[Travel] Train disruption Tonight (Cup versus Liverpool)

[Weststander]

I really thought their reign of terror was going to end next year only to find out they’re here until 2028.

I f***ing hate Southern

Would a British Rail under our next PM Wes Streeting improve Falmer Station, Lewes Station, the Lewes line and hugely improve/increase the region’s rolling stock?

We’d be at the bottom of a very long and expensive list, the north have far more pressing needs.

The very best we can hope for is one entity in the region and simplified fares.

 

[jcdenton08]

Would a British Rail under our next PM Wes Streeting improve Falmer Station, Lewes Station, the Lewes line and hugely improve/increase the region’s rolling stock?

We’d be at the bottom of a very long and expensive list, the north have far more pressing needs.

The very best we can hope for is one entity in the region and simplified fares.

I just want Southern gone.

 

[Gwylan]

No taxi ranks. You can feel totally cut off without a means of escape, especially late at night.

Why aren't there? There could be a row of taxis in that road that goes past the Keep. for example. Thirty or forty taxis wouldn't solve everything but that would be a help.

 

[BatterSeagull]

Eight coach trains. Eight coach trains. Is that too much to expect? It's still the one driver for goodness sake!

 

[JOLovegrove]

So at 6.49 last night I left Brighton station on an EMPTY 8 carriage train that went to Lewes and only stopped at Falmer.

All this whilst the huge crowds were being held outside.


The only way I was able to do this was by coming down from London and being ‘in front’ of the ticket barriers and on Platform 6 already, where the train left from.

When I asked if the train would be letting football fans on, the staff said they didn’t know, so we left empty with thousands waiting.

Totally inept.

That explains a lot. From 6:30pm to about 7:00pm, we barely moved outside the station. We all knew there was a 6:49pm train, but there was no movement.

 

[jackalbion]

Thanks for the explanation though I can't help feeling there's always a sense of passing the buck with these things. I've no doubt that all stakeholders -- TOCs, government, train drivers' unions, local management, police, the football club... will have their own version of who is really to blame, and why they just can't do anything about it.

Serious question -- have the local MP(s) been formally approached to try to address this? It seems to me to be a potentially dangerous public safety issue and yet no one seems to give a toss. I just can't accept that this is a problem without a solution. The Middle-East conflict might possibly be too intractable to solve, but surely not improving the transport to and from the Amex on matchdays? It seems that in advance of a match, there is no meeting between club and police and train companies and fan group reps, to look at potential issues and how they might be solved.

I agree there is a lot of passing the buck, every group has a solution, they just can’t get approval off the others which isn’t ideal. The general rolling stock order will take years to fulfill, there isn’t a short term solution. The rolling stock issue is the key to unlocking it all, but that won’t be solved until one of the parties is proactive.

On the second point, people do meet to solve it, but like I said it isn’t short term, I don’t think local MPs are too interested to be honest. Short term fixes are put in place to even get a basic service, which I think at the end of the day the public aren’t going to notice.

 

[jackalbion]

I just want Southern gone.

Having a different operator, with exactly the same constraints isn’t going to change anything, except the colour and the logo of the train.

 

[Gazwag]

As some have suggested, I’m in favour of a bus shuttle service to Brighton and Lewes for evening matches as Southern are incapable of providing an adequate service. However, I’d be surprised if the club is willing to add this to their cost base without a trade off. From recent fan surveys we know the club has been canvassing opinions on limits to the free travel zone. If in future they restricted the free zone to trains between Brighton/Lewes and Falmer but put on free bus shuttles between those stations for weekday matches, how would those of you who travel from outside Brighton and Lewes feel about it?

Where would you suggest this shuttle starts and finishes, there is nowhere at Falmer to park say a dozen buses to pick up and where are these buses coming from when there are none spare

 

[Brovion]

Do the council still have any sway? Could they maybe step in and force the club to limit numbers until they take start to be seen to take the transport limitations seriously, rather than just seemingly wash their hands of the matter. The club's whole premise to build at Falmer was based on sustainable forms of transport. This has been compromised beyond all recognition. Hence the mad scramble whenever parking spaces get announced. Everybody hates the limitations of the available sustainable transport options.

