Lewes station not served during bonfire night

[dastocks]

Yes, and that highlights the different approaches taken to road and rail -

... except on bonfire night in Lewes because there is no access to the town by road, although the A26 remains open.

 

[TUC]

How are people in Lewes meant to do basic things like get home from work without incurring additional expense?

 

[JonathanH]

How are people in Lewes meant to do basic things like get home from work without incurring additional expense?

Travel earlier, take the day off, work from home. Clearly not all those options are available to everyone but it is one day once a year.

 

[zwk500]

And yet at other times Lewes actively encourages tourism at other times. Perhaps it is more about sustaining a controversial event - politely described as "outdated and chaotic" - which perhaps doesn't stand scrutiny to the broader community.

On a normal day, Lewes gets a handful of coach tours level of tourists. For Bonfire, the town of around 15,000 residents regularly attracts 50,000 visitors, and the behaviour of a lot of out-of-town visitors is comparable to a major horseracing day. I lived in a village 3 miles from Lewes for nearly 20 years, and the trains haven't been serving the town on bonfire night for a long time.

How are people in Lewes meant to do basic things like get home from work without incurring additional expense?

The road closures have been going on as long as I can remember, I remember getting an odd afternoon lesson off as the teacher needed to get beyond Lewes before it got too closed off. It's a thing you know will happen every year if you live in the area and the 5th will be in as many people's calendars to be away from town as it will be for those celebrating.

 

[43066]

How are people in Lewes meant to do basic things like get home from work without incurring additional expense?

The closures have been happening for years, and are well publicised, so they can plan ahead. Other alternatives are presumably to either campaign for the bonfire to be banned in future years, or to move away from the area.

 

[LowLevel]

How are people in Lewes meant to do basic things like get home from work without incurring additional expense?

They can't, any more than I can when I have to make ridiculous arrangements to allow me to get to work when they close off most of the roads in Nottingham once a year for the half marathon. It's once a year, such is life.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

How are people in Lewes meant to do basic things like get home from work without incurring additional expense?

Not everyone residing in Lewes is in some job located away from the town where the only means of getting there, and back again, is by rail. And as others have pointed out in the previous posts, it's a once a year event, and so can be planned around.

 

[sprunt]

Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the railway closing, it does seem a little silly to have a page about an event that you don't want people to visit Lewes for on a website called "Vist Lewes".

 

[JonathanH]

Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the railway closing, it does seem a little silly to have a page about an event that you don't want people to visit Lewes for on a website called "Vist Lewes".

Not really. If people have heard about the bonfire, and are trying to find about it, but the authorities don't want people to go, the tourism website is exactly where you would post that message.

A page on the police or council website is hardly where people are going to find out that information.

 

[sprunt]

Not really. If people have heard about the bonfire, and are trying to find about it, but the authorities don't want people to go, the tourism website is exactly where you would post that message.

Not in the way they've done it though, with paragraphs of text about how great it is and where visitors can find the toilets, which overwhelms the little bit that says "Oh, but don't go."

 

[WesternLancer]

How are people in Lewes meant to do basic things like get home from work without incurring additional expense?

I think the consensus in Lewes would be that any self resecting person should be getting ready to celebrate bonfire on the day and not be at work at all - and if not, they are not really 'true Lewes people...'.

But indeed it is a shame - when I used to go regularly in the 80s and 90s all services called at additional stations outside the town to help people get there and back from surrounding communities, with additional trains run too, with a lot of rolling stock pressed into service where feasible and systems in place at the station to manage queuing etc which all worked well.

However, various non railway official bodies - I expect lead by the police and the local authority - have long wanted the event to be significantly scaled down (and would almost certainly ban it if they thought they could get away with it) because H&S wise its a throwback to another era - big time fire activity on the streets, crowds, random use of fireworks including in the street, pubs open, alcohol etc etc. In these days of risk assessments for events it must be off the scale...

The main cause of crowding in recent years in my opinion wasn't people coming from large areas like south London, but much more increase in people from Brighton area as the population increased, student numbers in Falmer increased in the 2000s etc - with a lot of people coming because they had heard of it but not really knowing what they were letting themselves in for and you'd often see people somewhat shocked at aspects of the event. the Bonfire societies that organise the event don't care if such people can't come because they don't directly make much money from attendance spectators I don't think. Indeed I've heard it said that they would organise the event anyway even if no one came to view it.

