Rail-replacement buses non-existent - Bournemouth-Southampton to-day.

[fandroid]

The Southern Daily Echo has a whole page article saying that passengers at Southampton Airport Parkway were "going nuts" waiting for buses with the tediously predictable reports that they felt abandoned by staff. Why don't TOCs take bus replacement seriously? At a mainline station like Parkway there should have been a senior manager there all the time to assist local staff, to make decisions about passengers being able to use other transport, and to assist passengers with reduced mobility ( several were reported in the article)

 

[Starmill]

At a mainline station like Parkway there should have been a senior manager there all the time to assist local staff, to make decisions about passengers being able to use other transport, and to assist passengers with reduced mobility ( several were reported in the article)

Indeed. This is really important. How good are senior management at SWR at working weekends and bank holidays?

 

[markymark2000]

There are plenty of buses out there and plenty of drivers. The Rail Replacement Portals don't advertise for operators and so anyone wanting to join, doesn't know how to. Money of course is another big thing. I know that some of the rail replacement firms pay not a lot more for 'running' versus standby. The difference being 95% the cost of the fuel and wear and tear (which would be paid in addition to standby if the standby got sent) which means that the good operators are doing standby works to get more money for doing not a lot.

You've then got some very inefficient duties including silly long breaks, not using domestic hours if an operator works on domestic, not tacho. Duties which start at one end of the route but finish at the other (so dead running which operators don't want). Generally not enough working with operators to see what they want to do in terms of improving the amount of buses and drivers for example, a domestic company with driver changes could keep the bus going all day with only 10-15 mins at each end (same as normal service work) but instead it's all worked out for a single driver and bus to do a whole duty or it it's worked out for a single driver swap (as the duty is too long) but layover not taken out so the drivers swap and the new driver on 0 driving time then sits there for 2 hours for the next trip.

Times are often slack too on rail and so more resources are needed versus reality. If times matched reality, you could sometimes reduce PVR by around 10% and get passengers to their destination quicker (which improves satisfaction).


There's a few of the issues on rail replacement. It's only worked out properly when a company takes on the majority of the duties, cuts up all of the trips and creates their own boards. Some operators that I know have managed to 1/2 the resources required for the service if you compare what was put out versus the boards they have created. 1/2 of amount of vehicles. That's a huge saving both for resources but also saving money as the company don't need paying as much (if this efficient logic was thought of from the start).

Sometimes if a station was removed or the stop moved slightly, it could significantly change the timings.



TOCs seem to request silly things then the providers go with it without argument so overall, you get lots of buses which aren't needed or the services aren't in the publics interest. If the buses were all ran efficiently with TOCs employed staff with half a braincell, there wouldn't be a shortage of rail replacement buses.

 

[Lytham Local]

There are plenty of buses out there and plenty of drivers.

There aren't. Vehicles have to be DDA compliant where most coach operators don't have a full fleet of DDA compliant vehicles. The way round this is either if the people organising replacement buses turn a blind eye or if they use minibuses instead of coaches.

Most PSV buses are DDA compliant already but are used daily on scheduled bus journeys - no one would be happy if their bus didn't turn up as the operator decided to cancel it to cash in on a rail replacement bus service. The coach operators I know have their own contracts to fulfill - school runs, private hire etc - before they can consider doing a RRB service. Even then they are limited to the number of hours that their drivers can do.

It's quite interesting to see where some of the rail replacement buses come from. It's normal for the firms I know to regularly do trips from Lancashire to Glasgow / Edinburgh. I've even heard of firms from the South East doing a RRB service around Newcastle.

 

[Snow1964]

There is also some stupidity going on with where the buses run to.

Work in Southampton area, Southampton Parkway sensible choice, but other end why not somewhere like Ashurst New Forest (by the main A road, after which it gets rural and difficult to serve all stations as no decent size roads follow the railway.

Yes could easily run a single train on one line east of Brockenhurst, and reverse on same track (there is a loop where Fawley branch starts, but don’t think it has third rail these days, I vaguely remember it did in 1980s for emergency stabling of passenger trains)

Anyone who knows Ashurst New Forest (previously Lyndhurst Road) will know the A road (A35) is very accessible (it was dead straight, but a bridge was built alongside the level crossing in 1930s), so now has a kink over the bridge. The closure of the level crossing and slewing the road to bridge ramps gave more forecourt (and station forecourt is what you need for a bus service.

Even one train an hour from here all stations, all the way to Weymouth would be better than a bus service with huge gaps. It is complete stupidity to try and serve stations with poor road access by buses unless absolutely necessary. It is of course very quick to run a bus from Southampton Parkway to Totton or Ashurst area as have M27 and M271 and A35. If run buses all the way to Bournemouth then journey becomes long and scheduling the drivers becomes difficult (bonkers when there are shortage of drivers).

 

[zwk500]

Yes could easily run a single train on one line east of Brockenhurst, and reverse on same track (there is a loop where Fawley branch starts, but don’t think it has third rail these days, I vaguely remember it did in 1980s for emergency stabling of passenger trains)

It's been mentioned that what was done in the 1980s isn't necessarily permitted today.
You're correct, the Fawley Loops aren't electrified, and running passenger to Totton is pointless as there's nowhere for people to change from bus to train or vice versa. Running ECS to Totton to shunt would require both lines to be available (otherwise you'd just depart Ashurst wrong-road). However, the fact the Possession was Southampton Airport Parkway to Bournemouth suggests that there was some work going on between Redbridge and Bournemouth (you'd need the WON/PPS to know what was actually happening).

 

[paul1609]

There is also some stupidity going on with where the buses run to.

