No replacement bus available from ScotRail (11/9/21)

[O L Leigh]

Unless it's Friday or Saturday night, or school run time for example.

I think that's picking holes simply for the sake of it. Yes of course taxis have peak times too that will affect their availability, so anyone calling for one may have to wait. But do you imagine that this period of waiting would be longer or shorter than for a replacement bus?

 

[RJ]

CPC sounded great to me - a way of weeding out unprofessional but not dangerous drivers e.g. the ones who are rude, unhelpful or do stuff like pull up 3' from the kerb because they just can't be bothered (they should all go and drive lorries instead, the goods won't complain, it pays more and there's a shortage) - but unfortunately it's a sham in how it actually was implemented and has not improved anything.

It sounds ok in theory but as you say it has been implemented poorly. In its current form it's sometimes a waste of time which people will never get back - and there's a black market for people who will willingly pay money to not do it.

If it was a qualification that had a syllabus which included these things then it'd at least have some purpose. But there are over 2000 JAUPT approved courses which drivers can pick and choose and they may or may not be of any use. That said some courses have decent and insightful content but they're hit and miss.

 

[Deafdoggie]

To be fair, this idea has been done. Back in the days of BR, I was once driven by a porter in a yellow BR minibus from Crewe to Alsager. I can't remember why now, but there were 4 of us on the minibus. I remember he picked up some people in Alsager to take back to Crewe too.

 

[tbtc]

But as previously mentioned, where do the buses come from? How do the staff get to the buses? How do the trains start running again when crew are all away driving buses?

Nobody seems to have an answer for this

It's one thing to arrange coaches for a planned disruption (e.g. planned engineering works will close the Dibley branch line, so the TOC has weeks/ months of advanced warning to arrange a certain number of coaches for a guaranteed period of contract - that's something that can be arranged) - my local bus route used to be run by some of the large fleet of buses that were initially procured for the "rail replacement" work needed to cover the WCML upgrade through Stockport around twenty years ago - some of these contracts that last for months are rather lucrative and stable work for bus/coach companies who can plan ahead...

...but the kind of urgent/ short-term disruption talked about in this thread (wires coming down in central Glasgow, meaning no trains can run - this is a route with a "metro" frequency and the wires coming down is obviously something that happens pretty quickly without the luxury of time to plan ahead)

So, what do we do? Have a fleet of dozens of coaches sitting within spitting distance of central Glasgow stations, all day/ all year? Plus the drivers who can drop everything and go off to take these vehicles anywhere that trains go (which, in some rural areas may mean roads not particularly suitable for big coaches - e.g. in the example of Glasgow, how easy would a driver find it to serve all stations on the West Highland Line in the even of disruption?)

And I mean dozens of coaches - a double decker bus has a broadly similar capacity to a single railway carriage - so in the event of a line with six coach trains every few minutes like the Queen Street Low Level route that the OP was talking about - you're going to need lots of drivers/ coaches. And, given that coaches serving each station are going to take longer to get through congestion than a train could cover the distance, we'd probably need even more coaches just to provide an equivalent capacity.

Modern coaches too - it was acceptable in the Fraser Eagle days to rustle up any old vehicle but the "accessibility" requirements for buses/ coaches means that there's a much smaller pool of suitable vehicles that can be used on this kind of work - and modern coach companies don't have as much "slack"

All those coaches, all just sitting around all day though, with coach drivers too, just in case the wires suddenly go down, or there's a body on the tracks or some other unforeseen incident?

And, if you want these run by rail staff then do you expect the same need to maintain route knowledge etc? Will the rail Unions insist that staff are all sent on refresher courses to cover every permutation of driving between stations - in which case that means taking a number of drivers away from trains to keep their boxes ticked.

I think that this is an important thread because it shows the difference between the people who accept the railway is restricted by practicalities and those who think that everything should revolve around the needs of the railway (even if that means dragging vehicles away from school bus services, because The Railway Is King) - the kind of people who happily ignore billions of pounds in subsidy because they see the railway as untouchable.