But the railways always managed their part of it well in the days before train services were suspended.

 

[neilmc]

Is this the only town in the country where you're effectively not allowed in or out of on a specific date?

Local to me is Appleby Horse Fair, a town of a similar size to Lewes with a huge influx of visitors at a specific point, and no efforts have been made to stop trains calling at Appleby, divert buses or close roads into the town as of course Appleby people have to go to work in other towns and vice versa just as people in Lewes do. However the Horse Fair lasts a week and people just have to put up with the unpleasantness, unless of course they make plenty of money from it.

If I lived in Lewes I'd consider it very very poor and an infringement of my liberties.

 

[WesternLancer]

Is this the only town in the country where you're effectively not allowed in or out of on a specific date?

Local to me is Appleby Horse Fair, a town of a similar size to Lewes with a huge influx of visitors at a specific point, and no efforts have been made to stop trains calling at Appleby, divert buses or close roads into the town as of course Appleby people have to go to work in other towns and vice versa just as people in Lewes do. However the Horse Fair lasts a week and people just have to put up with the unpleasantness, unless of course they make plenty of money from it.

If I lived in Lewes I'd consider it very very poor and an infringement of my liberties.

certainly some fair points made there.

I can't believe large numbers can be brought in by Northern's service to Appleby given the typical train lengths of course, so suspending them would have negligible impact I'd think, but the point ref roads is relevant.

You can get into Lewes until about 4 or 5pm IIRC, with a car (no restrictions on foot access and local landowners make cash from letting people park in fields on the outskirts from which you can walk in) and I'd think the roads probably re-open by about 2 or 3am at a guess.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

certainly some fair points made there.

I can't believe large numbers can be brought in by Northern's service to Appleby given the typical train lengths of course, so suspending them would have negligible impact I'd think, but the point ref roads is relevant.

You can get into Lewes until about 4 or 5pm IIRC, with a car (no restrictions on foot access and local landowners make cash from letting people park in fields on the outskirts from which you can walk in) and I'd think the roads probably re-open by about 2 or 3am at a guess.

This is a similar point to the one I made in a previous appearance of this thread - car drivers can still access Lewes reasonably easily on the 5th; train passengers can't. Why the discrimination?

 

[43066]

This is a similar point to the one I made in a previous appearance of this thread - car drivers can still access Lewes reasonably easily on the 5th; train passengers can't. Why the discrimination?

Because they’re looking to reduce overall numbers, and closing the stations is an easy way of achieving that.

There are also local road closures, and fewer casual visitors will wish to circumnavigate those than will be deterred by the train closures, and need to find somewhere to park before getting utterly leathered, and/or blacking themselves up in what many consider a grossly offensive manner, as attendees at the event seem to want to do.

 

[WesternLancer]

There are also local road closures, and fewer casual visitors will wish to circumnavigate those than will be deterred by the train closures, and need to find somewhere to park before getting utterly leathered, and/or blacking themselves up in what many consider a grossly offensive manner, as attendees at the event seem to want to do.

That would be participants not spectators. Participants wouldn’t tend to come by train ime.

 

[Mag_seven]

Another reminder that this thread is for the discussion of the impact on rail of the Lewes bonfire.

 

[cuccir]

It's worth adding that while I can't think of other recurring events where a station on the national rail network is closed, there are plenty of other occasions where events impose similar restrictions on other forms of transport.

Several stations on the Tyne and Wear Metro are closed on the day of the Great North Run. All but one point of road access in and out of South Shields town centre is shut that day too, and the roads, Metro and ferry all get extremely busy (queues measured in hours): if you live in South Shields between the race route and the river or sea you are essentially trapped and unable to travel out or in from home between about 10 and 5 on the day of the run.

When the Leeds festival operates, there are so many restrictions including a partial closure of a motorway junction that this whole page is needed to describe them. I'm sure there are many many other festivals, marathons, events like this which lead to road closures - the thread doesn't need a list of them, except really to make the point that the closures at Lewes around the bonfire while a bit unusual on the rail network, are not that remarkable when transport more widely is considered. Locals know it's coming and will adapt their routines around it, and like these other events visitor numbers are at saturation point so there is no need to keep the network open to attract further tourists.

