Great Western Coffee Shop

From The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/23/train-operators-start-devising-plans-to-restore-services)

There are a number of issues that need to be resolved to increase the train service to 80%,

50% of the seats on a train could be removed out of use maintain social distancing.

The embarkation and disembarkation is having to be considered, even having doors for embarkation only and doors for disembarkation this will obviously increase dwell times 

Passenger flows at stations with controls on the numbers allowed on a platform

Queue management at ticket machines and offices

Staff protection Covid screens at ticket barriers

The management of transport interfaces (busses Tubes etc)


So an increase to 80% of trains running will not mean 80% capacity 

Specific GWR inputs - http://www.passenger.chat/23306 - in the "Transport Scholars" area.  If you are not a member there (where we get into dispassionate detail on occasions) please message me, or like this post, and I can add you in.

From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52511970)


It makes sense, assuming that commuters have a suitable device at home.  And I suspect that "commuter" in the article is used once again to refer to all public transport users.

And from the London emergency planners https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-london-underground-tube-buses-overwhelmed-lockdown-report-a9491756.html (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-london-underground-tube-buses-overwhelmed-lockdown-report-a9491756.html)
Would similar apply on railways and buses outside London.

Given that GWR are unwilling/unable to manage boarding/loadings on even one or two of the busiest services of the week under normal circumstances, I really can't see this working very well in practice.

The tense in that article was a bit odd. In the middle of April, there were several reports of public transport, especially the underground, being still crowded in the rush hours, mostly with building workers (allegedly). Since then I've not heard this was stopped, nor that it's continued, though the Mail had a picture of pretty full trains from last Thursday morning. So the context is that nothing has really been done to apply the rules as they are now - so why would that be different?

Of course the rules - or measures - for using public transport might change. However, there's been very little sense talked about this, not even in other countries that have announced relaxations. I saw a report about the Lyon Métro showing them marking half the seats as out of use, putting metre marks on platforms, and deep cleaning trains overnight. There was also a hand-washing machine and I got the impression their use was going to be compulsory before entry. But in fact this was a promotional installation by a little local company that must think their big opportunity has come.
(https://static.latribune.fr/full_width/1423056/bornes-de-desinfection-part-dieu.jpg)

EverCleanHand have been trying to drum up interest in their machines for four years, with little success. As they point out:

Of course in France wearing some kind of face mask will be compulsory on trains, though the basic notion that this is more to keep you hands clean that to stop aerial transmission has not been promoted.

Belgium's deputy prime minister obviously needs some practice: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f2A_2dNzhI)

Today's Sunday Times printed four stills, the last one of which made me wince. It looked as if he was using his fingers and thumbs to position the mask, with some of his digits apparently under the mask and very close to to his mouth and nose. Any benefits of wearing masks will be reduced if people do not know how to put them on.

Similarly with home tests, for which, I gather, a fairly diligent implementation is necessary. I wonder how many people will make a token effort and get negative results that might give false reassurance.

It was pointed out on Andrew Marr this morning that to maintain social distancing at safe levels on buses and trains, capacity would be restricted to approximately 12% - how on Earth would this be managed?

Grant Shapps seemed to have no answer other than suggesting people cycle or walk to work, when Marr asked how queues/boarding would be managed there was little information forthcoming.

I get the idea of shifts, flexible working etc but practically speaking at these levels it isn't going to work, is it?

The Guardian is reporting that the rail unions are concerned over safety on trains. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/may/03/uk-coronavirus-live-doctors-had-prepared-to-announce-boris-johnsons-death?page=with:block-5eaec5c68f087d47c77887ce#liveblog-navigation
You will need to scroll to 14:01

For the first time in my life I find myself in agreement with The Grauniad and the rail unions...………..I think I'd better go and have a lie down  :o

I guess you can argue as to when it is sensible to 'lift the lockdown' in whatever progressive stages that takes place, but it will obviously have to happen as some point. 

For my money, when it does:

1)  It will be decided that there will be no way to effectively marshal passengers to ensure social distancing on trains but passengers and staff will be 'strongly encouraged' (possibly mandated) to wear masks and be as sensible as possible in terms of spreading along the platform and waiting for a following train.
2)  The 'Saturday' levels of service timetable will come in to coincide with more people being allowed to go back into work, but there will be several stages to try and judge how effectively the network is coping.
3)  The numbers of people going back into work will still be a small fraction of the pre-virus numbers of people travelling, especially to 'the city', as most of the large employers will still want the majority of their staff working from home because their office space will be difficult to suitably adapt for that many staff to be accommodated anyway.
4)  Press will be on hand to record scenes on any services that are overcrowded (mostly on the underground), though generally most trains will not be too bad.

To sum it up.  Entering lockdown was pretty straightforward.  Exiting it won't be.

If we get some more coherent information from HMG next week (I'll keep breathing), it will be about relaxing social distancing (i.e. going out more) and whether we can relax physical spacing rules too or not. So this confusion about what "social distancing" means ain't going to help. But, as you say, keeping even 1 m apart in trains would be a severe limit whatever the other rules are to be and whatever it's called.

What I haven't heard from anyone is that the objective is (presumably) to relax the restrictions for the bulk of the population while keeping the overall R (the infection's reproduction rate, and not R₀ in this case) well below 1.0. Where we now have reduced R mainly by having far fewer contacts with other people, and making those more distant, we will now partly replace that with other measures. We could also scrap any of the current restrictions that have little effect - if we now have better data on what they do, which I fear we don't.

The 'X' factor we can add is targeted isolation and quarantine, based on large-scale testing. So far we all have to act as if we are infectious (but still necessarily going shopping), lacking any way to detect who is. If we can identify a few (say 1%) who are most likely to have the virus, and subject them to stricter confinement (quarantine), that reduces R. If we test everyone who has symptoms we can let those without the virus out of isolation; this doesn't reduce R at all but just puts them back into the less-restricted majority. It also allows people with only minor symptoms (e.g. no fever) to be picked up, where  before they would be missed - this does reduce R. Making a big impact on R this way needs a lot of assiduous contact-tracing and quite possible enforced quarantine in (for example) requisitioned hotels. Acquired immunity, even at the current levels of 5% or so, also pushes R down a bit - and every little helps, plus this effect only grows.

Since people going out more will use trains more, these (and buses too) need an R-reducing magic wand all of their own. I suspect the powers we've ended up with are considering facemasks, partly for want of any alternative, and partly because most of the world thinks this helps. But, given half of France have been crouched over a hot sewing machine for a month trying to make enough for their coming-out party (11th May, at least in Brittany), I can't see how it could be made to work here. And of course it may not actually work anyway.

One of the big UK banks commented a week or two ago that if you have offices on, say, the 10th floor, you need to take the lift to get there and social distancing means only one person in the lift at a time. In effect it will take till lunchtime to get everyone in the office and then people will immediately have to start leaving to get out at a reasonable time!

