Didn't affect me directly, as I only went to Ford, Littlehampton and Brighton, but on Sunday 24th, I saw signs at Ford saying there was no Southern service beyond Barnham as far as Havant and that NO replacement buses were booked. Overheard a pair of ladies coming back from Barnham to Brighton (after trying to get to Portsmouth) in not too happy a mood, saying why should they pay for the "normal" bus?
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Train company NOT booking rail replacement buses
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Russel
Established Member
I now expect multiple replies to suggest whatever happened it couldn't have possibly been the railways fault.
If I recall correctly, they said that they attempted to book replacement buses and failed to do so, and argued that local buses wouldn't be able to cope and therefore arranging ticket acceptance with them wasn't sensible. (And that it was too late to cancel the engineering work).
Not at all satisfactory, but perhaps there really wasn't any alternative.
(Maybe buses just weren't to be had...maybe if they'd arranged it earlier they could have found a way...I'm not in a position to know).
If you have to abandon part of your rail journey, I don't know what the refund policy is.
Not uncommon if the traffic is low enough though usually ticket acceptance would be arranged, the typical procedure is to send a receipt to Southern who will reimburse you. At Newhaven Marine, because you could still buy a ticket the sign told you to phone a taxi to Newhaven Town and Southern would reimburse you.
Joe Paxton
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I guess at least the 'normal' bus would only have cost £2 at present.
My friend travelled from Portsmouth to Brighton on Saturday, then we both travelled together to Portsmouth with myself heading home on the Sunday.
Our 1h 45m journey from Brighton became about 3h 40m, travelling up to Gatwick, then on GWR to Guildford, then on SWR down to Portsmouth because of this (and GTR only arranged acceptance with GWR after I DM'd them on Twitter to ask, since this brought the journey time down by about 30 minutes).
On the Sunday, to avoid rail replacement on SWR, I ended up going from Portsmouth to Eastleigh, then up to Clapham Junction and down to my home station, departing at 14:22 and not getting to my destination until 17:19...
Really annoying, and I heard some SWR gossiping about how GTR (supposedly) just asked Go-Ahead buses (e.g., Metrobus/Brighton & Hove) who said no.
Our 1h 45m journey from Brighton became about 3h 40m, travelling up to Gatwick, then on GWR to Guildford, then on SWR down to Portsmouth because of this (and GTR only arranged acceptance with GWR after I DM'd them on Twitter to ask, since this brought the journey time down by about 30 minutes).
On the Sunday, to avoid rail replacement on SWR, I ended up going from Portsmouth to Eastleigh, then up to Clapham Junction and down to my home station, departing at 14:22 and not getting to my destination until 17:19...
Really annoying, and I heard some SWR gossiping about how GTR (supposedly) just asked Go-Ahead buses (e.g., Metrobus/Brighton & Hove) who said no.
Not good.
Though some people, if they had time on their hands, would no doubt enjoy that sort of thing.
And presumably the journey is free as it's enough for a full refund with Delay Repay.
Or not, since that's based on the timetable of the day, which had no buses in it.
Ah yes. Forgot about the timetable of the day thing...
Broken70
Member
The bottom line of it is there are no replacement buses available anymore. The PSVAR requirements have reduced numbers of vehicles and the prices paid by the railway have reduced the number of operators willing. Its only going to get worse.
Sussex Ben
Member
PSVAR requirements aren’t new now though. It does beg the question going forwards that if TOCs (DfT) aren’t able to pay the price required to hire buses, will the industry end up in the position of a) rail replacement being a thing of the past, or b) TOCs refusing to grant NR as much access to the infrastructure, eventually to the detriment of performance if works aren’t being completed in a timely manner.
It's not that bad....yet anyway.
BurtonM
Member
I'm sure abandoned journeys due to cancellation yield a 100% refund for the leg.
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Although given the "timetable of the day" policy, if you choose to make part of a journey by rail then do the rest by bus at your expense could you reasonably argue that's an abandoned journey as it could never have been made according to the timeable? Would they argue that you should instead have spend 4 hours getting to your destination by rail the long way round?
Indeed, & I think the rail replacement bus stop signs between Havant & Chichester are all on or very close to the main road that the Coastliner 700 bus uses anyway rather than being right outside every station entrance.
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The PSVAR rules don't help. As it's a coordinated provision, I don't see why every vehicle has to be accessible, particularly as for a Pendolino you'd have potentially ten or more.
But if it is going to be that difficult, the railway needs to be training staff on diversions and working out rolling stock strategies accordingly.
markymark2000
Established Member
PSVAR exemptions are still available. What I would be more likely to put it down to though is that no one tried hard enough or wanted to pay up enough money to get buses. There's always buses and drivers available.
Bus companies have been cutting their regular scheduled services due to shortages of staff. Where is this pool of available drivers coming from for ad hoc bookings?
This is true but it's not necessarily bus companies (as such) that are called upon to provide replacement transport. In my area, at least, it's usually private coach operators who are able to supply vehicles and drivers at relatively short notice and in the past couple of years many of them have been very grateful for the work.
