The Forest Hill Society blog reports:
http://foresthillsociety.blogspot.co...gers-from.html
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Good news for rail passengers from Forest Hill and Sydenham
Over the last year the Forest Hill Society and the Sydenham Society
have jointly campaigned to keep our current levels of services to and
from London mainline stations after the introduction of the East
London Line in 2010. Jim Dowd, our local MP, together with Len Duvall,
our GLA member, has also lobbied hard in support of our aims.

Last Autumn Network Rail published their draft Route Utilisation
Strategy setting out proposed levels of rail services from 2010. It
clearly suggested a significant reduction in services to London
Bridge. There were doubts too about the continuation of the current
off-peak services to Victoria.

However, new information recently received from Network Rail, via
London TravelWatch, suggests that, as a result of our continued
campaign, most of our concerns about their proposals have now been
addressed.

Rather than a reduction in peak services to London Bridge the plan now
is that the total number of trains between 7am and 10am will remain at
the current level of 18 trains, with only a slight adjustment to the
present hourly spread of trains. All trains are planned to be 8
carriages long, whereas some are currently only 6 carriages long. This
represents an overall increase in carriages serving Forest Hill and
Sydenham during peak time.

Indications are that the present direct off-peak services to Victoria
may continue from Forest Hill and Sydenham, while at peak times the
extension of the East London Line to Crystal Palace will reduce
journey times to Victoria and Clapham Junction from our line.

The addition of 8 trains of 4 carriages on the East London Railway
from 2010 is welcomed by both Societies as providing fast and regular
connections to the Jubilee Line, Crystal Palace, Docklands and the
East of the City of London as well as other destinations.

The services outlined above are dependent on the agreement of the
Department for Transport and on their discussions with the train
operators and Transport for London when the Franchises are
renegotiated in 2009. We will therefore continue to closely monitor
the situation over the next couple of years to make sure that these
revised proposals become a reality.

Highlights:
From 2010 Forest Hill, Sydenham, Honor Oak Park, Brockley, Penge West
and Anerley will be connected to the Overground tube system
New peak services to Crystal Palace allowing for interchange to
Victoria
Possible continuation of off-peak services to Victoria
Journey times under 18 minutes to Canary Wharf
Commuters working in the east of the City, travelling on a direct
connection to Shoreditch, will benefit from cheaper tickets by
avoiding zone 1
Oyster readers on all stations on the line
Southbound platform at Forest Hill to be made accessible to disabled
passengers with money from DfT

Negative impacts:
All services between London Bridge and Forest Hill/Sydenham will be
stopping services, removing existing fast services
No direct services to and from Charing Cross, from 2009

We will continue to campaign about the negative impacts and we will
work with the rail industry to ensure further improvements in the
future. In particular we will press for 10 or 12 carriage trains into
London Bridge. This would require the extension of all station
platforms along the route, but will become necessary as more
passengers continue to use the rail services from our area.

Overall this is good news for people in Forest Hill and Sydenham who
finally get to join the tube system.

For further information:

Michael Abrahams – - Chair, Forest Hill
Society

Pat Trembath - - Chair, Sydenham Society
Labels: east london line, Forest Hill, SE23, sydenham society, trains,
Transport
posted on Saturday, February 02, 2008
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