Timing of Engneering Works

[mike57]

Traditionaly engineering works take place over holiday weekends because this has less impact on commuters, however post covid the trains seem busier on a weekend than during the week. This is born out by our two most recent longer trips, where we were able to get good price advanced first class tickets on a Friday (or any other weekday) but everything on a Saturday had sold out (One trip to Manchester, one to London)

Our local route, Hull, Bridlington, Scarborough is the subject to works Easter weekend, which means that effectivley people will probably not choose to travel by rail to any of the Yorkshire coast resorts from Hull or beyond. Typically with Easter being mid April this year that would be a very busy weekend with day trippers, probably one of the busiest weekends of the year.

So do Network Rail need to rethink their policy, and perhaps do works during the week?

I get the feeling that the rail industry in general is not responding quickly to the fact that far more journeys are lesuire related nowadays. Apart from commuting more general business travel has been cut back as well, I for one now have the technology to avoid the need for a weekly trip to Preston (by train), now we are out of covid restrictions this is scaled back to 1 per month or so.

Surely works should be arranged on the basis of 'least journieys affected'

 

[SargeNpton]

Traditionaly engineering works take place over holiday weekends because this has less impact on commuters, however post covid the trains seem busier on a weekend than during the week. This is born out by our two most recent longer trips, where we were able to get good price advanced first class tickets on a Friday (or any other weekday) but everything on a Saturday had sold out (One trip to Manchester, one to London)

Our local route, Hull, Bridlington, Scarborough is the subject to works Easter weekend, which means that effectivley people will probably not choose to travel by rail to any of the Yorkshire coast resorts from Hull or beyond. Typically with Easter being mid April this year that would be a very busy weekend with day trippers, probably one of the busiest weekends of the year.

So do Network Rail need to rethink their policy, and perhaps do works during the week?

I get the feeling that the rail industry in general is not responding quickly to the fact that far more journeys are lesuire related nowadays. Apart from commuting more general business travel has been cut back as well, I for one now have the technology to avoid the need for a weekly trip to Preston (by train), now we are out of covid restrictions this is scaled back to 1 per month or so.

Surely works should be arranged on the basis of 'least journieys affected'

It's not only the passenger traffic that you have to take into account. There is also the effect on freight trains for weekday route closures.

 

[Spartacus]

Network Rail would get a lot more stick if engineering works were moved to times that prevented more people getting to work in favour of more people getting to the seaside. It's business vs pleasure, losing jobs vs losing walks on the beach.

As the above says too, switching to weekday work would mean a lot more disruption to any freight services too, not really a big issue Hull - Scarborough, but even then a problem might be sourcing locos and staff who might otherwise be employed on regular commercial rather than engineering trains, and if you want any resource when it's scarce that always pushes up the price.

Engineering work does get done during the week already though, often overnight, just when it's appropriate, and usually not the big jobs.

 

[heart-of-wessex]

Well you say do work during the week, they did a block between Bournemouth and Southampton Monday to Friday, I was told by co-ordinator that NR decided to just get on with the work during the week then passengers aren't getting affected on the weekend travelling to the coast. A good idea I was driving rail all week and was staying in Southampton as I couldn't get back to depot (Westbury) in my working time. I wasn't the only one, there were a fair amount of London operators staying down, as they couldn't get many local operators to do it because they were on school contracts, but the work was done a week before the half term week!

 

[zwk500]

So do Network Rail need to rethink their policy, and perhaps do works during the week?

NR are rethinking their policy, putting on more 9-day blockades with 1 or 2 follow up weekends instead of a year's worth of weekend works.

Surely works should be arranged on the basis of 'least journieys affected'

They are, but at some point the track does need to be worked on!

 

[pdeaves]

Network Rail doesn't (generally) just decide when to do works. The affected operators (passenger and freight) get a say in timings, what routes are kept open (diversionary routes or even whether a particular set of points is inside or outside the possession), etc., with a view on what the customers want. A lot of work goes into making the outcome 'least bad' for all concerned. But as zxk500 says, sooner or later every bit of track will need some sort of work; the later it's left, the harder it is to object to the need or timings to do the work.

 

[swt_passenger]

Well you say do work during the week, they did a block between Bournemouth and Southampton Monday to Friday, I was told by co-ordinator that NR decided to just get on with the work during the week then passengers aren't getting affected on the weekend travelling to the coast. A good idea I was driving rail all week and was staying in Southampton as I couldn't get back to depot (Westbury) in my working time. I wasn't the only one, there were a fair amount of London operators staying down, as they couldn't get many local operators to do it because they were on school contracts, but the work was done a week before the half term week!

