Southeastern trains to Lewisham, Cannon St ending

[Matthew]

I have been informed by someone within Southeastern that plans are afoot to end the Southeastern Hayes service to Lewisham, St John’s, New Cross and Cannon Street at the end of the year.

These trains are the main commuter trains from Lower Sydenham and the main way for commuters in Lower Sydenham to get to Lewisham and the connection to the DLR, the Lewisham Waldron health centre at New Cross, and into the City at Cannon Street.

I understand the plan is to only run the Charing Cross service after the end of the year (to relieve congestion at Lewisham), which is fast from Catford to London Bridge, and therefore leaves Sydenham commuters wishing to go to Lewisham or Cannon Street with no option but to change at London Bridge adding time and inconvenience to the already unpleasant rush hour commute.

I am writing to Southeastern to clarify plans, and urge any Sydenham residents who do not want to see a reduction in our rail connections across the borough or choice of services to do the same.

[stuart]

There is also the cost implication of routeing via LBG Zone 1 to non-zone 1 destinations. Paging Ellie ...

Stuart

[alywin]

As I understand it, there will continue to be a half-hourly service to Lewisham, but what happens after that is yet to be decided. My bet would be 4 trains an hour to London Bridge and Charing Cross - which is what used to happen late evenings once Cannon Street was closed, anyway - and change at Lewisham or London Bridge for trains to New Cross, St. John's and Cannon Street. Another solution might be to run them from Lewisham to Victoria, as with the current Dartford services, but that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me as passengers would have to commit to one terminus or the other.

[rbmartin]

It's been an objective of Southeastern to increase the Victoria to Lewisham services to 4 trains per hour, so diverting the current Cannon Street services to Victoria would do that and add new connections to Nunhead, Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill while keeping the ability to change at Lewisham for alternative Cannon St services to St. John's and New Cross.

Although impractical, Oyster and Contactless won't charge a Z1 fare if changing at London Bridge, as you'll only be changing platforms and not going through the gateline.

[stuart]

Although impractical, Oyster and Contactless won't charge a Z1 fare if changing at London Bridge, as you'll only be changing platforms and not going through the gateline.

Yes they will if getting the Jubilee back to Canary Wharf instead of changing to the DLR at Lewisham.

Stuart

[Matthew]

Short update as I haven’t received a reply to my letter to Southeastern so will follow up this week.

[stuart]

My daughter who lives at the end of the line got this reply from her local councillor:

Your email was passed to the Principle Transport Manager at the Council who wrote to Network Rail. Network Rail have confirmed that the proposals you mention were scrapped last year when the Southeastern franchise was taken over by the Department of Transports Operator of Last Resort in October 2021.

Network Rail have told us that should a proposal come forward to change the destination of the services, including ceasing to serve a station such as Lewisham, then the proposals would need to go through the entire process again and could not pick up where the old proposals left off.

I hope that this reply has been useful to you and has helped ease your concern about the service on the line.

Best wishes,

Tom

Cllr Thomas Turrell
Councillor - Hayes & Coney Hall Ward

[sydnami]

The ending of Cannon St trains on the Hayes line now confirmed by the new December timetables:
https://timetables.southeasternrailway. ... Table%206a

Trains from Lower Sydenham still quarter-hourly, and alternate trains will stop at Lewisham for the DLR connection.

[Matthew]

As I feared. If people want to preserve a commuter service into the City on the Hayes line I think we need to get onto Southeastern urgently

[Matthew]

Would they be comfortable in having a discussion on how they approached this? I’m certain there isn’t widespread support for removing these services, which will inevitably add commute times.

[mikej]

Well from nearby Beckenham, the local Lib Dem councillor Chloe has managed to save the Beck Junction to Blackfriars service. She's been campaigning on that since before she was elected this year and there was a petition.
Maybe you could do the same?

[alywin]

So, is there now no direct way of getting from the lower half of the Hayes line to St. John's and New Cross? That would be a pain for anyone wanting to transfer onto the Overground, for example.

I'm surprised there's spare platform capacity at Charing Cross, to be honest.

And I see there's still no sign of the other half of the Victoria to Orpington service being reinstated We are now very poorly off for trains on the Penge side of Sydenham.

[sydnami]

I'm surprised there's spare platform capacity at Charing Cross, to be honest.

The Greenwich line services (via Woolwich/Charlton/Blackheath) to Charing Cross have been cut, which must be contributing to the capacity. They've done that to reduce congestion at Lewisham, which is to be applauded by anyone who's ever sat there for 10 minutes after leaving Ladywell..

Still lots of options to get into the CIty without this link.. I get that it's a bummer if you happen to work directly outside Canon St, but how many people on this line don't have decent alternatives via London Bridge, Blackfriars or City Thameslink?

