Agree,
and as mentioned by @HannahM the Overground this morning and this evening was was packed! Standing room only by Honor Oak park going eastbound and only a handful of seats at forest Hill.
Coming back this evening there were no when I got on at Canada water and I’ve taken to using the stairs to platform 3 from the Jubilee Line because the queue from the escalator is so bad.
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Here’s a reply from my complaint to Southern:
"I appreciate the recent timetable changes have particularly impacted some passengers, and I’m sorry that’s the case. Just to explain the need for the changes, like many other industries across the country, Coronavirus continues to affect our people and disrupt our business, especially the widely reported new variant.
There are two main factors at play: the first is short notice absence due to track and trace mandated isolation and positive Covid tests. The second factor is the cumulative result of at least sixteen months of disruption. In particular, Coronavirus has had a knock-on impact on driver training, as social distancing limited numbers in the cab and the classroom. With regular staff turnover, there are now fewer people available than before the pandemic.
We’ve seen a similar impact on other critical roles including engineering teams, on-board crew and platform dispatchers. So, while our depots are fully staffed, the number of qualified crew that are available on a day-by-day basis is less than before the pandemic. In normal circumstances we’d cover small gaps through overtime; now, the number of people who are available and also have the right training is far smaller.
By reducing the number of trains in a planned way, the remaining train service will be more reliable for everyone and will mean you can still plan your day around your journey.
We’re needing to review the timetable on a weekly basis and we’ll do our best to introduce more services. If you haven’t already, please check out our webpage which we’ll keep up to date as and when changes will happen: Southern - Revised-timetable.
I hope this helps explain the current situation but, if you have any further queries or concerns, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line. Thank you again for getting in touch."
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I mean our new train service IS reliable…
Reliably not there.
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Yes, because we all have the freedom to pick our working hours…
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The response from Southern does not address the zero service for us. I guess they didn’t bother to check the actual route and just assumed we have a reduced service rather than a non-existent service.
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I’ve just posted details of the new Southern timetable that has been announced and updated in National Rail’s Journey Planner (It’s good news! 
)
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Yup! Spoke to my nephew who drives on that line. He said he did an evening peak train to West Croydon other day and people were being left behind at Canada Water, was mostly standing only from Whitechapel. So it’s not purely down to London Bridge services, just people returning to normality.
@Sherwood - They can turn them round at Canada Water. I was once on an Overground train that pulled into Canada Water on the southbound platform.
It can be done in out of course situations, such as extreme delays or problems with the line. In normal service though, it couldn’t work. There is a 6 minute minimum allowance for turning around a train (ie driver comes in to platform, lets people out, turns off train, walks to other end, sets ups train), which is way more than the current headway allows. If it were to be slotted in between trains, you’d have to double-man it, ie have another driver ready to go at the other end, which would mean increasing NXG depot drivers. Even if that were the case, there is a minimum allowance of 3 minutes to set up a train, That’s 2.5 minutes longer than currently used. It just genuinely can’t be integrated in to the timetable to have a timetabled Canada Water terminator.
There will be an increase to 18 trains per hour in either May or December this year though. Not sure where the extras will go, most likely Crystal Palace. They’ve already started works on new stabling sidings at New Cross (old LUL sidings) to accommodate the extra trains from rest of the network. Also will probably berth 2 trains at night at West Croydon platform 1, which is why some new security fencing is going up now there.
The New Bermondsey development planning application has been agreed in last week with Lewisham Council, so expect possible closures to the Clapham Junction line. Also Surrey Quays station upgrade is taking place, so if there are a lot of full line closures, it will be because of this. However, if there’s no service through Surrey Quays, there is absolutely no reason for there not to be a shuttle service between New Cross Gate/West Croydon/Crystal Palace. Unfortunately though, TfL own the line from from NXG to Dalston Junction and outsource the maintenance. South of NXG is Network Rail owned, so if Network Rail decide to do maintenance at same time as an ELL closure, there’s nothing TfL can do.
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Also surely part of the issue is there are only so many trains that can go through the old East London line part. when I used to get the train from Shadwell there would often be congestion in that bit, particularly as over crowding meant there were boarding delays at Canada Water.
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Apologies for going off topic, for obvious reasons I’ve been using the Overground recently, does Wapping station always smell like a sewer?
Pretty much, yes.
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My point was that you cannot extrapolate to the whole population like that. Not everyone is exposed in the same way and some occupations are way more unhealthy than others.
