How will GTR cope with Brighton Pride crowds?

[LAX54]

Looks like late notice sickness, took out about 4 trains in the late evening, but also looks like there were some 16 to 20 coaches hired in too, delays at the Bridges, due to 'passengers' ignoring safety announcememts, and not allowing a train to depart, blocking the pathway between 3 Bridges/Brighton

 

[Robertj21a]

An absolute screw up from what I heard from a friend there and have seen on Twitter

He got to the station pretty early and it was already a zoo, so I told him to get on anything going north (a stopper terminating Gatwick) and I would figure it out. By the time he got to Gatwick that was also packed as the only trains due in were coming from Brighton and ever more delayed (Gatwick express already finished) so he got an Uber the rest of the way

According to Twitter they were sending train loads to Three Bridges with seemingly no plan to get them further north causing a crowd control issue there

It has been months since Britney was announced to be performing which obviously was going to change the travel pattern + the good weather we've been having. Even today trains were extremely busy headed south so they had a good 12hrs realise they had a problem, bribe some drivers (TL, SN or GX) , get some 12 car sets down there, seperate provisions for Gatwick (Which is still busy at that time - even a few coaches on standby) and call in management to be on the ground to support

Or do nothing and lock the station and let the few scheduled trains leave empty...

You do realise that it was the police that asked for the station to be closed, due to the difficulty in controlling crowds ? - and you do realise that extra trains then ran until 2.15 am ?

 

[Robertj21a]

No, no "bitter irony" at all. The comment was that anyone attending a Pride event would have been arrested. This is just plain inaccurate and offensive. It may have been a careless use of language I guess.

Well there weren't any 'Pride' events in the 'good old days', so it's all irrelevant.

 

[ianBR]

GTR are lucky not to have fatalities on their hands given the total shambles. Locking Brighton station gates led to dangerous crushing as no thought had been put into how to stop more and more people approaching, and thousands of people were forced to spend the night on the beach.

Given how much money GTR make from transporting 50,000 to Brighton you think they could put a bit more effort into working out how to get people home again rather than running a handful of trains after the end of the event. Dumping people at Three Bridges with insufficient onward travel from there is hardly sensible planning. It's not rocket science - offer drivers special payments to work if necessary there would be plenty of volunteers and there is no shortage of units at that time on a Saturday night.

It should have been clear from 10am in the morning that these problems would arise given there were 30 minute+ long queues to even buy a ticket at Victoria and Kings Cross


To add insult to injury I imagine GTR will be telling people stranded overnight that their day returns are not valid this morning and charging them double.

 

[Chrisgr31]

GTR have been saying that the trains will be very busy and their might be queues this weekend especially for the late trains all week. I have heard announcements to that affect and seen notices about it as well, even though I am not going to the event. The issues GTR have had with running train services have been well documented over the last 2 months, and it was hardly perfect before that.

They did run additional services and the station was apparently closed on the advice of British Transport Police. I assume the issue was that if they got more passengers in the station than the capacity of the trains then the trains would have been unable to depart anyway due to people blocking the doors.

They also appear to have been running additional trains, but again they would presumably have been limited by the availability of crew and particularly drivers. There are I guess 2 issues there, whether drivers are willing to do extra work in the middle of night on a weekend which has lovely weather to enjoy, and indeed whether drivers are able to do so, due to their need to be available ti run the peak hours service on Monday morning.

Its very easy to blame GTR for issues but it only takes passengers to cause an issue somewhere for the service to go wrong. For example there were issues on Friday afternoon on the Uckfield line, which lead to the 15.07 service being turned around at Crowborough due to late running. A passenger decided that they would sit on the train until replacement transport to Buxted/Uckfield arrived. The outcome being the train had to wait for the police, with the ultimate event that it was 30 minutes late in to London Bridge were it was forming the 18.07 departure (one of the busiest commuter trains), then in turn it will have also been late when forming the 21.07 departure. Yes the passengers on the 15.07 were inconvenienced but then their actions lead on to impacts later in the day for even more passengers.

GTR are not perfect and this is well known. Its not going to be rocket science to realise that they are going to struggle to get everyone hope from an event like yesterdays, particularly if most of those people try and travel late. Did someone mention 50,000 people travelling by train? If a train has a capacity of 1,500 thats 33 trains of passengers.

