Potential DfT/ORR Consultation On Diversionary Routes/Rail Replacement Bus Services?

[markymark2000]

Something that I would like to know is how many instances are there where diversionary routes could be used, where they currently aren't, and would provide a meaningful service to passengers.

From my experience, diversions routes are ran where they make sense to. Other times, if buses are on, TOCs use the excuse to run less trains to save on costs and faff. This is my experience though. I can only thing of 1 instance where a diverted train would make any half decent impact to passengers.


I know people keep saying Settle and Carlisle but are there any others which aren't used? All of them I seem to find are used as much as possible.

The quality of RRB operations varies enormously. It's not just the quality of vehicle but also route knowledge of the drivers including where the actual stops are for smaller stations and levels of signage/assistance at stations.

Driver knowledge lacks in some areas and is generally down to the company. The good companies are extremely busy and have much higher rates. It's worth remembering that. At 99% of stations, information on Rail Rep buses is dismal. TOCs should be working with councils to put the information on bus stop timetables (As Merseytravel/Merseyrail does).

There's also the issue that when things go wrong or buses get stuck in traffic there's generally no real time information.

That's because 3 of the 4 main Rail Rep firms are still using pen and paper to log their buses. With more and more service buses or coaches with ticket machines being used, I'd like to see some sort of thing with Ticketer and the TOCs so that they can set up trips. In the same way as Centrebus and Midland Classic do and then you can get the live data around.

I've spent a few weekend days staffing RRB in the past and to provide a decent service you need to be really switched on as to what arrangements are in place and keeping track of what's actually happening. Unfortunately a lot of RRB staff at stations tend to be agency workers on minimum wage who lack the training and/or motivation to do this. So a lot of the time if it starts going wrong passengers will just be met with a shrug. A lot of the time at smaller stations you won't find any staff and the bus stop may be some distance away with inadequate signage. South Eastern tried to tackle this with fixed RRB bus stop signage for each station but most TOC's have not been so proactive.

This is far from the case in some other areas. It depends on who the employer is but I know that in the majority of areas, they aren't on minimum wage. Abellio is advertising for 10.97 per hour. The only area seeming to use agency staff is in the South. There are a large number of very good coordinators but you have to remember that what may seem poor to you may be very good. Some of them which have a bit of chaos is actually organised but passengers don't listen or station staff who believe they know best get involved. I've witnessed this a number of times.

Tfl provide signed routes for RRB's but the TOC's generally shrug their shoulders and say it's the bus operator's job to know. That's all very well but it frequently goes wrong when drivers get lost, I can recall being on one and the driver shouting 'does anyone know where the station is?'

It'd be daft to put up direction signs given how far most of the stations are from eachother. It'd cost so much as well. The key is to employ reputable, local operators who know what they are doing.

What is your definition of a station where you cannot reliably undertake RR buses?

Ideally, Rail Rep Buses need to start and finish at a key station where there are some local facilities and the bus stop is directly outside the station in an off road location if possible (ie the station car park as this is a landmark for passengers and easy for bus drivers etc to know the stop rather than 'top of the road'. I know that people wouldn't be pleased with being thrown off a bus at Frodsham or Helsby for example and told to then walk down to the station.

Other instances would be where the journey time is just silly and you would end up with people changing buses for a very short journey as that would infuriate passengers more.

I do agree with Rick, bigger blocks are better as it saves a lot of hassle for everyone and often it means that the 'issues' listed above by Craig1122 are generally solved more. Same operator and coordinators often throughout the block so they are more knowledgeable. Publicity should be improved on stops (though not always)

 

[The Planner]

It would be completely dysfunctional if operators were given a veto. The existence of a dispute mechanism also means that doesn't sound quite correct and a veto could be challenged.

In practice as TOCs and FOCs are all gaining handsomely from engineering work there is little incentive to, and the Access Disputes website suggests that while there are plenty of arguments over cost claims, there are almost no disputes over access for engineering work.

Not sure where you get that few are about access. There are substantial amounts about the rules of the route/engineering access statement, the confirmed period possession plans and make up a majority of the near 2000 disputes. They also take the guise of the disruptive timetable offer being disputed as a result of the access, or NR backs off and doesn't go to dispute and we end up with a worse result in terms of access.

 

[XAM2175]

In the pre sector days, drivers drove not only different types of stock but also freight and passenger, on different routes, within the geography of their area. There wasn't this separation between Provincial and Intercity, let alone Intercity West Coast and East Coast. I can appreciate that is a truly alien concept today.

