Southern are consulting on timetable changes for 2018. The document is not the easiest to digest, but it appears we are losing direct trains to East Croyden amongst other things:
Thanks for posting this Azira, although i have to admit i'm struggling to understand what changes are being made. How were you able to tell that we're losing trains stopping at East Croydon? I assume that's the Caterham train that seems to have been slowly whittled down in frequency over the years already.
Would love to get a couple of trains per hour back to Charing Cross, like the good old days!
apologies, some further diligence in actually reading the timetable consultation document has lead me to this:
Current trains between London Bridge and Caterham via Sydenham (Sydenham
route) will continue to operate but after Norwood Junction will instead operate to and
from West Croydon. Passengers for East Croydon or beyond will need to change at
Norwood Junction for connecting trains. From our passenger analysis this will affect
approximately 1630 passengers per day who will be required to change at Norwood
Junction for trains to East Croydon and beyond.
I think the relevant questions for this are no.s 59 and 60 in the timetable consultation document (round pages 40 on) and see also Route SN3.8 on p50. In summary i think we retain the 2 tph hour on the Victoria - LBG route, and also have 2 tph from LBG to West Croydon. So getting to and from Gatwick will be a slog.
Have a look at the Sydenham Town Forum. More detail on there. Looks like a bad arrangement for us. I will be responding to the consultation and writing to Sadiq Khan. Anybody else? Minister for Transport? Our hardworking local MP?
Main reasons for objection that I can see are as follows:
Loss of service to East Croydon and thus easy access to Gatwick Airport and Brighton. There is no step free interchange at Norwood Junction so disabled passengers will be unable to travel from our area except via London Bridge.
London Bridge services are vital. Particularly as the Jubilee Line will not be able to cope with growth from our branch of the East London Line or the Clapham branch. The interchange at Canada Water is already inadequate. There are plans for extensive new housing and commercial developments on the ELL at New Bermondsey and on the Jubilee line at Canada Water, Canary Wharf, Stratford and Waterloo. In addition to smaller scale expansion elsewhere on these lines. South East and East London need increased transport provision and attempting to funnel more passengers from the Forest Hill corridor through Canada Water will not work and will not provide a reliable service.
Loss of resillience. If we have few services to London Bridge there is no back up for ELL if there is service disruption north of New Cross Gate.
Also it is a bit of a cheek to make passengers in our area endure years of disruption for no improvement in services.
Reading these posts, the service to LB will stay the same.
It is our connectivity to East Croydon - an important interchange for journeys south - that will be affected.
Links to London Bridge will stay at 4, which is the reduced service we have endured since Southern introduced an emergency timetable because they couldn't cope with the London Bridge rebuild. Previously it was 5 per hour. As London Bridge is going to be a much more important station for connections north we should be getting at least as many trains as previously.
Does anyone who knows more about lobbying than me know if responses from a group rather than lots of individuals is more effective? If so, I wonder if we should pool resources and do an HoP/FH residents response.
There is an option there for responding as a group. I'm not sure if they will accord that greater weight. Residents associations and the like generally would. Both is best. Don't use a set form of words across multiple responses from multiple people. That would flag it up as an internet-driven campaign. The number of responses to each question will be logged and published.
My opinion is that pressure from outside the consultation would be very useful. So TFL, the Mayor, DfT, anything like that. The loudest voices are the ones that are heard, if we want to make a difference we need to shout. Politely, of course, but firmly.
Reading these posts, the service to LB will stay the same.
It is our connectivity to East Croydon - an important interchange for journeys south - that will be affected.
Peak services to LB will be reduced from 15 to 12. Back in 2006 we had 18 trains to London Bridge in the three hour peak. But the 15 trains and the 4 during the high peak (8-9am) are based on current services which were brought it as a temporary change after the chaos at London Bridge. this was never meant to be a permanent change - for example to 20 minute gap in the morning timetable between 8:21 and 8:42 (or thereabouts - I can't remember the exact times).
So there are plans to reduce peak services to London Bridge at exactly the time that the Thameslink services will increase demand for connections via LB.
The addition of 2x5 car trains per hour on the Overground does not provide real compensation for the loss of 3-6 x 10 car trains to LB. This is on a line that is still expected to be seriously overcrowded in the next decade and the extra Overground have been introduced to address this, not to allow for cuts on other services.
This really does take us back to the 'Save our Services' campaign from 2006, when we realised that we would lose all Charing Cross services, and faced a reduction in peak services to and from LB.
But there is a clear reason for the diversion of EC services to WC - and that is the complete separation of South London from outside London. TfL want to take over metro services and this will make the reorganisation easier as the services will be easier to segregate. Unfortunately that means poor connection between South London and South of London. That wouldn't really be a massive issue if it were not for a major airport being part of this area.
