The Southern workings are the remnants of a long gone Thameslink service from north of the river via West Croydon (it loaded only modertely - and the stock was borrowed to run 4 tph all day to Gatwick and Brighton)
And they should stay there on their own patch as they're always late or cancelled.
As for the Thameslink service to Guildford, it was never promoted properly, it started too late in the day IIRC 0859 was the first, finished mid afternoon (IIRC 1459), followed stuff here, there & everywhere, was slow as a sloth when they did run, then they restarted after the peak had finished (IIRC 1859) and of course that's simply not going to load well either.
And it's been noted that Guildford has been dropped from the so called "New & Improved" Thameslink (Or TGSN) network proposals.
All we need now is AXC to go forth & multiply and everything will be well & good.
During one of the rare SWT driver or guard strikes, the only trains running via London Road were the Southern trains. I used one to get to a concert. I then returned via Dorking and a FGW night bus. This being when such things to run on the North Downs Line.
Yes for a period of time they ran buses to Gatwick Airport during the night. I don't know how well they were advertised but I'd heard of them and used them once. Don't remember how I came across them.A mix of 455s (yay!) and 377s for that service, as has been mentioned
Night buses ran along the NDL?! Wow, I've been getting that line fairly freqently for 22 years and never knew about them!
The Southern workings are the remnants of a long gone Thameslink service from north of the river via West Croydon (it loaded only modertely - and the stock was borrowed to run 4 tph all day to Gatwick and Brighton)