Running a shuttle train from Brighton to Falmer

[Billy the Fish]

I don't want to hear that it can't be done. Man has travelled to the moon and tunnelled under the english channel, surely by comparison a shuttle train to falmer can't be that difficult. But how much would it cost?

I rekon you could easily stick another platform and track on the southside of Falmer station. You could then have a 12 car train waiting on the platform at the end of the game. Going on what the train anoraks of NSC say you would also need to upgrade the signalling of the line.

I'm plucking a figure out the air here, but surely it can't be much more than £10 mill. If that wass the cost of expanding to 30,000, I'd say it was a no brainer.

 

[The Large One]

Again, speaking to this bloke from Southern Rail this morning, I mentioned about the signalling upgrade, and its cost.

"About the same as the stadium", he said.

You need another nought, I'd say.

 

[Tooting Gull]

Even if it was possible - who would pay?

The club would (reasonably) point out that there isn't much money left in the pot after a £100m stadium and possible extension to follow. Network Rail and Southern would try and dodge the bullet, and make the club fork out. The council/DoT would plead cuts, and not look to help. In the end, it would never get done.

I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, but that's my view of the reality.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Again, speaking to this bloke from Southern Rail this morning, I mentioned about the signalling upgrade, and its cost.

"About the same as the stadium", he said.

You need another nought, I'd say.

Bugger

 

[shaolinpunk]

We need an eccentric billionaire to step up, either for a dedicated train line, or for a underground metro system to be built around Brighton, with the first route being a Falmer special

 

[Badger]

We need an eccentric billionaire to step up, either for a dedicated train line, or for a underground metro system to be built around Brighton, with the first route being a Falmer special

What we need is:

 

[beorhthelm]

i love the diagram... the red line is around about where the bridge and concourse to the ground is currently.

the problem is you currently have 5-6 trains an hour running down the line. you can only run trains so close together and then tie it all in with traffic in/out of Brighton.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

I'm plucking a figure out the air here, but surely it can't be much more than £10 mill. If that wass the cost of expanding to 30,000, I'd say it was a no brainer.

As TLO has pointed out, it's nearer £100 million.

Let's put the question another way.

Assume that a 30,000 seater stadium will generate an additional 7,500 ticket sales per game and that there are 25 games per season and each extra ticket sold brings in an average of £25.

This means extra income of £4,687,500 a year.

How much of this would you want the Club to spend on team building / players' wages? And how much would you want the Club to spend on transport improvements?

 

[mwrpoole]

what you need is a large fleet of buses/coaches to ferry fans back to bton station after the match, leaving falmer station for those travelling to lewes & beyond. There obviously will still be trains going to moulescoomb, london rd & brighton but you just need something to take the initial surge away.

You could also have 'away only' coaches to solve other potential issues.

I'm assuming that getting to Falmer is mostly OK & its just the initial after match surge, and probably evening games are the worst as very few fans stay behind in the bars.

I suspect someone will say there are no spare buses...........

 

[Papa Lazarou]

I suspect someone will say there are no spare buses...........

personal jet packs is what we all need. We can all land in the field at Village Way South.

 

[Tooting Gull]

personal jet packs is what we all need. We can all land in the field at Village Way South.

Brilliant. And with economies of scale and a Chinese sweatshop, you could probably get them down to less than the cost of parking in Bennetts Field (10 per cent off for STHs).

 

[Billy the Fish]

This means extra income of £4,687,500 a year.

How much of this would you want the Club to spend on team building / players' wages? And how much would you want the Club to spend on transport improvements?

Like I said, it's a no brainer if the rail upgrade only costs £10 million

 

[Lord Bracknell]

what you need is a large fleet of buses/coaches to ferry fans back to bton station after the match, leaving falmer station for those travelling to lewes & beyond. There obviously will still be trains going to moulescoomb, london rd & brighton but you just need something to take the initial surge away.

You could also have 'away only' coaches to solve other potential issues.

I'm assuming that getting to Falmer is mostly OK & its just the initial after match surge, and probably evening games are the worst as very few fans stay behind in the bars.

I suspect someone will say there are no spare buses...........

OK. There are no spare buses.

We've already seen games where buses are having to be brought down from London to meet the requirements for transport to and from the Amex. At a guess (and it's an informed guess btw), this must be costing at least £300 a vehicle per game.

Looking at the stadium expansion scenario ... Since there is no extra parking or extra train capacity available to accommodate 7,500 extra spectators and a big bus can carry about 90 passengers, you'd need about 80 extra buses per game. £300 x 80 = £24,000 per game = £600,000 per season.

I won't go into the other problems, such as the fact that there is nowhere to park the extra buses and that bus drivers don't grow on trees. But it's a challenge. In my view, the only practical way to achieve good transport arrangements for an expanded stadium is to find extra parking capacity. And that may be a bigger challenge.

 

[Hercules Rockerfeller]

What we need is:

nah, that's more of a Shelbeyville idea.

 

[AMEXican Wave]

what you need is a large fleet of buses/coaches to ferry fans back to bton station after the match, leaving falmer station for those travelling to lewes & beyond. There obviously will still be trains going to moulescoomb, london rd & brighton but you just need something to take the initial surge away.

You could also have 'away only' coaches to solve other potential issues.

I'm assuming that getting to Falmer is mostly OK & its just the initial after match surge, and probably evening games are the worst as very few fans stay behind in the bars.

I suspect someone will say there are no spare buses...........

I'm sure the buses could be found somewhere, it's the lack of drivers for just 25 events a year which may be the problem.

 

[perseus]

BBC News - Building a train station in a week after Cumbria floods

 

[Danny-Boy]

what you need is a large fleet of buses/coaches to ferry fans back to bton station after the match, leaving falmer station for those travelling to lewes & beyond. There obviously will still be trains going to moulescoomb, london rd & brighton but you just need something to take the initial surge away.

You could also have 'away only' coaches to solve other potential issues.

I'm assuming that getting to Falmer is mostly OK & its just the initial after match surge, and probably evening games are the worst as very few fans stay behind in the bars.

I suspect someone will say there are no spare buses...........

What would be cheaper is to open up a dedicated "Falmer shuttle" platform at Brighton station. There is rom for this in the bay which was closed some years ago on the extreme East side. It couldn't ake 12 coaches, but 6 should fit. The bike racks would need moving though.

The shutles could run into the Lewes bay platform and then reverse.

 

[DerbyGull]

Brighton needs these

 

[Lord Bracknell]

What would be cheaper is to open up a dedicated "Falmer shuttle" platform at Brighton station. There is rom for this in the bay which was closed some years ago on the extreme East side. It couldn't ake 12 coaches, but 6 should fit. The bike racks would need moving though.

The shutles could run into the Lewes bay platform and then reverse.

They're already using that facility at Lewes station.

 

[Matrix10]

Don’t forget us lot going east, it is not only the Brighton trains with problems, in fact the queues for the trains to Lewes and beyond were still there after the Brighton queues had disappeared after the game Wednesday. My view is the problem could be improved by simply adding more carriages to the three/four carriage trains. I still cannot see the point of the two carriage diesels that go to and from Ashford, as the line beyond Ore is not electrified why don’t they terminate it there or Hastings and use a longer electric from there?