please empty your brain below
The Romford to Upminster line should have been taken over by London Underground, converted to LU power supply. A connection at Upminster to the depot was started but not completed.
3 Car D stock should have been retained to work the service.

Bob | 18.03.23 - 7:51 a.m. | #

It could also simply be lack of drivers, I think a lot of people were forced to stop work during lockdown and decided not to come back or find something else.

Some will recall the staffing problems in the late 90s early 00s (remember Blue Triangle covering the 367 and 492) which were resolved by freedom of movement within Europe, many came over to sleep in a room to save up enough money to buy land back home to build a house on, then returned.

Still Anon | 18.03.23 - 7:57 a.m. | #

I thought the Hopper Fare still applied even if you took another mode of transport in between - so your Hornchurch/Elm Park example should only be £4.35 (unless you got particularly unlucky with the timing).

dg writes: updated thanks.

I haven't taken a rail replacement service for a while now, but I don't remember the drivers ever being especially interested in making sure passengers had a valid ticket. Perhaps that would have helped bring in a bit of money rather than just ditching them.

martin | 18.03.23 - 8:26 a.m. | #

A shortage of bus drivers for RRBS has certainly been an issue recently... as someone else said many bus drivers were poached during the HGV driver shortage. You may have noticed some RRBS have been run by coaches from across the country but that has been far from reliable and I guess not cost effective per passenger journey.

Chris | 18.03.23 - 8:42 a.m. | #

Given TfL’s cash-strapped state (thanks, Johnson & co) I suspect there’s a saving in not running
the rail replacement services, plus a bit of extra fare revenue from the buses. A small double whammy.

Steve | 18.03.23 - 9:02 a.m. | #

TfL is publicly owned, I.e. by us, not them. So I think of it, as far as it is due to financial pressures and not the other factors mentioned above, as saving our money, not theirs. The advice is crap though.

Bryn Davies | 18.03.23 - 9:33 a.m. | #

RRBS drivers are not trained, equipped or contracted to take fares or check tickets. (They could be, but that would make providing them even harder and more expensive). Ticket checking staff occasionally board the buses, but it probably costs less to make the rides free, either officially or otherwise.

Malcolm of Kent | 18.03.23 - 9:42 a.m. | #

I was at South Ruislip station to find it suddenly closed due to a problem. Central line trains were terminating at Northolt.

The best the employee left to deal with it could suggest was to use the minicab firm next door to get a cab to Northolt and catch the train from there.
Instead I caught the 114 bus to a different station and rerouted my journey with relative ease, but he 114 and either 140 or 395 would have got people to Northolt or Greenford!

Cornish Cockney | 18.03.23 - 9:44 a.m. | #

Oh, and I thought RRBS were free by default. I can't remember seeing card readers that were active.

While recovering from a recent injury, I very much appreciated step-free routes and might even have followed the suggestions, however convoluted. Although the amount of text to address all eventualities at a single station looks excessive.

commonliner | 18.03.23 - 10:13 a.m. | #

There are no card readers on RR buses, but nor are there any on trains. Which the buses are pretending to be. In theory you should treat them the same. However, this does not actually work because ticket gates.

Malcolm of Kent | 18.03.23 - 10:30 a.m. | #

It could be said that the rot set in many years back when line closures for maintenance work ("improvements" in TfL-speak) started happening every weekend rather than just once or twice a year. That was also a cost-saving measure as it was previously almost all done in the few hours overnight when trains weren't running, a very inefficient approach as more time was spent setting up and clearing down than actually doing the work so it took ages.

Andrew S | 18.03.23 - 10:31 a.m. | #

Routes optimised for "quickest", "cheapest", "simplest", "fewest changes" or "least walking" often give entirely different answers. Which one should they use for the rail replacement poster?

Absence of a special replacement is a downgrading of the service, but the many alternatives mean London travellers are still extraordinarily well served compared to those in other parts of the UK. Many other European countries place much more importance on this sort of public service provision. But ultimately what you get depends on what you are willing to pay for, one way or another.

