We are waiting for Mayor Boris to open the new facilities!

The footbridge and lifts are now OPEN!

Really?

I saw a group of bods wandering around inspecting the 'site' at around 10am this morning.

Yeah, it was open when I left the train at 1338 (LB to Vic), I was speaking to a fellow passenger who said the bridge was still closed at 1100 this morning.

As I left the station, the Overground staff were instructed to remove the temporary exit signs.

The bridge is indeed open. There were a few people off the 17:19 from London Bridge, who automatically went to the platforn 2 exit, then turned and skipped towards the bridge.

Ah, the walk down platforn 2 stairs was quick and easy this even.

LOROL have told us [quote, if you’ve used the station this afternoon you may already know, but the new footbridge is now open for use. The lifts are still shut however, and this is due to a very slight technicality. It’s an easy fix though, and the lifts should be able to be used by Tuesday.[/quote}

LOROL have told us

Wow. On a bright sunny day, I think the new bridge is more oppressive to walk through than the underpass. Terrible lighting, nasty bars, and grills everywhere and tasteful yellow. And what's that?... oh rust between teh rubberrised flooring and teh painted steelworks. That'll be 4 months before it all start s peeling and looking terrible then.

I also second the remarks about daft placement and sizings of the new covered waiting area on platform 1. Why they didn't make it half as deep, but twice as long is beyond me.

I shouldn't really moan about having all these nice new things, but it could have been finished so much better.

Worse than the underpass? You must be joking I am not sure anything is worse than that underpass! When I saw the footbridge was open I nearly jumped for joy that I (hopefully) won't ever have to set foot in that drippy, dank, unpleasant space again.

Can anyone tell me when the first train from Forest Hill station to Whitechapel on the new ELL is due to run, have they actually given us a date? I would love to go on the first day of its run to the fantastic East End,
the Whitechapel Art Gallery, (a Harrison Townsend design the same as the Horniman ) The Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green and the amazing Pellicci's on Bethnal Green Road an authentic Italian
Cafe with a Grade 2 listed interior, a past haunt of the Krays and an its amazingly cheerful customers, I can also take another look at the beautiful Bevis Marks Synagogue at Aldgate, and on Wednesday's shop at the market on Whitechapel Road, bring it on! any other recommendations from SE23? anywhere you have been in the East End and want to share?

Well there's Wiltons Music hall (http://www.wiltons.org.uk/), which is an amazing place...
...but mainly I used to go through the East End to go to 'London' (when I lived even further east), before I moved to Forest Hill because of its direct and frequent services to London Bridge (and Charing Cross)!

Dylan - trains are supposed to start running on the ELL on Sunday May 23rd - which is the same day the new timetable comes in. The new timetable creates the gaps between the Southern trains that allows the ELL trains to run - 8 trains an hour for most of the day. They should be running on the section north of New Cross Gate now but opening has been delayed - apparently there have been problems with the CCTV systems that allow drivers to see that doors are safely closed.

If the line doesn't open on May 23rd, there will be major problems on the evening of Monday May 24th because there are fewer services running to/from London Bridge in the new timetable - although still 6 trains per hour during the morning peak.

The Forest Hill Society is planning an outing to celebrate the opening of the line. Watch the Forest Hill Society Homepage for more information.

Sorry - just realised I didn't actually answer Dylan's question! According to the timetable, the first northbound ELL train on Sunday May 23rd should leave Forest Hill at 0657. On Monday-Friday the first train is 0553. The timetable is available to view on the various rail enquiry sites.

The Arcola Theatre in Dalston (which is 300m north of the new Dalston Kingsland interlinked station) is a great little theatre. My wife and I were up there on Friday.

http://www.arcolatheatre.com/

Just 150m north of Kingsland is The Rio - a long-established independent cinema.

http://www.riocinema.ndirect.co.uk/

The Geffrye Museum is 2 minutes walk from the new Hoxton station.

http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/

Getting about easily to all these wonderful places sounds fantastic but having had yet another issue ( 4th in less than 2 months) with both lifts not working at the South Bank/Hungerford Bridge we had to traipse all the way back from the Festival Hall to Waterloo to catch a train to Charing X in order to get to central London with buggies. It was quite a day and made us realise that we simply could not trust any lift provision to be working when we need it, nor could we rely on anyone racing to fix it. It really made me think about issues what disabled people face and how much they and people with mobility issues and buggies must need to factor in alternative emergency travel strategies every time they go out.
I feel high expectations for Forest Hill station from an accessibility point of view but am concerned about having them dashed when the lifts inevitably break down and leave us and others like us stranded.
Call me pessimistic( I'm used to that) but it will take some time before we can trust this particular facility.

Roz, my pleasure - you are pessimistic - lets give them a chance at least

Roz,

We really need a ground level exit from platform 2 through the car park. But I doubt we will ever get it.

Indeed we do, but I'm optimistic ( hooray) on that front.

TfL Underground/Overground style direction signs are now on the footbridge. No change to the other signs.

Lifts look like they are working, let's see if they are as reliable as the lift in WH Smith/Post Office.