The final version of the South London Route Utililsation Strategy was published last week and includes some generally good news for Forest Hill and Honor Oak Park.

You can read the 160 page document at http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browseDirec...Strategies
I have taken a brief look through and here are a few points I picked up on:

2010 Services

• 5.3.7 - Continue running 18 trains during the morning peak from FH to London Bridge. These will all stop at HOP, increasing services at this station.
• 5.3.7 - 10 trains per hour (tph) on the East London Line (ELL), up from 8 originally planned in the draft version
• 5.3.7 - all peak services to LB will have 8 carriages. At present 2 tph are only 6 carriages
• 6.3.2 - introduction of 2 tph during peak times going directly to Victoria (via Clapham Junction)
• 20.5 (p145) - further consideration to keeping off-peak services from Charing Cross
  

2015 services

• 7.2.5 - increase length of trains to LB to 12 carriages (possibly as early as 2012)
• 9.4.3 (and figure 9.2 p114) - 4 out of the 6 tph to LB will be switched to the Thameslink franchise allowing for direct connections to Kings Cross
• 8.3.3 Is a little worrying. I am not clear what the problem is, do we get a reduced service into LB, or do some of the Thameslink services not stop at Forest Hill?
  

I may be wrong in my reading of the document and I would welcome other opinions on what it actually says.

I believe this is a significantly more positive document for the future of train services from FH and HOP than in the draft document, and I believe this is the result of a good campaign by the Forest Hill Society and the Sydenham Society over the last year on this issue. But I think there is still more to do to get the right train services in the future.