Monday the 10th of January 2022 will see Southern Services at London Victoria, Battersea Park, Clapham Junction and Wandsworth Common
The services will run to and from London Victoria and are in addition to the reduced timetable which is currently running in order to allow engineering work through the Christmas period and also an extension of four days due to Covid affecting staff members.
From Monday, the Victoria trains will see eight direct Southern services each hour to London Victoria with connections to existing services at East Croydon, Streatham Common, Balham, Mitcham Junction, Sutton and Epsom.
As more staff members come back to work, Southern plans to roll out a larger service that will bring further direct trains both to and from London Victoria.
At the moment fewer people are travelling as an impact of Omicron and also the Governments guidance to work from home.
Govia Thameslink Railway Interim Chief Operating Officer Angie Doll said: “From Monday, we will begin to run a service to and from Victoria again. Due to the continued significant challenges we face with Covid affecting many of our colleagues, there will be fewer trains than normal. Although we have far fewer people travelling with us at the moment due to the work-from-home directive, passengers may have to change trains to reach their destination. We're really sorry if this affects your journey.
“We know from listening to our customers that they want a reliable service, not lots of last-minute cancellations or big gaps between trains. Providing a reliable service for our customers has always been at the heart of our decision making. We are using customer and stakeholder feedback to protect and add as many trains for those who can't work from home and schools as possible.
“We remain fully focused on running a reliable service. As before, we'd strongly urge people to check before they travel for the latest information and to leave extra time.”
Various fares have been messed up by the new arrangements from 10 January, as Southern trains are replaced with Thameslink. Though the same company GTR continues with facade that it is 3 different operators (Southern, Thameslink, and Great Northern). Some tickets specify Southern only, so are not technically available on Thameslink. Not helpful.
Yet another failed TOC not fit for purpose!
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Having already suffered a long period of strikes and unreliability a few years ago, Southern passengers have little patience with the company & the union. While many individual station & train staff members are excellent & do their best under difficult circumstances, the same can’t be said of the perpetually militant drivers, who already earn more than most of their passengers yet still keep demanding more money when everyone else is suffering static or reduced wages.
Perhaps Angie Doll and the union leaders should find the courage to meet and speak to passengers instead of making insincere apologies.
There’s very little trust between passengers and Southern at the moment, and most people I’ve spoken to round here (Balham-Clapham Jc area) feel the company is using Covid as an excuse to save money by not running trains. Before the Christmas shutdown, many peak services to Victoria were grossly overcrowded because of lack of trains & short formations, so served to spread the disease among passengers.