Morning all.
Dark and dry at the moment and hoping that my travel arrangements go as well as yesterday. I feel sorry for the people going into LBG. This is the latest from Southern.
London Bridge
Network Rail and Southern apologise to you for the unacceptable disruption and delays at London Bridge this week resulting in severe overcrowding on the concourse. This is not the level of service that you deserve, expect or that we want to deliver.
Over the festive break Network Rail undertook 16 days of work rebuilding two new platforms, removing and replacing 3km of track and installing new signalling into London Bridge. This work was completed on time.
However, the new timetable has proved challenging to manage so we have reviewed this and made some immediate changes to a small number of evening peak services which will reduce the pressure on the infrastructure and help us to deliver an improved service.
The following services from London Bridge will not run this evening, or for the remainder of this week:
16.36 London Bridge to West Croydon
17.06 London Bridge to West Croydon
17.38 London Bridge to West Croydon
18.06 London Bridge to West Croydon
18.36 London Bridge to West Croydon
We apologise, this was not an easy decision but we needed to act quickly and passengers using the above services do have reasonable alternatives.
Passengers requiring Anerley and Penge West should take a Southern service to New Cross Gate and change for London Overground services.
Alternatively, tickets will be accepted on London Underground between London Bridge and Canada Water for a change to London Overground services.
We will monitor the service for the remainder of this week and assess if any longer term changes are required.
As a result of the above changes, three services into London Bridge are also withdrawn:
17.12 West Croydon to London Bridge
17:42 West Croydon to London Bridge
18.13 West Croydon to London Bridge
We have reviewed with Network Rail, the operation of the station concourse, placed more staff at London Bridge, and implemented additional crowd control measures to separate passengers entering and exiting trains. By the end of the week, we will have additional passenger information screens, so the concourse is used more evenly.