Anybody got a link to that sweet pure pre-planning-consent propaganda video where Harty and Martin Perry enjoy a cosy chat while being whisked in an empty SASTA carriage from Brighton to Falmer. Gotta admire the spin - which hasn't really aged well, to be honest.

Pretty crap that it's come to this

The planning days were so long ago that it wasn't Southern when the process started - it was Connex. I remember the great and still-missed Lord Bracknell saying that the whole transport side did have a lot of holes in it that the club were glossing over - such as saying that 100%, yes 100% of away fans would arrive by coach! On the trains side he said our whole argument was based on little more than a single A4 letter from Connex saying "Yeah, we can cope with the crowds". We were lucky that our opponents were almost solely focussed on the environmental impact of the stadium build itself.

The whole 'sustainable transport' thing was largely bollocks from the start anyway. No one questioned why driving, parking and getting on a diesel-swilling, fume belching bus was more 'sustainable' than driving, parking and walking.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

Why aren't there? There could be a row of taxis in that road that goes past the Keep. for example. Thirty or forty taxis wouldn't solve everything but that would be a help.

I think (and my geography might be wrong here) that they'd have to exit the same way as the Bridge/BACA car park. Which is already chaos.

I'm lucky enough to be able to cycle most games and it's by far the best way. However it's now increasingly hard to find a a covered space to chain your bike within an hour of kickoff (I'm guessing lots have the same ideas), and on Weds I was caught for a good 25 mins trying to get through the train crowds.

Buses, cabs etc are only going to make a tiny dent in this. You need to be able to clear the stadium with trains. I've seen it done amazingly at the Allianz Arena in Munich, and as a regular NFL attendee I've seen Wembley get more efficient every year. I know both have bigger stations, more lines feeding in etc but they're also both 3x the size. For midweek games, they just need to make clearing the Amex the priority for an hour and adjust everything along the coast line geared towards that. Council/Government/whoever needs to step in and make this happen.

 

[Guinness Boy]

The planning days were so long ago that it wasn't Southern when the process started - it was Connex. I remember the great and still-missed Lord Bracknell saying that the whole transport side did have a lot of holes in it that the club were glossing over - such as saying that 100%, yes 100% of away fans would arrive by coach! On the trains side he said our whole argument was based on little more than a single A4 letter from Connex saying "Yeah, we can cope with the crowds". We were lucky that our opponents were almost solely focussed on the environmental impact of the stadium build itself.

The whole 'sustainable transport' thing was largely bollocks from the start anyway. No one questioned why driving, parking and getting on a diesel-swilling, fume belching bus was more 'sustainable' than driving, parking and walking.

At the risk of repeating earlier posts on this thread it all works perfectly fine at the weekend. Wolves was one of the easiest to/from train journeys I’ve done.

And it all goes to shit on weekday evening matches. Every. Single. Time. The rolling stock issues @jackalbion talks about are not getting solved, but they’re also not something Martin Perry, Connex or the late Lord B could have foreseen. It’s a product of rail privatisation still relying on a broke and useless government.

 

[tedebear]

Having a different operator, with exactly the same constraints isn’t going to change anything, except the colour and the logo of the train.

Agree, unless there is investment in the infrastructure of our public transport nothing is going to change.

 

[el punal]

Despite the queues last night, the carriage I was in (eventually) was less than a quarter full. There were more than enough people on the platform to fill it, so why do people choose to stay at falmer when you could help clear the queues by getting on the first available train then changing at lewes?

I tried that once, and yes it was raining, thinking this is a clever ploy. The result was two Brighton bound trains pulled in while I was still waiting for the Lewes train. Best laid plans and all that.

