Late LNR service 21/05/2022 from Milton Keynes to Euston after concert

[PeterC]

It was only really an issue because the band was not playing London (which was a bad decision on the band's part; if you are only going to play one place in South East England it really should be London because pretty much everyone in the SE has good transport links to it).

So would the service provided have been adequate if for, say, the last few concerts at the venue? If so then without access to the booking data, why would LNW expect this one to be different?

 

[Bletchleyite]

So would the service provided have been adequate if for, say, the last few concerts at the venue?

There haven't been many there, but yes, I would expect so, because you'd have a generally fairly distributed demand for a band that is also playing London rather than a huge amount of demand from there. Bowl stuff tended to be a bit more "touch and go", but there hasn't been anything there for yonks.

 

[Mike Redding]

There haven't been many there, but yes, I would expect so, because you'd have a generally fairly distributed demand for a band that is also playing London rather than a huge amount of demand from there. Bowl stuff tended to be a bit more "touch and go", but there hasn't been anything there for yonks.

These concerts were actually supposed to be at the bowl in 2020, unsure as to why but they were relocated to the stadium at some point during the pandemic.

 

[roversfan2001]

These concerts were actually supposed to be at the bowl in 2020, unsure as to why but they were relocated to the stadium at some point during the pandemic.

From what I can see online, they've always been planned to be at Stadium MK.

 

[DarloRich]

These concerts were actually supposed to be at the bowl in 2020, unsure as to why but they were relocated to the stadium at some point during the pandemic.

I don't think these were bowl concerts - there havent been any concerts at the bowl since, I think, Swedish House Mafia. There have been some noise and planning issues and the site is set to be used for the MK Dongs training ground but apparently the bowl will still be available for converts.

@Bletchleyite may have more gen on this.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think these were bowl concerts - there havent been any concerts at the bowl since, I think, Swedish House Mafia. There have been some noise and planning issues and the site is set to be used for the MK Dongs training ground but apparently the bowl will still be available for converts.

@Bletchleyite may have more gen on this.

There's always been noise pollution from the Bowl, I don't think that has much to do with it. I believe there is a maximum number of gigs per year but 0 is nowhere near that. The new Wembley has really killed it off, there's a very limited need for 70K capacity venues in the UK, and if you're a massive superband and going to do only one UK gig it's going to be Wembley (and if you want a second it'll be Manchester). Its heyday was when Wembley was being rebuilt and so we got everything that would normally go there. It's a bit of a shame as it has a unique festival style atmosphere, I believe the only other such venue in the world of that sort of capacity is the Hollywood Bowl (on which it's modelled) and that is actually a fair whack lower (around 20K) from a quick Google.

Yes, a Dons training ground is planned but gigs still possible, they'll just take the goalposts out and cover over the pitches in the same way they do for stadium gigs. I haven't seen any progress of late, though.

 

[paul1609]

There's always been noise pollution from the Bowl, I don't think that has much to do with it. I believe there is a maximum number of gigs per year but 0 is nowhere near that. The new Wembley has really killed it off, there's a very limited need for 70K capacity venues in the UK, and if you're a massive superband and going to do only one UK gig it's going to be Wembley (and if you want a second it'll be Manchester). Its heyday was when Wembley was being rebuilt and so we got everything that would normally go there. It's a bit of a shame as it has a unique festival style atmosphere, I believe the only other such venue in the world of that sort of capacity is the Hollywood Bowl (on which it's modelled) and that is actually a fair whack lower (around 20K) from a quick Google.

Yes, a Dons training ground is planned but gigs still possible, they'll just take the goalposts out and cover over the pitches in the same way they do for stadium gigs. I haven't seen any progress of late, though.

I'd have said it's heyday was in the 1980s I saw Genesis and Simple Minds there then didn't realise it still existed tbh.

 

[Craig1122]

BTW my experience of Twickenham is that SWR has a very slick operation to deal with enormous crowds, it's not unreasonable to expect transport utilities to deliver a service proportionate to the size of the event.

Twickenham was left to sort itself out until the day in the nineties (can't remember now if late BR or early South West Trains) when a failure not long before the start of a game led to the service grinding to a halt and fans detraining themselves from the slam door stock to walk along the track to Twickenham.

From that point it was taken somewhat more seriously with crowd control, extra fleet and NR resources and a huge management presence. With relatively little parking locally permission for expansion of the stadium hinged on the understanding that provision had to be made for people to get there by other means. It's a 92k capacity stadium and last I knew about 40k of those go through Twickenham itself. Special buses and other local stations takes good chunks of match traffic too.

