Straightforward questions, but no straightforward answers.
I'll do my best to introduce Julius and other recent arrivals about the recent troubled history of our trains services, but I'm sure others will have things to add.
First, my brief answers to the questions, then a bit of history.
TfL taking over the services: good news?
I'd say yes, almost certainly, though there's no certainty that it will happen.
TfL began taking over overground rail services in 2007, when the former Silverlink lines (Euston to Watford Junction, North Woolwich to Richmond, Barking to Gospel Oak) came under TfL control and became the first parts of the London Overground. The pretty abysmal services on those lines have since been utterly transformed and ridership has mushroomed. Since then many more London suburban lines that were run by British Rail before being privatised by the Major government in the 1990s have been added to the Overground network. They have all seen dramatic improvements with regard to frequencies, trains and stations, though the services from Liverpool Street to Enfield Town and Cheshunt, which were the last to be added, have not seen the same level of improvement.
Then there's the Elizabeth Line, which isn't part of the Overground, but is controlled by TfL. Existing suburban services running east to Brentwood from Liverpool Street and west to Reading from Paddington have been joined together by a brand new high-specification underground section. Badly delayed, and still suffering from teething troubles, but overall an amazing success.
Experience of the trains from Palmers Green - timetable, reliability etc?
Currently we have the worst timetable since before electrification in the 1970s and plenty of cancellations - though it seems to me that cancellations are becoming somewhat fewer. The trouble is that with a half-hourly timetable, cancelling just one train creates a huge gap. Sundays remain the worst because Sunday working for drivers on the line is voluntary. This is a hangover from British Rail days, when staffing hadn't yet been cut to the bone and there were spare drivers so it didn't create problems.
History
If you want to see how rail services to Palmers Green have changed over recent years, you can look through all the reports on Palmers Green Community on t
his page, which will take you backwards through time, as far as 2014
.
You'll find that Govia/Great Northern have been consistent in one respect at least: failure to run the full service ever since they took over in 2014, since when their franchise has been extended twice.
From the 1970s until around 2018 we had three trains an hour off-peak and six and hour in peak hours. This was then boosted to four an hour off-peak with a promise of six an hour before long. There were improvements to evening services, but the promised extra weekend trains never materialised, and then after Covid the service was cut back to two an hour and four an hour in peak hours. That's still the case, though next year we may have four an hour as far as Gordon Hill. Compared with other London suburban rail services, this is pathetic!
As for transferring the service to TfL, when Boris Johnson was mayor of London in 2016 he asked the (then Tory) government to do this, but the transport minister, Chris Graying, wrote back saying that he had no problem with that while the mayor was a Conservative, but he wouldn't do so "
because I would like to keep suburban rail services out of the clutches of any future Labour Mayor
". At least now both mayor and transport minister belong to the same party, so there are some grounds at least for hope!
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