EMR Overcrowding

[LowLevel]

If true



If true, that is surprising. Based on the last published figures I saw, Nottingham has the largest London flow of all MML stations north of Bedford and I would expect that to be reflected pro-rata in London first class traffic.

Same at Derby having just called in, all mention removed

 

[STINT47]

Same at Derby having just called in, all mention removed

Perhaps they'll get a full refurbishment before they're reopened. EMR could do a big push on first class with new lounges, menus and service to help rebuild demand.

Alternatively they're going to save some money. If they are then once again the MML is getting a poor deal.

 

[LowLevel]

The longstanding Derby station Upper Crust/Derby Hero has also gone. Hopefully that indicates a more positive trend of something other than SSP being there.

 

[QSK19]

Perhaps they'll get a full refurbishment before they're reopened. EMR could do a big push on first class with new lounges, menus and service to help rebuild demand.

Alternatively they're going to save some money. If they are then once again the MML is getting a poor deal.

Based on EMR’s record thus far, “EMR” and “refurbishment” don’t go together!

But, in all seriousness, I share your sentiment.

 

[liamf656]

The longstanding Derby station Upper Crust/Derby Hero has also gone. Hopefully that indicates a more positive trend of something other than SSP being there.

Without steering the thread way off topic, there’s heavy talk of Greggs opening up where Uppercrust used to be in Derby

Anyway, do we know of any measures being put in place for the projected passenger flows this weekend and next? This weekend sees Nottingham Forest playing at Wembley as well as other events, and the following week of course is the Jubilee weekend

 

[43066]

The longstanding Derby station Upper Crust/Derby Hero has also gone. Hopefully that indicates a more positive trend of something other than SSP being there.

As stations go Derby is about as bad as it gets for catering options. The cafe down the road is decent enough during normal working hours, absolutely nothing else if Costa is closed.

 

[LowLevel]

As stations go Derby is about as bad as it gets for catering options. The cafe down the road is decent enough during normal working hours, absolutely nothing else if Costa is closed.

Plenty of good curry houses but that's about it

 

[43066]

Plenty of good curry houses but that's about it

Yes the one down the road towards the cafe looks nice. Probably not the best idea on a break though!

(Apologies OT).

 

[baz962]

Yes the one down the road towards the cafe looks nice. Probably not the best idea on a break though!

(Apologies OT).

Funny enough I found a cafe today. Had a full English.

 

[gazzaa2]

Sounds chaotic at Nottingham today (Nottingham Forest heading to Wembley for the final).

 

[Skymonster]

Utterly shambolic operation at Nottingham today. While almost all of the Intercity fleet is out (bar a couple which are presumably on maintenance, which is inevitable), not allowing people with reservations to board their booked train but forcing them to join the general queue which is outside on the pavements stretching almost half way around the station is totally unacceptable. Accepting that making available more capacity than is actually being deployed would be almost impossible, EMR should have gone to mandatory reservations for Nottingham-London-Nottingham as soon as Forest were in the playoff - that it didn‘t happen, and EMR is denying passengers with reservations access to the booked train, is down to sheer incompetence (nothing new there then). I predict St Pancras this evening will be chaos.

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

Huge queues at Nottingham railway station ahead of play-off final

Nottingham Forest fans report "mayhem" outside the station as they seek to get to Wembley.

www.bbc.co.uk

Article from the beeb about queues at Nottingham today! Crikey..

 

[Snow1964]

Utterly shambolic operation at Nottingham today. While almost all of the Intercity fleet is out (bar a couple which are presumably on maintenance, which is inevitable), not allowing people with reservations to board their booked train but forcing them to join the general queue which is outside on the pavements stretching almost half way around the station is totally unacceptable. Accepting that making available more capacity than is actually being deployed would be almost impossible, EMR should have gone to mandatory reservations for Nottingham-London-Nottingham as soon as Forest were in the playoff - that it didn‘t happen, and EMR is denying passengers with reservations access to the booked train, is down to sheer incompetence (nothing new there then). I predict St Pancras this evening will be chaos.