If you are a one fleet, one route TOC that is all some people do, and the competence is pretty tightly defined around the current timetable with little scope to do anything different within or between companies.

Isn't it fairly well accepted that sectorisation - and the Organising for Quality process, as I recall it was called - significantly improved BR's overall efficiency?

 

[robert thomas]

This! I'm surprised how many people commenting here seem to think RRB is a non issue for passengers. Several years of doing long distance bookings and passengers would actively avoid replacement buses wherever they could. By contrast I can't recall anyone deciding not to travel when a diversion meant a longer journey time by train.

The quality of RRB operations varies enormously. It's not just the quality of vehicle but also route knowledge of the drivers including where the actual stops are for smaller stations and levels of signage/assistance at stations. There's also the issue that when things go wrong or buses get stuck in traffic there's generally no real time information.

I've spent a few weekend days staffing RRB in the past and to provide a decent service you need to be really switched on as to what arrangements are in place and keeping track of what's actually happening. Unfortunately a lot of RRB staff at stations tend to be agency workers on minimum wage who lack the training and/or motivation to do this. So a lot of the time if it starts going wrong passengers will just be met with a shrug. A lot of the time at smaller stations you won't find any staff and the bus stop may be some distance away with inadequate signage. South Eastern tried to tackle this with fixed RRB bus stop signage for each station but most TOC's have not been so proactive.

Tfl provide signed routes for RRB's but the TOC's generally shrug their shoulders and say it's the bus operator's job to know. That's all very well but it frequently goes wrong when drivers get lost, I can recall being on one and the driver shouting 'does anyone know where the station is?'

So even where buses are unavoidable the rail industry could do a lot to improve the quality of the experience. If it was a little more consistent passengers might not even object to them quite so much!

I have been on severa lbus replacement services where the driver has asked passengers to direct him to the station and also several where the driver has not listened to passengers and got hopelessly lost. Among places erroneously visited on bus replacement services are the Yehudi Menuhin school of music and the Ford factory Bridgend.

As an aside, has anyone ever had their ticket checked before boarding a bus replacement

 

[JonathanH]

As an aside, has anyone ever had their ticket checked before boarding a bus replacement

Yes, a number of times but not nearly enough.

I recall Northern ticket sellers at one point meeting replacement buses at Manchester Victoria and issuing tickets on arrival to those without them.

Other places where there have been ticket checks to board.

 

[RT4038]

So even where buses are unavoidable the rail industry could do a lot to improve the quality of the experience. If it was a little more consistent passengers might not even object to them quite so much!

They could, but it would cost money (quality always does - more onerous training requirements for bus staff would increase hire rates exponentially) and would this quantity of money sufficiently change the experience to make it worthwhile? Doubt it.

 

[jayah]

Isn't it fairly well accepted that sectorisation - and the Organising for Quality process, as I recall it was called - significantly improved BR's overall efficiency?

It is accepted that BR was more efficient than what came next, but I am not aware of anything saying sectorisation and the opening moves of balkanisation did so.

There were lots of other cutbacks going on at the time.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Mar 2022 ==

Not sure where you get that few are about access. There are substantial amounts about the rules of the route/engineering access statement, the confirmed period possession plans and make up a majority of the near 2000 disputes. They also take the guise of the disruptive timetable offer being disputed as a result of the access, or NR backs off and doesn't go to dispute and we end up with a worse result in terms of access.

The Access Disputes Adjudication Hearing results are published.

Given the amount of access already on the books, it is interesting you consider the current number of possessions to be somehow lower than optimal!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Mar 2022 ==

Something that I would like to know is how many instances are there where diversionary routes could be used, where they currently aren't, and would provide a meaningful service to passengers.

From my experience, diversions routes are ran where they make sense to. Other times, if buses are on, TOCs use the excuse to run less trains to save on costs and faff. This is my experience though. I can only thing of 1 instance where a diverted train would make any half decent impact to passengers.


I know people keep saying Settle and Carlisle but are there any others which aren't used? All of them I seem to find are used as much as possible.



Driver knowledge lacks in some areas and is generally down to the company. The good companies are extremely busy and have much higher rates. It's worth remembering that. At 99% of stations, information on Rail Rep buses is dismal. TOCs should be working with councils to put the information on bus stop timetables (As Merseytravel/Merseyrail does).


That's because 3 of the 4 main Rail Rep firms are still using pen and paper to log their buses. With more and more service buses or coaches with ticket machines being used, I'd like to see some sort of thing with Ticketer and the TOCs so that they can set up trips. In the same way as Centrebus and Midland Classic do and then you can get the live data around.


