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ECML closed PBO to KGX Aug Bank Holiday routing

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jopsuk

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Spotted notices up at Cambridge station today; due to the expected busy-ness of trains, Greater Anglia are permitting only folding bikes on their services on 24/25th August.

Will grab the popcorn to watch the inevitable arguments unfold...
Yikes. Does appear they're running the Statford-Stortford service through to Cambridge, will help a bit
 

Hadders

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Teams of staff giving out leaflets at Stevenage station last night.

They really need to do this at weekends for the next 2 weeks - normal Monday-Friday commuters won't be affected by this. Overheard a couple of regular commuters talking on the train who said they knew nothing about the works, despite banners and posters being displayed at the station for the last couple of weeks.

I haven't heard any station announcements like we were bombarded with before the May 18 timetable changes or any onboard announcements (like the Geoff Marshall onces for the Brighton Mainline works). Both major omissions in my opinion.
 

Ianno87

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On an LNER train arriving at King's Cross and an announcement was made.
 

bramling

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Teams of staff giving out leaflets at Stevenage station last night.

They really need to do this at weekends for the next 2 weeks - normal Monday-Friday commuters won't be affected by this. Overheard a couple of regular commuters talking on the train who said they knew nothing about the works, despite banners and posters being displayed at the station for the last couple of weeks.

I haven't heard any station announcements like we were bombarded with before the May 18 timetable changes or any onboard announcements (like the Geoff Marshall onces for the Brighton Mainline works). Both major omissions in my opinion.

It probably doesn't matter how much publicity there is, being a weekend (and a bank holiday one at that) it's pretty much guaranteed that hoards of people will present themselves at the stations for their family day-out to London/the beach/whatever, with slogans like "you'd think they'd do it some other time" or "we weren't told". Perhaps the best hope is that the weather is naff, which based on the rest of this summer is highly likely.
 

Hadders

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It probably doesn't matter how much publicity there is, being a weekend (and a bank holiday one at that) it's pretty much guaranteed that hoards of people will present themselves at the stations for their family day-out to London/the beach/whatever, with slogans like "you'd think they'd do it some other time" or "we weren't told". Perhaps the best hope is that the weather is naff, which based on the rest of this summer is highly likely.

Yep. That’s exactly what’ll happen.
 

Bromley boy

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It probably doesn't matter how much publicity there is, being a weekend (and a bank holiday one at that) it's pretty much guaranteed that hoards of people will present themselves at the stations for their family day-out to London/the beach/whatever, with slogans like "you'd think they'd do it some other time" or "we weren't told". Perhaps the best hope is that the weather is naff, which based on the rest of this summer is highly likely.

Couldn’t agree more.

Like the people with a double buggy, + toddler in tow, causing chaos, delay and much annoyance on the packed rush hour service I was driving just after 0800 this morning...

I have no idea what the purpose of their journey was but I’ll bet they could have planned it better, in order to avoid the rush hour!

There seems to be something in the water at this time of year!
 

Ianno87

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Couldn’t agree more.

Like the people with a double buggy, + toddler in tow, causing chaos, delay and much annoyance on the packed rush hour service I was driving just after 0800 this morning...

I have no idea what the purpose of their journey was but I’ll bet they could have planned it better, in order to avoid the rush hour!

Aa parent of two young children, trust me, you're only out on public transport at that time of the morning if you really, really have to be, given the sheer effort involved in getting them ready!

Most common culprite is going for a Eurostar/flight at a certain time.
 

bramling

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Couldn’t agree more.

Like the people with a double buggy, + toddler in tow, causing chaos, delay and much annoyance on the packed rush hour service I was driving just after 0800 this morning...

I have no idea what the purpose of their journey was but I’ll bet they could have planned it better, in order to avoid the rush hour!

There seems to be something in the water at this time of year!

Oh yes. Who needs a calendar? Can guarantee it’s weekend/bank holiday/school holiday just by getting handles pulled for family groups separated. As if that’s not bad enough, they then have the nerve to complain that it’s someone else’s fault (in other words normally the driver) that they chose to entrain whilst the doors were closing. Grr!

A good reason why I nowadays try to avoid discretionary rail travel at weekends if at all possible, except for journeys at highly obscure times.

Personally this work is a pain. No holiday for me on the Monday (not that I’d want it anyway, it’s bad enough when my holiday unavoidably clashes with a BH), so I’ll have to drive in. But being a BH this means a guaranteed hold-up as it passes a retail park. Still, better than screaming kids I suppose <sigh>.
 