…and there’ve been similar 9 day blockades on the Brighton line recently. So working during the week can be and is done. Isn’t that believed to be equivalent to about 6 normal weekend closures in terms of productive access time?

But I doubt you’d ever see any 5 day blocks Mon-Fri with the weekends either side clear…

 

[zwk500]

…and there’ve been similar 9 day blockades on the Brighton line recently. So working during the week can be and is done. Isn’t that believed to be equivalent to about 6 normal weekend closures in terms of productive access time?

The last 9-day Blockade I was involved in was reckoned to achieve the same amount of work as 50-odd consecutive weekend possessions.

 

[swt_passenger]

The last 9-day Blockade I was involved in was reckoned to achieve the same amount of work as 50-odd consecutive weekend possessions.

That’s remarkable isn’t it. I guess it just shows how much of a normal weekend closure is spent with setting up and removing worksites, testing signalling is working again, etc etc. With a bit of productive work right in the middle…

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Long possessions (eg over bank holidays or Christmas) are the only way NR can do certain major infrastructure work, such as bridge replacements, route remodelling/resignalling, drainage work or embankment rebuilds.
There is also probably an increasing backlog of such work as the Victorian network ages.
I just wish there was a better diversion strategy than "might as well shut the entire WCML" which seems to have been be the tactic for a couple of decades.
At least when HS2 arrives there should(?) be a permanently open replacement route (although not at night, and not serving many classic stations).

 

[Mag_seven]

Its a complicated issue but I much prefer the increasing use of large blocks that last a week or two rather than blocks over several weekends particularly if they are advertised well in advance and full use is made of diversionary routes where practicable.

 

[zwk500]

That’s remarkable isn’t it. I guess it just shows how much of a normal weekend closure is spent with setting up and removing worksites, testing signalling is working again, etc etc. With a bit of productive work right in the middle…

Tbf that was for a very restricted worksite so it quite an extreme example.

 

[30907]

Without knowing the detail, the fact that all lines are blocked for 72 hours at Hull itself suggests some fairly major work is being done.
I would be interested to know whether the total passenger throughput at Hull (not just the Brid daytrippers) on a BH weekend is significantly higher than on three consecutive weekdays.

NR will continue to want to do some work at BH weekends even as they continue shifting to week-long blockades, in order to make best use (I hope) of their expensive machinery.

 

[Bald Rick]

to break this down:

however post covid the trains seem busier on a weekend than during the week

On some lines yes. But then on some lines that was always the case.
To put some numbers behind it, for the network as a whole leisure traffic is largely back to Pre Covid levels…. Yet on average there are still twice as many passengers travelling each weekday than on a Sunday. Hence why Sundays are typically used as the base day for engineering works, as it is by far when the fewest passengers are affected.

Typically with Easter being mid April this year that would be a very busy weekend with day trippers, probably one of the busiest weekends of the year.

But it wouldn’t. For as long as I have been involved in the railway (30years+) the Easter Saturday/Sunday has been the quietest weekend of the year unless Christmas Day / Boxing Day are on a Saturday or Sunday. Most people tend to travel for the long weekend, which means Good Friday / Easter Monday are busy, but the Saturday / Sunday are dead.

So do Network Rail need to rethink their policy, and perhaps do works during the week?

I get the feeling that the rail industry in general is not responding quickly to the fact that far more journeys are lesuire related nowadays.

Surely works should be arranged on the basis of 'least journieys affected'

Logically works should be arranged on the basis of ‘least socio-economic disbenefit’, which is not the same as ‘least journies’.

The rail industry is looking into it, and has done to my certain knowledge continuously for 20 years; there are now many more weekday blocks than there ever were, and this will continue.

The two main challenges are that most of the routes busy with leisure traffic have quite a mix of other traffic too, and there is no ideal time to do any work. The second is that most ’big’ engineering works needs engineering trains, and the locos and crews involved are engaged on commercial freight traffic in the week.

 

[Horizon22]

I've considered this a lot the past few months, especially once it was brought up initially. Ultimately, I don't think there is an easy answer either way - you are going to have to disrupt someone.

Firstly, although often trapsed out, commuting is not dead. Just this week I've seen a train moved up from an 8-car to a 12-car in the AM peak because it was suffering from overcrowding. Okay, its definitely reduced and may not rebound to those figures again for 10-15 years with natural population growth or indeed ever, but it is still a very sizable amount as it ever was. Many people - especially urban rail commuters and shift workers rely on the railway as their only option and I don't think it's reasonable to stop those people or significantly extending their journey times.

