Do not travel warning from Chiltern!

[zwk500]

How much notice would be required to arrange such specials? Ten days enough in the case of Coventry City?

In theory you could do it in about 24 hours if you were very quick and very lucky. But realistically the shortest would be if you gave a TOC 4 weeks pre-notice so they can arrange for the resources to be on standby and check for engineering works, and then ideally you'd want 1 week to allow NR time to get the path in and then communicate the key times back to the club so they can tell supporters. The later you leave it, of course, the bigger the risk of getting declined outright or a really rubbish path.

Avanti have sometimes bid for Footexes at short notice as well, but then they have existing football plans they can largely pick up and send straight in.

 

[12LDA28C]

I've seen talk of Coventry fans wanting to attempt to bring a 'class action lawsuit' against Chiltern Railways and boycotting them. Many reports of people spending £300+ on taxis due to the issues

Really? On what basis? That they didn't have trains and drivers sat around spare just in case the match ran to extra time?

Are the Oxford to Marylebone services, especially the fasts, busier than normal given the Nunham viaduct closing? I can see Chiltern are running doubled up 168s and even more 165s on these routes.

Yes, of course they are. Around 4,500 extra passengers a day according to reports. Hardly surprising given Chiltern is the only direct route between the two cities currently.

 

[43066]

I've seen talk of Coventry fans wanting to attempt to bring a 'class action lawsuit' against Chiltern Railways and boycotting them. Many reports of people spending £300+ on taxis due to the issues. Personally I think it comes down to fans assuming services will be put on to convey them and then descending en masse, normally Chiltern are pretty good at events at Wembley so I can only put it down to sheer volume of people. Would be interesting to see some statistics to work out how many people were attempting to travel from Wembley to Warwick Parkway/Leamington.

It’s not clear on what basis a “class action lawsuit” could be brought when trains are simply too full to convey passengers.

If football fans boycott the railway, many staff and passengers will breathe a sigh of relief!

 

[SussexSeagull]

It’s not clear on what basis a “class action lawsuit” could be brought when trains are simply too full to convey passengers.

If football fans boycott the railway, many staff and passengers will breathe a sigh of relief!

Doing the anti-football fan thing again, are we?

I am sure non football fans also couldn't make it home and next time the same people need to make a trip they won't consider the train.

When Wembley was rebuilt there was actually a bid for a stadium next door to the Birmingham NEC which would have been much more accessible to people in the North - and certainly Coventry City fans - and had better motorway links. Instead London won it, presumably on the back of better public transport links. I agree someone needs to tell the Football League to start holding these games at 1500 to allow more time to get home but people not being able to get back home following a football match finishing at about 1930 isn't great.

If the TOCs involved thought they couldn't cope they should have gone public as soon as the game was announced.

 

[12LDA28C]

If the TOCs involved thought they couldn't cope they should have gone public as soon as the game was announced.

Except that the TOCs didn't think that. They planned extra and lengthened services for a 90-minute football match which then ran to extra time. And various issues affecting the WCML such as a fatality can hardly be predicted can they?

 

[Taunton]

How do you suggest that is done? Have spare trains and drivers sat around just in case a football match runs to extra time? It doesn't really work like that.

London Underground have handled overruns into extra time at Wembley Park in their planning for the last 100 years.

 

[zwk500]

London Underground have handled overruns into extra time at Wembley Park in their planning for the last 100 years.

And Chiltern have a wembley plan. But the two aren't comparable operations - London Underground don't run to Birmingham, for instance.

What would really help is if they could lengthen Wembley Central platforms to 12-car and substitute Wembley Central vice Watford Jn stops in 12-car LNR people eaters.

 

[SussexSeagull]

Except that the TOCs didn't think that. They planned extra and lengthened services for a 90-minute football match which then ran to extra time. And various issues affecting the WCML such as a fatality can hardly be predicted can they?

Going to extra time and penalties could have been predicted though.

 

[zwk500]

Going to extra time and penalties could have been predicted though.