So very much a joint effort between NR, TOC and the RFU. Certainly not a 'nothing to do with us guv' shrug of the shoulders which some people seem to advocate!

 

[InTheEastMids]

Twickenham was left to sort itself out until the day in the nineties (can't remember now if late BR or early South West Trains) when a failure not long before the start of a game led to the service grinding to a halt and fans detraining themselves from the slam door stock to walk along the track to Twickenham.

From that point it was taken somewhat more seriously with crowd control, extra fleet and NR resources and a huge management presence. With relatively little parking locally permission for expansion of the stadium hinged on the understanding that provision had to be made for people to get there by other means. It's a 92k capacity stadium and last I knew about 40k of those go through Twickenham itself. Special buses and other local stations takes good chunks of match traffic too.

So very much a joint effort between NR, TOC and the RFU. Certainly not a 'nothing to do with us guv' shrug of the shoulders which some people seem to advocate!

Obviously 92k with limited parking >> 30k in (one of) the most road-friendly cities in the UK

However, it's a good point, the operation at Twickenham is very slick and I get the impression that there is basically a fleet of trains positioned (at Strawberry Hill?) waiting to take customers back to Clapham & Waterloo.

If *only* there was a set of sidings somewhere near Bletchley station where a couple of extra trains could be positioned to support getting people away from the venues in Milton Keynes.

 

[DarloRich]

If *only* there was a set of sidings somewhere near Bletchley station where a couple of extra trains could be positioned to support getting people away from the venues in Milton Keynes.

those trains do, of course, require drivers and guards which I suspect is more of the issue.

 

[Bletchleyite]

those trains do, of course, require drivers and guards which I suspect is more of the issue.

Indeed, and who's going to volunteer to crew an overcrowded train full of drunk people in the late evening without a VERY big financial incentive?

 

[Craig1122]

However, it's a good point, the operation at Twickenham is very slick and I get the impression that there is basically a fleet of trains positioned (at Strawberry Hill?) waiting to take customers back to Clapham & Waterloo.

Perhaps surprisingly Strawberry Hill has rarely been used (It doesn't hold 10 coach trains) with most specials working empty from the Clapham direction round the Hounslow loop. This puts them facing in the correct direction back towards London.

It's notable in the context of discussion about lack of crew/train that SWR have been hit by this as well. Pre covid an off peak service of 8 mainly 10 coach trains an hour was generally supplemented by a couple of specials. Now the core service is 6TPH with mainly 8 coach trains. The solution to this has been to thin out and divert services to other destinations pre and post match which is far from ideal if you live in certain other places!

 

[Mike Redding]

Oops! I stand corrected re: location . Although I was at the concert it had very little to do with the organising of of it all

 

[AlterEgo]

There isn't a known issue with signal at the stadium, it's always been fine when I've gone there.

There is almost no signal whatsoever when an event is on. Even 10,000 people at the football will end up in an unusable phone. I'm a season ticket holder and it is a known issue on match days, especially as many people try to refresh their phones to see football scores from elsewhere.

From what I can see online, they've always been planned to be at Stadium MK.

Yes they were, and there was a lot of fanfare about them in MK. The stadium owners are quite proud of being able to host concerts, although this MCR one seems to have really gone to cock. No such issues when I went to see Rod Stewart there in '19!

There have been some noise and planning issues and the site is set to be used for the MK Dongs training ground but apparently the bowl will still be available for converts.

If that ever happens. The gears for the training ground are turning very slowly indeed and the club is very pragmatic about money. I wouldn't be surprised if the training ground was delayed by five years.

 

[bradleyd]

Train operator's obligations are not limited to running the advertised timetable on any given day. They do need to take account and plan for spikes in demand - an indeed franchise agreements used to hold them accountable to DfT. Clearly there has been a failure from LNWR and the event promoters to identify this issue and to plan accordingly leaving them to scramble on the night itself. Even if LNWR had not spoken to the organisers, they seemed to only realise there was a problem at the last minute - despite the fact that ticket sales would be well up for trains to Milton Keynes that day and trains/gate lines would have been much busier all day.

