From today's Argus Amex Travel debate

[Storer 68]

There's LOADS of parking at the retail park. The problem would have been where to put the pitch.

au contraire - the pitch would have fitted nicely into the car park. Jumpers for goalposts, eh, marvellous

 

[Gwylan]

I've been racking my brains trying to think of a suitable pun or quote from MacBeth and failed on all fronts. The best thing I could come up with for this thread is "That Hillman bloke's being a bit impish". Quite frankly it's piss-poor. Consequently, I have nothing to add.

It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

 

[The Merry Prankster]

He's not "a lifelong supporter of the Albion". That's a lie. I shall assume everything else he says is a lie.

 

[JCL - the new kid in town]

I don't know about the B&H buses, but Cambridge has similar electronic signs, except they run off the timetable rather than the actual location of the buses, so are about as much use as a chocolate fireplace.

Cambridge buses are the worst i've experienced in the country for not turning up especially out in the villages and have you tried complaining about them, you just get fobbed off. i even had one bus not bother stopping for me which left me with a nice 6 mile walk home so i expect the B&H buses to be superb compared to that

 

[Storer 68]

I don't think that the length of the plaatforms at Falmer Station is the key here. The key is trying to get longer trains to go through junctions, such as the one at lewes, that cannot accomodate longer trains than 4 carriages.

 

[Buzzer]

'Have you seen the Scottish play?'

Yeah, but he's from Watford, isn't he?

Better

It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Best

 

[Tooting Gull]

The problem with ANY rail investment is that it has to meet the "business case" criteria.

How much EXTRA income will the spending bring in? In the case of Falmer station, the answer will be "not very much" - for the simple reason that the fares being charged are very low, mainly because journey lengths are short.

For public money to be justified, railway investment has to pass a quite separate test. Will it relieve significant traffic congestion or deliver another significant economic benefit to society? Again, in the case of Falmer, the answer is NO. The A27 doesn't get blocked at peak travel times. Society at large and the economy is not losing money because large numbers of economically valuable vehicle journeys are being frustrated by events occurring at the stadium. Investment in Falmer Station won't deliver any further development near the site, because all nearby sites have already been fully developed.

The only beneficiaries of any investment at Falmer will be football supporters. The investment should be funded by the beneficiaries. The mechanism to achieve this is for the Club to fund the station improvements out of increased income from ticket sales. This could include increased ticket prices.

I vote NO to increased ticket prices. I'd be surprised if the Club wanted to use the increased revenue from expanding the stadium on building longer platforms.

Interesting to hear the actual rationale used, I'm not surprised. Intuitively (and as a fan) that sounds wrong to me. You can say the only benefit is to 'football supporters' but those people are also 'rail users' at a station that has suddenly got a lot busier. I would have thought there should be some obligation on Network Rail/Southern to ensure that new needs are being catered for. It appears not. If it all gets shifted onto the club, not only is that wrong, but it won't happen for some of the reasons you've outlined.

I know a lot of the new journeys are short (a lot of them aren't - not just the away fans, but many home fans) but over just a single year Falmer must be worth millions to the rail companies.

 

[Tony Towner's Fridge]

I have to laugh when someone gives a tunnel as an excuse for not building the Amex.The tunnel has two rail lines through it so it is completely ir-relevent. I posted a while back that four trains an hour was ludicrous. It could easily be 8. Use the points so that the trains are lined up into adjacent platforms at Lewes and Brighton. Oh and if you want details of how to do it, I have a Thomas the Tank Engine video somewhere in the house that had a similar scenario!
Bloody well sort it!

TNBA

TTF

 

[Giraffe]

Letters page in Argus contains a cock writing about the Albion SHOCKER!!!

 

[minnieme]

Amex transport is a problem the owners need to sort out
6:00pm Thursday 8th September 2011

I READ with interest Phil Young’s letter regarding crowd transport problems at the American Express Community Stadium (The Argus, August 30).

