on for years. What is there left to fix???

If anyone is thinking of getting the rail replacement service to NXG don’t bother. You could probably walk quicker! Queues for the petrol station in Brockley mean it’s at a standstill!

Thanks for the heads up, shortly heading to Whitechapel so will allow myself a bit more time.

It took me half an hour to get from HOP to The petrol station in Brockley before I gave up and got off the bus. Then walked past 6 buses stuck in traffic before getting on another bus by the Brockley barge. No traffic between there and NXG. Yet.

It’s not about fixing, it’s about preventative maintenance. This line through Forest Hill/HPA is one of the most busiest in UK. Can either put it out of action for a weekend or just let trains derail in to Beadnall Rd. We whinge when it’s closed but we have it about the same as other areas of the UK.

Earlier I saw two rail replacement buses at the same time bunched up on London Road going to West Croydon.

This is an interesting perspective. It always seems to be south of New Cross that’s affected though. Is there a reason maintenance doesn’t affect services north of New Cross as much?

Sorry but I see this completely the opposite.
This is by the far the most unreliable service in terms of “maintenance work” I have ever experienced.
It’s unacceptable to take the line out for an entire weekend, with zero explanation, on a regular basis.

I agree - when do you ever see the Central Line or Northern Line suspended for an entire weekend? It just doesn’t happen.

Other lines have disruptions but nothing like what we see here.

As with other service providers like Thames water, TFL and southern must just know they can act without consequence in Lewisham.

They could at least provide the dates that the line will be closed, for say the next six months.

Oh and some kind of explanation other than just “engineering work”. What exactly is this issue that has to be worked on constantly over several years? When will it be finished? What is the plan to prevent this disruption from happening in the future?

Rarely - but it’s not the whole of our London Overground or Southern line that is suspended either! London Overground is operating from New Cross Gate to Highbury and Islington and Southern are routing services to Crystal Palace and Caterham via Tulse Hill.
Just for comparison this weekend the Central Line has been suspended between Queensway and Ealing Broadway/Ruislip!

TfL do provide line closures for 6 months ahead but from past experience it does change:

National Rail used to provide planned changes for several months ahead but for the last couple of years it is rarely more than a couple of months ahead:
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/currentAndFuture.aspx

The National Rail details also automatically feed into Southern’s website:

I found this page on National Rail which may explain some of your query:
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/121347.aspx

I noticed the same mis-information too and agree. Thank heavens for Chris !!!

The Waterloo & City Line (The Drain) always seems to be out of action for a planned closure.

Thanks for this.

I also found Planned Works Calendar - Transport for London, which does
show a lot of orange. Although granted it’s a bigger line.

Thanks. Although according to that calendar the overground is working today. Which it isn’t so not convinced of it’s accuracy. It says there’s only one weekend in November where the overground won’t be working from HOP (between now and mid dec) so let’s see I’ll have to remember to check back here and see if that’s true.

In fact it already looks like it’s wrong because the Southern website says no trains the weekend of 9th/10th when there’s no mention on the tfl site.

Just to go further with this comparison, looking at the 6 month planned timetable.
That stretch of the central line will be closed once more next weekend, and then not again for the next 6 months.

Whereas our stretch of the overground will be closed on:
Monday to Thursday 4-7th October (after 11pm only)
Saturday to Sunday 9-10th October
Sunday 14th November
Saturday to Sunday 15-16 January
Saturday to Sunday 22-23 January
Monday to Thursday 7-10th February (after 11pm only)
Saturday to Sunday 12-13th February
Monday to Thursday 21-24th March (after 11pm only)

It basically looks like the overground will not be running for a period every month.

Yep that calendar totally does not match up to the 6 month planned closure Pdf. Although I really hope it’s the calendar that’s accurate and not the pdf, as if not we can basically forget relying on the overground over the next 6 months.

Ugh no overground 19th December last weekend before Christmas!
That’s that’s the last thing us locals who work in shops in the west end needed to hear.
I’m just so lucky I have this weekend off it took my husband well over an hour to get to London Bridge on a bus yesterday.

