[Travel] FFS More train disruptions announced for July 2 - 8

[METALMICKY]

Not a happy bunny! Going to the O2 next Saturday and my normal last train home to eastbourne is 12.02 but due to this dispute it’s now as early as 10.30. What with the gigs usually finishing around the 10.45 the unpalatable option was leaving the gig early! As it is I’ve now got an hours drive to Haywards Heath which does have later trains servicing it. End result is money on petrol and parking and no beer for me

 

[pasty]

Hopeful. My 6:20 to London has just left Havant on time. Let’s see what happens by the time it gets to Horsham.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Not much doing from Portslade and almost nothing from there to Brighton. Only the 6.47 and 7.47 running to London.

Uber to Brighton, on the 7.14 which is empty-ish with 10 mins to go and the driver’s just arrived.

Suspect it will fill right up later but at least there’s trains from Brighton and looks like a lot of people have stayed home.

 

[Bold Seagull]

theres a replacement timetable in place, if you use National Rail it'll show the running trains. these should run as they expect to have the cover.
im up to London for a social, risking a late/last train return.

correction, National Rail was showing expected timetable, now shows the regular timetable and note that Journey Planner is not correct.

Hourly to London Vic this morning. I thought the 07.47 might be a bit rammed given the only train before it was the 06.47, but eerily quiet, lots of seats still available as we hit Hassocks.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

I’m rarely in town these days as WFH but won’t be chancing the hourly service to Vic on Thursday.

A collective £50 a day saving when factoring train fare, tube and car parking for me.

 

[keaton]

On the general subject of trains (and as I can't find the All4 Thread) this was good.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/ben-elton-the-great-railway-disaster

 

[nicko31]

Add school strikes Wed and Fri to the shit show mix

 

[pasty]

As expected just one an hour home this evening

 

[Weststander]

Travel chaos from our friends Southern Rail tonight and they can’t even blame a strike.

For some reason compared to other random Sundays, the Victoria to Brighton trains (we knew this all along) ended much earlier than normal.

Bizarrely Three Bridges was still receiving tons of Victoria trains. So I drove up to collect my daughter and mates there, after they used the Victoria departures board as factual

In step Southern Fail. Limiting the number of passengers getting on. Apparently it’s chaos at Victoria, with a lot of aggression.

Then we were told the trains had finished for the night, then terminating at Gatwick, now Three Bridges.

So here I am waiting at Gatwick. This saga should’ve ended hours ago.

Is … a third world railway outfit … unfair?

 

[Acker79]

I was in london saturday night. They had a four carriage train after 11pm. Was due to go at 11.25. At 11.20 flashed up as delayed. At 11.40 it flashed as platform 14. I was by the barriers, went straight to the train, and bizarrely, by the time I got to the train it was aleady jam-packed. Not too dissimilar to the trains after football (well, 4 carriages when services are already reduced, what would they expect?). Barely had time to get settled on the train along with 25 other people squashed in by the doors before it was setting off.

I obviously expected some disruption, but I don't understand the benefit to having short a short train on such a busy trainline.

I am a little confused as to how the train could have got so full in so little time between the platform flashing up on the board, and people stood right by the gates getting to the train.

What also wound me up was the number of people in seats who were only going to clapham or east croydon. With the number of trains that stop at those stations leaving Victoria so frequently, why choose to get such a crowded, delayed, shortened train (especally if, as I suspect, they got on the train before it was officially called a as the brighton train, ignoring a couple of other trains that left sooner).

That and the people lucky enough to squeeze onto the train convincing friends in other packed carriages to make their way to our carriage at one of the stops.

 

[Springal]

With the RMT strikes Saturday 22nd July - it seems to suggest 2 trains an hour from Brighton or Gatwick. From previous RMT strikes is this accurate ?

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

With the RMT strikes Saturday 22nd July - it seems to suggest 2 trains an hour from Brighton or Gatwick. From previous RMT strikes is this accurate ?

Yes

 

[Sirnormangall]

Travel chaos from our friends Southern Rail tonight and they can’t even blame a strike.