 

[bluenitsuj]

As some have suggested, I’m in favour of a bus shuttle service to Brighton and Lewes for evening matches as Southern are incapable of providing an adequate service. However, I’d be surprised if the club is willing to add this to their cost base without a trade off. From recent fan surveys we know the club has been canvassing opinions on limits to the free travel zone. If in future they restricted the free zone to trains between Brighton/Lewes and Falmer but put on free bus shuttles between those stations for weekday matches, how would those of you who travel from outside Brighton and Lewes feel about it?

Fine if they drop the price of the season ticket accordingly. Obviously not going to happen all the while we are paying millions a year in salaries.

 

[el punal]

I got shot down in flames a few years ago for coming up with this suggestion, so bearing in mind the apparent lack of rolling stock affecting rail travel for mid-week games I thought I’d put this out again :

Is it possible for the club to charter an eight coach train to carry out a shuttle service between Brighton and Lewes for pre and post match periods? Maybe even two trains - one towards Lewes and one to Brighton so that they both arrive at Falmer at roughly the same time. Surely that would ease the indescribable congestion that occurs every time we have an evening fixture.

I’m looking at this from a layman’s point of view so maybe you train buffs and experts can have your say on the feasibility of such a project. Cheers!

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

So at 6.49 last night I left Brighton station on an EMPTY 8 carriage train that went to Lewes and only stopped at Falmer.

All this whilst the huge crowds were being held outside.


The only way I was able to do this was by coming down from London and being ‘in front’ of the ticket barriers and on Platform 6 already, where the train left from.

When I asked if the train would be letting football fans on, the staff said they didn’t know, so we left empty with thousands waiting.

Totally inept.

Sums it up.

Shambles.

 

[Gwylan]

I think (and my geography might be wrong here) that they'd have to exit the same way as the Bridge/BACA car park. Which is already chaos.

Yes, you're right. Because I've cycled that way I thought there was a through road but it's for bikes and pedestrians only. It was only an example though. There may be other places for a rank - I'm surprised that there's nowhere, cabbies would do good business on a match day.

One thing to bear in mind about transport issues is that when the stadium was first opened, drivers could park in Coldean and Moulsecoomb without being ticketed. So, not only have we increased the stadium capacity by 10,000, we've lost parking space for several hundred cars - that would be a lot for any club to cope with.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Yes, you're right. Because I've cycled that way I thought there was a through road but it's for bikes and pedestrians only. It was only an example though. There may be other places for a rank - I'm surprised that there's nowhere, cabbies would do good business on a match day.

One thing to bear in mind about transport issues is that when the stadium was first opened, drivers could park in Coldean and Moulsecoomb without being ticketed. So, not only have we increased the stadium capacity by 10,000, we've lost parking space for several hundred cars - that would be a lot for any club to cope with.

It would be interesting to know for sure, but I park near the Bridge as I have resident tickets as my youngest lives in the area. There are loads of others who have permits who I see in the adjacent streets, I guess many family and friends of locals do this each home match. It may be that a similar number of people park in those areas as before, just that the free-for-all is no longer happening.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

No joke I've just found this image hidden in the sauce code of the clubs website.

 

[jackalbion]

I got shot down in flames a few years ago for coming up with this suggestion, so bearing in mind the apparent lack of rolling stock affecting rail travel for mid-week games I thought I’d put this out again :

Is it possible for the club to charter an eight coach train to carry out a shuttle service between Brighton and Lewes for pre and post match periods? Maybe even two trains - one towards Lewes and one to Brighton so that they both arrive at Falmer at roughly the same time. Surely that would ease the indescribable congestion that occurs every time we have an evening fixture.

I’m looking at this from a layman’s point of view so maybe you train buffs and experts can have your say on the feasibility of such a project. Cheers!

The cost of that would probably be prohibitively expensive in all honesty, but also the issue would be the train would have nowhere to go really after Falmer, you'd have to run it to Eastbourne, stable it and then turn it around hours later. As well, there is already 6 trains an hour on the route, which is full capacity, and 8 trains between Lewes and Southerham Junction, which is full capacity. I think we are all mostly in agreement it works on the weekend with 6/7/8 carriage trains, but that can't be achieved midweek.