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Melvyn Windebank's comments "it's about time South Londoners got used to changing trains like North Londoners" are some of the most ignorant made about this. North London has far more Tubes than South London, so in turn in the south any trains links to Centra London are all the more important. The East London Line doesn't serve Victoria or London Bridge but orbital destinations which are far less useful (eg Clapham Junction). Perhaps Melvyn would be similarly pleased if trains from Pitsea were axed out of Liverpool Street?

TfL took the money originally earmarked for the South London Line because TFL knows the East London Line now has little support in South London. It is a vanity project for the TfL Rail bosses who want to head into retirement on a high, and South Londoners are paying the price

- Nick Biskinis, London UK, 19/11/2009 16:30
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I used to use the South London train service, but got fed up of delays and overcrowding so now cycle to the City. Go ahead and look at a tube map of London - There are no tubes in SE London. We need both trains and tubes. The sooner the East London Line connects Clapham to Shoreditch the better.

- George, Peckham, 10/11/2009 14:52
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Closing the train line might not be such a bad idea after all. I mean we could replace the rail track with two cycle lanes, bike riders will have nothing to complain about accept of course falling leaves and it would free up much needed tarmac on the roads,thus making my car journey into central London smoother easier and less stressful. Come on Boris make it happen!!

- Mr S.Port, London, 10/11/2009 00:11
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The line isn't going to be closed, but some people may have to change trains who didn't need to previously. And others who did, now won't. Why assume everyone wants to get to London Bridge as their final destination? Most passengers who changed at London Bridge before will soon get used to changing at a different station.

I'm starting to think "normal for South London" means "too thick to read a map and too lazy to walk across a platform". Move to Norfolk!

- Nigel, London, 09/11/2009 16:09
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I actually live on this line. I've had 'reservations' about the East London Line extension as the new Overground for a while. As the new line runs on the existing rails, the existing services would obviously be at least reduced.

SE London is very dependent on BR routes, as the closest thing it has to a tube line is DLR, only running into Docklands. The proposal precludes commuting to Victoria or London Bridge and thereby Waterloo, Cannon Street, Charring Cross as well as the ability to change onto 7 different tube lines. Overground will route all of those people to Docklands to connect to Jubilee or the Met/District to get anywhere in the rest of the capital.

Given many BR stations on this line are cited as being in the top 20 most heavily used BR stations in the capital, it seems a bit daft!

- Ian, London, 09/11/2009 16:06
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This is double standards from Boris. He wants to save this route but he sold off a perfectly good bus company East Thames Buses to Go Ahead London and stalled good projects implemented by his predecessor. Now the bus drivers are getting sacked and losing their livelihoods.

- Leon, London, 09/11/2009 13:19
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The South London Line is not closing as it will become part of the Overground Network and therefore Trains will serve the new East London station in Shoreditch High Street instead of London Bridge while in the west it will run to Clapham Junction and link up with the West London Line.

The reality is (unlike Mayor Ken) Boris has'nt the faintest idea about London and its transport system and so cant get his head around the bigger picture.

The fact is engineering work at London Bridge for the Thameslink project will mean their wont be the space for these South London Line Trains.

Anyway, it about time south London got used to changing trains like north Londoners have to. Fact is the reason so many lines have poor services in South London is because they want trains to serve all the termini which leads to 1 each to Victoria, London Bridge, Waterloo or Charing Cross and even Cannon Street.

South Londons network needs seperation and updating but it would cost money and as it makes sense their is no chance of getting it from Boris.

- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex (formerly Islangton, London), 09/11/2009 12:55
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If Boris was so concerned on the transport needs of inner South London he wouldn't have scrapped the Cross River Tram, canned the Surrey Canal Road station and taken way too long to thrash out a deal with the DfT on the SLL that involved dropping the proposed Victoria-Bellingham link in order to allow TfL to spend as little as possible (the DfT even insisted on TfL announcing the cancellation as a condition of the money DfT are putting into the scheme). Consequently TfL and Boris are having very little say - TfL's Ian Brown has spent several months telling everyone that it's all perfectly fine and there's nothing to worry about even though two stations lose their direct link to central London, a position that's now been completely undermined by his boss. The note of consistency is missing.

Fundamentally, money talks, and since Boris's priority is not spending money (except on vanity projects), he's not going to have much of a voice, except via his spin doctors where, at least, talk is cheap (a snip at £127,784 pa for the spinner-in-chief). The SLL cause is not being fought by Boris's PR team, nor by the DfT, but by local people enraged at being ignored by both parties when the stitch-up was made earlier in the year, so for Boris to try and take credit for their campaigning work is pathetic in the extreme. A London paper should be getting their voice and opinions heard.

- Tom, London, UK, 09/11/2009 10:25
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Boris continues to be my hero.

- Loli, LONDON UK, 09/11/2009 10:13
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