Although Southern have announced that a few services will be operating to/from Victoria from Monday 10th January unfortunately most are still being diverted into London Bridge which means they are not reinstating the stopping service from East Croydon to London Bridge which would normally provide most of our weekday services or the weekday peak hours “service” between London Bridge and Victoria!

They have only published timetables for next week at present which for Forest Hill/Honor Oak Park appears to be the same as has been operating this week. ie. 3 early morning trains to London Bridge
departing Forest Hill at 0558, 0643 and 0658 (Honor Oak Park 3 minutes later) and 4 late night trains from London Bridge at 2310, 2340, 2358 and 0035!
Timetables
https://timetables.southernrailway.com/SN/#/timetables/702/Table%20K

Although Southern are planning to operate full weekend services with Victoria closed to Southern services again this weekend and services diverted to London Bridge we were not due to have a Southern service this weekend . But there should be services next weekend which is just as well as there won’t be any London Overground for the next two weekends due to engineering work at Surrey Quays!

Full details on the revised timetable can be viewed on Southern’s website:
Southern - Revised-timetable

South Eastern who operate from Catford Bridge into London Bridge, Cannon St and Charing Cross are bringing in a slightly reduced timetable (7%) from Monday 10th January which doesn’t seem as drastic as Southern’s. So that might be worth considering if you need to get to those areas and can either walk to Catford Bridge or are close to a 171, 185 or 75 bus stop!

Changing at Norwood Junction seems to be another option as there are plenty of additional services (largely Southern south coast services) which will be making additional calls at that station. Southern have also claimed that they will decide if they’ll make additional calls at “other stations” by which they mean New Cross Gate by midday of the day before, so will be on journey planners on Sunday afternoon if they do add any.

I’ve noticed that many of the connections via Norwood Junction only have 3 minutes. That’s not long considering there is a platform change involving 2 lots of stairs. Not great for anyone with mobility issues!

ugh! no other words really.

I just wondered if there was any intel on how long this will be going on for?
The canada water interchange was hideous this morning and the overground trains when I travel at least seem to be filling up despite the ‘WFH’ where possible instruction.
also the 3 morning and evening trains dont help the majority of commuters.

So we’ve got no trains what so ever this weekend and next? As the overground isn’t running.
Fun times!

I went on the Overground today and it is indeed shut this weekend on our route but the poster said the contingency is not bus replacement, but Southern trains running this weekend into London Bridge. The Southern site says for 15/16 Jan “We plan to operate the full timetable on Saturdays and Sundays, but it is important that you check your journey before travelling as some on-the-day alterations are expected. Services will be affected by engineering work on some routes.” But wait for more knowledgeable people on this thread to confirm.

In general though its cream-crackered. The pandemic means less ticket revenue, I suspect Southern would prefer to concentrate on longer routes. Maybe the Forest Hill route into London Bridge will become a “heritage service”, one weekend every two months, pulled by steam trains. We wouldn’t notice much difference tbh.

Your reference to a heritage service got me googling old train times. In 1938 it took 9 minutes to travel from London Bridge to Forest Hill. In 1963 it took 12 minutes. In 2021 it takes 16 minutes.
How about that for progress!
I suspect the reason for the 2021 time is partly due to the driver operating the doors and consequent safety features. The old slam door trains spent much less time at staions. I also suspect if you have generous timings your trains are less likely to be late which I think train companies are penalised for.

No! The severe reductions are only on the weekday timetables. As I alluded to in the 3rd paragraph of the original post there should be a normal weekend service on Southern this weekend which should mean 4 trains per hour to London Bridge, 2 trains per hour to Victoria and 2 trains per hour to East Croydon. And it should be the same the following weekend.

Good to know, thanks. So confusing.

Phew
I’m working this weekend and doing an extra long shift on saturday so no train service at all would have messed with my head.

UPDATE 13 January 2022

Although Southern have announced they are planning to operate a couple of extra routes into Victoria on weekdays next week there are no planned changes to our weekday services from Forest Hill/Honor Oak Park

The weekday timetables on the Southern website haven’t been updated date-wise yet (the weekend ones which are valid “until further notice” should be correct except when there is engineering work). Journey planners for next week’s services should be updated by Saturday.

Weekday timetable

Weekend timetable

The 8.02 Overground this morning was pretty busy despite the WFH directive.
I feel like we are the poor relation when it comes to transport this side of town.

So apart from a couple at 5 and 6 am there are STILL no weekday trains from Forest Hill to London Bridge (and back unless you wait until midnight) and we don’t have any idea when they will restart!

Correct! Until the Southern mainline services from places such as Brighton, Eastbourne, Littlehampton, East Grinstead etc are moved back to Victoria I can’t see much chance of us getting our Southern services back! Full details can be found here: Southern - Revised-timetable

The OG has sacked the job off a few hours early and there are - NO - trains running on the line. As there are NO Southern trains either, anyone travelling in and out of FH will have to go Victoria and then get off somewhere in Southwark/Bromley and find a bus from Penge or Crystal Palace or wherever city mapper takes you!!

It took me 2 hours to get home tonight.
Not happy at all.
Working this weekend and hoping southern doesn’t let me down as I’m on a 10 hot shift

This is so annoying.
In the 12 years we’ve lived here the transport options seem to have deteriorated.
It’s hardly like we live in a hamlet in the sticks.

Fingers crossed Southern turn out some trains tomorrow!!??

When this happens (as it did last night) I tend to go to Peckham or E Dulwich and get a bus. Obviously that was an additional challenge last night due to Peckham station being closed after a police incident (sadly it appears a woman was raped near the station on Thursday night).

For once last nights issues can’t be blamed on the rail companies! Looking at the various Twitter feeds It looks like the issues with the signalling equipment wasn’t resolved until around 6am this morning!

I go to Denmark Hill or Catford Bridge if the trains aren’t working. Denmark Hill especially is easier for interchanging with buses to Forest Hill than Peckham Rye which only has the 197.

I see yes, 176 and 185 go there

In other boroughs, each and every move away from what is right for the residents is very heavily challenged. The tone is very different, and if transport companies fail to deliver the scheduled service then it is them with the problem, it is never the problem of the residents who need and want to use public transport.

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From my reading of the Southern timetable there are now no midweek trains stopping at Honor Oak or Forest Hill until further notice?

How can Southern possibly get away with this? When I moved to the area there were trains every 15 minutes, now there are literally no trains - only the overground.

It’s supposedly because they’ve got so many staff off work either with Covid or having to isolate due to close contact with someone else who has it. However I’m suspicious it’s just that as neither South Eastern or South Western have had to cut back their services so drastically! However with new Covid cases starting to drop and the isolation changes coming in tomorrow hopefully they will start to get more staff back

I wonder if anybody responsible for transport in Lewisham has challenged them.

I am willing to accept a reduced service due to COVID, however a complete termination of the service is completely unacceptable. Especially as I believe trains are running up and down that line, just not stopping at the stations in our area. I have no knowledge of operating a train service, but surely stopping at all stations does not require a huge amount more staff than only stopping at a few?

so are Southern sending out trains, just not stopping at FH and HOP, but stopping at Brockley, NCG and whichever stations before HOP and FH?

No, they are only stopping at East Croydon and Norwood junction. There is a single service at around 6am that stops at NCG, Brockley, HOP, FH etc

They’ve suspended the stopping services to enable them to operate some mainline services that would normally operate to and from Victoria in and out of London Bridge instead. However I haven’t seen any explanation as to why they can’t operate into Victoria!

Would a more reasonable approach not be to cancel some stopping services and some direct? Rather than suspend all stopping services?

Southern I suspect are really not at all bothered about this line as a) they are more interested in longer routes and b) they will argue that the Overground provides an alternative service. Yes, I know it is a poorer service with a crowded interchange, but that is what they will argue.

So what is to be done, given that it is likely that restrictions may lift off at end of Jan which means heavier traffic going into work. Frustrating as it may be I can only suggest write to MPs, London Mayor etc.

Lewisham: vicky.foxcroft.mp@parliament.uk
Forest Hill: ellie.reeves.mp@parliament.uk

My friend and I have both sent in a complaint to Southern. We work in the NHS in central London and don’t have the option to work from home. I will now email our MP. I’m not holding my breath but better than doing nothing. I’m also regretting buying an annual ticket!

Perhaps we should contact our local MP to get off their a** and actually contact southern on behalf of their many constituents that are unable to work from home and deserve a better train service than we are getting at present.
I rather feel unless there is a large enough outcry Southern will never go back to a decent 4 trains an hour to FH and thats it…we’ll be stuck.

Please give me details of whom you contacted.
When I last did this I got no response but happy to try again because enough is enough.

I have tweeted Ellie Reeves and will be interested to see if she responds. If not I’m not sure what the best course of action is? It will really bring the area down if it continues. Personally I wouldn’t move into the area with only the overground running

This is unacceptable from Southern. Those direct routes to London Bridge / Victoria are a key draw for the area, especially considering how poorly connected South East London is to central vs other parts London. I will be writing to our MP for sure and would encourage other to do the same.

Ha ha yes I agree. I’m going to write to them all tomorrow.

I might be wrong but I think someone from one of the societies tried to find out who in the council is responsible for transport and the response wasn’t conclusive.
Shouldn’t the council appoint someone responsible for transport and hold them accountable to keeping southern + OG under control?

Ellie Reeves - the Lewisham West and Penge MP which covers Forest Hill and parts of Honor Oak has already been involved with our Southern issues after they stopped the peak weekday services to/from Victoria in September having only reintroduced them in May. She set up a meeting with Southern and representatives from @ForestHillSociety and Sydenham Society when Southern advised that they were planning to bring those services back in the December timetable which of course only lasted until Christmas Eve when all Southern services ceased for what was meant to be the 9 day shutdown of all our Southern services due to the engineering work closing all Southern’s tracks into Victoria. So Elllie should be the best person to contact about the ongoing issues. Contact - Ellie Reeves Labour MP for Lewisham West & Penge

I can work from.home but going in to the office a couple of times a week at the moment is better for my productivity and my mental and physical health.

It is very irritating that it is now more difficult to do that.

London Travel Watch are apparently the consumer representative group that can take this up with Southern and the regulator.

Also the direct London Bridge service is much easier and quicker than the Overground for those of us who work, or want to socialise, in the City, South Bank area and West End.

I tweeted Ellie Reeves and Southern have replied confirming there are three trains a day - all before 7am

Helpful!

At one stage I recall there was a suggestion that some Southern trains would stop at New Cross Gate to at least allow a transfer from Overground to rail for London Bridge. But that seems never too have happened! Looking at Trainline the advice is to walk to New Cross!

That’s what I did on Friday as I could not face the interchange at Canada Water. But obviously it is more expensive if you use PAYG as you have to tap in and out when you change stations.

Southern try their bullsxxt everywhere, but they are not allowed to get away with it in all boroughs. Southern tried to cancel all of their services through Wandsworth, as they have done in West Lewisham , but they were very heavily challenged by the council and the MPs, which resulted in Southern putting service back on the the tracks.

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In light of all this I’ve mailed my MP Vicky Foxcroft about this; I hope if many of us do the same then this will get some attention. It sounds like issues with Southern are on Ellie Reeves’ radar already which is great.

It feels like action only happens after a raft of complaints, and it would be good to see what the council’s proactive plans are to sort the mess out.

I’m writing.
I’ve truly had enough!
the suspension of Southern services has really made me not enjoy living here.
This may sound melodramatic but its affecting my mental health. Work is tough right now and Canada Water is such a grey bleak and overcrowded interchange it just drags me down.
Even if I missed a Southern train going home from London Bridge at least I had somewhere airy that felt safe to sit and wait for the next one…Trust me after 8hours on my feet all day any chance to sit down on the way home is welcome.
And Changing from Northbound Overground to the Jubilee in the rush-hour going in is a stampede.

I sympathise, the Canada Water inter change is horrible. I used to commute to Stratford and the journey, although not that long, was horribly stressful.

Moving to a job where my commute just involves a single train to London Bridge was such a relief.

Agreed! I’m heavily pregnant and on my feet all day at work. I now have to do a longer diversion home involving tube, train and bus just to avoid the Overground interchange, I used to have the Southern train option from London Bridge to avoid the OG.

They really have no idea how much this affects people!

