The Anonymous Widower

The Problems At London Bridge

There have been lots of problems in the evening peak at London Bridge and the Thameslink Program has issued this apology.

On this page on the Thameslink Program web site, this is said.

From 5 January 2015, for three years until January 2018, no Bedford to Brighton Thameslink trains will call at London Bridge station. A reduced service will run between Brighton and London Bridge in the off-peak and a very limited service will run in the peak.

Effectively, whilst London Bridge is rebuilt, these trains will not go through the station.

One of the solutions being applied to the current trouble is to reduce the number of trains between London Bridge and West Croydon in the evening peak times.

So you need another route to get the passengers home to West Croydon. The obvious one is to avoid London Bridge entirely and take the Jubilee Line to Canada Water or the District/Metropolitan Line to Whitechapel, where from both stations you get an Overground train to West Croydon.

But the problem with this is the lack of capacity on the East London Line. This is being cured by delivering a fifth carriage for the Class 378 trains. But not many seem to have turned up yet. I’ve only seen one 5-car train twice and I travel on the line regularly.

With my project management hat on, it strikes me that the capacity upgrade on the London Overground and particularly the East London Line should have been completed before the major interim changes and capacity reductions at London Bridge. In fact according to this Transport for London document, the East London Line should have been running five car services by December 2014.

So what has delayed the arrival of the fifth carriages?

Could it be that the delivery of the new Class 387 for Thameslink jumped the queue for building by Bombardier in front of the fifth carriages for the Class 378?

January 8, 2015 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Class 378 Train, East London Line, London Bridge Station, Thameslink