WCML Christmas "travel chaos" - Guardian

[LNW-GW Joint]

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

I don't think remodelling Crewe was ever on the WCRM list, as it's "too new".
There was a different plan taking shape to relocate Crewe station southwards quite a way and use the independent lines to reach Manchester, but this was ditched mainly because of local opposition to the move (only then did NR start to repair the roof!).
Somewhere else I read that the famed Manchester South SSC was supposed to take over control of Crewe and Crewe-Liverpool as well as Crewe-Stockport, but that hasn't happened either.
I guess it's all in how NR got the WCRM cost down from £13bn to £8bn - by leaving a lot of big things out!

 

[Butts]

Anyone going to Birmingham should seriously consider Flying with this fiasco.

Flybe currently have Flights available from Edinburgh to Birmingham right up to and including X-Mas eve at £21.49pp return in late Dec/Early January from £23.49. I dare say the same is available from Glasgow.

I'm a bit miffed cause I booked em at £29.99 (which was cheap enough) a few weeks ago.

The big difference is they can be booked now - I am coming back up to Edinburgh December 28th and have just booked a further trip down 30th and back 2nd at these "cheap as chips " prices.

How do they do it ???????

 

[The Planner]

Why is it a fiasco ? If you have a major bit of work that needs doing when is it best to do it and how ? I bet NR would love to hear better solutions !

 

[Geezertronic]

Anyone going to Birmingham should seriously consider Flying with this fiasco.

Flybe currently have Flights available from Edinburgh to Birmingham right up to and including X-Mas eve at £21.49pp return in late Dec/Early January from £23.49. I dare say the same is available from Glasgow.

I'm a bit miffed cause I booked em at £29.99 (which was cheap enough) a few weeks ago.

The big difference is they can be booked now - I am coming back up to Edinburgh December 28th and have just booked a further trip down 30th and back 2nd at these "cheap as chips " prices.

How do they do it ???????

I thought the WCML closure was on the southern section by Bletchley? Is there another section to be closed that would affect Birmingham to Scotland trains?

 

[Butts]

I thought the WCML closure was on the southern section by Bletchley? Is there another section to be closed that would affect Birmingham to Scotland trains?

Humblest apologies - should have read the whole thread and not made assumptions.

Information may of be interest to anyone doing Edinburgh/Birmingham at X-Mas / New Year who wants to firm up now at a reasonable price.

 

[Caertroia]

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.

No, it's a news story, about something out of the ordinary. Thats what news is. What do you want The Guardian to do, run a full page of all the trains that will be running okay on the two days before christmas?

 

[Geezertronic]

Humblest apologies - should have read the whole thread and not made assumptions.

Information may of be interest to anyone doing Edinburgh/Birmingham at X-Mas / New Year who wants to firm up now at a reasonable price.

Well New Street was closed last Christmas wasn't it? Are they doing any Gateway work this Christmas?

 

[Greenback]

No, it's a news story, about something out of the ordinary. Thats what news is. What do you want The Guardian to do, run a full page of all the trains that will be running okay on the two days before christmas?

It's arguable, though, whether it is right to use the word chaos in headlines and reports. It's unlikely to be chaos, as it is being publicised well in advance and alternatives will be in place. So, unwelcome, yes, chaotic no. The latter word could be applied to quite a few unplanned incidents on the railway, but whenever I have had to use replacement buses it has been normally been irritating, added extra travelling time etc, but it has been also been planned properly, well organised and efficient.

 

[Squaddie]

It's arguable, though, whether it is right to use the word chaos in headlines and reports. It's unlikely to be chaos, as it is being publicised well in advance and alternatives will be in place. So, unwelcome, yes, chaotic no. The latter word could be applied to quite a few unplanned incidents on the railway, but whenever I have had to use replacement buses it has been normally been irritating, added extra travelling time etc, but it has been also been planned properly, well organised and efficient.

However, this probably will be chaos. Passengers herded onto overcrowded shuttle services at Euston, with little or no assistance or advice from station staff, to be dumped at Nuneaton for onward trains that may or may not run - and almost certainly without any sort of seat reservations in place. Passengers will be arriving at their destinations an hour or two later than usual, having travelled in worse conditions, but because the inconvenience is "planned" passengers won't be entitled to any sort of compensation.

All conjecture, of course, but drawing on my own experience of a similar situation on the WCML a few years ago. Britain's railways are a national disgrace.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

Britain's railways are a national disgrace.

