On Jan 21, 11:17*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
On Jan 21, 9:49 pm, MIG wrote:
The planned reduction in service to London Bridge isn't going down
well locally, and is being conflated with the loss of Charing Cross
services on the line as a general battering of local transport.

OK, enough sarkiness on my part. Genuine question because I'm really
not as up to date on this - how much of a reduction will there be,
peak and off-peak? I was under the impression that wasn't going to be
huge, and also that the services that remain would be more likely to
be longer (e.g. 8 carriages vice 4). The reason why it'd be good to
have some specifics is that I'm afraid I remember you making similar
statements a long while back, but my recollection is that you'd
presumed that the ELL services would simply replace existing services,
when that was not the plan. (Damn long memories!)

What the Southern franchise briefing said:

"In order to accommodate these additional trains, SLC2 will see considerable
changes to existing services to London Bridge. It will no longer be feasible
for South Central to operate limited-stop services on the slow lines in
between all-stations ELL services, so all slow-line South Central trains
will also call at all stations. The South Central slow line service will
consist of 6 tph in the high peak hour (4 off-peak), and will be purely
local in nature.

"Whilst this means a reduction in the number of London Bridge trains from
Sydenham and Forest Hill to London Bridge in the peak hour, the overall
service frequency north of Sydenham, including ELL trains, will increase to
14 trains per hour in the peak. When Network Rail has completed enhancement
work, the South Central peak services on this route are expected to be of 10
car length."

I'd have thought the eventual capacity increase from 8 to 10 car is the key.
6 x 10 car trains in the peak hour must be almost as much capacity into LB
as now?

Thanks for that - can't provide answer the capacity question I'm
afraid though, but it doesn't seem like a reduction in capacity.
Whether the "enhancement work" for 10-cars has been done yet is a
valid question, but I'm not sure how extensive the required work was
though.

If I've got this right there'll be an improvement at Anerley and Penge
West of 2-Southern-tph to 4-Southern-tph in addition to the ELL
services - and those extra 2-Southern-tph (to coin a phrase) will not
only provide a more frequent service to London Bridge but also provide
a direct service to East Croydon which isn't currently available.
Though if the timetable gets more of a shakeup then maybe, er, other
stuff will happen. Regardless, it seems it'll be an improvement for
local journeys pretty much any way you look at it.

Southern's current local timetable leaflet for this line - 11a - can
be seen he
http://www.southernrailway.com/your-journey/timetables/

Or the PDF can be obtained directly via:
http://tinyurl.com/yjoufhk


The South London RUS also covers the subject in detail, needless to say.
AFAICS the idea that the ELL will cause a major reduction in services into
LB seems something of an exaggeration.

Yes, I recall trawling through the RUS! Of course that's where the
proposed SLL replacement service is detailed, the self-same service
that TfL and the DfT have conspired to do away with. But that's
another issue - it seems that on the Croydon to London Bridge local
service front, things aren't about to take a similar turn for the
worse.

(Famous last words... we await the May 2010 timetable to see for
certain what will be...)