Shut down for Xmas?

[otomous]

Rather amazing considering the UK is pretty much 24/7 the rest of the year.

It isn’t really. The 24/7 thing is only the big city centres and some giant supermarkets. Central London may have a few all night clubs etc but go not too far into the suburbs and everything’s shut by 11pm.

 

[306024]

Oh I see. We don’t run British services on Boxing Day either save for a limited service between London Marylebone and Oxford.

Stansted Express runs on Boxing Day, has done for a few years. This year weaving its way around various engineering work unusually from platform 17 at Liverpool St and running via Stratford.

 

[Mag_seven]

The 24/7 thing is only the big city centres and some giant supermarkets.

Even then large shops can only open for 6 hours on Sundays (in England).

 

[Groningen]

After 20 hours there are no busses running to and from Gatwick Airport today.

 

[Wirewiper]

In London, Underground, DLR, Tramlink and buses run a near-full Sunday service on Boxing Day (24-hour bus routes recommence in the early morning). The ones conspicuous by their absence are London Overground and National Rail.

 

[Hophead]

After 20 hours there are no busses running to and from Gatwick Airport today.

From where? Metrobus had a regular Sunday service on the 10, 100 & 400, as well as special services on the 20 & 200.

There's no indication that these did not operate

 

[Groningen]

#GatwickAirport - Buses have been sourced to help assist with the high volume of passengers and will be running until 20:00. After this time, NO buses will operate out of Gatwick Airport.

From National Rail Twitter.

 

[Hophead]

#GatwickAirport - Buses have been sourced to help assist with the high volume of passengers and will be running until 20:00. After this time, NO buses will operate out of Gatwick Airport.

From National Rail Twitter.

Ok - I was referring to local routes. From your quote, it seems that Gatwick Express have little idea of
the number of people who wish to travel between the airport and Central London.

 

[30907]

#GatwickAirport - Buses have been sourced to help assist with the high volume of passengers and will be running until 20:00. After this time, NO buses will operate out of Gatwick Airport.

From National Rail Twitter.

Thats the GTR Rail Replacement Bus - too many engineering works to allow real ttains to run. There's probably National Express Coaches to London as well, nut don't expect NR to tell you, we don't do integrated transport very well.

 

[30907]

Ok - I was referring to local routes. From your quote, it seems that Gatwick Express have little idea of
the number of people who wish to travel between the airport and Central London.

No, they say there was a big hold up on the M23....

 

[deltic]

#GatwickAirport - Buses have been sourced to help assist with the high volume of passengers and will be running until 20:00. After this time, NO buses will operate out of Gatwick Airport.

From National Rail Twitter.

This is bizarre - rail planner shows buses were meant to run till 11pm - to suddenly terminate them 3 hrs early seems a major failure. National Express also seems to have no coaches after 8pm - starting again tomorrow at 00.15

 

[Groningen]

From National Rail:

A road accident affecting the rail replacement buses between London Victoria and Gatwick Airport means buses running to and from these stations may be delayed. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer advice:
Earlier today there was an accident on the M25,resulting in significant delays to the Gatwick Airport to London Victoria rail replacement services as some lanes were closed. Although the earlier accident has now cleared and buses are beginning to resume back to the usual 30 minute timetable, queues at Gatwick Airport have compounded quite quickly due to the delays caused by this earlier accident. As a result, additional buses have been sourced to help assist with the high volume of passengers and will be running until 20:00, where after this point NO buses will operate out of Gatwick Airport. Gatwick Express are sorry for any delay this has caused to your journey today. If you are unable to travel to London Victoria today, tickets purchased today will be honoured for travel tomorrow.

 

[paul1609]

I think based on the roads there is next to no demand on Christmas Day, but certainly enough for a Sunday service on Boxing Day. Arguably much more demand than New Years Day.

Not on the South coast, I drove Wittersham (on the kent / east sussex border near Rye) to Arundel (west sussex) yesterday. traffic at least on a par with a Sunday. return today was on a par with a quiet bank holiday maybe a saturday service in rail terms. 2 major tailbacks on the southern half of the M25 according to the traffic news.

 

[radamfi]

Not on the South coast, I drove Wittersham (on the kent / east sussex border near Rye) to Arundel (west sussex) yesterday. traffic at least on a par with a Sunday. return today was on a par with a quiet bank holiday maybe a saturday service in rail terms. 2 major tailbacks on the southern half of the M25 according to the traffic news.

Traffic counts are publicly available from Highways England showing that road traffic throughout the holiday period is not insignificant.

 

[gsnedders]

You forgot Scotlrail which runs a decent service on Dec 26 which is not a Bank Hol there.

As already pointed out, it is a bank holiday here, but ScotRail only run services in the former SPT area, pretty much. The rest of Scotland sees nothing.

 

[axlecounter]

For those that can read German - or Google translate it - a discussion about UK’s (“third world’s”) habit of shutting everything down on christmas:
https://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/read.php?030,8410555

 

[duesselmartin]

I have read that Drehscheibe discussion and I must say I rather prefer the civilised tone we have here. I am German with a UK connection but I rather discuss in railforum international as Drehscheibe often gets very insultive.
Martin

 

[tsr]

The problem with Gatwick was largely a combination of higher than predicted demand, traffic woes on the M23/A23 at Hooley (not really anything to do with accidents, but the message from NRE was done by railway staff and not Highways England etc. - the expertise differs!) and too few buses to account for these scenarios.

The buses were advertised as being amended to finish around 8pm due to unreliability and not wanting more people to add to four-figure queue lengths. More buses had been sourced earlier in the evening but were still not clearing the queues, and there were worries about driving hours. Eventually drivers and buses were also resourced until just past midnight, which got everyone moving.

