It took 40 mins from FH to LB? Crickey, that is bad. It's getting to a point where I am dreading every single journey, regardless of the time of day. My mood isn't exactly improved by the prospect of future queues and general chaos in ticket-office-less stations where groups of unsuspecting tourists are faced with the myriad of tariffs, tickets and options, with only an i-pad carrying staffer on hand (or not, they'll probably be hiding somewhere out of sight for most of the day ) For a city that - leaving aside the financial services industry - partly depends on tourism as a source of income and prosperity, I reckon all this is very short sighted. Hm. Must be the weather that makes me so grumpy...

Eek! I went on the 9.12 on Friday and it arrived at 9.33. Shocked!

Meet the manager session is tomorrow (Thursday 5th February) at London Bridge between 7:30am – 9:30am. This is a chance to raise your concerns with Southern Railway staff about the service provided to passengers in South London.

As yet we have not seen the details of the next set of changes that were presented to DfT on Monday, but the minimum expectation should be the reinstatement of a 15 minute service in the evening peak, not a 30 minute service.

It would be great if you can stop by tomorrow and say a few polite words about the terrible mess they have made of services this year.

I saw the noticeboard at LB about the Meet the Manager event and realised it coincided with the bus strike. Lots of angry commuters.

Michael, do you happen to know where at LB the Meet the Manager session will take place? I'd quite like to go, but won't be getting into LB today or tomorrow daytime, so can't check the noticeboards beforehand. If anyone knows, I'd be grateful if you could post - thanks!

(It would normally be easy enough to locate an angry mob shouting at a transport official, but these days, LB Station just seems to be one big annoyed commuter mob)

The meeting takes place on the concourse which seems much smaller than it used to be, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find them. But they sometimes look as if they are having a conversation amongst themselves, so don't be afraid to interrupt.

If you can't find them ask a member of staff to point you in the direction. They are probably all well aware of where their senior managers are located when on the concourse.

Many thanks Michael!

Another tweak to one of our trains from Monday.

The 0659 to London Bridge will now depart FH at 0657.

Well, I "met the managers"...

I asked one simple question: "Are you restoring the rush hour trains to Forest Hill that you cut?"

The answer (she knew exactly what I was talking about straight away):

"We will review soon" (I then had to push for what that means) "at the end of February or the beginning of March, when things will have stabilised at London Bridge. Then we'll see if we've got the right number of trains running, and if we have, we'll check to make sure the ones we've cut are the right ones."

Those rush hour trains are not coming back, folks.

Last night was a farce again so went to CW which was dangerously crowded. So they decided not to stop Overground trains. The mind boggles.

Because they know we have the Overground, which is getting busier!

The message I got was March/April the services will be reviewed to see if they can return our services to the timetable. But like MightyMouse, I'm not particularly hopeful.

There is no penalty for Southern for cancelling half the evening services and DfT are allowing these reductions. If I were in charge of returning shareholder value for Southern I doubt I would bother reinstating services when it is only an additional cost to their business.

This post was last modified: 05-02-2015 11:00 AM by michael.

Here's a trick. If you get to CW and it's crazy. Go to the Northbound platform and catch it backwards one stop to Rotherhithe. That's how you win. Instead of risking not getting on the train at CW you are basically guaranteed to get on.


I wrote to Overground about suspending New Cross services between 5-6:30 just gave me a generic response about its Network Rail and it's in the contract and they can't do anything. Total BS. You can always get a contract variation done. But it's probably in the too hard basket for people in the lower ranks. Don't know how you get in contact with anyone that has any power.

This post was last modified: 05-02-2015 01:12 PM by Decker.

The impression that I got is that there is not a chance that these evening trains will be reinstated any time soon. 'Whatever option we chose, it was a difficult decision, but you have to appreciate that living on that line you do have OPTIONS!'- I asked the question whether he personally had actually used the Overground from Canada Water, he replied he hadn't, I suggested that he should, so the next time these sessions happen, he could show slightly more sympathy for Southern customers.

The first guy I spoke to was hopeless, but he then passed me onto a Customer Services Manager who was better. I bought up the absolute joke the process of claiming the delay compensation is on their website, weekend bus replacement services, lack of staff training at London Bridge and how amazed I found it that they were only today having a Meet the Managers session, after the disaster that was the first week, senior managers should have been on the concourse giving passengers sincere apologies personally!

It was good to get feelings out there; I however doubt it will make a slight bit of difference.....:

Yes, everyone is correct that you probably won't see the evening services from London Bridge expanded any time soon. I think increasingly people will find workarounds (travelling north from Can Water, using Blackfriars route - though that has had its own problems, travel to New Cross / bus). Though you really need a Season Ticket for the flexibility. A highly unsatisfactory situation.
Oh, I wrote to Boris J - no reply.

Slightly more positive feedback from another commuter who stopped to talk to the staff at London Bridge this morning:

It is just possible that this commuter got to speak to a member of staff who knows what he's talking about, either that or a bigger liar than the rest of them.

I think it was really important for so many people to stop and speak to Southern today. I haven't seen a meet the manager session so busy before. We need to keep up the pressure to restore our services to every 15 minutes rather than every 30 minutes.

Beyond that I believe that every regular commuter on our line should be entitled to compensation for the period where there has been such major unplanned disruption. It is the only way that rail planners will understand the importance of designing systems that work and have a little bit of resilience.

I 'met the managers' too. Asked the question about reinstatement of West Croydon trains and was told that it would be reviewed as part of the wider review of 2016 timetable.

I would love to think they will consider replacing the cancelled West Croydon trains with a service to Crystal Palace, but given that the bottle neck is on the entry to London Bridge I don't see how this would be possible. [/align]

Could they start some services from New Cross Gate?
The Overground could run a shuttle service from Canada Water.

This post was last modified: 06-02-2015 09:57 AM by Sherwood.

I spoke to the Head of Infrastructure and for a little bit I think the Head of Passengers. They were careful to underplay the potential for the .06 and .36 west Croydon services returning and said whilst the timetable was being reconsidered there was no guarantee. I was left with the distinct impression that those services are lost. Their 'advice' was
1. Get the overground to Canada water, they're going to have an extra 5 carriages - response but I'm going to London bridge and have either of you actually taken that route at rush hour??
2. Go via Norwood Junction - great!

I noted how ridiculous it was that at rush hour there were only 2 trains an hour to Forest Hill and most of those were late despite the new timetable which makes the journey slower. Id just stepped off a late running train which had taken 25 minutes to arrive, double the time of before the chaos. Response - there are 3 less platforms permanently and less track outside London Bridge, this is the reality under works complete and it seemed implicit to me that this is it as those platforms are not coming back.

I asked what happened after this in terms of feedback. I was directed to fill in a customer complaint feedback form! Apparently they would be having a round up following the meet the managers session, he didn't need to write my issues down as re loss of the west Croydon service was a concern being repeated by numerous customers.

Nice chaps and apologetic but very careful not to raise expectations. I really think we all need to lobby hard to get the west Croydon trains back!

Am I right in thinking that there is not now, and not intended to be, any means of going between platforms at LB except by going to the head of the platforms by the gateline? There used to be that overhead walkway laterally across platforms, not a thing of great beauty, but very useful. If every passenger has to move between platforms by going up to the gateline it will be incredibly congested and crowded.

I'm struggling to think what the new LB will deliver to us passengers - fewer platforms, fewer tracks, fewer services, more congestion ...