Bank Holiday Moan-athon

[D1009]

Has GW and SWT bulked up their services to the West Country this weekend? With Exeter Chiefs at Twickenham (Today), Cornwall Rugby at Twickers tomorrow and Plymouth Argyle at Wembley on Monday, and Radio 1s Big Weekend happening the other way at Exeter - and the fine weather bringing beach goers out, it's a busy weekend between London Padd / Waterloo and the West Country! Let alone it being a Bank Holiday weekend!

Well the combination of all that and the closure of the Filton triangle for resignalling did cause a very long queue on the M5 yesterday which delayed the replacement buses. When I say long I mean from Thornbury to Weston Super Mare.

 

[BRblue]

Ah for the days when a Friday was White Saver day.

Mind you, BR did also have some ability to run reliefs. Hire in some stock from another sub-sector (or even sector) and I guess with the way pay was back then you'd have a decent group of Drivers and Guards up for some rest day working.

And you might even have a TOC that cared about their customers and staff, that they made sure that staff levels were sufficient so that RDW was not relied on in the first place.

 

[jimm]

And you might even have a TOC that cared about their customers and staff, that they made sure that staff levels were sufficient so that RDW was not relied on in the first place.

You can have all the staff you like, but if there aren't actually lots of spare trains sitting around in sidings doing nothing - there aren't - then staffing levels are neither here nor there. As I have already noted, GWR did run reliefs on Friday and I should think the only GWR HSTs not working on Friday afternoon and early evening were in a workshop undergoing programmed heavy maintenance or at Kilmarnock for refurbishment.

 

[Sleepy]

W



I don't know where this significant number of people taking Fridays off before bank holidays are but it certainly isn't anywhere in the Thames Valley. A Saturday service? As John McEnroe used to say, you cannot be serious - or maybe you are?

GWR did run extra HSTs to the West Country on Friday (1434 to Plymouth, 1933 to Penzance, plus the regular Friday extensions of two HSTs from Exeter to Plymouth), same as they do ahead of every bank holiday, with basically everything that can run being pressed into service. And not everyone wants to go to the West Country - oddly enough, GWR trains to Bristol, South Wales, the Cotswolds/Worcester/Hereford are also very busy on the Friday before a bank holiday...



.

Certainly very noticeable drop in peak hour commuters on GEML on Fridays prior to bank hol. weekend, perhaps the hard working Thames Valley commuters don't go for long weekends away ?

 

[jimm]

Certainly very noticeable drop in peak hour commuters on GEML on Fridays prior to bank hol. weekend, perhaps the hard working Thames Valley commuters don't go for long weekends away ?

Some might - but the idea that any fall-off in commuter numbers is on a scale that suddenly creates some bonanza of empty rolling stock that GWR can send somewhere else on the Friday afternoon is laughable. All it means is that more people get a seat on the commuter services where they might usually have to stand.

Even if you were to try to use Turbos on the Cotswold Line instead of an HST you run up against a couple of problems - lots of people also go to the Cotswolds, Worcestershire and Herefordshire for a bank holiday, more than making up for any drop-off in Friday commuting, and Turbos don't have selective doors, so you can't run a six-car formation in passenger service west of Oxford (unless it runs non-stop to Worcester) and a five-car can only fit on a few intermediate stations, so a 250-seat Class 166 or a 280-seat Class 180 won't exactly cut it as adequate replacements for a full eight-car, high-density HST.

A popular FGW trick in recent years when Christmas Eve fell at the start of the week was to run a Saturday timetable, which, in the case of the Cotswold Line, means lots of three-car Turbos in use. Guess what happened? West London commuting-type loads well past Oxford, with the added joy of lots of heavy luggage...

 

[PHILIPE]

Another trick of GWR is to cancel trains for events, i.e. Cheltenham Races and Glastonbury when they cancel the Paddington to Cardiffs and return to provide HSTs.

 

[theageofthetra]

No Chinese railways don't cope very well around New Year or Golden Week, but as they are the largest movement of people on earth that isn't surprising. Outside these times knowing how busy a service is seems very sensible and see no reason why we don't have it.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

The Chinese have a very different outlook on life which stems fro a different upbringing, education and socio-economic acceptance of right and wrong. Consequentially their behaviour and attitude within their society is very different compared to the western world. In some respects that is a good thing to their society and culture, whereas we enjoy different aspects within ours

 

[AnonymousUser1]

first world problems threads eh ...

 

[talltim]

The only railway I've seen this weekend had no trains, and the track has been removed since last time I was there...
The canal alongside however had been extended a fair way and has a nice new lock.
Ironically the ex railway passes under a 5-ish year old road bridge, no doubt built at huge expense.

 

[jimm]

No Chinese railways don't cope very well around New Year or Golden Week, but as they are the largest movement of people on earth that isn't surprising. Outside these times knowing how busy a service is seems very sensible and see no reason why we don't have it.