For some reason compared to other random Sundays, the Victoria to Brighton trains (we knew this all along) ended much earlier than normal.

Bizarrely Three Bridges was still receiving tons of Victoria trains. So I drove up to collect my daughter and mates there, after they used the Victoria departures board as factual

In step Southern Fail. Limiting the number of passengers getting on. Apparently it’s chaos at Victoria, with a lot of aggression.

Then we were told the trains had finished for the night, then terminating at Gatwick, now Three Bridges.

So here I am waiting at Gatwick. This saga should’ve ended hours ago.

Is … a third world railway outfit … unfair?

I was caught up in that shambles on Sunday night. It turned into a quite dangerous situation where you had more than 200 rail passengers arrive at 3 bridges expecting ( as we were told) buses to take us to our onward destinations south. There were no buses awaiting us. We waited 30 minutes for a bus to arrive so you can imagine the crush of 200 people trying to get on a double decker at 12.30am with no news of if or when the next bus was due to arrive. I felt sorry for the 3 members of staff who seemed I’ll equipped or trained for dealing with this. I’ve put in a formal complaint ( which is the sort of thing you do regularly at my age) because I feel that there was a serious risk of injury.

 

[Weststander]

I was caught up in that shambles on Sunday night. It turned into a quite dangerous situation where you had more than 200 rail passengers arrive at 3 bridges expecting ( as we were told) buses to take us to our onward destinations south. There were no buses awaiting us. We waited 30 minutes for a bus to arrive so you can imagine the crush of 200 people trying to get on a double decker at 12.30am with no news of if or when the next bus was due to arrive. I felt sorry for the 3 members of staff who seemed I’ll equipped or trained for dealing with this. I’ve put in a formal complaint ( which is the sort of thing you do regularly at my age) because I feel that there was a serious risk of injury.

My daughter/mates saw newly boarded passengers falling out of the train on the Victoria platform, would’ve been about 11:25pm. Sheer weight of numbers, passenger pressure forced them back off.

Apparently this Sunday evening Southern Rail Victoria carnage has been going on weeks, on dates completely unaffected by industrial action. Neighbours of ours have been going to various London events on Sundays, getting to Victoria in good time for NOT the last trains to Sussex, only to find no notice cancellations, or services stopped early for the day, or too great numbers for the few trains. Resulting in very expensive taxis to Brighton.

 

[jackalbion]

I was in london saturday night. They had a four carriage train after 11pm. Was due to go at 11.25. At 11.20 flashed up as delayed. At 11.40 it flashed as platform 14. I was by the barriers, went straight to the train, and bizarrely, by the time I got to the train it was aleady jam-packed. Not too dissimilar to the trains after football (well, 4 carriages when services are already reduced, what would they expect?). Barely had time to get settled on the train along with 25 other people squashed in by the doors before it was setting off.

I obviously expected some disruption, but I don't understand the benefit to having short a short train on such a busy trainline.

I am a little confused as to how the train could have got so full in so little time between the platform flashing up on the board, and people stood right by the gates getting to the train.

What also wound me up was the number of people in seats who were only going to clapham or east croydon. With the number of trains that stop at those stations leaving Victoria so frequently, why choose to get such a crowded, delayed, shortened train (especally if, as I suspect, they got on the train before it was officially called a as the brighton train, ignoring a couple of other trains that left sooner).

That and the people lucky enough to squeeze onto the train convincing friends in other packed carriages to make their way to our carriage at one of the stops.

I was funnily enough also on this train, not 100% sure what happened as there was a late notice platform swap. Think there was a unit failure on the inbound service so had to shorten it or run nothing at all. Was a bit of a chaotic platform swap. That could have been me who convinced my friend to run down the carriages at East Croydon, as well weirdly.

 

[jackalbion]

My daughter/mates saw newly boarded passengers falling out of the train on the Victoria platform, would’ve been about 11:25pm. Sheer weight of numbers, passenger pressure forced them back off.

