No Southern or London Overground services this weekend

From National Rail website:

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Rail replacement bus services calling at all stations between New Cross Gate and West Croydon except Penge West but additionally at Crystal Palace and Selhurst are scheduled to operate as follows:

SATURDAY
From Forest Hill towards New Cross Gate
Every 15 minutes at 00, 15, 30 and 45 past from 0530 to 0015 (5 minutes later from Honor Oak Park)

From Forest Hill towards West Croydon every 15 minutes at 13, 28, 43 and 58 past from 0543 to 2358 then 0001, 0014, 0023, 0028, 0033, 0043, 0053, and 0103 (5 minutes earlier from Honor Oak Park)

From New Cross Gate towards Forest Hill every 15 minutes from 0530 to 2345 then 0001, 0010, 0015, 0020, 0030, 0040, and 0050

SUNDAY
From Forest Hill towards New Cross Gate
Every 15 minutes from 0630 to 0015 (5 minutes later from Honor Oak Park)

From Forest Hill towards West Croydon every 15 minutes at 13, 28, 44 and 58 past from 0713 to 0013 (5 minutes earlier from Honor Oak Park)

From New Cross Gate towards Forest Hill every 15 minutes at 00, 15, 30 and 45 from 0700 to 2345 then 0001

BUS STOPS FOR REPLACEMENT BUS SERVICES
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

ALTERNATIVE RAIL OPTIONS

Catford Bridge
To London Bridge - 4 per hour on Saturday / 2 per hour on Sunday
To Cannon Street - 2 per hour Saturday & Sunday
To Waterloo East and Charing Cross - 2 per hour Saturday / none on Sunday

Catford, Crofton Park and Nunhead
To Elephant & Castle and Blackfriars (2 per hour on Saturday but none on Sunday

Crystal Palace
To London Bridge via Tulse Hill 2 per hour Saturday & Sunday but takes 28 minutes on Saturday and up to 34 minutes on Sunday!

Peckham Rye
To London Bridge 4 per hour Saturday & Sunday
To Elephant & Castle and Blackfriars 2 per hour on Saturday but no direct on Sunday (change at London Bridge

Penge East and Sydenham Hill
To Brixton and Victoria 2 per hour Saturday & Sunday

Ah well - I won’t feel so bad if I am still in Covid jail this weekend then.

I really, really hope whatever these neverending line closures are about results in is more trains passing though in the future. Last night’s overground closure caught me by surprise, I didn’t get home from the football in Tottenham until midnight!

Sadly I think the majority of the line closures are just regular maintenance and safety checks!

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/121347.aspx

You obviously didn’t see this post!
https://se23.life/t/no-late-night-trains-between-new-cross-gate-and-crystal-palace-west-croydon-east-croydon-this-week

That must have capped a bad evening.

oh noooooooo! I’m at work this weekend and was banking on Southern rail running.
What a pain!

How Southern have got away without providing a service this weekend is just beyond belief.

They have managed to get away with providing about 4 days worth of trains in a two month period. It must be their best one yet, ever.

7 weekends into 2022 and no overground for 3 out 7!
And no Southern at all.
Transport in West Lewisham, if it was not already, is most definitely not under control.

Southern and the OG would like us to think that all of these cancellations are necessary maintenance works. If so, they need to explain basic facts such as why our line is subject to service cancellations way in excess of other lines.

I appreciate managing southern and the overground is nobody’s favourite job, but it clearly needs more attention than currently given.

The OG already has many, many planned closures including:

• Monday 21th to Thursday 24th March - no service past 11pm. (4 days)

• Monday 2nd to Thurs 5th May - no service past 11pm (4 days)

• Monday 13th to Thursday 16th June - no service past 11pm (4 days)

• Monday 25th to Thursday 28th July - no service past 11pm (4 days)
  Are engineering works taking place overnight? What is the reason for this?

• Sat and Sun 12th and 13th Feb - no service NCG to CP or WC

• Sunday 15th May - no service NCG to CP or WC

• Sunday 24th July - no service NCG to CP or WC

• Sat 6th and Sun 7th Aug - no service on entire line H&I to WC/CP
  Is all this due to the Surrey Quays station upgrades, for which we know they can provide the service from NCG?

• Sat/Sun 5th/6th March - no service H&I to Dalston J.

• Sat/Sun 12th/13th March - no service H&I to Dalston J.

• Sat/Sun 19th/20th March - no service H&I to Dalston J.

• Sat/Sun 26th/27th March - no service H&I to Dalston J.

• Sat/Sun 2nd/3rd April - no service H&I to Dalston J.

• Sun 8th May - no service H&I to Dalston J.
  The least of the problems, but still, why?

Its so bad.
I’m sure there will be many local residents who work in pubs, resturants and Bars either in East London or the West end and therefore finish work after 11pm and face a nightmare journey home.
Let us not forget that Catering and retail are not well paid jobs and having to get an Uber home from work is not a financially viable option (I know-I once had no other choice when I had to work late in the run up to Christmas and after cashing up etc etc didn’t leave work until 10.35pm -My Uber cost me £35!
Sadly local jobs are few and far between so that leaves us at the mercy of our busses (I wont go into those) and trains.

Maybe it’s time we all revert to horseback. I’m getting so sick of this.

Train companies don’t have any choice! Engineering work is one of the responsibilities of Network Rail who own and manage most of the rail infrastructure in the country!

Looks like they are doing work on at least some of the footbridges.

There’s a few people working between Forest Hill and Sydenham:

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And loads at Brockley, where it’s clear why the lines are shut:

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They should do some of this on the night shift, or get organised and do multiple bits of engineering work at once. We should have an answer as to why our line is subject to a much higher level of closures than other lines.

I too would like an answer, but who is responsible for giving it and who should we be contacting - Network Rail? Southern? London Transport? MPs? Department of Transport? The whole lot? Grateful for views / info.

Their website shows various ways to contact them:

If the problems could be solved by contacting southern/network rail etc, then they would have been solved by now.

As these companies all monopolies, and as the average person is not knowledgeable on engineering works and trains in general, it is impossible to make progress with them.

No comment

Is it really “subject to a much higher level of closures” though? That seems unlikely - line closures for engineering works aren’t the same as Southern’s useless lack of service in recent months.

Well, I guess it’s a question we don’t have the answers to. Even when taking southern’s recent performance out of the equation, there were many, many overground cancellations put down to engineering works. I’ve lived in London a very long time and have never known anything like it.

To confirm one way or another we’d need to obtain official figures confirming:

• what service levels should be (eg 99% against timetable)
• what the average is across comparable inner London stations
• and how service levels out of Forest hill benchmark against these two.

If you manage to get hold of these figures please share.

Surely these three basic aspects of train provider performance are collated constantly. I can’t believe that service levels of train providers aren’t assessed by anyone, anywhere.

Out of 44 days (end tmrw), we’ve had 6 days without service which is 86% service level.

Service levels at weekends are 57%

I’m being generous here too, as if we factor southern in, well… I think their service level is 13%.

Our elected representatives should be relentlessly pursuing these matters on our behalf. I’m not sure if they are.