Not intuitive but get the Overground to Surrey Quays and change to get the Clapham Junction train. Once at Clapham Junction you can get a train to Battersea or Victoria.
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Is it worth raising this issue with London Mayor’s office given Lewisham is being celebrated as Borough of Culture this year without key train services running…
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I am going to email Ellie Reeves today.
Whilst I have sympathy with the staffing issues being experienced by the TOCs, it is pretty outrageous we end up with no service when other areas of London still get some. There are trains still going to Crystal Palace, Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye and New Cross and they have the Overground.
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Thank you for suggesting that route, will certainly give it a try
The London Assembly member for Lewisham is len.duvall@london.gov.uk and the Transport representative for the London Mayor is office@sebdance.co.uk (not exactly sure this is the right email for Seb as he just took up the role on 4th Jan)
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I had been going out to East Croydon and then back into Clapham Junction. It was actually about the same speed as the Victoria train. Now there are no trains to East Croydon I am also a bit lost. Last week I did overground to Canada Water, Jubilee to Green Park, Victoria line to Victoria and then 170 to Battersea. There is probably a route via Norwood but I haven’t worked it out
I have also emailed Ellie Reeves but I toughened it up a bit, see below.
My name is John H and I’m writing to you today about the almost total cancellation of weekday Southern railways services from Forest Hill, Brockley and Honor Oak Park stations to London Bridge. As someone who lives in your constituency and regularly travels to central London, this issue is extremely important to me and especially to commuters living in the area. It will no doubt assume even greater importance when Covid restrictions are eased later this month and more people will be returning to work.
I would like you to pressure Southern Railway to end this neglect of a large swathe of your constituency and reinstate our service immediately. Please can you outline the steps you intend to take to address these concerns and keep me informed of any progress.
Yours sincerely,
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Perhaps it might also be useful if the virologists conducted a study to find out why the Omicron variant particularly affects the employees of unionized industries.
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It is getting ridiculous isn’t it! Currently I am going to Canada water then jubilee line to Waterloo. Get the train from Waterloo to Queenstown Rd. It works but is getting a bit costly.
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One could argue that they tend to be at the front line - true key workers.
In this particular case, I don’t think the staff are affected by any more than the average population. They might have a stricter testing regime so they would be picking up more asymptomatic cases.
However, I don’t believe it’s Southern who decide which trains run but it’s the Department for Transport, led by the Secretary of State and his Ministers under the central government. There is also this other bloke in charge of the money who I’m told can be a bit stingy.
And I mean honestly, with all the heat our elected leaders are feeling at the moment, why should they care about voters in Lewisham, of all places? If I were them I’d probably blame the Mayor and let him sort it all out.
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No good options at the moment…
If you’re going via Waterloo, there is also the new Northern Line branch to Battersea Power station, which might work out cheaper.
Depending on how convenient Crofton Park station is for you, there are three direct trains to Victoria in the morning. There are frequent trains from Victoria to Battersea Park. Sadly, that option doesn’t exist in the evening.
But perhaps it’s worth giving the normal route a shot? There are some journeys with one change at Crystal Palace, others with an extra change at Balham. And they’re not taking that much longer than previously. It could be a lot worse.
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Depending on what side of Queenstown Rd you need, you could try bus to Denmark Hill then Overground to Wandsworth Rd and walk the rest?
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The bus to Denmark Hill (30mins) and then a 10min train journey to Victoria.
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Should the council/MP’s do nothing and accept that central government are (are they really?) to blame for this? Other councils are clearly doing more to get services running again and why should West Lewisham residents not expect the same?
I’d be keen to know what the councils official view is on the performance of Southern and the Overground. Do they think current service levels are fine, and therefore no need for them to take any action?
I am sure the reason stated for our southern cancellations was driver shortages, not budget constraints from central government. It feels like any plausible excuse is thrown out when Southern fail to deliver the service, rather than things being properly investigated.
Does central government neglect Lewisham more than it neglects other labour boroughs in inner London, such as Southwark? Southern are running in Southwark.
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Just a reminder that by bike it’s under 7 miles to Victoria mostly through LTNs, parks, bus and cycle lanes. Battersea is also a nice ride - there’s a quiet cycleway from the back of Brixton to Clapham North. It’s both Covid and cash free too 
If you have reasons you can’t cycle then this post is not directed at you.
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That’s right - I met Ellie before Christmas to discuss the issues with Southern (before Omicron came in to disrupt things again) - write up here: Forest Hill Society: Southern Rail Services – London Bridge to Victoria service update - note the key point:
Southern also reported that they were suffering from significant staff shortages due to Covid-affected drivers having to isolate, and this is the main issue for reduced service, rather than budgetary constraints or train occupancy rates.
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What is it about Lewisham voters that central government has a particular lack of concern for?
Most inner London boroughs are labour held. Why does central government have particular disregard for Lewisham?
With about 1 in 10 railway staff absent due to Covid, according to Sky News, that would extrapolate to 6.5mil cases across the population, so I think rail staff are claiming to be affected considerably more than the rest of us and I find it hard to believe that train drivers count as “front line staff” cocooned in their cabs as they are.
Furthermore, each train company tells Network Rail what timetable it wants to run; Network Rail then looks across all the operators to ensure the timetables will work together and confirms to the train companies what their timetable will be. Nothing whatever to do with central government, all down to the train operators.
My point wasn’t specifically about Lewisham. It’s not just our services which are being cut. The main reason for cutting all of our Southern services is probably that we’re the only line that sees 8 trains each hour by another operator, on the same line. You couldn’t do that at other stations like Peckham Rye, because East Dulwich and others wouldn’t get any train service at all. Other areas served by Southern got a train to Balham which is Zone 3, and that was it.
Yet, the reason why our trains got cancelled in the first place was to make space for other trains from further out while Victoria was closed over Christmas. This arrangement seems to have just carried on.