Rail Replacement Buses - Southampton Area (Redbridge) 27 and 28 October

[Titfield]

On 27 and 28 October "fast" rail replacement buses are operating between Bournemouth and Southampton Airport Parkway (the journey I need to make).

There is a timetable on the national rail website.

My question is "do they just operate to the timetable or at Bournemouth will they "fill and go" as well because my local bus to bmth gets me to bmth central 30+ minutes before the scheduled departure time of the rail replacement bus"? I am a bit nervous of getting to Bmth for the appointed departure time and find it is late due to boarding issues.

 

[Teds]

Although I do not have experioence of the service you will be using, the general practice in rail replacement is to operate the service at the advertised times. The vehicle will be available to load about 10 minutes before departure time which is usually sufficient to ensure prompt departure.

The 10 minutes is a rough guideline which can be affected by congestion in the boarding area, the vehicle diagram and by the need to give the driver a legal break.

The service you will be travelling may well have multiple vehicles on each departure. In that case, it is normal practice to load one vehicle and despatch, load the next etc starting about 10 minutes before the advertised time with at least one vehicle departing at the advertised time (provided there are sufficient vehicles available to meet the demand). Getting to the replacement bus departure point before the connecting train arrives is useful to ensure you can get on.