Liverpool Lime Street 25/5 poor crowd control

[bramling]

People were advised well in advance that transport would be very busy and to stagger journeys. As usual no one bothered. So then you have thousands of people appearing at stations at the same time then wondering why they have to queue and complaining about it!
The sheep mentality is very much in evidence here!

Sadly this always seems to be the case on bank holidays. As soon as 1700 comes the collective mentality becomes "must get home NOW and be ready for work tomorrow". As long as we have events on bank holiday Mondays this will be an issue. I've had some pretty frightening road journeys in the evenings on such days, always seem to be far more than the normal share of idiots about. My view tends to be that if people can't be bothered to plan their journeys/lives to avoid chaos then they should stay at home. We can't realistically expect the transport system to pay the costs of meeting such unpredictable and short-term demand spikes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

unpredictable

Eh? They are inherently predictable. This one was announced in advance.

 

[joke2711]

Not often in the mood to defend Merseyrail but travelled from Hoylake to New Brighton via Birkenhead North with no problems and plenty of space both ways. The interesting thing that I noticed was that they appeared to have a fleet of buses at Birkenhead North station as standby in case the network failed. Perhaps they have learnt some lessons from the shambles of the Open Golf Sunday and provided contingency just in case?

 

[55z]

I was in Liverpool Lime Street on Monday when I arrived the car parking area was fenced off to allow for queues. James Street Station closed from 1300, Northern Line platforms at Central closed with staff at the entrance directing passengers, Moorfields Wirral Line platforms closed for refurbishment. Lime Street station is the responsiblity of Network Rail who seem to be more interested in giving passengers audio abuse dont do this you cannot do this etc etc instead of giving passengers the info they really need i.e. train running info which was very poor this morning.

 

[Loop & Link]

Things like this are impossible to plan for because again the crowds were unprecedented we had a better idea after the Giants though, the scale that this event would be.

All Merseyrail services were 6-cars except 1 Ormskirk/Kirkby circuit due to an earlier fault.

On the outstations for example - we had a platform full of passengers and it was impossible to get them on because 6 cars were coming completely full and standing. As the PIC at the station myself and the Duty SM took the decision to stop letting passengers for Liverpool on the station until the crowds started to go down. It wasn't a popular decision and I didn't like doing it, I didn't want to spoil someone day out but there was no alternative - first of all because of safety and there was no point in letting them down to the platform because they wouldn't be able to board!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do Merseyrail now only have enough sets to run a 6-car 30 minute frequency, but not a 15 minute frequency? That was short-sighted.

 

[Loop & Link]

It was a 20 minute frequency on the Northern Line, 15 minutes everywhere else and every 10 minutes on the New Brighton, this was to ensure every service was a 6car.

There are 59 units, with the just the Northern Line alone if it was every 15 mins that would require 36 units! With the 10 minute service on the New Brighton's - something had to give and that was to have the Northern Line every 20 mins.

If you ran every service as a 6-car it would have required 72 units!

 

[8J]

There was also a fleet of standby coaches for Northern by Edge Hill. I thought Merseyrail were poor frankly although they can't exactly charter extra stock like Northern or TPE can. Send the Great Northern 313's to Merseyside I say!!!

 

[GodAtum]

Why where there so many people just to see 3 ships? Where did they all stand? If there where massive queues at the stations, surely there was not enough room along the waterside for everyone to get a view? Did more people turn up here then on new year's eve in London?

 

[Camden]

Why where there so many people just to see 3 ships? Where did they all stand? If there where massive queues at the stations, surely there was not enough room along the waterside for everyone to get a view? Did more people turn up here then on new year's eve in London?

Liverpool is a rather large city with several miles of coastline on either side of the river and, further up, facing the Irish Sea. Think "boat race" in terms of where all the people stood, and yes more people turned up than NYE.

The event was "175 years of Cunard", in their "spirtual home", where 3 vast, world famous vessels, each one bigger than Canary Wharf, met on the river, carried out manoeuvres, had a fly past by the red arrows, and in the evening had fireworks and a 3d lightshow on the famous Liver Building, Cunard Building & Port of Liverpool Building. A weekend of maritime history and gigantic spectacle. Hope that explains!

