Yep that calendar totally does not match up to the 6 month planned closure Pdf. Although I really hope it’s the calendar that’s accurate and not the pdf, as if not we can basically forget relying on the overground over the next 6 months.
Ugh no overground 19th December
last weekend before Christmas!
That’s that’s the last thing us locals who work in shops in the west end needed to hear.
I’m just so lucky I have this weekend off it took my husband well over an hour to get to London Bridge on a bus yesterday.
Is this actually happening - all of these closures?
The central line though doesn’t share track with any other line or railway operator, and doesn’t operate for several hours during the the night when some maintenance can probably be done. However London Overground from New Cross Gate to Crystal Palace and West Croydon shares Network Rail track with Southern, Thameslink and I think some freight trains. I’ve always been under the impression that as the Thameslink services from Bedford through Blackfriars, East Croydon and Gatwick run 24/7 they are still using the fast track from New Cross Gate as they do during the day so that would limit most engineering work being done on the slow track at night too, but I stand to be corrected if that isn’t the case.
It was shut completely quite early on during the first lockdown but is now operating as follows:
“between 06.07 and 10.13 and between 15.23 and 19.11, Monday to Friday only”
Central line runs trains ever 3/4 minutes, so I’d day probably a more used track than the overground, where there’s probably a train every 8 minutes or so.
Also it’s a double track so the wear and tear is split.
Sorry I think I got that wrong, looks like it’s just Sydenham to Crystal Palace that’s closed on that date.
Also October 4-7th it’s only closed after 11pm
In the event the W&C is down, you can easily get from Waterloo to Bank.
When the trains are down at FH we are stuck and particularly so if you live west of the ward, because Catford stations aren’t close.
Crystal Palace sounds like an option, and you can get to CP easily when Southern or the Overground are running - but it’s when they’re not that you need to use CP. So you take a bus adding 20/30 mins to your journey.
The other factor is the cost. If you swap from TFL to Southern you pay twice for a longer and less convenient journey which doe snot seen fair. I am happy to pay more for better services, but not at all happy about paying more for worse services.
Trains are running from New Cross Gate and Canada Water but how do you get to those places as there are NO direct buses…
I’m sure the situation with the tracks is valid but what is the solution, and perhaps it’s time for the other services that use the track to have to make diversions because it seems always us that are sacrificed.
I also think it’s likely that they’re doing maintenance in a way that suits them rather than what’s right for passengers. There’s something odd about building a line that requires so much maintenance.
The other month when the tracks into Victoria needed repairing, they cancelled our services so that the Victoria services could divert to London Bridge! Perhaps those passengers should have had to change in Croydon onto our line or something, rather than getting a service to LB at our expense.
Harder from FH, but if dependant on where you, if you walk to Brockley Rise off the South Circular, I guess roughly a 10/15 minute walk from FH station (so I guess shorter or longer dependant on where you live), or a couple of stops on a 185/122, you can get the 171 to New Cross, and further down on by Chandos the P12 goes to Surrey Keys (it is very slow from memory!).
Just to confirm, that it does look like these are correct unfortunately. According to CityPlanner, there is (yet another) line closure this coming weekend.
I went through the list and updated it all, so this should be everything now up until April. January looks particularly bad, but March and April both have no full weekend closures (although possibly that’s because they just haven’t been planned in yet).
just depressing to see that this weekend there are no trains AGAIN! 
I don’t understand why we are always fighting just to get a train service here in Lewisham. Isn’t the council responsible for ensuring transport runs to schedule because they seem very uninvolved. Perhaps they haven’t factored the postcodes within west Lewisham that aren’t anywhere near Catford stations.
Last weekend we waited 20 mins for the rail replacement bus which didn’t turn up. The P4 to Brixton was terminating at Dulwich village. Uber wanted £26 to get to Canada Water, and we ended up being maybe 60 mins late due to having to go via Lewisham DLR. All this again for so many more weekends as we need to travel north of the river and without the trains it adds on at least 20/30 mins per journey.
I feel your pain-I paid £60 to get home from the west end last week all because I couldn’t get a train from Canada water and I didn’t want to be a lone woman waiting for an Uber there because my colleague (also female) got mugged walking there at 10pm a few weeks ago
I’ve never been sure about the area around Canada Water late at night, and always better safe than sorry. It’s a frustrating way to spend £60 though. 
I don’t mind New Cross Gate as much as it’s a very busy road and there are usually lots of students about.