This is far from the case in some other areas. It depends on who the employer is but I know that in the majority of areas, they aren't on minimum wage. Abellio is advertising for 10.97 per hour. The only area seeming to use agency staff is in the South. There are a large number of very good coordinators but you have to remember that what may seem poor to you may be very good. Some of them which have a bit of chaos is actually organised but passengers don't listen or station staff who believe they know best get involved. I've witnessed this a number of times.


It'd be daft to put up direction signs given how far most of the stations are from eachother. It'd cost so much as well. The key is to employ reputable, local operators who know what they are doing.


Ideally, Rail Rep Buses need to start and finish at a key station where there are some local facilities and the bus stop is directly outside the station in an off road location if possible (ie the station car park as this is a landmark for passengers and easy for bus drivers etc to know the stop rather than 'top of the road'. I know that people wouldn't be pleased with being thrown off a bus at Frodsham or Helsby for example and told to then walk down to the station.

Other instances would be where the journey time is just silly and you would end up with people changing buses for a very short journey as that would infuriate passengers more.

I do agree with Rick, bigger blocks are better as it saves a lot of hassle for everyone and often it means that the 'issues' listed above by Craig1122 are generally solved more. Same operator and coordinators often throughout the block so they are more knowledgeable. Publicity should be improved on stops (though not always)

This weekend you have Three Bridges to Brighton closed but as the diversions go via Littlehampton only once per hour, the journey planners route using the buses.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

It is accepted that BR was more efficient than what came next, but I am not aware of anything saying sectorisation and the opening moves of balkanisation did so.

There were lots of other cutbacks going on at the time.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Mar 2022 ==


The Access Disputes Adjudication Hearing results are published.

Given the amount of access already on the books, it is interesting you consider the current number of possessions to be somehow lower than optimal!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Mar 2022 ==


This weekend you have Three Bridges to Brighton closed but as the diversions go via Littlehampton only once per hour, the journey planners route using the buses.

Erm the diversions are twice an hour on Saturday.

 

[jayah]

I didn’t realise I needed to.

so here we go - by far the most effective and efficient way of doing big engineering works is to do them in big chunks. It’s cheaper, it concentrates disruption (which is soon forgotten about by 99% of passengers) it results in better quality, and it’s safer.

in my experience, the best blocks for big works are those that concentrate as much work as feasible into the ‘shadow’ of the disrupted train service, with that disruption based on what delivers the best overall experience for the affected passengers. In the case of this block, I can see they got it right. The alternatives would have been a couple of months worth of closures all weekend every weekend, with no through route London - Brighton.



In my opinion, you haven’t. A challenge - can you either set out exactly how you would have covered this block differently, or alternatively give me a scenario of a given route and work required and ask me to improve it.



I don’t have all the detail, but what will be in this weekends work is the 7 day follow up tamping of the new Copyhold Junction - which I suspect needs tandem tamping. I expect there will also be some welding (potentially hundreds) and stressing to do, particularly given Storm Eunice will have affected how much could be done in the main block. without that the speed restrictions will stay on, and we are entering the high risk period for Heat speed restrictions for renewal work, so the potential for 20mph restrictions increases. The block will also include some spare time in case the main block didn’t go to plan and work got carried over.

same sort of works at a lower scale on the Balcombe renewal site.

and again at the subway site.

plus ballast profiling, site clearance, marking up, and various other jobs.

could it all be done in shorter blocks? Yes. Would that take much longer? Yes, much longer In total hours of disruption. Would it cause more disruption to passengers? Yes. Would it be more expensive? Yes.





more than half of it, nationwide. Most of what doesn’t simply can’t be done with high output, or is cheaper to do conventionally.



In simple plain line (no drainage or other complicating factors) done conventionally, you would normally bank on 1000-1500 yards of track and ballast for a 52h closure, or 6-800 yards for 2 x 28 hour closures. For high output, the figures are not much different, simply because of the logistics of feeding the two machines on any one site.

High output is ideal for locations where you can take two lines out of use for 7-8 hours at a time to do 4-500 yards of ballast or track, but not both in the same location the same time.

I say again, you haven't provided the information about what is happening in this blockade to justify it, the 9 day blockade that preceeded it and the carousel of other weekend possession planned on the same line later this year.

We might actually agree on longer possessions, but they need to be smaller and more focussed. Just how many days of closure are needed at Balcombe in one year? And how can you say that the productivity isn't being compromised by the huge number of other disruptive possessions going on in the same part of the country at the same time (Sutton, Staines, Stansted, Woking, Ipswich, Dover, Basingstoke, Sidcup, Queenstown Rd and London Victoria Chatham side)?