That's a good suggestion. The transfer should take about 10 minutes and we can use Oyster PAYG cards to make the journey, which will be more expensive than changing at Norwood Junction (included in the ticket price), but at least it is possible.
There is still the issue of reduced services during the morning peak:
Most likely I would walk from West to East Croydon. Not with baggage for Gatwick though. It is a very long way from ideal and we shouldn't have to make do with 3rd best. Lots of people will drive or get taxis instead, especially to Gatwick. Not sure why Crofton Park should benefit so much and East Croydon massively. Are they losing Victoria services or just getting a huge boost at our expense? Make some of those, say 4 per hour, from East Croydon stopping services at Forest Hill to give us our link south as well as extra services to London Bridge.
How does this affect getting to/from Clapham Junction? Often that involves changing at Norwood Junction and/or East Croydon. This is a very important link to south west London and beyond.
We bought here because we needed connections both to central London and a relatively painless connection to Brighton, so adding in a tram journey is a real pain.
Sorry to hear about the folks heading to Croydon and beyond - however can I check I have the correct understanding for most Forest Hill commuters? As I read it we are moving from 6 trains per hour to London Bridge down to 4 trains per hour?
it depends how you define the hours and which one you are talking about.
we used to have 6 trains per hour during peak. it is currently more like 5 tph before 10am but the high peak is already down to 4tph, meaning that one of the other hours must have 6.
I travel to Croydon almost every day and East Croydon is certainly easier for my purposes.
It is fairly easy to change at Norwood Junction for a train to East Croydon as the train is usually the other side of the platform.
And as said already, the tram is also quite easy as it's only 2 stops.
However, going the other way (East to West Croydon) is not great. The tram takes a round about route due to a one way system (minimum 10 minutes). The alternative changing at Norwood Junction will involve stairs. There are buses which depending on traffic can get to West Croydon in under 10 minutes. Also, I don't think West Croydon is totally step free either.
West Croydon is step-free coming from Forest Hill (platform 4, I think) and just a few paces to the tram stop.
There are steps down to platforms 1 & 3. A sign suggests that you can ask staff to let you access a ramp if you need it.
The trams do take longer from East Croydon to West Croydon because they go round the one-way system. But the trams seem to have priority over traffic and are faster than the buses.
I've had a chance to look at this in a bit more detail and will be writing to the Mayor, our MP and Councillors. In danger of sounding like a typical angry commuter...but I may have to accept that's what I am!
Basically, TfL and Southern have used the disruption in London Bridge to cut services to Forest Hill, Sydenham, Honor Oak Park, Brockley and New Cross Gate. Used to be 6 trains an hour to London Bridge in peak times, now it will be four, and half of these will be cancelled frequently (the Victoria loop line is often cancelled when running late).
I did a bit of hunting for passenger stats and found 2013-14 here (relevant because after this it was affected by London Bridge cuts). I've attached some screenshots from the data sorted by passenger entries+exits - I couldn't see passenger impact in the consultation but I suspect they are using flawed figures from the period when London Bridge services, including the interchange for Waterloo East/Charing Cross, had been reduced. This would have forced many people to use other stations (as I did myself).
I would argue the London Bridge via Forest Hill service should be increased rather than reduced because:
- the interchange at Canada Water is already overcrowded, as are Overground trains, and cuts will force more passengers to change at Canada Water
- the alternative Overground trains are woefully inadequate, being 5 carriages instead of 10, and Canada Water was only designed for 4 carriage trains so rear doors don't work.
- Forest Hill in particular is one of the busiest commuter stations in London, busier than West Croydon or Norwood Junction. When mainline stations and interchanges are excluded it is near the top, with Brockley not far behind.
- more than 14 million passengers a year use the Forest Hill/London Bridge line from Sydenham, Forest Hill, HOP and Brockley.
Hopefully my workings will attach...I sorted London's stations by entries/exits. Very happy for others to use this if they write/post elsewhere! (And for someone better with stats to improve them!!)
This post was last modified: 01-10-2016 10:03 AM by SEN.
Absolute devastating. We have already had the covert cuts over the years (6 down to 5). Most recently around June we lost the 8:30?am to London Bridge. Which you thought would be the final straw. Now this.
This will be a tough fight.
Two reasons
1. They want to hand over capacity to London Overground so they can run more services when they (allegedly) get rid of the New Cross route in 2018. But I wouldn't hold my breath too much. Nothing is a guarantee in this business. Remember they said we would have 6-8 London Bridge services after redevelopment was done? Hahahaha.
2. Too much lobbying and political pressure to make sure Thameslink is successful and increase capacity through Gatwick, East Croydon and further out areas. We all know that Sadiq Khan is in favour of the Gatwick expansion.
So yeah.... Thing with these things are most people don't realise until it's gone. Probablh need to stand outside the station with a sign lol
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