East London Line opening May 23rd

The East London Line is confidently expected to re-open on May 23rd providing us with an additional eight trains per hour for much of the day under the Overground brand.  For most local users, the attraction of the new service will be an easy interchange with the Jubillee line at Canada Water, or direct access to the north east part of the City on foot from Shoreditch High Street.  For some, four trains an hour to West Croydon will be attractive, and four trains an hour serving Crystal Palace will provide a much more frequent route to Clapham Junction and the Victoria.

There has been some disappointment that the service frequency reduces to four trains an hour after 10 pm and that the last trains run soon after midnight, finishing earlier than Southern services from London Bridge.  However, we envisage that if the demand for late services is high, it should be possible to slot additional trains into the timetable without too much difficulty.

Our main concern continues to be the reduction of services to London Bridge.  Charing Cross services were axed before Christmas and London Bridge services are being reduced when the new timetable is introduced on May 23rd.  We will continue to have six trains per hour to London Bridge during the morning peak hours, and Southern have pledged that these will all be eight coach trains.  However, for the rest of the day, including the evening peak hours, there will only be four trains per hour.  Although the East London Line will provide significant additional capacity, we are far from confident that it will be enough.  Local societies have been pressing hard for these cuts to be reviewed, a campaign which resulted in a 5500 signature petition being handed to Chris Mole, Parliamentary under Secretary for Transport, on 23rd March.  At the time of writing, a response to this petition is awaited.

Southern are committed to running 10 coach trains by December 2011 which should help alleviate over-crowding, providing Network Rail manage to extend the platforms by then and also that the longer trains are not used as an excuse to reduce service frequency.  In the longer term, we believe the platforms will be extended to run 12 coach trains but a loss of platforms at London Bridge during the rebuilding of that station means that we may again be fighting not to lose services.

Our local stations are all now managed by London Overground Rail Operating Ltd (LOROL) on behalf of Transport for London (TfL).  We are promised that they will all see a deep clean and superficial rebranding with vinyl stickers before May 23rd.  A fuller exercise to improve the stations is promised by the end of the year.  This should include new platform surfaces, signs, public address and information systems etc.  We look forward to these improvements.

Meanwhile, Honor Oak Park Station has been the scene of much frantic surveying recently.  Apparently the side of the cutting on the uphill side of the station has been slipping.  This may be the result of clean up work on the old Southwark nursery site which has been used for illegal dumping.  Whatever the reason, it is apparent that the wall at the back of the platform is breaking up and there is damage to the platform surface.  We may well see major rebuilding works at this station.

Forest Hill Station has a magnificent new footbridge and lifts providing step free access between the platforms.  It would be great if the whole station could be rebuilt to the same standard as the footbridge.  We are hoping that the platform extension to the south will one day provide level access to platform 2 from the Perry Vale Car Park.  This would be a major improvement in the accessibility of the station.
Andrew Reid