By my reckoning there are about 100,000 yards of plain line in the 30 or so miles between Three Bridges and Preston Park. That is every weekend for 2 years. I thought another 6 weekend this year was bad! Is this really sustainable? What is the alternative?

 

[philthetube]

As an aside, has anyone ever had their ticket checked before boarding a bus replacement

During the Preston Blackpool blockade tickets were regularly checked at Preston.

 

[jayah]

Erm the diversions are twice an hour on Saturday.

Irrelevant.

On Saturday they are even slower and the journey planners tell you to get the Brighton train and leave it at Three Bridges to get to Brighton by bus at the same time as the diversion in front of that.

It is clear they are trying to avoid people using them for London to Brighton journeys.

 

[Bald Rick]

I say again, you haven't provided the information about what is happening in this blockade to justify it, the 9 day blockade that preceeded it and the carousel of other weekend possession planned on the same line later this year.

Looks like you missed this in the post of mine you quoted:

I don’t have all the detail, but what will be in this weekends work is the 7 day follow up tamping of the new Copyhold Junction - which I suspect needs tandem tamping. I expect there will also be some welding (potentially hundreds) and stressing to do, particularly given Storm Eunice will have affected how much could be done in the main block. without that the speed restrictions will stay on, and we are entering the high risk period for Heat speed restrictions for renewal work, so the potential for 20mph restrictions increases. The block will also include some spare time in case the main block didn’t go to plan and work got carried over.

same sort of works at a lower scale on the Balcombe renewal site.

and again at the subway site.

plus ballast profiling, site clearance, marking up, and various other jobs.

By my reckoning there are about 100,000 yards of plain line in the 30 or so miles between Three Bridges and Preston Park. That is every weekend for 2 years. I thought another 6 weekend this year was bad! Is this really sustainable? What is the alternative?

Well it only needs renewing every 30-40 years, so that’s an average of 2-3 weekends a year for plain line track renewal.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

Irrelevant.

On Saturday they are even slower and the journey planners tell you to get the Brighton train and leave it at Three Bridges to get to Brighton by bus at the same time as the diversion in front of that.

It is clear they are trying to avoid people using them for London to Brighton journeys.

Are you seriously suggesting the trains have been pathed to be slower so that people don't use them?

That is a completely incorrect statement.

The trains have been pathed for the reason trains are normally pathed, to follow other slower trains in front of them.

 

[Ex-controller]

It would be completely dysfunctional if operators were given a veto. The existence of a dispute mechanism also means that doesn't sound quite correct and a veto could be challenged.

In practice as TOCs and FOCs are all gaining handsomely from engineering work there is little incentive to, and the Access Disputes website suggests that while there are plenty of arguments over cost claims, there are almost no disputes over access for engineering work.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Mar 2022 ==


If the WCML is closed south of Carlisle what are all the train drivers at Glasgow doing?

Ah, would this be because nowadays the train has to match the drivers uniform or they aren't allowed to drive it?

Something the pre-sectorisation BR would have avoided?

I was more thinking of the rolling stock.

However, whenever WCML closures took place under BR days, there was no strategy to run additional trains from Glasgow (Queen Street as it would’ve been before the 1990s) to London Kings Cross.

 

[XAM2175]

It is accepted that BR was more efficient than what came next, but I am not aware of anything saying sectorisation and the opening moves of balkanisation did so.

There were lots of other cutbacks going on at the time.

I've very quickly found this:

BR’s regional railways reorganised…

Twenty-five years ago, in April 1992, British Rail’s last Region gave way to sectorisation. GREG MORSE explains where the Regions came from and why they went

www.railmagazine.com

... Some critics felt that OfQ unnecessarily fragmented operations and engineering and introduced too much complexity, while many saw it as an excellent manifestation of the virtues of flexibility and focusing on core tasks. For [Terry] Gourvish, “it offered Britain the best prospects of a more streamlined, customer-oriented, empowered organisation in an integrated form”. ...

But since this doesn't support your notion of a network of Saltley men with thousand-mile route cards and superhuman memories driving everything everywhere I look forward to your vehement disagreement.

 

[jayah]

I've very quickly found this:

BR’s regional railways reorganised…

Twenty-five years ago, in April 1992, British Rail’s last Region gave way to sectorisation. GREG MORSE explains where the Regions came from and why they went

www.railmagazine.com

But since this doesn't support your notion of a network of Saltley men with thousand-mile route cards and superhuman memories driving everything everywhere I look forward to your vehement disagreement.

