Maidstone-Rainham Rail Replacement buses: were they useful?

[brad465]

Back in 2014, when regular engineering works blocked out the entire Medway Towns route between Sole Street/Strood and Rainham (during works to build the new Rochester station), I have fond memories of taking services that ran between Victoria and Maidstone East, calling only at Bromley South, where buses would then connect Maidstone and Rainham for train services to resume eastward.

However in recent years, and in particular tomorrow's comparable closure (which has brought it to mind for this thread), this arrangement hasn't/isn't been used, so want to ask if anyone knows why this isn't used now, whether it was not very useful before or if logistical issues prevent this?

 

[30907]

Googlemaps tells me that Maidstone East to Rainham by car takes only 2-3 minutes less than from Meopham. With the extra time to Maidstone by rail, I deduce there is no time saving, and you would still have to run a service via Meopham anyway.
A fast Bromley South-Meopham and nonstop bus to Rainham would probably be even faster, but these are Covid times...

 

[brad465]

Googlemaps tells me that Maidstone East to Rainham by car takes only 2-3 minutes less than from Meopham. With the extra time to Maidstone by rail, I deduce there is no time saving, and you would still have to run a service via Meopham anyway.
A fast Bromley South-Meopham and nonstop bus to Rainham would probably be even faster, but these are Covid times...

Have you accounted for all the station stops such a bus would inevitably make all the way through the Medway conurbation? I can't recall what the bus options were before from Meopham, although I do know that through to Sole Street got a 1tph all stations service, which is normal for a Sunday service (except it couldn't go further like it normally would). The coast services were and still are Bromley South non-stop to Rochester on Sundays, but these of course couldn't do that when east of Sole St is closed (Sole Street has the turnback capability but Meopham has a better car park and road links for buses, hence why passengers are told to get buses to/from the latter).

One possible problem maybe bus logistics, if not enough buses and/or drivers were available for both Maidstone-Rainham (non-stop) and Meopham to Rainham (all stops) replacement buses.

 

[30907]

The Meopham-Rainham all stations today is booked in about 55 minutes.
(I assume a nonstop via M2 would take about 35, and from Maidstone 30)
But the extra running time to Maidstone vice Meopham is at least 15 minutes, so - for 10 minutes gain you:
- lose Rochester and Chatham stops
- split the bus service 3 ways instead of 2.
So even in normal times it's marginal.
If you were running a fast Victoria-Kent Coast via Maidstone rather than just Victoria-Maidstone there might be sense in it, though. Was that part of the engineering works package then?