What difference is it going to make 'knowing' how busy a service is? It really shouldn't be too hard to work out that trains leaving London in the early evening on a Friday are going to be busy, never mind if it's a bank holiday weekend. Just because someone has a seat reservation doesn't actually mean they are going to turn up and use it, does it? A no reservation, no travel rule is likely to result in trains leaving with empty seats - just watch people moan if that happens...

 

[Master29]

Was on a XC HST to Bristol yesterday. Same old story. Families with kids and no reserved seats. What the hell do people expect.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What difference is it going to make 'knowing' how busy a service is?

You might choose a different one instead. A number of commuter TOCs provide this info already - need to get it into planners.


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[gimmea50anyday]

Perhaps the need for some TOCs to pre book and reserve the entire train should be stopped. By all means yield manage and offer deals but not every single seat!

 

[Harpers Tate]

Was on a XC HST to Bristol yesterday. Same old story. Families with kids and no reserved seats. What the hell do people expect.

What they expect (and I'm not necessarily claiming it's reasonable) is that the Railway will cater properly for predictable demand shifts. The public have no concept of the lack of "spare" resource in the Railway, and arguably if miles of sidings hadn't been allowed to rot, and rakes and rakes of perfectly adequate (if not old) coaches and traction hadn't been thrown away but had been retained for just such events.......but, hey - we are where we are. Lesson for the future? I wonder if it will be learned.

And don't get me started on the lack of adequate provision for luggage inside. On opening a door on an a northbound VTEC electric on Friday morning, I would have had to step over a huge pile of suitcases to get on. It is to be hoped (but not really expected) that as new franchises appear and as new stock is built, number of seats is not the only factor to be considered. "Keep your luggage in sight at all times" is all too often quite literally impossible to achieve. 4-bay seating, in preference to the airline layout, offers luggage space between seat backs and doesn't have to hugely affect capacity. (For the record - I do not see rationing luggage allowances as any kind of answer. It should be expected that some travellers will want to bring belongings with them).

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Luggage racks cost money tho, the cost is the space that could yield more seats. They don't see the cost benefit that comes with it . Same with catering provision, the cost of providing the service and the space taken up by the trolley storage or the servery counter isn't compared to the benefit the service provides.

The only real answer is an overall expansion of the size of the trains. Operators are still welded to the idea of running more trains which the track capacity can't handle rather than running longer trains which we actually need. That thinking is beginning to improve however but capacity improvements are still rather reactive and not pro-active which the railway really needs

 

[ScouserGirl]

Luggage racks cost money tho, the cost is the space that could yield more seats. They don't see the cost benefit that comes with it . Same with catering provision, the cost of providing the service and the space taken up by the trolley storage or the servery counter isn't compared to the benefit the service provides.

The only real answer is an overall expansion of the size of the trains. Operators are still welded to the idea of running more trains which the track capacity can't handle rather than running longer trains which we actually need. That thinking is beginning to improve however but capacity improvements are still rather reactive and not pro-active which the railway really needs

It is okay saying lets have longer trains but how do these longer trains fit into the platform? Take tones for example a HST cannot fit fully onto the platform! Even at Paddington a HST is on the end of the platform..

 

[gimmea50anyday]

OkA couple of hears ago TPE introduced 5 trains per hour Leeds to Manchester using 3 car 185's. With 160 standard seats per set (2x70 + 1x20 not counting flip or 1st) that's about 800 seats per hour approx. Now, by adding an additional standard carriage giving another 70 seats that's 230 seats. That would give 4 trains per hour 920 seats. That's 120 seats more in less trains with less operating costs etc. Put those trains into a 5tph timetable, 1150 seats. 350 more seats per hour. A huge improvement on a route that would desperately need and quickly use up that capacity.

Granted some routes would need significant infrastructure improvements in order to accomodate longer trains but there are many that don't or otherwise need little improvement. The problem remains the lack of trains having cutback and pared off as much as possible to bring costs down which is now showing to have been a false economy. The situation is however improving but we are still some 30 years behind other European countries, largely thanks to successive governments seeing the railways as a subsidy whereas roads are an investment.

Look at the channel tunnel. The French built a HS line direct to Paris. What did we do? Sent the TMST down a congested commuter line into a temporary terminus and built a motorway! We should have built HS1 back then but it took a further 20 years. By now we should have a WCML, ECML, Great Western, TPE and bristol-BHM-York HS routes up and running with glasgow-Edinburgh and a cross midlands routes under construction. Yet we are still dithering over one route which is in danger of being constructed on the wrong route making expansion almost impossible!

 

[deltic]

The people I have sympathy for are those who did have reserved seats but were unable to board their trains due to crowding. Appear to have been a number of examples on ECML on Saturday. How many TOCs operate crowd control at London termini around bank holidays?

 

[jimm]

You might choose a different one instead. A number of commuter TOCs provide this info already - need to get it into planners.