Indeed, but there's not always a lot that can be done. By the sound of it Chiltern managed the situation as well as they could on the ground with trains being held for penalties and such like.

 

[The Planner]

Going to extra time and penalties could have been predicted though.

Let me know if Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley will and I will log on to Bet365.

 

[zwk500]

Let me know if Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley will and I will log on to Bet365.

It was perfectly forseeable that such a match *could* go to Extra Time and penalties. The question is whether Chiltern could have done anything better to juggle 2 different plans until the very last moment - naturally, if a game is going to Extra time it won't be known until the final whistle as actually been blown. To have trains at Wembley ready for a 90min final southbound trains would need to be in flight beforehand.

I've been involved in several Avanti Wembley plans and they would ask for Q paths offset by 30-45 mins in case of extra time and pens. Chiltern obviously have far less capacity and resource to play with when trying to manage this.

 

[Krokodil]

And what should Chiltern have done differently, in your opinion? As for the WCML it was unfortunate that various issues were encountered on the day but they could not have been predicted or planned for.

He didn't actually specify that he was pointing the finger at Chiltern. He said that the industry as a whole couldn't cope. To me that is the consequence of decades of "sweating the assets", along with the lack of any standardisation in rolling stock.

 

[Bartsimho]

If football fans boycott the railway, many staff and passengers will breathe a sigh of relief!

Good to see that people want the railway to continue to disregard a large group of potential fans.

Every year you have lots of people want to go somewhere else where the advantage of being able to drink on the railway is a major advantage and it just wants to be thrown away again.

The industry haemorrhages money but with some people wanting to disregard a large source of passengers because they don't like them.

 

[The Prisoner]

Interested to hear how customers travelling to the Sheffield Wednesday- Barnsley game have got on with EMR today. Their socials were telling people to use other operators to get to the game as they were running a limited service due to engineering.

So throw in don’t travel with Chiltern for the championship play off and the first train from Carlisle arriving an hour after kick off for the league 2 game and it’s a pair of swinging fingers all round.

I lived in Penrith when Carlisle made Wembley back in the 90s back in the days when the WCML didn’t open on a Sunday til the afternoon. The area manager put on a special to get us there for the game leaving at 8am going all round possessions to get us there for the game. Even terminated at Wembley Central. Imagine that now?!

I echo the views above - the railway does its level best to abdicate with football. We can’t cope, so we won’t try.

 

[Bartsimho]

Interested to hear how customers travelling to the Sheffield Wednesday- Barnsley game have got on with EMR today. Their socials were telling people to use other operators to get to the game as they were running a limited service due to engineering.

So throw in don’t travel with Chiltern for the championship play off and the first train from Carlisle arriving an hour after kick off for the league 2 game and it’s a pair of swinging fingers all round.

I lived in Penrith when Carlisle made Wembley back in the 90s back in the days when the WCML didn’t open on a Sunday til the afternoon. The area manager put on a special to get us there for the game leaving at 8am going all round possessions to get us there for the game. Even terminated at Wembley Central. Imagine that now?!

I echo the views above - the railway does its level best to abdicate with football. We can’t cope, so we won’t try.

For EMR there appears to be an issue with the Midland Main Line between Derby and Chesterfield which is causing an issue of only 1tph between Sheffield and London. Although it looks like they were running 10 coach sets earlier skipping Derby up to Erewash Valley. It also looks like 1 path can't be used after the 1137 from Sheffield was cancelled although that is probably after most have set off (Maybe not enough rolling stock so they might be taking 1 cancellation to redeploy units elsewhere).

 

[AF91]

It's not a case of not trying though. It's a very different world post covid with resources being very much limited by the DfT now that it's the tax payers paying the bills.

In an ideal world it would be good to have some charter sets available that could run football specials to try to take the lions share of demand away from service trains. The non slam door mk3s from XC and Chiltern might be a possibility if they became available.