Question - does the rush hour and 9 to 5 date from times when daylight was needed for travel and activities - before the electric light came between 100 and 150 years?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52519340 :


Utterly sensible.   I'm happy to catch the 05:33 ... even on a Sunday

The good news for the RMT is that the majority of commuter services in the South East are able to run without a guard on board, so that will reduce one possible risk for its members whilst still enabling many services to run.

Generally though I think the points are well made, and I'm sure the government are aware of them, if not the detail of every situation. I think there was a comment in today's briefing (or maybe it was yesterday's  - they all seem to merge into one) that it would be working with industry and the unions to come up with safe working arrangements. Let's hope that is more than paying lip service to the need for collaboration. 

In Germany their R0 was 0.7. With their first relaxation of restrictions it went up to 0.96. The problem is also that R0 is a retrospective measure, not current.

On face masks/coverings I expect it to be about as effective as cycle helmets. A significant proportion of face coverings I see seem to be intended to stop germs getting to their neck. Just as cycle helmets are worn unstrapped or dangling from the handlebars. Must admit I am not keen on either.

Other sightings are people wearing the higher specification face masks, with a beard. Sorry guys it doesn't work. It has to be fitted to seal, fungus doesn't allow that.

It will be the sting in the tail for people like me when they bring in laws that state that beards have to be shaved off to be allowed to go outside!

A simple question with a very complicated answer, and I'm not even sure that the premis of the quesion starts at the right place!

Personally I have never - ever - had a 9 to 5 job. I have had 0830-1700, 0800-1600, 0800-1630, 0845-1715, 0845-1645 and 24 hour 3-shift working. And I'm not even going to try to list the various working day lengths I had when self-employed!. OK I accept that this is a bit of a pedantic point, but I have long thought that this 9 to 5 idea is something of a general press construct, much thw same as every passenger on a train is a commuter, even at 1500 on a Sunday afternoon.

On the wider issue, the human species has had artificial light for thousands of years with (going backwards in time) gas lighting, oil lamps and candles. The lack of daylight didn't stop mill owners operating 12 hour shifts in the 19th century, for example, and daylight is a pretty useless commodity if you are working down a pit!

Perhaos a wider,and more important issue in the long run, is that if "the peak" ceases to exist in its current form, where is the justicication for restricting reduced rate travel until after 0930 on Mondays to Fridays?

I'd agree with that. By the time I started work most offices, including civil service ones, started at 8 or 8:30, but my Mum assured me they used to work 9-5 before the war and for some time after. She and Dad both started work in the Post Office Savings Bank in South Kensington, and were in digs close by so it was not a long journey. Of course public offices (and Post Offices) had always been 9-5, so those working in them had to start earlier.

I think it all comes down to class, or at least status. Office work was by definition not working class labour, at least to start with, and the civil service in particular was seen as a privilege (as it still is in Italy, and elsewhere). Some time (and I've never found much information about this), once offices had become the new shop-floors for mass employment, their hours lost this element of status.

When I was in the apprentice school in Marconi (Chelmsford) in 1968 this difference in office and shop-floor hours was sharply resented by the craft apprentices. They worked longer hours overall, and it was the office workers going home earlier on Fridays that really rankled. Of course since they knocked off earlier on other days (unless they did overtime) they never saw what time the office workers stayed until - mostly unpaid on those days.

I think the public sector (particularly Civil Service and Local Government) have long had flexible working in place in terms of start/finish times so it shouldn't be a problem for them.

Big cultural and practical shift elsewhere though.

If 9-5 was intended to reflect daylight hours it would vary by time of year and latitude. Pretty relevant in eg agriculture or construction but less so in offices and factories.

Very true.  

You can potentially double the number of people working in an office if instead of a rough 9-5 pattern for everyone, a roster is put into place with 6am-2pm and 3pm-11pm ‘shifts’ (the hour in between used to allow staff to exit and enter the building and for sanitising work surfaces).  

It won’t work everywhere, and people have to be able to get in and back home at those times of course, but with measures like that, and half the office continuing to work from home, you could cut down on the amount of office space being required by 75% - as well as spread out the use of public transport.

The reason I suggested it is because many (the majority?) of office buildings won’t be able to deal with 50% of the workforce in at any one time.  Either through lack of desk space with social distancing measures, or more likely, effective movement of people to and from those desks. 

One large London employer that I know very well simply hasn’t got the lift capacity to deal with a maximum of one or two people at a time over its 15 floor London offices and is pretty much doing home working for all staff until September at the earliest.

There’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution though, so different approaches will have to be made in order to comply for different places of work.

I'd say that 9 to 5 (or 8 to 6 or whatever) also ignores circadian rhythms for a lot of people. Having two shifts which, for at least part of the year, guarantee everyone either starts or finishes in darkness, is going to make it even worse.

Our office which has several thousand people normally is working at 7% capacity after social distancing measures. That might seem low but there's a lot of technical kit and roles which limit opportunities to get people in. There's also the lift and stairs problem. Assuming we move some non-essential teams out and restack the building we're probably not going to get above 12% occupancy.

Haven't got as far as looking at transport although the worry is that essential staff who are comfortable travelling at the moment won't be if numbers ramp up.

I wasn't planning on going back to the office soon anyway.

The message within the part of the railway I work in is, despite the office reopening the work from home will continue to be the preferred option for the foreseeable future

That's been part of the overall message (or plan) elsewhere as the next step arrives.

I got a message from Oui.com about TGVs, which are easier than urban transport since there will be some legal restrictions on longe-rdistance travel. But remember that all TGVs are reservation-only, and France never set a spacing limit further than 1 m, so blanking out half the seats is a feasible way forward. For RERs, Transilien, and for RATP it's much harder. They can talk about the same half-seats-only spacing rules, but then need some way to control boarding. So far I've not seen anything workable - and D(décomfinement)-Day is next Monday (11th). Buses and trams have similar issues, but worse, as they don't even offer the place to do filtering of people on entry if you knew how.

Other factors will affect all trains, as well as buses and trams, such as the need for hand-cleaning facilities, disinfecting everything, and in France making sure everyone has a mask. The ECDC (who no doubt feel they are heeded even less than the WHO) have a set of guidelines (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/COVID-19-public-transport-29-April-2020.pdf) for this phase, which suggests an interesting option for here:

So you could aim to get four times as many people (ish) in trains at 1 m spacing, and say "masks are not very effective, but they do make the difference between 1m and 2m". All you need to do then is to start several weeks ago on building up a supply chain (including manufacture?) and distribution system for some type of mask that's not used medically (so as not to compete) and once there's enough for everyone who needs one...

