So, review of sorts of the SWR replacement on Sunday! The rail replacement strategy has changed somewhat. It's now something like this;
Service patternsClapham Junction - Surbiton x30 all stops to New Malden then direct to Surbiton
Clapham Junction - Hampton Court x 30 as above
Clapham Junction - Twickenham x30 all stops via Kingston
Clapham Junction - Chessington South x30 all stops
Clapham Junction - Epsom 25/35 minute service all stops
Clapham Junction - Surbiton x15 direct
Clapham Junction - Weybridge x60 as above then all stops via Esher
Clapham Junction - Woking x60 as above then all stops Weybridge - Woking
Clapham Junction - Effingham Junction x60 all stops Surbiton to Effingham via Cobham
This is the first time I've known Kingston to have only a 2bph replacement service. No sooner than I got there the first time did I get ambushed by people demanding to know where the replacement buses to Surbiton were! As the evening went on, it became clear there were buses missing with passengers reporting long waits. Some wanting Clapham Junction ended up riding to Twickenham to catch a train into London from there.
My duty had both Twickenham and Surbiton runs on. I did the 1700 Clapham Junction to Surbiton trip and there were about 200 people waiting at Wimbledon to get to Surbiton. Very busy! I was also requested to make an extra stop at Kingston to give people a link to Surbiton.
I think the Surbiton buses may benefit from a higher frequency and calling in at Norbiton and Kingston. This would also fix the problem of buses ex Surbiton and buses ex Twickenham departing from opposite sides of the road towards Clapham Junction at New Malden.
Teddington station -
National Rail and
SWR state the bus stop is The Causeway bus stand on Park Road - but First instruct drivers to pick up on the High Street at the stops by Elmfield Avenue. This needs clarifying.
Duties and drivers hoursThe duties have also changed. Before, a 30 minute break used to be given after every rounder. And during the day, self containment (keeping the bus on the same route) was in favour.
This time, those breaks had been stripped out in favour of just one break every 5 hours or so and there was daytime interworking so the bus and driver would operate on multiple routes throughout the shift. It's a good idea to save on buses required - so long as the bus operators examined the duties thoroughly. If the late shift buses were dead running from the depot, it may have been necessary to give the driver a 30 minute break at the station where they started in service.
If this didn't happen then disruption would result if drivers were running out of hours.
Some buses were running very late for unknown reasons. I departed the first stop on time for the whole shift but others managed to be running 1 or 2 hours late and I genuinely don't know why as the traffic really wasn't that bad.
VehiclesA few of the regular contractors were out - Abellio, Bear Buses, HCT Group, Imperial, Mortons, Red Routemaster and some others.
Quite a few minicoaches were out too. Some looked to have as little as 16 seats and social media was awash with complaints from people out in Surrey and at the London end being left behind.
It will be interesting to see what happens come January when coaches have to be PSVAR compliant. There will be precious few coaches spare on any weekend as the service operators which will have them need to keep the wheels turning to earn a return on them.
Rail replacement work is volatile in terms of geographic demand. Some weekends some operators won't get a look in and it's only one or two days a week most weeks. Unless PSVAR upgrades are available cheaply for coaches, I can't see private hire operators making the outlay for what is sometimes seen as "filler work".
Those who do have compliant coaches will be able to name their price to do rail replacement work, within reason. But even so, there is a very finite supply of spare compliant vehicles. Where buses aren't appropriate to deputise, there will be a real problem with this. The law is the law and must be complied with. But the law does not magic compliant vehicles out of thin air or make it viable for operators to keep spare DDA coaches just for work of an unstable nature. Will be interesting to see what happens with it.