The question is, will Joe Public call it the long winded London Overground, or simply the ELL?

The Overground network will make more sense when we're connected to Highbury and Islington next year with it's connection with the North London Line, however the current service status board at FH with travel information for their other lines is as relevant as a commuter line in South Africa!

The Forest Hill Society did query the slower running of trains in March and was told

which is true - it still takes 10 minutes to get from Sydenham to New Cross Gate. However, it now takes 9 minutes to get from New Cross Gate to London Bridge. This cannot be blamed on the ELL.

Had my first ELL experience this morning. Was going to get the 9.29 to LB but thought of getting the earlier ELL train to NXG and changing for the expereince. Glad I didnt as the 9.29 is a newer air conditioned train. Bliss

Just hope it is like this all the time.

I've been getting the Overground from NXG for the past few weeks & was interested to see how much busier it would be today. And the answer is - not much! Apart from the few poor souls who jumped on not realising it wasn't a London Bridge train (although I'm not sure how they could've failed to notice it was a new overground train!).

I'm pretty surprised by this actually. I'm wondering if people might switch over to using it once awareness spreads, or if actually not that many people need to get to the east of London. It's nice for me personally to always get a seat and not be stuck under someone's armpit, but overall it'll obviously be much better if the overground takes some of the strain from the Southern services.

The new 7:12am train to London Bridge was virtually empty this morning. If you are looking for a seat into work this is the train to get!
Not looking forward to this evening at London Bridge with less trains available.

I'm totally puzzled by the on-line timetable produced for the ELL

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/6391.aspx

Apart from showing the very earliest and very latest trains, the main timetable runs only to and from Surrey Quays. What passengers travelling north or south from this area want to know are times from key stations such as Canada Water, SHS and Whitechapel at a glance without having to add or subtract extra minutes from S Quays.

That's what a timetable is for isn't it?

Can anyone else make sense of this?

The 7.20 was reduced to four cars this morning. Inevitably overcrowding meant passengers being left behind from Brockley onwards.

Whether this is a one off rolling stock cock up or a deliberate policy to drive passengers onto the new services including the 7.12 we will see. The standard "short format" apology was noticably absent today.

Having waited at the station for 2 EEL trains to come in before the new 08:44 from HOP, I was really surprised at how busy it was. It was packed by the time we got to London Bridge, busier than usual.

The 8.44am from HOP this morning had the same (if not even slightly more?) amount of people on, and the ELL that preceded it was standing room only (though not packed).

Where are all these people coming from? Shifting away from the buses?

[/u]If that is how it will be this evening, then the LB train home is going to be a nightmare. I shall try to be more optimistic though...

@Jon14 - SNAP!

The 8:14 was about 5 minutes late today and I couldn't get a seat from HOP which is a bit unusual. Very few people got on the ELL which arrived a few minutes before.

Got the 08.21 from FH to LB this morning (not my usual train). Was pleasantly surprised to find it not bursting at the seams (third carriage). Lots of available seats and even a few left when we got to Brockley. Not many people having to stand, and certainly wasn't crowded.

I'd watched the ELL service before the train I boarded and it seemed to have quite a few people on already, plus quite a few boarding at FH (including one woman who quickly got off when she realised she was on the wrong train). Wondered how many of the people who dashed through the ticket barriers and onto the train as the doors were about to close realised it was an ELL not a Southern service.

Sadly none of the fantastic service everyone else seemed to receive this morning, I ended up boarding a packed delayed 0850 to LB which didn't arrive til 0904 due to a signal failure. Luckily it was an 8 coach service.

I was planning on getting the 0904 to Dalston but as that was also delayed, I didn't want to take the risk, so paid an extra £1 for using LB to get on the Jubilee.

The 08.12 FH (08.14 HOP) was running late so perhaps that mopped up some passengers waiting for the 08.21, leaving it less full than usual. And I was hoping this was an indication of how LB peak services will be from now on!

I think we're going to have to give it a month before we can see the true picture of what's going on.

I too was on the 0842/0844, and the platform at FH was certainly quite full when I got on. I think the loss of the 0835 (oh, the lovely, lovely 0835) will be felt quite strongly here.

By the way, the 0842 came into Platform 8, whcih is a major boost compared with its previous Platform 16. I overheard somebody the other day saying that Platform 8 is going to be the new most usual platform for our trains - can this possibly be true?

Would be great if it was.

@nasaroc

In the small print, the ELL timetable does say

but it is a bit bizarre that they didn't include Canada Water and Whitechapel as a minimum. Another post reports that the MD of London Overground will be looking into this.

It also appears that the Oyster changes we were promised have not been implemented (at least not according to the Single Fare Finder)

It seems that we jumped to wrong conclusions in thinking all peak hour trains would be 8 coaches from May 23. I queried with Southern the fact that the 0750 from Forest Hill was 6 coaches and was told that this was the planned length for this train. Please keep comments on levels of crowding on Southern services coming - and especially if people are left on the platform at Honor Oak Park or Brockley.

It seems the air conditioning on the ELL trains may not be able to cope with the wrong sort of weather - ie warm. On three of the four trains I travelled on yesterday (Sunday opening day), the a/c had failed due to overwork, in at least part of the train. Since you can't open the windows this makes the train uncomfortable to say the least. And although yesterday was warm, it wasn't exceptionally hot, and the trains weren't exactly loaded to peak hour capacity. Apparently LOROL are aware of the problem and a modification is planned. I've requested details of the modification plan. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to dress lightly and have some water with you...