No London Overground services on our line all weekend / Southern Railways operating

From TfL’s weekend travel information email:

Southern Railways are operating their normal Saturday service from Forest Hill to/from London Bridge, Victoria (via Crystal Palace) and Coulsdon Town as well as their normal Sunday service to/from London Bridge, Caterham, Tattenham Corner and Crystal Palace.

Saturday
Forest Hill to London Bridge at 0558, 0628, 0643 and 0658 then at 13, 28, 43 and 58 minutes past each hour from 0713 to 2328 then 0001 and 0034

London Bridge to Forest Hill at 10, 28, 40 and 58 minutes past each hour from 0610 to 2358 then 0020 & 0035

Sunday
Forest Hill to London Bridge at 0728, 0746, 0759, 0815, 0829, 0845, 0859 0913, 0929, 0942 and 0959 then at 13, 29, 43 and 59 past each hour from 0913 until 2313 then 2346

London Bridge to Forest Hill at 13, 28, 43 and 58 past each hour from 0713 until 0858 then 12, 28, 42 and 58 past each hour from 0913 until 2312 then 2350

For other routes see National Rail website

Thanks for the update

thank goodness for Southern rail!
Thank you for the update as always.

This may have been asked somewhere before, but is this part of a long term maintenance project which will end soon or is this just going to go on forever? I’m getting really fed up of the Overground being off more often than its on at weekends.

TfL rarely advise exact reasons why they’re unable to run services at weekends on either their website or their weekly weekend travel email. However the National Rail website often shows a little more information on their future engineering works section

The details for this weekend for London Overground are:

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I don’t know how exact the map is but if accurate it shows the work as taking place between Surrey Quays station and where the line divides into the Clapham Junction service and the Crystal Palace & West Croydon services:

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Surely a much more detailed explanation should be required to shut down critical infrastructure? They’ve essentially made the overground an unreliable mode of weekend transport over the last 2/3 years (this was an issue before Covid, which just seems to have gotten worse). Has caught me out several times before.

My suspicions are that due to low passenger numbers, they’re not particularly incentivised to complete whatever engineering works they have, in a way that causes the least amount of disruption.
Which I totally understand, but they should be transparent about that, as it’s a sacrifice that we are all making.

Hi.

It is a good idea to send a letter to Ellie Reeves our local MP, and also to Damien Ellis, Lewisham Mayor, just to keep the focus on West Lewisham transport.

Although the service has been ok the last few months; last year and I understand many previous years running, the service was down far too much. We do not want them getting back into those bad habits.

When transport providers in West Lewisham fail to provide the scheduled service, I think the council think it is the problem of the moaning resident, rather than the problem of the service provider.

As it is not normal to build a line that needs engineering works at the frequency we’ve seen in West Lewisham, one can only assume the transport providers are taking advantage, OR, that budget is being diverted to other parts of the borough, or other boroughs. West Lewisham as a zone 3 inner London station should not be reduced to 20% of our scheduled service when other parts of Lewisham are running 100% capacity.

In addition to no service this weekend and last weekend, according to TFL service update, more closures are starting to creep in… Currently one Sunday in July, and a weekend in September.

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I asked my nephew who drives on the line about this. He said the only thing he noticed after last weekend’s closure was that Surrey Quays station has now been covered in surveyor’s markings on the platforms, track etc. He thinks it’s probably most likely connected to the station upgrade. They’ve recently made a compulsory purchase order on some land adjacent to facilitate this. TfL Surrey Quays Upgrade

As Surrey Quays is the point where all lines come together, it makes running an amended service more difficult. In the past they’ve just ran trains from New Cross Gate to Crystal Palace/West Croydon. As they’re not doing this, he says they’re probably utilising the closure to do maintenance in or around the depots as well.