Potentially Dangerous STP changes this afternoon on Southern

[MikeWh]

So, this afternoon I went to the Crystal Palace vs Man City game at Selhurst Park. Afterwards I got into Norwood Junction at 1710 and checked the departure screens. The next train on P3 was a Thameslink to Peterborough due at 1719 and next stop London Bridge. But the next train on P1 was also described as London Bridge only and run by Southern. Initially I thought this was the usual football special that was common years ago, but when the 4-car train arrived with quite a few people on already it became clear that it was a normal service train. I managed to get on and the train was absolutely rammed, such that the driver had trouble closing the doors. After about 5 minutes I realised that we weren't going up the fast line via New Cross Gate, but instead were trundling via Tulse Hill and Peckham Rye. As we went through Peckham Rye the driver announced that we were making an extra stop at South Bermondsey. This had obviously been planned because Millwall were also playing at home this afternoon. Not surprisingly only a handful of the many on the island platform managed to force their way on (literally) and it took several announcements by the driver that there was another train 4 minutes behind to persuade the people left behind to clear the doors so we could depart again. Fortunately most of the Millwall fans had already departed on earlier trains, but there is little friendliness in the rivalry between Millwall and Palace fans, so there was certainly scope for disturbance.

My questions:

1) Why did planning try and schedule a train to serve two rival football clubs fans?
2) Why couldn't an announcement have been made at NWD directing people to P3 for a direct and 12-car long train which would have been better suited to the crowd?
3) Why didn't the driver, knowing that the train was rammed, request permission to not call at South Bermondsey?
4) If he did request this, why didn't control allow him to omit the stop?

 

[JonathanH]

1) Why did planning try and schedule a train to serve two rival football clubs fans?

Surely that is just some sort of unfortunate oversight.

The customary practice for Millwall games appears to be to divert the normal Epsom to London Bridge services after Norwood Junction to South Bermondsey. Presumably planning know to do this for Millwall games but don't do anything extra for Crystal Palace so don't think to check the clash.

Accordingly, the 1615, 1645 and 1715 from Epsom were diverted this way (and some earlier ones in the opposite direction). South Bermondsey pick up only so doesn't appear on the departure boards at Norwood Junction.

 

[Harpo]

Hopefully just cock-up, like Peterborough inadvertently putting north and southbound return footexs opposite each other on the East Anglia island a long time ago.

The York log said ‘some collision damage occurred…’

 

[Cricketer8for9]

I was going south from Norwood Jct and seeing the left feather on the signal wondered whether the driver was accepting the wrong route. Clearly not, but if there wasn’t advice to take the Thameslink for a faster London Bridge service there should have been. Thameslink was 12 coaches as well.

 

[Class15]

Hopefully this is just a mistake and I hope this will not happen in the future. Maybe making the edited South Bermondsey stoppers skip Norwood Junction would be worthwhile, and getting the Palace fans onto trains taking the main line rather than the South Bermondsey diversion. It doesn’t sound brilliant for fans of two rival football clubs to be put on the same train.