 

[prod_pep]

Not every service on Monday was six coaches - the West Kirby trains were all threes which is obviously to be expected as it was a 15 minute service, not 20. The three car on the Ormskirk/Kirkby alternators was less palatable but supposedly caused by an earlier fault.

The New Brighton crowds were clearly less than expected after the daytime event - at times the 10 minute service was gross overprovision in direct contrast with the enormous Northern Line queue at Moorfields. I went to use the Wirral Line about 30 minutes after QM2 left Liverpool and there was already no queue at Lime Street and a fairly quiet platform. This was while the Moorfields line stretched hundreds of metres.

It could certainly be argued that the capacity was imbalanced between routes.

 

[melena]

Why where there so many people just to see 3 ships? Where did they all stand?

A, Probably because they have never seen the Queen Mary 2, Elizabeth and Victoria at the same time?
B, On both sides of the river banks.

We caught the train back to Crewe reasonably OK, and passed through the que at lime street fairly quickly. London midland seemed to be sticking to their normal train lengths tho as both trips were on a 4 coach 350 jampacked to the gunwhales.

 

[Camden]

The choices made show clearly that conflicting choices had to be made. No one has a crystal ball. Ideally I'm sure they'd have preferred to be able to run 10 minute frequencies with 6 carriage trains across the network on a day like that, but thems the breaks if you don't have enough trains.

 

[martynbristow]

There was also a fleet of standby coaches for Northern by Edge Hill. I thought Merseyrail were poor frankly although they can't exactly charter extra stock like Northern or TPE can. Send the Great Northern 313's to Merseyside I say!!!

There is a cronic shortage of suitable stock. But you can't just throw anything onto Merseyrail.
The tunnels pose a restriction and so do the underground workings (tripcocks).
Merseyrail and Merseytravel need to get the ****** and decide about the amount of rolling stock needed rather than stick with what they have.
Merseyrail runs on critical levels. Giants, Christmas, major delays, 5pm, Cunnard! The growth in passengers numbers hasn't been matched with increased capacity yet and I think it will bite someone soon.
The queues at Moorfields were awful!

I think I would give them 8/10 for effort but only 4/10 for performance. There were some very dangerous occurrences yesterday. When I came into town I nearly got trampled getting OFF a train by people desperate for a seat.
It took them a while to split station entrances for the different services.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Thinking back there were numerous running time issues yesterday with trains loosing 10 minutes on the Chester line due to the volumes of people. I think adding FAST/SLOWs would have been sensible to increase the flow rates.
A lot of people didn't know about the special arraignments though.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Not every service on Monday was six coaches - the West Kirby trains were all threes which is obviously to be expected as it was a 15 minute service, not 20. The three car on the Ormskirk/Kirkby alternators was less palatable but supposedly caused by an earlier fault.

The Ellesmere Port service was axed to/from Hooton and replaced by a bus, freeing up 2 units for elsewhere.
I didn't discover if those services were cancelled throughout, or just from Hooton.
The people who did best yesterday on the New Brighton side were the cyclists - they bypassed all the foot/car queues and could navigate the no-vehicle promenade to the best viewing points.

 

[harz99]

Like many others I was there over the weekend.

For me, two things really stuck out as being poor.

Firstly, the bus companies ran only a normal Bank Holiday, ie Sunday, service with a few unpublished ad hoc extras on certain routes. Clearly a modified Saturday service would have been far more appropriate.

Secondly, Network Rail and its operation of Lime Street station. Even when I arrived on Sunday afternoon, wanting to travel on to Moorfields as I was staying close by, I found the trains not calling there and absolutely no signs anywhere to tell me where to get the replacement bus so I walked instead. Others have commented above on the poor organisation yesterday afternoon and evening, so i'll not say anymore on that.

I have never thought it was a good idea letting NR/Railtrack operate the customer facing side of any station, they mostly don't have the skills or interest to do so, and in many ways it conflicts with their "day job".

My experience of Merseyrail yesterday was confined to the New Brighton line and Lime Street low level in the morning, returning to Hamilton Square later and Lime Street late afternoon, all passed easily and seemed well managed. Although walking back past Moorfields the queue was massively long!

As an aside the public transport network wasn't the only poorly prepared outfit. I visited several JDW pubs over the weekend, and with one exception none had enough staff serving, none had enough kitchen staff as the wait for food orders was an hour+, several ran out of food from breakfasts onwards, and so on. The exception was the John Laird, at the Europa Centre, Birkenhead.

