Should engineering works be shifted more to week long blocks during winter or summer?

[philosopher]

This weekend there have been well reported stories of overcrowding at Marylebone and St Pancras stations due to the closure of the WCML south of Milton Keynes for engineering work. Engineering works on the WCML at Easter seem to have become as much as an Easter tradition as Easter eggs and Easter bunnies as it seems to occur almost every year in recent years!

The main argument for having engineering works at Christmas and Easter is to avoid disrupting weekday commuters. However given the rise of working from home, I think this argument is far weaker now. If a line is closed for a week over the summer or winter, many of those commuters can just work from home for a week. Travellers visiting their family over Christmas and Easter I think are far less likely not to travel. At Easter it is a particular issue as the break is only four days long compared to the week to two over Christmas and the New Year, meaning travel is squeezed into a much shorter period.

Therefore on lines that do not have many seaside resorts, national parks or historic towns / cities destinations along the route I think it would be better if engineering works were shifted to a one or two week long blocks during the summer school holidays. The WCML in particular I think it would be better to shift engineering works to the summer as most of the leisure travellers using this line I think are more the visiting friends or family type rather than going on holiday type. On lines such as the GWML that do have a lot of seasonal leisure travellers visiting seaside resorts or historic cities such as Bath, then engineering works could instead take place during one or two week long blocks in January or February.

 

[JonathanH]

The WCML in particular I think it would be better to shift engineering works to the summer as most of the leisure travellers using this line I think are more the visiting friends or family type rather than going on holiday type.

Are you proposing that freight is cancelled for a week on the primary rail freight route in the country.

Yes, some people are disadvantaged by the bank holiday closures on the WCML, but relatively speaking it isn't actually that much traffic that is disputed.

 

[Falcon1200]

The main argument for having engineering works at Christmas and Easter is to avoid disrupting weekday commuters.

Also as @JonathanH says freight traffic must be considered, serious disruption to which could result in loss of traffic to the roads.

 

[philosopher]

Are you proposing that freight is cancelled for a week on the primary rail freight route in the country.

Yes, some people are disadvantaged by the bank holiday closures on the WCML, but relatively speaking it isn't actually that much traffic that is disputed.

The scenes at Marylebone and St Pancras yesterday would suggest quite a few were impacted

Also as @JonathanH says freight traffic must be considered, serious disruption to which could result in loss of traffic to the roads.

The counter argument is that disruption to passenger traffic would also result in loss of traffic to roads.

 

[JonathanH]

The scenes at Marylebone and St Pancras yesterday would suggest quite a few were impacted

For how much of the day did those scenes persist for?

 

[The Planner]

This weekend there have been well reported stories of overcrowding at Marylebone and St Pancras stations due to the closure of the WCML south of Milton Keynes for engineering work. Engineering works on the WCML at Easter seem to have become as much as an Easter tradition as Easter eggs and Easter bunnies as it seems to occur almost every year in recent years!

The main argument for having engineering works at Christmas and Easter is to avoid disrupting weekday commuters. However given the rise of working from home, I think this argument is far weaker now. If a line is closed for a week over the summer or winter, many of those commuters can just work from home for a week. Travellers visiting their family over Christmas and Easter I think are far less likely not to travel. At Easter it is a particular issue as the break is only four days long compared to the week to two over Christmas and the New Year, meaning travel is squeezed into a much shorter period.

Therefore on lines that do not have many seaside resorts, national parks or historic towns / cities destinations along the route I think it would be better if engineering works were shifted to a one or two week long blocks during the summer school holidays. The WCML in particular I think it would be better to shift engineering works to the summer as most of the leisure travellers using this line I think are more the visiting friends or family type rather than going on holiday type. On lines such as the GWML that do have a lot of seasonal leisure travellers visiting seaside resorts or historic cities such as Bath, then engineering works could instead take place during one or two week long blocks in January or February.

Its also cheaper for NR, no trains run on Xmas Day and Boxing Day, so no schedule 4 compensation is paid out to operators. On some routes, that is a massive saving.