Greetings from Callac in Brittany, where both the department I live in and the wider Brittany region have today been classed in the "Green" zone, and cleared for deconfinement on Monday (May 11 2020)

Here is a translated article on plans for rail services in Brittany once deconfinement happens from France Bleu (https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/transports/ter-en-bretagne-pas-de-reservation-obligatoire-a-partir-du-11-mai-1588780558):


Mask supply is pretty good here in Callac. They are available to buy at the local supermarket, but to be honest, you can get them for free relatively easily - There have been 2 distributions by different organisations to the local population in recent days, both of which I was included in.

From Monday, the distance I can travel from my home increases from the current just 1km to anywhere I like in my department, or 100km as the crow flies if I cross into another department. The forms we have to fill in and carry around with us every time we leave the house to justify our movements will also be largely dropped from Monday, and will only be required for travel to another department over 100km as the crow flies.

I will be aiming to make my first post confinement rail journey next Friday May 15, and I have 3 possible options lined up:

1) Off to Paimpol or Saint Brieuc for a nice walk along the beach, and in the latter case, to see how their local public transport network (one of the best in the region for a 45,000 population) is coping post confinement - This will depend on whether the local discretion that was today granted by the Interior Minister to open the beaches up on a case by case basis is applied.

2) Off to Dinan to look at one of Brittany's most interesting railway stations, and ride on the free local town bus network to see how that is adapting to the current situation - This needs connections to line up, which may not all be available straightaway.

3) Off to Gouarec to monitor progress on the resurrection of the former Carhaix-Loudeac Reseau Breton line which has been restored to Bon Repos so far - This will depend on rail/bus connections at Carhaix that would be available in normal times being restored this early on.

In more general terms, I would also need the Guingamp-Carhaix line, which has been shut to passengers throughout confinement, returning to an at least halfway useful timetable during the first week, which is obviously not guaranteed.

Wish me luck, and whether it is next Friday or a bit further ahead, I will let you know how I get on.

From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52584983)

Many thanks for the update, Lee ... good to see your positive view to getting out again and wishing you luck as you go. Stay safe!

Lessons can be learned from nation to nation and person to person as we move through current times. Look forward to further updates from you.

On closer examination, the difference between red and green zones is very small. The only extra relaxation listed for the greens is the first two years of secondary school going back (as well as younger kids everywhere), and even that's subject to local conditions. It's been said that further steps will apply sooner in green areas, but that's all subject to progress too.

As to reservations on TERs, that's the thing I couldn't see and still can't. In Hauts-de-France (around Lille), which is a red region, they are instead rationing trains by coupon. As well as your ticket (and mask), for each train you need to have got yourself a coupon which states the from and to stations and a departure time. The numbers are being set to match capacity, and once they are all gone that's it. The time is shown as "after", presumably because there will still be controls on boarding and you may be held back and have to take a later train.

In Paris, RATP had already said employers would be getting together to stagger hours, and had set out hourly time slots - five in the morning (5:30-6:30 to 9:430-10:30), and four in the evening (15:30-1630 to 18:30-19:30). Do they expect you to work very long days to reduce the number of days travelled? In addition, announced last night, you now need a letter from your employer saying you are required to go to work.

The rules in other regions and cities will presumably be close to one of those patterns, though I've not searched for them. For some trips, it looks as if you'll need your ticket and/or pass, coupon, letter for the boss or attestation, and of course (as always) your ID card. Doesn't that all strike you as scarily like travel during the war - and in France, that does mean under occupation. "Show me your papers - now!"

As referenced in the France Bleu article I posted, no "peak rationing" measures are expected in Brittany thankfully, as capacity is expected to be adequate enough to allow social distancing, and no extra certification required unless you plan to travel to another department on a journey over 100km. I wonder if it will be a similar story in other "green" areas?

In terms of other differences between "green" and "red" areas, parks and gardens can be accessed in "green" but not "red" areas - interesting they singled that one out. As stuving said, further steps may apply sooner in "green" areas, one of the most striking being that cafes and restaurants could possibly reopen in areas that stay "green" for 3 weeks after deconfinement begins on May 11.

Finally, the French government called on all Ile-de-France (the "red" zone region around Paris) residents to only use public transport if absolutely necessary, a measure of how worried they are of the potential of the virus to re-erupt big time in that area.

According to the Tiger / IRIS information for EXD this morning both 9- & 10-car IET's have been allowed out to play.

Several daily 9-car diagrams have been out since the emergency timetable started, though not 10-cars.  Could be a stock balancing move with one unit out of use?  Or of course it could all be in service.  :)

There was a 10-car with only 5 in use service listed on Friday but this morning's information did not carry this qualification.

Not sure where to put this.

So things are easing. You can get in your car and go to the beach or the countryside. Non-essential shops will be opening in a week or so.

What is the situation for non-car owners? Stay at home, or are we allowed on trains at non-peak times? Should Graham be allowed/encouraged to get on the train to Weymouth (as opposed to using the car)? Can I go from Reading to Oxford, and return by train on a Saturday, actually to Didcot and then cycle to Oxford?

Understand that we are talking about day trips, and not to Durham. Which segment of the train using population do you encourage first, commuters, local utility travellers, tourists?

Yes, I am getting stir crazy!

I think there will be a slow shift over the coming weeks from ‘essential rail journeys only’ to ‘leisure journeys permitted if you don’t have a car’.  If a ‘normal’ service resumes in early July that might be an entirely workable next step.

You raise an issue which highlights some of the inconsistencies in government advice, and by way of example I recount a recent exchange of email correspondence with Faresaver buses.

I actually own a car, but I can no longer use it through eyesight problems. One of the few things I can still see easily is a computer screen because of the backlight (some on this forum may think that that ability is unfortunate, but you’ll have to live with it...  ;) ). The moment I walk outside it is like walking into a thick mist.

SWMBO still drives, but I have been used to going shopping myself (besides, waiting for her to get ready is a long job – it’s a spot of luck we no longer have early closing days..) Since the emergency covid-19 service was introduced on our town bus service, they have been running at 0845, 0925 and 1025. I have nothing to get up early for in normal circumstances, let alone now. So this service was no good for me whatsoever.

The service was revised from last Tuesday, 26th May, and now we have buses at 0830, 0925, 1025, 1215 and 1355. I wrote to thank them, but queried why the Saturday service still ended at 1025, and asked whether/ when they would be improving the Saturday service too. Here is the reply I got:

We are pleased to hear that you are happy with the increase of the timetable. And, to be frank, a ‘usable service’ as you put it, is available to you 5 of 7 days a week from today, is that not enough? The country is still very much in lockdown, and you should only be using the buses for essential shopping, or commuting if you are a key worker.
 
I will bear your thoughts in mind when the time comes for a further timetable increase.

A few thoughts sprang to mind, not the least of which was that the country is still in lockdown unless you happen to be called Dominic Cummings.

