Rugby World Cup Problems (Including problems at Manchester Piccadilly in evening)

[LeylandLen]

Given that Man Utd are also at home on Sat Dec 7th (v Newcastle Utd, large travelling support) and West Ham on Sat Dec 21st , with usual crowds of 75000 at Old Trafford are expected . Given the extra attractions of the popular Christmas Markets plus pantomimes ( yes Man City are at home on Sat Dec 14th !) and concerts at Bridgewater Hall, plus expected average weather for Dec, no doubt more overcrowding on the rail network can be expected !

 

[northwichcat]

Two observations:

1. The person who posted one of the photos complains about 'no organisation' - but the photo shows crush barriers in place and staff supervising, so clearly some organisation.

Is it though?

You may have passengers for a departure in 15 minutes time near the front, who will be allowed through imminently and passengers for an departure in 5 minutes time who won't be allowed through for 10 minutes.

 

[Moonshot]

Were there any crowd control measures in place at Victoria, Oxford Road , or Deansgate?

 

[D1009]

They seem to be able to cope quite well in Cardiff for the rugby.

That's because FGW can use spare HSTs to run addditional services. There is crowd control at Cardiff Central as a matter of course on match days, and I'm sure it's not unheard of for people to be left behind at Valley Lines stations.

I'd be surprised if Northern did not have a few units stopped because of wheel flats this time of year.

 

[Thomas6187]

Some of my colleague's thought last night was worse than the Euro Final 2008 night, basically due to sheer number of people

 

[Stonesourscotty]

Customers where Banned from Accessing Piccadilly Platforms 13/4 at one point last night with barricades covering the Travelators.

 

[Moonshot]

Some of my colleague's thought last night was worse than the Euro Final 2008 night, basically due to sheer number of people

Which wasnt held on a busy shopping day in the lead up to xmas with a number of other events going on as well....

 

[voyagerdude220]

For those who can't see the pictures...

Thanks very much Mullin, that looks horrific!

 

[northernchris]

75,000 spectators in attendance at Old Trafford yesterday.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


But aren't they allowed to void a day's PPM result in the face of exceptional problems?

I didn't think anything was allowed to be excluded for PPM figures? Given that there's also a fine for every PPM failure I can imagine yesterday was quite costly for TPE / Northern

 

[1e10]

I didn't think anything was allowed to be excluded for PPM figures? Given that there's also a fine for every PPM failure I can imagine yesterday was quite costly for TPE / Northern

What kind of sanctions (if any) or put in place on a TOC if they don't meet PPM targets?

 

[Solent&Wessex]

Some of my colleague's thought last night was worse than the Euro Final 2008 night, basically due to sheer number of people

It was. Euro 2008 caused chaos on 1 route in general (Out towards the North West & Scotland). Yesterday was chaos everywhere.

 

[Bevan Price]

Taking into account current operating conditions, I would assume that a few dagrams could have been replaced by LHCS, even if most probably could not, and that is where additional vehichles from non-scheduled TOCs e.g. West Coast could be drafted in. Northern could have released some DMU vehichles with e.g. Blackpool-Manchester LHCS and TPE with e.g. Newcastle-Liverpool LHCS. Whether there are Locos capable of matching DMU speeds is another issue and some stops may have had to be sacrificed and/or special timings used.

A Class 67, or DRS's imminent Class 68, would probably be able to keep most TPE schedules with loads of 6 to 7 Mark2 or Mark3 coaches - but there are other problems, for example:- .

Where do you find enough Mark 2 or 3 coaches in good condition and "going spare" ?
Where do you find enough train crews with the required traction / stock knowledge ?
Do DB or DRS have spare locos and / or crews on the days you need them ?
Are all the platforms still long enough to accept such trains ?

etc., etc.

 

[telstarbox]

Another issue is that the distribution of rugby league fans for the final at Old Trafford would be different to the distribution of football fans for a Man Utd home game, which is more predictable and therefore easier to plan for.

 

[Moonshot]

Another issue is that the distribution of rugby league fans for the final at Old Trafford would be different to the distribution of football fans for a Man Utd home game, which is more predictable and therefore easier to plan for.

Thats true, and I would assume that very few aussies or kiwis actually made the journey by car !!! Add in the general fans who like to attend the hosting city for the occasion, not hard to see why transport was overwhelmed.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I don't think the distribution would have been that different. I know people like to joke about all Man Utd fans coming from London, but most of them come from West Yorkshire and the north west.

I went to the semi finals at Wembley where 69,000 were in attendance. No problems with transport at all. So why did the whole of the north's railway network grind to a halt with a similar crowd? The rugby league stadium capacity is lower than that for a football match, too.