Blocks do take place outside of the public holidays as well, but it only works if there is a diversionary route to mitigate against it on the major routes. That in itself means that engineering work has to be de-conflicted nationally. WCML blocked north of Preston, ECML has to be open, as does the West Mids to Doncaster XC route and vice versa if the ECML is blocked. WCML blocked south of Rugby, ECML, MML, Chiltern and GWR has to be open. Hope Valley blocked, Diggle has to be open. Diggle blocked, Hope Valley and Calder Valley have to be open. That also has to factor in gauge cleared freight diversion that also doesnt destroy their journey times so the terminal times and hitting the ports correctly is maintained as much as possible. The amount of work that went into Carstairs planning was astronomical, and even then it hasn't been 100%. You run out of weekends and bank holidays very quickly. Could we close branch or secondary lines for a week at a time? of course we could, but they aren't the routes being battered day in and day out so the major work isn't there.

Summer blocks are a massive issue as you will have tourist boards complaining, Lake District, South West, South Coast, NE coast and so on. Also, factor in that is when the TOC/FOCs want NR to do work when it is proposed. The people that are happy to work on double/triple time over the Xmas period then spend that cash on cheap holidays to Barbados/Dubai etc in January and February and the resource isn't there. Some routes you cannot do all types of work on in Winter due to cold, snow, high winds etc. Its not as cut and dried as people think it is.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Apr 2023 ==

The counter argument is that disruption to passenger traffic would also result in loss of traffic to roads.

So stuff freight and passenger wins? Doesnt work like that with the contracts and Network Code.

 

[RobShipway]

The scenes at Marylebone and St Pancras yesterday would suggest quite a few were impacted

The counter argument is that disruption to passenger traffic would also result in loss of traffic to roads.

For how much of the day did those scenes persist for?

You have to remember that engineering work does go on sometimes during the week, between 1am to about 5am, although I think sometimes the line is handed back at about 4am - 4:30am. Which only gives, the engineering staff to do a short bit if they are lucky of doing things like replacing the rails. Now, many of the tracks in the UK would have had either the HST New Measurement train or similar carriages hauled by class 37 or perhaps the class 150 unit version which I believe is used on branch lines. These trains verify the state of the track and the details from them are used to see if improvements can be made in the efficiency in the way the track is used.

On testing for efficiency, it can sometimes be that a redesign of a junction or two in sections of routes are found to be more efficient if the design of those junctions is changed. This cannot be done within just a few hours overnight, it takes time and a good amount of hours to do, which is why it is done over Christmas, New year and Easter holidays. I think someone back in the days of BR found that there was more people travelling in the 5.5 week school summer holiday week, than there was at Christmas or Easter. Hence, why we have the engineering works at Christmas and Easter.

There is also more demand for freight generally to be moved, during the summer holiday period than there is at say Christmas or Easter. There is more in the way of fresh food that is moved, so this is moved by road in refrigerated lorries, as there is not the capacity to handle that freight by rail. The Planner's post above goes into this in more detail.

In answer to JonathanH question and I admit I was not at Marylebone, but from what I saw in Realtime trains, there was cancellations of trains from 6am - 8pm, with at least 6 trains in an hour cancelled to 4 trains an hour as the day progressed. Not sure if it will show up but here is the link for the search that I used: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...3-04-07/0600-2000?stp=WVSC&show=all&order=wtt

However, going back to the point 'The Planner' makes above, I think the cancellations and the impact to customers would have been far greater if such things had happened during the school summer holidays.

When to be doing engineering work on a railway line, is a problem that has haunted the engineers of the railway since passenger trains started in the 19th Century. There is never a good time for anyone to be doing engineering work on the rail network, whatever time of year that you choose.

I know there is many people against the building of HS2, but this for me shows that we have a need for another link to the north, besides the connections that we have out of London and have been there since the 19th century. The issue I have with the current plan to stop the line at Old Oak Common is that it will still give passengers issue with travelling to the north from London. But that is possibly an issue for another thread, for which i think there is one in existence already.

 

[Snow1964]

I think there is probably a case for categorisation of lines into commuter, leisure, carries freight etc.

Then a seasonal factor, is it a holiday route, or less busy during school holidays etc.

With commuting being down (due to working from home) the historic choice should no longer be first choice.

Clearly there has been a lot of overcrowding this Easter, which suggests some bad choices of closure times have been made.