Really? From Paddington to the West Country on a Friday (any Friday, not just the one just gone) the 'different' train is also going to be rammed - so where exactly does having that information get you? In your car and stuck in the giant tailback there was last Friday on the M25 instead...?

Perhaps the need for some TOCs to pre book and reserve the entire train should be stopped. By all means yield manage and offer deals but not every single seat!

GWR do not block reserve their trains. I'm sure one of the staff posting here can remind us which coach(es) are always left unreserved on HSTs.

What they expect (and I'm not necessarily claiming it's reasonable) is that the Railway will cater properly for predictable demand shifts. The public have no concept of the lack of "spare" resource in the Railway, and arguably if miles of sidings hadn't been allowed to rot, and rakes and rakes of perfectly adequate (if not old) coaches and traction hadn't been thrown away but had been retained for just such events.......but, hey - we are where we are. Lesson for the future? I wonder if it will be learned.

Lesson from the past.

The Beeching Report contained an analysis of the large sum of money it cost to keep lots of spare coaches sitting around, compared with what they actually earned on the few days they were used each year. And those were pretty basic coaches that did not have fancy stuff like air conditioning on them to keep operational, assuming you are referring to Mk2s.

 

[Iskra]

The people I have sympathy for are those who did have reserved seats but were unable to board their trains due to crowding. Appear to have been a number of examples on ECML on Saturday. How many TOCs operate crowd control at London termini around bank holidays?

This happened to me twice on Saturday on VTEC. Booked months ago with a group of 8, couldn't even get on the train in standard class due to the amount of football fans. Ended up just taking any available seat in 1st, the conductor never came round though so 8 of us got a free upgrade each way (I would have been happy to pay for weekend 1st). I feel sorry for those with less railway nous who had to stand/sit in the vestibules or aisleways for 3 hours each way (train took longer due to engineering works).

VTEC was a disaster on Saturday. Did they run any extra services at all? It should have been obvious it was going to be busy with Hull vs Wednesday at Wembley.

In fairness, the train back was so rammed that they converted an ECS move into a service train to Leeds to provide some capacity uplift, but it was too little too late. I think BTP may have been involved in that decision, as they looked aghast at how busy the 2156 was.

 

[plymothian]

GWR do not block reserve their trains. I'm sure one of the staff posting here can remind us which coach(es) are always left unreserved on HSTs.

E and/or F, and at least half of the priority seats in each coach are not generally reservable.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

I was pass ride on a VTEC service which was full and standing throughout, even through first class. Guard admitted he couldnt get through beyond the buffet car and couldnt carry out his duties. Think VTEC were running less than normal due to engineering works, this combined with the WCML closure north of Lancaster which meant everyone was travelling on one route already at capacity plus the additional loadings of the holiday week.

Perhaps the running of additional wcml services as queue busters on the ecml (pendos have traversed the ecml on successful test runs) and the extension of TPE services beyond newcastle as has been done before would have helped. Of course the issue being track capacity then rears it's ugly head.

 

[Master29]

What they expect (and I'm not necessarily claiming it's reasonable) is that the Railway will cater properly for predictable demand shifts.

A good point but then that`s why certain TOC`s use a reservation system that was in use during BR and probably before this. I do agree that provision should be made for perhaps relief trains as in the days of BR.

As for provision saying that some people will always take loads with them, why is it up to the TOC`s to cater for that?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

E and/or F, and at least half of the priority seats in each coach are not generally reservable.

E is reservable now I think

 

[plymothian]

It is, if required, so not always.
E is usually that last coach to be reserved.

 

[Philip Elliott]

The only railway I've seen this weekend had no trains, and the track has been removed since last time I was there...
The canal alongside however had been extended a fair way and has a nice new lock.
Ironically the ex railway passes under a 5-ish year old road bridge, no doubt built at huge expense.

Chesterfield area (Staveley) ???

 

[Andrewlong]

The people I have sympathy for are those who did have reserved seats but were unable to board their trains due to crowding. Appear to have been a number of examples on ECML on Saturday. How many TOCs operate crowd control at London termini around bank holidays?

The trick is to get along the platform and onto the train as soon as the train is announced at the departure station. Trouble is the Bank holiday traveller often appears late as they have luggage and family in tow and they are not as familiar with coach numbers and the 'art' of getting on a train as commuters are. I can't speak for Paddington on a bank holiday weekend but catching a West Country train on a summer Friday evening is equally challenging - even more so if the train is running late and no reservation tickets have been added!

 

[infobleep]

If it's not financiallly possible to have extra coaches, you more be done to discourage people from using trains? I'm only talking about area where people cannot physically board trains.

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[duncanp]

Can we get extra points for mentioning the EU referendum?

ie. How much better trains in the UK would be if we remained in/left the EU.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If it's not financiallly possible to have extra coaches, you more be done to discourage people from using trains? I'm only talking about area where people cannot physically board trains.

The usual way is to increase fares. In particular there is, if you are managing capacity, it makes no sense for there to be ANY off peak period on Friday evening nor Sunday afternoon.