WCML Christmas "travel chaos" - Guardian

[Squaddie]

The West Coast main line is going to be closed yet again over the Christmas period.

For the two days leading up to Christmas there will be no direct services between London and some of the country's biggest cities – Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or Glasgow.

Traditionally the line's busiest time of the year, with 100,000 travelling on 24 December alone, every passenger heading to Milton Keynes and beyond from London Euston will compete to board a slow, hourly service to Nuneaton to wait for onward trains – a station with no shops or cash machine and only a single place to buy food.

Article in Guardian

I seem to remember Network Rail assuring us a few years ago that the misery we all endured for months on the WCML would be worth it because it would deliver a world class railway and that no further major disruptions would be necessary.

And can it really be true that there will only be an hourly shuttle service between London and Nuneaton for all passengers heading north?

 

[matt]

I presume the hourly service will be the chiltern diversion

 

[jopsuk]

I know work needs to get done, but I can't help but agree that not being open on the 23rd and 24th December is utterly, utterly barmy

 

[Ferret]

I know work needs to get done, but I can't help but agree that not being open on the 23rd and 24th December is utterly, utterly barmy

Chiltern will be busy, as will XC. Which wuckfit decided this was a good idea?!

 

[sprinterguy]

Darn it, I will be travelling north from Banbury on the 23rd: In a rare turn of events I’ll probably stand more chance of getting a seat if I stick to the Crosscountry services (Although I still don’t hold out much hope ), given that we can expect Chiltern services to be busy out of London! On the bright side, at least I don’t have need to use the WCML itself.

 

[sonic2009]

Regarding Nuneaton, there is a cash machine at Asda only a 2 min walk away!

 

[ole man]

Bletchley will be blocked for Engineering work from dec 23rd to dec 28th

 

[northwichcat]

Chiltern will be busy, as will XC. Which wuckfit decided this was a good idea?!

It would be Network Rail who frequently decide school holidays are the best time for major engineering works.

The lines through Stalybridge are being closed in the October half term and the line between Chorley and Preston was closed a few years back in the school summer holidays.

 

[43167]

How appropriate we have a thread going about diversionary routes not been used.

 

[ainsworth74]

Is there no way they could've pushed those dates back a few days? Say 25th to 30th or 26th to 31st? A closure for that length of time is always going to cause problems but doing it in between Christmas and New Year seems more logical than doing it just before Christmas?

 

[Ferret]

It would be Network Rail who frequently decide school holidays are the best time for major engineering works.

The lines through Stalybridge are being closed in the October half term and the line between Chorley and Preston was closed a few years back in the school summer holidays.

I've no problem with it being done in ordinary school holidays - that does make some kind of sense. What I do have a problem with is shutting a busy line on 2 of the busiest days of the year in the run up to Christmas. It just defies all common sense, and whoever agreed to it should be sacked. What would already have been busy services operated by Chiltern, EMT and XC will now be overcrowded, and I predict people will be getting left behind on platforms.

 

[43167]

I presume the hourly service will be the chiltern diversion

I missed that. probably.

The only other possible route is, Out of Euston onto NLR at Willesden, reverse at Acton Wells Junction, take the freight only line to the MML, then up that to Wigston junction, then into Nuneaton that way. Virgin drivers probably wont sign that way, so expect it will be via the Chiltern, which probably explains why its an hourly service as the route would include the single line section between Leamington and Coventry, and the Chiltern alone has a fairly busy service.

 

[Wath Yard]

That article is very sensationalist. As well as ASDA next door having a cash machine you can also, not surprisingly, buy food there if you are feeling a bit peckish.

As 23/34 Dec are Sun/Mon this year it probably won't be that busy. Most people travelling a long distance over Xmas will take the Monday off and travel on Thursday or Friday evening.

 

[Whistler40145]

I know it's unpopular for an Engineering Blockade to be arranged at such a busy time, but it depends on what is being done & I can imagine that Network Rail want the job done ASAP, so they don't have to close lines again @ a later date.

 

[ushawk]

I can only assume they are taking the junction up (and replacing it ?). Is the junction in question the one involved in the derailment recently ? As i thought i read on here that they have been planning to remove it.

Of course, work to the junction would also result in signalling and OHLE work too - so it would be pretty complex.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

I take issue with the claim that Christmas is the busiest time of the year on the railway too, it clearly isn't. The traditionally off peak trains can (or rather, will) be very full of people with lots of luggage, but the overall numbers of people travelling isn't higher than on days where people are commuting in my experience.

Also arent there two cafes at Nuneaton? It's been a while since I was last there but I could have sworn the old parcels office is now a cafe (or at least a newsagents) too, and it's not like the station is in the middle of nowhere, it's slap bang in the town centre. A huge ASDA is literally next door, there are at least two pubs and three chip shops within five minutes walk.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The West Coast main line is going to be closed yet again over the Christmas period.
Article in Guardian

I seem to remember Network Rail assuring us a few years ago that the misery we all endured for months on the WCML would be worth it because it would deliver a world class railway and that no further major disruptions would be necessary.

And can it really be true that there will only be an hourly shuttle service between London and Nuneaton for all passengers heading north?

This is the major remodelling and resignalling of Bletchley which should have been done as part of WCRM but was deferred.
It removes the "black hole" in Rugby SCC's control of 100 miles of the WCML from Hemel to Armitage, and provides faster crossovers at Bletchley (which have been part-installed for years).
NR usually takes the opportunity of the line closure to do other work as well on the southern WCML.

