No trains again this weekend!

Due to engineering work all lines between New Cross Gate and Crystal Palace / East Croydon and West Croydon this weekend are closed.

• London Overground services will start and finish at New Cross Gate.
• Southern will not be operating any services to/from London Bridge via New Cross Gate
• Bus replacement services are scheduled to run every 10 minutes serving all stations as follows:
  SATURDAY
  From Forest Hill towards New Cross Gate from 0533 to 0043
  From Forest Hill towards Crystal Palace / West Croydon from 0556 to 0056
  SUNDAY
  From Forest Hill towards New Cross Gate from 0636 to 0006
  From Forest Hill towards Crystal Palace / West Croydon from 0659 to 0009

Bus replacement services for stations to New Cross Gate will use Stop E in Dartmouth Road (by Stanford Estates where 122 stops) and for stations to Crystal Palace/West Croydon will use Stop B on London Road (by Guava Kitchen).

From Honor Oak Park towards New Cross Gate departures are 5 minutes after Forest Hill times above and to Crystal Palace/West Croydon 5 minutes before Forest Hill times above.
Use bus stop HA on Honor Oak Park for buses towards Crystal Palace / West Croydon
Use bus stop HB on Honor Oak Park for buses towards New Cross Gate

Thanks for the update Chris, super helpful.

I’ll be taking a RR bus this weekend and interested to see if they actually turn up every 10 minutes as city mapper suggests.

Agree on people’s comments ref comms. Simply saying engineering works is a bit lame, specially when this has been the case for weeks, months, years it seems. And as for comms over the LB - Victoria trains, just dropping the service off the timetable as though it never existed is just plain rude.

Other parts of London have problems from time to time with train cancellations etc, but nothing even close to what we have in FH.

@NewtoSE - I don’t work in the rail industry so have no inside knowledge!
I’m just a user of our rail services who is as frustrated as you are with the services since March especially at weekends. But having a background in corporate travel I know my way around railway timetables and websites and don’t rely on just one source which is why I’ve taken it upon myself these last few months to post weekly updates when we’ve not had our normal weekend services.

I’ve lived in Forest Hill for many years and cannot remember a period of quite so much engineering work as we’ve been experiencing since July. However from the information that @Flora_Noris has kindly provided before on many of my previous posts it does seem that we have been hit hard by the changes in work practices that have been forced on the rail engineers by the Covid-19 restrictions which limits things like how close people can work together and therefore how much work can be done in a specific amount of time.

Personally I tend to try and avoid using rail replacement services if I can as I’ve often got luggage and with mobility issues which means I can’t manage stairs very well or stand I’ve not always had great experiences with them. I certainly wouldn’t rely on the actual scheduled times or the journey time as obviously there are so many factors that can affect traffic conditions. I usually see if there are rail services from another station in the area that might suit me better such as Catford Bridge which serves London Bridge/Waterloo/Charing Cross or Crystal Palace which serves Clapham Junction and Victoria or Penge East which has a faster service to Victoria. If I’m travelling on Sundays even taking a regular bus into Central London can be acceptable.

Hello, do we have any idea how long this will go on for? The overground only seems to be running for about 2 weekends between now and December

Hi Chris,
Thanks for the info, very helpful as usual.