Perhaps the closure is not 100% of problem, but failing to strengthen the alternative routes to carry the displaced passengers and just presuming they would prefer a bus having bought a rail ticket is a dumb idea.

 

[TheBigD]

Perhaps the closure is not 100% of problem, but failing to strengthen the alternative routes to carry the displaced passengers and just presuming they would prefer a bus having bought a rail ticket is a dumb idea.

The Sheffield and Nottingham services out of St Pancras yesterday were mostly just 5 car except...

7 Car...
0802 SHF, 1035 NOT, 1132 SHF, 1302 SHF, 1335 NOT, 1535 NOT, 1705 NOT, 1802 SHF, 1805 NOT, 2005 NOT, 2132 SHF, 2232 SHF, 2335 NOT

5 + 5 car...
1002 SHF, 1602 SHF, 1635 NOT, 1702 SHF, 1735 NOT, 1835 NOT

 

[JonathanH]

Clearly there has been a lot of overcrowding this Easter, which suggests some bad choices of closure times have been made.

The other issue is knowing what the recognised diversions are. The operators have spread Euston passengers by having South WCML passengers fed from Potters Bar, Milton Keynes from Bedford, and other passengers going via Leicester.

As posted elsewhere, the East Midlands fast service doesn't really have capacity for a large number of extra passengers, without something being done to accommodate them, but Thameslink against the 'day out to London' flow may well have been coping fine.

 

[philosopher]

I know there is many people against the building of HS2, but this for me shows that we have a need for another link to the north, besides the connections that we have out of London and have been there since the 19th century. The issue I have with the current plan to stop the line at Old Oak Common is that it will still give passengers issue with travelling to the north from London. But that is possibly an issue for another thread, for which i think there is one in existence already.

Definitely agree with the point about HS2. Given the conflicts between leisure, commuter and freight traffic on the current network, having a dedicated high capacity passenger rail line would make the timing of engineering works much less of issue.

Summer blocks are a massive issue as you will have tourist boards complaining, Lake District, South West, South Coast, NE coast and so on. Also, factor in that is when the TOC/FOCs want NR to do work when it is proposed. The people that are happy to work on double/triple time over the Xmas period then spend that cash on cheap holidays to Barbados/Dubai etc in January and February and the resource isn't there. Some routes you cannot do all types of work on in Winter due to cold, snow, high winds etc. Its not as cut and dried as people think it is.

Summer blocks I think should be on a case by case basis. It would be crazy to shut Paddington for two weeks in summer as GWR services tend to be quite heavily biased towards summer leisure travellers visiting places such as Bath, Devon and Cornwall. However I suspect the WCML has fewer of these seasonal travellers and so may be more suitable for summer blocks, though obviously travel to the Lake District would be impacted.

The other issue is knowing what the recognised diversions are. The operators have spread Euston passengers by having South WCML passengers fed from Potters Bar, Milton Keynes from Bedford, and other passengers going via Leicester.

As posted elsewhere, the East Midlands fast service doesn't really have capacity for a large number of extra passengers, without something being done to accommodate them, but Thameslink against the 'day out to London' flow may well have been coping fine.

In other years when Euston is closed, travellers to Manchester would have had the option of getting a GWR service to Oxford and then a CrossCountry service to Manchester. This option of course would not have been available this year.

 

[Fleetmaster]

Just a simple thing like the way a TOC or NR let's people know their journey is affected at Easter could be improved. It doesn't take much hassle to turn people off. I only traveled by rail for a four day weekend last Easter because car hire rates post Covid were insane but they're coming back down now. I acutely remember that checking planned works was a serious pain, in part because there are so many of them at Easter.

 

[The Planner]

Definitely agree with the point about HS2. Given the conflicts between leisure, commuter and freight traffic on the current network, having a dedicated high capacity passenger rail line would make the timing of engineering works much less of issue.

Summer blocks I think should be on a case by case basis. It would be crazy to shut Paddington for two weeks in summer as GWR services tend to be quite heavily biased towards summer leisure travellers visiting places such as Bath, Devon and Cornwall. However I suspect the WCML has fewer of these seasonal travellers and so may be more suitable for summer blocks, though obviously travel to the Lake District would be impacted.