I see Wandsworth had Conservative councillors. At the risk of this post being banned, maybe that got some more visibility with the present government (and no, if that is the case, that most certainly is not the right way to run transport!).

One of my posts was about the activity of Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, who is a labour MP.
The screen-prints I have taken are from the Twitter feeds of the person posting the activity, not from general media.
I have not seen any of Wandsworth’s labour or indeed conservative councilors/MP’s lobbying/other activity relating transport promoted by general media, such as the BBC or other papers.

I do not see how the vigorous lobbying of labour and/or conservative councilors/MP’s is dodgy in anyway, it is just about letting train companies know they must do what is right for residents.

I’ve written to Ellie Reeves. Her email is ellie.reeves.mp@parliament.uk

FYI I found a template online for writing to your MP and have pasted my email below incase it’s useful for anyone. Apparently you should include your postcode when writing to your MP, which I didn’t know.

My name is << insert name here>> and I’m writing to you today about the reduction of weekday Southern railways services from Forest Hill, Brockley and Honor Oak Park to London Bridge. As someone who lives in your constituency and works in central London, this issue is extremely important to me and other commuters living in the area. This will be particularly important when Covid restrictions are eased later this month and more people will be returning to work.

I would like you to inquire about this with Southern Railway and find out when the service will be reinstated. Please can you outline the steps you intend to take to address these concerns and keep me informed of any progress.

Yours sincerely,

name

Full address including postcode

Thank you!

Thank you - I have written a similar email to Vicky Foxcroft (I am in Honor Oak which sits in the Lewisham Deptford consituency).

Thanks for all the facts, I have just sent Ellie an email too.

With the ongoing saga of no trains on the London to Victoria route, does anyone travel to Battersea or Victoria via FH. I just wonder what route people are taking to get there. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I dread the journey to Battersea now! I will also be writing to Ellie Reeves to express my discontent. Thanks

Not intuitive but get the Overground to Surrey Quays and change to get the Clapham Junction train. Once at Clapham Junction you can get a train to Battersea or Victoria.

Is it worth raising this issue with London Mayor’s office given Lewisham is being celebrated as Borough of Culture this year without key train services running…

I am going to email Ellie Reeves today.

Whilst I have sympathy with the staffing issues being experienced by the TOCs, it is pretty outrageous we end up with no service when other areas of London still get some. There are trains still going to Crystal Palace, Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye and New Cross and they have the Overground.

Thank you for suggesting that route, will certainly give it a try

The London Assembly member for Lewisham is len.duvall@london.gov.uk and the Transport representative for the London Mayor is office@sebdance.co.uk (not exactly sure this is the right email for Seb as he just took up the role on 4th Jan)

I had been going out to East Croydon and then back into Clapham Junction. It was actually about the same speed as the Victoria train. Now there are no trains to East Croydon I am also a bit lost. Last week I did overground to Canada Water, Jubilee to Green Park, Victoria line to Victoria and then 170 to Battersea. There is probably a route via Norwood but I haven’t worked it out

I have also emailed Ellie Reeves but I toughened it up a bit, see below.

My name is John H and I’m writing to you today about the almost total cancellation of weekday Southern railways services from Forest Hill, Brockley and Honor Oak Park stations to London Bridge. As someone who lives in your constituency and regularly travels to central London, this issue is extremely important to me and especially to commuters living in the area. It will no doubt assume even greater importance when Covid restrictions are eased later this month and more people will be returning to work.

I would like you to pressure Southern Railway to end this neglect of a large swathe of your constituency and reinstate our service immediately. Please can you outline the steps you intend to take to address these concerns and keep me informed of any progress.

Yours sincerely,

Perhaps it might also be useful if the virologists conducted a study to find out why the Omicron variant particularly affects the employees of unionized industries.

It is getting ridiculous isn’t it! Currently I am going to Canada water then jubilee line to Waterloo. Get the train from Waterloo to Queenstown Rd. It works but is getting a bit costly.

One could argue that they tend to be at the front line - true key workers.

In this particular case, I don’t think the staff are affected by any more than the average population. They might have a stricter testing regime so they would be picking up more asymptomatic cases.

However, I don’t believe it’s Southern who decide which trains run but it’s the Department for Transport, led by the Secretary of State and his Ministers under the central government. There is also this other bloke in charge of the money who I’m told can be a bit stingy.

And I mean honestly, with all the heat our elected leaders are feeling at the moment, why should they care about voters in Lewisham, of all places? If I were them I’d probably blame the Mayor and let him sort it all out.

No good options at the moment…

If you’re going via Waterloo, there is also the new Northern Line branch to Battersea Power station, which might work out cheaper.

Depending on how convenient Crofton Park station is for you, there are three direct trains to Victoria in the morning. There are frequent trains from Victoria to Battersea Park. Sadly, that option doesn’t exist in the evening.

But perhaps it’s worth giving the normal route a shot? There are some journeys with one change at Crystal Palace, others with an extra change at Balham. And they’re not taking that much longer than previously. It could be a lot worse.

Depending on what side of Queenstown Rd you need, you could try bus to Denmark Hill then Overground to Wandsworth Rd and walk the rest?

The bus to Denmark Hill (30mins) and then a 10min train journey to Victoria.

Should the council/MP’s do nothing and accept that central government are (are they really?) to blame for this? Other councils are clearly doing more to get services running again and why should West Lewisham residents not expect the same?

I’d be keen to know what the councils official view is on the performance of Southern and the Overground. Do they think current service levels are fine, and therefore no need for them to take any action?

I am sure the reason stated for our southern cancellations was driver shortages, not budget constraints from central government. It feels like any plausible excuse is thrown out when Southern fail to deliver the service, rather than things being properly investigated.

Does central government neglect Lewisham more than it neglects other labour boroughs in inner London, such as Southwark? Southern are running in Southwark.

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Just a reminder that by bike it’s under 7 miles to Victoria mostly through LTNs, parks, bus and cycle lanes. Battersea is also a nice ride - there’s a quiet cycleway from the back of Brixton to Clapham North. It’s both Covid and cash free too

If you have reasons you can’t cycle then this post is not directed at you.

That’s right - I met Ellie before Christmas to discuss the issues with Southern (before Omicron came in to disrupt things again) - write up here: Forest Hill Society: Southern Rail Services – London Bridge to Victoria service update - note the key point:

Southern also reported that they were suffering from significant staff shortages due to Covid-affected drivers having to isolate, and this is the main issue for reduced service, rather than budgetary constraints or train occupancy rates.

What is it about Lewisham voters that central government has a particular lack of concern for?

Most inner London boroughs are labour held. Why does central government have particular disregard for Lewisham?

With about 1 in 10 railway staff absent due to Covid, according to Sky News, that would extrapolate to 6.5mil cases across the population, so I think rail staff are claiming to be affected considerably more than the rest of us and I find it hard to believe that train drivers count as “front line staff” cocooned in their cabs as they are.
Furthermore, each train company tells Network Rail what timetable it wants to run; Network Rail then looks across all the operators to ensure the timetables will work together and confirms to the train companies what their timetable will be. Nothing whatever to do with central government, all down to the train operators.

My point wasn’t specifically about Lewisham. It’s not just our services which are being cut. The main reason for cutting all of our Southern services is probably that we’re the only line that sees 8 trains each hour by another operator, on the same line. You couldn’t do that at other stations like Peckham Rye, because East Dulwich and others wouldn’t get any train service at all. Other areas served by Southern got a train to Balham which is Zone 3, and that was it.

Yet, the reason why our trains got cancelled in the first place was to make space for other trains from further out while Victoria was closed over Christmas. This arrangement seems to have just carried on.

How do you think Southern decide what they want to run? Contrary to what one might want to think, it’s certainly not their own commercial decision. In the same way as Go-Ahead Group doesn’t decide whether or not to run a bus route 185.

I appreciate some of southern and the overground’s excuses are valid, but taking a long term view there are too many cancellations and deviations from the timetable.

I truly believe that this point was correct at the time of writing. Looking at the most up to date case numbers, I’m surprised that the issue doesn’t appear to have got any better at all. Especially as others like London Overground manage to run their full service.

Maybe the train companies just don’t see it as financially beneficial to them to run services whilst the wfh guidance is in place, e.g. they could run more trains but prefer not to. Which, whilst I understand it from the Treasurer viewpoint is extremely disappointing for “customers”.

I reckon they are sitting on their hands waiting for the wfh guidance to be lifted (though that does not help those who have to go into work now). And I do wonder whether all trains will come back. Going from 0 to 2 trains to London Bridge would be an improvement…but it will still be less than 4. I hope I’m wrong.

Worth checking which ward you are in for this. Am in Honor Oak too, but Forest Hill ward which is in Lewisham West & Penge constituency, so I will be writing to Ellie Reeves. Crofton Park ward is in Lewisham Deptford.

Surely the issue is they cannot work from home, so even if they have very mild covid and feel fit to work they cannot.

By contrast a lot of my colleagues had mild covid over Christmas and New Year but most could keep on working as a lot of our work can be done from home.

It wouldn’t be too bad, IF we had more bus routes and/or more frequent OG’s through our area. These Southern cancellations just exacerbate how neglected we are with public transport options and ironically good transport options was why I moved to the area over somewhere like Dulwich or Greenwich.

Many thanks for these suggestions. Will check them out

It’s also not just the train drivers. There are other customer facing staff who are also off ill with COVID which would impact the staffing required to ensure train services are running. I’m sure train drivers aren’t constantly locked in that cab 24/7 therefore are coming in contact with others.

I had COVID a couple of weeks ago, simply worked from home (I caught it from being in the office a day one week and I’m not dealing with the general public). Customer facing staff and train drivers would find that very difficult, unless someone develops the technology to allow them to.

Anyway, I arrived at London Bridge last night not realising there was no trains. The Jubilee line and the Overground saw me right. Should remember to check this forum before heading out.

good point

Agree.
We moved here from north of the river many years ago because of affordable housing AND the decent transport links to my job in the west end,
The service has deteriorated drastically during that time less busses, Routes shortened and Trains terminating at London Bridge rather than Charing X (this occurred around 10years ago if my memory serves) and now virtually no train service at all other than the Overground.
Allegedly most people who are able are still being asked to WFH but my train at around 8.30am today had only a handful of seats available and by Brockley it was standing room only…I wont bore everyone again about the chaotic poorly designed interchange at Canada water which is an accident waiting to happen.

Or perhaps a number of them are just swinging the lead.

I have received this reply from Ellie Reeves’ office:-
Many thanks for your email below.

Ellie met with Southern Rail in November last year to discuss the decreased services into and from the constituency going to London Bridge, London Victoria and Charing Cross in particular. Ellie was assured services would be reintroduced from January 4th 2022 and was very much disappointed that services have instead further decreased.

Ellie has made contact with Southern Rail urgently requesting a meeting for an update and to discuss these disruptions.

We will update you as soon as we have an update on this matter following Southern Rail’s response.

Many thanks,

The fastest weekday connection from Forest Hill to East Croydon via Norwood Junction is currently 17 minutes. You’d need to take the London Overground to Norwood Junction at 22 or 52 past each hour and the connection departs Norwood Junction at 05 and 35 minutes past. It’s only 2 minutes to connect but the Overground should arrive on platform 5 and the Southern connection should depart from platform 4 which are both on the same platform “island”!

I think all of us who have contacted Ellie’s office are getting the same response!

Re: this Norwood route. Has anyone used this? Is the Norwood Junction to LBG portion really busy or is seating available?

The Norwood route options I’ve posted for @dannym are for him to get to East Croydon for the services that are running to London Victoria not London Bridge. The current Southern timetable shows what seat availability is like for most services:

It is interesting (and insulting) to realise that the two trains per day are not for the convenience of passengers, they are deliberately early in the day to avoid passengers using them. It is a parliamentary train service - with one using the Crystal Palace route and the other using the Anerley route.

Next week ‘work from home’ advice ends but the rail companies are ill-prepared (literally) for the increase in passenger numbers. I have no idea how busy the trains will be - I’ve only been to central London three times in the last 20 months.

Until recently, I found that there were seats available on trains connecting into those leaving Forest Hill at 08:20 & 08:50. That said, trains seem to be getting much busier this week. Trains returning back in the evening also tend to be busier in general, but I guess that might depend on the time of travel.

