Overcrowded trains on weekends

[orpine]

So I'm curious - During rush hour trains are over-crowded; I get this - trains can only be so long and only so many can be fitted on the tracks at once.

But why are they also often over-crowded on weekends? No special events, be it sport or trains breaking down. This seems to be a standard affair for some routes (Cross Country in my experience).

There must be literally hundreds of items of rolling stock scattered around the country in yards over the weekend (Sunday in particular) - why aren't these used to provide more services? It seems like an easy win.

 

[reb0118]

Sunday is traditionally the day for track & train maintenance. trying to . Reply via HTC so will wait until I get home & use laptop.

 

[PhilipW]

This is really the same topic that is being being discussed in this other thread that I started.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=91075

That particular thread concentrated on certain late evening services out of Waterloo that are regularly overcrowded on Friday or Saturday evenings.

Not sure whether it worth starting up a new thread to continue the discussion or just carrying on with the old thread.

To summarize what has been discussed. Once the rush hour has passed (around 20:00) each TOC is still obliged to run services at a regular interval but there is no (or little) requirement on the length of train, so the TOC just runs the minimum (typically a 4-car or 5-car set in my SWT area). To run longer trains costs the TOC money so even where there is demand they are reluctant to do it unless forced to. As has been pointed out, the TOCs run a business and it is better business to squeeze 7 carriages of people into a 5-car set than it is to run a 10-car set.

I guess the same applies the weekends. People in areas where the TOCs have fixed car sets (HSTs and Pendolinos) may fare better.

 

[FenMan]

So I'm curious - During rush hour trains are over-crowded; I get this - trains can only be so long and only so many can be fitted on the tracks at once.

But why are they also often over-crowded on weekends? No special events, be it sport or trains breaking down. This seems to be a standard affair for some routes (Cross Country in my experience).

There must be literally hundreds of items of rolling stock scattered around the country in yards over the weekend (Sunday in particular) - why aren't these used to provide more services? It seems like an easy win.

DfT timetable specifications can cause this. For example the Sunday hourly skip-stop timetable imposed by DfT on the North Downs Line has resulted in trains being full and standing when Gatwick passengers, Reading and Guildford shoppers and London Irish fans all try to use the same services. There's a case to either revert to the old Sunday timetable (which separated the stoppers from the Gatwick services) or to upgrade services to a Saturday timetable when Reading and Guildford shopping centres are open for business.

No doubt someone will be along in a moment to say that stock isn't available, it would cost too much, cannot possibly etc despite the fact the old timetable was in place for many years.

 

[NSEFAN]

Of course, weekdays aren't always busiest for XC. See the Summer Saturday trains to Newquay as an example!

 

[cuccir]

People travel for weekends away - they may go on a Thursday if they can, during any point on Friday, or get an early Saturday train. Almost all these people, who have been distributed over 48 hours for their outward journeys, will be making their trip back between 13:00-20:00 on a Sunday. They'll also often have significant luggage, and frequently be travelling in groups of 4 and over. This results both in general busyness, but also specific over-crowding in trains/coaches where, coincidentally, a few large groups have all decided to travel.

This then adds to the operational facts of engineering work, which slows trains down or results in their cancellation, and fewer timetabled trains to begin with.

 

[orpine]

Interesting replies. I know about the maintenance (of both stock and track) on sundays, but this seems to be a matter of course irrespective of whether there is maintenance on the route or not - and I doubt all non-running stock is being maintained.

Almost all these people, who have been distributed over 48 hours for their outward journeys, will be making their trip back between 13:00-20:00 on a Sunday. They'll also often have significant luggage, and frequently be travelling in groups of 4 and over. This results both in general busyness, but also specific over-crowding in trains/coaches where, coincidentally, a few large groups have all decided to travel.

This seems to be the crux of it, but surely given it seems to happen regularly they should know and be able to do something about it?

 

[GodAtum]

I never get why Sunday its busy from East Croydon - London Victoria & London bridge.

 

[bb21]

Interesting replies. I know about the maintenance (of both stock and track) on sundays, but this seems to be a matter of course irrespective of whether there is maintenance on the route or not - and I doubt all non-running stock is being maintained.


This seems to be the crux of it, but surely given it seems to happen regularly they should know and be able to do something about it?

Stock will be maintained on a rolling basis.

You can trace the problem back to the government wanting to pay as little / be paid as much as possible for these franchises, thereby specifying as little service as they can get away with. Consequently the rail companies try and reduce their cost base to the bare minimum, while still trying to make a profit from the business. So you have the situation we are in now, as detailed in this thread and the other thread mentioned.

The economic principles behind the whole thing is quite straight forward.

A large proportion of the blame lies with successive governments. The rail companies are just doing what they are told to do.

 

[Eagle]

I never get why Sunday its busy from East Croydon - London Victoria & London bridge.

People going into the city for shopping and so on, I'd assume.

Frequency is lower on Sundays so it seems busier than Saturdays.

 

[dk1]

Sundays will always cause a problem for crewing trains. Most staff work early & late shifts. Those doing late Saturday then early Monday will on the whole not be able to work a Sunday with 12hrs rest either side. That only leaves early to late & those working overtime on their weekend off as available to catch a Sunday turn.

 

[tbtc]

There's two issues.

