No Southern Railways service from Forest Hill/Honor Oak Park until 10th Jan 2022

After the last Southern trains have run on Christmas Eve there will then be no Southern service from Forest Hill/Honor Oak Park etc to London Bridge / Victoria / East Croydon until Monday January 10th (was originally due to be Tuesday January 4th). This is due to Network Rail’s ongoing work to modernise the 1980s track and signalling into Victoria station which results in the closure of the tracks used by Southern and many of the Victoria services being rerouted to London Bridge instead and the ongoing effect of coronavirus isolation and sickness.

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London Overground won’t be operating on Christmas Day but will be operating from December 26th.

They’ve been “modernising” this line for years now…

This is only phase 2 of 6 and this phase is going on till at least January 2nd 2023! Unfortunately it looks like we’ll lose our Southern services on at least 8 weekends before the end of July including 4 days over Easter and the May Day Bank Holiday!
Full details : London Victoria track and signalling upgrades - Network Rail

They’ll be closing to modernise the modernising at some point

Well it appears there will be no Southern Trains from Forest Hill until mid January at the earliest
https://twitter.com/southernrailuk/status/1476504252981915650?s=21

I was just about to post this. With Southern not serving Victoria for an additional week, London Bridge needs the platform slots for diverted trains from the south coast.

Those of us who need to use Victoria will either have to use the Overground and tube or Bus 185.

Or walk/jog/cycle to Sydenham Hill. Then it’s 15 mins every 15 mins Mon-Fri

Thanks for posting the updated dates Stuart. It appears that Southern and National Rail haven’t updated their website yet so the various journey planners won’t be accurate yet either for 4-7th January. However they are already correct for the weekend of 8th - 9th January as they had already been scheduled as the next dates for no Southern Victoria services and therefore no stopping service between Norwood Junction and London Bridge either!

…or just cycle to Victoria. It takes a whole 30-40 minutes. It’s 6 1/2 miles. Dulwich Park, Burbage Rd through the Dulwich LTN, Railton LTN to Brixton, then bike/bus lanes to Stockwell and then up to Vauxhall then bike lane over the bridge. It’s fun too!

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With the added bonus of reducing in transit covid transmission risk and those difficult glances at those who still choose to travel maskless.

No words…

Southern are planning to add some extra trains to New Cross Gate next week, they’ll be added to the journey planner to allow passengers to change there in addition to Canada Water by Monday evening.

Although Southern advised last week there would be no services serving Forest Hill/Honor Oak Park this week it appears from checking National Rail’s website tonight there will be 3 weekday services into London Bridge which all appear to be coming out of the depots (2 start at Streatham Hill and 1 at Norwood Junction) for any “early birds” out there! These are shown as departing Forest Hill at 0558, 0643 and 0658 (Honor Oak Park 3 minutes later). However there is no sign of any Southern or Thamesiink trains making an additional stop at New Cross Gate to provide connections from London Overground as Southern alluded to in their last update on their website!

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Anyone travelling please check live departures on the Southern or National Rail’ app for any last minute changes.

There’s also two late night journeys from London Bridge to Forest Hill, the 2310 and 0035 to East Croydon.

The latter service is important as it connects with the final Overground service to New Cross Gate.

It is being reported that it gets worse (Govia being the owner of Southern Rail):

About time Southern Rail got binned.