Thousand mile route cards was not my notion at all, you should pay more attention and stop inventing things.

Nor does the article support the idea of universal acceptance that sectorisation was a good thing. Far from it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==

I was more thinking of the rolling stock.

However, whenever WCML closures took place under BR days, there was no strategy to run additional trains from Glasgow (Queen Street as it would’ve been before the 1990s) to London Kings Cross.

Intercity / GNER ran regular services from Glasgow Central to Kings Cross in the 1990s.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==

Are you seriously suggesting the trains have been pathed to be slower so that people don't use them?

That is a completely incorrect statement.

The trains have been pathed for the reason trains are normally pathed, to follow other slower trains in front of them.

They go all via Littlehampton and with the speed and frequency of the non stop buses from Three Bridges it is clearly the plan that most people will not be using them.

The hourly service on Sunday wouldn't have been viable even if it was competitive on speed.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==

Looks like you missed this in the post of mine you quoted:








Well it only needs renewing every 30-40 years, so that’s an average of 2-3 weekends a year for plain line track renewal.

Nowhere near the level of detail that you would need to unpick this.

If you need 2-3 weekends a year for plain line renewal, can you identify how many days of closures there are this year, and why the 9 day closure (4 weekends) just taken is being followed up by more weekends through the year?

Are you saying plain line renewal is actually only a fraction of the work, and therefore it is really a multiple of 2-3 weekends a year?

 

[zwk500]

They go all via Littlehampton and with the speed and frequency of the non stop buses from Three Bridges it is clearly the plan that most people will not be using them.

The reality is that if the A23 is open and the lime via Hassocks is not the train is always going to struggle on journey times. The plan would have been for people to use both, according to need/preference.

Would you tell the buses to drive slower to male the diverted train more attractive?

 

[jayah]

The reality is that if the A23 is open and the lime via Hassocks is not the train is always going to struggle on journey times. The plan would have been for people to use both, according to need/preference.

Would you tell the buses to drive slower to male the diverted train more attractive?

Why run a non-stop bus from Three Bridges to Brighton every 10mins when there is already a direct train? Some of them connect only out of that train.

On Sunday the one diverted train per hour would never carry the numbers.

The reality you have to face is the diversions are for west of Brighton.

 

[Ex-controller]

Intercity / GNER ran regular services from Glasgow Central to Kings Cross in the 1990s.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==

Yes, I know this. Of course it means these services were fully resourced and there was no need/desire for the additional services via the East Coast we were discussing the concept of.

Prior to ECML electrification, East Coast services to/from Glasgow ran to Queen Street. There would only be one or two per day, not that dissimilar to the current timetable. The response then wasn’t to run additionals.

I get that pre-privatisation we would have had Glasgow Queen Street based crews who were familiar with HSTs alongside more typical stock, and with bigger route cards, the point is that in this scenario at least, no flexibility or operational convenience has been lost. For an alternative route to London from Glasgow via the east coast, there is a regular service to connect in at Edinburgh.

 

[zwk500]

Why run a non-stop bus from Three Bridges to Brighton every 10mins when there is already a direct train? Some of them connect only out of that train.

On Sunday the one diverted train per hour would never carry the numbers.

The reality you have to face is the diversions are for west of Brighton.

You've answered your own question. What would you do differently to give Brighton a train service whilst preserving the safety of the workforce on the line?

 

[jayah]

You've answered your own question. What would you do differently to give Brighton a train service whilst preserving the safety of the workforce on the line?

If you ran 4tph, didn't stop all of them at Horsham and Angermering, recast your own trains to remove the 15mins patching time and then removed the non-stop buses from Three Bridges, you would have Brighton passengers using trains and not buses.

Not sure why you are insinuating this would jeopardise the safety of track workers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==

Yes, I know this. Of course it means these services were fully resourced and there was no need/desire for the additional services via the East Coast we were discussing the concept of.

Prior to ECML electrification, East Coast services to/from Glasgow ran to Queen Street. There would only be one or two per day, not that dissimilar to the current timetable. The response then wasn’t to run additionals.

I get that pre-privatisation we would have had Glasgow Queen Street based crews who were familiar with HSTs alongside more typical stock, and with bigger route cards, the point is that in this scenario at least, no flexibility or operational convenience has been lost. For an alternative route to London from Glasgow via the east coast, there is a regular service to connect in at Edinburgh.