Work in Southampton area, Southampton Parkway sensible choice, but other end why not somewhere like Ashurst New Forest (by the main A road, after which it gets rural and difficult to serve all stations as no decent size roads follow the railway.

Yes could easily run a single train on one line east of Brockenhurst, and reverse on same track (there is a loop where Fawley branch starts, but don’t think it has third rail these days, I vaguely remember it did in 1980s for emergency stabling of passenger trains)

Anyone who knows Ashurst New Forest (previously Lyndhurst Road) will know the A road (A35) is very accessible (it was dead straight, but a bridge was built alongside the level crossing in 1930s), so now has a kink over the bridge. The closure of the level crossing and slewing the road to bridge ramps gave more forecourt (and station forecourt is what you need for a bus service.

Even one train an hour from here all stations, all the way to Weymouth would be better than a bus service with huge gaps. It is complete stupidity to try and serve stations with poor road access by buses unless absolutely necessary. It is of course very quick to run a bus from Southampton Parkway to Totton or Ashurst area as have M27 and M271 and A35. If run buses all the way to Bournemouth then journey becomes long and scheduling the drivers becomes difficult (bonkers when there are shortage of drivers).

According to Google Maps the direct road journey from Southampton Airport Parkway to Bournemouth stations is 3 mins faster than the fast train.

 

[Dougal2345]

On a related topic, if I go to the SWR website, and search with default settings for:

Waterloo - Hinton Admiral, Sat 12 Nov, afternoon

I am offered the following, all with 2 changes:

13:20-16:04 02:44 £27.80 (partly bus)
14:20-17:04 02:44 £49.00 (partly XC)
15:20-18:04 02:44 £27.80 (partly bus)
16:20-19:04 02:44 £58.50 (partly XC)

..and yet, on the National Rail site, I see more options:

13:15-16:04 02:49 £11.30 (all train, 1 chg)
13:20-16:04 02:44 £27.80 (partly bus, 2 chg)
14:15-17:04 02:49 £49.00 (all train, 1 chg)
14:20-17:04 02:44 £27.80 (partly bus, 2 chg)
15:15-18:04 02:49 £18.90 (all train, 1 chg)
15:20-18:04 02:44 £27.80 (partly bus, 2 chg)
16:15-19:04 02:49 £11.30 (all train, 1 chg)
16:20-19:04 02:44 £27.80 (partly bus, 2 chg)

The xx:15 services are SWR trains diverted through Guildford.

But their own site seems to be pushing passengers away from those cheapest options (perhaps because they are 5 minutes slower?) towards the rail-replacement bus, or the (much more expensive) partially-Cross Country option...

 

[markymark2000]

Most PSV buses are DDA compliant already but are used daily on scheduled bus journeys - no one would be happy if their bus didn't turn up as the operator decided to cancel it to cash in on a rail replacement bus service. The coach operators I know have their own contracts to fulfill - school runs, private hire etc - before they can consider doing a RRB service. Even then they are limited to the number of hours that their drivers can do.

Depends on the day. Mon-Fri is worst for availability due to school runs. Saturdays seem to depend. There are more buses out on normal service but where there are coaches available, the drivers tend to prefer working Saturdays than Sundays. Sundays has the best bus availability, driver availability can vary bit more but many like Stagecoach take on a bit of Rail work and then drivers volunteer to do it. I know a few drivers who if offered normal work on overtime would refuse to do it but as it's Rail, something a bit different, they enjoy it and are willing to give up days off for it.

It's quite interesting to see where some of the rail replacement buses come from. It's normal for the firms I know to regularly do trips from Lancashire to Glasgow / Edinburgh. I've even heard of firms from the South East doing a RRB service around Newcastle.

Sadly seems to be happening less now except for the cowboys operators. The rates aren't good enough for operators to travel and gone are the days of operators negotiating with the 3rd party contractor to cover work. During the Northern block, an operator replied stating they have availability of drivers and coaches, just no one would pay up. I am led to believe as well (some of the operators on the forum may be able to confirm this), Arriva Road Transport (who cover Northern and Cross Country), have reduced their rates so operators won't work for it.

Combine that with the operators who will work for it, then having inefficient duties. Gloucester was a great one the other month. TFW sent their bus to Lydney then followed around 5 minutes later by Cross Country sending their bus to Lydney, it would sit down there for something like 2 hours, then run back. Followed by a TFW bus. Between them they carried very few people. A minibus would have sufficed, not 2 full size coaches. The Gloucester to Newport services were timed at 1h 30, the buses did it often in 1 hour. If it was retimed, you could have cut a few buses out of the cycle and worked it all out on cumulative breaks (15 mins at one end, 30 at the other). Between all areas, I think I observed around 9 standby buses as well as each operator had their own, most of them never seemed to move. Colossal waste of money and waste of resources, all because 2 train operators wouldn't work together.

 

[Class 170101]

It's a valid comparison because on nearly all routes the number of additional trains which it is feasible to run is either zero or only one per hour. See the recent discussions about how London Overground don't operate any additional services from White Hart Lane, o

More they don't have enough drivers I suspect.

 

[Starmill]

More they don't have enough drivers I suspect.

Indeed. There are no trained train drivers available. However there are many trained bus drivers available. Therefore the bus service is more flexible.

 

[Class 170101]

Indeed. There are no trained train drivers available. However there are many trained bus drivers available. Therefore the bus service is more flexible.

I wouldn't hold your breathe on that one either. The only thing is that training takes less time for a bus compared to a train.

 

[Starmill]

I wouldn't hold your breathe on that one either. The only thing is that training takes less time for a bus compared to a train.

We don't need to hold our breath. Buses are already in use as specials for nearly all football matches. It's not a major difficulty.