Planned engineering works and sporting events: do the relevant authorise liase to avoid clashes?

pompeyfan said:

Not railway related, but an upcoming Portsmouth FC game has been suspended as there’s also the ‘Victorious’ music festival in town the same weekend. The music festival has been August bank holiday since it started 5 years ago. I believe Hampshire police made a request to the club and the EFL

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I'm surprised the club didn't request to the EFL that it had to have an away match that weekend. I guess they will do so in the future...

Seems a bit harsh to postpone the game though. It's only against Rotherham so hardly a grudge fixture

Mikey C said:

They know when the season starts though.

And yes I am quite aware of the complications of running a railway, but sometimes it doesn't exactly seem to bend over backwards to be helpful to its customers.

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But if the possession was cancelled just in case Charlton's first match was at home, and the fixture was Preston away, the opportunity has been lost.
The fact is, any sporting body can easily find out what engineering work is planned on any weekend. They just don't actually bother to.

Mikey C said:

A bit annoying that engineering works decimated the service to Charlton yesterday - just 2 an hour instead of the usual 8 with no service via Greenwich - for our first home game of the season, especially as being back in the Championship our crowds are larger and more away fans will be going (Stoke yesterday).

Yes football isn't the main criteria in scheduling engineering works, but they have had all summer to do it! Or could have picked a Saturday when we're not at home

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That just shows how stupid Charlton FC are then ! no sympathy at all

Mikey C said:

They know when the season starts though.

And yes I am quite aware of the complications of running a railway, but sometimes it doesn't exactly seem to bend over backwards to be helpful to its customers.

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But they can't fit all the engineering into the few weeks between the end of one season and the start of the next one!

EM2 said:

Yes, trains used to run on Boxing Day. But then so many people started travelling by car, that almost no-one was using the trains.

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London Transport - when they stopped running the Underground on Christmas Day (I remember when I could and did use the tube on Christmas Day) - had just a skeleton service on Boxing Day for a time. But they've long since brought it up to more like normal Bank Holiday levels. But still no tubes (or buses) on Christmas Day!

In the days of InterCity BR ads on TV, one of the ads was something to do with the railways being the routes of Britain, I think it was a pun on roots, with a picture of Britain with railway lines like roots, or something like that. Anyway, the wording on the ad was something like, "Every day, the railways connect ..." whatever it was - the operative words being "every day". But since they didn't run any trains at all on Christmas Day (which frustrated me), I complained to the relevant advertising regulator that the ad was untrue saying every day. They upheld the complaint and told BR not to use the wording again.

swills said:

That just shows how stupid Charlton FC are then ! no sympathy at all

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I can’t work out if this is a serious response or not...

6Gman said:

But they can't fit all the engineering into the few weeks between the end of one season and the start of the next one!

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But it's their choice WHEN and WHERE engineering work takes place, they could have done work elsewhere on the network this weekend for example. After all you wouldn't schedule work on the Brighton main line when Pride was on for example (and yes I know that's a bigger event)

Yes I'm having a whinge, but then having endured years of weekend engineering work impacting the service, whether the London Bridge rebuild or the Abbey Wood Crossrail rebuild, plus the Thameslink fiasco knocking out one of its trains all last season AND Southeastern regularly putting on 4 car Networkers after matches I feel I've suffered quite enough

Mikey C said:

But it's their choice WHEN and WHERE engineering work takes place, they could have done work elsewhere on the network this weekend for example.

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Not necessarily. I don't know what the actual work was, of course, but it's certainly possible that it required certain machinery which will be in use on other works at other times. Or a set of points in particularly bad condition were being replaced, and the new set had just been delivered. These are just examples, there are plenty of reasons why work can't just be postponed.

Mikey C said:

But it's their choice WHEN and WHERE engineering work takes place, they could have done work elsewhere on the network this weekend for example.

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Then those people would probably be complaining. You can't please everyone all of the time and if you want an efficient 24/7 railway then you are going to have to put up with the necessary maintenance from time to time. Sometimes it will affect you, sometimes it wont...such is life.