It is also normally better to take a long block of 72-96 hours rather than lots of 24 hour blocks if you want to get something done - economies of scale make it more efficient with staff/materials etc.

Disrupting someone's usual work journey is arguably different to someone's leisure travel on the weekend. Now the value of this can be debated, especially during the working from home era, bringing more leisure travellers and new users onto the railway and keeping them and removing the stigma of Sunday travel. I think it's probably better to do a mix and shift a little more towards weekday closures. But for a big bank holiday block you're realistically talking about something like Monday-Thursday/Tuesday-Friday instead which isn't great. Or you can do a mega 9 day block, which is certainly seeing more prevalence.

At the end of the day, there are 168 hours in a week, and 52 weeks in a year and X hours of maintenace will be required. Someone, somewhere is going to be disrupted. There's no ideal moment and thus the "pain" should be shared out a bit, but will still probably disproportionately be around more discretionary travel.

Also what needs to be remembered is that some of the work happening this Bank Holiday weekend was probably (anyone can confirm?) arranged pre-Covid, such is the intensive nature of the work.

 

[Watershed]

I've considered this a lot the past few months, especially once it was brought up initially. Ultimately, I don't think there is an easy answer either way - you are going to have to disrupt someone.

Firstly, although often trapsed out, commuting is not dead. Just this week I've seen a train moved up from an 8-car to a 12-car in the AM peak because it was suffering from overcrowding. Okay, its definitely reduced and may not rebound to those figures again for 10-15 years with natural population growth or indeed ever, but it is still a very sizable amount as it ever was. Many people - especially urban rail commuters and shift workers rely on the railway as their only option and I don't think it's reasonable to stop those people or significantly extending their journey times.

It is also normally better to take a long block of 72-96 hours rather than lots of 24 hour blocks if you want to get something done - economies of scale make it more efficient with staff/materials etc.

Disrupting someone's usual work journey is arguably different to someone's leisure travel on the weekend. Now the value of this can be debated, especially during the working from home era, bringing more leisure travellers and new users onto the railway and keeping them and removing the stigma of Sunday travel. I think it's probably better to do a mix and shift a little more towards weekday closures. But for a big bank holiday block you're realistically talking about something like Monday-Thursday/Tuesday-Friday instead which isn't great. Or you can do a mega 9 day block, which is certainly seeing more prevalence.

At the end of the day, there are 168 hours in a week, and 52 weeks in a year and X hours of maintenace will be required. Someone, somewhere is going to be disrupted. There's no ideal moment and thus the "pain" should be shared out a bit, but will still probably disproportionately be around more discretionary travel.

Also what needs to be remembered is that some of the work happening this Bank Holiday weekend was probably (anyone can confirm?) arranged pre-Covid, such is the intensive nature of the work.

I would agree with a lot of what you've said. My biggest concern is that many proposals, currently under development, for blockades 2-3 years in the future are still based around closing the railway on consecutive weekends or long bank holiday weekends.

Now for some routes that's going to be the 'least worst' way of doing things - particularly those with heavy commuter flows, say the line to Chingford. But that isn't the case everywhere - for example a closure between Newcastle and Edinburgh or Exeter and Plymouth is going to primarily affect leisure travel.

Yet many proposals, even on the latter kinds of routes, are still based around the idea of an unflinching 9-5 M-F railway. I do think there is a need to rethink a lot of this, and it's one of the areas where the incentives and structures in the current industry setup are not always aligned to deliver the best overall service to the public.

 

[Craig1122]

I'm reminded of a frequent customer question "Why can't you do engineering works when no one is travelling?" Of course what they mean is "when I'm not travelling".

Another advantage of long blocks that's not been mentioned is that you only have one opportunity for an over run. In many cases people will be able to use annual leave for a week's closure as long as they know far enough ahead. So a week off avoiding the pain of buses and then a much lower chance your Monday commute will be disrupted if multiple weekend closures have been avoided.

 

[eman_resu]

And also to bear in mind. Most possessions are months (if not years) in the planning.

Any change in methodology now would not change any current planned works, and would only come to fruition next year at the earliest when travel may be well on the return to pre-covid levels anyway.

 

[HullRailMan]

In the case of Hull, it’s going to be a relatively small number of people affected. Rail usage to/from Hull is sadly low anyway for a city of its size, and the Yorkshire Coast line is still down to an hourly service on what has been a 30 minute frequency route since BR day’s.
There will almost always be a reason not to do engineering work at a given time. The reality is that it just needs doing and, whenever it is, somebody will get disrupted.

