Overcrowding during Easter

[class397tpe]

Announcements as I arrived at Manchester Piccadilly yesterday that 2S78 10:48 Piccadilly-Sheffield (2 car 195 014) was full and standing and Sheffield passengers should go to platform 13, although they would have found 1L09 10:43 departure to Norwich cancelled followed by 1B74 11:13 to Cleethorpes cancelled so 1L10 11:43 to Norwich would have been the next train, actually departing at 11:52. At least that shows as 3x158 (6 cars) but I bet it was busy too!
Maybe Sheffield passengers on platform 13 for the cancelled fast service at 10:43 were being advised to cross the footbridge for the (full and standing) stopping service at 10:48?
Can't have been much fun for a number of people.

Considering Northern have settled into consistent use of 3-car 195s on the hope valley line, it beats me why they'd stick a 2-car on it during one of the busiest days of the year when the WCML is shut...

 

[dk1]

Whilst I agree with you and I myself try to avoid the obviously busiest times, if this is what higher ups in the railway companies say/think, then it does smack of simply putting the blame onto the passengers.

Years ago people queued down the street for hours to get onto Bank Holiday trains to the coast. These days if anyone has to do this it’s all over social media and they behave like they’ve been stripped of all human rights. Yet will go nowhere in road traffic chaos and accept it.

 

[nw1]

Fewer people travel at Easter than any other time. They just all want to catch the same few trains.

Fewer than a wet weekend in January?

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

Whilst I agree with you and I myself try to avoid the obviously busiest times, if this is what higher ups in the railway companies say/think, then it does smack of simply putting the blame onto the passengers.

And for a decent day out you need to travel at certain times anyway. You can try to "beat the system" by leaving early, but Sunday morning services before about 9am, in particular, are very sparse so it might not work.

 

[standish1]

Would have not helped yesterday on Manchester /Sheffield with

 

[philosopher]

Fewer people travel at Easter than any other time. They just all want to catch the same few trains.

Maybe on Easter Sunday, but I would be amazed if this is the case on Good Friday or Easter Monday!

 

[Snow1964]

Fewer people travel at Easter than any other time. They just all want to catch the same few trains.

Commuters yes less at Easter

Visiting relatives, days out, leisure journeys etc, I don't think Easter is quiet. Not many are going to stay indoors and go nowhere for 4 days.

It doesn't help that in recent years we have designed commuter trains that in many cases can't work leisure services to help strengthen them.

 

[Falcon1200]

The problem certainly seems to be that there is no good time to shut the railway for engineering works, and that it is impossible to second guess when the height of demand is for the alternative routes.

Indeed, and perhaps the good weather boosted passenger numbers - Would the Hope Valley for example have been anywhere near as busy had normal Bank Holiday weather applied, with pouring rain?!!

But I agree, cancellations on top of an already amended timetable is poor.

 

[NeilCr]

Worked well on SouthEastern too

Ramsgate to Denmark Hill (avoiding London) and back again

Two changes going - one coming back.

Everything on time and no problem getting a seat by myself on each train. One or two busyish trains but pleasant trips taking in the Kent countryside

 

[The Planner]

Certainly non-essential works should have avoided this specific Easter, given the pent up demand for traveling to see friends and family and domestic tourism.

What is non-essential?

 

[The exile]

The MML is no longer geared up to accepting WCML or ECML diversions. At least with the HSTs you could amend the diagrams to kick as many long sets out as possible. Now most trains are 5 cars and that's that..

It is fed back time after time that the trains can't cope.

"But we've put buses on and told people to use them."

"Their tickets are valid on the train as they're any permitted even if it is a different route. The journey planner tells them to use the train as it's faster than the buses."

"But we've said to use the buses".

Repeat ad infinitum. It's happened for years. It never changes.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've turned up at Grantham when the MML is closed with an already full 2 car train from the east and just had to shrug at the 200 people left on the platform.

