Seems to me the ubiquitous and often not too badly priced HolidayPremierLodge chains have made things easier in many cases as there’s no need to worry about rushing to catch the last train. Enjoy the game, have something to eat and then go watch the highlights on the TV in your comfortable hotel room!
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Football fans "shunted out by train bosses"
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Grumpy Git
On Moderation
Yes, both Travelodge and Premier Inn have both have a habit of having plenty of rooms at £5 a night on FA Cup semi-final days - NOT.
Even for a run of the mill Championship game, I'm looking at a minimum cost of TWICE as much for a home mid-week game than one on a Saturday as the last train is 21:05.
I'm sure they do it on purpose? No trains from London after 21:10 to Liverpool.
WOW, moving half the population of Liverpool a couple of hundred miles to watch a game of football is just bonkers. The only other time we would shift numbers of people like that is war evacuations. Just ridiculous.
Grumpy Git
On Moderation
Indeed, you couldn't make crap like this up, people wouldn't believe it.
I was referring to Hull, not a cup semi. But now you mention it, the semis are in London and that means you can get to any hotel in the south east of England after the game which does open up your price options quite a lot! Travelodge in Dagenham anyone?
pinkmarie80
Member
Couldn’t agree more, I’ve witnessed many race goers on their way to Cheltenham on a Friday and Saturday morning and there’s a lot of drinking going on leading to rowdy behaviour by 11am. It’s a national embarrassment really (for Wales as that’s where they were travelling from). Stag and hen parties are a pain in the bum too so let’s not pretend it’s just football fans who cause problems.
I live in Leicester and I was once chatting to the staff member at Leicester station who was doing my assistance onto the train. He told me that Leicester Tigers (rugby) fans cause more problems than Leicester City fans! One of the worst and scariest overcrowded trains/platforms I’ve ever seen was at Coventry Arena train station after a Wasps match at the Ricoh. Ridiculous amount of people trying to cram onto a shortish platform and one carriage train. Being disabled has its perks in that the security made everyone wait while I got on safely and sat down but the amount of people was pretty frightening. It’s not just football as previously mentioned- it’s all kind of sports that can cause issues on the railway.
Right. Network Rail is currently planning the detail of engineering work for the timespan December 2021 to December 2022.
Which routes to which football stadia should be avoided on which weekends in that period?
Mrs. Fortescue
On Moderation
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Wow, lots of mass generalisation here from a load of train watching, anorak wearing weirdos.
(See, not nice to generalise, is it?!)
(See, not nice to generalise, is it?!)
Mrs. Fortescue
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Passengers turning up to use the railway is a nuisance?! hahahahah that's a new one on me.
For what its worth, I see far more nonsense, abuse, vandalism and anti social behaviour on a Friday and Saturday night on trains, than I ever do on the way home from the match.
That doesn't fit your agenda, though, does it?
Bantamzen
Established Member
Well done for skilfully avoiding a form of transport somewhere between cars & trains. Here's what happens when many, many football clubs the length & breadth of the country get thrown a tie a considerable distance from home. They research. Is the journey possible by train? Do we want to drive? Could we (wait for it) hire a coach? Oh there we go, there's another option, hire coaches. You see many away games are not easy or cost effective to reach by train. So fans use other means, including hiring coaches, buses, mini-buses. It has happened for decades, so I fail to understand why a club & it's fans like Chelsea can't do what so many other clubs do literally all the time. Alternatively some fans eager to go to Hull could book a hotel in Hull, or indeed many other towns and cities in the area and travel by train. In fact I'm sure the extra income to local economies would welcome the boost.
As others have said, this is a none story.
We still have Footex, athough not called that now, When West Ham are at home, GA changes the timetable to accommodate as best they can, as for Merrymakers, they were good and cheap (loss making for BR), but they were fun, no good for getting anywhere at a specific time, as they were routed the 'pretty way' normally, and took hours !
So Network Rail and the TOC's plan Engineering from 3 years out, so what it needs then is for the F.A to provide Network Rail, with all their plans for matches and where they will be , so now for instance, the FA need to be telling NR where all the big cup games etc will be played in 2023, that can't be too hard for them....can it ?
