Rail replacement buses vs. longer train journeys - choices by passengers in engineering works

[M60lad]

Regarding Warrington to Airport during the Piccadilly blockade yes it is a direct service from Warrington-Manchester Airport, in fact the replacement service starts at Warrington Bank Quay then calls at Warrington Central before running direct to Manchester Airport.

Looking at next Saturday for example there are quite a few direct Rail Replacement Services running from Manchester Airport:

Manchester Airport-Preston
Manchester Airport-Huddersfield via Stockport
Manchester Airport-Bolton

 

[TUC]

I would suggest that with RRBs sometimes being quite difficult to obtain (particularly when lots of vehicles are required, and certainly for emergency work) they probably can't be all that choosy......

It's not that binary a choice. National Express used to have a problem with some contractors not running coaches in NEx livery, until they introduced a contractual clause which gave a percentage deduction from the contract price for any non-livery journey. The problem reportedly disappeared overnight. The same approach could be applied to a lack of destination blinds/boards.

 

[Starmill]

I would suggest that with RRBs sometimes being quite difficult to obtain (particularly when lots of vehicles are required, and certainly for emergency work) they probably can't be all that choosy......

For short-notice work it's generally that everything goes out of the window absolutely. As you suggest it's often "this bus or no bus".

 

[The Planner]

Regarding Warrington to Airport during the Piccadilly blockade yes it is a direct service from Warrington-Manchester Airport, in fact the replacement service starts at Warrington Bank Quay then calls at Warrington Central before running direct to Manchester Airport.

Looking at next Saturday for example there are quite a few direct Rail Replacement Services running from Manchester Airport:

Manchester Airport-Preston
Manchester Airport-Huddersfield via Stockport
Manchester Airport-Bolton

Keeps people wanting to get to/from the airport out of central Manchester as very few trains go to Picc from the north, otherwise they would have to make their way from Oxford Road which I can imagine is difficult to run buses from.

 

[Dr Hoo]

For short-notice work it's generally that everything goes out of the window absolutely. As you suggest it's often "this bus or no bus".

Exactly. There is no comparison with National Express contracting nice, regular scheduled journeys with an operator who is comfortable with the area and scale of operations.
Not like pleading with an operator from fifty miles away to send anything on wheels ASAP as a one-off.

 

[david1212]

Do TOC do any kind of quality control checks on their RRBs and cease to offer contracts to operators who aren't up to the mark?

I would suggest that with RRBs sometimes being quite difficult to obtain (particularly when lots of vehicles are required, and certainly for emergency work) they probably can't be all that choosy......

For short-notice work it's generally that everything goes out of the window absolutely. As you suggest it's often "this bus or no bus".

Over the last few years with the PSVAR requirements meaning older vehicles can not be used except on 'closed door' work but the cost of newer compliant vehicles can not be justified and driver CPC leading to some older and part-time drivers deciding not renew/refresh numerous smaller operators have closed. Even if particularly evenings and weekends vehicles may be sat in the yard no driver is available at any price. This has reduced the pool that the railway operators can call on either directly or by the contractor sub-contracting.

For school work operators reseat to 3+2 giving ~70 seats in a two axle 12m vehicle and ~85 in a 3 axle 15m vehicle. Aside from not always being PSVAR compliant these are not really suitable for RRB work although I suspect get used even if only loaded 2+2. Another issue with 3 axle 15m vehicles is railway station access. Double deckers used off route bring numerous issues as already mentioned.


Back to the thread title if on a train taking a longer diversion route throughout or to a major station with regular or multiple onward connections the probability of completing the journey in the expected time is high. With the former if a delay at least still to the destination without changes/connections. With the latter the biggest risk is the capacity of the onward connection.
With RRB there are more risks
- Will the RRB depart and arrive at the connecting stations at the stated time?
- Will there be sufficient RRB capacity?
The planners have two options to balance
- a large amount of slack time but a big increase in end-to-end journey time
- timings that work on paper with limited contingency but a high risk if anything goes wrong e.g. RRB arrives significantly late but to keep to the rail timetable the train must depart on time. If the service is hourly the delay to passengers beyond the expected end-to-end journey time becomes an hour.

 

[TUC]

Exactly. There is no comparison with National Express contracting nice, regular scheduled journeys with an operator who is comfortable with the area and scale of operations.
Not like pleading with an operator from fifty miles away to send anything on wheels ASAP as a one-off.

I'm talking about planned RRBs, not last minute issues.