Bear in mind attempts were made to temper demand with the use of only the highest “Any Permitted” fares being made available on TVMs (for which a large proportion will be reimbursed by Delay Repay) and Gatwick has experienced issues like this before, so it’s hardly a scenario which wasn’t planned for - more that there were surges in demand and traffic which were anomalous even for that location on Boxing Day.

I can reliably advise that queues on Boxing Day for buses at Gatwick have been halved in length over recent years, but it is still really hard to deal with, especially when the whole BML has engineering works so a bus replacement throughout the whole length is necessary.

 

[Tangent]

One of my fantasies would be to run a skeleton steam hauled service on the 25th and 26th on a couple of the biggest main lines which are not in possession.

 

[Groningen]

To be honest; i think that most people that flew away did already on Saturday or Sunday. But have of course no proof for that.

 

[yorksrob]

The problem with Gatwick was largely a combination of higher than predicted demand, traffic woes on the M23/A23 at Hooley (not really anything to do with accidents, but the message from NRE was done by railway staff and not Highways England etc. - the expertise differs!) and too few buses to account for these scenarios.

The buses were advertised as being amended to finish around 8pm due to unreliability and not wanting more people to add to four-figure queue lengths. More buses had been sourced earlier in the evening but were still not clearing the queues, and there were worries about driving hours. Eventually drivers and buses were also resourced until just past midnight, which got everyone moving.

Bear in mind attempts were made to temper demand with the use of only the highest “Any Permitted” fares being made available on TVMs (for which a large proportion will be reimbursed by Delay Repay) and Gatwick has experienced issues like this before, so it’s hardly a scenario which wasn’t planned for - more that there were surges in demand and traffic which were anomalous even for that location on Boxing Day.

I can reliably advise that queues on Boxing Day for buses at Gatwick have been halved in length over recent years, but it is still really hard to deal with, especially when the whole BML has engineering works so a bus replacement throughout the whole length is necessary.

Wouldn't a long winded shuttle via Horsham be possible?

Since this scenario crops up every year at Gatwick, they might as well plan for it.

 

[30907]

Wouldn't a long winded shuttle via Horsham be possible?

Since this scenario crops up every year at Gatwick, they might as well plan for it.

Wasnt that done the last time there was an extended block? Stoat's Nest IIRC?

 

[yorksrob]

Wasnt that done the last time there was an extended block? Stoat's Nest IIRC?

I think they have done that some time in the past. Doubtless preferable to queueing for a bus for ages.

 

[Ianigsy]

As has already been intimated, most European countries make more out of Advent and celebrate St Nicholas's Day or Lucia earlier in December so don't need two days off at Christmas - it's something England gave up at the Reformation when we stopped observing saints' days.

Boxing Day seems to be a Commonwealth thing- it's observed in Canada, New Zealand and some states of Australia, but not in the US (where the First Amendment would make it difficult to add an official religious holiday to the calendar).

 

[30907]

As has already been intimated, most European countries make more out of Advent and celebrate St Nicholas's Day or Lucia earlier in December so don't need two days off at Christmas - it's something England gave up at the Reformation when we stopped observing saints' days.

Boxing Day seems to be a Commonwealth thing- it's observed in Canada, New Zealand and some states of Australia, but not in the US (where the First Amendment would make it difficult to add an official religious holiday to the calendar).

The second day of Christmas is a holiday in most of "Western Christian" Europe - the biggest exception is secular France.

 

[AY1975]

In the Netherlands, we run a regular Sunday service at NS, which means on the most rural lines an hourly stopping service combined with a 30 minute inter-city service, or a 30 minute stopping service combined with a 15 minute inter-city service at the Randstad area and other more busy lines.
Other TOCs are also running a Sunday service, which usually means a 30 minute to an hourly stopping service.

Edit: oh wait, as of the last timetable change, there is even a ten minute intercity service running between Amsterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven on Sundays.

I believe that Dutch internal trains stop running at about 20.00 on New Year's Eve, then start again after midnight to take the revellers home, though. (See also the thread on services in NL on New Year's Eve at www.railforums.co.uk/threads/transport-in-nl-new-years-eve.157107/)

 

[infobleep]

The long distance bus (coach) service on Christmas Day has gradually improved in recent years, with most major cities and airports connected by National Express or Megabus. For example, National Express are taking advantage of the lack of trains between London and Gatwick airport today, running a coach every 15 minutes. The fares, however, are higher than the usual train fare. On the 26 December, when most trains are still not running, the coaches are running a near normal service. However, with some exceptions, for example in London, local buses are either not running or running a limited service. Similarly on New Year's Day.

In Ireland, most local and long distance buses are running a near normal Sunday service tomorrow, but trains are still not running.

The only issue is getting to a station where trains are running.

For example of you lived on Guildford, driving to a station might be as quick as driving to one's destination on boxing day.

One of my fantasies would be to run a skeleton steam hauled service on the 25th and 26th on a couple of the biggest main lines which are not in possession.

Although alas impractical, I do love the sound of this. If they could install some water pickup troughs just for the occasion, that would be cool!

 

[Groningen]

The nightservice starts at 1.00 between Rotterdam - Utrecht via Den Haag, Schiphol and Amsterdam. Last thing running was surely the bus at 20.30 from Groningen to Leer (Ostfriesland) (Germany). Trains were normally running in Germany. And if that bus returned than arrival would have been in Groningen at 22.25.

 

[AlexNL]

I believe that Dutch internal trains stop running at about 20.00 on New Year's Eve, then start again after midnight to take the revellers home, though.

After 1:00 (give or take) the Dutch operators resume their normal timetables. They don't run additional services though.

 

[Groningen]

Only the Nachtnet runs; nothing else! January 1 has always a Sunday service. So the first train in the Randstad is at 5, but an isolated town as Stavoren at 9.19.