 

[martynbristow]

Like many others I was there over the weekend.

For me, two things really stuck out as being poor.

Firstly, the bus companies ran only a normal Bank Holiday, ie Sunday, service with a few unpublished ad hoc extras on certain routes. Clearly a modified Saturday service would have been far more appropriate.

Secondly, Network Rail and its operation of Lime Street station. Even when I arrived on Sunday afternoon, wanting to travel on to Moorfields as I was staying close by, I found the trains not calling there and absolutely no signs anywhere to tell me where to get the replacement bus so I walked instead. Others have commented above on the poor organisation yesterday afternoon and evening, so i'll not say anymore on that.

I have never thought it was a good idea letting NR/Railtrack operate the customer facing side of any station, they mostly don't have the skills or interest to do so, and in many ways it conflicts with their "day job".

My experience of Merseyrail yesterday was confined to the New Brighton line and Lime Street low level in the morning, returning to Hamilton Square later and Lime Street late afternoon, all passed easily and seemed well managed. Although walking back past Moorfields the queue was massively long!

As an aside the public transport network wasn't the only poorly prepared outfit. I visited several JDW pubs over the weekend, and with one exception none had enough staff serving, none had enough kitchen staff as the wait for food orders was an hour+, several ran out of food from breakfasts onwards, and so on. The exception was the John Laird, at the Europa Centre, Birkenhead.

You have NEVER been able to travel from Lime St to Moorfields! You would always have to change at James St or Central. There is a bus provided for some odd reason, and but the city shuttles used take you there, but I think they've now gone.
JDW don't generally have a lot of staff and haven't got there extra staff available.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The Ellesmere Port service was axed to/from Hooton and replaced by a bus, freeing up 2 units for elsewhere.
I didn't discover if those services were cancelled throughout, or just from Hooton.
The people who did best yesterday on the New Brighton side were the cyclists - they bypassed all the foot/car queues and could navigate the no-vehicle promenade to the best viewing points.

The whole train was axed it was 15 (going on 45 minute) service on the chester line. But Elsemere port did resume in the evening.

 

[vjm1975]

The Ellesmere Port service was axed to/from Hooton and replaced by a bus, freeing up 2 units for elsewhere.
I didn't discover if those services were cancelled throughout, or just from Hooton.
The people who did best yesterday on the New Brighton side were the cyclists - they bypassed all the foot/car queues and could navigate the no-vehicle promenade to the best viewing points.

They were axed throughout from around 07:30 until around 20:00, so 4 trains an hour from Hooton towards Liverpool instead of 6. Some of the buses around the peak traveling time were leaving Ellesmere Port full with people still waiting. No sure if there were any other buses being used to mop up those left behind rather than the two single deckers running the 30 minute service. I didn't see what the situation was at Overpool or Little Sutton.

 

[6Gman]

Travelled on the 1057 Crewe - Lime Street. Busy from Crewe, standing from Winsford, packed from Hartford (including people who had failed to board the preceding service and had been waiting an hour!).

Some prat sitting behind me refused to move his bag off the adjacent seat until a gentleman indicated that he would move it if prat didn't! The bag was moved.

Slight criticism was the lack of any on-train announcements until Edge Hill! Something like "LM is sorry that this train is so crowded today but you will understand that there is a very special event taking place in Liverpool. Can you please ensure that bags and coats are removed from seats to allow as many people as possible to sit. If you are standing can you please move down the carriage and away from the doors to allow passengers to board".

Because at Runcorn (and South Parkway) we left passengers behind because of congestion at the doors even though there was space in the aisles between the doorways.

Bizarrely LM had decided to have a barrier ticket check at Lime Street! Thanks LM! But they'd forgotten the exit half-way down the platform until one chap appeared and tried to monitor the three gates!

But given that platform lengths prevent strengthening LM did ok. 7/10?

Merseyrail? - see below.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Lime Street to James Street - busy but ok. Plenty of trains (but some very un-Merseyrail late running), staff on platforms, 6 car trains.

Central to Hamilton Square early pm. Fine, indeed quiet. On arrival at HS huge queue to enter the station, marshalled by the capacity of the lifts of course, which helped to avoid platform overcrowding.