No point in having mandatory reservations, if you stop people entering the station to get their booked train

 

[43066]

No point in having mandatory reservations, if you stop people entering the station to get their booked train

In fairness with such levels of demand it’s probably not practical to maintain reservations - it’s simply impossible when every train is crush loaded.

 

[Skymonster]

In fairness with such levels of demand it’s probably not practical to maintain reservations - it’s simply impossible when every train is crush loaded.

In other words, relegated to “difficult so can’t be bothered”, so typical of the railway. Try telling customers who booked weeks ago - perhaps going to London to fly somewhere - who have no interest in football - that they can’t get on their booked / reserved train. As I said, EMR should have made all Nottingham-London trains today mandatory reservations for all as soon as Forest qualified for the playoff final.

 

[class397tpe]

Utterly shambolic operation at Nottingham today. While almost all of the Intercity fleet is out (bar a couple which are presumably on maintenance, which is inevitable), not allowing people with reservations to board their booked train but forcing them to join the general queue which is outside on the pavements stretching almost half way around the station is totally unacceptable. Accepting that making available more capacity than is actually being deployed would be almost impossible, EMR should have gone to mandatory reservations for Nottingham-London-Nottingham as soon as Forest were in the playoff - that it didn‘t happen, and EMR is denying passengers with reservations access to the booked train, is down to sheer incompetence (nothing new there then). I predict St Pancras this evening will be chaos.

Then again it is only 1 train per hour from Nottingham to London on Sundays - any way they could have put 2 tph on in the morning? E.g. the 0815 and 1246 from Sheffield were both double units - perhaps those could have been run as single units and the extra trains used to run a couple of extra special (crowdbusting) services?

 

[43055]

Then again it is only 1 train per hour from Nottingham to London on Sundays - any way they could have put 2 tph on in the morning? E.g. the 0815 and 1246 from Sheffield were both double units - perhaps those could have been run as single units and the extra trains used to run a couple of extra special (crowdbusting) services?

Might be a bit difficult at the south end as the MML timetable on Sunday mornings is based around 2 lines being closed for engineering works.

 

[gazzaa2]

In fairness with such levels of demand it’s probably not practical to maintain reservations - it’s simply impossible when every train is crush loaded.

They're playing Huddersfield who'll have similar numbers at Wembley. They don't seem to have the same problems transporting fans from Yorkshire as EMT.

 

[STINT47]

EMR and the DFT said that although the HSTs were going enough seats would be freedom up by the 360s taking medium length passengers. Sadly this does not appear to have been correct/to have worked out as intended.

 

[43066]

In other words, relegated to “difficult so can’t be bothered”, so typical of the railway. Try telling customers who booked weeks ago - perhaps going to London to fly somewhere - who have no interest in football - that they can’t get on their booked / reserved train. As I said, EMR should have made all Nottingham-London trains today mandatory reservations for all as soon as Forest qualified for the playoff final.

This strikes me as just moaning for the sake of it.

It’s not the railway’s fault the demand today is such that it’s impossible to carry enough people with the infrastructure and the queue has been round the block.

The priority is getting as many people transported as possible - as for first class and seat reservations booked weeks ago, forget it. It’s totally impractical and trying to enforce things like that will only result in fights breaking out. The fact that you can’t accept that doesn’t change it.

It’s easy to throw stones on here. Maybe just maybe the people making the decisions understand what they’re doing and why better than you do, and there are good reasons behind it…

 

[cactustwirly]

EMR and the DFT said that although the HSTs were going enough seats would be freedom up by the 360s taking medium length passengers. Sadly this does not appear to have been correct/to have worked out as intended.