If Glasgow drivers were Glasgow drivers not Avanti drivers you would find a service already fully resourced from Glasgow to Preston which suddenly isn't running.

Hence the issue (manufactured by balkanisation) of LNER finding 'additional resources' to extend their trains from Edinburgh can be resolved.

 

[XAM2175]

Thousand mile route cards was not my notion at all, you should pay more attention and stop inventing things.

Nor does the article support the idea of universal acceptance that sectorisation was a good thing. Far from it.

Yet you invented "universally accepted" out of my "fairly well accepted".

 

[Craig1122]

I've done over 20 years on the railway and I find some of the replies here from people who are clearly members of staff very defensive and actually quite depressing. Although some, or perhaps most, of the ideas from 'armchair warriors' won't be practical it seems equally unlikely there's no way to improve how things are currently done.

By way of illustration my local line has works this weekend. Buses can't get near the station due to unrelated roadworks. There's no indication on line or at the station where the buses are actually stopping. The ticket office is theoretically open but with the usual 'back in 5 minutes' notice propped up. From experience 5 minutes is unlikely, as an aside this notice appears more often than not shortly before trains depart for London.

I took an informed guess and they're actually stopping about half a mile away from the station. If you didn't know the area you're have no way of knowing this. Confirmed because I saw one thing the other way. My one didn't turn up so I've jumped on a local bus.

I avoid RRB wherever possible yet still none of this comes as any surprise. I reckon the message being sent is that the railway is inessential and anyone sensible who needs to get around should buy a car. Given the current funding crunch that's an uncomfortable message to be giving people.

Yet according to some people here not only is this completely acceptable but it's the very best it's possible to do.

 

[JonathanH]

If you ran 4tph, didn't stop all of them at Horsham and Angermering, recast your own trains to remove the 15mins patching time and then removed the non-stop buses from Three Bridges, you would have Brighton passengers using trains and not buses.

How can 4tph of services run down the Arun Valley, not call at Horsham and Angmering (and any other stations on the line) and yet still have a service at the intermediate stations in between?

Are you suggesting that stations on the Arun Valley and West Coastway should have buses instead to allow a non-stop train to Brighton?

 

[tbtc]

In the pre sector days, drivers drove not only different types of stock but also freight and passenger, on different routes, within the geography of their area. There wasn't this separation between Provincial and Intercity, let alone Intercity West Coast and East Coast. I can appreciate that is a truly alien concept today.

If you are a one fleet, one route TOC that is all some people do, and the competence is pretty tightly defined around the current timetable with little scope to do anything different within or between companies.

Are you suggesting that people in depots used to drive every route in that depot?

Fine in somewhere rural, and probably fine in more areas back in BR days when there were fewer services to operate, but given the massive increase in train services (and therefore in the number of staff employed at depots), of course there's going to be more specialisation, with staff focussing on certain routes - I'm surprised that this is even being debated - it'd have been the same if a unified BR had expanded the railway to the volumes that we had in 2019 - I don't know if it's misplayed nostalgia or you're trying to score political points but you seem rather wide of the mark here

It is accepted that BR was more efficient than what came next, but I am not aware of anything saying sectorisation and the opening moves of balkanisation did so

It is accepted by you, sure

It might also be "accepted" that BR operated in a very different era when it came to things like Health & Safety/ construction costs/ compensation culture etc, so things were always going to be more expensive in the twenty first century than they were when BR was getting away with building cheapo stations like in 1980s West Yorkshire

 

[Bald Rick]

If you need 2-3 weekends a year for plain line renewal, can you identify how many days of closures there are this year, and why the 9 day closure (4 weekends) just taken is being followed up by more weekends through the year?

The 9 day closure was to completely renew Cipyhold Junction, and install a subway at Hassocks. Nothing t9 do with plain line. The works could have been done independently, but that would have needed more than 9 days closures. With no through trains between London and Brighton. Under ‘cover’ of the blocks, a separate larg3 pla8n line renewal was completed, which has saved at least 2-3 additional days 2-3 of closures.

Nowhere near the level of detail that you would need to unpick this.

Well then there’s no satisfying you, as I’m not sure wha5 level of f8ner detail you are looking for. There’s probably only about 6 people who will know the full detail, and I’m not one of them.

The blockade at half term was two years in the planning, and I’m reasonably certain all involved did the very best job in the circumstances.

Are you saying plain line renewal is actually only a fraction of the work, and therefore it is really a multiple of 2-3 weekends a year?

Yes. And that 2-3 weekends is an average over 40 years.