The second was that these damn buses are being taken for a ride by their drivers, and empty buses (and trains) being run around makes no economic sense whatsoever. On the few rare occasions I have used a bus in the last 9 weeks (mainly the 92 Chippenham to Malmesbury service) there has never been any more than one other passenger on the bus.

I am not that thick to not understand that there is a marginally higher risk of infection on public transport than there is sitting in your other half’s car, but as I see it that risk is no greater, and probably smaller, than going around the supermarket which is usually full of people who are not looking where they are going, and/or blocking aisles with trolleys at right angles to the shelves, and/or wandering around slowly and two abreast.

Add into that mix the fact that from my experience fewer people are going out anyway for a multitude of reasons (see bus example above), it becomes clear that something is seriously wrong with the government’s advice at the moment. If you have a car there is no problem: if you don’t then your options for travel are severely limited. Meanwhile, the railways are running largely ECS around the country and the bus companies are sending their drivers for an empty run around the countryside. This doesn’t make any rational sense whatsoever.

The problem is that at the moment I can’t think of any “message” that could be put out to deal with the matter, and I would welcome hearing what others have to say on the topic.

Of course, we could all decide just to take no bloody notice of the government’s advice. There are, after all, high profile precedents about the place not losing their jobs at the moment...

Was that written to you recently?

My understanding was that even at the height of the lockdown, you were allowed to travel to
* medical appointments
* for essential shopping
* for commuting if you were a key worker
but it would appear that this bus company would not carry you to medical appointments. I'm also very much aware of key workers working on shifts and all 7 days of the week. One of the key issues here has been the lack of any public transport to get people from West Wilts to Chippenham and Swindon on a Sunday for key work. Oddly enough, key work does not shut down over the weekend and there have been very real problems.

Assuming that's a old message, we have now moved forward.   
* From a few days back, we were allowed to travel somewhat to exercise
* We were allowed to meet, one and one from two households in the open
* Other staff were allowed back to work - not key, but could not work from home, a few days back
And looking ahead
* On 1st June, Open air markets, car show rooms (!) and perhaps a few others can open
* From 3rd June, National Trust is reopening some of its places - not seen a list, but I suspect Lacock Abbey Grounds and The Courts
* From 15th June, many more shops will be allowed to open with social distancing

You are told of two things you may use public transport for.   Yet I have listed 9 reasons to travel, 8 of which will be allowed within a week (whether sensible is another question) and some of them certainly seem to be moving away from "essential only".   Are we then going to be in a split society of "haves" and "have nots", where them who have can visit Lacock by car, but those who have not cannot go there on the bus?  Where them who have not cannot go back to work (unless they're key), but those who have can go back to work?

For the absence of doubt, I do not personally intend to travel until I'm sure that my journey is legal, safe (for me and others), and not occupying a seat which is required by someone  who needs to make an essential journey.   Nor do I recommend anyone else to make a journey until those conditions are met.

The email that sentence was in came from someone called Xxxxx at Faresaver buses, timed at 0541 on Tuesday 26th May, so just under 56 hours ago as I write this.

He was upwell before I was...


Edit - I have Xxxxx'd out the name of the individual in response to a reporting of this post.   We do not normally name individual operational team members within transport operating companies.   It's a little different where people speak on behalf of the company or are senior managers there. In this case, the name is not one I have heard before at Faresaver and on balance I have blanked the name even though he wrote on behalf of the company - Grahame

Although your assumption (edited out for brevity) that this was an old message has now been corrected, I think your statement above is too strong. I am not aware of any bus driver refusing to carry anybody, or indeed ask what they were travellig for. Indeed, how would they know the purpose of the journey without asing the potential passenger?

It isn't always clear of course. Not all key workers go to work in their overalls, and not all shoppers necessarily carry bags.

There was an incident a few weeks ago when I went to the chemist for a repeat precription to be told it would be ready in 30 minutes. It was 1010 and the last bus was at 1025. I therefore went back for it the next day. So I presented myself at the bus stop carrying no shopping. The driver did not ask why I was travelling for no obvious reason.

I doubt that my example is unique.

The argument that as I have nothing to get up early for, the bus at 1025 isn't convenient to me seems somewhat illogical.  

Sitting on a confined space on a bus for an extended period is much more risky than passing someone momentarily in a relatively open supermarket. And you can't control who comes and sits near you either. I would not be comfortable riding on a bus at the moment, whereas am willing to brave the supermarket shop, albeit trying to use delivery services where possible to minimise journeys out.

Agree completely re the government advice, but I guess we should remember that the advice is there to protect us, our friends and families and society at large. So it feels a bit like cutting your nose off to spite your face to ignore the advice, although sadly I think many people will now do that.

As for whether the email you got was correct.  At the moment government advice is that public transport is only for essential business, which I would imagine would be possible within Monday to Friday, so I think it was fair, albeit the wording does not seem to be the most customer friendly. There's a very valid debate as to whether that is appropriate going forward,  although in your case you do have the option of a car, so it doesn't appear as though you are completely cut off from leisure options in the way that others might be.

The Scottish version of easing lockdown

People are still being urged to "stay at home as much as possible", with Ms Sturgeon warning that the virus "is still out there".

although people from two different households can meet, they must keep two metres apart
People should stay at home as much as possible
Anyone meeting up with other households should do so in groups of no more than eight people
we should not meet people from more than one other household each day.

you can play golf, tennis, bowls and fishing
sit and sunbathe in parks
travel, preferably by walking or cycling, for recreation nearby where you live, but avoid public transport
strong advice is not to travel more than five miles for recreation and leisure

Yes - agreed - (And bolded in different words at the end of my last post)


I have several examples (essential works in both food distribution and in specialised care) which do not (and cannot) stop at the weekend, where gaping holes in public transport provision below the norm, at the weekend, has caused problems "I cannot do my job".  And (sorry to say) answering Robin, yes, challenges to the people involved (multiple, again) in such a way that they felt intimidated, as to what they were doing travelling around outside normal hours.

To clarify though - my original comments were written before Robin named the bus company he was quoting.  None of my examples are from that bus company (Faresaver), and my examples have been passed through / are in the hands of usual customer service  / support channels.  The assumption of "anything outside Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 is not essential" is false, but seems widely made.

Celestial's reply shows that sometimes even a long post needs further clarification!  ;D

I would agree that long bus journeys may be a different matter - if (and it's a big "if "at the moment) anybody else is on the bus, but mine isn't. We are talking about a circular town bus service that is timed 17 minutes from emd to end. The reason I use it is that the town centre is downhill for me, so I often walk down and only have to lug the shopping to the bus stop on the way back and not up the hill.

Secondly we are all creatures of habit. Over the years during my working life I have done plenty of getting up at daft 'o clock in the morning, and as a now-retired old git I have no need to do it any more. Until the lockdown, bus passes were not available until after 0930 anyway and, whilst that restriction was lifted "for the duration" many people's daily timetables were affected by it, and those timetables have not necessarily changed.