I suspect if EMR still had the the HSTs then the queues would have been shorter. They had a much larger capacity than the 222s

 

[class 9]

They're playing Huddersfield who'll have similar numbers at Wembley. They don't seem to have the same problems transporting fans from Yorkshire as EMT.

The difference is that Huddersfield fans have a choice, LNER from Leeds and Avanti from Man Picc, spreads the demand quite considerably.

 

[MP393]

The difference is that Huddersfield fans have a choice, LNER from Leeds and Avanti from Man Picc, spreads the demand quite considerably.

Not to mention a football special charter taking Huddersfield fans down, yes I know that’s only one train load but that's still a considerable amount of fans taken from normal trains

 

[STINT47]

Avanti and LNER also have trains made up of 9 to 11 coaches and run these more than once an hour.

EMR have a mainly five coach train service (doubled up when possible) but only run hourly. If you then factor in that 222s waste a lot of space causing a low number of seats per vehicle overall we have z lot less capacity from Nottingham.

Realistically a couple of Footex charter trains needed to be run from Nottingjam today to soak up the crowds but that was always going to go in the to difficult to do box given the fragmented railway and micro management by the DFT.

 

[liamf656]

EMR have done all they could from what I can see. If only hire ins and charters were allowed! A quick scour on Realtime suggests that some Sheffield services were shortformed and other Notts services strengthened. And EMR did warn customers that it would be an exceptionally busy day and to travel to other stations on the MML and travel earlier, as well as relaxing ticketing restrictions, but I doubt those warnings would have been listened to much. It’s definitely been hell for staff at ground level, a lot of people chose to drive to the likes of Grantham, Rugby, Northampton or the full journey to Wembley at their own cost!

The 20:32 St Pancras to Derby journey is being diverted via Nottingham tonight but I fear that won’t be enough. We shall see how it plays out by the end of the game

 

[WillPS]

The difference is that Huddersfield fans have a choice, LNER from Leeds and Avanti from Man Picc, spreads the demand quite considerably.

There is a choice for Nottingham passengers too - change or join at Grantham for LNER.

Not that this excuses EMR's shameful handling of the situation at Nottingham station at all.

 

[High Dyke]

No doubt if there had been engineering work affecting services into London St.Pancras the keyboard warriors would still be up in arms? (O/T rant: I'm peeved because the T20 Blast match at Trent Bridge was postponed due to pandering to the football! Rant over!)

 

[Jimini]

Worth noting as well that the Forest end is rammed, but the Huddersfield one is far from full, so less demand in the first place.

 

[Snow1964]

Might be a bit difficult at the south end as the MML timetable on Sunday mornings is based around 2 lines being closed for engineering works.

No one said they need special timetable slots, or all 4 lines open, doesn’t really matter if they follow a stopping train at southern end. I am sure the southern end of MML is signalled to handle a train about every 2-3 minutes (although some may need to terminate at West Hampstead, which has a Jubilee line connection to Wembley), as never be able to turn around high frequency at St Pancras.

Its the EMR senior staff cannot be bothered to work out a solution, and quite honestly some of them ought to have been helping marshal the crowds as they knew it was going to be busy. Having decided not to run Sheffield-Liverpool services (due to engineering work) could have dragged those trains into service as an extra

 

[LowLevel]

No one said they need special timetable slots, or all 4 lines open, doesn’t really matter if they follow a stopping train at southern end. I am sure the southern end of MML is signalled to handle a train about every 2-3 minutes (although some may need to terminate at West Hampstead, which has a Jubilee line connection to Wembley), as never be able to turn around high frequency at St Pancras.

Its the EMR senior staff cannot be bothered to work out a solution, and quite honestly some of them ought to have been helping marshal the crowds as they knew it was going to be busy. Having decided not to run Sheffield-Liverpool services (due to engineering work) could have dragged those trains into service as an extra

The 15x trains generally speaking can't run south of Bedford and they would require double crewing or some of the few managers that sign both traction to drive/guard them.