My journey home involves getting the Overground from Canada Water is very busy in the evening. Most noticeably since Southern services have disappeared. Not looking forward to when wfh ends, although most people I know are back in the office

I see that the WFH guidance is lifted with immediate effect so demand will ramp up perhaps from start of next week
There may have been some careful consideration as to whether Southern and other train companies will have the services in place to support this. But, whisper it not, maybe there hasn’t.

All the mask mandates are stopping so be less masks as well.

I’m hoping we receive an update soon confirming the council/MP’s have got our services back in place.
Great that a meeting took place with Southern in November, but that leaves a gap of 2-3 months and it is clear that more proactivity is required with transport in West Lewisham.

For the battersea/Victoria travellers…I managed to get a train from Crystal palace to Battersea this morning ( the train ran straight to Victoria). Also got it this evening back to Crystal palace. Appears to be one every half an hr. Prior to this I had nothing and had to go via Waterloo. Not sure how long lived it will be. Just a heads up to anyone still doing Canada water interchanges or going to Croydon

I found the timing of the interchange between train and OG too long sometimes when I used to do that route, especially when waiting in the cold weather. Whereas with the train from Victoria to Denmark Hill I only have to wait a couple of minutes for the 176 or 185 bus.

(I’ve also found that bus commuters are much kinder than OG/tube commuters.)

Yes I personally find it a bit shocking that the impression I get from the ‘cookie cutter’ reply from Ellie reeves office is that until several of us started emailing her she probably wasn’t aware that Southern services had been axed so drastically and that the service we were promised from early January didn’t happen.
I’m sure I read somewhere that pre-pandemic there were in the region of 5million journeys started or ended at our station.
We are not some little suburban backwater and therefore deserve a decent train service.

Apologies if someone’s already shared their responses from Ellie, I had my own this morning.

Many thanks for your email below.

Ellie met with Southern Rail in November last year to discuss the decreased services to and from the constituency via London Bridge, London Victoria and Charing Cross in particular. Ellie was assured services would be reintroduced from January 4th 2022 and was very much disappointed that services have instead further decreased.

Ellie has made contact with Southern Rail urgently requesting a meeting for an update and to discuss these disruptions.

We will update you as soon as we have an update on this matter following Southern Rail’s response.

We all had the same response.

As much as I sympathise with those who want to use Southern into London Bridge, we still have a 8tph train service that connects with tube services.

Now compare that to Southern who are attempting to operate Metro services to stations not served by the Overground who rely on them to take them to work, so you may understand why they’ve decided to prioritise lines only served by them rather than the dual services we’re used to.

Yes, it’s inconvenient that we have to get on trains with less seating capacity, but we have the option to use an alternative rail service into Zone 1 and even those who work in Croydon or use East Croydon to go further afield have alternative options by changing at Norwood Junction or go to West Croydon instead.

Sorry I don’t agree that we should feel grateful.

Most inner London boroughs are served by tube stations (some more than one line) that come very regularly every hour. We have the not as regular and usually very packed OG during rush hour. Yes, it isn’t Southern’s responsibility or fault, but TFL’s but we should not just be accepting of having a couple of train options in and out of London now and then when we are mere miles from central London.

Indeed. Also as I pointed out in an earlier post, other local stations on the Overground such as Denmark Hill, Crystal Palace, New Cross and Peckham have also retained their national rail services. Why have we been singled out for poorer treatment?

Anyone heard back from Vicky Foxcroft? I emailed her on Monday and haven’t had any response.

Hmm, I emailed Vicky as well at a similar time…with zero result. I must admit I hoped the local MPs would show more oomph. Otherwise we may find that Southern becomes just the backup when the Overground can’t run (as happened last w/e and this w/e coming).

I’ve just moved into the area(ish), my house backs onto the northwestern side of the rails above Sydenham station, so between Forest Hill and Sydenham stations. We are adjusting to the train noise, which is quite a bit more significant and frequent than we expected. I have read here that Southern is diverting some trains from Victoria to London Bridge. Is the current frequency and number of fast trains running through this route irregular/more than usual? Or is this quiet and things will be noisier once (if) the Southern stopping route starts up again? Many thanks

The southern trains are a lot slower than the awful Thameslink trains (is it?) that fly through the area, I doubt you’ll be too affected by any reinstated Southern trains as much as those high speed ones.

Thanks HillLife, glad to hear the stopping services is much slower. I’m seeing a lot of fast southern trains running through (as often as the Thameslink ones) so am wondering if that’s due to several Southern routes being diverted to London Bridge instead of Victoria.

Looking on Southerns website I see that 5-6 routes that would normally run to Victoria are being redirected to London Bridge. Curious if anyone here also lives along the rails and can say if the current frequency is higher than “normal”

Monday morning on the week that wfh requirement ends and still no trains into London after 7am again. Not good.

Looking at the Southern site it does not give me a great deal of optimisim I’m afraid:
“With several factors likely to have an impact on demand levels in a short period of time, we have brought in a service we can confidently resource, and we’ll review the situation week by week so that we can make adjustments where possible. Aside from ongoing COVID cases, external factors include: an expected update from Government regarding the continuation of ‘Plan B’ guidance and restrictions on 26 January; February half term school holidays; and a nine-day closure of part of the Brighton Mainline from 19-27 February.”
Perhaps time for an email to London Major and Grant Shapps on basis that without adequate transport into London it will hold back the recovery of central London etc, be a barrier to returning to work etc

I’ve also received a 2 page letter from Ellie’s office in the post laying out their “Casework Terms” i.e. what I can expect from her and what she expects from me. I would post it on here but a) I don’t know how to and b) it would bore everybody senseless.

Plan B guidance on 26th Jan? How odd for them to say that when the guidance was issued last week and will change on the 24th.

Southern’s latest update referred to is from 18th January. This was before last week’s government announcement to drop Plan B measures, which to me didn’t come across as planned long in advance.

It’s an emergency measure to take the spotlight off the PM.

It would be helpful if they fixed this soon - like many people I am expected to be back in the office for 60% of the time from next week.

7 days on and still no response/ acknowledgement from Vicky Foxcroft unfortunately.

I messaged Vicky Foxcroft on this today also. Given the announcement on dropping all WFH guidance came out over a week ago now, it’s completely unacceptable that Southern are remining silent on this. Reduced service is understandable, no service is pathetic.

I see the news that there is easing of restriction re overseas travel / testing which will boost overseas travel, especially for half term. Of course if you want to go to Gatwick, Luton and to a degree Heathrow then…rail connections to East Croydon or London Bridge would be very helpful.

I am beginning to think that the Southern new strap-line is “you can like it or lump it”; or perhaps “we don’t have customers any more - just collateral damage”.

I’ve emailed Ellie and Len duvall demanding a response and update on this.
the silence from our local MP (bar a standard reply to all) Is exasperating!
I’ve asked her to refer to this thread and please respond on the forum
Next stop local press me thinks…

Tweet her?

What a joke - “February half term school holidays” should not be one of the “external factors” for changing the essential train schedule for an area containing hundreds of thousands of people in SE London. Disgusting

Sent to Sadiq Khan mayor@london.gov.uk. Of course you get the email back, aim to reply within 20 days. Am trying to work out how best to contact Department of Transport. I have a bit of a fear this is only partially about staff sickness, e.g. Southern/Govia may simply want to put as much possible through London Bridge whilst the Victoria work goes on - which snookers our line. So the Mayor, Dept of Transport may be useful contacts.

I’m writing to you today about the removal (not reduction!) of all weekday Southern railways services in the key commuter line for Sydenham, Forest Hill, Honor Oak Park, Brockley and New Cross Gate into London Bridge. Before the pandemic this was 4 trains an hour into London Bridge. Going south from London Bridge, Southern Rail provided the key routes for the above stations to London Victoria and East Croydon.

These trains have been reduced to zero between Christmas and New Year and have not returned. There is no indication from Southern when they will return.

I of course understand that Southern Rail will have many staff off sick or isolating at present, and also that there are major works into London Victoria. However, I am very disappointed that there are no Southern services at all into London Bridge (and there aren’t even any stopping at New Cross Gate to allow an interchange between London Overground and Southern trains). I appreciate that we do have the London Overground, however, these trains are crowded being much shorter, and the interchange at Canada Water takes time to travel back into London. Furthermore, the interchange at Canada Water is very crowded.during peak times.

The current situation is very severely impacting commuters in South London. This will be particularly important given the removal of work from home guidance. Furthermore, not having the connection to London Bridge, London Victoria and East Croydon does not encourage people to socialize in Central London, thus meaning a drag on recovery for many businesses there. The route into East Croydon / London Bridge also is heavily used by those flying from various London airports.

I would be grateful for your to influence Southern Railway (Govia Thameslink Railway) and get them to reinstate as quickly as possible their services for the key Sydenham to New Cross Gate stations into London Bridge/Victoria.

Really good email. I would be interested to see the response.

We should probably all write a similar one.

Tried this too but no reply, and I’m not the only one who has been trying to draw attention to this via Twitter.

Response in from Ellie Reeves:

Thank you for contacting me in relation to the Southern Rail Services provided within the constituency.

I have now met with Southern Rail and have received the below written response from them which I am sure you will wish to review.

Following the meeting, I can share with you that current reduced services are unfortunately likely to remain in place until Monday 21st February 2022, thereafter Southern Rail aim to go back to the pre-Christmas tameable. This means that the East Croydon to London Bridge should resume from Sydenham and Forest Hill on that date. However, Southern has told me that the London Bridge - London Victoria loop line that was due to be brought back at peak times from the beginning of January is unlikely to come back until staff absences drop to 12%

This is disappointing as we were expecting increased services and a new timetable from the 4th January 2022. Due to high levels of staff unavailability (much higher than what was experienced between September and late December when I previously voiced my concerns to Southern Rail) the planned increase and new timetable will no longer go ahead.

Although not the update I had wanted to share with you, I hope the below goes some way towards explaining the difficulties Southern Rail are facing and how this has affected services to and from stations within the constituency.

I will be monitoring the situation and getting back in contact with Southern Rail if services fail to return on the 21st February.

In the meantime, please do keep an eye on Southern’s website for any and all official updates: Southern - Revised-timetable (southernrailway.com)

Please find southern Rails response below.

Best wishes,

Ellie
Sent on behalf of Ellie Reeves MP
Member of Parliament for Lewisham West and Penge

Firstly, we are very sorry for the disruption constituents are facing to journeys to/from central London at the moment. We know this is very challenging and we are working hard to improve the service.
Unfortunately we are currently facing a higher level of staff unavailability. To explain why the service is currently structured as it is, in late December as coronavirus cases rose, we needed a developed plan that would run reliably with fewer staff available as our absence level is very similar to the first UK lockdown, when we operated a Sunday service across the network. Absence is improving, but still significantly above the level which would make the December 2021 or September 2021 service suitable to try and offer to customers.

The only realistic option other than a Sunday service was to continue the service that had been in place over Christmas. Relative to the alternative of a Sunday service, it had the benefit of a better match to standard weekday specification, including more school trains, but had been planned around the closure of London Victoria, meaning many long distance services that would normally use Victoria are operating to London Bridge instead. The timetable was also built around a Saturday base which means that trains start to operate slightly later. We appreciate this is frustrating for constituents as they return to work but unfortunately we can’t build more services, early morning services or add additional stops without replanning the entire service. This is because all our timetables are planned carefully and holding one train at a station or adding in a train often has a significant knock on effect on the network.

We know this is very difficult for customers and we are sorry, but we wanted to provide certainty over what would run so that customers could plan. We know how disruptive large and unexpected gaps can be, and how it can knock trust in a service. This is, just to be absolutely clear – a temporary timetable based on a viable contingency plan.

We know we need to move to a new timetable to be able to do much more and we are working on this. However, even with the head-start of existing plans to adapt, it is a long process. Realistically we are expecting this to mean this current base timetable will be in place until mid to late February unfortunately because of the timescales needed to develop a new safe and resilient service plan.

Thanks Brett, it is good to have a response unwelcome though it is. I do not know enough to compare the Sunday service v what is happening now across the whole Southern Network, but I do wonder when they made their decision whether they factored in that they were completely sacrificing this part of the network for trains into London Bridge.

I guess they probably said, oh, they’ve got the Overground / they can sprint across for a 3 minute transfer at Norwood Junction.

But at least we have some material for follow-ons.

I got that response too. Disappointing. Looks like I am resigned to Canada Water hell for at least a month.

