GTR Rail replacement bus disruption between Redhill & Three Bridges (25/02)

[AndrewE]

On NRE tonight 25/02/2018:

Overcrowding between Redhill and Three Bridges has resulted in disruption for the rail replacement bus service that is in operation between these stations...
Customer Advice:
If you are travelling between London, Gatwick Airport and Brighton you should allow extra time for your journey due to planned engineering work. There is currently a large queue of people at Redhill, and the wait to board a rail replacement bus from Redhill towards Gatwick Airport and Three Bridges is approximately 45 minutes.

Discuss. P.s. just spotted another thread on the same topic.

 

[tsr]

Other thread:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/redhill-today-25-2-18-what-a-shambles.161219/

 

[Alteran Ancient]

I noticed this yesterday whilst at Victoria - Gatwick Express trains were being advertised as only going as far as Redhill, calling at Clapham and East Croydon.

Fast-forward to this morning and I started spotting various articles describing "chaos" at Redhill as the rail-replacement service couldn't keep up with demand, causing customers to miss flights:

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...sers-miss-flights-after-bottleneck-at-station

Katja, who did not wish to give a surname, was among those who missed their flights, blaming poor communication and crowd management for the chaos.

The researcher said she and a colleague waited for over two hours in the freezing cold for a bus to take them to Gatwick for their flight to Barcelona.

Katja, who works for a thinktank and is due to speak at a conference on Monday in the Spanish city, left much earlier than normal after reading there would be a delay.

She said: “The train was packed and when we got to Redhill, it took us a long time to get off the platform because there were so many people. It was completely packed. There was a huge line outside waiting for the buses.

“There was no system whatsoever. There were people just trying to get on the train back to Victoria and hundreds of people trying to leave with all their suitcases. It was a mess....

Is there anything that could have been done to close only half of the lines to maintain a service to the Airport without the need for buses? It does seem a bit ridiculous to close such a vital station without having organised a reasonable alternative.

 

[HowardGWR]

There is already a thread for this subject in timetables, etc but I suspect this needs airing here preferably. Perhaps mods could consider?
I recently booked a trip via Gatwick and took care to travel midweek - and that's in June! Better to be safe than...

 

[Wirewiper]

Was it not possible to run a train service between Victoria and Gatwick via Dorking and Horsham?

 

[Alteran Ancient]

There is already a thread for this subject in timetables, etc but I suspect this needs airing here preferably. Perhaps mods could consider?
I recently booked a trip via Gatwick and took care to travel midweek - and that's in June! Better to be safe than...

I looked in the obvious places - I just didn't check Timetables, because it didn't feel like the right place.

 

[RichJF]

Was it not possible to run a train service between Victoria and Gatwick via Dorking and Horsham?

There was an engineering block at Sutton apparently!

 

[Robertj21a]

Surely the question that needs to be asked is why so many lines were blocked all at the same time ?

 

[HowardGWR]

Surely the question that needs to be asked is why so many lines were blocked all at the same time ?

Yes, that's why I thought the discussion was better in this general section, although one could argue that this was, essentially, an infrastructure problem. I have been wondering whether the opined Brighton event with good weather was indeed the straw that broke the camel's back? After all, GTR / SN must have known how many normally travel on that stretch on a winter Sunday.

 

[westcoaster]

They are replacing earlswood junction. Including the connections into the slow lines so it requires an all line block.