Continuing the discussion from Issues on the Overground/Mainlines - 7th Dec 2017:
This has really made me feel quite sad.
Forest Hill used to be brilliant for commuting into town.
Mind you, I’m going back to the days when it took 9 minutes into London Bridge and that train continued on to Charing Cross for a total of about 15 minutes.
I hope it improves for you guys.
Delays explained by Southern:
As much I understand there are problems, surely better solution and improvements could have been found over the years. My guess, the rail companies are not profitable, they are probably in lots of debts and any earnings go to repaying them, leaving them with zero income to invest in improvements, and not repairs only.
Good answer.
Since privatisation it has never been easy to summarise the current position well.
It will be interesting to see how the model of TOC maintains infrastructure as well as operate trains on their own route will bed in.
More money for the lawyers.
Wow! Thank you Joey_H for a very thorough explanation! To conclude all the said above, as I undertood, Southern seems to be the bad apple in the group. And I assume they wouldnot care as I believe they will loose the contract in 2021. Ok, 3 more years to go 
until a chance for improvements
My understanding is that the DfT will split the franchise again, with Southern and Gatwick Express reverting back to the old area from 2021.
There’s nothing to stop Govia (owners of GTR/Southern) rebidding for the franchise which they successfully operated as a much smaller franchise until 2015. Whether they win it again is another question?
If they do, i hope the new contract will make them pay for delays, as Overground does. Surely something can be learnt from the current situation. I will be angry if they dont.
The only good thing from a consumer point of view is that Southern as part of this dreadful franchise have to pay passengers for delays of 15 mins or more. London Overground is still 30 mins and there doesn’t seem to be any movement to bring it in line with the Tube/DLR or even Southern/GTR.
In my opinion the transport is still really good. The only thing that has changed is the crazy increase in the amount of people using it.
“I’m going back to the days when it took 9 minutes in to London Bridge”
If you go back a decade on ANY commuter route in London it was probably the same case. And most lines can’t add more trains due to the line being full or the terminating stations being full.
Try and spend any amount of time commuting on South Eastern or GWR or London Midlands and you’ll be thanking your lucky stars you live in Forest Hill / Honor Oak. Imagine living in Crofton Park, can’t get on a train, then waiting 20-30 minutes for another one…