SE23 Forum

The ITV news tonight reported passenger congestion and train cancellations at London Bridge. Perhaps passengers diverted to the Overground.

Same happened yesterday evening about 7pm. The reduced amounts of railtracks into London Bridge (reduced from 6 to 3) will make this a frequent occurrence I fear. I'd lay a little bet that they may have to further reduce trains that go in/out of London Bridge.

Going into town one evening I found that the platform with the hoarding was so full of passengers waiting to get on that we took ages to get off and clear the platform. This may well delay the departure of trains.

Long delays on the Southern service in to London Bridge again this morning. That's now 5 out of 5 journeys to and from work this week...

As well as the obvious annoyance at spending substantial amounts of time waiting for trains, I'm pretty frustrated at the 'delay repay' policy which requires trains to be more than 30 minutes late before I am able to claim compensation. Whilst this may be sensible for longer journeys, the short journey time we have from Forest Hill means the train can take more than double the time it should do (50mins rather than advertised 24mins) and still be ineligible for compensation.

I might be being cynical, but I wonder whether the order in which trains are awarded a platform at London Bridge is at least partly driven by limiting compensation due to passengers. This would explain why the 08:21 seems to be held outside London Bridge until it is around 25 minutes late, at which point a platform is generally found.

I plan to be much more proactive this year in claiming compensation from Southern in the (vain) hope that an increase in compensation claims when trains on our line are late increases the priority that they are given. Does anyone on this forum regularly claim compensation from Southern?

Sadly though, I agree with squashst's comment that the delays are a pretty much inevitable consequence of reducing the number of tracks without reducing the number of trains.

I would but i always forget to check what time i arrive at forest hill and note it down which you need to know to fill it out
It just seems a pain for a couple of quid with sending it off buy post, should be simplified and made totally online.... by the time i get home Im just glad to get home...should compensate us like they did in the old days 5% of your annual ticket, which at least negated the fare rise.

They should also give us use of reasonable use of public transport with our tickets to get back home as they do sometimes do when there has been a major issue, if more than 1 train is cancelled as it would ease the congestion and reduce the chaos at London Bridge.

As for trains been cancelled / delayed due to congestion... well I have the national rail app on the front screen of my phone and whenever i check my phone, trains are constantly cancelled / delayedthrough out the day even in the very quiet periods between 10 and midnight its defintely not congested then! Always feel sorry for the poor s*ds who have there pots 11pm trains cancelled!
So not sure how they explain all those delays and cancellations.

Its a total utter mess to be honest.

The 9:12 this morning was only 3 minutes late and didn't actually stop outside LB but crawled slowly like a dying slug. I am fortunate that I am able to come and go as I please from work and I will make damn sure I get a return train before 4pm from now on.

What gets me is that they knew there would be disruptions with all this building but still seem to have been caught unaware.

The Chief Exec of Southern said on Monday that the evening crush was a one off, and then it happened again last night.

This morning I thought I'd take the initiative and travel from FH to Victoria, rather than through LB. I left the house 30 mins earlier than normal to catch the 7:35. A 5 min delay rolled into 10, into 15 mins ... No information whatsoever. All the while, whilst stood on platform 2, I watched several LB bound trains roll in. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It took me over 2 hours to get to Oxford Circus.

I really am amazed, and saddened, that there is not a more vocal & coordinated campaign to seek some kind of compensation for this. I know that I too am some keyboard warrior sounding off on a forum, but with the lack of information, amount of disruption, safety issues and fare rises this is an absolute shambles.

Viva la revolution

I took the 8.21 to LB this morning - I was there for the 8.17 to H&I but of course that was late and the LB train arrived first, so I squeezed on - arriving at LB at 9am.

I hijacked a group of three "Southern advisers" in purple waistcoats to ask if this sort of delay was now going to be usual with the changes. Sorry, they didn't know, but if I walked over to the gate and asked for a Customer Experience Manager they'd radio someone to come and talk to me. I thanked them nicely but pointed out I was already late for work, what with this 12 minute journey having taken 35+.

And then I see on here it's now a 24 minute journey even as timetabled. Is this official? Where are the huge posters and tannoy announcements in the station about this? They were happy to announce repeatedly over the Christmas period about the terrible crushes that were due then (that didn't materialise) - where's the information now?

Well, it's the Overground for me until I depart FH for pastures new in a couple of months (if all goes well). Who needs seats/oxygen anyway?

After previously saying that I intended to get an annual season ticket as usual, I feel that I should admit that I brought myself an annual travelcard this year, despite my destination being Waterloo station.

This allows me to travel via Canada Water or London Bridge. From Forest Hill this means I can jump on the first train wherever it is going and then switch to the Jubilee line wherever I want. I'm now undertaking a study to find the fastest of three possible routes in each direction and based on expected train times.