After that there is still Watford to do (also left out of WCRM, though simpler than Bletchley).
And then they can start on Stafford-Norton Bridge!
Not much likelihood of bank holidays without WCML disruption for years yet.

There's nothing on the NR/VT/NRES web sites yet but I imagine the Euston-Nuneaton shuttle will be via the Chiltern route using 3-coupled Voyagers.
Should be quite a baptism for First or DOR or whoever can be persuaded to run the trains.

 

[Whistler40145]

Hoping that the Bletchley re-signalling isn't a mess like that on the Ely to Norwich line.

 

[michael769]

With the 24th being a Monday is it really credible that it would be the busiest day of the year?

Most folks will I expect be off work removing huge numbers of commuters from the system.

 

[Greenback]

With the 24th being a Monday is it really credible that it would be the busiest day of the year?

Most folks will I expect be off work removing huge numbers of commuters from the system.

I agree. The Christmas period this year is likely to begin, for quite a few people, on 20 or 21 December. I don't think that the 23rd will be very much busier than any other Sunday. I don't think the 24th will be a great deal busier than any other Monday, but the travel patterns on that day will probably be vastly different.

I will be in work on Monday 24th, and I expect my morning train into work to be less busy than usual.

 

[jopsuk]

I take issue with the claim that Christmas is the busiest time of the year on the railway too, it clearly isn't.

It's the busiest time for long distance travel, and, as you note, those travelling almost all have their full NRCoC baggage allowance and more...

 

[Ferret]

I presume Cherry_Picker is not a Guard for an intercity TOC with a decade of experience, and has never worked a train in the run-up to Christmas.

 

[Wath Yard]

As has been pointed out twice - 23/24 Dec are Sunday and Monday. The busiest InterCity travel dates this year will be 20/21 and 22 AM.

 

[John55]

It's the busiest time for long distance travel, and, as you note, those travelling almost all have their full NRCoC baggage allowance and more...

It has been reported for many years that the busiest day for long distance rail travel is Maundy Thursday.

 

[Simon11]

As usual the media only highly the bads bits, clearly missing that tocs like xc and ec have mostly a normal xmas service with no major engineering work planned.

 

[Whistler40145]

I don't think it matters when Network Rail decide to carry out Engineering Works, they will always be unpopular.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

I presume Cherry_Picker is not a Guard for an intercity TOC with a decade of experience, and has never worked a train in the run-up to Christmas.

Well, 1 out of 3 isn't bad.

I stand by it too. I'm not saying trains are quiet, I just dont think it is the busiest time of the year. It's busy, but it's chaotic because instead of trains being full of experienced passengers who are travelling light as they tend to be for most of the year they are full of people who dont travel very often including old folk and young children who are all carrying as much luggage as they can. The middle of the day and early evening is rammed, but trains are dead early in the morning.

This is why I take issue with the angle the report is going for. So many commuters are out of the way over Christmas that the net number of people travelling goes down. This is why you do work at that time especially if you have a guaranteed two day possession on the 25th and 26th you can dovetail into. If you do works at these times then you are making the disruption as minimal as possible for the folk who travel with you 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, the ones who give the railway thousands of pounds in fares and the ones you really do reply on repeat business from. Of course I am speaking from an ops point of view, I have more than 15 years service on the railway and most of it has been on the operational side. I dont deal with as many passengers a day as a guard or station staff do but I'm not blind either.

Massive disruption is never good for passengers, but the bigger picture is that this kind of thing needs to happen. The alternatives are probably worse, weekend possessions lasting two or three times as long (because packing and unpacking stuff to allow trains to run again at either end of your possession is dead time) will meet criticism. Not doing the work at all will meet criticism. Engineering overruns because you were wildly optimistic with how quickly you could complete everything will meet criticism. Sadly this means that some passengers have to miss out and the cold hard truth is that the 'best' people to annoy are those who travel once or twice a year. It's not that anybody wants to do it, it's just that it does need to happen if we want a modern railway.

 

[Bald Rick]

Network Rail propose the dates; the TOCs have the opportunity to say no. These dates will have been formally accepted by all the operators on the route and indeed DfT as Virgin would have been agreeing on behalf of the, ahem, new franchisee.

The run up to Christmas, and Christmas Eve in particular sees a big drop in traffic. In my days of commuting Birmingham to London in the late 90s, one Christmas Eve I was one of only 8 people on the morning train, including the driver, snr conductor and 4 crew.

 

[philjo]

Is there a list of what other work is being done over the Christmas period?

I will be wanting to get to Shropshire on the 28th - usually go from Euston via Crewe so probably will look at using Chiltern or go via Newport/Hereford instead.

 

[Penmorfa]

This is the major remodelling and resignalling of Bletchley which should have been done as part of WCRM but was deferred.
It removes the "black hole" in Rugby SCC's control of 100 miles of the WCML from Hemel to Armitage, and provides faster crossovers at Bletchley (which have been part-installed for years).
NR usually takes the opportunity of the line closure to do other work as well on the southern WCML.

After that there is still Watford to do (also left out of WCRM, though simpler than Bletchley).
And then they can start on Stafford-Norton Bridge!
Not much likelihood of bank holidays without WCML disruption for years yet.

Was'nt Crewe North Junction also to be done to speed up to/from the Manchester direction?