Station News

There are a number of pieces of news which our rail travelling members will be interested in.

1. The station building has been repaired following the ram raid on the ATMs in June. The hoardings will be removed once the new ATMs have been installed.

2. TfL recently published their ten year business plan. The good news is that the Overground fleet of trains will be extended to 5 cars each by 2016, increasing capacity by 25%. However, this will require selective door opening at some stations (including Canada Water) as the platform is not long enough.

   There will also be two extra trains each hour from Crystal Palace, meaning a total increase in capacity of over 50%, which will be welcome news.

3. London Overground passengers are now able to access a free WiFi service at our local stations under a contract between public WiFi provider, The Cloud, and TfL. Passengers will be allowed 60 minutes of free internet access per day at every London Overground station at no cost to the fare or taxpayer.

   Passengers will have 60 minutes’ free internet access each day at each station through a one-time registration process available at all 56 London Overground-operated stations. WiFi access will be available in the immediate vicinity of stations.

   Steve Murphy, Managing Director of London Overground Rail Operations Limited, said: “Access to the internet is no longer limited solely to home or to the workplace, and people’s expectation is to be able to work and communicate effectively and seamlessly while they’re on the move so we’re delighted to support this initiative which will bring reliable, free WiFi to London Overground’s customers.”

Transport Upgrades in 2011

We have recently heard from Caroline Pigeon that the Jubilee line upgrade (which was supposed to be delivered in December 2009 before the ELL reopened) will now be delivered this spring. When complete, the new system will enable London Underground to run more trains on the Jubilee line, increasing capacity by 33 per cent and cutting journey times by around 22 percent.

London Rail also informs us that work was undertaken over the festive period on the new extension to the Overground service between Dalston Junction and Highbury & Islington. Signalling systems and High Voltage Power systems were successfully commissioned, in advance of successfully running the first test train at the end of last week. The project is progressing well and is expected to open on schedule in spring 2011, with a 'soft start' expected at the end of February. Once the service is up and running, all the Overground trains from Forest Hill will run to/from Highbury & Islington at the northern end of their route instead of Dalston Junction. (The New Cross services will continue to run between New Cross and Dalston Junction)

The final phase of the East London Line upgrade (ELLX2 from Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction) will not now be delivered before the Olympics in 2012. The original timetable for development had aimed for a May 2012 opening, but TfL have confirmed that this has now slipped and it will be the end of 2012 before we see the extension opened, as the timescales for the project were pushed back pending the outcome of the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review. TfL have also had to take account of the restrictions on construction work being carried out before and during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which have also affected the programme.

We're On The Tube!

It was a festival of balloons, dancing and a cappella sea shanties as the London Overground opened on Sunday 23rd May. Our party started on the 14.11 from Forest Hill Station to Dalston Junction with over a hundred of you joining in the celebration.

Jim Dowd, our re-elected MP, was on board and said he’d started campaigning for the East London Line Extension when he was first elected to Lewisham Council in 1974! So it’s taken a while.

But it’s not just about commuting. It’s culture, darling! Ten museums and galleries located along the line (including our very own Horniman, of course) have joined together to form CultureLine (www.cultureline.org.uk) which has been busy promoting the weird and wonderful treasures waiting to be discovered. So we hope many more people will discover the arts and culture of South East London.

So now that we’ve finally got the Overground, what do we do with it? We asked Forest Hill Society members how it had changed their lives and you’ll find some of the replies dotted around this Newsletter together with pictures of a number of happy punters. We hope they inspire you to explore and enjoy a whole new swathe of our great city.

LOROL Passenger Board

We were recently invited to the LOROL Passenger Board. While there were no agenda items for the East London Line, we were able to raise various points with them.

TVM Displays

LOROL have received a lot of complaints about the lime green colour scheme they chose for the Ticket Vending Machines outside the stations. As a result, they will begin down loading an improved colour scheme for the TVMs on Monday, which should make ticket buying easier. This is an interim change whist they continue to develop an optimum colour scheme and they would value any input to help them get the final solution right for their customers. Please provide feedback to us and we will forward it to them. The interim screens are shown below

Oyster Travelcards

LOROL has inherited the current ticketing system from Southern Railway. As a result, they have to operate two system; FasTIS on the core section (all stations north of Surrey Quays) and FAST on on the mainline section (all stations south of New Cross Gate). LOROL have just paid Shere the licensing fee to allow them to sell Oyster cards, weekly travelcards on Oyster and PAYG topup at the Ticket Offices. However, they will not be able to sell Monthly or Annual travelcards on Oyster unless you go to a station in the core section. This situation is most unsatisfactory.

Timetable

Peter Latham,(Head of Train Performance and Planning) from LOROL told us that the ELL service would reduce from 4tph on each route to 2tph after 2200. We raised the issue of evening trains with LOROL, especially our surprise that the ELL stops running before Southern service from London Bridge. At a meeting in 2009, we were lead to believe that the last TfL service would allow us to leave central London at about 0030. The current timetable shows that while the last Southern train will now leave London Bridge at 0036 instead of 0026 (Mon-Fri), the last train from Canada Water will be at 0017. LOROL pointed out that their services would be in addition to the 4tph that Southern currently run. They also stated that they would like to run later services, but would not do so until the Engineering and Maintenance strategy had bedded in. The earliest that they would expect a change was May 2011.

LOROL also announced that there would be 8 tph running to Highbury and Islington after May 2011. These would probably be the services from West Crotdon and Crystal Palace.

Station Upgrades

David Timmins spoke about the station upgrades. 'Phase Two' upgrades will be complete by 23 May at stations previously managed by Southern. This involves a deep clean, removal of grafitti and scratched paintwork and rebranding of the Station Name signs by temporary vinyl ones. Four stations had been signed off by RfL, with four still to be done (Forest Hill, New Cross Gate, Norwood Junction and xxx)

'Phase Three' will be started in July and hopefuly completed by December, although past experience has shown big overruns due to uncovering unexpected problems. 'Phase Three' aims to improve ambience and Systems.

Ambience improvements will improve signage, platform surfaces, seating and lighting. The new signs will be spaced every 30m on alternate sides of the train and should be more legible than the temporary signs. They will be large roundels, with the station name on the crossbar. Lighting levels will be 150 lux in 4 car area and ticket office, 100 lux elsewhere (similar to bar/restaurant lighting levels).

System Improvements will involve the installation of CCTV (with 90% coverage), Customer Information Screens on each platform, Summary screens in the Booking Hall and Help points and PA with induction loops. The PA System will also adjust its volume level based on ambient noise.