 

[Bald Rick]

It's worth adding that while I can't think of other recurring events where a station on the national rail network is closed, there are plenty of other occasions where events impose similar restrictions on other forms of transport.

Large events at Coventry’s stadium.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Large events at Coventry’s stadium.

and at the Emirates Stadium - Drayton Park is closed. Ironically, they used to close Arsenal station on match days too.

I don't think it is unreasonable to comment on the railway closing down at a time when the public actually may want to use it. Imagine if they closed the M6 on the Friday before Xmas because it might get a bit busy.

Quite - yet that's exactly what Network Rail does every Christmas "because fewer people are travelling".
The Highways Agency suspends roadworks over Christmas to keep traffic flowing "because more people want to travel"

Both are ultimately the responsibility of the DfT.

 

[8ace]

and at the Emirates Stadium - Drayton Park is closed. Ironically, they used to close Arsenal station on match days too.

Holloway Road is also closed on match days cos it only has lifts.

Preston Park is closed Pride w/e every year.

 

[zwk500]

Quite - yet that's exactly what Network Rail does every Christmas "because fewer people are travelling by train."
The Highways Agency suspends roadworks over Christmas to keep traffic flowing "because more people want to travel by road"

Both are ultimately the responsibility of the DfT.

Fixed that for you. It's really not that hard to work out that over christmas, people who would normally get the trains to work are instead driving to see family for the week.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

Because they’re looking to reduce overall numbers, and closing the stations is an easy way of achieving that.

There are also local road closures, and fewer casual visitors will wish to circumnavigate those than will be deterred by the train closures, and need to find somewhere to park before getting utterly leathered, and/or blacking themselves up in what many consider a grossly offensive manner, as attendees at the event seem to want to do.

People who really want to go will go by car instead of by train because it's easier, even if it does mean driving home after consuming a few (or several pints). I always cycle from Balcombe or whichever stations are available but a 10-mile ride in the dark isn't everyone's cup of tea, of course.
Off topic, but I've been to Lewes Bonfire several times and I've never seen anyone 'blacked up' nor have I witnessed any offensive behaviour, other than that directed at politicians and public figures.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Fixed that for you. It's really not that hard to work out that over christmas, people who would normally get the trains to work are instead driving to see family for the week.

Not at all. Whilst commuter lines are obviously less busy (and could be closed for maintenance over Christmas) longer distance lines are predominatly used by people travelling on personal or family business (which includes visiting relatives for Christmas). "Business" users (ie those travelling on behalf of an employer or client) are a minority even outside holiday periods.

And the demographics most likely to be wanting to travel to visit family over Christmas (the young singles, and the elderly grandparents) are also the least likely to have a car.

 

[D6130]

People who really want to go will go by car instead of by train because it's easier, even if it does mean driving home after consuming a few (or several pints). I always cycle from Balcombe or whichever stations are available but a 10-mile ride in the dark isn't everyone's cup of tea, of course.
Off topic, but I've been to Lewes Bonfire several times and I've never seen anyone 'blacked up' nor have I witnessed any offensive behaviour, other than that directed at politicians and public figures.

When I lived in Lewes (1984-87) members of some of the bonfire societies 'blacked-up'....but this may not be the case now of course. I remember hearing that the late Rev. Ian Paisley had visited Lewes immediately prior to the 1983 celebrations and had delivered a tub-thumping fire & brimstone sermon against pagan rituals in the Jireh chapel in Cliffe. That resulted in his effigy being burned at the following year's bonfire!

 

[WesternLancer]

I remember hearing that the late Rev. Ian Paisley had visited Lewes immediately prior to the 1983 celebrations and had delivered a tub-thumping fire & brimstone sermon against pagan rituals in the Jireh chapel in Cliffe. That resulted in his effigy being burned at the following year's bonfire!