 

[OxtedSignaller]

There was enough capacity and generally speaking their usually is but people seem to think they run a 24 hour train service out of Brighton which is incorrect literally thousands of people trying to get on the last train was never going to work what did people expect. Understandably it's a nice day and everyone wants to make the most of it but use common sense and dont all try to get the last train unless your happy staying over.

I also hope the organisers and authorities take note that it probably was not the best idea having a Britney Spears performance finishing so late on which means more and more people stayed in Brighton creating a surge effect.

 

[yorksrob]

Perhaps its time that Brighton did have an all night service, given the various other places that do.

It sounds as though the only thing that could reasonably be done would be to cancel all scheduled maintenance, offer bucket loads of overtime and continue running through the night.

 

[sammyg901]

You do realise that it was the police that asked for the station to be closed, due to the difficulty in controlling crowds ? - and you do realise that extra trains then ran until 2.15 am ?

That is exactly my point- absolute GTR failure that it even got into that situation. I've experienced excellent railway co-ordination with huge crowds plenty of times - London Olympics, Wembley Stadium, London NYE, MKC after Robbie Williams at the Bowl, Cardiff, Glastonbury. All of them had clear queue set-up, adequate staffing and arrangements had been made for appropriate capacity to be available to handle the known crowds.

I too also agree that Britney should have been on earlier, the event ran all afternoon and this would have really eased the flow of crowds heading to the station and back

You would think after the Fat Boy Slim incident back in 2002 that Brighton Council would be extremely nervous about these type of summer events and demand robust plans from the event organisers for transport and suchlike

 

[Deepgreen]

I remember the London to Brighton bike ride days having innumerable extras being run, formed of 12EPB - 6 for bikes and 6 for passengers. The bikes carriages had all the cushions removed and the seat frames used as racks.

The railway in general cannot deal with anything out of the ordinary today and has lost one of its key advantages in going that way. On top of that, GTR have repeatedly proved themselves incapable of running the daily railway, let alone anything special like this. They are not 'incentivised' to do so, and so don't care.

As for the nonsense about homophobia - whether the comment was relevant or not in this context, it was illegal to be gay in the 1950s (to take one era of the 'good old days') and so the comment that many/all openly gay attendees would have been arrested is not necessarily inaccurate, and I certainly didn't read any hint of homophobia into it at all.

 

[Fincra5]

That is exactly my point- absolute GTR failure that it even got into that situation. I've experienced excellent railway co-ordination with huge crowds plenty of times - London Olympics, Wembley Stadium, London NYE, MKC after Robbie Williams at the Bowl, Cardiff, Glastonbury. All of them had clear queue set-up, adequate staffing and arrangements had been made for appropriate capacity to be available to handle the known crowds.

I too also agree that Britney should have been on earlier, the event ran all afternoon and this would have really eased the flow of crowds heading to the station and back

You would think after the Fat Boy Slim incident back in 2002 that Brighton Council would be extremely nervous about these type of summer events and demand robust plans from the event organisers for transport and suchlike

There were a lot of issues. The advise was to close the station. Now I'm not sure what exactly happened... but Clearly something went wrong and the queuing systems in place failed. Is that down to STM security- who are meant to be in charge? There were certainly enough trains... Or is it down to passengers ignoring safety instructions and trying to force themselves in the 1000s onto rammed trains. You then get into the issue of a large Majority of pride attendees all aiming for the last trains.. Pride was possibly bigger than anticipate this year. 57k in the Park and around 300k for it all. (Including Residents).

I love Brighton Pride but its also potentially grown too large. We can handle 30000 football fans with ease but they know what they're doing.

 

[Samuel88]

GTR have been saying that the trains will be very busy and their might be queues this weekend especially for the late trains all week. I have heard announcements to that affect and seen notices about it as well, even though I am not going to the event. The issues GTR have had with running train services have been well documented over the last 2 months, and it was hardly perfect before that.

They did run additional services and the station was apparently closed on the advice of British Transport Police. I assume the issue was that if they got more passengers in the station than the capacity of the trains then the trains would have been unable to depart anyway due to people blocking the doors.

They also appear to have been running additional trains, but again they would presumably have been limited by the availability of crew and particularly drivers. There are I guess 2 issues there, whether drivers are willing to do extra work in the middle of night on a weekend which has lovely weather to enjoy, and indeed whether drivers are able to do so, due to their need to be available ti run the peak hours service on Monday morning.