Mikey C said:

But it's their choice WHEN and WHERE engineering work takes place, they could have done work elsewhere on the network this weekend for example. After all you wouldn't schedule work on the Brighton main line when Pride was on for example (and yes I know that's a bigger event)

Yes I'm having a whinge, but then having endured years of weekend engineering work impacting the service, whether the London Bridge rebuild or the Abbey Wood Crossrail rebuild, plus the Thameslink fiasco knocking out one of its trains all last season AND Southeastern regularly putting on 4 car Networkers after matches I feel I've suffered quite enough

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At the risk of going over old ground here, the process starts over 2 years out. NR routes will be looking at 2022 access already. The Engineering Access Statement for 2021 comes out in the Autumn which is constructed with all the TOC/FOCs. The confirmed period possession plan/CPPP is 26 weeks out (before any fixtures would have been released), operators bid their STP timetable 18 weeks out (before any fixtures would have been released), 12 weeks out tickets are meant to be on sale (before any fixtures would have been released). Resources are also dealt with a long way out. I don't believe you are suggesting that NR and operators wait until the 20th of June (this year) for fixtures to be released before we wonder what to do or to contemplate shifting or cancelling work? There were 41 home teams over the weekend just gone, who do we prioritise?

I hear all that has been said here, but a couple of years back I had the delightful experience of being on a train full of Millwall supporters returning to London from Gillingham. There were police officers on the train and at the major stations en route, and one of those police officers said to me that the police "would not allow" a replacement bus service to be in operation on the day of this match or a handful of other Gillingham fixtures.

Was he talking out of his helmet, or do the police occasionally put pressure on the railway industry to postpone engineering works if they consider that a public order issue might arise?

MedwayValiant said:

I hear all that has been said here, but a couple of years back I had the delightful experience of being on a train full of Millwall supporters returning to London from Gillingham. There were police officers on the train and at the major stations en route, and one of those police officers said to me that the police "would not allow" a replacement bus service to be in operation on the day of this match or a handful of other Gillingham fixtures.

Was he talking out of his helmet, or do the police occasionally put pressure on the railway industry to postpone engineering works if they consider that a public order issue might arise?

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The Police have next to no say in engineering works.

The police pretty much have a veto over allowing football matches but I'd be very surprised about them having much say on engineering works.

Writing as a football fan, I think it has to be on the leagues, clubs and FA to work around engineering if necessary and not the other way round. Football matches are unpredictable beasts: they're subject to postponement based on progression in different competitions, subject to quite significant variations in attendance based on success of a club or popularity of a manager/owner, and their relative importance is unpredictable, particularly in the latter half of the season. Their impact is very variable too: 17,000 people attending an event in London is not that remarkable, but it can overload a smaller town or a place at the end of transport networks, so any fixed set of rules for matches is hard to implement. Football matches are quite flexibly scheduled too: for a club in the Championship with a 46 game season, there should be sufficient flexibility to arrange matches in a way to avoid most clashes with other events or engineering work. They can be moved between Saturdays and Sundays if needed, and there are many vacant midweek slots in the season too.

Of course it is always the railway's fault as far as the press are concerned.

Digresing slightly what is happening to engineering closures (and potential new clashes) with the last minute change to the May Day bank holiday?

Mikey C said:

A bit annoying that engineering works decimated the service to Charlton yesterday - just 2 an hour instead of the usual 8 with no service via Greenwich - for our first home game of the season, especially as being back in the Championship our crowds are larger and more away fans will be going (Stoke yesterday).

Yes football isn't the main criteria in scheduling engineering works, but they have had all summer to do it! Or could have picked a Saturday when we're not at home

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So why was it not arranged for the first game to be an away game ? I am sure it was not beyond the capabilites of the F.A ?

mmh said:

The FA have nothing to do with the scheduling of Spurs's league games at Wembley, beyond that they own it and if there's an american football match or concert scheduled it obviously isn't available for them, but won't be unused.

With very few exceptions, the blame should be with the premier league. If Tottenham weren't doing so well, almost every game would be a Saturday afternoon. They have done well, so they're on telly all the time with the disruption that causes.

Then you could blame Tottenham themselves for still playing at Wembley. Lots of their supporters do!

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shouldn't be NR or ToC's job to marshall people to/from events.

if the events are that big then the FA/Concert promoter etc should charter services to cope with expected footfall.

NR's job is to make sure that a slot or two is available in recipient stations(at a time of their choosing)