Strangely enough, people with train tickets want to use trains, not buses.

 

[yorksrob]

"Crowding ? What crowding ?" Say the DfT/Treasury/Government. "Let's scrap some more train fleets !".

 

[L401CJF]

I nipped into Liverpool yesterday on Merseyrail, a lot quieter than I was expecting. I had a bay of 4 to myself in both directions (with the exception of 2 stops where somebody sat opposite.)

When I boarded at Hooton there were only a handful of people in the carriage and it was a service from Chester, I was fully prepared to stand!

Maybe I was just lucky as Liverpool City center itself was pretty busy - although saying that even the Lord St McDonald's had loads of empty tables at lunch time which was a bit of a shock, normally you have to search a bit for somewhere to sit.

 

[Runningaround]

Rail ‘mayhem’ as thousands stuck in London station queues likened to ‘last train out of Saigon’​

in The Independent (https://www.independent.co.uk/trave...easter-travel-london-trains-b2316141.html?amp):

My impression is, increasingly, that the people responsible for running the railways don't care one bit about their passengers. Now, of course, there are many for whom that is untrue, so it's an unfair sweeping statement, but it's one that's increasingly going to be made. We insist on high levels of worker safety, so it's pretty unavoidable to close the railway for engineering works, but it does seem increasingly that passengers have to struggle along as a result - not assisted by intolerable numbers of cancellations. But nobody seems "in charge" these days. I thought there was a plan for this, but it seems like hot air at the moment.

It's been the same every year and holiday period for as long as I can remember, it's not as if they are unknown events yet they have reduced the numbers of rolling stock to such an extent there never is enough to go round and so little flexibility there isn't any contingency for allocating stock to where it's needed at certain times of the year.
It doesn't take a genius to realise that trains heading to coastal areas will need extra capacity at the beginning of a holiday and then back towards the cities at the end.
Sporting events outside a few very local networks are never properly served, they are scheduled years and decades in advance yet the railways still find it impossible to plan for them.
Even during Wales & Borders day they realised they should cover a few services with a loco hauled eight carriage train when students start and finish term, yet this year they'll be lucky to get a two car service every two hours. The University has only been there since 1872.

 

[A0]

Strangely enough, people with train tickets want to use trains, not buses.

Yet they also get a bit grumpy when the trains get cancelled because of infrastructure problems.

People need to start accepting the rail network has to be maintained and, even with a lower level of commuting than pre Covid, commuter travel is still of higher importance than leisure travel.

 

[Runningaround]

That's a large part of the problem. Everybody goes at similar times rather than using common sense and travelling a little earlier or later. You can't expect to turn up at 10am on a bank holiday and find it plain sailing.

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

Its only being going on since the invention of the railways by now you'd think it would have worked it out

Certainly is mate and bodes well for another bumper year.

 

[66701GBRF]

With a railway more dependant on leisure i think a new approach is needed.

Such as?

 

[43066]

With a railway more dependant on leisure i think a new approach is needed.

So, what’s your big suggestion of a “new approach” to avoid engineering work closures (I take it you must have one?!) I’m sure NR will be keen to hear it.

 

[Edsmith]

Yet they also get a bit grumpy when the trains get cancelled because of infrastructure problems.

People need to start accepting the rail network has to be maintained and, even with a lower level of commuting than pre Covid, commuter travel is still of higher importance than leisure travel.

But nobody is going to be happy about paying train fare prices for a bus journey although overcrowding and Easter do rather go together especially if the weather is nice.

 

[43066]

But nobody is going to be happy about paying train fare prices for a bus journey although overcrowding and Easter do rather go together especially if the weather is nice.

So, you have a choice to plan your journey around the bustititions. I’m going out of my way to do so myself tomorrow, because I have no interest in sitting on an RRB for an hour and a bit…

 

[Ken H]

I feel for the engineers. The WCML works planned well in advance then the Didcot-Oxford line fails.
Do they cancel the WCML works or carry on and suffer the reputational damage to the railway.
Its not Network Rail customers who suffer tho. So no real input into their bottom line. A bit like OpenreCh and Internet Service Providers.
Who thought separating infrastructure from service providers was a good idea?

