Info on replacement buses

When buses replace trains over part of a passenger’s journey, it remains a source of irritation that there is often little information advising of these buses.

Take a recent example for a Southern journey from London Victoria to Dorking. On April 20, both the 2225 Horsham and 2256 Dorking services were shown on the main departure screens as terminating at Leatherhead, with no mention whatsoever of onward bus connections.

This was repeated on the platform screens. Nor were there details on the train itself,. while nothing was said by the driver.

New modern screens have been introduced at Victoria on the Southern side, and these are proving very useful. However, if the basic information is not provided, then they are failing.

It used to be the case that at the foot of the list of stations served, it would include (for example) “change at Leatherhead for a bus for Box Hill and Dorking”. Rail replacement buses had been provided, so surely there must have been time to add to these displays.

Anyone can be a stranger in different parts of the country, or indeed the world, and they need as much information as possible to guide them on their journey. Someone looking for the train to Dorking would be confused - sometimes trains on a different line can be shown as terminating at Barnham, a station with which few would be familiar.

Finally, during recent diversion of Victoria trains to London Bridge, when trains should have run fast from London Bridge to Mitcham Eastfields, they were diverted via West Croydon - thus missing out a number of stations, and again with no information to assist passengers.

John Parkin, Carshalton

Fife Circle service losses

As a consequence of the timetable changes, we are (I believe) about to experience the first withdrawal of a through rail service in Britain since the proposed closure of the Settle-Carlisle Line in the 1980s.

The Fife Circle, starting and finishing in Edinburgh, was opened with a fanfare 30 years ago. It is now being almost completely withdrawn, the exception being one daily train each way.

Currently, the service provides the only direct rail connection (throughout the day hourly in each direction) between Fife’s three largest towns - Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes and Dunfermline, with a total population of more than 150,000.

As there will no longer be trains between Glenrothes with Thornton and Kirkcaldy, it will not even be possible to reach central Fife by changing trains. The only alternative would be to travel westwards via Inverkeithing, where there is generally about a 20-minute wait for a connection.

It so happens that the constituency of Jenny Gilruth, the Glenrothes MSP and Scotland’s Transport Minister, not only includes the Circle route, but also Thornton

North junction (the start for the new Levenmouth link).

She actively campaigned against the proposed Fife timetable changes before her ministerial appointment. When the most welcome new public transport link to Levenmouth opens, it will in no way compensate for the loss of the Circle service, nor provide any help for passengers from the south Fife coast and Kirkcaldy in directly reaching central Fife and Dunfermline (or vice versa).

Laurie M Naumann, Kinghorn

Conscious of pilot?

I am sure the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) is run by intelligent and experienced people, and I can fully understand in today’s world the desire to be gender neutral. But surely the answer to creating a neutral term to replace ‘Pilotman’ is simply to delete the man and thereby to create ‘Pilot’ (RAIL 955)?

There can be no need to find anything different, unless of course there is a desire to employ a PR consultant at many times the rate of pay of a ‘Pilot’.

John Burrows, County Durham

A Rail Sale bargain

The Great British Rail Sale clearly provoked mixed reactions, but I never expected there to be a discount on every item in such events, so think that its critics have been rather unfair.

On May 10, I travelled from Ribblehead to Carlisle for £1.90 return (2 x 0.95p singles, with my Senior Railcard) with Northern’s sale - a bargain in my book as the similar cheapest advance return tickets that I could find were £10.80!

Any journey on the SettleCarlisle Line is hardly travelling on a “totally uninspiring backwater”, as Stefanie Foster feared might happen (Comment, RAIL 956).

Graham Thompson, Leyburn

East West considerations

As a former project manager, I worry when people start talking about Phase 2 of a project while Phase 1 is still a long way from completion. It is a sure sign that there is a lot wrong with Phase 1.

I was therefore interested to read that Network Rail is already making proposals for improving East West Rail, despite the fact that it is still a number of years from completion and has already cost a lot of money (RAIL 955). In fact, I believe work on the section between St Neots and Cambridge is not expected to begin until 2025.

NR highlights a number of improvements that could be made, with the project even acquiring a new name - East West Main Line. No costs or timescales are specified, but perhaps a significant rethink of the project is in the offing.

When the old ‘Varsity’ line was built via the market town of Bletchley, Milton Keynes was just a small village. Today, Bletchley is an outer suburb of the city of Milton Keynes, which is just one of the issues with stages 1 and 2 of the project (the line between Oxford and Bedford).

There is currently a great deal of opposition to stage 3 of the project (the line between Bedford and Cambridge), particularly in respect of the proposed route between St Neots and Cambridge. I believe that this isn’t just ‘nimbyism’, but symptomatic of a need for further consideration of all the implications involved.

For example, it is not clear to me whether East West Rail as planned is primarily for local passenger and commuter services, for fast passenger services between the main urban centres on the line, or for freight trains joining the line at Cambridge to travel to and from commercial and logistics centres well away from East Anglia.

East West Rail will cross the West Coast Main Line at Bletchley, the Midland Main Line at Bedford. and the East Coast Main Line in the St Neots area. Yet enabling trains to join those lines from East West Rail, or to access East West Rail from those lines, does not (as the NR report suggests) seem to have been a priority.

Perhaps there are capacity issues on those main lines, but it seems odd to propose building a line that crosses them without giving much thought to connecting with them.

It looks to me as if the whole project needs a rethink to ensure that its objectives are clear and that it provides value for money.

Richard Keeling, Royston

Financial support

Fraser Pithie (Open Access, RAIL 953) mentions the “need to fully embrace lean management principles, remove non-valueadded layers of management, and relentlessly pursue the driving down of costs through efficiency, while providing maximum customer service”.

The same could be said of any publicly funded organisation: the BBC, the NHS, the emergency services, education.

At some stage, the bull will have to grasped by the horns, because expectations of everincreasing inputs of taxpayers’ money, but with public dislike of ever-increasing taxes to cover their inefficiencies, mean changes will become mandatory.

M Cohen, Huntingdon

Cheaper by air?

Stockport County FC visited Eastleigh FC on Saturday March 26. The squad of 27 players and officials flew by scheduled flight to Southampton Airport.

A club spokesman stated that it was “cheaper than rail”. Need we say more…?

Martin Thomas, Bournemouth