[Travel] Trains shitshow - next STRIKE - October 8th (Spurs)??

[Deleted member 37369]

Back home in Shoreham 8.20pm - nice little bike ride

 

[METALMICKY]

Seagulls Travel coach from Eastbourne left at 3pm arrived at ground 4.50!

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

Well after all that i thought the crowd (numbers wise) was absolutely fantastic. Shame the atmosphere was shit.

Brilliant park and ride for me anyway. Well done to the club for getting so many there against the odds

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[Easy 10]

I trialled a bus only return today and it was predictably terrible, albeit in unpredictable ways.

1 from Southern Cross was fine.

49 from Floral clock was the slowest any vehicle has ever moved without being stationary. I was in my seat 5 mins after KO.

[Football Interlude]

49 back decided to terminate at the bus depot so I MINCED ( [MENTION=70]Easy 10[/MENTION] ) off for some fish and chips.

The 1A I got on next was decommissioned at Churchill Sq because some **** decided to puke over his seat and the window.

Cue a 6 back to Benfield Way.

Total transport time well over 3 hours which is not good.

Nicely done. I had a proper hour-long MINCE along the seafront from Portslade into town before the game, which given the weather, was lovely. A great way to start the afternoon.

Then it all fell to shite once I had to fling myself upon the mercy of the buses. Lesson learned - when there's no trains, stay at home/pub for it. At least it was a glorious autumnal afternoon and evening. Just imagine battling your way through all that logistical CACK if it was honking down and freezing cold.

 

[London Irish]

Not too bad today, the buses seemed all over the place but a walk in the sunshine was quite healthy and the buses seemed ok coming back after the game

 

[tubby]

Mill Road park and ride was the worst it had ever been. There was a shortage of buses which the club knew but did disclose. Waited 45 minutes for a bus to get to the game arriving at 4.55 and there was a long queue behind me. After the game we had a beer and waited our usual 45 minutes so that we could get a bus within about 10 minutes as usual but ended up waiting another 45 minutes. Had we known there was a shortage of buses we would have made other arrangements

 

[Timbo]

Next time there's no trains, I'm just not bothering. Can't be arsed with this shit.

Same here. A four and a half hour round trip from Hassocks is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[chaileyjem]

An absolute circus getting away. It's like the club were determined to get everyone there so the stadium looked good for the television audience, but then were not really bothered if it became a total shambles afterwards

Looking forward to Chailey Jem popping up in a bit though and telling us his journey was quit smooth, which means the transport was an overwhelming success

I left a few mins after the final whistle, was back at Lewes by about 815pm.
I used the free shuttle buses.
Fwiw that’s about 20 mins longer than the trains on an average day recently.
I’ve no idea if the club “were not really bothered” to get fans home. Ask them.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Same here. A four and a half hour round trip from Hassocks is absolutely ridiculous.

Should have used the Pyecombe P&R, piece of cake.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Mill Road park and ride was the worst it had ever been. There was a shortage of buses which the club knew but did disclose. Waited 45 minutes for a bus to get to the game arriving at 4.55 and there was a long queue behind me. After the game we had a beer and waited our usual 45 minutes so that we could get a bus within about 10 minutes as usual but ended up waiting another 45 minutes. Had we known there was a shortage of buses we would have made other arrangements

We got to Mill Road at 3.30 and the car park was already full ( thankfully we don't actually park there ) and we finally got to the ground at 5.15. To be fair to the stewards at MR they were going a decent job of ensuring a fair split of people got on each bus from each queue. There was a noticable drop in the number of bendy buses coming to MR.

After the match - and we left on 87 min, sorry bad fans - and we were the last to get up the steps to the bus queue before the police for some bizarre reason decided to hold people at the bottom. The stewards on the exit and loading the buses were next to useless. There were also dozens of police milling around that could have been directing traffic and even over riding the traffic lights to get things moving. What they did do is block the bridge over the A27 from the Uni to the ground which will have impacted the returning buses. To top it all off, our bus driver turned off the bypass too early so we ended going up Coldean Lane which had single lane roadworks on it ( which council numpty didn't think 'oh there's a match and and a train strike on the same day' and so suspend the roadworks. It was funny when a loud cheer went up when the driver decided to run the red light though.

 

[Change at Barnham]

It was all a bit bizarre.
I drove from Bognor to the Bridge car park, I left home at 2.45pm and got into my seat at 5.15pm.
After taking 2 and half hours to get there, I stayed to the final whistle, hot footed it back to the car park somehow managed to get out straight away and was home by 8.30pm, in 1 hour.

I guess the smooth getaway had something to do with the scoreline and also parking near the car park exit.
It seemed more people were hanging on until the final whistle hoping for an equaliser.

I had a similar experience at the Burnley game last season which also had me questioning why I bother.

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

Just read the thread. So Pyecombe worked well (pre booked so a fixed capacity), but some of the other sides struggled. Suggests to me that the club had perhaps assumed more people would stay away than they did, probably based on Brentford last year. Makes sense.

A quite remarkable turned out yesterday so not surprised it was a bit of a nightmare if you didn't leave very early. Let's face it, The Amex travel plan is built around the train station next-door. The strike absolutely shafted the club and ruins the matchday experience for many. Let's hope things get resolved soon.