Living locally at the time I recall hearing this (tho didn't actually see it) - including him speaking at the chapel in the Cliffe

FWIW wikipedia states

"In 1981 Ian Paisley visited Lewes on Bonfire Night and tried to fan the flames of conflict by handing out anti-Catholic pamphlets. His intervention back-fired and the following year he was burned in effigy.[12]"

 

[43066]

People who really want to go will go by car instead of by train because it's easier, even if it does mean driving home after consuming a few (or several pints). I always cycle from Balcombe or whichever stations are available but a 10-mile ride in the dark isn't everyone's cup of tea, of course.
Off topic, but I've been to Lewes Bonfire several times and I've never seen anyone 'blacked up' nor have I witnessed any offensive behaviour, other than that directed at politicians and public figures.

That’s true, but those who are prepared to drive and park and either not drink, or potentially drink drive, will be a smaller number than those who would go if they could get the train, but will be deterred if they cannot. Plus it appears the authorities are closing various roads too.

Presumably those from outside the area who want to go will book overnight accommodation in the town, but again this will be self limiting as the town will have a finite supply of B&Bs and hotels.

 

[D6130]

Living locally at the time I recall hearing this (tho didn't actually see it) - including him speaking at the chapel in the Cliffe

FWIW wikipedia states

"In 1981 Ian Paisley visited Lewes on Bonfire Night and tried to fan the flames of conflict by handing out anti-Catholic pamphlets. His intervention back-fired and the following year he was burned in effigy.[12]"

Oh well....I was only a couple of years out! The old memory's not quite what it once was. Thanks for that clarification!

 

[WesternLancer]

That’s true, but those who are prepared to drive and park and either not drink, or potentially drink drive, will be a smaller number than those who would go if they could get the train, but will be deterred if they cannot. Plus it appears the authorities are closing various roads too.

Presumably those from outside the area who want to go will book overnight accommodation in the town, but again this will be self limiting as the town will have a finite supply of B&Bs and hotels.

Your point is correct. You can get there if you want to but the policy is to make it difficult to put people off to reduce crowding danger risks.

Road closures are only on the fringes of the edge of town, and it's not a big place so easy to walk in from those closure points. It's just you can't get near enough to park up on street. Lots of people who would come would be younger people esp students from Brighton direction who wouldn't have cars tho.

I've walked in from fields used for parking near Kingston which is do-able, if a lot less convenient than back in the day when going in on a crowded VEP EMU (pretty sure I recall 4 Sub / EPB or HAP shuttles from Brighton too)

I would suspect getting accommodation in the town is like hens teeth however.

Bonfire society members that are doing the parades who are from bonfire societies in the surrounding towns and villages (which all have their own celebrations on different dates in the run up to and after Nov 5th) come on coaches which presumably have access permitted for the purpose.

 

[Bald Rick]

Quite - yet that's exactly what Network Rail does every Christmas "because fewer people are travelling".
The Highways Agency suspends roadworks over Christmas to keep traffic flowing "because more people want to travel"

Both are ultimately the responsibility of the DfT.

Not at all. Whilst commuter lines are obviously less busy (and could be closed for maintenance over Christmas) longer distance lines are predominatly used by people travelling on personal or family business (which includes visiting relatives for Christmas). "Business" users (ie those travelling on behalf of an employer or client) are a minority even outside holiday periods.

For the avoidance of doubt, the railway has done, and continues to do, on when people travel and when engineerign works should be planned to give the best balance betwee disrupting passengers (and by extension, losing revenue) and additional costs for the engineerign works. I have done some of this personally.

Almost without exception, the quietest days on the various routes on the network are Easter Day, Christmas Eve, Dec 27th and New Year’s Day. The 4 day easter weekend is very quiet on commuter routes, and Easter Saturday is very quiet long distance. The whole Christmas week from Christmas Eve until the first working day in January is quiet.

Yes some people travel, and it so happens that those travelling over the holiday periods are more likely than not to be infrequent / irregular travellers. However doing work then is when it disrupts the fewest people, and causes the lowest revenue loss.

Frankly those delivering big engineering projects (which I have done much myself) would much rather do big engineering works in summer: better chance of good weather, much more daylight, and no need to pay Christmas / bank holiday shift premiums. That would make projects cheaper too. But sometimes there is no alternative but to go for Christmas.