We then went into Birkenhead town centre for a brew, then to Central planning on heading home to Crewe via Chester. Six car train, busy and we stood partway (to about Bromborough).

But overall at least 7 or 8/10.

Noted a couple of Chester - L'pool trains running 'fast' through the Wirral to get back into some sort of order.

 

[Ianigsy]

It wasn't just the trains where more information was needed- I was at Seacombe Ferry at around 2.30 and anybody wanting a service bus was out of luck, but the notice telling you this was in the shelter at the head of the queue for the park and ride buses. Ended up walking back to Hamilton Square and passed a couple of empty Arriva buses which were presumably heading to New Brighton but were caught in the gridlock.

One interesting thing about the New Brighton extras was that they were pathed through Platform 1 at Birkenhead North- not sure I've ever seen six cars calling there and it certainly took at least one driver a couple of goes to stop with his guard's door on the platform!

 

[martynbristow]

It wasn't just the trains where more information was needed- I was at Seacombe Ferry at around 2.30 and anybody wanting a service bus was out of luck, but the notice telling you this was in the shelter at the head of the queue for the park and ride buses. Ended up walking back to Hamilton Square and passed a couple of empty Arriva buses which were presumably heading to New Brighton but were caught in the gridlock.

One interesting thing about the New Brighton extras was that they were pathed through Platform 1 at Birkenhead North- not sure I've ever seen six cars calling there and it certainly took at least one driver a couple of goes to stop with his guard's door on the platform!

Ohh I've never known trains to use that in recent times.
Missed out on that then

 

[Bletchleyite]

As an aside the public transport network wasn't the only poorly prepared outfit. I visited several JDW pubs over the weekend, and with one exception none had enough staff serving, none had enough kitchen staff as the wait for food orders was an hour+, several ran out of food from breakfasts onwards, and so on. The exception was the John Laird, at the Europa Centre, Birkenhead.

That'll be because JDW is the Ryanair of public houses, and that won't change so long as its customers want 2 quid pints and 3 quid full English breakfasts. Whereas public transport isn't supposed to be the cheapo option, it's supposed to be run competently.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Did LM ensure 350/2s were used for a bit of extra capacity?

 

[hassaanhc]

Do Merseyrail now only have enough sets to run a 6-car 30 minute frequency, but not a 15 minute frequency? That was short-sighted.

Right now you are unhappy there aren't enough for all 6 cars, yet on a number of occasions you've wanted 4 car trains. You can't have it both ways :roll:.
Just why are a small minority of enthusiasts allergic to spare capacity? Likewise those who want 4 cars increased to 6 and not 8 because one station needs more work than others to fit 8 .

Just 10 days ago:

Hee hee, so it does

What I meant was that they sound like it is the traction motors doing the deceleration on both classes, i.e. rheostatic braking.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I must admit, though, that Merseyrail might actually work better, given that 6 cars is often way too long but 3 too short, if they had a fleet of 4-car units running singly all day, but instead upped the frequency base at peak times from the current 15 minute base to a 10 minute base. Though I suppose the downside there would be that the clockface timetable wouldn't be as nice - at present you have for example 00, 15, 30, 45 past each hour during the day, with 00 and 30 in the early morning and evening, so if you turn up at 00 and 30 at any time during the service day you will have a train to catch. Very slick in itself.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=2169235&postcount=17

 

[Bletchleyite]

Right now you are unhappy there aren't enough for all 6 cars, yet on a number of occasions you've wanted 4 car trains. You can't have it both ways :roll:.

If you read my posting regarding 4-car trains, it also proposed there being enough of them for a peak frequency increase to a 10 minute base[1]. Which could also be run on busy days like this one.

What does seem to be the case is that 3 is rarely sufficient, particularly with today's very low density seating.

[1] This would mean in the peak the following frequencies:-
Ormskirk 6tph (possibly turn 3 of those at Maghull if outlying demand is insufficient)
Kirkby 6tph
Southport 6tph
New Brighton 6tph
West Kirby 6tph
Chester 4tph (but with a 20-10 split perhaps)
E/Port 2tph (low demand)

 

[6Gman]

That'll be because JDW is the Ryanair of public houses, and that won't change so long as its customers want 2 quid pints and 3 quid full English breakfasts. Whereas public transport isn't supposed to be the cheapo option, it's supposed to be run competently.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Did LM ensure 350/2s were used for a bit of extra capacity?