I really want to get back to the office more, WFH is getting tedious, but the journey does not look good.

I have the same reply and I’m also disappointed. I am also annoyed that the response from Southern reads as though they have reduced a few services and are providing a weekend service during the week, when in reality they have cancelled all services during the week.

Thanks for posting Ellie’s latest response @Brett - you beat me to it - I’ve just received mine!
Whilst it’s disappointing news I wouldn’t say I’m particularly surprised given Southern’s track record especially over the last 21 months!

Does this mean we’ll be back to 4 LBG trains per hour from 21st Feb?

Brilliant email.
I just received the update from Ellie Reeves quoted earlier.
I personally am not happy with being fed platitudes along the lines of ‘I know this isn’t the news you were hoping for’ or words to that effect-we were told a full service would be reinstated on 4th January this never happened-why should we believe the 21st of Feb will go ahead?
This leaves us without a full train service for over 2 months in total.
Furthermore I honestly don’t buy the staff absence as an excuse-how come other trains on other routes have been running?
I got a train to the south coast at the peak of the Pandemic there were no cancellations ( also a southern rail route) my colleague has been traveling from the south coast daily into work throughout and she was late once because her train was cancelled due to staff sickness.
It smacks of bull****.
I think more pressure needs to be put by those who can speak on our behalf ( councillors? ) to get things moving sooner
I’m sick of us being treated so badly by southern Rail.

I doubt it as 2 of the 4 services when we’ve had them have been provided by the Victoria loop line which they’re not giving a date for!

By sacrificing our route they are able to run other services using the remaining staff and possibly pushing more trains into London Bridge on different routes.

Ours is one of the few routes where there is duplication of services to every station other than London Bridge which makes it easier for Southern to switch off all the trains with less disruption than on other lines. That doesn’t mean I like it, and we need to keep pressing for the services to be reinstated as soon as possible.

I too received Ellie’s email and I’m afraid it only adds weight to my long held belief that politicians (of any hue) don’t run this country, big business does and if big businesses either want or don’t want to do something there is nothing politicians can do about it.

I replied to Ellie’s response, and in return have received the following:

Many thanks for your email below.
Ellie, as well as the three members of her team, who work out of the constituency office in Forest Hill which is open 5 days a week use these trains, have been affected and are personally aware of the cancellations and how they disrupt work and daily plans
Ellie is aware of the points you have raised below, have voiced these to Southern Rail and unfortunately the response we have sent still stands. Southern Railway are simply unable to provide services with the current level of staff sickness absence.
The following information is details on how you can complaint directly to Southern;
Call Customer Services on 03451 27 29 20. Email Customer Services on comments@southernrailway.com. Email Charles Horton (CEO) on charles.horton@gtrailway.com. Call Customer Services on 0345 026 4700.

I’ve had a reply from Vicky Foxcroft:

Thank you for contacting me about the changes to the Southern Rail service from Honor Oak Park and Brockley Stations to London Bridge and Victoria. I have had over a dozen constituents in similar situations contact me, and can fully appreciated how disruptive this change to essential services into central London must be.

**Earlier this week I contacted Govia Thameslink Railway who operate the Southern Rail services in this area, to request a meeting to discuss the disruption this is causing to constituents like yourself. **

I am hoping to have a meeting with GTR in the coming weeks, and I hope to invite all affected constituents. As soon as I have a set time and date for a meeting to go ahead, I will be in touch with details of how you can join the meeting. If you are unable to join, I will make sure to update you on all developments regarding Southern Rail services from the affected stations.

If there is anything else you would like to raise with me prior to this, please let me know.

Yes, I have had the same reply. I think the point to make to the various MPs, London Mayor, DOT and local media / Evening Standard / City AM (and anyone else you can think of)

• Southern / Govia Thameslink has closed down a key route into London Bridge. Did they explore other options to allow all Southern routes to have some services (albeit at reduced levels)
• Closing down the key route was understandable over Christmas / New Year and to an extent whilst whf guidance was in place. It isn’t once encouragement is to go into the office and to bolster the recovery of Central London
• There has to be a real concern that the Sydenham / New Cross route into London Bridge is now the “slack” for Southern and that in any cases of any operational stress our line will be halted. The obvious risk is that at some point all services into London Bridge are discontinued permanenetly (because the Overground is there)
• What is the real prospect of Southern running the important London Bridge to London Victoria route? If this is unlikely are there plans to pass this important route to TfL.

Fyi you will see from the media that there are major contractual disputes between Govia and the Government at present (which possibly could lead to effective “renationalisation”) which may be complicating progress.

Yes

It’s not just disruptive, it’s dangerous especially during a pandemic to have overcrowding at Canada Water, and on the Jubilee line. Where is the thinking about infection control?

I live near the railway and am able to see the express trains passing every few minutes, often completely empty.

I have emailed Vicky but no response yet… meanwhile my partner has continued to need to get into Charing Cross every day. It’s taking him about 1/3 longer on journey time and this morning’s train from Catford Bridge to Charing Cross was standing room only… It’s pretty concerning as there will be no requirement to wear a mask after tomorrow…

Yesterday I received this reply from Vicky Foxcroft:
"Thank you for contacting me about the changes to the Southern Rail service from Honor Oak Park and Brockley Stations to London Bridge and Victoria. I have had over a dozen constituents in similar situations contact me, and can fully appreciated how disruptive this change to essential services into central London must be.

Earlier this week I contacted Govia Thameslink Railway who operate the Southern Rail services in this area, to request a meeting to discuss the disruption this is causing to constituents like yourself.

I am hoping to have a meeting with GTR in the coming weeks, and I hope to invite all affected constituents. As soon as I have a set time and date for a meeting to go ahead, I will be in touch with details of how you can join the meeting. If you are unable to join, I will make sure to update you on all developments regarding Southern Rail services from the affected stations.

If there is anything else you would like to raise with me prior to this, please let me know."

I replied:
"I can’t help but note that Southern / Govia Thameslink has closed down a key route into London Bridge. With the Victoria station work this was understandable over Christmas / New Year and to an extent whilst wfh guidance was in place. It isn’t once the encouragement is to go into the office and to bolster the recovery of Central London. I remember in pre-pandemic days how crowded the Overground and Canada Water interchange was in rush hours (like a Tokyo commuter train!) and even at say two-thirds occupancy, the Overground will still be very crowded which is not great with Covid still present (even if declining). A stopping service to London Bridge would really have helped here, both for convenience, but also Health & Safety of commuters.

To be candid, running a Sunday service across Southern might have been a better choice as then that would preserve some services on all routes.

I do also have a concern that a precedent has been set for the Sydenham / New Cross route into London Bridge to be the “slack” for Southern and that for any operational stress, the remedy is that the stopping service to London Bridge is closed. If that happens then there could even be a risk that all services into London Bridge are discontinued permanently.

Finally, what is the real prospect of Southern running the important London Bridge to London Victoria route? There are significant numbers of people that use this to avoid going into the crowded London Bridge and use Tubes."
So, will see if a call happens…
Mind you, I do wonder if when the removal of wfh guidance was given at pretty short notice whether any thought was given as to whether the transport network was ready to carry larger numbers of people…

I think a key issue to highlight is that adding another four train loads of people an hour on to the already over burdened Overground is not great.

I have been lucky not to need to use the Canada Water interchange for a couple of years, but I remember pre pandemic there were times when it felt actively dangerous.

Now commuter levels are nowhere near what they were but numbers will be rising.

Can I ask what time they were catching the train? I’m going to have to do the same shortly but have some flexibility in when I can travel.

I’m guessing from when he left home it must have been the 8.49. Unfortunately as he teaches there isn’t any flexibility on what train he can get. I think after about 10.45 they stop going direct to Charing X and go to London Bridge and then Cannon St

Thanks. Around 8.49 would’ve been a good time to ensure an uncrowded train in pre-pandemic times. Looks as if the suspension of our line is having some terrible knock on effects.

I remember this too, sometimes the northbound platform was still clearing when the next train arrived with more people disembarking.

In a pandemic, the fact that the Jubilee Line carriages are smaller than other lines, and with less headroom, means passengers near the doors have to lean in to the centre and everyone’s faces and heads are closer together. Not good for infection control.

As someone who has not worked from home throughout the pandemic I can assure you the transport service was never empty on the tube network, it was constantly packed, even during the peak of covid. The OG and trains were the only ones that weren’t (during my commute times anyway). So I don’t think TFL or any other transport provider cares too much about busy services during covid

I hated it. There was a time in 2019 when Jubilee line train frequencies were reduced due to a train faults and parts of the Overground were very very over crowded. I remember I couldn’t get out at Canada Water so tried to change at Shadwell instead and the platform was too crowded - it was scary.

Same here. I’ve worked and commuted throughout all lockdowns bar a few weeks of the 1st one in March 2020.
TFL clearly don’t give a damn about customer health as I have never seen the ‘mandatory’ mask wearing enforced or any fines being given or people being stopped from going through the barriers for not wearing a mask. @HannahM The Canada Water interchange is quite scary too with everyone crowding and pushing onto one escalator ( I get panicky in crowds and crushed environments and it really gives me anxiety every day changing lines there) also the southbound overground platform is quite narrow in places and can get extremely crowded and scary at rush hour

I hadn’t heard of them before. Apparently you need to contact the service provider (e.g. Southern) first and then you can ‘appeal’ to Travel Watch if you don’t like Southern’s answer.

For Sadiq Khan to suggest road pricing for driving at all in London, the public transport network has to run, let alone reliably. Having Southern not bother to run services at all undermines that initiative, regardless whether you agree with the proposal.

Having just checked Southern’s site for updates this is what I found, It’s laughable!

Setting off into south London? Jump on one of the fast and direct trains from London Bridge to Honor Oak Park that set off throughout the day. Whether you’re heading home from work or grabbing a bite to eat with a friend, use the live train times from London Bridge to Honor Oak Park to plan your trip. Most journeys take less than 15 minutes, so you won’t be hanging around. Get your train tickets from London Bridge to Honor Oak Park through our website to steer clear of booking fees.

I’ve heard rumours that the number and value of compensation claims for late trains, has been a contributing factor in stopping the service?

I have lived in the area all my life and have witnessed the service get worse and worse. Since the introduction of all trains terminating at London Bridge (rather than going on to Charring Cross). It amazes me that platforming information from London Bridge is so bad, usually the last 2 mins then a mad dash.

Could TFL Rail take over the line, London Bridge to East Croydon, bring the cost down in line with the Overground. Or would that just make matter worse? or will Southern go the same route as Southeastern?

The problem is twofold I think:
Is Southern really linterested in “metro” services that start/finish in London or are they focused on the longer routes?
I can see a case that the “Metro” routes belong in TfL, but TFL is short of money and so far there is no long term funding arrangement with the govt, so is TfL in the position to take over these routes?

Not an easy one to resolve sadly.

The issue is that we’ve lost all of our Southern services, whereas other stations only had their services reduced. Why would that be? Many stations serviced by southern also have the overground and/or the underground.

Is it the more effective lobbying that goes on in Southwark and Wandsworth who are also serviced by southern. If service reductions are needed, seems other stations will spared at our expense.

If central government operate a first come first served or whoever shouts the loudest policy to trains, then obviously we’ll be at the bottom of the pile, as there’s a lot more support in other boroughs served by southern.

Perhaps it’s time for some work to be done to ensure service levels on the OG are improved as I feel that who ever maintains the line does it as cheaply as possibly, taking as long as they like because they know they can get away with it. I swear it’s the least reliable line in London.

I got the Overground this morning for the first time since the WFH directive ended. It was pretty busy. not as busy as pre pandemic but the busiest I have seen it since.

Forest Hill has always been very pi** poor for public transport. Even before this pandemic the morning Overground was stressful until you get to Canada Water thanks god I don’t travel than way now. But sometimes the Overground fails and started using my car as it was easier to get to Hackney. But it must be hell now with no southern service surely this a breach of their contract and should be stripped of it immediately. and for the local councillors and MP to say they are useless is a complete understatement kick them all out at the next elections. No I am not a Conservative voter.

For those changing at Canada Water there is the ‘secret escalator’ at the front of the northbound trains that goes up to the ticket hall and then you can go down to the Jubilee line. It is a little slower but it has always been a good way to avoid crowding on the main escalator to the Jubilee line.