Sunday is always going to be a problem on the railways, as its not inside the "working week" for most staff, so it relies on an amount of voluntary overtime (without getting into one of those tedious "how would you like to have to work on a Sunday" arguments - I've done my share of "antisocial" hours in the past) - its also the day of the week when a lot of engineering happens. Basically, fewer staff, fewer paths (on some lines), and also the day of the week when a lot of maintenance happens.

Secondly, travel patterns at weekends are quite different to week days. Many week day plans can be summed up by "provide as much capacity into central London as possible". But, with leisure time at the weekend, people have more random patterns, they want to go to the seaside, they want to go somewhere scenic (Peak District, Lake District etc), they want to go to somewhere "quaint" (rural villages), but a lot of this demand is hard to predict from one week to the next as it may be weather dependant. You've also got sports fixtures, Students going home for the weekend... lots of random flows that may make a train busy one Saturday and quiet the next. How do you plan "supply" to meet that kind of demand?

One suggestion would be for non-London TOCs like XC/ TPE to borrow HSTs from East Coat (or FGW, in the case of XC) to increase their supply on the days when the "London" TOCs have less need of their stock (due to the number of "peak extra" Monday to Friday services that aren't needed at the weekend)

 

[455driver]

Sundays will always cause a problem for crewing trains. Most staff work early & late shifts. Those doing late Saturday then early Monday will on the whole not be able to work a Sunday with 12hrs rest either side. That only leaves early to late & those working overtime on their weekend off as available to catch a Sunday turn.

The way we work at SWT is that we are on that shift for the working week, one pattern is (Sunday to Saturday)-

RD, RD, E, E, E, E, E.
E, E, RD, RD, L, L, L.
L, L, L, L, RD, RD, RD.
RD, M, M, M, M, M, M.
RD, RD, RD, E, E, E, E.
etc

So we dont swap shifts mid (working) week and always swap over at rest days which are always grouped as a minimum of 2 and sometimes up to 5 in a row.
I think this works better as it reduces fatigue compared to the one rest day change over when it can be difficult to get enough sleep when changing from lates onto earlies for example.

 

[reb0118]

The way we work at SWT is that we are on that shift for the working week, one pattern is (Sunday to Saturday)-

RD, RD, E, E, E, E, E.
E, E, RD, RD, L, L, L.
L, L, L, L, RD, RD, RD.
RD, M, M, M, M, M, M.
RD, RD, RD, E, E, E, E.
etc

So we dont swap shifts mid (working) week and always swap over at rest days which are always grouped as a minimum of 2 and sometimes up to 5 in a row.
I think this works better as it reduces fatigue compared to the one rest day change over when it can be difficult to get enough sleep when changing from lates onto earlies for example.

I suggested something similar up here. I was laughed out of court! Too many vested interests - late Saturday into early Monday is the killer as we all know.

 

[northwichcat]

But why are they also often over-crowded on weekends? No special events, be it sport or trains breaking down. This seems to be a standard affair for some routes (Cross Country in my experience).

The problem in the North of England seems to be on the weekday we have extra trains at busy times e.g. extra services between 06:30 and 09:30. On Saturdays really there are busy times but these are different to weekdays (something like 10:00 to 13:00 for the morning busy period) but the trains run at their standard off-peak frequency so they can be much busier than on weekdays.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Network Rail have proposed we should be moving to a seven day timetable. This doesn't mean the Sunday timetable will be the same as Monday (as some people seem to think) but it means something like a timetable something like:

07:00
07:15 SSX
07:30 SuX
07:45 SSX
08:00

Where SSX means Saturday and Sunday excluded and SuX means Sunday excluded.

 

[Tetchytyke]

One suggestion would be for non-London TOCs like XC/ TPE to borrow HSTs from East Coat (or FGW, in the case of XC) to increase their supply on the days when the "London" TOCs have less need of their stock (due to the number of "peak extra" Monday to Friday services that aren't needed at the weekend)

Sunday is the busiest day of the lot on EastCoast, with a huge proportion of their passenger flows being leisure rather than commuter. Friday evening services out of London, and Sunday afternoon services into London, are usually full, even when a full timetable is in operation.

Staffing can be a reason why TOCs don't run more trains, but I don't think it is a reason why they don't run longer trains. If a train is one unit it needs a driver and (sometimes) a guard; if it is two units it rarely requires extra staff. What there are are additional cost requirements: running that extra unit does have a cost attached to it, even if it's just a slightly increased track access charge and a splash of diesel.

TOCs understand more than anybody that you pay the same fare whether you have a seat or whether you're clinging to a grab rail for an hour. Northern understand that as long as you get on your inbound train then you've paid even if you have to get the bus or a taxi home because you can't get on the last train. And this is the problem: TOCs make more money by ramming off peak passengers in like sardines than they do by providing trains of an appropriate length.

TOCs have very little control on their cost bases: they can't negotiate lower rents nor can they negotiate favourable track access charges. They can only basically control staffing levels (hence no additional services on a Sunday) and basic running costs (hence why TOCs leave their stock in the depot on a Sunday). This is partly the fault of Governments for privatising in such a cack-handed way, but I also blame the TOCs for this. They're happy to take in the extra money from Saturday shoppers, but they're not happy to provide them with the services they paid for.

 

[orpine]

Well it happened again this weekend. I caught an earlier train (1 hr earlier) and that was at least as packed, if not more. There were probably 30-40 people standing/sitting on the floor in my carriage alone.
I travelled Oxford to Leamington, but it was obviously overcrowded when it arrived at Oxford and left Leamington, so some people had hour+ journeys in those conditions!