If they put it forward to 3am then they might just get back.
Aictos
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We still have Footex, athough not called that now, When West Ham are at home, GA changes the timetable to accommodate as best they can, as for Merrymakers, they were good and cheap (loss making for BR), but they were fun, no good for getting anywhere at a specific time, as they were routed the 'pretty way' normally, and took hours !
So Network Rail and the TOC's plan Engineering from 3 years out, so what it needs then is for the F.A to provide Network Rail, with all their plans for matches and where they will be , so now for instance, the FA need to be telling NR where all the big cup games etc will be played in 2023, that can't be too hard for them....can it ?
brilliant!
underbank
Established Member
Isn't this just Londoners, who are accustomed to brilliant public transport and love to virtue-signal about selfish road users, getting a taste of the reality of public transport outside London, i.e. what the majority of people have to put up with?
This is the issue, IMO - the reason why coaches work for things like football matches is that the road network has spare capacity. There are pleny of coaches that can be hired in, and the coach operators can have confidence that there will be a route available to get from wherever the supporters are being picked up to wherever the match is.
The rail network has been optimised within an inch of its' life to run the normal timetable with the bare minimum of resources, and as a result has very little flexibility for diversions or additional workings. This makes sense in the British governmental mindset that costs must be minimised, and therefore assets employed as close to 100% of the time as possible. Anything that isn't being used in this way is wasteful.
If the road transport system was run in this way, a lot of inefficiently utilised stock (buses, coaches, private cars) could be got rid of. And many roads could be reduced to only one or two lanes or closed entirely - look at all those duplicate routes, how wasteful! No wonder the roads are empty all of the time! And since safety is paramount, no single lane closures or contraflow working: if there are roadworks being done then the whole road has to be shut. The country would grind to a standstill in days, more likely hours, if you tried to run it like this. The railways only get away with their total lack of flexibility because the road system is there to handle anything that's difficult or expensive to deal with.
Y Ddraig Coch
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Do love how many on here are always trying to promote the railways and get people out of cars onto the trains and this thread as it doesn't suit they are complaining people want to use trains and suggesting they all use coaches instead. couldn't make it up.
underbank
Established Member
Yes, my point exactly. The railways need to up their game massively if we're going to be serious about reducing car/road use. Just because London has good public transport and night-time services doesn't mean it's remotely feasible for people living in the regions in smaller cities, towns, etc. Something is seriously wrong when the railways don't start early enough in the morning for people living along, say, the Carnforth to Barrow line, to be able to get to Manchester Airport in time for the peak morning flight period. When this is mentioned, the railway insiders just spout the usual "go the night before" or "drive" - they are blind to the inherent problems of a railway network that is run more for the benefit of the staff than for the paying customer.
Aictos
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Yet as been pointed out before NR is planning engineering works 3 to 4 years ahead so what’s stopping the FA from supplying dates or retiming the games?
Answer: nothing, they’re blind to being responsible for the safe passage of their fans and only care about the money.
Answer: nothing, they’re blind to being responsible for the safe passage of their fans and only care about the money.
Extremely over dramatic. Road coaches are the obvious choice for transporting away fans - door to door, easier to police.
Romsey
Member
About 10 years ago Brighton and Hove Albion used to check with the engineering works planners at Waterloo, then try to get league matches which clashed with engineering works swapped around. The FA didn't like it as it disrupted their schedules, sorry sale of TV rights.....
The information is out there as the Engineering Access Statement is available on line in the depths of the NWR web site.
The Planner
Veteran Member
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The FA do that though, as does the Rugby (both union and league), London Marathon, Notting Hill carnival, Commonwealth Games, the list goes on. The issue is what the definition of important event is. If it is the Little Snottingham by the sea village fete then they are going to struggle. Most NR routes won't block on big events unless it is agreed across all parties. As much as many people think, we cannot just impose blocks on TOC/FOCs and say "tough"
DarloRich
Veteran Member
Livestock checking in. Just a couple of quick questions?