Its very easy to blame GTR for issues but it only takes passengers to cause an issue somewhere for the service to go wrong. For example there were issues on Friday afternoon on the Uckfield line, which lead to the 15.07 service being turned around at Crowborough due to late running. A passenger decided that they would sit on the train until replacement transport to Buxted/Uckfield arrived. The outcome being the train had to wait for the police, with the ultimate event that it was 30 minutes late in to London Bridge were it was forming the 18.07 departure (one of the busiest commuter trains), then in turn it will have also been late when forming the 21.07 departure. Yes the passengers on the 15.07 were inconvenienced but then their actions lead on to impacts later in the day for even more passengers.

GTR are not perfect and this is well known. Its not going to be rocket science to realise that they are going to struggle to get everyone hope from an event like yesterdays, particularly if most of those people try and travel late. Did someone mention 50,000 people travelling by train? If a train has a capacity of 1,500 thats 33 trains of passengers.

There was enough capacity and generally speaking their usually is but people seem to think they run a 24 hour train service out of Brighton which is incorrect literally thousands of people trying to get on the last train was never going to work what did people expect. Understandably it's a nice day and everyone wants to make the most of it but use common sense and dont all try to get the last train unless your happy staying over.

I also hope the organisers and authorities take note that it probably was not the best idea having a Britney Spears performance finishing so late on which means more and more people stayed in Brighton creating a surge effect.

How hard is it to run a 24 hour service for just one night? The Pride event has been known about for a year so the usual maintenance excuse falls flat!

 

[Esker-pades]

How hard is it to run a 24 hour service for just one night? The Pride event has been known about for a year so the usual maintenance excuse falls flat!

Given that GTR are having problems impelmenting the normal timetable, it would be quite an ask to come up with even more special timetables.

 

[JB_B]

Gruaniad has this report

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ain-chaos-leaves-revellers-stranded-for-hours

Brighton Pride revellers have complained of being stranded for several hours as a result of delays at the city’s train station as huge crowds attempted to make their home.

People were forced to wait in long queues outside Brighton station on Saturday night, with services held to allow more people to board. Southern rail said the measures were implemented because of overcrowding, having earlier said the station could be closed at short notice.

Geraldine Carr, 38, said she arrived at the station at 11.50pm hoping to catch a train back to London but did not get home until 5am.

“The queue was insane,” she said. “When the barriers opened people were slowly being let in, but this of course led to people being pushed and shoved.

The main picture of "crowds at Brighton Station" (shared on many sites via AP) isn't Brighton, is it? Looks like more like Three Bridges.

 

[The Planner]

How hard is it to run a 24 hour service for just one night? The Pride event has been known about for a year so the usual maintenance excuse falls flat!

Who is paying for it though? People don't like that answer but that is the way it is. GTR won't, would the event organisers or councils do it?

 

[ianBR]

Brighton was much worse than Three Bridges with people trapped for hours with no information being given, no access to toilets and generally not being able to move. Even parents with kids were eventually forced to head to the beach for lack of any other option.

The worst thing of all is that many people reported that the trains that were leaving were half empty due to the decision to close the stations gates and abandon any attempt at managing the queues.

And why dump people at Three Bridges rather than Gatwick where they could have connected to the Gatwick Express?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

My daughter and 2 friends heeded my advice and got a train at 2240 or so. The area was chaotic and they had to do various diversions on the street , and were then put into a pen which had no access to the station with a train due in a few mins.

The security staff did not have a clue , but advised them to climb over the barriers and they got the train. (they even got seats as well)

 

[sammyg901]

Last GX to London is now 23:12 - I used to work at Gatwick and I'm sure it used to run later than that! The last few Southern's to Victoria must be busy enough with airport passengers

 

[Dr Hoo]

SNIP

Given how much money GTR make from transporting 50,000 to Brighton you think they could put a bit more effort into working out how to get people home again rather than running a handful of trains after the end of the event. Dumping people at Three Bridges with insufficient onward travel from there is hardly sensible planning. It's not rocket science - offer drivers special payments to work if necessary there would be plenty of volunteers and there is no shortage of units at that time on a Saturday night.

SNIP


To add insult to injury I imagine GTR will be telling people stranded overnight that their day returns are not valid this morning and charging them double.

I thought that all revenue on the GTR franchise went directly to the DfT and that GTR simply get a 'fixed fee' for running the [base] service. If that is the case presumably there is actually zero incentive on GTR to run any extra trains whatsoever unless the DfT effectively 'charters' them to run more.

