Skip to content Skip to left sidebar Skip to right sidebar Skip to footer

Local train services – the final settlement?

Twelve trains per hour pre-pandemic cut to ten trains per hour

  • Overground trains, tubes, trams and bus services saved
  • Southern train services halved
  • Bad news if you use Penge West and Anerley stations or you’re heading south

A new transport financing agreement was made at the beginning of September between the Dept of Transport and TfL lasting until the 31 March 2024. This will secure current services on the Overground, tube, DLR and tram services. The agreement should also keep all our local buses running on their current routes and timetables. But it will also mean that the London Mayor has to find £230m to finance London’s transport network. This can only mean a sharp hike in fares and no newly built buses and trains for the next few years (including planned new Overground trains) apart from those already on order. It also means an extension of the ULEZ scheme to the edge of London next summer. The Bakerloo Line extension to Lewisham now seems a far-away dream.

But news from the settlement with Southern Rail is not so good. The latest government agreement with Southern is likely to mean that our local Southern train services to and from London Bridge will remain at two trains per hour. But instead of travelling to and from East Croydon, our twice hourly Southern trains will instead travel on the “loop line” from London Bridge to London Victoria. This means that the number of trains to and from Sydenham station in each direction will be cut from twelve trains per hour pre-pandemic to ten trains per hour.

The last thing we need are cuts to our transport services but some may consider that we have been let off pretty lightly. Due to “working from home” weekday passenger numbers locally are running at around two thirds or where they were pre-pandemic. On many lines running into London such as Chiltern Rail, passenger numbers are just over 50 per cent of pre-pandemic times and show no signs of shifting. In broad terms, the posher the region you inhabit the less need there is to commute since a high percentage of travellers are in “administrative work” which can be done from home. And passenger numbers show no signs of returning to the “high watermark” of just a few years ago when London Overground had pencilled-in an extra two trains per hour on the Overground running two and from Crystal Palace.

But of course this is very bad news for locals using Penge West and Anerley stations whose trains have been cut from six trains per hour in each direction to only four trains per hour. Extra inconvenience also if you wish to travel in the direction of East Croyon, Gatwick Airport or Brighton where you’ll have to change trains at the very passenger unfriendly Norwood Junction.