The one I used was certainly a 350/2.

 

[Kite159]

That'll be because JDW is the Ryanair of public houses, and that won't change so long as its customers want 2 quid pints and 3 quid full English breakfasts. Whereas public transport isn't supposed to be the cheapo option, it's supposed to be run competently.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Did LM ensure 350/2s were used for a bit of extra capacity?

All the LMs I saw were 350/2s. I'm guessing they didn't have enough stock to put doubles on with unit deselect for those stations which can only hold 4 cars.

At least Northern were sensible and running double units for the DMUs and having the 319s out in force.

I saw the queue building around 5pm, and sensibly stayed on the station via a rather quiet Boots before boarding the charter

 

[hassaanhc]

If you read my posting regarding 4-car trains, it also proposed there being enough of them for a peak frequency increase to a 10 minute base[1]. Which could also be run on busy days like this one.

What does seem to be the case is that 3 is rarely sufficient, particularly with today's very low density seating.

[1] This would mean in the peak the following frequencies:-
Ormskirk 6tph (possibly turn 3 of those at Maghull if outlying demand is insufficient)
Kirkby 6tph
Southport 6tph
New Brighton 6tph
West Kirby 6tph
Chester 4tph (but with a 20-10 split perhaps)
E/Port 2tph (low demand)

We all know from history that increasing frequency while reducing train capacities leads to a greater than planned increase in usage which will overwhelm the reduced capacity. So keeping 6 cars is important for an increased frequency, which even on current frequencies helps with having spare capacity in case of disruption or major events.

 

[martynbristow]

If you read my posting regarding 4-car trains, it also proposed there being enough of them for a peak frequency increase to a 10 minute base[1]. Which could also be run on busy days like this one.

What does seem to be the case is that 3 is rarely sufficient, particularly with today's very low density seating.

[1] This would mean in the peak the following frequencies:-
Ormskirk 6tph (possibly turn 3 of those at Maghull if outlying demand is insufficient)
Kirkby 6tph
Southport 6tph
New Brighton 6tph
West Kirby 6tph
Chester 4tph (but with a 20-10 split perhaps)
E/Port 2tph (low demand)

I think splitting mid-journey is a none-starter. The stock isn't designed for it and I bet it would confuse more people than necessary.
I think FAST trains would be the only option to get the stock round the circuit quicker.
So Liverpool-Aintree-Maghull-Town Green-Ormskirk could be an example. You can encourage people to use these stations and try and reduce the time the train sits waiting.

New Brighton was set to 10m because of the car park and the view from there, where West Kirkby didn't need it.

Southport could have benefited from some faster workings.

How many people would be going from Southport* to Bank Hall or Hightown.
Although I'm aware Merseytravel doesn't like this idea.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think splitting mid-journey is a none-starter. The stock isn't designed for it and I bet it would confuse more people than necessary.

Sorry, I didn't mean portion working, I just meant that there would be 6 evenly spaced trains per hour to Hooton, then 2 of those would continue to Ellesmere Port and 4 to Chester.

I think FAST trains would be the only option to get the stock round the circuit quicker.
So Liverpool-Aintree-Maghull-Town Green-Ormskirk could be an example. You can encourage people to use these stations and try and reduce the time the train sits waiting.

That might work on the longer Southport line, but on the Ormskirk line the only obvious very low-use station that isn't a junction is Aughton Park, and just missing that out isn't going to save much more than 2 minutes. I do think running 6tph on the branch but turning 3 of them at Maghull would be more sensible if 6tph couldn't be justified throughout.

 

[martynbristow]

Sorry, I didn't mean portion working, I just meant that there would be 6 evenly spaced trains per hour to Hooton, then 2 of those would continue to Ellesmere Port and 4 to Chester.



That might work on the longer Southport line, but on the Ormskirk line the only obvious very low-use station that isn't a junction is Aughton Park, and just missing that out isn't going to save much more than 2 minutes. I do think running 6tph on the branch but turning 3 of them at Maghull would be more sensible if 6tph couldn't be justified throughout.

Potentially that does work but Ormskirk and Town Green are busy at peak. But a Maghull fast IS needed daily