I have to agree with se23northener and others - the late evening southbound ELL service frequency ends too early and the frequency drops too much. I forsee many continuing to London Bridge when coming home...

Hopefully this can be improved in time.

I hope Southern provide at least 8 carriage services on these late night services where LOROL have decided to reduce the service after 10pm and finish at least 30 mins earlier than Southern.

No official announcement was actually made about the preview service on the ELL presumably precisely for this reason.

The service is not suspended due to the election!

There are still issues with using the new trains in passenger service - largely the exterior CCTV cameras through which the driver checks that there is nothing trapped in/obstructing the train doors when preparing to depart.

The issue appears to be software-based and until a working release of the new software is installed and tested - trains cannot accept passengers.

They could use the old-fashioned method of employing someone with a green and a red flag!

Trains started carrying passengers on the East London Line today between New Cross Gate and Dalston. The service is a Monday - Friday 'preview' service with 8 trains an hour 7am-8pm. The TfL press release attached confirms May 23 for the launch of the full service.

The ELL press release says that 8 trains an hour are running from New Cross Gate, The Evening Standard says that the trains are running from New Cross. A quick survey of blog reports of people who have actually been on the trains suggests that in fact 4 trains an hour are running from each of New Cross and New Cross Gate. This would make sense as it is closer to the future full service pattern. Running trains from New Cross Gate would seem to be essential if commuters are to make use of the service changing from Southern services.

It will be interesting to see how many people start changing at New Cross Gate in the next few days - and how full the ELL trains get in the peak periods. Post your observations here.

Nice of Boris to take all the credit for his hard work on securing funding for the line and pushing the project through. Oh, I forgot he was in Henley at the time. How stupid does he think we are?

Well done to TFL and Red Ken.

I can't comment yet on how full the trains were - I caught one home yesterday when I assume few people knew it was running, and it was pretty empty. I'll admit to being slightly excited about the whole thing... the ELL shut down at pretty much the same time I moved to FH, so it is really great to see it up and running.

I've got an observation about the fares though.. I travelled from Whitechapel to Forest Hill and was charged £1.80 on my oyster card. A zone 2-3 single is £1.30. A check on the TFL single fare finder confirms that £1.80 is the correct price for that journey. I'm wondering if this is because part of my journey was on National Rail, and will switch to the lower price when the overground officially extends all the way south, or whether this is the permanent price. If the latter, that's a bit rubbish . I will endeavour to find out..

The trains were pretty empty this morning, still spare seats. I imagine this will change once the through trains commence on the 23rd May.

It was a joy avoiding London Bridge and the inevitable bus delays!

Sadly it is true that fares for Overground journeys that also use National Rail track may be higher than journeys just on the Tube / Overground.
You can check fares at Tube, DLR, Overground fares and National Rail fares. I don't believe TfL are happy with this situation but National Rail are presumably trying to protect their revenue.

Thanks andrewr, that does say that £1.80 / £1.50 are the fares for zone 2-3 travel on a 'through' national ratil / overground journey.

I suppose the big question is whether post 23 May Forest Hill will be a national rail station or both a national rail and overground station?

Also, although it does specify that you pay oyster underground fares on routes that accepted oyster before 2010, it's not entirely clear what happens on routes that didn't exist before 2010.

Hmmm.

A previous FHSoc post on this forum mentions that stations south of NXG would be classed as TfL fares, i.e. Tube/DLR/Overground, although there is confusion over journeys to London Terminals or other National Rail stations would be classed as NR fares or the combined TfL/NR rate.

At the moment, it seems the new ELL is considered a National Rail fare for Oyster users.

My partner is visually impaired and has a freedom pass, but uses Oyster for the journey to LB in the morning. After 23rd May the journey to London should be covered by the freedom pass if using the East London line. Just wondering how the barriers at FH will know whether someone is intending to use national rail or TFL before 9.30am?

As I reported in the other thread, TfL have said[quote}I can confirm the following on fares:

The fares between West Croydon and New Cross will be the TfL Oyster payg tariff. This applies to journeys just on the southern section, i.e. south of New Cross/New Cross Gate and for journeys north and south of New Cross/New Cross Gate.

Freedom passes will be accepted 24 hours a day on London Overground services, however for Southern services the freedom pass can be used after 9.30, as per Southern’s current policy on the route. Therefore the Freedom pass will not be valid for journeys into London Bridge before 9:30 and National Rail fares would apply for journey’s into London Bridge[/quote]

I have written to them asking for clarification as to when this fare structure will be introduced.
[/quote]

I got a reply for LOROL on late evening ELL services via Caroline Pigeon:

At least there is the hope of a review of passenger numbers once the service goes live.

For God's sake. Travellers will be travelling from London Bridge from Central London BECAUSE the train is later from London Bridge. If the ELL trains were later and regular, they wouldn't have to. I wouldn't, anyway. It's really hard to get round this kind of nonsense logic.

It's like banging your head against a brick wall.

We lose the other option from another part of central London of using the District and Circle line and changing at Whitechapel and catching a direct link to FH and Sydenham? So it's back to the Embankment, change at CX and again at LB. Thanks, a lot!

Most ridiculous for me is that you can get a train back from central london to Brighton later than you can get one back to zone 3. Bizarre. Let's hope for improvements soon.

but the reason that we don't need 6tph from London Bridge is that people travelling to Central London will find it more convenient, easier and cheaper to travel via the ELL and Jubilee lines....

Can you argue it both ways? Should we?