London Bridge to Charing X and Cannon Street links scrapped during Thameslink works

We're grateful to Michael on South East Central, who points out that Network Rail are planning to prevent trains to and from Charing Cross, Waterloo East and Cannon Street from stopping at London Bridge during the final years of the Thameslink construction programme.

The Network Rail timetable from here on in looks like this:

• Summer 2012 - New station concourse (part of The Shard development) and new bus station complete.
• Summer 2013 - Complete redevelopment of London Bridge station begins 
• Spring 2014 - First new platform opens 
• 2015/6 Charing Cross services will not stop at London Bridge 
• 2016/7 Cannon Street services will not stop at London Bridge
• Summer 2018 - Station complete, full Thameslink services running

When the work is completed, the services will come back on line, but we're still looking at as much as three years of disruption, when London Bridge effectively becomes a terminus, forcing everyone travelling to the West End in to a tube station that is already a severe pinch point to complete their journey or persuading even more people to use the East London Line, which is already nearing maximum capacity.

The mitigation measures have not yet been agreed, but one priority should be to increase the capacity of the ELL as soon as possible - something that's already been identified as a "must do" as a result of the still-growing demand along the route.