In other years when Euston is closed, travellers to Manchester would have had the option of getting a GWR service to Oxford and then a CrossCountry service to Manchester. This option of course would not have been available this year.

Tell that to Tim Farron! There is a sizeable draw to the Lakes from the south. As others have noted, its all very well telling people to use other routes, but if they cannot strengthen then it soon gets difficult and you have to use messaging to warn people its not going to be comfortable.

 

[30907]

.In answer to JonathanH question and I admit I was not at Marylebone, but from what I saw in Realtime trains, there was cancellations of trains from 6am - 8pm, with at least 6 trains in an hour cancelled to 4 trains an hour as the day progressed. Not sure if it will show up but here is the link for the search that I used: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:MYB/2023-04-07/0600-2000?stp=WVSC&show=all&order=wtt

You have missed all the STP workings that replaced the longer distance regular timetable. I doubt the crowding was caused by the absence of trains to Aylesbury

 

[RobShipway]

Definitely agree with the point about HS2. Given the conflicts between leisure, commuter and freight traffic on the current network, having a dedicated high capacity passenger rail line would make the timing of engineering works much less of issue.

Summer blocks I think should be on a case by case basis. It would be crazy to shut Paddington for two weeks in summer as GWR services tend to be quite heavily biased towards summer leisure travellers visiting places such as Bath, Devon and Cornwall. However I suspect the WCML has fewer of these seasonal travellers and so may be more suitable for summer blocks, though obviously travel to the Lake District would be impacted.


In other years when Euston is closed, travellers to Manchester would have had the option of getting a GWR service to Oxford and then a CrossCountry service to Manchester. This option of course would not have been available this year.

Unfortunately, I don't think it is available anymore, but in past years I know that what was Virgin West Coast (Now Advanti West Coast) ran their class 221 units from London Paddington, via the connection from West Ealing to Greenford and then connect on to the line from Greenford to West Ruislip and then on to High Wycombe to join the Chiltern line.

You have missed all the STP workings that replaced the longer distance regular timetable. I doubt the crowding was caused by the absence of trains to Aylesbury

I doubt the crowding was caused by the cancelled Aylesbury services too, to be honest. The only exception being possibly the 09:57 service from Birminghan Snow Hill and possibly the services that got delayed between Marylebone and Birmingham. The only other issue, is likely due to it being a bank holiday that there is not enough staff to be covering the extra passengers travelling from Marylebone. But if that is the case, then that is down to lack of communication between Network Rail and the TOC's.

 

[JonathanH]

Definitely agree with the point about HS2. Given the conflicts between leisure, commuter and freight traffic on the current network, having a dedicated high capacity passenger rail line would make the timing of engineering works much less of issue.

Unfortunately, the (non-)construction of the HS2 station at Euston appears to often be cited as one of the reasons for the WCML engineering works. If it is going to be cancelled, these closures are unfortunate.

 

[The Planner]

Unfortunately, the (non-)construction of the HS2 station at Euston appears to often be cited as one of the reasons for the WCML engineering works. If it is going to be cancelled, these closures are unfortunate.

To be fair to HS2, they rarely ever need a full station closure of Euston, just half stations. Easter is a lot of track renewal on the WCML, if that is required on the middle lines then there isnt a lot you can do about it.

 

[Neptune]

The main argument for having engineering works at Christmas and Easter is to avoid disrupting weekday commuters. However given the rise of working from home, I think this argument is far weaker now. If a line is closed for a week over the summer or winter, many of those commuters can just work from home for a week.

I can tell you don’t have a flexible working contract from this. Since the reopening of the country most people who do have the ability to work from home must still work out of their offices a certain number of times a week. For instance in my house I must do a minimum of 2 in the office and my wife must do a minimum of 3 and we must both state our attending days a week in advance.

There’s a strange misconception from those who don’t work on flexible contracts that we who can work from home can please ourselves 5 days a week.

Also there are many more people who cannot work from home (the Leeds building trade is back up and fully running for instance).

What about students? Medical staff? Carers? Shop workers?

I’m afraid these people (workers) are more in need of a train than leisure travellers.

