There would have been consultation of 'Stakeholders' for the Southeastern franchise. Whether the Forest Hill Society would have been invited I do not know, certainely Lewisham Borough Council would have been invited. Of course, the DfT being the way it is just because an organisation objects does not mean that the DfT would change the timetable specification!

It would be wrong to state that if the Southeastern trains did not stop at London Bridge then that would solve all the issues, I would need to be a lot closer to the timetabliing planning process to confirm that.

However, the section between London Bridge and Waterloo East is probably the most congested National Rail tracks in the country (all the London Charing Cross services end up on a single pair of tracks). Once the Thameslink works have been completed then there is a chance that the trains could be re-extended. Unfortunately that is 2017!

Of course part of the capacity problem is that the DfT (and at least the media if not the passengers) are demanding the highest ever level of trains to be on time. Like a road if you increase the number of vehicles then without increasing the road's capacity you are more likely to experience unpredictable delay to your journey. So, on the railways, the only way to guarantee better service performance is to reduce the number of trains (or rather increase the level of spare capacity). Sadly the Forest Hill trains are the victims of that national policy.

Peter Staveley