Is this actually happening - all of these closures?

The central line though doesn’t share track with any other line or railway operator, and doesn’t operate for several hours during the the night when some maintenance can probably be done. However London Overground from New Cross Gate to Crystal Palace and West Croydon shares Network Rail track with Southern, Thameslink and I think some freight trains. I’ve always been under the impression that as the Thameslink services from Bedford through Blackfriars, East Croydon and Gatwick run 24/7 they are still using the fast track from New Cross Gate as they do during the day so that would limit most engineering work being done on the slow track at night too, but I stand to be corrected if that isn’t the case.

It was shut completely quite early on during the first lockdown but is now operating as follows:
“between 06.07 and 10.13 and between 15.23 and 19.11, Monday to Friday only”

Central line runs trains ever 3/4 minutes, so I’d day probably a more used track than the overground, where there’s probably a train every 8 minutes or so.

Also it’s a double track so the wear and tear is split.

Sorry I think I got that wrong, looks like it’s just Sydenham to Crystal Palace that’s closed on that date.

Also October 4-7th it’s only closed after 11pm

In the event the W&C is down, you can easily get from Waterloo to Bank.

When the trains are down at FH we are stuck and particularly so if you live west of the ward, because Catford stations aren’t close.

Crystal Palace sounds like an option, and you can get to CP easily when Southern or the Overground are running - but it’s when they’re not that you need to use CP. So you take a bus adding 20/30 mins to your journey.

The other factor is the cost. If you swap from TFL to Southern you pay twice for a longer and less convenient journey which doe snot seen fair. I am happy to pay more for better services, but not at all happy about paying more for worse services.

Trains are running from New Cross Gate and Canada Water but how do you get to those places as there are NO direct buses…

I’m sure the situation with the tracks is valid but what is the solution, and perhaps it’s time for the other services that use the track to have to make diversions because it seems always us that are sacrificed.

I also think it’s likely that they’re doing maintenance in a way that suits them rather than what’s right for passengers. There’s something odd about building a line that requires so much maintenance.

The other month when the tracks into Victoria needed repairing, they cancelled our services so that the Victoria services could divert to London Bridge! Perhaps those passengers should have had to change in Croydon onto our line or something, rather than getting a service to LB at our expense.

Harder from FH, but if dependant on where you, if you walk to Brockley Rise off the South Circular, I guess roughly a 10/15 minute walk from FH station (so I guess shorter or longer dependant on where you live), or a couple of stops on a 185/122, you can get the 171 to New Cross, and further down on by Chandos the P12 goes to Surrey Keys (it is very slow from memory!).

Just to confirm, that it does look like these are correct unfortunately. According to CityPlanner, there is (yet another) line closure this coming weekend.

I went through the list and updated it all, so this should be everything now up until April. January looks particularly bad, but March and April both have no full weekend closures (although possibly that’s because they just haven’t been planned in yet).

just depressing to see that this weekend there are no trains AGAIN!

I don’t understand why we are always fighting just to get a train service here in Lewisham. Isn’t the council responsible for ensuring transport runs to schedule because they seem very uninvolved. Perhaps they haven’t factored the postcodes within west Lewisham that aren’t anywhere near Catford stations.

Last weekend we waited 20 mins for the rail replacement bus which didn’t turn up. The P4 to Brixton was terminating at Dulwich village. Uber wanted £26 to get to Canada Water, and we ended up being maybe 60 mins late due to having to go via Lewisham DLR. All this again for so many more weekends as we need to travel north of the river and without the trains it adds on at least 20/30 mins per journey.

I feel your pain-I paid £60 to get home from the west end last week all because I couldn’t get a train from Canada water and I didn’t want to be a lone woman waiting for an Uber there because my colleague (also female) got mugged walking there at 10pm a few weeks ago

I’ve never been sure about the area around Canada Water late at night, and always better safe than sorry. It’s a frustrating way to spend £60 though.

I don’t mind New Cross Gate as much as it’s a very busy road and there are usually lots of students about.