 

[DarloRich]

But getting to Old Trafford, rather than Wembley, would have been far easier for fans of Carlisle and Stockport, as say Elland Road would have been for Middlesbrough and Sunderland fans. However, the play-off finalists cannot of course be known until less than two weeks before the game, which does present a problem for both the football authorities and transport providers

You arent really getting it: as football fans we dont really care how "easy" something is to get to. If it is a big game we will be there.

We also want a day out at wembley
It doesnt happen often for most clubs! I support Darlington. We have had 3 trips to wembley since 1883 luckily all within my lifetime. Old trafford just doesn't have the same cahet in that regard.

Ps i have got to games by train, coach, bus, tram, boat, car and on foot. Havent made a trip by helicopter yet! If the games is on we will find a way!

 

[Mountain Man]

If anyone "thought of the fans" the Sheffield/Barnsley game would have been at Elland Road or Hillsborough. Why we have to drag nearly 100,000 the length of the country on a bank holiday adding to the stress on the motorways and railways I simply give in.

Frankly not only football fans but the department of Transport, emergency organisations (ambulance/police/breakdown/rail companies) should say "we're overloaded, stop football's big games on Bank Holiday weekends". Or at least dragging them down to an already packed London.

Same reason FA Cup semis are at Wembley. The Wembley stadium development 20 years ago is still being paid for so they are maximising revenue. It's only now thats its close to being paid for are they are even allowing a few lower profile international games which they have no chance of selling out Wembley for to be moved other stadiums

 

[Falcon1200]

You arent really getting it: as football fans we dont really care how "easy" something is to get to. If it is a big game we will be there.

Actually I do get it, having attended Wembley for the first and so far only time in 1986 for Oxford United's day of glory (winning the League Cup); The issue is that having all the play-off finals in London, regardless of where the clubs contesting it are based, is liable to cause transport issues, which is what is being complained about/discussed here! And I do fully understand why fans want to see their team play at Wembley, even if, like yesterday, they come nowhere near filling the place. We can never know, of course, what the attendance would have been if the game had been played somewhere 'oop north'.

 

[philthetube]

London Underground have handled overruns into extra time at Wembley Park in their planning for the last 100 years.

London Underground send a few Metropolitan line trains down the fast instead of the local to make use of platform one at Wembley Park. If there are a couple of spare staff then a few extra trains are sent out, but not many, to be run as required, easy to operate on an ad hoc basis, not possible for Chiltern.

Wembley's planning permission has a latest finish time for events, to allow onwards travel afterwards, so easy for the underground to manage.

It always amazes me how quickly Wembley park is cleared after events.

 

[North-Valiant]

It's not a case of not trying though. It's a very different world post covid with resources being very much limited by the DfT now that it's the tax payers paying the bills.

In an ideal world it would be good to have some charter sets available that could run football specials to try to take the lions share of demand away from service trains. The non slam door mk3s from XC and Chiltern might be a possibility if they became available.

I've got an even better idea, the 4 loco hauled TPE sets that spend all day sunbathing at Ardwick might be useful

 

[Bartsimho]

It's not a case of not trying though. It's a very different world post covid with resources being very much limited by the DfT now that it's the tax payers paying the bills.

In an ideal world it would be good to have some charter sets available that could run football specials to try to take the lions share of demand away from service trains. The non slam door mk3s from XC and Chiltern might be a possibility if they became available.

I wonder if the converted HST carriages could be used as they can get up to the 125mph speeds which allows for more paths on the mainlines. Also they would mainly be on Saturdays so there might be more freight paths that could be used. A 5 car set could probably carry 380 fans (76*5 if I can take the HST carriage capacity from Wikipedia). If I do some basic maths that could be around £11,500 although I'm unsure of any operating or pathing costs so i don't know how feasible it would be.

I think almost any team in the Prem or Championship could sell that every away day on Saturdays even the small ones. Also a few clubs in even lower divisions could do that as well

 

[43066]

now that it's the tax payers paying the bills.

This isn’t right. It’s still both tax payers and fare payers paying the bills, just slightly weighted more towards taxpayers temporarily.