Of course nobody wants to be left in the lurch, I'd be annoyed if a TOC was unable to rustle up a replacement vehicle at short notice, but I'm realistic enough to realise that the cost of ensuring dozens of spare coaches at each major train station would bankrupt things - it's a bit like the glib statement that "passengers prefer direct trains" - of course they do, but it's not practical to serve every individual market with one.

Obviously TOCs should take reasonable measures, no argument, if help can be sourced then it should be, but it's not always going to be easy - and in cases where the disruption may only last a couple of hours then bus/coach companies aren't going to be cheap

 

[randyrippley]

No-one is suggesting multiple buses waiting speculatively at stations.
What was proposed to use the large number of vehicles awaiting sale in dealers yards.
The only difficulty would be taxing / insuring them in a hurry, but a solution could be found to that.
As for getting the drivers to the bus locations....they drive there in cars. Same as they normally get to work

As for route knowledge, its called satnav

 

[philthetube]

So what you're saying is that at least one driver who is designated 'spare' on that particular day should be in possession of a coach/bus driving license and know every possible route that he/she might have to theoretically drive on said day....not sure how familiar you are with any route that takes the North Clyde line but that's quite a lot of routes need replacement buses, so now you need about 6-7 spare drivers all whom would need a coach/bus license whilst still having enough spare train drivers for contingency on the network. Sorry but it's not feasible in that situation.

Can you please quote me on any of these statements?

 

[RT4038]

No-one is suggesting multiple buses waiting speculatively at stations.
What was proposed to use the large number of vehicles awaiting sale in dealers yards.
The only difficulty would be taxing / insuring them in a hurry, but a solution could be found to that.
As for getting the drivers to the bus locations....they drive there in cars. Same as they normally get to work

As for route knowledge, its called satnav

I think this is getting firmly into the realms of fairy tales.

The rail industry could (did) do much more to mitigate the potential disruption - they could have signalled crossovers at every station to allow easy turn back of services; they could have electrical systems so smaller blocks are affected when the wires come down; they could have universal couplers on the trains so any train can rescue any other; they could have spare diesel locomotives on stand by, and all drivers familiarised with them. But it has been deemed as too expensive. So even if there was a blockage and buses were required, it would only be the minimum needed to take passengers from one station to another.

Spending large sums of money to mitigate or compensate relatively infrequent failures / difficulties is not the way of business any more. Witness the recent Chicken shortages at Nandos. No doubt chickens could have been flown (!) in at great expense from the other side of the world to keep the food service going, or they could have said buy yourself chicken somewhere else and send us the bill. But they didn't - they just closed up shop until the problem was fixed. Will there be reputational damage - yes, in one way or another. Businesses seem to be less concerned about this than they were in the past. Spend a bit on marketing and grow your market again. Cheaper and easier than the mitigations. The transport industry is no different. Obviously they will do what they can within reason, but beyond that it is 'find yourself an alternative'. Having fleets of standby buses/coaches is not within reason.

 

[al78]

So, what do we do? Have a fleet of dozens of coaches sitting within spitting distance of central Glasgow stations, all day/ all year? Plus the drivers who can drop everything and go off to take these vehicles anywhere that trains go (which, in some rural areas may mean roads not particularly suitable for big coaches - e.g. in the example of Glasgow, how easy would a driver find it to serve all stations on the West Highland Line in the even of disruption?)

Very difficult to pretty much impractical on the West Highland line. Corrour cannot be accessed by bus and Rannoch station would require a huge detour as it is only accessible from the east. The A82 is a horrible congested and very twisty road which severly limits the speed of any road vehicle, and a convoy of rail replacement buses along the A82 would exasperate the traffic problems. The transport infrastructure in the Scottish highlands is poor in general once you get off the main arterial routes like the A9.

 

[Deafdoggie]

No-one is suggesting multiple buses waiting speculatively at stations.
What was proposed to use the large number of vehicles awaiting sale in dealers yards.
The only difficulty would be taxing / insuring them in a hurry, but a solution could be found to that.
As for getting the drivers to the bus locations....they drive there in cars. Same as they normally get to work

As for route knowledge, its called satnav

The coaches in dealers yards are not PVSR compliant so can't be used on Rail Replacement work. Dealers aren't generally open 24/7 either so all disruption would need to be in their opening hours.