[alywin]

Greenwich line goes through Deptford, doesn't it? I have a friend there who's been having to change at London Bridge for all her trains for years now. So I'm surprised there's anything new there.

[Chris Best]

Just letting everyone know the next Lewisham Public Transport Liaison Committee is on Tuesday 1 November starting at 7pm.

This meeting provides councillors and the public with the opportunity to discuss operational problems with public transport providers in Lewisham (including Transport for London, Network Rail, Southeastern and Stagecoach). It is not a decision-making body, but acts as an important channel for consultation to ensure that issues of concern can be raised.

As your local councillors we have been raising issues on the loss of direct services from Sydenham to East Croydon and direct services from Penge West/Anerley to London Bridge – below is the response from Govia -
As discussed, the context to this change is adapting the network to the financial impact of increased working from home. What we are seeking to do is provide as much peak time capacity in the busiest sections of the network as we can with the resources available.
From Sunday 4th September we are making a set of changes to Southern services as part of this adaption. One of these is the replacement of the current all-stations London Bridge to East Croydon via Sydenham service with the return of the all-stations London Bridge to London Victoria via Sydenham service seven days per week.

The reason we are making this change is it allows us to double capacity for customers on the Sydenham to London Bridge section with eight and ten carriage trains replacing the current five carriage service into London Bridge.

The service also caters for orbital type journeys towards Clapham Junction, and because it is running between the two terminus stations, provides more peak time capacity into and out of London Victoria for stations to the west of Crystal Palace, as well as the capacity into London Bridge.
While this change means there is more space and more seats towards London Bridge, it does mean that Penge West and Anerley will not have a direct London Bridge service. To help mitigate this impact and maintain connections with East Croydon, from 4th September, the London Bridge to Caterham service will call additionally at Norwood Junction (London Bridge, Norwood Junction, East Croydon). This means that Norwood Junction will have four Overground and four Thameslink / Southern services per hour.

While for these two stations the journey involves changing at a station such as Norwood Junction, from the Anerley and Penge West perspective, it is slightly faster than the all-stations route at 20 minutes including the change, vs 25 minutes for the all-stations route today.
For journeys to and from East Croydon, we have sought to make the change at Norwood Junction from the same platform island whenever possible. As an example, the journey from Sydenham to East Croydon is seventeen minutes. Using the example of the 07:41 London Overground departure from Sydenham, this is planned to arrive into Platform 5 at Norwood Junction at 07:48. This train is then followed at 07:53 through the same platform by the Caterham fast service to provide the connection to East Croydon. We have also sought to do this in the return direction, with both services using platform 1 at Norwood Junction for most of the day. It is not possible to do this for all journeys, when for example peak-only additional services are running on weekdays, but we have sought to make the journey as simple as possible, recognising that it is a change on the current service.

We will continue to review feedback from users of the rail service and will make changes and improvements where we can. With the shift to working from home, we are having to make difficult choices, but while recognising this change clearly has trade-offs, we hope that the additional space for customers and restored west to east journeys will be of benefit to customers across the network.

We have also raised the changes to the proposed timetable from South Eastern Trains having seen their published timetable for services from December 2022. This indicates that the Hayes line, which runs via Lower Sydenham, will no longer go as far as Cannon Street. Instead trains will terminate at Charing Cross and will no longer stop at Lewisham. Regular users confirm that this is a popular service (standing room only in the morning rush hour) and removes 50% of connections with the DLR. Residents are concerned about the implications in a range of areas, including the impact on commuters, likely accessibility issues and the potential for people reverting to their cars with the obvious associated environmental impacts.

Please come along to the Public Transport Liaison Committee and give your views on the changes to the service.

[RJM]

double capacity for customers on the Sydenham to London Bridge section

Aye, that doubled capacity will be why the 0826 this morning was full and standing by Forest Hill!

Thank you for the update, I think everyone needs to keep complaining to the train companies in the hope that they replace these services.

[alywin]

Good luck with that. I started complaining to Southeastern about the loss of half the Bromley South to Victoria slow service nearly 18 months ago. There's still no sign of it returning.

[Matthew]

As of today, there is no direct train from Lower Sydenham to either New Cross / Waldron Health Centre or Cannon Street.

Anyone who works in the City now faces a 50% longer journey (from the 24 minute trip from Lower Sydenham to Cannon Street to now a c.36 minute trip according to The Trainline) - so earlier starts on these cold mornings!

While it’s unlikely Southeastern will change this decision, I’ve written to my MP and the Transport Minister highlighting the reduction in service at a time when many of us face pressure to work in the office more frequently.

There is also a petition that takes a few moments to sign, if you are interested: https://chng.it/ghW9T6ZJ6p