In my (yes, limited) experience of the new system I have not yet experienced the totally horrific experience of the morning LB trains where you almost had to collect telephone numbers for any paternity testing disputes as you were so crammed in! Move down? you were lucky if you even had room to exhale!
I don't have to do it every day, but I used to dread my trips to head office because of the horrid journey.

I thought the trains back from London Bridge in the evening would be packed, but it hasn't turned out like that. There were seats to spare on the 18:36 last night...

For those of you who are part of Southern's Passenger Panel, they're asking questions regarding the latest timetable changes, which may go towards whether they continue the 4tph service and 8 carriage peak service from London Bridge.

As for my commute today, the ELL was busy, but not packed as much as the Southern trains pre May 23rd.

However like my post last week, Canada Water's southbound platform continues to be busy, which shows that commuters from central London using the Jubilee are changing at CW instead of LB, alongside the Canary Wharf workers.

Incidentally, I'm commuting to Canary Wharf tomorrow, hopefully I'll be able to get on the Jubilee for the one stop journey from CW and 20 mins cut off my journey!

rbmartin:

Are you implying that they may be looking to reduce this service further?!

Now I don't know if I've just been particularly unlucky, but I've been having a run of bad journeys into London Bridge. It used to take 15 mins and now regularly takes 20 or more - well it has when I've been travelling.

However this morning I missed the 9.15 LB direct and tried the 9.17 Overground instead. I finally surfaced at the Borough High Street exit at 9.45. This is not what I call progress and although I look forward to meeting up more often with friends who go drinking around Hoxton and Haggerston, my daily commute is taking significantly longer.

I should also add it took around 25 - 27 mins to get into London Bridge on at least 2 occasions last week. Is the signalling system able to cope with the regular trains and the Overground?

There is no longer a 0915 (was 0914 before May 23rd) it's 0912, then 0920 to London Bridge with the 0917 to Dalston Junction inbetween.

I've commuted into Leicester Square on the 0917 and reached there at 0950, so that's not a normal commute.
[/quote]

Oh well whatever it was I missed it. My point being that the Overground isn't a great option for me, but also that direct trains into London Bridge seem to be taking longer now anyway.
I accept other people's experiences are different to mine, but it depends where you work.

I wonder if that's down to congestion getting into the LB platforms though? Although it does seem they're trying to make the Southern services less viable by making those journeys even longer. I remember when they only took 12 minutes to get in to London Bridge.

Southern have mentioned that they are closely monitoring the new timetable on our line. I doubt they'll cut services, but I am concerned that as more people use the ELL, carriages could be cut as we've seen feedback that seats are free on peak services.

[/quote]

I think the Southern trains are stopping for longer at each station so the average time to get into LB has gone up from 15 to 20 mins (and as you say sometimes more). However, I'm certainly enjoying being able to just turn up and wait 3-4 mins to jump on the first train that shows up. I don't think my journey time to work has reduced at all (perhaps gone up by 5 mins), but the journey in is far more pleasant now (esp if I get a LO in - although it was the most crowded so far today).

Knowing that they've got rid of our trains to Charing X, the fast trains to London Bridge and have now cut the number of trains in the evening peak, I have deliberately been avoiding using London Bridge in the evening peak thinking that if I don't get onto a train early enough I'd not be able to get on at all!

Bit of a Catch-22 it seems...!

The only time I use London Bridge now is off-peak when the Oyster PAYG price is £2 and that's only if I only use National Rail. If I'm already on the tube network, I always use Canada Water.

In theory the timetabled journey time from Forest Hill to New Cross Gate is still ten minutes (as it was pre May), but it is taking longer to get from New Cross Gate to London Bridge.

I don't know how that reflects on the reality of the situation.

There doesn't seem to be an issue southbound with the journey I normally take from LB taking 14 minutes.

I do freelance work and tend to be all over the place, and at present am going south in the mornings. It occurred to me that there are far more people on platform 2 in the morning these days than the last time (about 2 years ago) that I had to go that way to work. This is probably because of the direct trains to Victoria - its still slower than going all the way to East Croydon and back in, but you get a seat and dont have to change. Going to East Croydon is in fact slower now too, as since the Overground arrived there are no fast trains anymore.

25 mins to get to Canary Wharf and all for £1.30 even during the peak.

This is where the ELL is such a benefit.

Tonight was fun...got to London Bridge at 5.50. Finally arrived Forest Hill at 7.35pm. Was unable to get on a packed and delayed London Bridge train and there was no sign of another. Station staff said Overground from Canada Water was also affected so I took a risk and got on a fast train to Norwood Junction. Had another wait there but the Overground trains did seem to be running, albeit were quite delayed.
Maybe I miscalculated but the thought of getting onto a Jubilee line in the heat with all the hoards of people turning back from London Bridge didn't seem like a fun idea.

I missed out the key part of the story - there were severe signal failures tonight! Anyway it seems my run of awful journeys in and out of London Bridge is set to continue!

Last night was certainly a nightmare from LB on Southern.

I eventually took Southeastern to New Cross, walked to New Cross Gate and took Overground from there - it turned out to be a pretty quick route and probably preferable to sweating it out on the Jubilee Line.

It was my first experience of the Overground and I really appreciated the air-conditioned comfort!

I got a train to New Cross too. Do they always have such empty trains at rush hour? Lucky swines!

If you live in HOP, taking a train to Ladywell is an option. You will usually get a seat too. Then you can either walk or get the bus back to HOP from Ladywell. When I saw the mess last night I made my way to platform 4 where I got a train to Ladywell soon after, with seats to chose from. Then it took me about 15 min walk from Ladywell. It was worth it. As it is a different line, if there are any signal problem after New Cross Gate, now it will be my fall back plan.