 

[Oxfordblues]

Once travelling from Bangor (Gwynedd) to London we were turfed-out at Chester for an RRB to Crewe. The planners had failed to take into account traffic to a popular air-show and there was dreadful road congestion en-route. We finally arrived at Crewe Platform 12 just in time to see our connecting train departing. If only we could have been diverted via Mickle Trafford and Middlewich. Just to make it more annoying we were told the possession had been cancelled, but too late for Virgin Trains to amend the arrangements.

 

[LittleRedTrain]

For school work operators reseat to 3+2 giving ~70 seats in a two axle 12m vehicle and ~85 in a 3 axle 15m vehicle. Aside from not always being PSVAR compliant these are not really suitable for RRB work although I suspect get used even if only loaded 2+2.

At least one was being used on the Banbury-Didcot RRBs last week. (It also took the wrong junction off the M40, and missed the connecting XC train at Didcot... passengers had to jump on a GWR fast and make a hasty change to the XC while it was reversing at Reading!).

 

[stevieinselby]

What do you mean by pay?

If your whole journey is on a RRB then you might get away with not paying, but I've often had it in the middle of a longer journey, where the hassle of buying separate tickets for each of the train legs and hoping not to be checked on the bus leg was not worth it for any putative savings (which might have been non-existent anyway).

It is the painfully slow timings of RRBs that put me off using them. Those setting the timetables seem divorced from any knowledge, or even application of common sense, as to how long journeys will take.

I think this is planners being very conservative and not wanting to take any risks. If you're promising to get passengers to the next station in time for the onward train connection, and you're using RRBs where the drivers may not know the route, you don't want to have any risk of problems meaning that passengers miss the onward connection.

I'd much rather use a train with a connection than a bus. I really don't like the claustrophobia of a bus; they're usually much darker inside and you have less personal space. I am quite envious of the people who happily get a megabus to travel the country; I appreciate the cost benefit but the envy relates to their resilience!

I don't have a problem with travelling by bus or coach per se, the biggest issue for me is usually the extended journey time, along with the concern that if there is more of a risk of the journey going wrong. Plus a journey that is supposed to be by bus or coach is usually designed to be so, whereas RRBs sometimes have to take routes that you would never plan for buses, especially if they need to call at intermediate stations.

This is certainly a bit of an issue, but there have been murmurings (though I forget where) about whether just putting "rail replacement choo choo" or nothing on the front blind is considered compliant with the road vehicle accessibility regulations (forget what they're called) or not - and these regulations do apply to rail replacement, hence the requirement for all vehicles to be accessible the same as for a public local bus or coach service. I've certainly noticed that increasingly correct destinations are actually displayed so I suspect things are being said and done about it.

If there are marshals on hand to direct passengers to the right bus then it's a complete non-issue.
I suspect that operators may shy away from just putting the destination on the front, as then people waiting for a bus at other bus stops along the way might get confused/annoyed that they can't flag the bus down.

Non stop London-Selby

According to RTT, the HT services over the weekend were stopping at Doncaster ... and Kettering as well, apparently. As they have to run through Doncaster and it's usually a busy stop for them in its own right, as well as being a useful interchange point for passengers coming from further north, it would be a bit perverse not to stop there and to take up valuable MML paths for the smaller number of passengers coming just from Hull, Brough, Howden and Selby.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If your whole journey is on a RRB then you might get away with not paying, but I've often had it in the middle of a longer journey, where the hassle of buying separate tickets for each of the train legs and hoping not to be checked on the bus leg was not worth it for any putative savings (which might have been non-existent anyway).

There are also some where you basically can't buy a ticket for the bus - the LNER Bedford-Peterborough one is an example - because it's not a normal route. An Any Permitted ticket would presumably be accepted, but these are usually priced for going via London and so are extraordinarily expensive.

 

[Starmill]

According to RTT, the HT services over the weekend were stopping at Doncaster ... and Kettering as well, apparently. As they have to run through Doncaster and it's usually a busy stop for them in its own right, as well as being a useful interchange point for passengers coming from further north, it would be a bit perverse not to stop there and to take up valuable MML paths for the smaller number of passengers coming just from Hull, Brough, Howden and Selby.

They stop to change crew or wait time, but only as required. Passengers can't board or leave the train.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Feb 2026 ==

I suspect that operators may shy away from just putting the destination on the front, as then people waiting for a bus at other bus stops along the way might get confused/annoyed that they can't flag the bus down.

If they were actually worried about that they could just change it to 'not in service' when they're underway.

 

[Mikey C]

With the engineering works in the Southampton area yesterday, a number of replacement buses were operating from Eastleigh. It was fairly well organised, though I don't think they had enough buses between Eastleigh and Southampton to cope with the numbers going to the football yesterday including a significant number of Charlton fans coming down from London and Saints fans who live outside of Southampton. I know of Charlton fans choosing to drive yesterday instead, because of the engineering works, or others prebooking cabs or Ubers between Eastleigh and the ground.