It's rare that railway closures are national, unlike the complete grounding of all airline flights, which has happened for protracted periods on at least two occasions in the last 10.1 years ... the skies are an international disgrace I say!

Seriously, there is no good time to take major possessions, and if the railway does things in timetabled no-train periods the costs rocket and the public/Britgov Plc complains about the price. Do it midweek and the business community whinge, over bank holidays the leisure sector kicks off, in school holidays the PTEs grumble and during term-time everyone complains.

The only way round any of this is to

BUILD MORE DIVERSIONARY ROUTES
Like HS2​

 

[Poggs]

The only way round any of this is to

BUILD MORE DIVERSIONARY ROUTES
Like HS2​

Then what happens when HS2 has to be closed for engineering work and... oh no! Everyone is forced on to the 'slow' trains! Disgrace.

NR will never please everybody!

 

[Joseph_Locke]

Then what happens when HS2 has to be closed for engineering work and... oh no! Everyone is forced on to the 'slow' trains! Disgrace.

NR will never please everybody!

No, we simply

RE-OPEN MORE DIVERSIONARY ROUTES​

C'mon, get with the hidden agenda here!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I'm not saying this for this Christmas but how about EMT HSTs via the Midland Main Line and Hope Valley to cover Manchester / Liverpool? It's been done before over the years (and in May this year also, to get Liverpool fans to Wembley), and as far as I know, there's an undiagrammed HST available on weekends, unless that's the one that went to East Coast. Failing that, 222s? They're certainly cleared that way and often get a couple of yearly outings for Aintree. This may seem a naive question but is there any way an agreement between VT (or FWC) and EMT could be reached to help in future?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Then what happens when HS2 has to be closed for engineering work and... oh no! Everyone is forced on to the 'slow' trains! Disgrace.
NR will never please everybody!

Supposedly, only one track will be closed at a time and you just switch to the other track with its bi-directional signalling and flight the trains through.
That's how it works on French LGVs and maybe HS1.

One of the claimed advantages of the recent WCRM was bi-directional signalling between Rugby and Lichfield (and Sandbach-Cheadle Hulme on the Manchester line), but I've no idea if it has helped possession planning at all.
I've never seen a train going "wrong line" on these routes.
Doesn't help Bletchley this year of course.

 

[Greenback]

However, this probably will be chaos. Passengers herded onto overcrowded shuttle services at Euston, with little or no assistance or advice from station staff, to be dumped at Nuneaton for onward trains that may or may not run - and almost certainly without any sort of seat reservations in place. Passengers will be arriving at their destinations an hour or two later than usual, having travelled in worse conditions, but because the inconvenience is "planned" passengers won't be entitled to any sort of compensation.

All conjecture, of course, but drawing on my own experience of a similar situation on the WCML a few years ago. Britain's railways are a national disgrace.

I've never experienced WCML route closures, so I will bow to your knowledge of the route, but I have to say that it was not like that when the GWML was closed at various points between Christmas and New Year in 2009 and 2010.

Of course on the latter occasion when Reading was closed we took one of the diverted trains via Banbury. Although this made it a much longer journey at least we were spared the annoyances of having to get on and off buses or coaches. This is how things should be wherever possible, as has been said above, use diversionary routes!

In 2009 the line was closed between Newport and Bristol Parkway. There were plenty of coaches, plenty of staff, and the entire operation seemed pretty smooth to me. Neither year was chaos anywhere in sight when we travelled and it was far from a national disgrace.

In fact, I would say that the experiences many travellers in the north day having to travel on overcrowded two car trains day in day out throughout the year is much more of a national disgrace!

 

[DarloRich]

there is some utter wibble written by people on here.

Ok then: when SHOULD the line be closed to do a complete remodel, rewire and resignal that will take the best part of a week. Suggestions please

 

[Greenback]

there is some utter wibble written by people on here.

Ok then: when SHOULD the line be closed to do a complete remodel, rewire and resignal that will take the best part of a week. Suggestions please

As far as I'm concerned this thread is more about how to manage line closures than saying it shouldn't be done!

 

[DarloRich]

As far as I'm concerned this thread is more about how to manage line closures than saying it shouldn't be done!