Lewisham2221
Established Member
PSVAR will drastically restrict the number of operators/vehicles able to take on such work though.
Are TOCs (or their RR outsourcing agents) still fussy about vehicle specs? I'm aware of several that used to have rather strict rules regarding such things as vehicle age, livery and seating layout (3+2 70 seat coaches, used by many firms for schools work, were a big no no on rail work)
GTR never used to have too much of an issue with such coaches, or perhaps they were more lenient when it's something like the Brighton Mainline that's shut.
I've used a few coach RRB services during college while the BML has had a week long engineering blockage.
I've used a few coach RRB services during college while the BML has had a week long engineering blockage.
markymark2000
Established Member
Most rail replacement is not done by 'local bus' operators but by coach firms or bus operators who otherwise do schools. Theres also plenty of operators who are happy to travel. Cymru Coaches in Swansea often tend to go and work in Cambridge and Peterborough because they are paid money which makes that journey worth their while. It's also worth noting that some operators travel literally anywhere and make it work. First Choice of Birmingham were recently seen doing Newcastle Upon Tyne rail replacement. Cardiff has has A2B Travel from Cambridge and Angies Tours from Lowestoft turn up. If you pay up, you will get firms from all over.
Yes but also no. It restricts things but it is by no means impossible to get enough buses. Just have to pay up.
Age and livery shouldn't be an issue really but 70 seaters I know some firms say a big no no.
Hmm, at short-notice it definitely can be. Have you seen how many TOCs have put out disruption commentary along the lines of “replacement buses have been requested, but we do not have an ETA for this yet”. This can leave people in the lurch.
TOCs have never been able to snap their figures and suddenly 5 buses turn up but it is considerably harder than it was pre-Covid to get the supply.
And as has been mentioned on these forums several times over the past 2-3 years, even for booked suppliers for planned engineering works, many have struggled to obtain suitable numbers of vehicles, which is partly due to the cost constraints imposed.
On many occasions I've seen bus coordinators expecting buses and finding out the drivers never booked on and no buses turn up. I've missed many buses because of a lack of drivers.
In fact, it might now be more common for a bus to have no driver than a train in many places.
Worse still, most bus apps or real time displays won't show a cancelled bus.
In fact, it might now be more common for a bus to have no driver than a train in many places.
Worse still, most bus apps or real time displays won't show a cancelled bus.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Those coaches are totally unsuitable for transporting adults, and my personal view is that it should actually be illegal to transport adults in them (they should fit a couple of rows of 2+2 at the front for the teachers) for the reason that with such narrow seats it is not possible for most adults to wear the seat belts correctly. However one might have been handy for that school party mentioned, and one would hope a bit of pragmatism might be used over that specific matter when actually filling it with kids!
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I assume Avanti use First Travel Solutions? Do they have a limited set of regular contractors, or will they literally phone round anyone? If not the latter then they should. We could do with something of the sort of coverage of Fraser Eagle.
Well yes but this is a thread about Southern failing to provide buses for engineering work which would have been planned many months in advance so I don't see the relevance.
Livery seems an odd concern. If rules on bus age are resulting in nothing being available maybe they aren't a good idea.
But 2+3 school coaches don't seem like a good plan unless there really isn't an alternative.
But then the majority of buses don't have seat belts anyway.
Lewisham2221
Established Member
I agree. My point was more that the use of such vehicles for schools work is increasingly popular, thus reducing the available pool of vehicles/operators further.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No, but if they are fitted they legally must be worn, and a reasonably sized adult can't do that properly in a 3+2 coach.
Questions that spring immediately to mind (as I don't know the area):
- Who usually provides the rail replacement buses? Regular bus companies, or coach firms?
- Are there any restrictions on the route that require odd size buses, or is it all main road running?
- Were there any events going on (e.g. racing, football) that the usual firms may have already booked out for?
- How quickly was this to be arranged? It obviously wasn't an emergency, but at what notice was it added to the calendar?
It's obviously not much good providing two or three coaches from Wales with SatNavs and route diagrams (plus overnight costs) if what the service actually needs is a pair of double-deckers to meet every departure to handle the numbers.
Could it also be that having found _some_ vehicles, they weren't able to provide a "safe" number, so decided to provide none?
- Who usually provides the rail replacement buses? Regular bus companies, or coach firms?
- Are there any restrictions on the route that require odd size buses, or is it all main road running?
- Were there any events going on (e.g. racing, football) that the usual firms may have already booked out for?
- How quickly was this to be arranged? It obviously wasn't an emergency, but at what notice was it added to the calendar?
It's obviously not much good providing two or three coaches from Wales with SatNavs and route diagrams (plus overnight costs) if what the service actually needs is a pair of double-deckers to meet every departure to handle the numbers.
Could it also be that having found _some_ vehicles, they weren't able to provide a "safe" number, so decided to provide none?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
A safe number? Coaches are generally legally restricted to passengers = seats, so there's not an unsafe number as such any more than there is for taxis.
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