Really you have to blame DafT for not putting in orders for badly needed rolling stock ten years ago.

I know people who hark back to LHCS trains are mocked by some on here, but you wouldn't have seen a situation like this back when Red Bank was in its pomp.

 

[Leylandlad]

Customers where Banned from Accessing Piccadilly Platforms 13/4 at one point last night with barricades covering the Travelators.

We travelled into Manchester on the 0859 from Buckshaw. Single 156. Full and standing after Adlington.

Travelling back from Old Trafford after the final was a nightmare. We left about 5 min before close of play. Metrolink was pretty organised but we ended up on a tram to Victoria so got off at Market Street and walked to Piccadilly from there. This was around 5pm. I worked in Manchester 2002-4 and have never seen anything like that many people going into the station.

As above, the travelators were closed off. Chaos at the bottom of the stairs to access P13/14. We ended up in the wrong queue as there was no way of knowing what queue you were supposed to be in until you got to the front to be told!! Staff tried their best, fair play to them, but they were overwhelmed by the numbers.

Eventually got let up the stairs then held again until around 1750. The scenes below looked anarchic.

Let onto platform at 1750...next train was the 1746 Blackpool/Barrow 2x185.

Literally swept onto train by the numbers behind. The wife grabbed a seat and I was very lucky to get a seat in same block. Standing all the way down isle when we left.

Still many standing at Chorley where we got off to change. 1754 ex Piccadilly soon arrived (single 156) for short journey to Buckshaw. Buckshaw car park still almost full at 1900!!

I have never seen Manchester City Centre as busy, or Piccadilly. It was an exceptional combination of Xmas markets/shopping, a very nice day and the Rugby final...which was too one sided for us neutrals....damned Aussies :cry:

 

[Manchester77]

Metrolink has a total of 66 trams in operation which we think is the highest ever in service!

The TOCs had their hands tied since they had lots of people needing to use their trains but not enough trains

 

[Thomas6187]

I went to the semi finals at Wembley where 69,000 were in attendance. No problems with transport at all. So why did the whole of the north's railway network grind to a halt with a similar crowd? The rugby league stadium capacity is lower than that for a football match, too.

The issue last night, I think was nothing to do with the rugby. There may have been a similar crowd at Wembley but there also wasn't nearly 100,000-200,000 Christmas shopper there too. If the game had been had been held in say March or October there wouldn't have been a problem. The last Grand Final had only 8000 less people in attendance than the final yesterday yet the train service manage fine. That game finished at around 20:00 and nearly everyone who got the train in where on the way home by 22:00

 

[sheff1]

1. The person who posted one of the photos complains about 'no organisation' - but the photo shows crush barriers in place and staff supervising, so clearly some organisation.

There was certainly some organisation at Piccadilly but room for improvement as well.

Arriving on Platform 13 (from Preston) interchange to other platforms was via the travelators and concourse only. Access to platforms 13/14 was via the steps only with queuing in place to limit access (not sure how this was managed trainwise). The two flows were separated by crush barriers.

Rather more chaotic on the terminating platforms though. I travelled on the 2020 to Sheffield which left passengers behind (only two carriages, but that is another discussion). However, at Stockport at least 50 alighted. I would expect at least some of the people left behind were for Sheffield or beyond. If tickets had been checked on access to the platforms, Stockport passengers could have been directed to the XC & Virgin departures shortly afterwards which were much longer trains.

Two BTP who travelled to Sheffield did not really assist the station staff. They boarded and stood at the offside and then began shouting 'no more, no more' as the crush increased, only to be ignored. If they had positioned themselves on the platform side by the open doors they could have prevented more people trying to force their way on.

 

[chiltern trev]

Bottom line answer to this is that the commuter market in the north is insufficiently large to have large numbers of spare units around during the off peak.

In London and the South East there is a huge commuter market requiring lots of trains, a large number of which sit in sidings off peak.

That is why there are not problems with 75000+ at Wembley or Twickenham.

I used to live in Bucks and commuted on the Chiltern Line into Marylebone which goes through Wembley Stadium. The main station for the stadium is Wembley Park which is on the Met and Jubillee lines so a great crowd shifter. There is also Wembley Central which is on the Bakerloo and London Overground.

Chiltern also adjust their services mid week with more trains and longer trains later in the evening. For a week-end Wembley match nearly all of the spare capacity is put into use. One example being many years we went to watch an FA Cup semi final at Aston Villa between High Wycmbe and Liverpool. The normal service northbound on a Sunday was 1 x 3 or 4 car per hour (or was it every 30 mins?) The service offered on the match day was 7 extra 6 or 7 car trains and the normal service was made up to 8 cars - I think the total was 5000 seats.