Can anybody close to current franchise management explain how this sort of thing actually works?

 

[jon0844]

I'm in Brighton now and the queuing system looks good, but if tens of thousands of people turned up at once then frankly it would be a disaster no matter what. There's only so much space and even at 1430 there are people trying to get around the queues.

Some security staff are smoking while inside the building and manning the entrances. They're contractors (OnTrak lanyards?) which doesn't look good.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Me too, I took it to mean that the good old days weren’t always so good

Ditto.

 

[E759]

Gruaniad has this report

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ain-chaos-leaves-revellers-stranded-for-hours

The main picture of "crowds at Brighton Station" (shared on many sites via AP) isn't Brighton, is it? Looks like more like Three Bridges.

Three Bridges Platforms 1/2 looking South with the ramp leading down to exit and Ps 3, 4 & 5.

 

[winks]

The 2.15am they laid on last night - where did that terminate ? I have to say most people think Brighton trains run overnight (they do pretty much in the opp. Direction give or take on an weekend. But I defiantly think they should have planned this and had twice hourly trains running to London Victoria

 

[Esker-pades]

The 2.15am they laid on last night - where did that terminate ? I have to say most people think Brighton trains run overnight (they do pretty much in the opp. Direction give or take on an weekend. But I defiantly think they should have planned this and had twice hourly trains running to London Victoria

It terminated at Three Bridges, calling only at Haywards Heath. It ran 77 minutes late throughout.

RTT link: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/X66583/2018/08/05/advanced .

 

[sammyg901]

There is a seperate train with the same headcode through to Victoria a few minutes later which I assume was the same units. Not sure why the split service- presumably they only decided to get it through to London very last minute

 

[winks]

There should be hourly services running back to London or at least till 2am I’d say.

 

[Esker-pades]

How many more units would be required for Thameslink to extend their 24 hour services from Three Bridges to Brighton?

 

[sarahj]

I was there among it all. I was late cover and ended up working trains all night after a colleague was assaulted. There were also trains being turned round early at Gatwick due to fights and issues on board. West Worthings were extended to 8 car 377's. My late Seafords were 313's that were busy, but not packed. The last train, we were swapping over to a 5 car 377, but just before midnight the police closed the station and stopped the trains. We were left hanging around. Mainline trains that did leave took an age with folks blocking doors, but they were the usual, everyone playing sardines in coach 12 and coach 1 with one man and his dog. Trying to get folks moving up the platform into empty coaches was like herding cats. The problem is all day were are bringing packed trains to the coast, even ones arrive after 16.00 were very busy. Then Brittany ends at 22.30 and you had the whole park and most of Brighton heading for the last trains. We ran extra services as and when we could. Brighton on a sunny saturday is silly, add pride into the mix and it got very silly. Oh and last of all, you had madness out the front, but if they came in from the car park, that way was open and clear. Could have been worse. IT was planning to upgrade and turn off the e-mail system for the day, (they work 9-5, mon -fri so I guess don't think issues happen over the weekend), thank gawd that was pulled on thursday/friday.

 

[JonathanH]

How many more units would be required for Thameslink to extend their 24 hour services from Three Bridges to Brighton?

None, the issue is infrastructure not a lack of rolling stock.

I'm not sure the overnight demand even from Three Bridges is as heavy as you are implying. I have been on some fairly empty trains out of Gatwick in the early hours.

There is already a 0010 and 0415 from Brighton when engineering work allows.

Until fairly recently, the last train on Friday and Saturday night was 2302 (and a later train ran empty to Haywards Heath) because of poor behaviour of travellers.

 

[Fincra5]

I thought that all revenue on the GTR franchise went directly to the DfT and that GTR simply get a 'fixed fee' for running the [base] service. If that is the case presumably there is actually zero incentive on GTR to run any extra trains whatsoever unless the DfT effectively 'charters' them to run more.

Can anybody close to current franchise management explain how this sort of thing actually works?

Yup GTR get a fixed fee and give all revenue money (ticket sales) to the DfT. If the DfT want more trains, they have to pay GTR to increase services/ staffing/ track access.

 

[Esker-pades]

None, the issue is infrastructure not a lack of rolling stock.

Thameslink would require more units to be out at night times, which would need more staff to work night shifts.
At 3am, there are enough paths available.