I'm going to try to summarise a 3 hour meeting yesterday into a few bullet points. The meeting included Network Rail, Southern Rail, LOROL, TfL, Thameslink, Lewisham councillors, Lewisham transport officers, and representatives from civic societies.

* Network Rail claimed that other than the odd day (where the service falls apart), services were beginning to perform at a much better level on Southern. SouthEastern were doing really well. I did point out that they are now scheduling some services through Forest Hill to take 50% longer (24 minutes rather than 16 minutes), so it is not surprising that some trains are now actually arriving early and performance targets appear to be met. However, reliability is really important and it is good that they are at least getting better at running the service they say they will, except when they don't.

* Network Rail told us that some of the early problems in January were due to drivers not being familiar with the new signaling system, but they also admitted to defects with some of the signaling/points systems. This included Monday when an engineering truck was properly parked out of the way, but the signals thought it was on a different line - so they had to close most of the railway for a day.

* Network Rail informed us that London Bridge had not reached dangerous levels of passengers, as judged by their emergency safety protocols. But they have learned lessons and would be improving the systems (presumably more holding pens as well as more sheep dogs to herd the stray passengers)

* I raised concern about station staff not knowing where replacement bus services stopped, and drivers having the same problem. I suggested that bus stops are clearly marked as replacement rail bus stops for the benefit of passengers and drivers. The road closure problems two weeks ago clearly had a knock on effect - but hopefully the operators will improve the systems

* I got a firm 'No' to my request for late night services beyond 2017 to go south of New Cross Gate. In response I promised the raise the issue regularly over the next two years until they change their minds.
* Overground now have 85% of trains at 5 carriages on the East London Line. They expect to complete the upgrade by the end of March.

* There were calls for compensation for Southern passengers but in reality that was above the pay grade of anybody present. I was unable to get a straight answer about whether Southern were receiving compensation from Network Rail for the mess they have made to the signaling system.