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717001

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Oh yes. Who needs a calendar? Can guarantee it’s weekend/bank holiday/school holiday just by getting handles pulled for family groups separated. As if that’s not bad enough, they then have the nerve to complain that it’s someone else’s fault (in other words normally the driver) that they chose to entrain whilst the doors were closing. Grr!

A good reason why I nowadays try to avoid discretionary rail travel at weekends if at all possible, except for journeys at highly obscure times.

Personally this work is a pain. No holiday for me on the Monday (not that I’d want it anyway, it’s bad enough when my holiday unavoidably clashes with a BH), so I’ll have to drive in. But being a BH this means a guaranteed hold-up as it passes a retail park. Still, better than screaming kids I suppose <sigh>.
Most parts of the line are due to re-open for the Monday - with a reduced service (but that’s normal for Bank hol Mons).
 

Class83

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If you got out the usage statistics for the ECML over the whole year, I struggle to believe that the quietest period you can find for the London-Edinburgh railway is the August Bank Holiday, do Network Rail do this kind of route analysis before planning works? With the festival it's possibly the busiest weekend of the year. A random weekend in September, or possibly 2 days midweek in July when there would be fewer Scottish business travelers would seem obvious candidates.
 

hwl

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If you got out the usage statistics for the ECML over the whole year, I struggle to believe that the quietest period you can find for the London-Edinburgh railway is the August Bank Holiday, do Network Rail do this kind of route analysis before planning works? With the festival it's possibly the busiest weekend of the year. A random weekend in September, or possibly 2 days midweek in July when there would be fewer Scottish business travelers would seem obvious candidates.
If you look at the data you'll find the majority of ECML passengers are actually GTR users and this is discussed in the first few pages of the thread.

This is also one of the first of many closures for Kings Cross remodeling.
 
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jon0844

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If you got out the usage statistics for the ECML over the whole year, I struggle to believe that the quietest period you can find for the London-Edinburgh railway is the August Bank Holiday, do Network Rail do this kind of route analysis before planning works? With the festival it's possibly the busiest weekend of the year. A random weekend in September, or possibly 2 days midweek in July when there would be fewer Scottish business travelers would seem obvious candidates.

I'm assuming one reason to do the works this particular Saturday and Sunday is in case there are any problems (let's face it, overrunning engineering work has been common even for more routine work on the ECML south of Peterborough this year) and services are disrupted on the bank holiday Monday.

Better that than a work day where people will no so easily be able to abandon their plans. Although I suspect that if the weather is nice, journeys to the beach/theme park would be considered essential!
 

Edders23

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Noticed a banner up at peterborough announcing the closure of the drop off/pick up car park for a week :frown:

that is going to be chaos
 

Aictos

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Noticed a banner up at peterborough announcing the closure of the drop off/pick up car park for a week :frown:

that is going to be chaos

I don’t think so, there’s going to be a lot more coaches needed so they need the space to pick up and drop off.

I know they have the bus/coach park to stable but unless they send passengers there instead they will need to use whatever space by the station.
 

hwl

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I'm assuming one reason to do the works this particular Saturday and Sunday is in case there are any problems (let's face it, overrunning engineering work has been common even for more routine work on the ECML south of Peterborough this year) and services are disrupted on the bank holiday Monday.

Indeed bigger scope /risk than the other sets of engineering work before the big closures.
 

Edders23

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I don’t think so, there’s going to be a lot more coaches needed so they need the space to pick up and drop off.

I know they have the bus/coach park to stable but unless they send passengers there instead they will need to use whatever space by the station.

they are moving drop off/pick up into the pay car park so what will happen is dozens of cars will try and pick up or drop off on the roundabout blocking it up as happens sometimes at the moment the other week it all got stuck for 10 minutes because 3 cars did just that and nothing could get in or out !! don't forget there are dozens of PH cars out there driven by individuals who have no respect for anyone and ignore the rules they will not think twice about blocking it all up

I see it most days
 

Aictos

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they are moving drop off/pick up into the pay car park so what will happen is dozens of cars will try and pick up or drop off on the roundabout blocking it up as happens sometimes at the moment the other week it all got stuck for 10 minutes because 3 cars did just that and nothing could get in or out !! don't forget there are dozens of PH cars out there driven by individuals who have no respect for anyone and ignore the rules they will not think twice about blocking it all up

I see it most days

Trust me I know how bad it gets at Peterborough which is why I’m happy I no longer commute from there!
 

Mugby

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The 2002 EMT service from St.Pancras on Saturdays usually goes to Leeds but on 24th August it is terminating short at Sheffield.

