Southern timetable changes from Monday 22nd February

Southern Railways are introducing a new reduced weekday timetable from Monday 22nd February until further notice.

From Forest Hill/Honor Oak Park the morning and evening peak services that have been operating twice an hour between Crystal Palace and London Bridge via Sydenham and v.v. will no longer operate leaving 2 trains an hour throughout the day between London Bridge and East Croydon and v.v. calling at all stations.

For full details of all changes see Southern - Revised-timetable

Southern are also advising passengers to ensure they check every journey before travel, as some overnight and weekend engineering works may not show in Journey Planners until one week beforehand.

this is grim news.
I always try to avoid the busy canada water interchange in the mornings and even coming home via london bridge makes for a more relaxing journey.
Also it means the already fairy busy peak overground service is going to be busier.
ugh!

I guess it’s just not busy enough (or is it?) - I know when I got the train in from Crofton Park a few weeks ago I couldn’t believe how empty it was.

Hopefully Canada Water doesn’t get too busy for you.

I wonder if this is a sign of things to come wirh reduced commuting \ fares something will have to give I guess.

The trains are very different from the underground and overground unfortunately. Trains are empty. OG and UG still very much busy.

This.

We’ll have to wait and see to what extent yesterday’s announced plan of returning back to normal will actually mean that. There seems to be broad consensus at the moment that working in the office Monday to Friday is finished.

Does this mean that reductions in services will be spread equally across Lewisham’s transport provisions. So, service reductions will be spread fairly across ALL services including for example, the DLR, and the buses serving Catford and Lewisham? Or does it just mean stations served by Southern and the Overground will see their services cut more significantly than others. It seems Lewisham stations are incidental to Southern, we will get a service it if makes sense for other stations/areas, and not if it doesn’t. The service is not planned to consider the needs of people who rely on their services in Lewisham.

As far as I’m aware all of the rail companies who are operating under the emergency Department of Transport contracts brought in last year have made reductions in rail services from 22nd February. That does not include London Overground and London buses who are managed by Transport for London and I haven’t seen any news about reductions to these services… As we now know from yesterday’s government announcement the “work from home” message will not be changed before June 21st at the earliest which possibly explains why the majority of reductions are to the Monday - Friday morning and evening peak services.

Thanks for your insight. The overground is not running past New Cross 50% of weekends for the next 4 months. Some of that could legitimately be covid, but services elsewhere are not being cut so drastically. For whatever reason, our services seem to be cut more than others. These 10 weekends that Southern are providing no service may mean we have nothing out of HOP/FH if the overground deviates from the schedule on TFL website at present. I think they should cut all service to the same amount, and from what I can see the DLR out of Lewisham runs a very good, frequent service by comparison to the overground or southern.

LO are running a full scheduled timetable on East London Line with no plans to reduce services at all. There is however a reduced service until Friday 25th February on the North London Line and West Anglia lines out of Liverpool Street.

The weekend closures south of New Cross Gate are down to Network Rail, and aren’t in any way covid related - TfL have no say in them.

Are you confusing New Cross with New Cross Gate? Our London Overground services from Forest Hill and Honor Oak Park go through New Cross Gate not New Cross!

Looking through the planned line closures up to September on the TFL website we won’t have a London Overground service on the following dates:
11th April (New Cross Gate - West Croydon & Crystal Palace)
12th/13th June (Whole line)
19th/20th June (Whole line)
18th July (New Cross Gate - West Croydon & Crystal Palace)

There are a number of other weekends when services will not operate further north than Shadwell but at least that means we have some service (likely to be 4 trains an hour based on past weekends) and can interchange onto the Jubilee Line at Canada Water.

The 8 weekends that Southern will not serving Forest Hill or Honor Oak Park do not currently clash with any of the dates when London Overground will not be operating on our part of the line

Oh I see so the service is running to Shadwell, but the service to New Cross is not running.
Great news that the overground closures are not the weekends southern services are cancelled.

agree

This isn’t particularly local, though I think will apply to some extent. Almost seems they might expect some weekend travel to go up more than some weekday:

Around 10% fewer train services should run once the country opens up again, compared to the pre-pandemic timetable, the chairman of Network Rail has said.

The old pattern of five days of peak commuter travel may not return, Sir Peter Hendy warned the National Rail Recovery conference.

Instead, leisure travel might boost weekend traffic, especially if limits on international travel continue.

Commuter traffic could return to 80% of pre-pandemic levels, he suggested.

and interestingly:

“If Saturday and Sunday get busy in the summer we need to do engineering work at other times.”

This morning I got to FH station at 8am and had to let the 1st overground go as it was too crowded got on the 2nd one and ended up standing from Brockley to canada water (not a big journey I admit) because it became impossible to sit with a gap between me and next passenger-I didn’t wait for 8.13 London Bridge because I would have been late if train had encountered a delay.
Stood Jubilee line Canada Water to Bond St-usual scrum at Canada water interchange.
I do feel TFL have underestimated the amount of people still commuting to work in this lockdown I’d say its about 80% of pre-pandenmic passenger levels between 7.30-9am quieter in the evening (but I finish work at 7pm so maybe just as busy around 5pm)
The 1st two lockdowns trains were almost empty but since late December passenger numbers have been steadily increasing.

Thankfully though, what is being discussed is the rest of the rail network in the UK. Last year during first Covid issues, the rail network was brought back in under direct DfT control.

London Overground is under a concession agreement, with Arriva Rail London being the concession holders. TfL own it, they bear the cost risk and offer a fixed payment to ARL to operate the service on their behalf.

Before, all other TOCs ran on a franchise agreement. They bore the cost risk and took all profits etc. This is no longer the case for TOCs in the UK. They are all now, in effect, under a concession agreement with DfT. DfT set the fares, bare the cost risk etc. That’s why pretty much all the services in UK are being reduced, but we are seeing our LO services through our area staying at normal levels.

There seems to be no reduction in the number of express non-stopping trains hurtling through Forest Hill.

They come from the wealthy stockbroker belt etc…