 

[Snow1964]

Network Rail doesn't (generally) just decide when to do works. The affected operators (passenger and freight) get a say in timings, what routes are kept open (diversionary routes or even whether a particular set of points is inside or outside the possession), etc., with a view on what the customers want. A lot of work goes into making the outcome 'least bad' for all concerned. But as zxk500 says, sooner or later every bit of track will need some sort of work; the later it's left, the harder it is to object to the need or timings to do the work.

But there is a very long time lag, some of the big closures this Easter were planned for these dates before the pandemic.

If you asked the same operators now, when leisure ticket sales are much higher percentage of their income, if they still want bank holiday closures, good chance won’t see it as least worst option anymore.

What I don’t think has really been explored is having 5 day (weekday) blockades. But the main problem is unless they are done each week in different locations, then it is hard to justify a travelling rail replacement bus operation, that moves to the worksites and puts its drivers in nearby hotels. Normally not possible to find loads of spare local buses during school day rush hours, and without the bus alternative isn’t possible.

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

Its a complicated issue but I much prefer the increasing use of large blocks that last a week or two rather than blocks over several weekends particularly if they are advertised well in advance and full use is made of diversionary routes where practicable.

With our Level Crossing removal work programs that's what we do. The last one at Hallam we had a 2 week shutdown to move the line from the ground level track and station to the new elevated line and station.
Right now on the Belgrave/Lilydale Lines we have a week long shutdown for works to remove two level crossings:

Planned Works

Planned Works

www.metrotrains.com.au

There will be another shutdown later when the works really ramp up. This will easily be a couple of months plus. The upfield line was shut for 3 whole months while they removed the old track and stations and put in a viaduct and new stations.

All of this is on a suburban rail system.

 

[The Planner]

We have done this one recently with one member refusing to accept any responses or give any ground. The lowest general revenue/passenger impact is in January, first week of Feb and Easter weekend, so it doesn't solve the issue of everyone then trying to move out of Bank Holidays into that period. You still have to de-conflict access and resource. 2023 for example is pretty much put to bed already.

 

[dk1]

We have done this one recently with one member refusing to accept any responses or give any ground. The lowest general revenue/passenger impact is in January, first week of Feb and Easter weekend, so it doesn't solve the issue of everyone then trying to move out of Bank Holidays into that period. You still have to de-conflict access and resource. 2023 for example is pretty much put to bed already.

Something many dont realise mate.

 

[Bald Rick]

If you asked the same operators now, when leisure ticket sales are much higher percentage of their income, if they still want bank holiday closures, good chance won’t see it as least worst option anymore.

I disagree, given that Easter is so quiet on the Sat/Sun.

What I don’t think has really been explored is having 5 day (weekday) blockades

it has, and continues to be.

 

[306024]

Much of this thread is passenger orientated, but what about freight? 40 or so rail replacement container lorries per train is not an attractive option.

Here in East Anglia, with Felixstowe on the patch, and a shortage of meaningful diversionary routes, it is difficult to see how things cold be planned any differently on the main lines.

 

[The Planner]

Much of this thread is passenger orientated, but what about freight? 40 or so rail replacement container lorries per train is not an attractive option.

Here in East Anglia, with Felixstowe on the patch, and a shortage of meaningful diversionary routes, it is difficult to see how things cold be planned any differently

This. All very well saying shut midweek, but where are we putting W10, gauge dependent or time constrained freight? Some have Y paths, but not everything as route knowledge is a real issue now for FOCs.

 

[Geezertronic]

The Weedon block on the WCML earlier this year which resulted in everything diverting via Northampton and using a special timetable was done during the week. Sure it was a PITA to travel with the longer travel times & decreased frequency, especially waiting around Rugby/Northampton for freight, but was necessary I guess.

 

[Bald Rick]

The Weedon block on the WCML earlier this year which resulted in everything diverting via Northampton and using a special timetable was done during the week. Sure it was a PITA to travel with the longer travel times & decreased frequency, especially waiting around Rugby/Northampton for freight, but was necessary I guess.

And the best time of the year to do it, for passengers. Expect more of it.

 

[zwk500]

And the best time of the year to do it, for passengers. Expect more of it.

And it worked quite well. The timetable was advertised in advance and people adjusted their journeys into work accordingly with little fuss.

 

[Taunton]

Long possessions (eg over bank holidays or Christmas) are the only way NR can do certain major infrastructure work, such as bridge replacements

This new bridge from the 1980s went in from scratch between Friday end of service and next Monday morning start, including excavating the original embankment. Finished early, actually.

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Shame those old skills are lost.