I've done over 20 years on the railway and I find some of the replies here from people who are clearly members of staff very defensive and actually quite depressing. Although some, or perhaps most, of the ideas from 'armchair warriors' won't be practical it seems equally unlikely there's no way to improve how things are currently done.

By way of illustration my local line has works this weekend. Buses can't get near the station due to unrelated roadworks. There's no indication on line or at the station where the buses are actually stopping. The ticket office is theoretically open but with the usual 'back in 5 minutes' notice propped up. From experience 5 minutes is unlikely, as an aside this notice appears more often than not shortly before trains depart for London.

I took an informed guess and they're actually stopping about half a mile away from the station. If you didn't know the area you're have no way of knowing this. Confirmed because I saw one thing the other way. My one didn't turn up so I've jumped on a local bus.

I avoid RRB wherever possible yet still none of this comes as any surprise. I reckon the message being sent is that the railway is inessential and anyone sensible who needs to get around should buy a car. Given the current funding crunch that's an uncomfortable message to be giving people.

Yet according to some people here not only is this completely acceptable but it's the very best it's possible to do.

When the railway needs to close it is essential that alternative arrangements are well communicated. This clearly hasn’t happened here and I agree from what you have described it’s not acceptable.

There is a difference between planning the work and consequent line closures, and providing passengers with good quslity information.

 

[jayah]

Yet you invented "universally accepted" out of my "fairly well accepted".

You are dancing on a pin head. The article did not come close to substantiating your claim.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==

The 9 day closure was to completely renew Cipyhold Junction, and install a subway at Hassocks. Nothing t9 do with plain line. The works could have been done independently, but that would have needed more than 9 days closures. With no through trains between London and Brighton. Under ‘cover’ of the blocks, a separate larg3 pla8n line renewal was completed, which has saved at least 2-3 additional days 2-3 of closures.




Well then there’s no satisfying you, as I’m not sure wha5 level of f8ner detail you are looking for. There’s probably only about 6 people who will know the full detail, and I’m not one of them.

The blockade at half term was two years in the planning, and I’m reasonably certain all involved did the very best job in the circumstances.




Yes. And that 2-3 weekends is an average over 40 years.




When the railway needs to close it is essential that alternative arrangements are well communicated. This clearly hasn’t happened here and I agree from what you have described it’s not acceptable.

There is a difference between planning the work and consequent line closures, and providing passengers with good quslity information.

Copyhold was 9 days continuous closure. Apparently it then needs another weekend of follow up, and there are other closures on other dates this calendar year.

The Network Rail PR site claims that Keymer Junction was relaid in 2014 in 4 weekends.

So it seems that as well as making no effort to get 5 years of renewals between Three Bridges and Keymer Junction into the same closure, a similar job takes 37% longer than 8 years ago, despite being done in fewer possessions.

To the uninformed observer, the bit between Keymer and Brighton has a fairly painless diversion via Lewes. I would take a blockade north of there twice every 30 years, Christmas week and maybe one weekend a year, which is a good deal more than your lifespan suggests is required, but what we get something of the order of 16 days a year of buses, and even that isn't as much as it seems the engineers would wish?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==

Are you suggesting that people in depots used to drive every route in that depot?

Fine in somewhere rural, and probably fine in more areas back in BR days when there were fewer services to operate, but given the massive increase in train services (and therefore in the number of staff employed at depots), of course there's going to be more specialisation, with staff focussing on certain routes - I'm surprised that this is even being debated - it'd have been the same if a unified BR had expanded the railway to the volumes that we had in 2019 - I don't know if it's misplayed nostalgia or you're trying to score political points but you seem rather wide of the mark here



It is accepted by you, sure

It might also be "accepted" that BR operated in a very different era when it came to things like Health & Safety/ construction costs/ compensation culture etc, so things were always going to be more expensive in the twenty first century than they were when BR was getting away with building cheapo stations like in 1980s West Yorkshire

I am not suggesting every driver sign every route in their depot.

Today you have huge numbers of drivers who sign only their own TOC route and traction and for long distance that particularly means they often have little competence beyond what they do in the normal timetable, which often isn't very varied.

Often they don't sign routes visible from the platform at their home station and won't sign the vast majority of traction to be found there either, despite far higher rates of pay than BR offered.

TOCs don't want to pay people to sit unproductive in the cab of someone else's train, permanently relearning what is no longer part of their normal work, so when their one route is closed, we get dozens of buses or coaches plying the trunk road network.

It is indeed widely accepted that BR was more efficient than the privatised structure that followed and the subsequent changes.