 

[skyhigh]

What was proposed to use the large number of vehicles awaiting sale in dealers yards.

But there isn't a large number of suitable vehicles sitting about - there's a shortage of PSVAR coaches (which as I understand it, are now legally required for rail replacement work).

Nobody seems to have an answer for this

It's one thing to arrange coaches for a planned disruption (e.g. planned engineering works will close the Dibley branch line, so the TOC has weeks/ months of advanced warning to arrange a certain number of coaches for a guaranteed period of contract - that's something that can be arranged) - my local bus route used to be run by some of the large fleet of buses that were initially procured for the "rail replacement" work needed to cover the WCML upgrade through Stockport around twenty years ago - some of these contracts that last for months are rather lucrative and stable work for bus/coach companies who can plan ahead...

...but the kind of urgent/ short-term disruption talked about in this thread (wires coming down in central Glasgow, meaning no trains can run - this is a route with a "metro" frequency and the wires coming down is obviously something that happens pretty quickly without the luxury of time to plan ahead)

So, what do we do? Have a fleet of dozens of coaches sitting within spitting distance of central Glasgow stations, all day/ all year? Plus the drivers who can drop everything and go off to take these vehicles anywhere that trains go (which, in some rural areas may mean roads not particularly suitable for big coaches - e.g. in the example of Glasgow, how easy would a driver find it to serve all stations on the West Highland Line in the even of disruption?)

And I mean dozens of coaches - a double decker bus has a broadly similar capacity to a single railway carriage - so in the event of a line with six coach trains every few minutes like the Queen Street Low Level route that the OP was talking about - you're going to need lots of drivers/ coaches. And, given that coaches serving each station are going to take longer to get through congestion than a train could cover the distance, we'd probably need even more coaches just to provide an equivalent capacity.

Modern coaches too - it was acceptable in the Fraser Eagle days to rustle up any old vehicle but the "accessibility" requirements for buses/ coaches means that there's a much smaller pool of suitable vehicles that can be used on this kind of work - and modern coach companies don't have as much "slack"

All those coaches, all just sitting around all day though, with coach drivers too, just in case the wires suddenly go down, or there's a body on the tracks or some other unforeseen incident?

And, if you want these run by rail staff then do you expect the same need to maintain route knowledge etc? Will the rail Unions insist that staff are all sent on refresher courses to cover every permutation of driving between stations - in which case that means taking a number of drivers away from trains to keep their boxes ticked.

I think that this is an important thread because it shows the difference between the people who accept the railway is restricted by practicalities and those who think that everything should revolve around the needs of the railway (even if that means dragging vehicles away from school bus services, because The Railway Is King) - the kind of people who happily ignore billions of pounds in subsidy because they see the railway as untouchable.

Of course nobody wants to be left in the lurch, I'd be annoyed if a TOC was unable to rustle up a replacement vehicle at short notice, but I'm realistic enough to realise that the cost of ensuring dozens of spare coaches at each major train station would bankrupt things - it's a bit like the glib statement that "passengers prefer direct trains" - of course they do, but it's not practical to serve every individual market with one.

Obviously TOCs should take reasonable measures, no argument, if help can be sourced then it should be, but it's not always going to be easy - and in cases where the disruption may only last a couple of hours then bus/coach companies aren't going to be cheap

This post is spot on - realistically this idea is never going to work. As train crew I'd love there to be plenty of spare coaches ready to go whenever there's disruption, it would make my life much easier - but the costs and practicalities mean this idea is just going to be a non-starter. Absolutely the railway should do whatever is reasonably possible to help passengers caught up in disruption, but sometimes even with the best will in the world there's not much you can do.

 

[Christmas]

No-one is suggesting multiple buses waiting speculatively at stations.
What was proposed to use the large number of vehicles awaiting sale in dealers yards.
The only difficulty would be taxing / insuring them in a hurry, but a solution could be found to that.
As for getting the drivers to the bus locations....they drive there in cars. Same as they normally get to work

As for route knowledge, its called satnav

Why are people even entertaining this fantasist and their ludicrous ideas?