The EMT site quotes 'Engineering work on the ECML' but I can't see how this would affect Sheffield-Leeds. It seems illogical not to run it through to Leeds on a Saturday evening when the ECML is closed.
 

Fred26

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The 2002 EMT service from St.Pancras on Saturdays usually goes to Leeds but on 24th August it is terminating short at Sheffield.

The EMT site quotes 'Engineering work on the ECML' but I can't see how this would affect Sheffield-Leeds. It seems illogical not to run it through to Leeds on a Saturday evening when the ECML is closed.

Probably wouldn't cope with the number of passengers.
 

Mike395

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Maybe so, but on the flipside an additional HST would provide some relief to the inevitably crush loaded XC services so it's just passing the problem to another TOC.
 

Fred26

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Maybe so, but on the flipside an additional HST would provide some relief to the inevitably crush loaded XC services so it's just passing the problem to another TOC.

True. It's an educated guess, I could be wrong.
 

SideshowBob

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It probably doesn't matter how much publicity there is, being a weekend (and a bank holiday one at that) it's pretty much guaranteed that hoards of people will present themselves at the stations for their family day-out to London/the beach/whatever, with slogans like "you'd think they'd do it some other time" or "we weren't told". Perhaps the best hope is that the weather is naff, which based on the rest of this summer is highly likely.

Yep. That’s exactly what’ll happen.

Couldn’t agree more.

Like the people with a double buggy, + toddler in tow, causing chaos, delay and much annoyance on the packed rush hour service I was driving just after 0800 this morning...

I have no idea what the purpose of their journey was but I’ll bet they could have planned it better, in order to avoid the rush hour!

There seems to be something in the water at this time of year!

Nothing "in the water", just the start of the biggest arts festival in Europe. And judging by LNER's Twitter feed, surprise surprise, it's been unmanaged chaos!

LNER on Twitter (@LNER) said:
#LNERUpdate Please be aware that our services are expected to be extremely busy today. A special ticket check will be in operation at #KingsCross and customers with reservations will be given priority for boarding. Customers with open tickets may be required to stand.
https://twitter.com/LNER/status/1162265307609620481?s=19

LNER on Twitter (@LNER) said:
We do expect services to be busy all weekend due to the Fringe. ^AB
https://twitter.com/LNER/status/1162342151197548545?s=19

This suggests to me that they knew perfectly well that, on the first weekend of the Edinburgh Festival, their services would be significantly busier than usual but judging by the comments on their Twitter account, they have utterly failed to manage the demand effectively. But of course, on the weekend that the Fringe finishes and Newcastle Utd are playing Spurs away, everything will be just fine and dandy. Perfect time to close the line because demand will clearly be lower than usual and LNER have an effective, watertight, idiot-proof plan to manage passenger flow that won't fall apart in minutes. Obviously.
 

Class83

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Nothing "in the water", just the start of the biggest arts festival in Europe. And judging by LNER's Twitter feed, surprise surprise, it's been unmanaged chaos!


https://twitter.com/LNER/status/1162265307609620481?s=19


https://twitter.com/LNER/status/1162342151197548545?s=19

This suggests to me that they knew perfectly well that, on the first weekend of the Edinburgh Festival, their services would be significantly busier than usual but judging by the comments on their Twitter account, they have utterly failed to manage the demand effectively. But of course, on the weekend that the Fringe finishes and Newcastle Utd are playing Spurs away, everything will be just fine and dandy. Perfect time to close the line because demand will clearly be lower than usual and LNER have an effective, watertight, idiot-proof plan to manage passenger flow that won't fall apart in minutes. Obviously.

Indeed, to the point it might be worth keeping the 91/Mark4s to run extras to Edinburgh in August, if it is a quiet time for commuters they could reduce the number of commuter services to free up paths.
 

6Gman

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Indeed, to the point it might be worth keeping the 91/Mark4s to run extras to Edinburgh in August, if it is a quiet time for commuters they could reduce the number of commuter services to free up paths.

The obvious question would be whether they would have sufficient traincrew to operate additional services?

(Train drivers take holidays too ...)
 

Class 170101

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I've two questions about the work being done at Kings Cross:
There is a thread on here somewhere that the 3rd bore closest to Kings Cross is being re-opened as part of the Kings Cross Re-modelling.
 

yorksrob

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I've two questions about the work being done at Kings Cross:

I read somewhere that the problem with reopening the third bore of Copenhagen tunnel is that the flyover taking up local trains over the main line to the West of the station, is in the way.
 
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