It is also true that standards have changed, but that doesn't alter this.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==

How can 4tph of services run down the Arun Valley, not call at Horsham and Angmering (and any other stations on the line) and yet still have a service at the intermediate stations in between?

Are you suggesting that stations on the Arun Valley and West Coastway should have buses instead to allow a non-stop train to Brighton?

Have you proven they can't?

If there is a genuine constraint, rather than an outbreak of 'whataboutery' then the greater good must prevail.

Is the relatively new Peterborough - Horsham Thameslink service sacrosanct?

With thousands of people a day using buses, reducing or removing the service at lesser used places (there are some VERY lightly used stations on that line) should absolutely be on the table to deliver a viable Brighton diversionary service.

Of course it would be far better if the railway recognised just how disruptive Three Bridges to Keymer Junction is to close and moved heaven and earth to do so as little as possible.

 

[markymark2000]

You are dancing on a pin head. The article did not come close to substantiating your claim.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==


Copyhold was 9 days continuous closure. Apparently it then needs another weekend of follow up, and there are other closures on other dates this calendar year.

The Network Rail PR site claims that Keymer Junction was relaid in 2014 in 4 weekends.

So it seems that as well as making no effort to get 5 years of renewals between Three Bridges and Keymer Junction into the same closure, a similar job takes 37% longer than 8 years ago, despite being done in fewer possessions.

To the uninformed observer, the bit between Keymer and Brighton has a fairly painless diversion via Lewes. I would take a blockade north of there twice every 30 years, Christmas week and maybe one weekend a year, which is a good deal more than your lifespan suggests is required, but what we get something of the order of 16 days a year of buses, and even that isn't as much as it seems the engineers would wish?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2022 ==


I am not suggesting every driver sign every route in their depot.

Today you have huge numbers of drivers who sign only their own TOC route and traction and for long distance that particularly means they often have little competence beyond what they do in the normal timetable, which often isn't very varied.

Often they don't sign routes visible from the platform at their home station and won't sign the vast majority of traction to be found there either, despite far higher rates of pay than BR offered.

TOCs don't want to pay people to sit unproductive in the cab of someone else's train, permanently relearning what is no longer part of their normal work, so when their one route is closed, we get dozens of buses or coaches plying the trunk road network.

It is indeed widely accepted that BR was more efficient than the privatised structure that followed and the subsequent changes.

It is also true that standards have changed, but that doesn't alter this.

You don't nesecerilly need drivers cross trained, just a willingness for TOCs to work together if there is disruption.

One such example being Chester to Warrington Bank Quay being shut, TFW have no trains and I don't think they have staff, based over in Manchester. Nothing is stopping Northern however taking over the trips using their trains (the 195s which are cleared) and staff (which have the existing knowledge). The issue with this is then the works are done on weekends, specifically Sundays and then you come into the rest day working arguement.
If TOCs worked together, they could cover more routes with shuttles

The times when I can see cross training working is emergency staff shortage but that's another topic.

 

[JonathanH]

Have you proven they can't?

If there is a genuine constraint, rather than an outbreak of 'whataboutery' then the greater good must prevail.

Is the relatively new Peterborough - Horsham Thameslink service sacrosanct?

So, departures from Three Bridges are 6tph towards Horsham:
xx29 Arun Valley stops
xx46 Brighton
xx53 Horsham

The Horsham service deals with stops at Crawley, Ifield and Littlehaven. The Arun Valley service does Crawley and the stations South of Horsham. The Arun Valley train calls at Arundel at xx11, the Brighton passes at xx20.

How is a second Brighton service going to fit in each half hour, bearing in mind the conflict at Arundel Junction?

You suggest cancelling the Peterborough service, presumably terminating it at Gatwick since there are already other trains terminating at Three Bridges. At best, there is a ten minute gap between the two Brighton services then but there is likely to be no way to deal with eight reversals at Littlehampton in each hour, plus trains towards Barnham.

I imagine you might suggest that the Arun Valley and Coastway is entirely turned over to limited stop services towards Brighton and those routes instead are served by buses, but realistically the impact on journey times for the majority of passengers is actually served by most passengers from Brighton going by bus to Three Bridges.

 

[TUC]

I have been on severa lbus replacement services where the driver has asked passengers to direct him to the station and also several where the driver has not listened to passengers and got hopelessly lost. Among places erroneously visited on bus replacement services are the Yehudi Menuhin school of music and the Ford factory Bridgend.

As an aside, has anyone ever had their ticket checked before boarding a bus replacement

In these days of satnavs, any RRB which gets lost is without excuse.