It made the local newspaper website, though part of the problem was the buses being stuck in traffic.

Rail replacement buses overwhelmed ahead of Saints match - Live updates

Buses being used instead of trains from Eastleigh are suffering 'capacity issues' ahead of the Southampton vs Southampton v Charlton football match…

www.dailyecho.co.uk

 

[TUC]

There are also some where you basically can't buy a ticket for the bus - the LNER Bedford-Peterborough one is an example - because it's not a normal route. An Any Permitted ticket would presumably be accepted, but these are usually priced for going via London and so are extraordinarily expensive.

The only Bedford-Peterborough return fares are 'not via London' and set by EMR. The main journey option I can see is via Leicester.

 

[RJ]

Over the last few years with the PSVAR requirements meaning older vehicles can not be used except on 'closed door' work but the cost of newer compliant vehicles can not be justified and driver CPC leading to some older and part-time drivers deciding not renew/refresh numerous smaller operators have closed. Even if particularly evenings and weekends vehicles may be sat in the yard no driver is available at any price. This has reduced the pool that the railway operators can call on either directly or by the contractor sub-contracting.

I drove evening and weekend rail replacement for 9 years, in that time I got to know a lot of the regular drivers on this work in the area. The main draw is being paid a callout (typically 6 hours pay) for evening jobs which last 2-3 hours. The drivers have varying back stories. Many are not full time bus drivers. Some are daytime office or retail workers. Some share primary childcare with their partner and that's the time they have free. Consistency is key to retaining these people though, if it's every week or every other week, they're more likely to reserve their time for it. If it's only once every 8 weeks they might well be resigned to sticking to daytime shifts.

Short notice stuff is hard to fill - I offer £180 to drivers who can do a single evening trip with 6 hours notice but I often end up doing them myself as the times don't really work for people who are already on a week of earlies or lates. Full time hours roles in these parts involve 24 hours pay for Monday - Thursday evenings (actual working time being around half that) and 12-14 hours on a Sunday.

 

[JohnRegular]

With the engineering works in the Southampton area yesterday, a number of replacement buses were operating from Eastleigh. It was fairly well organised...

That was not my personal experience!
Arrived at Eastleigh, advertised bus didn't materialise ("can't guarantee that any buses will turn up, or if they do, when", to paraphrase one staff member on the station forecourt).
Told to get the next bus to Southampton Central, which unbeknownst to us was to wind its way interminably through the suburbs to serve Swaything and St Denys.
After waiting at Central for some time a minibus turned up (from Eastleigh) which was entirely inadequate for the number of passengers wishing to use it, and a dozen or so of us waited for a second bus, which was also delayed (and rather dirty), to carry us on to the New Forest very late.

The whole experience was poor; I'm sure the staff on the ground were giving it a good go but it felt like anyone not going to Southampton, Bournemouth or Havant was an inconvenience, and I will be glad to not endure RRBs again any time soon.

 

[Vexed]

That was not my personal experience!
Arrived at Eastleigh, advertised bus didn't materialise ("can't guarantee that any buses will turn up, or if they do, when", to paraphrase one staff member on the station forecourt).
Told to get the next bus to Southampton Central, which unbeknownst to us was to wind its way interminably through the suburbs to serve Swaything and St Denys.
After waiting at Central for some time a minibus turned up (from Eastleigh) which was entirely inadequate for the number of passengers wishing to use it, and a dozen or so of us waited for a second bus, which was also delayed (and rather dirty), to carry us on to the New Forest very late.

The whole experience was poor; I'm sure the staff on the ground were giving it a good go but it felt like anyone not going to Southampton, Bournemouth or Havant was an inconvenience, and I will be glad to not endure RRBs again any time soon.

Disappointing this is what happened. I got on a RRB at Eastleigh a few months ago and did find it well organised. After a few mins waiting they loaded up seperate coaches for non-stop Bournemouth, some form of New Forest stopper via Southampton Airport & Central then seperately a bus stopper to Central.

They obviously can't do this if they don't have enough vehicles or they're stuck in traffic. Entirely predictable with the football!

 

[STINT47]

That was not my personal experience!
Arrived at Eastleigh, advertised bus didn't materialise ("can't guarantee that any buses will turn up, or if they do, when", to paraphrase one staff member on the station forecourt).
Told to get the next bus to Southampton Central, which unbeknownst to us was to wind its way interminably through the suburbs to serve Swaything and St Denys.
After waiting at Central for some time a minibus turned up (from Eastleigh) which was entirely inadequate for the number of passengers wishing to use it, and a dozen or so of us waited for a second bus, which was also delayed (and rather dirty), to carry us on to the New Forest very late.