Who is going to drive these cow taxis? What about Sunday games. Would this be inside the working week or without? Would the FA employ the staff? Would the clubs? What happens if the game is outside of the FA jurisdiction? What happens if the game is in Scotland and Pacers are not allowed? What about tickets? Would the club sell them or could I get them at the station? Would it just be away fans or could anyone get them? Would it be one train per club or could we have some kind of route dropping people off? Would the toilets be accessible? Will there be wifi so i can talk to others about the game? Will there be a beer trolley?
This is a bit of a minefield!
Could we, perhaps, find a bit of a grip? Just put coaches on as happens EVERY weekend!
Pretty much, There's a narrow platform with steps leading up to some turnstiles, on the other side of which is a tunnel (from memory about 5 metres wide) down the side of the stadium. After the game the fans would queue in that tunnel to get onto the platform. I think the services stopped after the stadium expanded, so there were more fans circulating around the ground after the game and presumably someone decided that there was a risk of overcrowding in the tunnel.
Yes. When I first used the service (30ish years ago) it was just a shuttle service between Oxford Road and the football ground, but when I last used it (15 years ago) there were services from wider around - I used to occasionally catch the train between the ground and Stockport.
So how many people do you think would use such a service if it were laid on? Would it make anything like enough to cover its costs? To give you a clue, the answer is no, not remotely... So if it isn't covering its costs, who should pay for it?
Even London isn't that great, being consistently 20 years behind meeting capacity needs since the late 1980s, and only catching up briefly because of dispersal. It beats the 30+ years behind for most of the rest of the country, though most of the third-tier cities have enough road capacity they can muddle along until someone can un-wreck provincial bus networks, at the cost of having traffic approaching as bad as London's or Birmingham's.
Until we can get politicians to adopt Predict and Provide for public transport the way they try to do now for roads, asset sweating is going to be the norm and there's little hope of providing for these kind of irregular flows, or all sorts of environmentally and socially desirable services (especially freight). The best that could be managed is XC putting HSTs or long voyager formations on potentially busy services, but diagramming is much tighter today than even 20 years ago and there's more difficulty with route/traction knowledge.
Still, there is some hope for home crowds, if the extra transport powers for cities with devolved powers and elected mayors (a rant for another time and place) turn out as useful as Andy Burnham hopes. I would like to see them given powers like the Adelaide Metro had which required them to run enough free services for attendees to prevent large events causing traffic or drunk driving problems, but empowered them to bill the event organiser for the extra subsidy required.
EWS and Hertfordshire Railtours kept running services under the Merrymaker brand after privatisation, with assorted Mk1s and whatever locos were convenient, though I can't remember how prices compared to when BR ran them. I presume with the right accounting they were profitable (especially with Mk1s available on the cheap and with low VTAC), but the cost of PRM modifications, RTTs, and all the other deferred works that will be triggered by the modifications will probably put a big dent in the supply of ex-XC and ex-Anglia Mk2s that would be natural stock for such cheap services today.
Unfortunately, for now the only spare compliant LHCS is some Mk4s, what can be scraped up out of the stored 373s, or dragged de-motored EMUs. Any of those options would require loco modifications or some kind of translator, which makes it a non-starter as it is probably not much cheaper than making a Mk3 compliant.
Regarding their profitability in BR days, I was under the impression that IC's rail tours and charter trains were charged at the marginal cost of operation, but the fixed costs were either lost in general overheads or considered to be part of their insurance against embarrassment that having the spare equipment provided, plus unofficially they provided fodder for future treasury-imposed stock reduction campaigns like the rule that 3 Mk1s had to be scrapped for every 2 Mk3s introduced.
Aictos
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Point I’m trying to make is the works at Kings Cross needs to be done and regardless of it being a FA Cup game or not, the works need to be done.
I just don’t see why the industry needs to be blamed for this.
I just don’t see why the industry needs to be blamed for this.
LOL The Irony
On Moderation
The return football trains are usually dry trains anyways, are they not?
DarloRich
Veteran Member
Answer: It depends on a number of factors. It isnt a given the train will be dry.
I have been on plenty of Virgin trains back form the NW with fans of several clubs on and seen them happily sell beer.
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