One of the reasons I wrote to Faresaver at all was that during the course of last week I spoke to two separate people in the local park, both regular bus passengers, and both of which complained about the emergency timetable and that the buses were running too early, and they were completely unprompted by me. It therefore became clear that my views on the matter were not unique.

And yes I have access to a car. One driven by somebody else. A somebody else who might not want (and often does not want) to go for her own purposes. So I feel that I am burdening someone else by asking her to do me a favour. And no matter if it is somebody I've spent 17 years with or not - it still makes me feel like a burden on somebody else.

I don't want to be a burden on others for transport. In my circumstances that's what buses and trains are for; to alleviate that burden.

And finally, the wording of that email did remind me a little of the "old days" when the attitude in shops was often that they thought they were doing you a favour by letting them serve you/ take your money. That's why I included the name of the person who sent it... ;)

It's all getting a bit Pythonesque now.
"It's perfectly simple, Mr McTavish, you can play golf with Mr McDougall, so long as you stay at least the length of two golf bats apart, and carry your own kit, unless the caddy is a member of your household, in which case he can have dinner with your wife later, but you can't unless McDougall is meeting with another family, in which case Mrs McDougall can dine with you and your wife, so long as the caddy self-isolates for 14 days, but as the clubhouse is closed and you can't get hammered at the bar and try to outbore everybody else with fairy tales of how you nearly beat Tony Jacklin, there really isn't much point in playing golf in the first place."

Love it - Strikes me as akin to playing Mornington Crescent with Cumming's Castling in odd number months.

Now there's a thought! I'm taking this thing pretty seriously, as I'm no Dominic Cummings but I know enough to think my odds of survival if I caught this thing would not ber great. Somewhere around the chances of Tiverton Town winning the FA Cup, I suppose. So I am staying home and casting the occasional eye towards the cosmic fish tank for news, and starting the newspaper at page six. My wife has become utterly obsessed with r-numbers, social discrediting and all that, and has even learned metric. That last could be down to me - when she asked how far 2 metres was in traditional units, I suggested it was around a furlong and two chains.
For goodness sake, don't let her find out that we have actually got slightly light-hearted. I know what she would do, even if she had to sew them back on first.

Mornington Crescent, Cummings Lockdown Variant game play?  Okay.  I open with Castle Barnard because I can.

Staying home and treating the whole thing with extreme caution is the only sensible approach - especially for any of us / those who may be at a high risk.  100% backing you on that.

There is - for some of us - a dark humour which helps relieve the intensity and pressure of a nothing-to-do-at-present life style.  Not going to do anything stupid; going to suggest others don't do anything stupid either.


But we were speculating this morning about the five local people (it does not say friends) we would least want to have in our garden and thanking our lucky stars that we don't have too.   We were also wondering if social media in Northern Ireland is going to be overrun with adverts like "Fourth person wanted to join a group of three so we can meet outdoors" ...

Back to the top of the post ... we're going nowhere unless we have to, advising by example and words others to do the same, and where we have to go out (or have people here), distancing, wearing face masks, washing hands ...

Not sure for other areas but for Devon - https://www.traveldevon.info/bus/national-bus-pass/

I quoted examples (known to me via directly involved trusted sources) yesterday of people travelling with legitimate reason being made to feel very, very uncomfortable.  Not putting them in the public domain for privacy reasons. But here - from the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-52836702) this morning is an example of a public transport driver refusing to carry someone he believed should not be travelling.


Very much the exception, I suggest - the press are very good at finding the wrong in a sea of right.  And it typically takes two twits for something to blow up like this.

And restoration of parking charges ... from Wiltshire Council

Out of interest, how completely are you "staying at home"? I haven't seen several elderly neighbours for months, not that any of them ventured out much before Lockdown. I rather wondered then what they did all day. And an acquaintance from the 1960s has suddenly popped up via eMails and says he's  been self-isolating at home because he has diabetes. I wondered if he's ever left home? Surely no harm early in the morning when there's no-one much else around?

I've had no choice but to do my own shopping and feel OK with that but, as you may have gathered from earlier posts, I've ventured further afield for longish walks. I think that the risk to me and others in the fresh air is minimal, especially as I haven't come to within two metres of anyone.

Pre-Covid, I would use the train to give me more range for walks and don't see much risk with this. More often than not in the good old days, there would be only one or two other people in the same compartment. But I accept that to do so at the moment would be unacceptable.

One other thought and it's slightly off-topic: I wonder in what circumstances people are contracting Covid now? We'll all aware of the high proportion of nursing and care home residents, but are there any surveys of where else someone has caught i?. I guess that "track & test" may help here.

As regards walking I have taken the view that it all depends where you go, or indeed can go.

I am fortunate in that the edge of town is less than 5 minutes walk for me with only 3 houses to pass on the way, so I feel fairly safe in going that way. I might only pass 4 or 5 people on a 4 mile walk.

It might be very different if, at the other extreme, one live in a heavily built-up area where a lot more people are likely to be around most of the time.

Of course, there is only one way to ind out if I am right or wrong in taking that approach and I think I would prefer not to find out that I was wrong, because there is only one true way to do it...

As regards the track and trace policy, at the moment I remain to be convimced that it will work properly. News on the trial on the Isle of Wight has certainly not reached my ears recently, and I am concerned about both the centralised nature of the UK scheme and its heavy reliance on IT. Experience has shown that central government and new IT systems have rarely made good bedfellows in the past.

Talking of the past, chasing down epedemics/ pandemics is nothing new. Throughput the 20th century, and possibly going back beforehand in some parts of the country, local Medical Officers of Health were doing this all the time with diseases that they had to deal with regularly such as diptheria, cholera, smallpox, TB etc. That they sometimes didn't jnow what to do about it when they had chased it down was due to a shortage of medical knowledge that they had at the time and that has now generally been corrected. So that is a positive.

Running down such local facilities "because we didn't need them any more" can be encapsulated by the old adage: "The lesson we learn from history is that we don't learn lessons from history"

One thing that is going to be absolutely vital to getting people back moving on the trains when the world returns to something like normality is a robust and reliable service - "staycations" are likely to be the order of the day this year, so it's an opportunity for the railways and GWR in particular given its services to the Westcountry.

In this context, what progress has been made in resolving the ridiculous situation which has made long distance summer Sunday services almost non viable over the last few years due to drivers being able to opt out of Sunday working, or do we face another summer of mass weekend cancellations and people choosing to rely on their cars instead?

Hopefully one of the well informed members of the forum can advise.

No progress.

However, the quite high percentage of drivers who like to earn extra money by working extra days have seen that opportunity dry up almost completely due to the emergency timetable, so I would expect fewer Sunday’s to be ‘given up’ and more volunteers making themselves available.  We’ll see what effect on availability that has.