Many rail workers have left the bus industry and would like to keep it firmly in the past. To ever suggest that they will be compelled to drive a PCV against their will is lunacy.

The poster assumes that touring coaches are lying around in dealer yards the length and breadth of the country. Have they missed that Shearing's, Caledonian, National Holidays et al have risen like Lazarus? The dealer stock they want to utilise is totally illegal now for rail replacement work.

To drive a PCV for pay means the driver MUST POSSESS a Driver CPC. Few lapsed bus drivers have this essential portion. What's the poster's solution to this little inconvenience?

This person's idea is a total dead duck. Another railway applicant who has been rejected and therefore despises anyone who works in the rail industry. This forum is full of them.

 

[TUC]

And this sort of emotive tub-thumping doesn't precisely move the situation forward. As has been explained exhaustively, the alternative is a flabby and expensive system of buses and drivers sat around doing nothing for the vast majority of the day; a virtual replication of the entire rail network that carries nothing and no-one. And for how long do you imagine that the costs of this can reasonably be sustained before taxpayers and fare-payers alike rise up and have the system thrown out?

No it's not an ideal situation when unforeseen disruption hits but, like it or not, buses and drivers cannot be magicked out of thin air.



Given that the passenger's primary problem is "How do I get to my destination?" I would argue that, during unplanned disruption at least, you have it the wrong way round. The TOC has to try and move hundreds, possibly thousands, of people where the passenger just has to move themselves and whoever else is in their party. Many medium to large stations will have taxi ranks and in all but the remotest locations it wouldn't take long to rustle-up a minicab. Job done. Get a receipt and submit it, along with your train ticket, to customer services and claim your refund. Meanwhile the TOC controllers are still phoning around their RRB contractors to see how many vehicles and drivers they can provide along what timescale, and are trying to stitch some sort of replacement service together.

As for railstaff driving buses, I really don't think I need to add much to this thread. The issue is that disruption tends to suck in staff anyway, so removing them from platforms, ticket offices and control centres (that are frequently nowhere near the disruption anyway) would have a detrimental effect. Not only would it make service recovery harder but it would remove the immediate in-person help that passengers frequently are seeking at times like this.

It is a very middle class assumption that all people have £50, or however much is needed for the taxi, sitting in their account and can wait without it whilst a TOC carries out a potentially lumberingly slow refund process.

In this day and age it is surely possible to have an app already set up, for which passengers travelling during the disruption are given an activation code so that it, combined with presentation of the rail ticket, can be used for a single taxi jouney via any of the companies with which the TOC has made arrangements.

 

[O L Leigh]

It is a very middle class assumption that all people have £50, or however much is needed for the taxi, sitting in their account and can wait without it whilst a TOC carries out a potentially lumberingly slow refund process.

I don't think that, for many people, that would be a problem. I have witnessed passengers sharing taxis in the past in order to split the cost and ensure that everyone can get where they need to be, even those for whom a taxi might otherwise be an extravagance.

In this day and age it is surely possible to have an app already set up, for which passengers travelling during the disruption are given an activation code so that it, combined with presentation of the rail ticket, can be used for a single taxi jouney via any of the companies with which the TOC has made arrangements.

In a thread full of daft ideas, this one might actually have some promise (ignoring the equally middle class assumption that everyone has a smart device with them and are confident in using it). There is some issue about how you identify those who need to be given an activation code and how you protect the system against fraud, though*. It's not even as simple as those who have been issued a ticket, as you could still be stranding folk who, for whatever reason, don't have one.

* This shouldn't be underestimated. There are those who use the network who will deliberately secrete themselves on an empty train because they know what when they are discovered at the depot they will be provided with a taxi. People really are crafty and see the railway as a soft target for fraud.

 

[weastebusdepot]

In a thread full of daft ideas, this one might actually have some promise. There is some issue about how you identify those who need to be given an activation code and how you protect the system against fraud, though*. It's not even as simple as those who have been issued a ticket, as you could still be stranding folk who, for whatever reason, don't have one.