Andrew | 18.03.23 - 10:43 a.m. | #

Basically TfL are showing less and less concern for passenger inconvenience during disruptions. This also applies to bus stop closures. Erstwhile, they would put a small temporary bus stop sign nearby in every case except where completely impossible. Now they close stops willy-nilly for any nearby roadworks irrespective of passenger discomfort or actual effect on traffic flow, which always takes precedence. Shoddy disregard for their customers, especially less-abled ones, and utter hypocrisy in the context of accessibility for all.

Strabismus | 18.03.23 - 12:09 p.m. | #

For some of the journeys you mention, how about rail replacement rails rather than buses? If the engineering or signalling works don't affect C2C what's wrong with using the platforms the tube stations from Bromley-by-Bow onwards still have?

dg writes: Those platforms are neither accessible nor safe.

MartinL | 18.03.23 - 12:29 p.m. | #

A shameful show from TfL who still trot out the the ‘every journey matters’.

It can’t be beyond a large transport organisation to have portable card readers for rail replacements and special events. Or usual bus ticket machines, make a fare that is the same as bus or tube fare (whichever is lower) but counts as a tube fare for the purpose of interchange.

Then there is the communication, as usual it’s dreadful. How many of those that plan and describe this ever travel themselves? Of course it will all be published as a great success. No one will be critical about it to have improvements.

Worker | 18.03.23 - 2:32 p.m. | #

The folks at the tangytango bus forum have mentioned examples of replacement bus routes which were planned to operate and either didn't at all or which had operating hours rolled back due to staffing issues.

The Bakerloo Line closure with non-free 7XX series replacement buses proves that they could charge for them to recoop some revenue but even then they couldn't operate all of those routes 7 days a week if I recall correctly, also likely down to staff shortages.

Matthieu | 18.03.23 - 4:09 p.m. | #

It's really hard to source buses and drivers - on a recent Overground rail replacement service I was working on - the coach had come down from the West Midlands and they told me it was an 18 hour day for them - which meant they had to provide two drivers per coach.

Surbitonian | 18.03.23 - 5:21 p.m. | #

Wouldn’t it just be simpler to say ‘Check TfL Journey Planner’ to help people plan their journey when there is disruption? Why doesn’t the poster just say that?

Boris | 18.03.23 - 9:38 p.m. | #

The shortage of bus drivers available to cover rail replacement work can't be overstated. Recent closures up at the country end of the Met line have seen buses from Havering Council and Diamond in Surrey, among others. I suspect the operators who have been in a position to supply drivers can basically name their price.

At the moment you can basically walk into a £41k/year job driving service buses in Oxford, after two months training. There are still widespread daily cancellations in the city - too few are applying.

Nico | 18.03.23 - 11:19 p.m. | #

In theory it's OK not to run RRBs as long as the associated tickets are accepted on parallel routes. Although I contend that it's more difficult to implement now when PAYG is the dominant way of payment. (not undoable though - ask people to touch in at stations and then deduct them only what they are supposed to pay by the closed route when they eventually touch out -- they gotta touch out somewhere I suppose?)

Patrickov | 19.03.23 - 2:39 a.m. | #

Leaving aside other issues, the way this information is presented to pretty poor, eg:

- not in a consistent order
- three different ways of describing the change at 1400
- no information about how to get to Barking before 1400 (can't see where the "three bus shuttle" is suggested)
- information about how to get to Barking after 1400 listed under other stations, but with no specific information for those not in the know as to what that actually means for getting to those other stations.

Less than impressive.

Betterbee | 19.03.23 - 3:43 a.m. | #

Unless the rules change only another couple of years before you can pick up your freedom pass dg and not have to worry about fares

Roger Norrington | 19.03.23 - 10:58 a.m. | #

The Romford Push Pull should of just been named the "District Line" but still NR trains maybe kept two units of 315s based at Ilford and gave them a good refurb. As for RRBS I suppose inner London doesnt really need them

LocalJo | 23.03.23 - 4:15 p.m. | #

it took me a good half an hour back in January when TfL was advertising the DL6 both on their website, the bus stop and Barking station to then eventually be told by the bloke in the pink hi-vis that it was only the DL7 running. so I then told my brother who works in Whitechapel about this which meant later in the evening he had to travel to Fenchurch Street and go back on himself. save to say we both weren't impressed that day

James Wells | 27.03.23 - 8:26 p.m. | #











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