Compare this to GWR for the same band in Cardiff on Saturday - there are 3 '1Z' trains in the timetable for Bristol, and those have been in for weeks.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Cardiff Central all day on 28/05/2022

Train information at Cardiff Central all day on 28/05/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

This has probably been replied to already, so apologies if I've missed it, but it isn't just MCR playing at Cardiff tomorrow, they are at Sophia Gardens Cricket ground (near the national express station), there is also the middle day of Ed Sheerans 3 days at the millennium (I refuse to call it the principality ) right next to Cardiff Central, so numbers wise it could very easily be the same amount of traffic heading out the city at that time, whether car or public transport of some variety, as after a major final at the millenium

 

[Merseysider]

Based on my previous experience of attending events at Victoria Park, northern will throw the towel in. My success rate of actually making it home via train from there is less than 50%.

I was at the Warrington MCR event last night. Mixed experience with transport on the way back to Manchester.

They had large digital signs outside the park indicating the time of trains to Manchester (and whether from Central or Bank Quay). We got to Warrington Central approx 23:00 and there was already a queue a couple hundred people long for the next (and last!) Manchester train at 00:18.

Northern staff were on hand & directed us onto a (very busy 3+2 seating!) coach which drove over to Bank Quay, where we managed to squeeze onto the 23:14 by the skin of our teeth.

There was a lone BTP officer, miserably trying and failing to get people off the train, who held the train up almost ten minutes - in the end we jumped on when he got off. There were more people on the platform than on the (just 4 carriage) Northern train.

From what I was able to later gather, the next one that came along at 23:50 was apparently operated by TfW, so with TfW being as useless as they are, was of course 2 carriages long and left most people behind.

It’s possible Northern later used the ‘shuttle’ coach to take some of the excess pax to Manchester, but I don’t know that for certain, and I know several of my friends had to split a taxi.

If event organisers want to hold massive events in secondary locations such as MK and Warrington they should pay for additional transport imo. I have no doubt there will have been many who struggled to get home.

 

[Hadders]

I was at Euston yesterday with a friend who was catching the 20:34 LNR service to MKC. Nothing unusual about the 20:34 except Port Vale were at Wembley yesterday and the train was absolutely crush loaded with their supporters. One of the fullest trains I've ever seen (and trust me I've been on more than a few over the years!)

After a late start the train arrived ontie at MKC but I noticed it lost considerable time north of MKC, it arrived at it's Crewe destination 27 minutes late.

I noticed there was a 20:31 Avanti train that also called at Crewe. This was nowhere near as full as the LNR train, presemably because it would have appeared 'full' due to Avanti's psuedo compulosory reservations.

 

[Class 170101]

The reality is wherever a concert / other event is held and it is likely to have an impact on the railway then the railway needs to be ready for it, not turn passengers away. It cannot rely on the commuter anymore and needs to change its mindset to reflect that.

 

[Merseysider]

The reality is wherever a concert / other event is held and it is likely to have an impact on the railway then the railway needs to be ready for it, not turn passengers away. It cannot rely on the commuter anymore and needs to change its mindset to reflect that.

Completely agree

 

[jh64]

For the Ed Sheeran shows in Sunderland this week: Extra Metro services running on the bank holiday past midnight and a custom button on ticket machines.

Metro to run additional services and later trains for Ed Sheeran concerts

Ed Sheeran's two Stadium of Light concerts will be one of the biggest events of the year for the Tyne Wear Metro

www.chroniclelive.co.uk

Additional Tyne and Wear Metro trains will be running on the network to transport fans to and from Ed Sheeran's upcoming concerts at the Stadium of Light.

Ed's gigs on Friday June 3 and Saturday June 4 will be one of the busiest events of 2022 for the Metro network. While a reduced bank holiday timetable will be in operation on Friday June 3 for the Queen's Jubilee, Nexus says extra Metro trains will run from 4pm on both Friday and Saturday to get fans to the Stadium of Light. It has also arranged later than usual trains, with some services after midnight towards Newcastle.

To speed up ticket buying, machines will have an "Ed Sheeran button" which customers can press to get a ticket that will take them to St Peters and the Stadium of Light Metro stations.

 

[Watershed]

For the Ed Sheeran shows in Sunderland this week: Extra Metro services running on the bank holiday past midnight and a custom button on ticket machines.

Metro to run additional services and later trains for Ed Sheeran concerts

Ed Sheeran's two Stadium of Light concerts will be one of the biggest events of the year for the Tyne Wear Metro

www.chroniclelive.co.uk

Indeed. The difference in attitudes could hardly be more pronounced!

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair running extra services is a lot easier on the Metro (and similarly Metrolink) than the national network. These isolated networks can pretty much just get on and do it as they like provided they can get the staff. The challenges posed (or not posed) are more like a large bus company deciding whether or not to strengthen services - indeed in some ways easier than even that because they have no requirement to register the services 56 days in advance, which the bus company does unless duplicating the times of existing services.