Being 70+ with a compromised immune system means a house lockdown.  Fortunately have a large garden to walk around.  Meet and greet (at a distance) for the Thursday clap with neighbours.
Furballed until the end of June by the NHS and employer.

Was looking forward to the IoW NHS tracing app coming to the mainland, but feel the mainland 'trace and track' is wide open to scammers, so a massive distrust of that.
At least with an app - it's just another app that reads your mind.  We give our soul to Google/faceache/Microbug, etc, etc, so what's different with the IoW app privacy-wise.
At least with that it's unlikely we'd be rung up by an NHS advisor telling me I'd been in close contact and for the sum of £x to cover admin costs they'll sort my life out I tell them my 5 best email and telephone contact details............. ???

Thanks II - so we can only live in hope, although I guess that BBQs (even those officially sanctioned by the Trade Union!) will need to be socially distanced for the foreseeable future which may make them less of an attraction!

Frankly however it reflects very poorly on both sides that no progress is being made on this issue, year after year. Customers will draw their own conclusions and make their travel plans accordingly - worth bearing in mind when bemoaning the number of cars on the roads.

; Medical Officers of Health became Consultants in Communicable Disease Control (CCDC). Under Public Health CCDC's cover a larger area and tend not to have the same local knowledge. Sorry I am of the age that thinks sitting at a computer is not the same as having local knowledge from physically working an area.

We have indeed been doing public health as a medical discipline and a multi-level government function for over a century, and doing something before that (even if it was just a bunch of the local ruffians, egged on by an old wife, forcing you into the parish pest house). This system was restructured by the same 2012 act that created NHS England etc, and the local authority part (which ages ago had an MOH each authority) rearranged too. I suspect the implementation phase of both of these layers (i.e. ever since 2013) has involved a lot of intended and accidental cost saving.

The result was PHE (and similar devolved things), which lumped together a nominal 70 organisations in the hope that the product would be like the CDC in America. The CDC, having started badly by sending out a SARS-COV-2 test that didn't work, has been sidelined by the Donald (no shame in that, of course). Now the Boris seems to have done something similar to PHE, which had underachieved the scaling-up of the test capability. Before this year, the CDC had become almost the world's centre of public health science (the WHO not having its own), and British capability was reckoned by most observers to be not far behind. Clearly something has gone badly wrong in taking that underlying knowledge of what to do and acting on it.

I found it quite hard to discover what the current system is, and what happens here in the Royal-gap-in-the-map-formerly-known-as-the-County-of-Berkshire may be anomalous. For a start, for public health, Berkshire Lives! (at at least dies at an age-corrected rate a bit less than England as a whole). Each of the unitary authorities has a Consultant in Public Health, an executive post with a small staff (about six, I think). This has to be a public health professional, usually medically qualified but I think there is a postgraduate qualification route too. Public Health Berkshire sits beside all these, as a joint operation, with its own director. I'm not sure what the job's profile is, but recently that was Lise Llewellyn, who had a medical degree but a career as an NHS chief executive. She claims she was the Director of Public Health of each of the unitaries, which may be true if the law says they must have one. PHE operates nationally and in regions, and interacts with these more local bodies, most of which are at county level with each CC having a DPH.

PHE had a five year plan running 2020-25 (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiF9rbs0NvpAhVUtHEKHYceCXYQFjABegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.publishing.service.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fuploads%2Fsystem%2Fuploads%2Fattachment_data%2Ffile%2F831562%2FPHE_Strategy_2020-25.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1C7kgRofJv5jI86T8KfVWS), which all looks very pretty and convincing. At least until you stop and think that if it's only going to be in place in 2025, where are we in 2020?

One specific thing that looks very odd, when you see Prof. Whitty talking about what's happening as if he runs it, is that the CMO has no institutional link to PHE at all. Both report to the DHSC, but don't seem to have any connection below the SoS.

I spent many years working in PH in Berkshire, back as far as the Berkshire Health Authority. Lise Llewellyn was a qualified and experienced Consultant in PH. She was Director of PH in Slough for a time. When the changes occurred the six Berkshire unitaries decided they would have small individual PH teams in each unitary with a central shared service in Bracknell which fielded the specialist areas, the analytical team and the DPH. Lise was the first Berkshire shared DPH and with her political and PH experience was probably the person best able to try and herd the six unitaries into some sort of sensible direction.

The PH finance for local authorities was originally ring-fenced and once that finished money tended to go elsewhere, partly because there were some areas the LA members (in general) tend to feel a bit uncomfortable with.

It largely confirmed a paper many years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine. There is little political interest in PH, it takes too long to see results (15, 20 or more years) by which time somebody else might have been elected and get the credit.

Except ... I can think of circumstances where the results appear all too quickly.

To go off track and down a siding (to employ an analogy that others may have used), today's Telegraph Magazine has a long article called "City in Lockdown - How the Salisbury poisonings prepared us for a pandemic". A "much-anticipated new BBC drama" is being completed (rather too soon after the event, I think) with Tracy Daszkiewicz, the director of public health at Wiltshire Council, played by Anne-Marie Duff. To avoid local sensitivities, much of the filming was done in Newport and Bristol. Tracy now leads the council's fight against Coronavirus.

I was referring mainly to Health Improvement. Outbreak Control should be done yesterday, and quite often involves the appearance of the magic money tree!

And for the possibly gory details of the current PH situation see CH4 on Wed https://www.channel4.com/tv-guide/2020/06/03/C4/30302363 (https://www.channel4.com/tv-guide/2020/06/03/C4/30302363). Hopefully the innocent won't be caught in the cross-fire

McTavish, MsDougall, Macdonald - the train driver must have seen my earlier post. I accept full responsibility for ruining Mr Mcd's ruined walk in the countryside.

SNCF now have approval from Tuesday (2nd June) to fill all the seats in TGVs (at least). They had been complaining that the airlines had been doing that, as approved by EASA, so why couldn't they? - TGVs' HVAC filters were just as good. That appears to be the reason they now have the go-ahead.

There is a poster version of the rules (https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/EASA-ECDC%20Posters%20-%20Blank%20and%20white%20-%2028MAY2020%20-%20FINAL.PDF), but what was EASA's approval for air travel based on? The technical document is this COVID-19 Aviation Health Safety Protocol (https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/EASA-ECDC_COVID-19_Operational%20guidelines%20for%20management%20of%20passengers_final.pdf). It's a bit worrying that it only rates as "guidelines" - not a set of must-meet conditions. One of the key elements is a requirement to wear medical (i.e. surgical) masks, which is backed up by reference to an ECDC paper, snappily entitled Using face masks in the community - Reducing COVID-19 transmission from potentially asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people through the use of face masks (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/COVID-19-use-face-masks-community.pdf).

