From May 31st services between Liverpool Street and Enfield Town, Cheshunt (via Seven Sisters) and Chingford, plus services between Romford and Upminster, became the responsibility of TfL and London Overground contractor LOROL.
Unlike the existing Overground routes which have new, modern, walkthrough trains with air-cooling, the newly devolved lines are served by older trains inherited from West Anglia, some of which have been in service for more than three decades.
In TfL’s first week of charge it had to cancel or delay a number of services and reduce the number of carriages on others because of performance problems with rolling-stock, causing angry passengers to take to Twitter and other social media sites to express their displeasure.
Mike Stubbs, TfL’s Director of London Overground, has apologised for the disruption which he says “was primarily caused by reliability issues with the trains we inherited on the route.”
Stubbs told MayorWatch: “Some of these trains are over 30 years old and we have been experiencing some technical issues with them.
“We are working hard with our operator LOROL to resolve these and improve reliability and customer satisfaction as we have done with the rest of the London Overground network.”
Despite the initial problems, TfL says it still ran 97.2 per cent of services on the West Anglia route with punctuality at 89.9 per cent and 88.6 per cent of services on the Romford to Upminster branch with punctuality at 88 per cent.
New trains are promised from 2018 which are promised to boost reliability and passenger comfort.