 

[Falcon1200]

The reality is wherever a concert / other event is held and it is likely to have an impact on the railway then the railway needs to be ready for it, not turn passengers away.

Within reason yes; But should Network Rail have cancelled major WCML engineering work planned years in advance because the FA decided to force fans from Liverpool and Manchester to travel to London for a match the same weekend ?

 

[Class 170101]

Within reason yes; But should Network Rail have cancelled major WCML engineering work planned years in advance because the FA decided to force fans from Liverpool and Manchester to travel to London for a match the same weekend ?

No, this is different in that FA were given notice and chose to ignore it. However other options could have been used better perhaps, how about Manchester to St Pancras and Marylegone to Birmingham and thence to Liverpool? Some joined up thinking perhaps.

 

[mmh]

To be fair running extra services is a lot easier on the Metro (and similarly Metrolink) than the national network. These isolated networks can pretty much just get on and do it as they like provided they can get the staff. The challenges posed (or not posed) are more like a large bus company deciding whether or not to strengthen services - indeed in some ways easier than even that because they have no requirement to register the services 56 days in advance, which the bus company does unless duplicating the times of existing services.

The Newcastle Metro is not an "isolated network," Sunderland to Newcastle is a shared route, and everything else in this post is complete wibble.

 

[Hadders]

Liam Gallagher is playing Knebworth this weekend, first concert today.

GTR certainly seem to be making an effort at Stevenage. Huge number of GTR (their staff not agency) present directing passengers and providing assistance. Real Time Trains suggests some additional trains later tonight (as late as 01:30). Although I’m not a huge fan of the class 700 layout I do have to admit that a 12-car set should really hoover concert goers up!

Be interesting to hear any reports tomorrow.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

I don't think these were bowl concerts - there havent been any concerts at the bowl since, I think, Swedish House Mafia. There have been some noise and planning issues and the site is set to be used for the MK Dongs training ground but apparently the bowl will still be available for converts.

@Bletchleyite may have more gen on this.

MK Dongs, that's what I'm calling them from now on!

 

[Hadders]

It isn't just the railway that has problems after large scale events, it seems that there were issues on the A1(M) after last nights concert at Knebworth.

Liam Gallagher: Knebworth fans complain of traffic chaos after gig

The star's two-night stint at Knebworth ends with fans complaining of being stranded in the car park.

www.bbc.co.uk

Liam Gallagher's latest gigs led to traffic chaos as fans wandered on to a nearby motorway.
The former Oasis frontman performed two nights at Knebworth, near Stevenage.
On Friday, Hertfordshire Police fined several drivers for using the A1(M) as a drop-off point, and closed it for two hours on Saturday as people spilled on to the carriageway.
Fans said the organisation of the event was "a shambles". Promoter Festival Republic has been asked for comment.
Following Friday's show, Hertfordshire Police tweeted to warn fans it had issued fixed penalty notices to those using the motorway to to drop off and pick up attendees.
It said this would "not be tolerated" and urged drivers to use designated on-site areas.
On Saturday, National Highways: East tweeted that the road was closed in both directions due to a "police incident" and "pedestrians wandering on to the A1(M)".
It In response to someone pointing out that this would impact on the "tens of thousands of cars leaving Knebworth", it responded: "We had to close to the road due to pedestrians from the event wandering into the carriageway."
Fans have criticised the event set-up, describing "chaos" in the car parks.
"The organisation around leaving the event was truly dreadful. not enough staff, no signs, limited lightning," tweeted one gig-goer.
"People were breaking down fences because they were trapped."
Others complained of waiting in a car park for hours after the gig, with one quipping: "The year is 2032, I'm still sat in the car park at Knebworth".

I passed through Stevenage station on Friday evening and a couple (who had just been PFd for trying to use contactless to exit the station) were complaining about the lack of taxis and asked me where they could get one from. I told them the best way would be to walk (it takes about 40 minutes). The look on their faces suggested the world was about to end!

 

[Class 170101]

I passed through Stevenage station on Friday evening and a couple (who had just been PFd for trying to use contactless to exit the station) were complaining about the lack of taxis and asked me where they could get one from. I told them the best way would be to walk (it takes about 40 minutes). The look on their faces suggested the world was about to end!

And probably two customers that will never return.

 

[the sniper]

And probably two customers that will never return.

Probably never leave London again, you mean?