I just noticed that southern are actually using our tracks, just not stopping, like Thames link have always done.
Maybe they should have been made to stop at Lewisham stations? And maybe this is how Southwark and Wandsworth got their services back?
Southern try to be useless everywhere, but get away with it less in Wandsworth.
I don’t think it’s melodramatic. When we returned to the office last year I cycled 16 miles a day to avoid having to take the overground now the Victoria service has gone. I’m lucky we’re only back two days a week because we gave up office space in lockdown as I don’t think I could cycle 5 days! I would basically do any route I could to avoid Canada Water and luckily because i’m south side of the tracks, the catford stations and lower sydenham are within range. I really really feel for those of you who can’t avoid Canada Water - it’s vile. Which is why I never used that route before lockdown even though it’s the quickest door to door public transport route to my office.
I cannot believe how sketchy southern is on this, pretending they are running a service but in fact not actually running a remotely appropriate service. I knew the route to victoria was out of the window (and therefore the two trains a day to LB when it’s going the other way) but I didn’t realise the rest of the London Bridge services weren’t running either. When I think that when I moved to FH you could get a direct train to Charing Cross, London Bridge and Victoria and had the overground. Now it seems we can only get to Canada Water!
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The East London Line is fine in terms of frequency but the fact is it only just touches Zone 1 at Shoreditch and has much fewer interchanges with other lines than the Met. Almost all changes on the ELL are at Canada Water causing a huge bottleneck. It’s really not comparable to the Met at all.
Maybe it would be less of a bottleneck of ELL frequency increased to take up the unused track time which was allocated to Southern? Giving us something closer to normal tube frequency.
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Also the capacity of some of the Overground stations is pretty poor. When the Jubilee line had issues in late 2019 Shadwell (where you can change on to the DLR) often got dangerously overcrowded.
I think things at Canada Water will improve once Crossrail opens as people will be able to get off at Whitechapel and access another East/West connection. But that feels like a long way off at the moment.
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It’s not just the interchange at Canada Water that’s a massive problem, it’s also about the Jubilee service which is problematic for overcrowding and the carriages are physically smaller than other tube lines. There’s less headroom, less air. You can tell that the Jubilee was expected to be overcrowded
from inception, as there are fewer seats per carriage than other lines.
The overground for me is a far more useful and important line than the NR to London Bridge.
Yes the Canada Water interchange isn’t the nicest experience, but the jubilee line takes you to so many more places than just London Bridge (where the interchange with the tube is quite a long one).
The problem we’ve got is having both overground and NR means neither is providing a decent service. I find all the regular weekend closures of the overground totally unacceptable.
I’d obviously like to have both services. But if it was a choice of the two I’d go for the overground any day.
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The key thing is that you need to have both services, certainly during the week. When I used to work in Canary Wharf I admit that I would normally do the Overground cram and Canada Water. Not pleasent, but I agree the BR/underground interchange at London Bridge was not great either.
But if you work close to London Bridge, wanted to get to Waterloo/Charing Cross then the rail is better (plus of course the rail line provides connections at East Croyden and London Bridge for airports).
I do understand that with a major upgrade at London Victoria, it is likely that there is some knock-on disruption at weekends on our line. There were big problems I think on the lines from Lewisham when London Bridge station was upgraded.
What I do not think acceptable though is to have no Southern rail services in the week. Both the Overground and Southern is needed in the week, especially as more people work in the office. Plus there is the moral point as though it rather looks like Southern has thrown this line under the bus (or more accurately non-stopping train)
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I only really use Southern when the OG is down, but it is down a lot, and if we do not have Southern as a back up then our journey takes 30 mins longer, as we are not near Catford.
Stations in SW London through to Victoria station service are not serviced by the overground, and so I think there is a valid argument that they should keep the service to Victoria running.
If the worst comes to the worst and Southern get away with cancelling our local/metro service then they should be made to make some of their long distance services stop at our stations.
We really some support with getting the OG to actually run the scheduled service all the way to H&I, 8tph, every day, not finishing early.
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But the jubilee line goes to both London Bridge and Waterloo. So the rail might be better but they both do the same job.
I’d actually be in favour of southern completely removing the service, if it meant that all this nonsense with the overground being down for an entire weekend once a month was stopped (hypothetically speaking).
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I always go ‘up and over and down’ at Canada Water its the only way for me as the escalator down directly to the jubilee gives me the fear!
Another reason I favour the London Bridge service to the overground is actually job related.
I stand all day at work (shop assistant) and Its actually a huge relief to be able to sit down on my commute.
At the times I travel there are rarely seats available on the Jubilee and believe me being able to sit on a Southern train makes a huge difference.
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I work near London Bridge, so the Southern train is ideal for me. Easier, quicker and less stressful. Also, as “old school” SE Londoners will know London Bridge, then Charing X is the best way in to town for shopping or a night out.
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This does not look good.
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I asked a friend who works in the rail industry what was going on. His first comment was that Southern has “much less spare capacity” when it comes to staffing, so it was particularly badly hit when high numbers of people were being forced into isolation with Omicron. He promised to look into it, and followed up a couple of days later with the following:
“New intel on your train service from an informed source. To run a train service you need to create a timetable in a system less sophisticated than Excel and upload into another system. You have to do this frequently. Apparently everyone who can do this at Southern got sick at the same time, and your route wasn’t a priority for the one chap left in the office. Nothing to do with numbers of drivers or people wanting to travel by train…”
In my mind this might explain why we have suffered a complete cessation of service to and from our station (rather than a disrupted or reduced service). It could be interpreted as reasonably positive news. But on the flip side it begs the question: why was our route not a priority? Some criteria must have been applied, presumably not arbitrary, which I think is ominous.
I asked him what he thinks this means for us, and whether we could hope to have the service reinstated reasonably soon, to which he replied “no idea”! He also corroborated the story from The Times posted above. The assumption of a permanently reduced customer base combined with the removal of vital gov. subsidies means something has to give.
Hopefully the above is interesting if not conclusive.
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That may well be an inevitable consequence of a big increase in working from home. Obviously that does not help people in roles that cannot WFH and rely on the train service.
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That piece in the Times is very ominous. Based on the replies from Ellie Reeves, it sounds as though the service will be reinstated from 21 February - if it’s not, I think we should consider taking further action (though I’m not exactly sure what that would look like, beyond more emails sent to MPs who don’t seem to be able to do that much!)
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I was always happy with the previous mainline service of 6 trains an hour to London Bridge and the evening service to and from Charing Cross. Anyone who wanted the East London Line could change at New Cross Gate.
The Overground came as an addition, but we lost two trains an hour. Not too bad.
If the mainline trains are going to be cancelled, we should have additional Overground trains. They can turn them round at Canada Water. I was once on an Overground train that pulled into Canada Water on the southbound platform.
I suspect that Forest Hill is not a priority is because we do not make enough noise.
If the service is not improved on 21 February, I suggest we involve the media.
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I went to lunch in the City last Thursday and used the 176/35 buses both ways which was very pleasant and only took an hour.
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Agree on all counts.
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Maybe we should start a campaign like this? Not looked in detail, only just heard of them:
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At this point, do as much as you can. I have written to Southern, and to Mayor Khan’s office. It would be good to know that the Lewisham mayor is advocating for us, but I don’t know how to find that out (wrote to him once and never got any response).
When I receive a reply from Southern (assuming it’s not helpful), I intend contacting London Travelwatch.
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