TfL in a repsonse to Lewisham Council are considering running trains into London Bridge to fill the gaps left by Southern only operating every 30 minutes to our stations due to overcrowding on the morning peak Overground services.

If this happens, it's likely it'll be a London Bridge to Crystal Palace shuttle service only as there's no capacity to send them down to West Croydon until the Croydon area rails are resignaled with new railway track laid.

https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/tfl...dge-66703/

This post was last modified: 24-10-2023 06:54 PM by rbmartin.

that would be really good.
providing they dont cut overground services highbury/dalston to Crystal palace in order to cover the london bridge shuttle.
Trains are still crowded going East beyond Canada Water In the Morning and often very Busy going Southbound from Whitechapel in the Evening rush hour

This post was last modified: 24-10-2023 07:15 PM by nottinghillbilly.

Seems a good idea, would be better if could go to West Croydon but still useful. Long as Southern don't it as an excuse to further reduce / remove service!

According to ianvisits "changes were introduced last September when Southern cut some services due to lower revenues from fares."

So the services are rammed yet southern have lower revenue? This makes no sense.
It would be trivial to do some head counting to ensure southern were paid the proportional fees.

It is more likely the service into london bridge is just a pain to run, with local trains given low priority, stuck outside the station.

This would also be true if the overground ran a branch to london bridge.

Sadly this will take a billion years if /when it would actually happen. Be a lot cheaper and quicker if the powers that be just instruct Southern to reinstate the quarterly train services, especially in the early mornings and early evenings. Anyone know if there's on going discussions with Southern?

Southern don't make money from the Metro services within London as the can't set their own fares as they're done with the Association of Train Companies for paper and Oyster/Contactless. They can make money out of London to Brighton for example.

It's also part of GTR (Govia Thameslink Railway) which is under a management contract with the Department for Transport who are dictacting the levels of service they can provide, so any revenue earned goes back to the Government.

Southern Rail should of been stripped of the franchise ages ago as they are totally NOT fit for purpose and have a contract to run the service to the required levels which they have not been doing. I would not even let them run my model railway.

I used to travel on the Overground from Forest Hill and Highbury daily up to 2019 and it used to be packed then until you got to Canada Water and after would be half empty to it terminus. One day there was a major delay and was going to be late for work and walked back home and used my car and got to work on time and since them started to use my car has I could not depend on public transport to run on time.

Extending the Overground to London Bridge would probably take some pressure of the existing line but extend it to East Croydon.

Were has our so called MP Ellie Reeve been hiding?, she is suppose to be fighting an answering questions for her constituency instead of just sitting back and excepting her overinflated salary. Also our three 'missing' councillors when Southern cut the service to half hourly and severed the East Croydon link they don't seen to care a flying fig about their residents who voted them in to represent them. I am a Labour supporter but not these bunch of clowns.

I joined a call back in Feb 22 with Southern Rail which was hosted by a Lewisham MP - I think Vicky Foxcroft. At that point theat Southern were running 2 trains ph on the East Croydon. Lots of concern and harumphing, but the general Southern read out was not sufficient resources to run 4 trains (back in Feb 22 the traffic was alot lower than now of course). I do remember concerns being expressed about the lack of routes up to West End from SE23 and that Southern did say, oh, perhaps rather than running 2 trains per hour to East Croydon we could swap them to for the Lon Bridge/Victoria route which of course is what happened - the only benefit being they are 10 coaches rather than the 5 coaches we had on the EC route.

I can't say how much Ellie Reeves or the councillors have or have not done, though under the present rail industry set up, are Southern going to change course because of noise from (currently opposition) MPs or councillors. May be worth people emailing MPs / councillors to try and stir things up.

Fundamentally though, Southern do not and will not want to put resource into the trundlers running within Zones 1-6 as they make more money on the longer routes; plus of course on our route they will say "oh you have the Overground".

The only way out of this that I can is a major structural change - my preference would be for all rail/overground routes that are within Zones 1-6 are given to TFL. Not saying that is a panecea but at least there would be one body to make balanced decisions for Zones 1-6 routes.