I've not seen if or how this affects TERs in general or the peak-limiting measures taken in some areas, but the Paris requirement to bring a letter from your mummyemployer to travel in the peaks is retained.

Oh dear.....

This was the Governments briefing on 23 May 2020:


...and the RMT response today.....

From the RMT: https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-warns-of-strike-action-over-transport-austerity010620/

I think that we could have predicted the response from RMT

Just when things were beginning to calm down on the railways. Somebody in government must have seen this coming. Are they trying to stir up the hornets nest deliberately?

Mick Cash seems to spend his life in a permanent state of froth mouthed fury and righteous indignation.

He has a Cummings-esque ability to misjudge the public mood.

Well it is the way that the bloke in charge of the country goes about things. And Boris Johnson lets him...

There's a long, and very depressing, article that was in yesterday's Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/how-a-decade-of-privatisation-and-cuts-exposed-england-to-coronavirus) on the (now English) national public health "system" and how it got like it is now. It says that, before being stood down in March, the contact-tracing staff in PHE plus those allocated from local authorities (and the NHS?), totalled only 210. It's not clear whether the escalation to take that to about ten times the number was ever started, or even if I'm right to infer there was such a plan.

Long and very depressing article in the Guardian? Surely not!  :D

In this case, I can see some sense in the arguments against. In this case only.

A journalist who had done their homework. Probably enough from me.

I have exactly the same thoughts about Nicola Sturgeon. She's been talking a great deal of sense over the last few weeks in my opinion.

I wouldn't go quite that far, personally.

She's been very effective in taking her opportunities and giving the "London doesn't tell me what to do" line, subtly or otherwise.

She's also managed to cover up a lot of the complete balls-ups her "Government" have made, particularly over care homes throughout the crisis

Yes well when the UK government is making so much worse of a balls-up it is easier for her mistakes to go unnoticed 

Not quite in this context I'm afraid. As of 10th May 45% of COVID-19 fatalities in Scotland have been in care homes, compared to 25% in Wales & 21% in England.

In the specific charge - as you say - no, but in his general covid response Boris has shown world beating skills at making a balls-up. 

The Dorset Echo is saying that half of all Cv19 deaths in the county are in care homes!

https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/18493883.half-coronavirus-deaths-across-dorset-care-homes/

Is data out there about percentage of population rather than percentage of deaths that are in care homes - 50%+ in Dorset v 21% across England sounds dramatic - but then is that explained by a very much less dense population in Dorset (Durdle Door excepted) giving it an overall very much lower infection spread base?

Dorset County population 376,480
Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch population 395780

BBC Dorset website this morning. The latest number of cases of Covid-19 has been confirmed as 848 in Dorset. There is no change in the figure since Tuesday. These are test results not overall case, which will be higher.

The breakdown of figures by local authority area is:
Dorset - 365
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole - 483

A total of 151 patients have died in Dorset hospitals: 48 patients have died at Poole after testing positive for Covid-19. Meanwhile there have been a total of 65 deaths at The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals, 24 deaths at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester, and 14 at hospitals run by Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust, includes the community hospitals. (From Dorset Echo June 3.)

You need to be very careful with how deaths are attributed. The ONS reports do show those figures, but as a long feature on Newsnight last night showed, many deaths of care home residents took place in hospitals, which is where the death will then be registered for statistical purposes. The care home owners still felt that they were "their" deaths.

Also, the virus took hold in the community a couple of weeks earlier than in care homes.  Once it got going there, in the peak weeks, 40% of COVID-deaths were being registered in care homes.  Presumably at that point, decisions were being made not to move people to hospital in view of the poor chance of recovery and extreme pressure on hospital services.

Lots of stats, and arguing about blame, but we need to remember that behind every number added to these totals, wherever recorded, a family is grieving the loss of a loved one. And I think there's a general recognition that the UK's management of the pandemic, for whatever reasons, appears rather worse than in most other places.  

Face coverings mandatory on public transport from June 15th....just announced at Press Conference. Refused travel/fines for non compliance.

New announcements coming shortly  "See it, say it, gag it".

I had a feeling that would happen.  Though it will be very difficult to enforce, but at least if more people wear masks the risk of infecting others will reduce slightly. 

My crystal ball (admittedly not as famous as Broadgage's which has been strangely silent of late) says "Watch for the 2 metre social distancing policy to reduce to 1 metre on public transport soon."

Will it be permissible to remove face covering to eat fillet steak or drink Port?

Having just travelled from West Wales to Reading I was surprised at the lack of social distancing measures.

With GWR saying a reservation is essential I was a bit surprised to find the two reserved seats booked side by side. Attached pic.

Unless Reservations are being used purely to manage numbers? I seemed to be the only passenger with a reservation though other than the one next to me who may or may not have boarded. Seemed to be a few people doing small journeys rather than long distance travel. No one checked my ticket or asked me if I had a reservation and there was no guidance on the train about seating.

While that might work for an early morning train from Ferryside I was expecting it to ramp up a bit beyond Swansea. It wasn't exactly busy but that still didn't seem to stop people wanting to sit in the coach which already had people in.

It might a risk assessment has been done and the hands off approach is seen as the best approach but at the least I was expecting a bit more information and guidance. And the booking system not to put reservations side by side.

It was though initial uncertainty about what to expect a very peaceful and relaxing journey. Cheapest one I've done on that route as well but the pricing remains a mystery to me and seems quite random.

The face mask rule. Can I wear the following? Planning a trip up the ECML to Durham.

(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/dominiccummings_zpsph84w5c3.jpg)

The minster's statement  (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/transport-secretarys-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-4-june-2020)is, oddly, filed under DfT not Covid despite not all being about transport. This is the main bit:

So, it was 2 m "where possible" but no guidance if it's not. Now it's to be ... much the same, I expect.

And here is the last SAGE note on Covid and public transport (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888755/4b._EMG-Transport_Overview_18502020-updated_S0407.pdf).

I also spotted in in the lead-in to that announcement this:

er ...  you what, Grant?

Reading elsewhere too ...

"ON" public transport means while actually on the vehicle - pictures of passengers on platforms wearing masks as a train pulls in alongside are showing them ready to join, but not yet in the situation where they are legally required to be on.

Have I got that right, or must I to wear the mask on the platform?   As I enter Network Rail property or Bath Bus Station?

(Personally - probably be sensible about it. Within station such as Bath Spa, I expect I'll choose to wear a mask from before I enter the booking hall / not take it off until clear of the station.  If I'm getting on the train as only passenger at Dilton Marsh, I'll probably just put the mask on as I fly down the train.)

At the moment Great Western are not allocating any actual seat reservations. However as you can book well in advance and the policy has only been in force for about a month it means there are still a few reservations showing.

The system is supposed to be turned off so nothing is showing.