The whole experience was poor; I'm sure the staff on the ground were giving it a good go but it felt like anyone not going to Southampton, Bournemouth or Havant was an inconvenience, and I will be glad to not endure RRBs again any time soon.

If you have not already done so please submit a delay repay claim. A separate complaint to SWR might also be worth a try.

The more who claim/complaint the more likely they are to improve in the future.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The situation with this on the ECML was even worse last Sunday. Most London-Edinburgh itineraries generated by the LNER app were showing sold out, with only a couple remaining and showing at Anytime fare. This wasn't because of a shortage of capacity on the actual LNER service nor a deliberate attempt to revenue-grab, but rather because of EMR having set the reservations compulsory flag on all their services (including the Corby which is basically a commuter service) to try to reduce overcrowding. Setting "must call at Flitwick" on a site supporting that such as the Forum's brought up less silly fares by forcing the use of Thameslink trains on which there was plenty of capacity, but the whole thing was deeply unsatisfactory.

 

[STINT47]

The situation with this on the ECML was even worse last Sunday. Most London-Edinburgh itineraries generated by the LNER app were showing sold out, with only a couple remaining and showing at Anytime fare. This wasn't because of a shortage of capacity on the actual LNER service nor a deliberate attempt to revenue-grab, but rather because of EMR having set the reservations compulsory flag on all their services (including the Corby which is basically a commuter service) to try to reduce overcrowding. Setting "must call at Flitwick" on a site supporting that such as the Forum's brought up less silly fares by forcing the use of Thameslink trains on which there was plenty of capacity, but the whole thing was deeply unsatisfactory.

In this scenario rather than tinker with a ticketing site I'd probably go up the WCML or more likely fly.

By not automaticley pushing people to where there is spare cspacity the railway really doesn't help itself at times.

 

[Alxxxs]

I think that people (including myself) just didn’t realise how stressful and challenging it would be to catch a train btw St Pancras and Sheffield in either direction this weekend. There were massive live queues and people were almost fighting to be seated. I think that honestly EMR didn’t make it clear enough that their capacity is significantly lower vs LNER. If people knew this, many more would have taken the replacement buses.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think that people (including myself) just didn’t realise how stressful and challenging it would be to catch a train btw St Pancras and Sheffield in either direction this weekend. There were massive live queues and people were almost fighting to be seated. I think that honestly EMR didn’t make it clear enough that their capacity is significantly lower vs LNER. If people knew this, many more would have taken the replacement buses.

Because LNER to all intents and purposes doesn't do walk up fares, they'd do what they booked. I suspect part of the issue was caused by splitting sites showing services via EMR and Sheffield/Nottingham as both cheaper *and* quicker due to this issue. I think given the way most tickets are booked on Trainline rather than LNER's site, it would significantly help if they just shoved in a £5 Anytime Day Single from Bedford<->Peterborough route DIRECT BUS ONLY (or whatever can be implemented), valid only on the RRBs, or do something similar using Advances. That way a reasonable fare would have come up as a split via the LNER bus and more people may have done that.

It looks to me like getting EMR and Thameslink to fix the quotas is going to be a bit of a non starter due to having their own Advances.

How you then push people to actually use the capacious Thameslink trains instead of the less capacious EMR Corbys is another challenge, but they could at least get those to 12 car, couldn't they? Or is that still the subject of a dispute?

 

[Alxxxs]

Because LNER to all intents and purposes doesn't do walk up fares, they'd do what they booked. I suspect part of the issue was caused by splitting sites showing services via EMR and Sheffield/Nottingham as both cheaper *and* quicker due to this issue. I think given the way most tickets are booked on Trainline rather than LNER's site, it would significantly help if they just shoved in a £5 Anytime Day Single from Bedford<->Peterborough route DIRECT BUS ONLY (or whatever can be implemented), valid only on the RRBs, or do something similar using Advances. That way a reasonable fare would have come up as a split via the LNER bus and more people may have done that.

It looks to me like getting EMR and Thameslink to fix the quotas is going to be a bit of a non starter due to having their own Advances.

How you then push people to actually use the capacious Thameslink trains instead of the less capacious EMR Corbys is another challenge, but they could at least get those to 12 car, couldn't they? Or is that still the subject of a dispute?

