Sadly I’ve heard nothing from Ellie Reeves save acknowledgement of my letter to her.
very disappointing
I was just in Vicky Foxcroft’s meeting with Govia Thameslink Rail along with (I’m guessing) a couple of people who have been participating in this thread.
GTR say they are only committing to run the present services (which have just been reinstated) until May at which point they will reassess demand based on passenger numbers. Several of us raised the concern that passenger numbers are likely to be in correlation with the available services. For example for me personally I have been avoiding the Overground from HPA as it’s so unpleasantly packed and instead taking more circuitous, less convenient routes via Crofton Park etc. so I’m not being counted as a passenger on my normal route.
Sadly there is no prospect of the LBG-VIC route returning as far as I understood it.
Vicky suggested everyone check in again closer to May which seems sensible.
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Yes I was in too - they did say they could possibly consider swapping the Lon Bridge to East Croydon for the London Bridge to Victoria (so still just 2 trains per hour into Lon Bridge). We said that we shouldn’t be forced to choose! And made the point that Norwood Junction is a really poor interchange if not able-bodied. To be honest I think they are interested in longer commuter routes than the “Metro” routes which stay largely within Z2/3.
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I think they said they could consider restoring the Victoria loop in the May timetable…
But their case against is dependent on passenger numbers, passenger revenue and their chronic lack of drivers.
Govia’s franchise is up in April and there is a chance they could lose it though…
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It’s hard to imagine this bunch of clowns keeping control of the franchise (unless they have donated money to the appropriate political party).
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Thanks for the updates @SweetPotato, @squashst and @suze even though the response from GTR was pretty much as expected! And now it is becoming more difficult for them to blame staff either with Covid or self isolating they are finally having to admit that they don’t actually have enough drivers full stop. How ridiculous to even suggest they could possibly consider switching the East Croydon service for the Victoria service when we need both. I’m concerned though how they will reassess demand for the Victoria service when it has largely not operated for close on two years and those who used to use it are having to take totally different routes using other companies…
Perhaps our biggest hope is for GTR to lose the Southern franchise although with Great British Railways coming in next year what’s the betting Southern will be given an extension to at least next year?
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I think the best outcome for us may well be them losing the franchise…
there is a crowdfunded campaign on that I noticed
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Michael why are you allowed to get away with political comments ?
It would be interesting to know how they will do this.
I took Southern yesterday to London Bridge and changed to to another mainline train, without scanning any card or ticket, How will the Southern computer know that I took their train from FOH to London Bridge? My TFL card (scanned at FOH) gets me to to any station in Zones 1 - 6. I had an additional ticket from Zone 6 to St Albans for the part of the journey not covered by the TFL card.
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Presumably there will be an assumption that as you have not checked out at an Overground station you used the mainline train. Also, some trains seem to measure passenger numbers by weight. They seem to know which carriages have more or fewer passengers!
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Exactly. To go from Forest Hill to London Bridge on Southern requires no need to go through barriers when changing on to Thameslink services. However, if you were to go from Forest Hill to London Bridge via London Overground and Jubilee Line at Canada Water, you will be required to go through two sets of barriers at London Bridge. One at the tube concourse and then walk to the main railway concourse and go through another set of barriers.
Its ridiculous. How can they possibly assess demand for a service that is closed?
Surely residents in West Norwood and Streatham Hill must be livid too. Have no trains at all!
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For years people have argued metro lines like this should be in TfL. Why not just make it part of the overground? It literally runs from two zone 1 stations.
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I agree with you about transferring London Victoria to London Bridge Metro Services to TfL. I am not saying Tfl would have been perfect, but if they had the service I reckon a better chance of having some service to London Bridge over the past months. However, the government of the day, 5 years or so ago did not like the idea of rail metro services being transferred to TfL (failing Grayling). Now TfL is short of money and to take on extra lines would presumably need money from central government. This is a challenge (in all fairness, all transport companies are probably short of money).
So, sorry to say, I do not anticipate TfL getting money anytime soon to get the Metro lines. I wish it was different. Sorry.
And yes, you are quite correct, if there are no services on a line, then there are no passengers and accordingly no demand. Its a circular argument and a rationale for not running trains on a line that the rail company does not want to run services on, because their priority is longer routes into London.
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Trains from London Bridge were going to Streatham Hill via Forest Hill the other night. First time I’ve ever been on a FH train that finished at Streatham Hill.
Does anyone know if this train that ended in Streatham would have usually have gone to Croydon or Victoria?
But after going though the barriers at Forest Hill with his zone 1-6 card @DevonishForester could just as easily have taken the Southern East Croydon service and changed at either Norwood Junction or East Croydon onto other Southern services without going through any barriers. Or as it was a Saturday he could have got the Victoria service and changed at Clapham Junction onto South Western services without going though any more barriers.
Southern have a depot at Streatham Hill which is on the “loop line” to Victoria. Some of the early morning trains start from there and some late evening trains terminate there.
It happens occasionally - I’ve definitely been on one that terminated at Streatham Hill. It’s the Victoria route.
West Norwood and Streatham Hill are served by Southern’s West Croydon - Victoria service (every 30 mins) and in addition West Norwood has Southern’s Beckenham Junction to London Bridge service every 90 minutes with additional services around school times.
Ah okay, it was a first for me and make me double take if I was going on the right train. It seemed like every train that evening was going to Streatham Hill so wonder if there wasn’t enough drivers to take the trains into Victoria and back so the route was shorter