What is the point in rail replacement buses?

[william.martin]

Hi there, on the "do southeastern have a fleet of 4 wheel drive vehicles on hand to convey customers to their destination?" Thread something struck my mind:
What is the point in having a rail replacement bus when after all the entire idea of having a train is that you don't have to touch a road/ car/bus?
Well, it is because the railway is littered with things that could go wrong E.G a broken fence meaning a cow can roam onto the tracks or perhaps a broken set of points causing disruption. Arguably the UK road network is also littered with things that can (and do) go wrong however with roads you can simply open one lane or perhaps implement a diversion.
This means that rail replacement buses are the first choice if the line for whatever reason can not be opened to at least single track.
This should not be the case, in my mind a rail replacement bus should be a very rare occasion (just like it used to be.) However these days they are popping up all the while.
My main question is (after all this sub-forums theme is buses) why have the buses become such a popular solution when the roads are also littered with potential causes for disruption?
If anybody could answer this I would be well pleased or is it just that since privatisation the railways have gradually got more unreliable?

 

[JonathanH]

I'm not sure what you think the alternative is. Either you try to keep passengers moving, tell them not to travel or end up with a large build up of stranded passengers where the trains come to a halt.

 

[william.martin]

I'm not sure what you think the alternative is. Either you try to keep passengers moving, tell them not to travel or end up with a large build up of stranded passengers where the trains come to a halt.

Now that's the problem, there is not an alternative meaning that people are forced onto the roads defeating the entire point of the railways existing, they simply do not have a rail- based solution to major problems which in my mind there should be. They managed to do it back in the day however we can't do it now. Arguably the railway network has shrunk in free capacity since then meaning that last minute diversions are difficult especially in the crammed timetable that our country operates.
I can understand rail replacement buses being used every once in a while however it is too common now.
As mentioned at the end of my last post maybe the railways are getting more unreliable. If so I think it is time they ought turn this around. If I could rely on the railways not to go on strike (please don't start a multitude of posts about this) and to not have a time consuming rail replacement bus I would use the train to get to work. However they can't deliver this, meaning that I have to use the car resulting in that those who do use the train but then get chucked onto a rail replacement bus are stuck behind myself and the other traffic.
The railway should be relieving the roads of traffic not clogging them up.
It would not be so bad if the railways could find a solution E.G diverting or having more diamond crossovers allowing the capability to run single where it is normally double though I am not an expert in infrastructure and am not the person to speak to if you want to know about points!
Too bring this back to being about rail replacement buses, they are more reliable than the train in most circumstances which brings up the question of why not just use the bus?
I guess an answer would be that the train is much more comfortable and quieter however when things do go wrong (this doesn't happen too often) there are very few solutions without using roads.
I should probably add that such incidents I have spoken about are usually quite rare however still do happen from time to time meaning that the buses have to come out to play.

 

[geoffk]

I'm not sure what you think the alternative is. Either you try to keep passengers moving, tell them not to travel or end up with a large build up of stranded passengers where the trains come to a halt.

Even where diversionary rail routes are available, TOCs are reluctant to use them because of lack route knowledge or, when the scheduled route is electrified, lack of diesel traction. The Settle - Carlisle is hardly ever used for WCML diversions north of Preston now and it's buses all the way. Passengers would of course prefer to stay on the rails.

 

[JonathanH]

Passengers would of course prefer to stay on the rails.

Yes

The Settle - Carlisle is hardly ever used for WCML diversions north of Preston now and it's buses all the way.

As discussed before, passengers making their own diversions via the East Coast route make far more sense than using the Settle & Carlisle line, with buses for the residual traffic. That is just what people do. The railway keeps one of the two routes open to enable this.

Too bring this back to being about rail replacement buses, they are more reliable than the train in most circumstances which brings up the question of why not just use the bus?

Indeed, why not? The problem is that 'normal' buses don't exist on many of the routes.

 

[Roger1973]

I'm not quite sure what the question really is here (OP seems to be arguing both against and for rail replacement buses), but...

At one time, many stations had a staffed signalbox and a crossover in part to cater for movements in and out of goods yard. That made crossing over and single line working a lot more practical than it is now on the largely automated railway with minimalist infrastructure. There were also relief signalmen (I use the traditional term intentionally) who would assist the regular signalman, hand-signal trains, act as pilotmen and so on.

A lot of potential diversion routes don't exist any more post Beeching and on, and as more passenger lines are electrified, some diversionary routes aren't.

Running single line past a section of track under repair is - I believe - not well liked on safety grounds now. And of course that's not possible if it's a junction that's being replaced, and unlikely to work if it's the electrical supply or signalling system.

Someone else has also mentioned the greater flexibility when it was all BR for train crew with alternative route / traction knowledge to get involved when one line was closed.

I'm not convinced it was all that rare - I have recollections of buses / coaches on rail replacement services in the late 70s, although maybe some of today's major blockades could be dealt with by diverting (say) in to a different London terminus. There was probably a bit more spare capacity at weekends then.

And as has also been said - there are not that many routes where there is a parallel regular bus service that has the capacity to cope with a sudden influx of rail passengers. When there is an emergency, many TOC's and local bus operators do have arrangements for ticket acceptance on buses, but that can rapidly lead to overloading on the buses, and isn't a lot of use if it's one of the many bus services that doesn't have an evening or Sunday service any more (and that's a lot of services outside London.) One disruption I was caught up in round 7pm a couple of years ago, the person at the other end of the 'help point' advised that tickets were being accepted on a couple of local bus routes - I had to tell them that those bus routes finished about 6.30 pm...

Having said that, some closures within London, while there still tends to be an 'all stations' rail replacement bus, there is usually advice on how to get by local bus to the nearest alternative station on another line (or the underground) for journeys to / from central London. (or sometimes rail replacement buses that feed in to the Underground.)

There are arguments for alternatives to several weekends of closure - there seem to have been an increasing number in recent years of closures for a whole week some time in school holidays when travel is lower and there are more buses / coaches (and their drivers) available. As (post Covid) weekday commuting has decreased and leisure / weekend traffic has grown, then the week long blockades may be better all round.

 

[GusB]

I realise that the subject of rail replacement buses would appear to be a bit of a grey area, but the reason for their existence is purely a railway issue and is therefore outwith the scope of this section of the forum. Here we discuss issues relating to bus companies, along with the vehicles and services that they provide.

If anyone wishes to discuss a particular operator that provides RRBs, you're more than welcome to debate the issues here, but I'm going to have to declare this thread off-topic.

A quick title search using the term "rail replacement buses" reveals a list of threads where the topic has been explored before:

Search results for query: Rail replacement buses