For Twickenham, all SWT services through Twickenham are 8 car all day on match days and for a big crowd extra trains are run round the Hounslow loop in what would be the weekday peak hour paths. Also rugby fans tend not to be in a hurry to get away, but London bound services can be completely full for up to 2 hours after the match with an 8 car train every 5 mins. And all Reading and Windsor outbound trains will also be full. Have been to Twickenham many times for London Wasps matches (finals being full houses and the opening London double header being 50000-60000).

The biggest issue for Wembley matches is when one of the teams is from the north west and the match kick-off (due to TV money) is 5pm which gives a huge get you home issue to the north west, i.e. you cant - and it keeps happening!

Oh - we now live in east of Carlisle and went to both the Rugby League World Cup matches at Workington - and guess what Northern Rail said NO. There were no trains back to Carlisle after the Tuesday evening match (the last normal schedule train left too soon) and it was buses for train for the Sunday match.

 

[HSTEd]

So how many extra units would be required to handle these evens, would be ineesting to put a capital cost on it and from that determined an annual price for providing the extra trains.

 

[Moonshot]

Trev.....in general there are no problems with 75000 crowds at Old Trafford , it happens here every other week in the season. However ( and I ve lived here all my life ) I ve never known the city get so vibrant as it is now. A good example of this is the fact that the University population is the biggest in Europe, and it also gets very highly rated. They had a major recruit event ( open day ) yesterday as well......add in the German Markets ( which are now huge in their own right ) AND the xmas shoppers out in force on what was a spring like day, its not difficult to see why the whole place got overwhelmed. Manchester is very concentrated , its pretty much 1 square mile or so of high activity , but it does taper off very quickly in certain outbound directions with the exception of the aforementioned University activity,

 

[joke2711]

We travelled into Manchester on the 0859 from Buckshaw. Single 156. Full and standing after Adlington.

Travelling back from Old Trafford after the final was a nightmare. We left about 5 min before close of play. Metrolink was pretty organised but we ended up on a tram to Victoria so got off at Market Street and walked to Piccadilly from there. This was around 5pm. I worked in Manchester 2002-4 and have never seen anything like that many people going into the station.

As above, the travelators were closed off. Chaos at the bottom of the stairs to access P13/14. We ended up in the wrong queue as there was no way of knowing what queue you were supposed to be in until you got to the front to be told!! Staff tried their best, fair play to them, but they were overwhelmed by the numbers.

Eventually got let up the stairs then held again until around 1750. The scenes below looked anarchic.

Let onto platform at 1750...next train was the 1746 Blackpool/Barrow 2x185.

Literally swept onto train by the numbers behind. The wife grabbed a seat and I was very lucky to get a seat in same block. Standing all the way down isle when we left.

Still many standing at Chorley where we got off to change. 1754 ex Piccadilly soon arrived (single 156) for short journey to Buckshaw. Buckshaw car park still almost full at 1900!!

I have never seen Manchester City Centre as busy, or Piccadilly. It was an exceptional combination of Xmas markets/shopping, a very nice day and the Rugby final...which was too one sided for us neutrals....damned Aussies :cry:

We arrived at Piccadilly at 18:00 and were held on the platform with the walkway shut. We wanted to get the 18:22 Southport Service alighting at Hindley.

At 18:15 there was a confrontation between passengers who had advance tickets for the 18:16 Edinburgh service and at that point the BTP officer allowed people to jump the barrier and walk down the side of the platform avoiding the masses queuing to try and get on this service. A few people jumped so we did as we thought getting to Bolton would be a start. Once on platform 14 the TPE service was packed so we decided to wait for the 18:122as planned.

Why there was only one queue for all trains is beyond me. They could have had queues for different locations and managed a lot better.

The 18:22 service arrived and had just 2 coaches. It left on-time but rammed fuller than I have ever seen a train. At Oxford Road, it was stopped for longer as staff tried to force more passengers on. They could see gaps in the walkway from outside and were encouraging passengers to shuffle (push) down the train even those the gaps had young children standing that were not visible. It left late and got held even longer at Deansgate whilst they tried to get more passengers on. At this point a Parent had to shout at the staff to stop the process of boarding as their children were getting crushed.

At Salford Crescent the passengers on the platform didn't even try.

At Bolton those who got off were replaced and the same at Westhoughton.

When we got off at Hindley, the train was still rammed to capacity and had to unload onto the platform to allow passengers off.

Don't blame Northern Rail for the rolling stock but the overall event management was shambolic.

Jonathan

 

[1e10]

How did the queues work then? I've never been to Piccadilly before yesterday. I arrived at 18:01 off the Metrolink and went straight upstairs to platform 6 and boarded my train without having to queue at all.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Someone playing Snooker?