But difficult to see any major change this side of a General Election.

This post was last modified: 27-10-2023 10:15 AM by Honoak.

The last time I travelled on the Victoria to London Bridge line there were only 4 carriages!

Also we used to have trains to Charing Cross in the evening.

Does anyone know if there is any talk or plans to extend the weekend night overground to West Croydon or Crystal Palace?
No reason it should have to stop at New Cross, and would open up an affordable way of getting home at night to a huge chunk of London

I seem to remember when this was asked many moons ago, that it was to do with the fact TFL controlled the Track up to New Cross, but Network Rail controlled the track after that, and Network Rail often closed the track overnight for repairs etc, and ultimately TFL had no control or could not get agreement to extend past New Cross.

So if out late, it's to New Cross then a 171 Bus back to SE23 and then walk from there or get another night bus.

That's also the reason why London Overground don't operate the replacement buses to West Croydon despite the fact Southern don't run any trains to Croydon for the majority of the day from our stations in the first place!

When London Overground operate the rail replacments, they make use of the iBus feature on the buses, which can also be checked on apps like TfL Go so you can see when it's actually going to turn up. Because the buses are sub-contracted by Southern, you get nothing.

I for one wish they would reinstate the Charing x trains at peak time.

Not a chance of the Southern Charing Cross trains being reinstated unless Southeastern give up their slots.

I think the detangling of the tracks outside London Bridge will scupper that option as well.

There was an update call with Foxcroft in the autumn. She was on first name terms with the Southern managers, all very chummy, whilst they gave off nonsense about ridership levels averaging it across 5 working days rather than the truth that the trains are packed Tuesdays to Thursdays even worse than before and went on about revenue whilst trying to hide it all goes back to the Government. Not heard anything since except some rubbish from whoever was the transport minister that week when Truss was kicked out saying absolutely nothing. Foxcroft couldn't care less as she has a safe for life seat and tried to silence me on the call with Southern as I actually gave them some effective opposition. No chance of restoring the direct trains to East Croydon for onward connections then, and the Norwood Junction debacle gets worse and worse, and I feel for those less abled on the narrow stairs. So much for the laws around making reasonable adjustments, when making people use the stairs when they didn't need to before seems rather unreasonable.
The predecessor MP Ruddock told me years ago that she was happy to see the Charing Cross services withdrawn as the other side of her constituency then got more trains. Talk about two tier constituencies.

I now use Catford Bridge and there are 4 trains per hour to and from Charing Cross. But it seems like a good idea for the Overground to go to London Bridge.
It would be helpful if other mainline trains going to London Bridge stopped at New Cross Gate.

When Thameslink added more services, New Cross Gate lost the two slots per hour to have extra trains on the fast lines.

Norwood Junction however still has four fast trains per hour into London Bridge.

For East Croydon, two of the four trains per hour to West Croydon have same platform interchange at Norwood Junction.

The x07 and x37 past each hour from Forest Hill connect with the Caterham and Tattenham Corner services at Norwood Junction's Platform 5.

From East Croydon, use the x25 or x55 to London Bridge which connect with the Overground service to Highbury & Islington on Platform 1.

This post was last modified: 08-11-2023 12:50 AM by rbmartin.

"From East Croydon, use the x25 or x55 to London Bridge which connect with the Overground service to Highbury & Islington on Platform 1. "

This is technically correct, but if you happen to catch the x03 or x33 from E. Croydon to Norwood Junction, then you'll be dumped off at platform 3, along with your prams, luggage, mad relatives and wheelchairs.
All these slots could all be randomly rearranged at the next change of timetables and unless there has been a recent operational change, there is no announcement made at E. Croydon of the suitability of one train over another. Not their concern.

It is a very poor show.

It might make more sense to catch the tram from East Croydon round to West Croydon and get the Overground from there. But there are stairs down to the platform.

There's near enough step free access using the side entrance next to Platform 1 at West Croydon which you have to ring the intercom to be let out which leads to a side path that goes into London Road.