If course there is a lot of truth in that, but the number of employees is large enough to cover a broad section making direct extrapolation fairer. Even if I said they were ten times more unhealthy the numbers would still be silly
Of course train workers are safety roles so they should maintain a standard of fitness so they can execute those roles…
I work in a busy west end shop where even when masks were mandatory many customers didn’t bother and possibly as a result of this and and working when office workers were told to WFH many of my colleagues got covid or were isolating (In my department at one point before christmas out of 20 members of staff 12 had Covid )
HOWEVER at no point despite being extremely short staffed throughout December and January (our busiest times due to christmas and january sales) the shop never closed its doors we managed to trade with just about 2/3 of our workforce -I dont understand why Southern had to stop every train on our line except two before 7am and two after 11pm ‘due to sickness’ it doesn’t ring true.
In fact it smells like bull 
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What is the source of this information, please? I can find references talking about the plans to run more trains in general but nothing that’s recent and/or has a date stated.
I’d love to see it happen, but with talks about TfL possibly having to close entire tube lines I find it hard to believe they would find the funds to put more trains on the Overground.
Perhaps the person responsible for transport within Lewisham could provide an official and factually correct response as to future improvements or cuts to Lewisham services? It’d be odd if they didn’t have this info to hand.
Also, referring to Flora’s note, would it be a good idea for someone to set expectations out for the OG when doing Surrey Quays station improvements? I can see they’ll try to close the entire line, quoting Surrey Quays station improvements as an excuse, when we know (well in advance) that they can provide the OG service south of New Cross Gate, thereby at least leaving us with the CW interchange.
They’ve definitely shut the whole line before, when they could have kept sections of it open.
We could set the bar high by letting the OG know in advance that it won’t be acceptable not to run the service south from NCG.
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Any extra Overground services would go to Crystal Palace because there isn’t the capacity to send more trains to West Croydon until the major remodelling of the Selhurst/Norwood Junction to East Croydon corridor which would untangle all the lines as what Network Rail did to London Bridge for the Thameslink Programme.
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It’s good that network rail carry out out necessary maintenance and improvement works, but please not to the detriment of services from Forest Hill. Forest Hill services need to run to the schedule and no more excuses! We’ve had enough! Engineering works can take place on the night shift so as to avoid leaving Forest hill with no trains, as is standard in other London boroughs. No more service cancellations please!!
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I was looking at some old Southern Region timetables from the 50s and 60s recently and if you think the trains are bad now, this is what Forest Hill commuters had back then.
3tph to London Bridge.
2tph to Sutton via West Croydon.
1tph to London Bridge southbound calling at all stations to Norwood Junction which would then swing round to go on the Brighton Main line towards Victoria calling at stations such as Selhurst and Streatham Common before going up to Tulse Hill, North/East Dulwich, Peckham Rye to London Bridge.
East Croydon trains were few and far between and by the 60s, there were also additional trains to Crystal Palace from London Bridge.
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What is the source of this information, please?
My nephew is a driver on the London Overground East London Line, based at New Cross Gate depot. He’s been giving me the information from what he’s been told from his management/union. London Overground is a National Rail service, not LUL, so if TfL feel the need, they can just sell off the infrastructure they own and services to DfT.
I find it hard to believe they would find the funds to put more trains on the Overground.
It has always been the plan, that once all the new 710s are in service, that will allow the 378s from the GOB/Watford DC/NLL surplus trains to come back to ELL to enable uplift in service. The ideal plan is to increase ELL core route to be at least 20tph without new trains or change to ETCS signalling. So it will be extra trains to Crystal Palace and Clapham Junction. Major thing holding it back is stabling space, which is why West Croydon and New Cross sidings are being brought back in to use. Extra trains to Clapham Junction will require step-backs, ie driver brings a train in, waits for next train. Previous driver will take that train out.
Before the pandemic, there was going to be some signalling changes around Canada Water, to allow more trains through, pandemic stopped it all. Currently, northbound, you can have one train at Surrey Quays, one train between Surrey Quays and Canada Water, one train at Canada Water and one train at Rotherhithe. The new signalling will allow there to be an extra train between Canada and Rotherhithe, which increases amount of trains able to travel through the area and speeds things up. This will increase the throughput and allow trains to move through quicker.
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No objection to increased numbers of Overground trains (provided no detriment to Southern into London Bridge…) though I wonder if they will have to think about safety at Canada Water interchange. I suppose if its the same number of people coming in on more frequent trains its broadly neutral, but if more people are coming in then that interchange will be even more grim at rush hours (plus if something goes wrong at Canada Water with the Jubilee, then the main alternative is Shadwell which is a very narrow platform).
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