Getting to Honor Oak Park station

[SeanMacGabhann]

MP?????

(although to be fair some people suspect we are the same person)

[TJ]

Pls see below reply from TFL. If we all put our point across now, hopefully we can get this changed.

Pls all email:

[email protected]

Routes 63/363

Thank you for your recent email on the abovementioned routes.

I fully understand why you would like the routing you have mentioned and the possible benefits it would bring to yourself and fellow users. We continually monitor the bus network to see if any changes can be made to improve the level of service offered to passengers. The suggestions we receive from passengers are an important part of this process.

Please be assured that we make every effort to connect local centres and residential areas - and to respond positively to requests for direct connections. But it is not always possible to provide a direct link for every journey or implement all of the suggestions we receive. Ultimately, we have to make sure that we use the resources available to provide services that will benefit the majority of passengers using a route.

Currently we have no plans to extend or re-route either routes 63 or 363. However, both routes are due to be reviewed very soon, and your suggestions have been noted. Please be assured that where possible, we will always strive to improve the network.

Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us and if I can be of any further help please feel free to get in touch.

[Siduhe]

TJ Wrote:

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> I just would like to see the 363 route extended

> 400 metres up forest hill road.... it would just

> help link up more areas to HOP.

TJ, as I said above, I think this is a good idea, but I'm still struggling to see how the 363 can be rerouted via Honor Oak and then still go back onto the remainder of its route to Crystal Palace Road. It would have to do a U-turn, or miss out a substantial part of the route it now covers. How do you see this working?

[TJ]

The 63 just needs to be extended by 750 mtrs to go to the Brockley rise junction.

The 363 would indeed be a detour.

[Pearl]

This is the response I got back from London Buses

Thank you for your recent email regarding a request for a route to be introduced to cover Forest Hill Road - Honor Oak Park station.

I fully understand why you would like the route you have mentioned and the possible benefits it would bring to yourself and fellow users. We continually monitor the bus network to see if any changes can be made to improve the level of service offered to passengers. The suggestions we receive from passengers are an important part of this process.

Please be assured that we make every effort to connect local centres and residential areas - and to respond positively to requests for direct connections. But it is not always possible to provide a direct link for every journey or implement all of the suggestions we receive. Ultimately, we have to make sure that we use the resources available to provide services that will benefit the majority of passengers using a route.

Currently we have no plans to extend any current routes in the area or introduce a new route in line with your suggestion. However, routes in the vicinity are due to be reviewed very soon, and your suggestions have been noted. Please be assured that where possible, we will always strive to improve the network.

Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us and if I can be of any further help please feel free to get in touch.

......................

[Spangles30]

Pearl,this is the same bloody standardised response that TJ got!!!!

[TJ]

If we keep on at them it might be enough to get them to notice us and trial the route extension...

Pls keep emailing them.!

[louisiana]

Browncoffee Wrote:

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> Talking about the Honor Oak Park route, what is

> wrong with the P4?

>

> I have never come across a more unreliable bus in

All the 'P' routs are diabolical.

I have always said that the P stands for 'possible'.

[east-of-the-Rye]

After enduring a high speed trip along Brenchley Gardens, when it was particualary undulating, friends of ours (from Austria but who'd recently holiday'd in Italy) declared that the P in P12 stood for Pericoloso.

[Guest]

Excellent!

[Coach Beth]

Very good!

[spc]

I recieved this from TFL this morning:

Our Ref: 686476/1 AJ

Date: 11 June 2008

Dear Mr ********

Thank you for your email.

We continually monitor the bus network to see if any changes can be made to improve the level of service offered to passengers. The suggestions we receive from passengers are an important part of this process.

You offer a very good suggestion to extend the 63 service. Our Network Planners were very interested in your ideas and have assured me your comments will kept on file for serious consideration when the service is next reviewed.

Thank you for taking the time to write to us. If I can be of any further help, please feel free to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Ashlie Jackson

Customer Services

[Spangles30]

well, that message from TFL is a vast improvement from previous messages. Everyone with a vested interest should contact them!

[spc]

Spangles30 Wrote:

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> well, that message from TFL is a vast improvement

> from previous messages. Everyone with a vested

> interest should contact them!