Does this encourage or discourage more people to travel?

Well on recent experience there will be no shortage of room on Reading Buses for BTP, should they wish to carry out checks.

I think Sir Peter Hendy summed it up in the few words he said, he expects the vast majority of passengers will willing comply as they know its the right thing to do.

He did mention the no alcahol on Tfl introduced under his watch by and large people observe that.

Also the no smoking on trains there is not strong arm of the law to enforce it but 99.9% of passengers abide by it, like was on platformers there are a few anti social smokers who think its ok to smoke on open platforms but the vast majority abide by the smoking ban.

There will be the odd occasion when someone will refuse to wear a face covering, I suspect social pressure from other passengers will make their life uncomfortable.

…..I always knew that Burqa would come in handy one day.

I thought BTP only had powers over railway passengers not buses too? But I could well be wrong about that. (Unless you meant Boston Tea Party.  ;D )

BTP cover ... National Rail and many light rail systems and the Emirates Air line - but not heritage rail, nor Nottingham, Blackpool or Edinburgh trams, nor railways in Northern Ireland.

BTP officer can act as police constables outside this normal jurisdiction ...
* At the request of a police constable of another force in relation to a particular incident
* On the request of a chief constable of another force (not limited to a particular incident)
* Spontaneously, in relation to people they believe have, are or will commit an offence, or to save life, minimise injury or prevent damage to property.

E&OE

Today's headline from the FT: "UK rail bailout hits £3.5bn and set to rise further - Train operators in talks over extending state support for at least another year" https://on.ft.com/2zIuqCX (https://on.ft.com/2zIuqCX) This is behind a paywall so you might not all be able to see it.

Basically not enough passengers and the railway needs subsidising for another 12  - 18 months. Total bailout could hit £5bn - £6bn and there are worries about ongoing support as passengers probably wont return in the same numbers.

Also says rail executives are worried about the long term future of the industry, and one industry figure said the current government measures were rushed and that the crisis had been worse than anticipated.

In other public transport news the governement are looking to find more money for the bus industry in addition to the £397m they have already been given.

HS2 looking ever more like a phenomenally expensive white elephant.

There appear to be two stuck records on this forum - lack of buffet facilities and opposition to HS2 ;)

I know, I know. HS2 will continue to look like a phenomenal white elephant until it opens, and the lack of buffet facilities will never go down well with anyone who can't manage a couple of hours without a decent three-course meal, and a sufficiency of port. Somehow, though, life will continue.

There's no doubt about it, the rail industry is in big trouble.  Then again, so is a lot of industry, arguably bigger trouble is some respects, like other mass transit providers such as aviation and buses, as well as pretty much all of the hospitality and leisure sectors.

Despite what some try to say, the rail franchises operate at small margins of 3-5% generally.  It should be very clear to everyone that it will take years to recover passenger levels to what they were until mid-March.  Changes in working and business habits and people being more hesitant about using trains for leisure trips will impact on revenue by a significant amount.  That will be the case even if social distancing measures are able to be relaxed completely by the end of the year which seems unlikely.

The rail industry is in a better position than some because it is relatively easy to operate it through the public purse, as is happening now, and as such it is better protected.  However, that doesn't mean that line closures, service cuts and other such measures might be needed (including the cancellation of HS2, though there has been very little significant talk of that so far).  I hope, and expect, Government will have to think longer term and not go down that route, but a return to the franchising 'normal' won't be happening either. 

So, to continue as they are, all franchises will need to be re-negotiated and hefty subsidies provided for a long while.  Those subsidies should be able to be reduced over time, hopefully quite dramatically, but they will be essential.  If not, the whole industry will need to be taken back into public hands, or management contracts will need to be introduced everywhere - those options still need big subsidies, but may well be easier to swallow and easier to implement.

I honestly wouldn't like to guess what condition the industry will be in this time next year, or in five years time.  The same goes for the country and wider world.

Given polling suggests that only 27% of the population support HS2, the song on that record would appear to be quite popular (although I get that those who stick to the pro narrative on this forum tend to listen to it with their hands over their ears).

Less concerned about buffets although I appreciate that there are those who do regret their passing - then again, buffets aren't costing the nation over £100,000,000,000 and rising............even with Broadgage's enthusiastic consumption, that's an awful lot of fillet steak and Port!!!  ;)

Robin, you've left a door ajar again...  ;)

Could all this be simply resolved by just building a buffet instead, but somewhere near Brackley?

Many a wise word written in jest.  Were you thinking something like this?

All trains carrying passengers, not being Goods trains or trains to be sent express or for special purposes, and except trains not under the control of the Great Western Railway Company, which shall pass the Swindon Station either up or down, shall, save in case of emergency or unusual delay arising from accidents, stop there for refreshment of passengers for a reasonable period of about ten minutes.

a). How would you pronounce that number in words?
b). How would Priti Patel announce that number in words?
c). How would Diane Abbot announce that number in words?

 ;D

a) A hundred billion, in terms of chlorinated chickens
b) Ten thousand crore, or a Pritti penny
c) Not fair. 63% of this country's population are good at maths. Diane is part of the other 79%.


"La, la, la, can't hear you..."

.......... and 70% have no opinion, have no concerns or even know about HS2

Which leaves about 3% who object

(Data source probably from the same place as TG)


Are you sure buffets have not cost the Nation £100,000,000,000 over the last 50 years, the railway companies BR, RT, the ToC's often do not charge full commerial rents for buffet operators, indeed BR ran them at a loss.  So in essence buffets have had a state subsidy for well over 50 years.

It is easy to quote one big headline cost of a project, if we personally were to do that none of use would ever buy a house, a car; we budget the expense over many years or decades.

HS2 is not just about knocking a few minutes off of the journey time London to Birmingham it will take more than a hour off of the journey time to Glasgow, it will release capacity for more freight paths on the WCML and paths for more local trains along not only the WCML.  HS2 will also operate fast freights.

HS2 will employ, train apprentices, sponsor graduate Engineers many thousands of people up and down the the country.

The option to enhance the WCML is not really viable, the last scheme in 2000 cost £9 billion even then a number of major schemes were descoped.

I think you write this off too soon.

The option of closing the WCML for two year to allow the work to be carried out at a more reasonable cost was never properly considered. This could be achieved by a programme of rail replacement buses on priority road routes cleared of all other traffic and for longer routes a fleet of aircraft flying from Heathrow to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh we could reduce the number of international flights to make the slots available. No one would mind.

And I am sure that all those 1,000's of people who live or who have businesses by the WCML in the towns and cities that it passes through would jump at the chance to relocate to allow the WCML to be widened. The scheme to widen the line from Rugby to Birmingham was obviously dropped too readily because of an unwarranted fear of opposition from these people. As for the costs involved I am sure they would be willing to donate their land in the public interest and eschew all compensation.   

 :D