London Overground - Highbury & Islington to Peckham Rye

[Ladygooner]

So here at last is the reply to my email to London Overground

"Thank you for contacting London Overground. I am sorry that you have been affected by the recent timetable change on our East London Line. I sincerely apologise for the delay in replying as we have been working hard to clear an immense backlog.

After the issues affecting London Bridge at the start of 2015, due to Network Rail works, minor tweaks had been by London Overground and Southern Railways to services in May. The December timetable change is the first opportunity that we have had to make major changes to improve the service and reliability of services running from Clapham Junction/West Croydon/Crystal Palace and New Cross in to and out of central London.

Govia Thameslink approached us with a proposed timetable of their Thameslink and Southern services and this revised timetable, which was introduced on 13 December, is a lead up to completion of all the Thameslink work that is taking place in the London Bridge area. For the timetable to work it became necessary for London Overground to alter our East London Line timetable in order for the train paths of both London Overground & Thameslink/Southern to work south of New Cross Gate through to Crystal Palace and West Croydon.

TfL & London Overground were supportive of the revisions, for one it gives a more even balance of London Overground services south of New Cross Gate ? every 7 or 8 minutes as opposed to spacing of 5 and 10 minutes which we had until the changes were made. Both Thameslink/Southern & London Overground worked together with Network Rail in order to produce the new timetable paths. Unfortunately it does mean that the Clapham Junction services via Queens Road Peckham don?t serve Highbury & Islington or Canonbury any more as there is not enough space at Highbury for all East London Line services to terminate there, but there are other London Overground services in each direction for passenger to connect with. If travelling from Clapham Junction direct services to Highbury do operate via Willesden Junction and run 5 times per hour from Clapham Junction, with an additional 4 trains per hour departing from Willesden Junction.

West Croydon services now run through to Highbury & Islington instead of terminating at Dalston Junction. I understand that this may be disappointing if travelling from stations between Wandsworth Road and Queens Road Peckham, but we believe this will lead to a more reliable London Overground service in the future.

Overall the changes to services have been made to provide a more robust timetable especially Monday-Saturday when all trains heading north from the Sydenham corridor will now form trains heading back the same way. This should result in the New Cross & Clapham Junction branches being unaffected by problems south of New Cross Gate that can currently happen."

So it was a lovely straight through service while it lasted.

[Earl Aelfheah]

>:(

[JohnL]

That is so refereeing only one side ;)

[Earl Aelfheah]

Considering the number of years involved in redeveloping London Bridge, it may have been good for TFL to have provided some additional bus services, or done something to try and mitigate the effects. I suspect things will get better once London Bridge is finished (2018/19?). That said, passenger numbers have increased massively and the provision of new capacity isn't keeping up. Denmark hill in rush hour is actually pretty dangerous. Getting on the tube at London Bridge is also pretty difficult in rush hour.

[kilmore]

Late night trains - half hour service after 11pm: Having just missed a train at Canada Water late at night to Peckham Rye and watching trains to both West Croydon and Crystal Palace continuing at 15 minute intervals it struck me that there was a disparity in services between the Clapham Junction Branch of the Overground and the main spine, for example giving a 7 minute service to Sydenham until after midnight. Contrast that with the half hour service on the Clapham Junction Branch and it looks very unequal. TfL obviously think that residents in this area should be tucked up in their beds by 11 pm.

There does not seem any logistical reason why these trains should go on to a half hour service so early, although it's interesting that the termination our service northwards at Dalston has emerged. When the late night Clapham Branch trains do run they seem pretty full in both directions. A lot of people will not use them if there is the risk of having to wait half an hour if you just miss one. I have written to Overground about it and will post their reply. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has taken this up.