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[Wrong-Direction]

Bus was so busy people were getting crowed surfed off [emoji849]

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[Paulie Gualtieri]

The usual excellent Seagulls Travel for us today from Burgess Hill, added about 10 minutes to the journey on the way there, not bad considering

When we arrived we managed for the first time to park at the front of the coach park queue but typically rather than release row by row they decided today to leave column by column so sat there for a good 20 minutes but again well within the tolerance of a logistical challenge

Journey back standard timing and no issues.

Sampled the chippy in a cuckfield on the drive home, not 5 star but competitive.

 

[torchieboy]

It was all a bit bizarre.
I drove from Bognor to the Bridge car park, I left home at 2.45pm and got into my seat at 5.15pm.
After taking 2 and half hours to get there, I stayed to the final whistle, hot footed it back to the car park somehow managed to get out straight away and was home by 8.30pm, in 1 hour.

I guess the smooth getaway had something to do with the scoreline and also parking near the car park exit.
It seemed more people were hanging on until the final whistle hoping for an equaliser.

I had a similar experience at the Burnley game last season which also had me questioning why I bother.

We left felpham at 2.50pm. Finally got to Bridge carpark at 4.50pm. Got caught at rustington where it was at a standstill. Lucky enough to get thru the back roads at east preston. Coming back was easy. Dropped off in LA and then Bognor before getting back to Felpham for 8.45pm. Never seen traffic like it.

 

[Official Old Man]

I used ST and getting there was fine, in fact we were early despite queues on the A27 as far back as the Lewes bypass.
Post match was different though. The coach sat in the park until well after 8:00 but then once on the move we were directed straight out onto the A27 with stewards holding up all other traffic.
How to solve the problems. Individual cars seemed to get in the way both pre and post match. Village way was just jammed with cars, generally wives coming to pick up husbands. So next time ban all cars from village way. Coaches & Buses need there own bus lane on the A27 west bound slip road. There needs to be police at the roundabout at the top of the slip road getting buses/coaches moving. Police stopping all cars entering Village Way. The 25 bus that serves the Uni should NOT drive through the campus on the west side but, using a bus lane, have priority straight through to Village Way. Cars leaving the Uni car parks need to be controlled. Having police at the Falmer Village roundabout controlling the flow would ensure that cars move fast but at the same time don't block the roundabout for buses.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Wandered up to Mill road 4.15ish, huge queue, got into seat 12 minutes after kick off. Couple of beers after, left it a good hour to let queues die down and queue for Mill Road was still back down to the Programme shack. Chatting to the Police there, they said that the buses had real trouble getting in and out because of all the cars dropping off/picking up. And the accident at Arundel left a few buses that had been booked to come up from Southampton for the P&R on the wrong side.

Probably worst P&R experience I can remember ?

 

[Timbo]

Should have used the Pyecombe P&R, piece of cake.

A lot of it was my own fault to be fair. Caught the train into Brighton no problem to catch the shuttle bus. Walked down to St Peters Church, waited half an hour as full buses went past, walked along to the Steine, got on a shuttle bus which moved about as fast as I could walking on my hands.

My biggest mistake was not looking up the train times home earlier, didn't realise they stopped at about half 5. Went to catch a Mill Road P&R and planned to get a taxi from there. It was fairly obvious there was a problem there so got the Pyecombe bus and walked home from there.

I hate to say it but there should not be any games at The Amex unless there are trains running.

 

[Timbo]

I used ST and getting there was fine, in fact we were early despite queues on the A27 as far back as the Lewes bypass.
Post match was different though. The coach sat in the park until well after 8:00 but then once on the move we were directed straight out onto the A27 with stewards holding up all other traffic.
How to solve the problems. Individual cars seemed to get in the way both pre and post match. Village way was just jammed with cars, generally wives coming to pick up husbands. So next time ban all cars from village way. Coaches & Buses need there own bus lane on the A27 west bound slip road. There needs to be police at the roundabout at the top of the slip road getting buses/coaches moving. Police stopping all cars entering Village Way. The 25 bus that serves the Uni should NOT drive through the campus on the west side but, using a bus lane, have priority straight through to Village Way. Cars leaving the Uni car parks need to be controlled. Having police at the Falmer Village roundabout controlling the flow would ensure that cars move fast but at the same time don't block the roundabout for buses.

Having watched from the Pyecombe queue for what seemed like 3 days, as you said, it's fairly obvious where a great deal of improvement could be made.

Cars coming up to the Uni cause a massive problem, ban them and just let buses in. It's beyond me why anyone even would want to do it? It must have been about a 45 minute turn round.
The female steward by the roundabout could maybe ease up on her mission to teach the kids in the queue every swear word known to man.
The traffic lights going out of village way need to be turned off and over ridden by police.
The roundabout over the A27 needs policing.

I know there would be a big extra cost in policing but how many stewards do you see doing nothing? 100's?

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

No problems pre match - drove down from London and parked at the the park and ride at the racecourse but afterwards waited an hour for a bus back. Understand it was always going to be busy but there wasn’t a single bus for about 45 minutes. A bit of communication would have helped ease the collective frustration.