There was a nice bonus yesterday when I managed to get a seat on a five carriage train from Canada Water. But this was undermined by seeing a late running Southern Train at NXG which left before I could switch trains. I need to be better prepared for the switch next time.

I still find it difficult to justify to myself the £400 extra I paid for the ticket, I'm sure I could have found a better use for that amount of money but it is done now.

Not sure whether it will help or not but a petioitn has been setup for answers....

https://www.change.org/p/we-deserve-answ...idgetrains

Just in case you thought travelling to Forest Hill from London Bridge couldn't get any worse, you should read this from Southern-

http://www.southernrailway.com/

This last 3 days has been utterly shambolic, its farcical and is not going to get any better for the next couple of years.....

Deep deep joy!

We should get use of the overgound like we did last week in that case.. if one of thiose is cancelled or delayed its going to be a crush...

How can they possibly claim that removing 5 trains in the evening rush hour is an improved service?

The Blackfriars to Crofton Park route will become become my default commute back home to HOP (though on Tuesday I took a trip on the Overground to New Cross (their West Croydon trains were also being cancelled) and then 171 / 172 to Brockley Rise - surprisingly swift. Basically its avoid London Bridge in rush hour evening if you possibly can (and I reaslise for may they cannot)

Poor information and lack of thought about how passengers could effect their journeys in periods of disruption seem almost as much a problem as the disruption itself.

I went to Wimbledon last night, and arrived at the down platform at Forest Hill as the Crystal Palace overground service arrived. I decided to wait for the 19:36 direct to Clapham Junction which was shown as on time on the indicator. This information was changed several times until it stated a 19:44 arrival. The train did arrive at that time and came to a brief halt at Forest Hill, but unfortunately for those intending to catch it, on the fast line. I then caught the next overground to Crystal Palace and changed there after which it was an easy journey. I could have been at my destination 25-300 minutes earlier if I had know that the Victoria train was not going to stop.

I accept that, in these difficult times, there may be operational reasons for cancellling the intermediate stops for the Victoria train (incidentally almost empty). However, it isn't helpful not just to keep passengers in the dark, but to provide them with false information. Have railway managers and staff become so absorbed in computerised signaling and scheduling systems that they have forgotten that the are running a real railway with real passengers, not some virtual railway in cyberspace?

There seems to be a systematic loss of contact with reality in some big enterprises. For example, when Kings Cross was out on the 27th December, someone decided to send passengers to Finsbury Park. Anyone who has visited Finsbury Park might have been expected to know that it was unlikely to absorb the number of passengers. And given that it has been correctly worked out that the interim layout at London Bridge won't work if Southeastern trains stop there, why weren't these suspensions synchronised rather than have a few days of unmanageability?

Holy f***. They have cancelled for the rest of the week

16.36 London Bridge to West Croydon
17.06 London Bridge to West Croydon
17.38 London Bridge to West Croydon
18.06 London Bridge to West Croydon
18.36 London Bridge to West Croydon

"We will monitor the service for the remainder of this week and assess if any longer term changes are required."

Well of course it's going to reduce congestion! This statement scares me. We could lose all of these services for the next 3 years without any warning. Without any consultation. And just shoving the passenger load on the Overground.

What a nightmare.


If this is the case, they should remove the new Cross service. Make people catch a bus from new cross gate or walk. And give us extra overground services like they have in the past.

I'm afraid that Southern has an additional problem tonight:
"Delays to Southern services to and from London Bridge expected until 19:00

Following signalling problems at London Bridge all lines have now re-opened. However, Southern trains to and from the station may still be delayed by up to 15 minutes while services return to normal.

This is expected to continue until approximately 19:00."

Though the definition of "normal" is what?!

Cancelling all those trains didnae help much. Train from LB is 15 min delayed. BUT DONT WORRY I'M SURE IT WILL IRON ITSELF OUT! See you tomorrow.

From the Thameslink website:

That's an alternative is it? Wait another 15 minutes (if you are lucky). As for Penge West and Anerley passengers changing at New Cross Gate, they obviously mean Norwood Junction but are too inept to know the difference.

In the past I have used Norwood Junction to turn around and come back faster than waiting for the next train, this is preferable to waiting 30 minutes between trains and at least you get out of London Bridge.

If they were serious about providing alternative routes then they would say that tickets to West Croydon will be valid on Jubilee and Overground. But they would prefer passengers to hang around at London Bridge for double crowded trains rather than take alternative routes (which I realise would add to pressure on the short Overground trains - but I don't see stuffing twice as many people on London Bridge trains as much better).

I can't believe that after the problems in August and a chance to adjust the timetables (including cancelling a small number of services), Southern have yet again failed to run trains in and out of London Bridge according to the timetable. They really should have planned better for this situation.

It will be interesting to see if services improve when South Eastern services stop calling at London Bridge. As davidwhiting says, if this is the problem then why didn't they make the change on the 4th January, straight after the complete closure of London Bridge?