Bellenden Residents' Group (BRG)

Email to SRUG:
This coming Saturday 8th December the South London Line (SLL) service will end. It first started in 1866 and has more or less served us and our predecessors faithfully all that time. This is an invitation to join us for all, or just part, of an extraordinary group journey on this last historic day. One of the joys of being a south Londoner is the pleasure of sailing along the roof tops of inner south London on the historic line connecting directly all our local stations - South Bermondsey, Queen's Rd Peckham, Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill, Clapham High St, Wandsworth Rd, Battersea Park with central London stations London Bridge and Victoria - any journey to central London being 20 minutes or much less. Some of those journeys to central London in future will take two to three times as long and be long and circuitous instead of short and direct, and/or less frequent or partial. 

Frequently asked questions on the ending of the inner South London Line:
go to http://goo.gl/YA7Rx to see London Travel Watch answers to the FAQs below,

• I’ve heard that the South London Line is being withdrawn in 2012 is this correct?
• What are these replacement services?
• What about going to London Victoria from Denmark Hill or Peckham Rye?
• I travel from Clapham High Street / Wandsworth Road to Victoria, what do I do?
• I travel from Denmark Hill to London Bridge what do I do?
• I travel to Battersea Park, what happens there?
• Won’t this increase overcrowding on the Northern Line from Clapham North into central London?

On 9th December the new London Overground arrives, and the day before the South London Line ends. Below is the latest news on these big changes in our local rail services, and some of the implications. We understand that the rail companies will be publicising the details two weeks before the changes. TfL will email all Oyster card holders who have supplied their email addresses. In the meantime keep watch on TfL website: http://goo.gl/9roun

There are some important changes coming from 20 May in our local services to Victoria and Blackfriars. The new pocket timetables are now available in the stations. These changes are the consequence of Blackfriars station reopening after a long closure for redevelopment. That closure resulted in our Blackfriars services being diverted to Victoria after 8pm during the week and on Saturdays and Sundays.

Here is a useful report from London Connections on the success of the ELL since it re-opened in 2010 after the first phase extension. When it closed in 2007 it was operating between Whitechapel and New Cross/New Cross Gate. That year, it carried 9m passengers. Today, the ELL runs from Highbury & Islington in the North down to New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon. It carried 16m passengers in the year up to May 2011 and is on course to carry 38m passengers in 2011/2012. The second phase of the extension to Clapham Junction via Peckham Rye & Denmark Hill will open in December 2012.

From SRUG (Southwark Rail Users' Group)
 
Please join the campaign to Save our Services to Victoria.
EMAIL THE TRANSPORT MINISTER & THE LONDON MAYOR
SRUG is asking rail users of Nunhead, Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill stations to email the Transport Minister, the Mayor of London and their elected representatives to say something like:

Work is proceeding well to build the short stretch of new line to connect the ELL (East London Line) from Surrey Quays to the line that will run to Clapham Junction via Queens Rd Peckham, Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill, Clapham High St, Wandsworth Rd. Foundations are also being laid in the work for a new Surrey Canal Rd Station to be built later. This post from London Reconnections, 13 July 2011, has some interesting pictures of the construction work. 

From "Construction News" 28th March 2011:
"Transport for London is inviting bidders for construction work on the second phase of the East London Line extension project. The contract covers the construction of 1.3km of new railway between Surrey Quays station and Queens Road Peckham station, on Network Rail’s South London Line Railway. [Read more - click on heading.]

Here are links to the responses to Network Rail's consultation on their draft 20 year RUS (rail utilisation strategy) for the railways in London and SE England, which are especially relevant to our SRUG interests: 

SRUG comments on the draft London & South East RUS (Rail Utilisation Strategy) cover several major topics. Read more - click on main heading above.  Click here for the full version.