Those of us who use it don’t like to talk about it much in case it gets too much more use!

I saw an article perhaps in News Shopper a few days ago about a group starting legal action to renationalize Southern which may or may not be a good thing but unfortunately I can’t find it now. Does anyone know about this?

This route was used throughout the pandemic as they closed off the main escalator, so it’s probably not that much of a secret to commuters anymore

In 2009 we had 6tph running around every 10 mins to London Bridge.

In 2022 under the emergency timetable we have 8tph operating every 7.5 minutes to Highbury & Islington which connect to the Jubilee line, the DLR, District, Hammersmith & City and Victoria lines, plus Great Northern services from Highbury & Islington.

As for Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill keeping their NR services, they have the majority of services provided by Southern, Thameslink and Southeastern where the majority of those stations have no TfL service at all.

We’ve been spoilt with 12tph pre-Covid serving New Cross Gate to Sydenham and yet people are still moaning that we still have a better service than say East Dulwich or Lower Sydenham. Southern while completely useless are right to prioritise stations wholly served by their stations that our high frequency service which is now on a par with the Uxbridge branch of the Metropolitan line.

Yep, I’ve often been diverted to the ticket hall escalator with no other option than to use it, so it’s not that big a secret. But it’s definitely a good shout when the down escalator is rammed.

Whilst it is indeed good to have the Overground, it is not, repeat not sufficient on its own. The Southern services provides key routes to London Bridge, East Croydon, transfer to St Pancreas etc

Which is why the Southern routes on our lines needs to be reinstated PDQ.

Indeed. The Overground is already overcrowded as it is the only link to the tube for a lot of SE London. If you add four more train loads of people the Overground and indeed the Canada Water interchange will become impossibly over crowded.

I don’t think wanting four trains to central London is “spoilt”.

I just noticed that southern are actually using our tracks, just not stopping, like Thames link have always done.
Maybe they should have been made to stop at Lewisham stations? And maybe this is how Southwark and Wandsworth got their services back?
Southern try to be useless everywhere, but get away with it less in Wandsworth.

I don’t think it’s melodramatic. When we returned to the office last year I cycled 16 miles a day to avoid having to take the overground now the Victoria service has gone. I’m lucky we’re only back two days a week because we gave up office space in lockdown as I don’t think I could cycle 5 days! I would basically do any route I could to avoid Canada Water and luckily because i’m south side of the tracks, the catford stations and lower sydenham are within range. I really really feel for those of you who can’t avoid Canada Water - it’s vile. Which is why I never used that route before lockdown even though it’s the quickest door to door public transport route to my office.

I cannot believe how sketchy southern is on this, pretending they are running a service but in fact not actually running a remotely appropriate service. I knew the route to victoria was out of the window (and therefore the two trains a day to LB when it’s going the other way) but I didn’t realise the rest of the London Bridge services weren’t running either. When I think that when I moved to FH you could get a direct train to Charing Cross, London Bridge and Victoria and had the overground. Now it seems we can only get to Canada Water!

The East London Line is fine in terms of frequency but the fact is it only just touches Zone 1 at Shoreditch and has much fewer interchanges with other lines than the Met. Almost all changes on the ELL are at Canada Water causing a huge bottleneck. It’s really not comparable to the Met at all.

Maybe it would be less of a bottleneck of ELL frequency increased to take up the unused track time which was allocated to Southern? Giving us something closer to normal tube frequency.

Also the capacity of some of the Overground stations is pretty poor. When the Jubilee line had issues in late 2019 Shadwell (where you can change on to the DLR) often got dangerously overcrowded.

I think things at Canada Water will improve once Crossrail opens as people will be able to get off at Whitechapel and access another East/West connection. But that feels like a long way off at the moment.

It’s not just the interchange at Canada Water that’s a massive problem, it’s also about the Jubilee service which is problematic for overcrowding and the carriages are physically smaller than other tube lines. There’s less headroom, less air. You can tell that the Jubilee was expected to be overcrowded
from inception, as there are fewer seats per carriage than other lines.

The overground for me is a far more useful and important line than the NR to London Bridge.

Yes the Canada Water interchange isn’t the nicest experience, but the jubilee line takes you to so many more places than just London Bridge (where the interchange with the tube is quite a long one).

The problem we’ve got is having both overground and NR means neither is providing a decent service. I find all the regular weekend closures of the overground totally unacceptable.

I’d obviously like to have both services. But if it was a choice of the two I’d go for the overground any day.

The key thing is that you need to have both services, certainly during the week. When I used to work in Canary Wharf I admit that I would normally do the Overground cram and Canada Water. Not pleasent, but I agree the BR/underground interchange at London Bridge was not great either.

But if you work close to London Bridge, wanted to get to Waterloo/Charing Cross then the rail is better (plus of course the rail line provides connections at East Croyden and London Bridge for airports).

I do understand that with a major upgrade at London Victoria, it is likely that there is some knock-on disruption at weekends on our line. There were big problems I think on the lines from Lewisham when London Bridge station was upgraded.

What I do not think acceptable though is to have no Southern rail services in the week. Both the Overground and Southern is needed in the week, especially as more people work in the office. Plus there is the moral point as though it rather looks like Southern has thrown this line under the bus (or more accurately non-stopping train)

I only really use Southern when the OG is down, but it is down a lot, and if we do not have Southern as a back up then our journey takes 30 mins longer, as we are not near Catford.

Stations in SW London through to Victoria station service are not serviced by the overground, and so I think there is a valid argument that they should keep the service to Victoria running.

If the worst comes to the worst and Southern get away with cancelling our local/metro service then they should be made to make some of their long distance services stop at our stations.

We really some support with getting the OG to actually run the scheduled service all the way to H&I, 8tph, every day, not finishing early.

But the jubilee line goes to both London Bridge and Waterloo. So the rail might be better but they both do the same job.

I’d actually be in favour of southern completely removing the service, if it meant that all this nonsense with the overground being down for an entire weekend once a month was stopped (hypothetically speaking).

I always go ‘up and over and down’ at Canada Water its the only way for me as the escalator down directly to the jubilee gives me the fear!
Another reason I favour the London Bridge service to the overground is actually job related.
I stand all day at work (shop assistant) and Its actually a huge relief to be able to sit down on my commute.
At the times I travel there are rarely seats available on the Jubilee and believe me being able to sit on a Southern train makes a huge difference.

I work near London Bridge, so the Southern train is ideal for me. Easier, quicker and less stressful. Also, as “old school” SE Londoners will know London Bridge, then Charing X is the best way in to town for shopping or a night out.

This does not look good.

I asked a friend who works in the rail industry what was going on. His first comment was that Southern has “much less spare capacity” when it comes to staffing, so it was particularly badly hit when high numbers of people were being forced into isolation with Omicron. He promised to look into it, and followed up a couple of days later with the following:

“New intel on your train service from an informed source. To run a train service you need to create a timetable in a system less sophisticated than Excel and upload into another system. You have to do this frequently. Apparently everyone who can do this at Southern got sick at the same time, and your route wasn’t a priority for the one chap left in the office. Nothing to do with numbers of drivers or people wanting to travel by train…”

In my mind this might explain why we have suffered a complete cessation of service to and from our station (rather than a disrupted or reduced service). It could be interpreted as reasonably positive news. But on the flip side it begs the question: why was our route not a priority? Some criteria must have been applied, presumably not arbitrary, which I think is ominous.

I asked him what he thinks this means for us, and whether we could hope to have the service reinstated reasonably soon, to which he replied “no idea”! He also corroborated the story from The Times posted above. The assumption of a permanently reduced customer base combined with the removal of vital gov. subsidies means something has to give.

Hopefully the above is interesting if not conclusive.

That may well be an inevitable consequence of a big increase in working from home. Obviously that does not help people in roles that cannot WFH and rely on the train service.

That piece in the Times is very ominous. Based on the replies from Ellie Reeves, it sounds as though the service will be reinstated from 21 February - if it’s not, I think we should consider taking further action (though I’m not exactly sure what that would look like, beyond more emails sent to MPs who don’t seem to be able to do that much!)

I was always happy with the previous mainline service of 6 trains an hour to London Bridge and the evening service to and from Charing Cross. Anyone who wanted the East London Line could change at New Cross Gate.
The Overground came as an addition, but we lost two trains an hour. Not too bad.
If the mainline trains are going to be cancelled, we should have additional Overground trains. They can turn them round at Canada Water. I was once on an Overground train that pulled into Canada Water on the southbound platform.
I suspect that Forest Hill is not a priority is because we do not make enough noise.
If the service is not improved on 21 February, I suggest we involve the media.

I went to lunch in the City last Thursday and used the 176/35 buses both ways which was very pleasant and only took an hour.

Agree on all counts.

Maybe we should start a campaign like this? Not looked in detail, only just heard of them:

At this point, do as much as you can. I have written to Southern, and to Mayor Khan’s office. It would be good to know that the Lewisham mayor is advocating for us, but I don’t know how to find that out (wrote to him once and never got any response).

When I receive a reply from Southern (assuming it’s not helpful), I intend contacting London Travelwatch.

I got this from the Major’s Office:
"Thank you for your email to the Mayor regarding Southern Railway and Govia Thameslink Railway. I have been asked to respond.

Whilst the Mayor is grateful to you for bringing your concerns to his attention, he is unable to assist you directly with your query as this does not fall within his responsibilities.

The Mayor is Chair of the TfL Board, and alongside the other board members, he is responsible for approving TfL’s budget, business plan, annual report and other major strategic issues and policies. TfL, under the Mayor’s direction, is responsible for putting in place the Mayor’s Transport Strategy, and for the day-to-day running of transport services in London.

I would like to suggest if you have not done so already, that you contact South Eastern Railway Help and Contact | Southeastern and Govia Thameslink Railway Contact - Govia Thameslink Railway regarding your concerns.

You may also consider contacting your local MP who can raise your concerns with relevant ministers. debate issues and raise questions https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/

I understand that you may find this response to be disappointing, but hope that the information provided above may be of use to you.

Thank you again for taking the time to write to the Mayor

Kind regards

Alison Frederick

Public Liaison Officer"

Given TfL is short of money and funding not agreed, then TfL taking on more routes would appear unlikely at the moment.

So it appears to be put pressure on train companies and MPs…

One would have thought that whilst our useless Mayor has no direct control over Southern Rail services he is “responsible for putting in place the Mayor’s Transport Strategy, and for the day-to-day running of transport services in London”, of which the railways are undoubtedly part, so could at least bring some pressure to bear at the highest level of those with actual control to run a decent service - if he could be bothered.

I thought that the Mayor and Tfl are responsible for Tfl services only. Which specifically does not include privately owned rail services. He has pitched for management of commuter rail services across London but the Govt will give no more powers for political reasons and won’t even properly fund what we already have. See Times article above. Even though we are clearly needing a coordinated transport management for London.

The Mayor had no control over the national rail services that come in to London. As recalled he made a pitch to bring suburban metro rail services under TfL control pre pandemic and was rebuffed by the then Transport Secretary.

I acknowledged that he had no direct control over rail services, I was just suggesting that he could at least make some effort rather than washing his hands of the whole matter.
He’s The Mayor of London, he’s supposed to be important, surely he could at least look like he cares and, who knows, they might take some notice of him.

On the other hand fewer Southern services diverts revenue to the Overground. Given TfL are in hand to mouth crisis every little helps which helps all London.

As, I believe, Southern’s revenues go to the DoT ie Grant Shapps. The minister playing hardball in supporting London - hence the Mayor may find this situation is not as disappointing as we do.

All of the non TfL service revenue inside the Oyster zone goes into a pot and is then dished out between the London TOCs. This was part of the deal to bring the TOCs into the Oyster/contactless system to standardise fares.

One of the reasons why Shoreditch High Street is in Zone 1 was to protect Southern’s revenue to stop us from travelling across London without paying the Z1 premium using the Overground.

I know there are some of you who preferred the old Southern only services to London Bridge and Charing Cross, but the benefits of the Overground outweigh the old mainline suburban services we used to have. Especially for the amount of connections with other TfL services and cheaper PAYG fares. Being able to go to other parts of London for as cheap as £1.70 is still a major benefit of the ELL extension.

Yes, I think this is the bit that’s missing in Forest Hill. We need representatives who are prepared to make a nuisance of themselves advocating on our behalf.