 

[Ken H]

Yet they also get a bit grumpy when the trains get cancelled because of infrastructure problems.

People need to start accepting the rail network has to be maintained and, even with a lower level of commuting than pre Covid, commuter travel is still of higher importance than leisure travel.

Is it??? Are there numbers for that?

 

[Ken H]

So, what’s your big suggestion of a “new approach” to avoid engineering work closures (I take it you must have one?!) I’m sure NR will be keen to hear it.

Look carefully at when people actually travel. One gets the feeling the railway is sitting waiting for the old demand patterns to re-emerge

 

[Edsmith]

So, you have a choice to plan your journey around the bustititions. I’m going out of my way to do so myself tomorrow, because I have no interest in sitting on an RRB for an hour and a bit…

I'd do that as well but people with less knowledge of the railway probably wouldn't and if there is a RRB they resent paying train fare prices although in practice such services are often unofficially free.

 

[Runningaround]

Yet they also get a bit grumpy when the trains get cancelled because of infrastructure problems.

People need to start accepting the rail network has to be maintained and, even with a lower level of commuting than pre Covid, commuter travel is still of higher importance than leisure travel.

Many people have accepted the railways operate at the bare minimum at the best of times and cannot cope with demand even when its obvious, that's why the roads are so busy. Does the railway also realise this period is peak season for schools going on trips meaning coaches will be booked up months or years in advance or does it expect to phone up the coach operators a week before and have a fleet on standby ready for RRB work?

 

[43066]

I'd do that as well but people with less knowledge of the railway probably wouldn't and if there is a RRB they resent paying train fare prices although in practice such services are often unofficially free.

That’s true, and I don’t think anyone would ever suggest that RRBs are equivalent to trains, but there isn’t much alternative. Even occasional rail travellers generally expect engineering related disruption around Easter.

They are most certainly unofficially free in many cases!

 

[nw1]

So, what’s your big suggestion of a “new approach” to avoid engineering work closures (I take it you must have one?!) I’m sure NR will be keen to hear it.

Time them for relatively quiet weekends? October, early November, January, February and March (assuming Easter is not in March) and, if absolutely necessary, non-bank-holiday weekends in April, May and September.

I'd be interested to see stats to see if the incidence of engineering work on busy weekends (i.e. bank holiday weekends and all weekends June-Aug) has increased since the 90s. I swear it has, though have no hard evidence to back this up. It also seems to be the case that weekday engineering work (obviously more disruptive than the weekend) has increased in incidence.

 

[penguin8967]

GWR services from London to Devon/Cornwall were very busy yesterday, probably as a result of the SWR services starting from Andover instead of Waterloo.

 

[Via Bank]

At a very minimum, they could do with (a) professionalising the replacement bus services, which often seem to be poorly-run, (b) advertising upcoming closures more prominently on websites etc. That’s going to be where occasional users will look.

As an example, if you go into the SWR website, it currently claims there’s a “good service” running on most of their network with a little green tick. To find out about the pretty major blockade around Basingstoke you have to look under “Plan my journey,” “Planned Improvements”(?????!!!!) and then under a page for April. It’s like they’re trying to hide the fact a large part of their network is currently broken, and so people will be turning up at the station and then surprised/annoyed to see the “good service” doesn’t apply for them.

This shouldn’t be complicated.

 

[pitdiver]

As it seems its going to be busy in Norfolk this year I'm glad we wont be sailing on the Broads this year. Mooring is getting increasingly difficult as years go by. Off to the Canary Islands instead

 

[RailWonderer]

Same here in East Anglia. Very busy trains but all went like clockwork.

First weekend in a long time mostly undisrupted by engineering though. Still loadings are solid today.