Trainline didn’t show or even let you book your tickets via Sheffield as part of a single booking. I guess people figured this route out using Google Maps and other route planning services. But on EMR side, I think they could have just stopped selling tickets for trains that were clearly overbooked. It is probably more fair if a person who figured the engineering works out months in advance can travel on their specified train without queueing up or standing for hours.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But on EMR side, I think they could have just stopped selling tickets for trains that were clearly overbooked.

This Sunday they did. The effect of that was all bar a couple of London-Edinburgh itineraries that came up showed as sold out despite the LNER trains from Peterborough being nearly empty and showing some bargainous fares at times.

Perhaps the problem here is that the whole setup of sales sites (and their accreditation) isn't designed around having trains with compulsory reservations at the point of sale, because pre-2019 they didn't exist. If this was the norm, a sensible sales site would see the EMR show "sold out" and probably find a Thameslink for that section instead, rather than just telling people to go away.

The only thing I can think of that EMR could potentially do that might fix this without a lot of awkwardness would be to put "pick up only" northbound and "set down only" southbound on their trains calling at Bedford during this sort of disruption, which would force everyone who was using the buses onto Thameslink by default. I don't think one Sunday of Bedford-London passengers having to use Thameslink, which most of them do anyway, would be a serious imposition, and if the odd one ignored it it wouldn't really matter. As long as Thameslink played along by putting appropriate quotas on their trains, the fares would show reasonably too.

As for people buying London-Sheffield and Sheffield-ECML separately, there's not really anything that can be done about that. But I expect people started to dig into doing that when they saw stupid fares and "sold out" coming up when they just put London-Edinburgh into Trainline or LNER's site.

 

[Dore & Totley]

Sheffield station Sunday was like the last helicopters out of Saigon. Arrived to drop my Mum off for the 14.51 20 minutes early only to find a 5 car Meridian rammed to high heaven. Even 1st Class was full and standing and denied boarding and told to go to the 5 car behind that would be the 15.32. Luckily got to the front of a queue but so many were denied onto the 15.32 and told to go over to platform 2 for the 15.47. Delay repay incoming.

 

[Kite159]

Sheffield station Sunday was like the last helicopters out of Saigon. Arrived to drop my Mum off for the 14.51 20 minutes early only to find a 5 car Meridian rammed to high heaven. Even 1st Class was full and standing and denied boarding and told to go to the 5 car behind that would be the 15.32. Luckily got to the front of a queue but so many were denied onto the 15.32 and told to go over to platform 2 for the 15.47. Delay repay incoming.

No doubt it will get rejected by the automatic system as "The train ran on time", and will require someone to actually look at it.

----

Surely for London to Edinburgh, the fastest option on Sunday would have been via the WCML*, however the eye watering expensive flexible fare between London & Edinburgh are routed "Via York" (although no such route restriction applies to the former terminus of Edinburgh Crossrail, which also has the super off-peak fares available so a double win)

(*although those would also have been busy, especially the 5 coach TPE units, for the days when they ran 8 coach 350s which could soak up more passengers)

 

[Dore & Totley]

No doubt it will get rejected by the automatic system as "The train ran on time", and will require someone to actually look at it.

----

Surely for London to Edinburgh, the fastest option on Sunday would have been via the WCML*, however the eye watering expensive flexible fare between London & Edinburgh are routed "Via York" (although no such route restriction applies to the former terminus of Edinburgh Crossrail, which also has the super off-peak fares available so a double win)

(*although those would also have been busy, especially the 5 coach TPE units, for the days when they ran 8 coach 350s which could soak up more passengers)

You are correct, rejected within 24 hours. Appeal has gone in

 

[Bletchleyite]

Surely for London to Edinburgh, the fastest option on Sunday would have been via the WCML*, however the eye watering expensive flexible fare between London & Edinburgh are routed "Via York" (although no such route restriction applies to the former terminus of Edinburgh Crossrail, which also has the super off-peak fares available so a double win)

(*although those would also have been busy, especially the 5 coach TPE units, for the days when they ran 8 coach 350s which could soak up more passengers)

With Manchester Piccadilly closed the TPEs won't be of much relevance other than as a short distance connection Carlisle-Edinburgh. The through Avantis were certainly busy though.

 

[mmh]

the LNER trains from Peterborough being nearly empty

How would anyone other than, say, platform staff at Peterborough know this to be the case?

 

[Bletchleyite]

How would anyone other than, say, platform staff at Peterborough know this to be the case?

Because LNER doesn't really do good value walk-up fares and almost all seats are reservable (and almost all passengers reserve), looking at the seat picker and the Advance fare levels on the day is a fairly good guide. Normally on the day of travel most LNER trains only have a few unreserved seats left.