 

[Class 170101]

Its whether NR will adjust already access too. Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't.

Saturday night into Sunday morning on the WCML north of Preston seems somewhat unlikely. Even on a normal timetable the 1st Virgin Train from Carlisle doesn't arrive into Euston until 14:58, so even a 15:00 Kick Off at Wembley isn't that great, you can actually do better going across to Newcastle and into Kings Cross .

 

[SussexSeagull]

As has been said previously the football authorities - Football League in this case - need to either negotiate with the TV people to have 1500 kick offs to give a bit of breathing room to fans getting home afterwards or the authorities need to step in and tell them. As it stands we have a £800 million pound stadium that half the country struggle to get home from afterwards if games go to extra time or penalties.

That said is a sign of the state of the railways at the moment that they can't cope with disruptions or major events.

 

[12LDA28C]

Going to extra time and penalties could have been predicted though.

Ok, sure. So Chiltern should have had trains and drivers sat around in case of that eventuality? What do they then do with the trains that have been planned and advertised to call at Wembley shortly after the 90 minutes was up? Bearing in mind that many of these would have been regular timetabled services, specially lengthened to accommodate fans?

He didn't actually specify that he was pointing the finger at Chiltern. He said that the industry as a whole couldn't cope. To me that is the consequence of decades of "sweating the assets", along with the lack of any standardisation in rolling stock.

Unfortunately this isn't the 1980s and we don't have locos and spare rakes of stock sat around crewed up ready for use at the drop of a hat. If we did, that is hardly a cost-efficient way to run a railway or spend taxpayers money.

 

[SussexSeagull]

Ok, sure. So Chiltern should have had trains and drivers sat around in case of that eventuality? What do they then do with the trains that have been planned and advertised to call at Wembley shortly after the 90 minutes was up? Bearing in mind that many of these would have been regular timetabled services, specially lengthened to accommodate fans?



Unfortunately this isn't the 1980s and we don't have locos and spare rakes of stock sat around crewed up for use at the drop of a hat. If we did, that is hardly a cost-efficient way to run a railway or spend taxpayers money.

You are missing my point.

It is obvious they couldn't so they should have raised it when they knew the game was taking place.

 

[12LDA28C]

I wonder if the converted HST carriages could be used as they can get up to the 125mph speeds which allows for more paths on the mainlines. Also they would mainly be on Saturdays so there might be more freight paths that could be used. A 5 car set could probably carry 380 fans (76*5 if I can take the HST carriage capacity from Wikipedia). If I do some basic maths that could be around £11,500 although I'm unsure of any operating or pathing costs so i don't know how feasible it would be.

A charter would cost a fair bit more than that to run, and of course a train with 125mph capability would be rather pointless on the Chilterns out of Wembley Stadium although more useful on the WCML. Also, one train carrying 380 fans wouldn't make much difference when tens of thousands of fans are travelling, or trying to.

You are missing my point.

It is obvious they couldn't so they should have raised it when they knew the game was taking place.

So you're saying that as soon as the game was announced, Chiltern, Avanti and LNR should all have made the announcement for people not to travel to the game by rail? Can you imagine the uproar if they had done that?

 

[GalaxyDog]

Interesting.
RE 170s - WMT would not have been able to loan them to Chiltern anyway - all the 170s have gone, now having been replaced by the god awful CAF Class 196s on their home routes.
And would you really trust the 196s to not crack up and break down in such a critical operational moment?

RE Euston trains - does anyone know why there were so many LNR cancellations perchance?

 

[12LDA28C]

Interesting.
RE 170s - WMT would not have been able to loan them to Chiltern anyway - all the 170s have gone, now having been replaced by the god awful CAF Class 196s on their home routes.
And would you really trust the 196s to not crack up and break down in such a critical operational moment?

RE Euston trains - does anyone know why there were so many LNR cancellations perchance?

I believe planned engineering work may have closed the fast lines after around 2000 as was the case the previous Saturday leading to much reduced capacity on the slow lines only. There may also have been other infrastructure issues.