Yes but surely the benefits of the Overground and the benefits of Southern go together. I absolutely recognise that the Overground has brought benefits to the area including increased house prices (a double-edged sword!).

But “Some of us” like to go to London Bridge direct, or East Croydon direct (I suspwect some would say they need to). . I simply cannot see why it is not too much to ask for both Southern and the Overground to be operating on this line?!

Or are there posters here recommending Overground only? I would find that odd, given that for some people in Sydenham/Forest Hill/Honor Oak the Overground is best, for others the Southern is best. Which goes back to the overarching point that both Overground and Southern trains should stop at our stations.

It is both services, not either/or. Isn’t it?

I use the OG most often, but we shouldn’t lose an entire service, even if that means southern/thameslink will need to make some of their fly through services stop.

The loop line is east west and not serviced by the OG so they can’t say that service is a duplicate.

The OGs abysmal service levels need formally investigating as the thought of not having southern as a back up is sending shivers down my spine. If southern aren’t running anything then the OG will need to run at service levels closer to target (not finishing early at 11pm, no terminating at shadwell, no weekend closures etc).

If you need to get to the area around London Bridge, Waterloo or Charing Cross for work (as we do in this house), then the absence of Southern services makes the journey longer, more stressful and much less pleasant. It’s also made journey times to Brighton much longer - coming back on Sunday took 1hr 46mins (journey planner gave a 2min interchange at Norwood Jun which obviously wasn’t possibly), years ago that journey was possible in 58 mins on a good run. I have written to Vicky Foxcroft, but haven’t had a response - which is disappointing- I engage with her office a fair bit for work in her Shadow Ministerial role, and they’re usually fairly responsive.
I agree we should look at a more concerted joined up campaign - map out the decision makers, routes to power and influencers and come up with a plan of action. We need some volunteers!

Completely agree. For me the London Bridge train is much easier and less stressful.

Quite frustrating that if we lived further out, say Orpington (zone 6) we’d have quicker journeys and more options (London Bridge, Victoria, Waterloo and Charing Cross as well as SW London routes) than we do here!

The fact that they kept the southern trains running over the weekend, when the Overground was suspended, shows that the two services are already being used to cover each other.
This makes me believe that if we had no southern service, we’d have a more reliable overground. Which I’d be in favour of.

But obviously I could be wrong. We could end up with no southern and a still terrible overground. In which case we’d be a bit stranded.

I think they perform different functions and should complement each other.

Although I’m as unhappy as everyone else about Southern not operating almost all the weekday services from and to our local stations since Christmas they have been running weekend services since May except when there has been been engineering work on the lines!

Given how long this thread is getting I thought I’d bump the Southern response to Ellie kindly shared on here:

So perhaps worth waiting and see where we are at the end of the month.

In terms of campaigning, commuters outside of London often seem to be much more vocal. This might have something to do with the general demographics. They also tend to have it a bit easier to find an audience and a way into the media. London transport is usually seen as exceptional from outside the capital - suggesting otherwise doesn’t make a very good story.

Possibly relevant communiqué received from the Mayor of London just today:

Noting the paragraph “This is a chance for you to ask the Mayor and London Assembly Members about the issues that matter to you.” it would be interesting to see if concerns over Southern rail performance could be constructively addressed.

Also as a Perry Vale Councillor and London Assembly Member, I wonder if Sakina Sheikh may be able to help the cause - contact details here: Sakina Sheikh

Totally agree. We need both!

I went into Central London today and decided to try the Southern rail route, reverse to Norwood Junction into London Bridge and returned that way (I am recently retired so freely admit I can avoid the rush hours so I am not so severely affected as those working).

To be fair, it was OK, with the obvious caveat that the travelling time is double what it would have been if trains go from Honor Oak to London Bridge. However…
a) it does take double the time
b) Norwood Junction as an interchange has a subway, stairs, no lifts, so…
c) the Norwood Junction interchange is really unsuitable for those who are not able bodied or who have heavy luggage (compare to New Cross Gate which does at least have lifts)

On the way back I changed at London Bridge to get the Norwood Junction flyer. I saw the “departure board of shame”; every destination on the London Bridge Board had a departure time except for New Cross Gate, Brockley, Honor Oak Park, Sydenham etc which just said “speak to staff”. What are the staff supposed to say I wonder? We’ve given up on these stations perhaps? Next time I will take a photo, might be good for the MPs.

The more negative press southern receive, the better, whether from Brighton or London.

It’s good (?) to see that others are complaining hard.

Why has LNER been able to announce a return to it’s pre-covid timetable when southern are still on the floor?

Our services should be benchmarked against other inner London localities with similar population densities. Rural areas/smaller areas aren’t a fair comparison and I’m sure people outside of London are aware.

I have noticed that at Forest Hill station there is a fancy sign stating that Lewisham has been designated a centre for Culture in 2022 (I’ve forgotten the exact wording) thats all well and good but to attract people to the area the transport has to work.
As an aside I’ve heard no more from our MP or the Mayors office bar acknowledgement of my emails

I did get a response from Vicky Foxcroft. She’s apparently had “over a dozen emails” on the subject - I’m sure we can get a few more in there though, so do email if you haven’t yet… She has a meeting with Govia “in the coming weeks” and hopes “to invite all affected constituents”.

It was pretty busy today on the Overground - almost back to pre pandemic levels of crowding. Given that many people are still WFH, at lat part of the week, we need our Southern services back asap.

It would be helpful if Lewisham Council could run a consultation to find out who has been affected by the withdrawal of service, using their ‘Lewisham Life’ magazine and their website.

I don’t know if anyone has realised that 12% is probably unattainable.

If we say average sickness is about 5% ~ 10 days a year that means they have 7% excess sickness (blamed on COVID) and equates to 4.5m people with COVID at any one time. Or they have an incredibly sickly workforce in safety conscious times

OR.

They are including holidays. The legal minimum holidays is 10.7% (28/261) - most people get over 12% (32/261) - railway workers get more than statutory +4.
Basically if they are including holidays the 12% requires staff to never be sick AND not use all their holidays

Both scenarios sound like complete bullshit to me

Good and depressing point. Suggests that Southern has very little intent to reinstate the London Bridge / Victoria service). And even on the London Bridge / East Croydon service the longer it is not there, the risk is they just get used to not running the service. I’m sorry if it appears that I do not trust Southern, but to be blunt I don’t.

We have to continue to email MPs I think.

Not quite sure of the logic here. Average sickness is more like 2% in normal times according to ONS but is much higher in some work settings due to the pandemic. I know in Education has been roughly 15% in some schools but this isn’t just due to COVID illness but isolation requirements too. It is not an answer anyone wants but I don’t think 12% is out there.

But if you say 2% is normal then they are running at 10% excess due to COVID.
If extrapolated to the whole population that would mean 6 million people in the UK are sick or isolating!
And remember that is the number they want to bring it down to - the number is actually higher!

It sounds bullshit to me (or they are incredibly permissive in allowing sick)

Perhaps Southern have just decided they don’t want to run services on this line and are chucking out some figures to support this.

The Littlehampton and East Grinstead trains which should run from Victoria ( 4 trains an hour) are still starting at London Bridge so presumably have bumped out are trains. So maybe when work is complete at Victoria we might get our trains back.
They stop at Norwood Junction which is handy for anyone going in the Littlehampton or East Grinstead direction!

Agree,
and as mentioned by @HannahM the Overground this morning and this evening was was packed! Standing room only by Honor Oak park going eastbound and only a handful of seats at forest Hill.
Coming back this evening there were no when I got on at Canada water and I’ve taken to using the stairs to platform 3 from the Jubilee Line because the queue from the escalator is so bad.

Here’s a reply from my complaint to Southern:

"I appreciate the recent timetable changes have particularly impacted some passengers, and I’m sorry that’s the case. Just to explain the need for the changes, like many other industries across the country, Coronavirus continues to affect our people and disrupt our business, especially the widely reported new variant.

There are two main factors at play: the first is short notice absence due to track and trace mandated isolation and positive Covid tests. The second factor is the cumulative result of at least sixteen months of disruption. In particular, Coronavirus has had a knock-on impact on driver training, as social distancing limited numbers in the cab and the classroom. With regular staff turnover, there are now fewer people available than before the pandemic.

We’ve seen a similar impact on other critical roles including engineering teams, on-board crew and platform dispatchers. So, while our depots are fully staffed, the number of qualified crew that are available on a day-by-day basis is less than before the pandemic. In normal circumstances we’d cover small gaps through overtime; now, the number of people who are available and also have the right training is far smaller.

By reducing the number of trains in a planned way, the remaining train service will be more reliable for everyone and will mean you can still plan your day around your journey.

We’re needing to review the timetable on a weekly basis and we’ll do our best to introduce more services. If you haven’t already, please check out our webpage which we’ll keep up to date as and when changes will happen: Southern - Revised-timetable.

I hope this helps explain the current situation but, if you have any further queries or concerns, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line. Thank you again for getting in touch."

I mean our new train service IS reliable…

Reliably not there.

Yes, because we all have the freedom to pick our working hours…

The response from Southern does not address the zero service for us. I guess they didn’t bother to check the actual route and just assumed we have a reduced service rather than a non-existent service.

I’ve just posted details of the new Southern timetable that has been announced and updated in National Rail’s Journey Planner (It’s good news! )

Yup! Spoke to my nephew who drives on that line. He said he did an evening peak train to West Croydon other day and people were being left behind at Canada Water, was mostly standing only from Whitechapel. So it’s not purely down to London Bridge services, just people returning to normality.

@Sherwood - They can turn them round at Canada Water. I was once on an Overground train that pulled into Canada Water on the southbound platform.

It can be done in out of course situations, such as extreme delays or problems with the line. In normal service though, it couldn’t work. There is a 6 minute minimum allowance for turning around a train (ie driver comes in to platform, lets people out, turns off train, walks to other end, sets ups train), which is way more than the current headway allows. If it were to be slotted in between trains, you’d have to double-man it, ie have another driver ready to go at the other end, which would mean increasing NXG depot drivers. Even if that were the case, there is a minimum allowance of 3 minutes to set up a train, That’s 2.5 minutes longer than currently used. It just genuinely can’t be integrated in to the timetable to have a timetabled Canada Water terminator.

There will be an increase to 18 trains per hour in either May or December this year though. Not sure where the extras will go, most likely Crystal Palace. They’ve already started works on new stabling sidings at New Cross (old LUL sidings) to accommodate the extra trains from rest of the network. Also will probably berth 2 trains at night at West Croydon platform 1, which is why some new security fencing is going up now there.

The New Bermondsey development planning application has been agreed in last week with Lewisham Council, so expect possible closures to the Clapham Junction line. Also Surrey Quays station upgrade is taking place, so if there are a lot of full line closures, it will be because of this. However, if there’s no service through Surrey Quays, there is absolutely no reason for there not to be a shuttle service between New Cross Gate/West Croydon/Crystal Palace. Unfortunately though, TfL own the line from from NXG to Dalston Junction and outsource the maintenance. South of NXG is Network Rail owned, so if Network Rail decide to do maintenance at same time as an ELL closure, there’s nothing TfL can do.

Also surely part of the issue is there are only so many trains that can go through the old East London line part. when I used to get the train from Shadwell there would often be congestion in that bit, particularly as over crowding meant there were boarding delays at Canada Water.

Apologies for going off topic, for obvious reasons I’ve been using the Overground recently, does Wapping station always smell like a sewer?

Pretty much, yes.

My point was that you cannot extrapolate to the whole population like that. Not everyone is exposed in the same way and some occupations are way more unhealthy than others.

If course there is a lot of truth in that, but the number of employees is large enough to cover a broad section making direct extrapolation fairer. Even if I said they were ten times more unhealthy the numbers would still be silly

Of course train workers are safety roles so they should maintain a standard of fitness so they can execute those roles…

I work in a busy west end shop where even when masks were mandatory many customers didn’t bother and possibly as a result of this and and working when office workers were told to WFH many of my colleagues got covid or were isolating (In my department at one point before christmas out of 20 members of staff 12 had Covid )
HOWEVER at no point despite being extremely short staffed throughout December and January (our busiest times due to christmas and january sales) the shop never closed its doors we managed to trade with just about 2/3 of our workforce -I dont understand why Southern had to stop every train on our line except two before 7am and two after 11pm ‘due to sickness’ it doesn’t ring true.
In fact it smells like bull

What is the source of this information, please? I can find references talking about the plans to run more trains in general but nothing that’s recent and/or has a date stated.