The inference of the letter was that somehow the rail operator is responsible for sorting out this mess.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I am a lifelong supporter of the Albion but have always regarded the positioning of the stadium at Falmer as folly.

To build such a huge stadium near the top of a rail tunnel running under a high point in the South Downs was, to me, a non-starter.

The stadium is now bordered by the teacher training college, a medieval village, a large arterial road, and the South Downs National Park.

This allows nowhere for expansion. It was placed at this point because of its “good transport and access facilities”, but in reality it is on the outskirts of the city, with few buses or trains, no parking to speak of and a huge road from which you can’t even stop.

Football crowd transportation was known about at the stadium’s inception some ten years ago, but little or nothing has been done.

Solving this problem is therefore strictly down to the owners of the stadium and, until it is solved, adding more seats to the ground will simple exacerbate the problem.

Don McBeth, Ditchling Common, Hassocks

And on the flip side...


I WOULD like to express my thanks to everyone involved in the operation and organisation of the recent cup thriller at the Amex. It was a special occasion.

From the bonhomie of the bus drivers who took us to and from the stadium in special buses laid on by Brighton and Hove Bus Company, to the staff and stewards who made my passage to the stadium comfortable, everyone appeared to be smiling even before kick-off.

But please resolve this puzzle for me: why is the west stand on the east side of the stadium and vice-versa?

Similarly, the north and south stands appear to be the other way round.

Have I missed something or are my navigational skills in question?

R Hillman, Woodland Avenue, Hove

Don McBeth

 

[Seagull on the wing]

I was wandering lonely as a cloud...when I came across this gully,inside there were a certain evil twosome one Mr Hillman and a Mr J.Catt,they were srrounded by crates of dynamite and lo and behold...is that a plunger I see before me...my hand hovers above the plunger,shaking with antipation...

 

[Working class pride]

Pressure off transport can be helped straight away by removing the no parking rule in the areas of east brighton where it applies. Parking is fine in Coldean however but no reason why people shouldn't park across the other side of the Lewes road.
Apart from that then a few multi storey car parks near the ground would be an idea as would extending the platform at the train station.

 

[teaboy]

I know a lot of the new journeys are short (a lot of them aren't - not just the away fans, but many home fans) but over just a single year Falmer must be worth millions to the rail companies.

But is it worth significantly more than Withdean, or the Goldstone?

 

[Doc]

Extending Falmer to 8 coaches will not do much for the capacity. The reasons for this are that Lewes platform cannot turn round more than 6 coaches and the line between Newhaven and Seaford is restricted to a maximum of 4 coaches as it was electrified on the cheap in the 1930s. So only trains on the Eastbourne service can run with 8.
It is intended to increase the number of trains per hour when the line is next resignalled, but this is not likely for some years yet.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk

 

[Working class pride]

Extending Falmer to 8 coaches will not do much for the capacity. The reasons for this are that Lewes platform cannot turn round more than 6 coaches and the line between Newhaven and Seaford is restricted to a maximum of 4 coaches as it was electrified on the cheap in the 1930s. So only trains on the Eastbourne service can run with 8.
It is intended to increase the number of trains per hour when the line is next resignalled, but this is not likely for some years yet.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk

might be too much to ask for a train company to think of this but if they had an engine at both ends of the longer train then they wouldnt need to turn the train around, just make sure it went back on the right line.. oh

 

[Doc]

Southern don't have engines.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk

 

[supaseagull]

This smacks of people who've never been to big events and expect to just jump onto a train or bus and be away in 10 mins. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Yet again someone saying the ground is in the wrong place but doesn't give us an alter site.

Can't be arsed to trawl thru this thread but you've hit the nail on the head.

I've been to wembley on a number of occasions and getting out of the ground and onto the tube takes well over an hour and is a nightmare...the Amex is relatively straight forward if you take the clubs advice and stagger your journey home.

I realise this can't always happen on midweek games and for those, then the stagedoor coach is the best option to travel in my opinion.