 

[philosopher]

I can tell you don’t have a flexible working contract from this. Since the reopening of the country most people who do have the ability to work from home must still work out of their offices a certain number of times a week. For instance in my house I must do a minimum of 2 in the office and my wife must do a minimum of 3 and we must both state our attending days a week in advance.

There’s a strange misconception from those who don’t work on flexible contracts that we who can work from home can please ourselves 5 days a week.

Also there are many more people who cannot work from home (the Leeds building trade is back up and fully running for instance).

What about students? Medical staff? Carers? Shop workers?

I’m afraid these people (workers) are more in need of a train than leisure travellers.

I agree these workers do need the railways more than leisure travellers. However many of these workers you mention work shifts so would work both weekends, including bank holiday weekends as well as weekdays, so are going to be disrupted whatever periods of the year are used for engineering works. Students are holiday during the summer, so would not be impacted by engineering works undertaken during the summer holidays.

Ultimately there is no day to do engineering works that is not going to disrupt some passengers, other than Christmas Day and to lesser extent Boxing Day.

 

[Jimini]

<snip> and to lesser extent Boxing Day.

Let's not start that annual conversation in early April

 

[Neptune]

I agree these workers do need the railways more than leisure travellers. However many of these workers you mention work shifts so would work both weekends, including bank holiday weekends as well as weekdays, so are going to be disrupted whatever periods of the year are used for engineering works. Students are holiday during the summer, so would not be impacted by engineering works undertaken during the summer holidays.

Ultimately there is no day to do engineering works that is not going to disrupt some passengers, other than Christmas Day and to lesser extent Boxing Day.

True. But none of this takes away the fact that the busiest times are M-F am and pm peaks still. You also haven’t acknowledged the assumption that everyone is home working is a complete fallacy. It’s something made up to justify service cuts.

 

[Magdalia]

engineering works could instead take place during one or two week long blocks

This already happens. The work to extend the platforms at Hertford East for 10 car class 720s was done in a 2 week block in August of last year.

And it has been happening for a long time. I remember a week long closure of Royston-Cambridge in August 1999.

Note these usually happen in August when schools are on holiday and commuting is a bit lower.

 

[zwk500]

Therefore on lines that do not have many seaside resorts, national parks or historic towns / cities destinations along the route I think it would be better if engineering works were shifted to a one or two week long blocks during the summer school holidays.

Network Rail's Southern Region/Area (forget what the actual name is, they reorganise by the time I've learnt the previous one) already does this, with most of the big works on the Kent, Sussex and Wessex areas concentrated into 9-day blockades on half-term weeks. A 16 day blockade would be unworkable, it's hard enough shutting down the Brighton, Chatham or Portsmouth lines for 1 week let alone 2. All 3 lines mentioned have had 9-day blockades in the past few years.

 

[JonathanH]

Network Rail's Southern Region/Area (forget what the actual name is, they reorganise by the time I've learnt the previous one) already does this, with most of the big works on the Kent, Sussex and Wessex areas concentrated into 9-day blockades on half-term weeks. A 16 day blockade would be unworkable, it's hard enough shutting down the Brighton, Chatham or Portsmouth lines for 1 week let alone 2. All 3 lines mentioned have had 9-day blockades in the past few years.

Yes, but a blockade of the Brighton, Chatham or Portsmouth lines doesn't affect any significant freight routes. It is noticeable that the work at Basingstoke this weekend to replace a junction is being done over the Easter weekend, rather than via a full week block.

Anyway, it would appear that the issue at hand this weekend has been how to allow lots of people to leave London on Good Friday between 9am and mid day with a route to the north shut, rather than necessarily the closure of that route.

 

[zwk500]

Yes, but a blockade of the Brighton, Chatham or Portsmouth lines doesn't affect any significant freight routes. It is noticeable that the work at Basingstoke this weekend to replace a junction is being done over the Easter weekend, rather than via a full week block.

Quite so, I was just pointing out to the OP that where appropriate, Week-long blockades are used. The freight flows are the problem though - only the Brighton line carries any appreciable freight (aggregates to Newhaven/Ardingly) and that was able to be stockpiled in advance by the customer and then managed through the week to avoid being impacted. Can't see that happening with Daventry.