I think you are right, they have had at least 3 or 4 letters/Emails so far, if they recieve a few more (hopefully a lot more) they may take some real notice.

[Spangles30]

Yes and I have also just emailed Boris Johnson about not only the 63, and the odd fact it doesn't continue to Honor Oak station - plus the lack of decent bus routes around Netherby Rd/Westwood park/Wood Vale. When visiting friends in Canonbie Rd I have to hike up a nasty, steep hill. Why no 'P' bus up there?

[toptulip]

Take a look on www.se23.com our forum (also the forest hill society website has information on this too) There is exactly the same debate about the 63 bus route. We in HOP would like to see it extended too as we would like a direct link to and from the city via peckham rye. We are also fed up of having to trek over the hill. The good news is that according to the chair of the forest hill society he has had a very recent meeting with the transport powers to be. The good news is that the 63 bus route will be under review and going to public consultation soon. This will be our chance to get the bus route extended up to Honor Oak Park Station! It will be great for us to join forces on this soon, the more who are for it the better. If there are anymore developments I will keep you posted!

[spc]

toptulip,

Thanks for the info

[TJ]

This is great news - hopefully the combined pestering from both sides of the hill will encourage them to extend it.

More emails pls people!!

[Spangles30]

TJ, I just received the same standardised letter as others here got/.

[ladywotlunches]

Has anyone heard any more about the extension of the 63?

An interesting (perhaps!) fact for you:

Yesterday I was looking at a map of the area from 1946 which shows where bombs landed and the extent of damage to buildings.

On this map is shown a railway that used to run to the north of the Horniman Gardens, just south of WoodVale and through where Brenchley gardens is now.

There used to be a station opposite the Cemetary there called 'Honor Oak' which is probably why the buses still say that - they (a long time ago) used to serve that station.

This line looks as though it used to go to London Bridge too. Anyone know what happened/when it was taken out of service and removed?

From where I live, this would have been a most handy station and would have saved the walk up AND down the hill each way. But its gone now. And Boris wonders why the capital relies on their cars so much. Public transport is not 'getting better'!!

[languagelounger]

There used to be a route on the flat which was well used by Nunheaders.

There's a gate into the cemetery from Brenchley Gardens (not the big one, a small one quite near the boundary of One Tree Hill) which then led you into Honor Oak Recreation Ground, where you could enjoy the grand vista opening out across Kent as you stolled across to HOP, having cut out the whole mountaineering section of the route.

Older readers will remember that this route was blocked off, causing huge inconvenience to the public, by one Terry Connor, the now former Cemeteries Superintendent for Southwark. Mr Connor, who still apparently lives in the Cemetery Lodge, features prominently in this week's Southwark News. Mr Connor has been relieved of his duties and is the subject of a criminal investigation into the extensive dumping of toxic waste in his cemetery.

"Southwark Council, dumping on the living and the dead for over 40 years".

[spooniferous]

ladywotlunches:

Off the subject I know but I am very interested in the map of the bomb destruction in the war. Where would I be able to see it?

[swipes]

This thread may help spooniferous

http://www.se23.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=534

[dc]

ladywotlunches Wrote:

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> There used to be a station opposite the Cemetery there called 'Honor Oak'

>

> This line looks as though it used to go to London Bridge too. Anyone know what happened/when it was

> taken out of service and removed?

Honor Oak Station - pictures here first linked by Macroban

And quite a bit of discussion on this thread: Lordship Lane Station

Including this link that covers the history of this now defunct track: Crystal Palace Route

[ladywotlunches]

Spooniferous

The maps are available in a book called 'The London County Council Bomb Damage Maps' 1939-1945, which was published in 2005. I imagine that the library will have a copy to take a look at your road.

As most of this old rail line has been built on now, there doesn't look like any chance of a revival. According to a neighbour who has lived here all his life (moving only about 3 roads, ever!), in the 50s he used to take this line and even at rush hour there were about 6 people on it. It was a victim of the great rail cuts of the time. Vives le Car!!!

But languagelounger - now Mr Connor is gone, perhaps the short cut to HOP could be reopened and help use all? How would this get done?