Agreed - i am just saying if it isn't over Christmas, which lets not kid ourselves will be a pain in the rse to travelers, me included, when should it be. That said there are less people expected to travel on these dates

This possession allows for a weeks worth of work with 2 days disruption

 

[Greenback]

Agreed - i am just saying if it isn't over Christmas, which lets not kid ourselves will be a pain in the rse to travelers, me included, when should it be. That said there are less people expected to travel on these dates

This possession allows for a weeks worth of work with 2 days disruption

I completely agree. These things have to be done, and I think Christmas and New Year is the best time, even though it becomes a massive pain for us if we want to travel somewhere and the line concerned is one of those that is closed.

We do go, though with a lot of moaning and grumbling to ourselves, and we have always found it to be not quite as bad as we had expected!

 

[neilmc]

I don't know what the current track usage is on the Midland main line, but surely it can't be anything like as extensive as the WCML? If London-Manchester is busy enough to warrant 3 trains per hour, a regular service via Midland/Hope Valley should surely have been considered even WITHOUT any line closures to maximise North/South potential.

 

[Whistler40145]

DarloRich, if it gets the work done so improved services can run, I will say yes.

 

[yorksrob]

I suppose ideally the better time to close the route would be in the period between Christmas and New Year rather than the run up. I guess it's down to whether contractors tend to work over this period.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

there is some utter wibble written by people on here.
Ok then: when SHOULD the line be closed to do a complete remodel, rewire and resignal that will take the best part of a week. Suggestions please

I think the point of the newspaper item is that the competition (air, road, ferry) does not simply give up over bank holidays and say "sorry, it has to be done".
It's an Achilles heel for rail.

If, say, you are trying to book a train to Euston to connect with flights for a skiing holiday over Christmas/New Year you would find the whole process useless.
Even three months out nobody can tell you what will/won't be running, or by what route.
Meanwhile the flights will have been on sale for a year.

 

[DarloRich]

I think the point of the newspaper item is that the competition (air, road, ferry) does not simply give up over bank holidays and say "sorry, it has to be done".
It's an Achilles heel for rail.

If, say, you are trying to book a train to Euston to connect with flights for a skiing holiday over Christmas/New Year you would find the whole process useless.
Even three months out nobody can tell you what will/won't be running, or by what route.
Meanwhile the flights will have been on sale for a year.

but with the greatest of respect the airlines dont have to upgrade, repair or replace their routes and the infrastructure owner only has one bit of infrastructure to cover! Once you research the runways what else do you do?

again - If you dont do the work over the quietest periods ( school holidays, bank holidays Christmas) when DO you do it?

Someone has to take the hit; either the commuter paying a great deal every day or the leisure traveler paying still quite a lot on a less regular basis. Who do YOU want to upset?

 

[Whistler40145]

If major projects aren't carried out at quiet times, then the railway wouldn't be able to function at busy times & it just causes a knock on effect & cause major problems.

 

[Eagle]

I think the point of the newspaper item is that the competition (air, road, ferry) does not simply give up over bank holidays and say "sorry, it has to be done".

That's true about air and sea travel, but roads (from country tracks up to four-lane motorways) are subject to engineering closures as well as rail. Sometimes for weeks on end (the A303 has been quite bad for this recently, as the closures always seem to line up with school holidays, when it should be busiest).

Difference with roads being that diversions are extremely easy to arrange and manage, being as a) there are lots of roads everywhere so there are many appropriate diversions and b) there are obviously no problems with no suitable vehicles or no driver knowledge.

 

[ainsworth74]

again - If you dont do the work over the quietest periods ( school holidays, bank holidays Christmas) when DO you do it?

In this case of this work? A couple of days later so you avoid the run up to Christmas and do it entirely between Christmas and New Year.

 

[Bald Rick]

In this case of this work? A couple of days later so you avoid the run up to Christmas and do it entirely between Christmas and New Year.

some of which, err, are normal working days

 

[DarloRich]

In this case of this work? A couple of days later so you avoid the run up to Christmas and do it entirely between Christmas and New Year.

Work is going on over the full period.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

but with the greatest of respect the airlines dont have to upgrade, repair or replace their routes and the infrastructure owner only has one bit of infrastructure to cover! Once you research the runways what else do you do?

again - If you dont do the work over the quietest periods ( school holidays, bank holidays Christmas) when DO you do it?

Someone has to take the hit; either the commuter paying a great deal every day or the leisure traveler paying still quite a lot on a less regular basis. Who do YOU want to upset?

I'm not objecting to the work being done, and I understand the constraints.
But I do think it should be a lot better managed from the public's point of view (details published earlier, single line/reversible working used, diversions rather than buses etc).
Extended journey times should also attract lower fares (the TOCs get compensated, why not the passengers?).