The fraud idea was the first thing that came into my mind too. If people can get their own taxis and submit the receipt for a refund, what is to stop someone making a £10 taxi ride then slipping the driver a £10 tip to make out a receipt for £50? Hence why most TOCs make all their taxi arrangements through CMAC who only use approved companies on their books.

Also to throw another spanner in the idea of going to a dealers yard and picking up a coach on a whim. All vehicles with nine or more passenger seats used for hire or reward need to carry an operators disc. No operator who wants to stay in business would allow anything to operate with their discs unless they had audited proof that the vehicle had passed a PSV standard inspection within the past six weeks and that the person driving it hadn't carried out work elsewhere that would put them over their legal hours.

 

[DelayRepay]

Also to throw another spanner in the idea of going to a dealers yard and picking up a coach on a whim. All vehicles with nine or more passenger seats used for hire or reward need to carry an operators disc. No operator who wants to stay in business would allow anything to operate with their discs unless they had audited proof that the vehicle had passed a PSV standard inspection within the past six weeks and that the person driving it hadn't carried out work elsewhere that would put them over their legal hours.

Not a problem. The DFT can just change the rules to make coaches operated by TOC staff exempt from all those silly rules and regulations.

 

[O L Leigh]

Not a problem. The DFT can just change the rules to make coaches operated by TOC staff exempt from all those silly rules and regulations.

It's already not a problem, but not for the reason you say. TOC staff running replacement coaches is not going to happen for reasons already enumerated.

 

[DelayRepay]

And I'll make a serious point now.

Every time I've been caught up in disruption, it's been inconvenient but I've always got home - all be it sometimes hours later than planned.

And every time, the TOC staff have always done their best for people who are in a genuinely urgent situation. The last disruption I was caught up in was on Thameslink, and the station staff prioritised taxis for people travelling to Luton Airport so they didn't miss flights, and people who were elderly or had small children.

So whilst not everyone can afford a taxi, I think those that can't won't be left stranded. They might just have to wait a while.

It's already not a problem, but not for the reason you say. TOC staff running replacement coaches is not going to happen for reasons already enumerated.

I may have forgotten to add an appropriate emoji to my previous reply...

 

[O L Leigh]

I may have forgotten to add an appropriate emoji to my previous reply...

 

[RJ]

No-one is suggesting multiple buses waiting speculatively at stations.
What was proposed to use the large number of vehicles awaiting sale in dealers yards.
The only difficulty would be taxing / insuring them in a hurry, but a solution could be found to that.
As for getting the drivers to the bus locations....they drive there in cars. Same as they normally get to work

As for route knowledge, its called satnav

Taxing a bus takes minutes online and insuring is a case of ringing up the broker, getting it added to a policy and paying the premium. There’s no difficulty at all in doing these things.

You can’t just send a bus out that has been sat in a dealer’s yard - it would been to be cleaned inside and out, a full inspection carried out, anything wrong with it put right and possibly go through a MOT test. Some operators let buses get into a parlous mechanical state before selling it on so that’s where the difficulties are.

 

[6Gman]

No-one is suggesting multiple buses waiting speculatively at stations.
What was proposed to use the large number of vehicles awaiting sale in dealers yards.
The only difficulty would be taxing / insuring them in a hurry, but a solution could be found to that.
As for getting the drivers to the bus locations....they drive there in cars. Same as they normally get to work

As for route knowledge, its called satnav

Hang on, who will be the owners of these vehicles?
I'd assumed the idea was that the railway would own a pool of vehicles. Are we now suggesting spot hire from dealers?

 

[randyrippley]

Hang on, who will be the owners of these vehicles?
I'd assumed the idea was that the railway would own a pool of vehicles. Are we now suggesting spot hire from dealers?

On a long-term standby contract

 

[bb21]

This thread is so far off-topic it is now locked.

If anyone wishes to open a "my ideas" type thread if they think they have a good solution for this type of disruption please start a new thread with a suitable title in the Speculative Ideas area of the forum. Thank you.