Apparently this Sunday evening Southern Rail Victoria carnage has been going on weeks, on dates completely unaffected by industrial action. Neighbours of ours have been going to various London events on Sundays, getting to Victoria in good time for NOT the last trains to Sussex, only to find no notice cancellations, or services stopped early for the day, or too great numbers for the few trains. Resulting in very expensive taxis to Brighton.

I think ultimately a lot of the issues occur from the sheer number of events on in London these last two weekends. As much as it’s ideal to extend the trains there is a supply chain issue and there is no extra carriages to make the train longer until the DFT allocate more stock.

But on a positive note, the Brighton to Chichester section is getting an extra two trains an hour to increase capacity with a timetable recast in June 2024 which is out for public consultation.

 

[Weststander]

I think ultimately a lot of the issues occur from the sheer number of events on in London these last two weekends. As much as it’s ideal to extend the trains there is a supply chain issue and there is no extra carriages to make the train longer until the DFT allocate more stock.

But on a positive note, the Brighton to Chichester section is getting an extra two trains an hour to increase capacity with a timetable recast in June 2024 which is out for public consultation.

A footnote, I carefully researched train times for my daughter ahead. We had all the possibilities lined up. Plenty of Victoria to Three Bridges trains, if not a fallback of very late London Bridge to Three Bridges trains. Then very late Sunday they started disappearing in real time from the schedule. My daughter saw this in the big Victoria board …. led to aggression from male passengers, I saw this on national rail enquiries.

Then further chaos. I was told that a very, very slow train has suddenly appeared, stopping everywhere, terminating at Gatwick.

I drive to Gatwick, then they’re told on the train that due to passenger requests, they’re also going to Three Bridges. Does the driver take karaoke requests too?

It’s something about this summer. If you type in trains for random Sunday nights in Sept, there are loads to Brighton and they run late. What’s this business of terminating at far less important Three Bridges? Engineering?

 

[jackalbion]

A footnote, I carefully researched train times for my daughter ahead. We had all the possibilities lined up. Plenty of Victoria to Three Bridges trains, if not a fallback of very late London Bridge to Three Bridges trains. Then very late Sunday they started disappearing in real time from the schedule. My daughter saw this in the big Victoria board …. led to aggression from male passengers, I saw this on national rail enquiries.

Then further chaos. I was told that a very, very slow train has suddenly appeared, stopping everywhere, terminating at Gatwick.

View attachment 163417

I drive to Gatwick, then they’re told on the train that due to passenger requests, they’re also going to Three Bridges. Does the driver take karaoke requests too?

It’s something about this summer. If you type in trains for random Sunday nights in Sept, there are loads to Brighton and they run late. What’s this business of terminating at far less important Three Bridges? Engineering?

Correct engineering work is what happened on Sunday, these are planned years in advance. They keep the line open, Saturday and Sunday during the day for holiday traffic, so need to do maintenance over night. I. The winter you’ll notice a lot more Three Bridges to Brighton all day blocks. The reason the train in the picture (1T00) continued to Three Bridges was because it had to go there anyway, to go into the sidings, I expect this was to help passengers that needed there, once approved by Control.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

They keep saying they aren't picking dates to purposely target big events - I'm not so sure. If they strike over Pride then I think I'll be in the 'they are doing it on purpose' camp.

It might not be a strike but it's as good as. I've now fallen into the 'they are doing it on purpose' camp. Utter arseholes. My thinking might be swayed by the fact I'm going to London that weekend for a show as a birthday present for Ms WS and we were planning of going from Brighton Station. Arseholes !!!

 

[Chicken Run]

It might not be a strike but it's as good as. I've now fallen into the 'they are doing it on purpose' camp. Utter arseholes. My thinking might be swayed by the fact I'm going to London that weekend for a show as a birthday present for Ms WS and we were planning of going from Brighton Station. Arseholes !!!

My limited understanding is the drivers have been following a “No Overtime “ process, it seems the Rail Company have taken the decision to cancel trains on the Saturday into Brighton on the grounds of safety and their concerns of getting thousands of people home with fewer trains