I’d love to see it happen, but with talks about TfL possibly having to close entire tube lines I find it hard to believe they would find the funds to put more trains on the Overground.

Perhaps the person responsible for transport within Lewisham could provide an official and factually correct response as to future improvements or cuts to Lewisham services? It’d be odd if they didn’t have this info to hand.

Also, referring to Flora’s note, would it be a good idea for someone to set expectations out for the OG when doing Surrey Quays station improvements? I can see they’ll try to close the entire line, quoting Surrey Quays station improvements as an excuse, when we know (well in advance) that they can provide the OG service south of New Cross Gate, thereby at least leaving us with the CW interchange.

They’ve definitely shut the whole line before, when they could have kept sections of it open.

We could set the bar high by letting the OG know in advance that it won’t be acceptable not to run the service south from NCG.

Any extra Overground services would go to Crystal Palace because there isn’t the capacity to send more trains to West Croydon until the major remodelling of the Selhurst/Norwood Junction to East Croydon corridor which would untangle all the lines as what Network Rail did to London Bridge for the Thameslink Programme.

It’s good that network rail carry out out necessary maintenance and improvement works, but please not to the detriment of services from Forest Hill. Forest Hill services need to run to the schedule and no more excuses! We’ve had enough! Engineering works can take place on the night shift so as to avoid leaving Forest hill with no trains, as is standard in other London boroughs. No more service cancellations please!!

I was looking at some old Southern Region timetables from the 50s and 60s recently and if you think the trains are bad now, this is what Forest Hill commuters had back then.

3tph to London Bridge.

2tph to Sutton via West Croydon.

1tph to London Bridge southbound calling at all stations to Norwood Junction which would then swing round to go on the Brighton Main line towards Victoria calling at stations such as Selhurst and Streatham Common before going up to Tulse Hill, North/East Dulwich, Peckham Rye to London Bridge.

East Croydon trains were few and far between and by the 60s, there were also additional trains to Crystal Palace from London Bridge.

What is the source of this information, please?

My nephew is a driver on the London Overground East London Line, based at New Cross Gate depot. He’s been giving me the information from what he’s been told from his management/union. London Overground is a National Rail service, not LUL, so if TfL feel the need, they can just sell off the infrastructure they own and services to DfT.

I find it hard to believe they would find the funds to put more trains on the Overground.

It has always been the plan, that once all the new 710s are in service, that will allow the 378s from the GOB/Watford DC/NLL surplus trains to come back to ELL to enable uplift in service. The ideal plan is to increase ELL core route to be at least 20tph without new trains or change to ETCS signalling. So it will be extra trains to Crystal Palace and Clapham Junction. Major thing holding it back is stabling space, which is why West Croydon and New Cross sidings are being brought back in to use. Extra trains to Clapham Junction will require step-backs, ie driver brings a train in, waits for next train. Previous driver will take that train out.

Before the pandemic, there was going to be some signalling changes around Canada Water, to allow more trains through, pandemic stopped it all. Currently, northbound, you can have one train at Surrey Quays, one train between Surrey Quays and Canada Water, one train at Canada Water and one train at Rotherhithe. The new signalling will allow there to be an extra train between Canada and Rotherhithe, which increases amount of trains able to travel through the area and speeds things up. This will increase the throughput and allow trains to move through quicker.

No objection to increased numbers of Overground trains (provided no detriment to Southern into London Bridge…) though I wonder if they will have to think about safety at Canada Water interchange. I suppose if its the same number of people coming in on more frequent trains its broadly neutral, but if more people are coming in then that interchange will be even more grim at rush hours (plus if something goes wrong at Canada Water with the Jubilee, then the main alternative is Shadwell which is a very narrow platform).

Interchange at Whitechapel may become more popular when the Elizabeth Line opens. This is scheduled for June 2022.

Won’t it make the interchange less busy? As the same amount of people will be spread out between trains.

Also I believe that the Jubilee line will become less crowded, so this will also help things at Canada Water.

As mentioned, once the Elizabeth line opens, it’s likely the Canada Water interchange will only be used by passengers who are going to London Bridge, Waterloo, Westminster, Canary Wharf and North Greenwich.

Those who want the West End and City will find the Elizabeth line much faster with better connections to other stations. (Whitechapel to Bond Street will be mere minutes compared to Canada Water to Bond Street on the Jubilee line) It can also be used for Canary Wharf if the Jubilee or DLR are down. The line also connects with Thameslink at Farringdon, which will negate the need to use London Bridge if Southern continue to not provide a 4tph service.

“As mentioned, once the Elizabeth line opens, it’s likely the Canada Water interchange will only be used by passengers who are going to London Bridge, Waterloo, Westminster, Canary Wharf and North Greenwich.”

You’ve missed out a whole section on the end of the district line westbound after Westminster that won’t have better connections via the Elizabeth line.

I don’t see your point here? The Elizabeth line will reduce the amount of passengers on neighbouring lines, including the District, but it’s fair to say the Central and Jubilee will benefit the most from the new line absorbing passengers who currently use those two lines. If you commute to Victoria via the Jubilee line, you should have a better chance of a seat or standing space during the peaks from this summer.

It’s the same as what the Overground did to the Southern services which were a nightmare during the peaks pre 2010 by taking those passengers who had no choice but to go via London Bridge onto other services at Canada Water which made the Southern trains more bearable for space.

I think most people would prefer the single change at London Bridge rather than a change at Whitechapel and Farringdon. London Bridge also provides better connection (simpler and faster) to Northern Line.

You are absolutely right about alternative routes for Central Line and West London destinations.

I saw the point as relevant as comparisons to timetables 70 years ago.

An old article, but does explain this (in more detail than probably wanted ): https://www.londonreconnections.com/2017/trains-london-overground-bargain-never-repeated/

Thank you for letting us know!
Was writing up a description this morning and realised something wasn’t quite right…

Thanks for sharing all the inside knowledge. I suppose what it confirms is that nothing has been publicly announced, which to me suggests there is at least an element of risk of it not happening.

That sounds intriguing. Would the treasury be prepared to open their coffers to buy out TfL, in return of having more control over London services? Would the Mayor’s office be prepared to let their success story London Overground go, at the time when all the prospective buyer is going on about is “levelling up”?

It would be a bit like selling off my landscaped garden to some uncaring neighbours just because I can’t afford the latest lawnmower.

We are starting to make it into the news.

See this link:-

South London commuters furious after Southern Rail cuts trains to key stations

Good to see this is in the news but rather worryingly the article says:
“Southern said that from February 28, trains running on the West Croydon to London Victoria line via Crystal palace will once again stop at all stations. Full service will resume on the East Croydon to London Bridge on the same day.”

I thought it was supposed to be from 21st February - see a previous post “Southern have announced their weekday timetable changes from Monday 21st February - Friday 25th February and with more services being transferred back to Victoria from London Bridge the stopping service from East Croydon to London Bridge is finally being reinstated”

Has My London got it wrong or has Southern “amended” their plans…

It wouldn’t be the first time My London hasn’t got their facts completely straight. As per my update yesterday on the “Revised Southern Railways weekday timetable from Monday 21st February” thread Southern have now added the actual revised timetables for the week of Feb 21st to their website, and this shows both the return of both the East Croydon-London Bridge stopping service as well as the Victoria-London Bridge service via Crystal Palace in peak hours.

Southern have advised more direct services to Victoria will be introduced from February 28th but have not yet published any further details. However, as both our Southern services are being reinstated on February 21st - I’d be surprised if there are any further changes to those on the 28th.

The trouble is, if the service isn’t running now the pandemic is apparently over, then I can’t use it so I can’t give them money for it. Because I got the Victoria service I don’t have a line any more so I cycle. Win for me on fitness and money saving but I’d rather have the choice. And the basic principle of sales is that if it’s not on the shelf you won’t get any money for it because no one can buy it. Southern isn’t getting money from me because the service I used to by isn’t available. But if the Victoria service ran I’d be using it and paying for it.

See here for some good news:

Vicki Foxcroft is chairing a meeting with Southern at 5pm 23 February

"Thank you for contacting my office regarding the issues you are experiencing with the Southern Rail service between stations in the local area and central London.

I have coordinated a meeting with Patrick Ladbury, Paul Codd and Olivia Barlow- who are stakeholder managers at Govia Thameslink Rail – the company that manages Southern Rail services. I will be chairing the meeting and will be joined by a member of my office team.
The meeting will cover the changes to services and I hope will present us with an idea of what will be in place to cover these services going forward."

I guess any others who wrote to Vicki will receive an invite.

Yep got an invite too. Interesting they’re times the meeting after 21st Feb when they claim services will restart…

Sadly I’ve heard nothing from Ellie Reeves save acknowledgement of my letter to her.
very disappointing

I was just in Vicky Foxcroft’s meeting with Govia Thameslink Rail along with (I’m guessing) a couple of people who have been participating in this thread.

GTR say they are only committing to run the present services (which have just been reinstated) until May at which point they will reassess demand based on passenger numbers. Several of us raised the concern that passenger numbers are likely to be in correlation with the available services. For example for me personally I have been avoiding the Overground from HPA as it’s so unpleasantly packed and instead taking more circuitous, less convenient routes via Crofton Park etc. so I’m not being counted as a passenger on my normal route.

Sadly there is no prospect of the LBG-VIC route returning as far as I understood it.

Vicky suggested everyone check in again closer to May which seems sensible.

Yes I was in too - they did say they could possibly consider swapping the Lon Bridge to East Croydon for the London Bridge to Victoria (so still just 2 trains per hour into Lon Bridge). We said that we shouldn’t be forced to choose! And made the point that Norwood Junction is a really poor interchange if not able-bodied. To be honest I think they are interested in longer commuter routes than the “Metro” routes which stay largely within Z2/3.

I think they said they could consider restoring the Victoria loop in the May timetable…
But their case against is dependent on passenger numbers, passenger revenue and their chronic lack of drivers.
Govia’s franchise is up in April and there is a chance they could lose it though…

It’s hard to imagine this bunch of clowns keeping control of the franchise (unless they have donated money to the appropriate political party).

Thanks for the updates @SweetPotato, @squashst and @suze even though the response from GTR was pretty much as expected! And now it is becoming more difficult for them to blame staff either with Covid or self isolating they are finally having to admit that they don’t actually have enough drivers full stop. How ridiculous to even suggest they could possibly consider switching the East Croydon service for the Victoria service when we need both. I’m concerned though how they will reassess demand for the Victoria service when it has largely not operated for close on two years and those who used to use it are having to take totally different routes using other companies…

Perhaps our biggest hope is for GTR to lose the Southern franchise although with Great British Railways coming in next year what’s the betting Southern will be given an extension to at least next year?

I think the best outcome for us may well be them losing the franchise…
there is a crowdfunded campaign on that I noticed

Michael why are you allowed to get away with political comments ?

It would be interesting to know how they will do this.

I took Southern yesterday to London Bridge and changed to to another mainline train, without scanning any card or ticket, How will the Southern computer know that I took their train from FOH to London Bridge? My TFL card (scanned at FOH) gets me to to any station in Zones 1 - 6. I had an additional ticket from Zone 6 to St Albans for the part of the journey not covered by the TFL card.

Presumably there will be an assumption that as you have not checked out at an Overground station you used the mainline train. Also, some trains seem to measure passenger numbers by weight. They seem to know which carriages have more or fewer passengers!

Exactly. To go from Forest Hill to London Bridge on Southern requires no need to go through barriers when changing on to Thameslink services. However, if you were to go from Forest Hill to London Bridge via London Overground and Jubilee Line at Canada Water, you will be required to go through two sets of barriers at London Bridge. One at the tube concourse and then walk to the main railway concourse and go through another set of barriers.

Its ridiculous. How can they possibly assess demand for a service that is closed?

Surely residents in West Norwood and Streatham Hill must be livid too. Have no trains at all!

For years people have argued metro lines like this should be in TfL. Why not just make it part of the overground? It literally runs from two zone 1 stations.

I agree with you about transferring London Victoria to London Bridge Metro Services to TfL. I am not saying Tfl would have been perfect, but if they had the service I reckon a better chance of having some service to London Bridge over the past months. However, the government of the day, 5 years or so ago did not like the idea of rail metro services being transferred to TfL (failing Grayling). Now TfL is short of money and to take on extra lines would presumably need money from central government. This is a challenge (in all fairness, all transport companies are probably short of money).

