Lewes station not served during bonfire night

[Dore & Totley]

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


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.

I've being going to the Arsenal since the 80s and can never remember Arsenal tube being shut, maybe temporarily gates closed to control the crowd.

 

[Llanigraham]

Cardiff Queen St is regularly closed when there are big events at the Principality Stadium.

 

[Meerkat]

Though curiously not Brockham, which is well served by public transport including special bus services and is a great experience!

Certainly. My point was simply that if one wants a traditional Sussex bonfire experience there are options to do so without making things hard for policing at Lewes.

I wonder do they also ask hotels to close?

Brockham is very much in Surrey rather than Sussex, as I understand it is just normal bonfire/fireworks but on a big scale, nothing like the event in Lewes.

 

[Oxfordblues]

As a cyclist I would favour accessing Lewes via Sustrans Route 90: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/21904

 

[infobleep]

I’m waiting in anticipation for the annual ‘why are there no trains on Christmas Day / Boxing Day‘ thread.
That is the official start of the festive season.

I am feeling an urge to wish you a Happy Christmas.

The thing is, I am not sure that acceptable. The public sinks a great deal of public money into the railways - and rightly so as it can be a very efficient means of transport - which means closing it just because quite a few taxpayers wish to use the service isn't really acceptable. Moreover, it is totally unnecessary when increased staffing would enable effective crowd control and a little flexibility from the railway might even mean the opportunity for more and/or longer trains.

The only more costly solution would be to bring in ID cards or some sort of verification that only allows people who live within an x radius of said stations to use them after x time and anyone caught trying to go there or alight will be dealt with accordingly by the police.

That's not practical.

 

[Class 170101]

The only more costly solution would be to bring in ID cards or some sort of verification that only allows people who live within an x radius of said stations to use them after x time and anyone caught trying to go there or alight will be dealt with accordingly by the police.

That's not practical.

And anyone with personal business on that day can be told to sod off by the police??? Good luck with that one.

 

[norbitonflyer]

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.
doing work then is when it disrupts the fewest people, and causes the lowest revenue loss.

But who knows how many people would travel by rail on those dates if large parts of the network were not closed?

 

[zwk500]

But who knows how many people would travel by rail on those dates if large parts of the network were not closed?

Discussion of Christmas is something of a red herring because that's about the least disruptive times for engineering work as well as staff availability over the holiday, neither of which are issues for Lewes Bonfire.

 

[Bald Rick]

But who knows how many people would travel by rail on those dates if large parts of the network were not closed?

Large parts of the network are not closed on those dates. That‘s a myth. And those parts that are closed are not closed every year, far from it.

So to answer your question - the revenue teams of the operators (and GBR) know.

 

[Starmill]

This is not the only example of rail being the transport option that lets you down if a lot of people happen to want to use it. Flexible and responsive it isn't.

It's a little bit deeper than this isn't it? In a way the whole town is being "let down" because ordinary business has to be suspended for a day. But that's the price of these kinds of traditions. Mostly the townspeople want to keep these things going, even though it means they basically can't go to London, or elsewhere, that day. Or they stay away for the night if the whole thing isn't for them. Nobody would ever move to Lewes and not know about the bonfires.

 

[zero]

And anyone with personal business on that day can be told to sod off by the police??? Good luck with that one.

I was told to sod off by the police in a similar situation, had to spend 2 hours with the rest of the diverted traffic instead of getting home in 5 minutes. Was partially my fault as there was a warning sign on the road that I didn't believe, had I believed the sign I would have driven another route that would have taken perhaps 30 minutes.

 

[The exile]

Reminds me of the English fella who was working in Germany and was invited for Christmas lunch by some colleagues. He asked how he could get there as he had no car. They looked at him strangely and said just take the train. Whether this still applies with DB's current troubles I don't know.
I recollect London Transport running buses until about 16:00 on Christmas Day in the late 1950s and Southern were running some Boxing Day services recently. Can't say what the situation has been in recent years.

This could be countered by the story of the Englishman who arrived in Germany at lunchtime on a Saturday and discovered that (by law) nowhere was open to buy basic foodstuffs until Monday morning. It’s improved since that nearly happened to me in 1988, but still remarkably restricted by UK standards.

 

[Merle Haggard]

This could be countered by the story of the Englishman who arrived in Germany at lunchtime on a Saturday and discovered that (by law) nowhere was open to buy basic foodstuffs until Monday morning. It’s improved since that nearly happened to me in 1988, but still remarkably restricted by UK standards.

About the same year I visited Denmark to travel on all the train-ferries. The last one on the list was Helsingor to Helsingborg, which I did on Saturday - to find on arrival Sweden was 'closed' .
A memorable irony was that my companion was unable to buy his chosen mini-cigars - 'Hamlet' - on the ferry.

 

[Mag_seven]

I think we are done here - until next year.