Queue***

 

[Moonshot]

How did the cues work then? I've never been to Piccadilly before yesterday. I arrived at 18:01 off the Metrolink and went straight upstairs to platform 6 and boarded my train without having to cue at all.

Which is pretty much what happens every single day here in Manchester.....so you can imagine from the posts on this thread just how dramatic the increase was in the population of Central Manchester for the day....

For all the shouting and general hoo haa by various people, nobody actually failed to either see the match if they had a ticket , or indeed fail to get home ( as far as I m aware ). Its also striking that there wasnt any coverage on the news

 

[QJ]

For all the shouting and general hoo haa by various people, nobody actually failed to either see the match if they had a ticket , or indeed fail to get home ( as far as I m aware ). Its also striking that there wasnt any coverage on the news

It is not surprising there wasn't any coverage in the media given the incident in Glasgow on the Friday night. It doesn't mean it was a pleasant experience for those caught up in the public transport meltdown in Manchester on Saturday.

My wife and I got caught up in the melee (no other word for it) that was Manchester on Saturday. From my perspective it wasn't caused by 70,000 rugby fans descending on Old Trafford but the number of people heading for the city centre shops. As has been mentioned Manchester easily copes with football crowds of that magnitude on a regular basis. You cannot compare Wembley with Old Trafford either for crowd dispersal as there is always a high number of Jubilee and Metropolitan line tube trains at 1-2 minute intervals waiting to whisk the crowds away when the events have finished.

My wife is a Londoner, and we have both lived in Manchester for a period of time, so are used to crowded cities. What greeted us on eventual arrival at Piccadilly was definitely not something we had experienced before (nor would wish to experience again in a hurry).

We travelled from Basingstoke on a Voyager that became full and standing by Oxford because of an event at the NEC. Not a good start. Unfortunately because of an incident (a one under on a preceding service?) at Smethwick the train was delayed whilst a reversal back to Soho to resume the northbound journey was arranged. This move incurred a 40 minute delay with more people boarding at Wolverhampton making the train full and standing again.

I told my wife to prepare for the train to be terminated short and lo and behold the announcement was made that the train was to be terminated at Macclesfield. To add insult the train manager continued to announce that "for your convenience passengers for Stockport and Manchester should change at Stoke". If it was for our convenience the train would have carried on to Piccadilly.

Most of the passengers got off onto a Stoke platform already crowded beyond what could be deemed safe, to my trained eye, so my wife and I stayed onboard to Macclesfield only to be greeted by another platform full of people all appearing to want to head into Manchester as well. More people were pouring onto the platform from outside the station as well as the terminated Cross country service. Not many, if any, of the passengers at Stoke or Macclesfield looked remotely like they were interested in the rugby though they were subjected to an almighty scrum trying to achieve their goal of squeezing onto the trains that followed. My wife and I let the first train go and managed to squeeze onto the second.

Fortunately I had persuaded my missus to travel down to Manchester early so we managed to get to the ground just about in time despite the tribulations of the journey. It does help to know your way around Manchester. There wasn't much guidance forthcoming from station staff at Piccadilly. Why not? Announcing there were trains running to Old Trafford would have been a start.

Fortunately I stayed in Disbury on the Saturday so didn't get caught up in the frenzy to get home like others have reported. However, the city centre was heaving on the Sunday so it was a relief to escape on a Pendo to Euston.

Getting back to Basingstoke from London was on a full and standing 10 coach train but that is another story.

 

[Thomas6187]

Network Rail recorded 186,000 people passing through Piccadilly on Saturday. It only see 100,000 on a weekday.

 

[northwichcat]

Network Rail recorded 186,000 people passing through Piccadilly on Saturday. It only see 100,000 on a weekday.

During school term time the middle of the day services on weekdays can be quite quiet so with multiple things on in Manchester last Saturday more passengers than a weekday isn't surprising. However, the difference in the two numbers perhaps is.

 

[ModernRailways]

It is not surprising there wasn't any coverage in the media given the incident in Glasgow on the Friday night. It doesn't mean it was a pleasant experience for those caught up in the public transport meltdown in Manchester on Saturday.

It wasn't on Manchester Evening news (BBC North West) - not that I saw anyway.

As normal people on Twitter etc. can easily make things look/sound worse than they are. A perfect example would be today, my Metro was late and so it had to carry 2 trains worth of commuters. A lot of people were complaining about how busy it was and that they could barely squeeze on, but if people moved down, stood different ways, and didn't have their backpacks and other general luggage stopping people standing somewhere then it is no surprise.

I wasn't there on Saturday but it doesn't exactly look like it was as bad as people were making out. It looked well organised, crush barriers were in place, one way systems put in place etc.