So, sorry to say, I do not anticipate TfL getting money anytime soon to get the Metro lines. I wish it was different. Sorry.

And yes, you are quite correct, if there are no services on a line, then there are no passengers and accordingly no demand. Its a circular argument and a rationale for not running trains on a line that the rail company does not want to run services on, because their priority is longer routes into London.

Trains from London Bridge were going to Streatham Hill via Forest Hill the other night. First time I’ve ever been on a FH train that finished at Streatham Hill.

Does anyone know if this train that ended in Streatham would have usually have gone to Croydon or Victoria?

But after going though the barriers at Forest Hill with his zone 1-6 card @DevonishForester could just as easily have taken the Southern East Croydon service and changed at either Norwood Junction or East Croydon onto other Southern services without going through any barriers. Or as it was a Saturday he could have got the Victoria service and changed at Clapham Junction onto South Western services without going though any more barriers.

Southern have a depot at Streatham Hill which is on the “loop line” to Victoria. Some of the early morning trains start from there and some late evening trains terminate there.

It happens occasionally - I’ve definitely been on one that terminated at Streatham Hill. It’s the Victoria route.

West Norwood and Streatham Hill are served by Southern’s West Croydon - Victoria service (every 30 mins) and in addition West Norwood has Southern’s Beckenham Junction to London Bridge service every 90 minutes with additional services around school times.

Ah okay, it was a first for me and make me double take if I was going on the right train. It seemed like every train that evening was going to Streatham Hill so wonder if there wasn’t enough drivers to take the trains into Victoria and back so the route was shorter

Last week Southern were running to an amended weekday timetable which resulted in the reintroduction of morning and evening peak services between London Bridge and Victoria and v.v. Looking at the timetable the 1858, 1928 and 1958 departures from London Bridge were scheduled to terminate at Streatham Hill.

With yet another weekday timetable being introduced from today until May (see Southern weekday timetable from Monday 28nd February - Friday 13th May 2022!) services are being withdrawn again so the only trains due to terminate at Streatham Hill will be the 2328 and 2358 departures from London Bridge!

Putting the question of finding out about demand on individual lines to one side, my own observation is that London Bridge trains are fairly empty compared to some other trains I’ve recently used. For example, even tonight with only two trains per hour running there is only about one passenger in each bay.

Perhaps that was to be expected given that the trains to London Bridge hadn’t run for a while before they started again last week.

It will be interesting to see the impact of the tube strike tomorrow. I assume Overground will be far less convenient, although perhaps many people will be staying at home?

Is the answer then that either we all eat more or carry extra weight on our journeys………

Have to say when I used the train last week it was so much better getting home in the evening with a proper service running.

Follow-up email from Vicky Foxcroft’s team today -

Thank you for contacting Vicky with your concerns regarding the recent reduced Southern Rail service between East Croydon and London Bridge which calls at Honor Oak Park and Brockley stations. Thanks also to the constituents who attended the meeting with Vicky and Govia Thameslink Rail on 23rd February- it was very useful to have your input.

Below is a summary of the points GTR raised along with the questions Vicky and constituents asked with GTR’s responses. We are hoping to convene another meeting with the rail operator in mid-April and again in May after the new timetable has been published. If you have any comments or questions for Vicky in the meantime, please do let me know by replying to this email.
​​​

Problems outlined by GTR that are affecting timetabling and services:

1. Crew availability: – due to long-term sick leave for some staff and a training backlog. They outlined that train drivers have regular training every 2 months which must be maintained. The recent cessation of services between HOP/Brockley and London Bridge was in part due to this.
2. Passenger Numbers: Passenger numbers are at around 50% compared to pre-pandemic levels.
3. Revenue Issues: Similar to the well-publicised problems TfL faces.

Questions from Vicky and constituents:

1. Q: How long is the reduced midweek service between Honor Oak/Brockley and London Bridge planned to be in place for?
2.A: At least until the introduction of the next timetable which comes into effect on 15th May. This depends on passenger number recovery.*

3. Q: What provisions can constituents expect to be in place to support weekday commuters?
4.A: The new timetable introduced from end of Feb has two East Croydon – London Bridge services per hour at peak times.*

*5. Q: **Is there any way to reduce disruption and increase services/train size on weekend services on this route?​​​​​​
6.​​​A: Weekend services have not changed since pre-pandemic as passenger levels are what they were in 2019. Leisure travel demand remains high. No plans to change the service.

1. Q: Are there plans for the London Bridge – London Victoria direct route to be reinstated?
A: This will be revisited when the May timetable is being developed.

2. Q: It feels like routes here could be first to be cut. The East Croydon - London Bridge service is important to us.
A: Need to fix crew availability issues. Looking at passenger behaviour going forward to make decisions. Stakeholders will be consulted going forward if any big changes are made.

3. Q: When will analysis be made of passenger numbers? It is uncomfortable to travel on existing services and people are losing confidence in existing routes and using Overground/Thameslink. Worried that will affect existing trains.
A: Not using data from past few months to make decisions. East Croydon to London bridge service could be tracked for 6 months and that would provide analytics. Current behaviour is an anomaly and is not being used to track data.

4. Q: The cancellation of the Victoria-London Bridge service is disappointing. Changing at West Norwood is not accessible. What options are there?
A: Looking at alternative options to maintain good service. Will be revisited in May.

5. Q: How will the expiry of the franchise contract affect future plans?
A: The franchise will expire on 1st of April, and will either be renewed or the franchise will be run by the Operator of Last Resort.

Actions:

** 4/21 – Arrange another meeting in early April after franchise contract is finalised.*
** 5/21 – TBC Arrange another meeting in May (with GTR or OoLR) when new timetable has been released.*

Personally I really miss the Victoria-London Bridge service .
I wonder how they can decide wether to reinstate that service on week days peak times ‘based on passenger numbers’ when theres been no service on that route on what seems like forever so no route available equates no passengers.
I hope I’m making sense.
They could at least re-instate the Victoria-London Bridge between 6.30am-10am and 4pm-7.30pm to help during rush hour.

Or at least have some (if not all) of the fast trains from East Croydon stop at New Cross Gate so that people can change there for a mainline train.
I think they just want use our tracks for more lucrative long distance trains.

I would love to use the Victoria service as I need to connect at Clapham onto a South Western service to get to work. Currently going FH to Canada Water to Waterloo then onto my South Western service, adding time and money to my journey.

I’d love to know how Southern know that I would like to use that service as I can’t register my interest anywhere.

How were the passenger loads on the 2tph London Bridge service today considering there were no tubes today making the Overground service largely redundant except for connections to the DLR at Shadwell or Great Northern and other Overground services from Highbury & Islington?

The East Croydon service of 2 trains per hour has now been reinstated (26 and 56 mins past each hour from Forest Hill) and gives the fastest connection to Clapham Junction and stops you from going into zone1 Also there are connections via Crystal Palace available at 16 and 46 past each hour which take a little longer but again avoid zone 1.

We still only seem to have 2 trains per hour in the evening peak 16:40, 17:10, 17:40, 18:10
There are 4 trains per hour in the other direction, but not out of London.

Any idea why this asymmetric service?

You are asking the wrong people(commuters) try the train operators.

Its a nonsense- I have to leave work early to be sure to catch the 18.40 if I miss that I tend to go to Canada water rather than face a 30min wait.

I got the 17:10 today - only six carriages. Plenty of spare seats but half the length of the trains pre-covid. It is a good thing so few people are working in Central London these days.

A couple of nights back I got the 11:10 from London Bridge, it was 8 carriages, but 2 minutes before departure, we got told it was becoming a 4 carriage.

But in general terms I hold to the view that Southern sees services to East Croydon, and even more Victoria as low priority and they focus on longer commuter routes. And given the tension between the UK Government and London Mayor it is hard to see a resolution.

Looks like Govia have kept the contract to run Southern and Thameslink for another 3 years… starting from 1st April…

The only good thing about this that it is just a management contract (don’t know detail but could be similar to way Overground operates). Stunning though that they get awarded anything while same group under investigation at SFO.

Ha! I disagree.
try and squeeze onto a rush hour Overground train travelling into town and then catch a Jubilee line Northbound… ditto coming back around 6pm The trains are packed
as packed as pre-pandemic.

Correct. London Overground runs as a “concession agreement”, as in TfL acts as the overseeing body who delegates the operation to their chosen operator, in LO case, Arriva Rail London. TfL put up all the risk and pay ARL a fixed sum to operate the concession to TfL’s standards. If ARL don’t meet KPIs across the network, they get fined. Fines for graffiti, late trains, cancelled trains, ticket machines not working etc. If however, there is any money left over, ARL get to keep it as a “bonus”.

Beforehand, DfT (Department for Transport), used to assign franchises to operators. This meant that the operator took on all revenue risk and had no KPIs to adhere to with DfT. Franchisees were only getting income from ticket sales and delay fines from other operators that affected their services.

In the new regime, DfT is effectively now only giving out concessions like TfL. The government is taking on the revenue risk and giving new concession holders a fixed sum to operate. This should give operators greater flexibility in being able to run a better service as the money is there upfront now, instead of having to wait and do things as and when the funds flow. So even though it’s the same public facing company, HOPEFULLY, things will be a bit different as they have changed how things operate behind the scenes.

More from the useless Southern Rail

oh no !!!

Southern are retiring their 455 fleet from the May 15th timetable change. So no longer will there be the 8-car older trains. However, this does mean that the 377 fleet (similar to LO ones), will be spread further. So if the London Victoria service does return, they’ll mostly be formed of 5-car trains. Southern might get some of the 377s back from Southeastern though to boost up the requirements, now that they’re getting SWRailway’s 707’s. If Southern decide though that they don’t have enough units, I can sadly see them putting off bringing it back full time for a LONG time.

Oh no! Any excuse - but if they try then we’ll just have to get our MP involved again and I know people in other boroughs along the route between Crystal Palace and Balham have complained to their MP’s that they’ve still got such a reduced service. So I think there’s a lot of people who will be getting involved if they still try and get away with no weekday service except for 2 trains to LBG in the morning! Thanks for the heads up. Hope you’re keeping well. .

Yes!
We have to find a way to make Southern actually realise that FH is a busy commuter station and we actually not only NEED but deserve a better service.
The Overground alone is just not sufficient…You only have to see the crowded Platforms at canada Water during rush hour to confirm this.

I’m not quite clear how they’re able to “monitor demand” on services that have been almost fully withdrawn, requiring people to cycle or take non-rail routes to their destination.

I suppose they can look at the services that still run. Until those trains arrive at London Bridge full and standing, I can see a line of argument that says the current offer is sufficient. Full and standing they aren’t - for now at least.

As for more anecdotal evidence, I took a train to East Croydon the other day on a sunny Friday at around 11 in the morning. I was the only (!) passenger in my coach until the train got to Norwood Junction! That is with the East Croydon train running at the same frequency as pre-Covid.

In a parallel universe (or a different country) you might look at encouraging people to use public transport more instead of cars to avoid a looming climate catastrophe, but that’s perhaps best for another day.

I would be surprised if they didn’t know. What does “deserve” mean in this context?

Aside from the fact that platform crowding at Canada Water is unlikely to be among the top of Southern’s concerns, is the situation any worse than before Covid?

As per my other post, there are usually plenty of seats available on trains leaving London Bridge. It would be hard win the argument for even more empty seats to address a crowding issue elsewhere.

I’m conscious that I’m slightly playing devil’s advocate. I for one am very cross with trains leaving London Bridge only every half an hour. But perhaps this reflects more on my impatience and inability in sticking to time than there being any genuine shortage in journey options.

It is certainly irritating but I agree currently manageable. Although
i have an office job so I can easily arrive and leave when I like (within reason) less good if you have a set start and finish time or other commitments (like childcare pick ups)

I think that the travel is back to pre=covid levels at least on my rush-hour commutes
My argument is for 4 trains an hour between say 6.30am-10.am and then from 3.30pm to 7pm to cover the rush hour traffic.
2 per hour is adequate during off peak.
The other day I needed to get to Victoria on my day off…this involved overground-jubilee getting off at Westminster and change to Circle and district in order to make my appointment.
When once it would have been 1 train journey