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Title: The end of "we always do our bigger works over weekends"? Post by: stuving on September 07, 2021, 23:42:05 Network Rail are doing a five-day rebuild on a stretch of the line from Southampton to Bournemouth in November, and have timed it for weekdays (1st-5th) not over he weekend. Their press release (https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/railway-between-southampton-and-bournemouth-to-close-for-5-days-for-major-improvements-in-november) explains:
Quote Mark Killick, Network Rail Wessex route director, said: “This critical improvement work will improve journeys, making them more resilient and allowing us to remove speed restrictions. “To support the country building back from the pandemic and as a reflection of a rise in leisure and tourism travellers to the South Coast, this critical work will be completed over five weekdays rather than closing the railway for a number of weekends. "Changing travel patterns mean our railway is busier at weekends than midweek and it’s important for us to minimise the number of people affected by the work being carried out. We never take the decision to close a busy stretch of railway lightly and have reviewed our approach carefully to confirm it is the best option. I had wondered if the automatic choice of days for major works would shift away from weekends in response to lower levels of travel to work, both now and as projected post-Covid (or at least steady-state Covid). But I expected it first for holiday times, and I doubt that tourist traffic for Bournemouth in November is much of a thing. Still, over the summer, my Wokingham car park count has shown Saturday to be as busy as any weekday, which does suggest a general leveling out of passenger numbers across the week. Title: Re: The end of "we always do our bigger works over weekends"? Post by: MVR S&T on September 07, 2021, 23:50:14 Hinton Admiral railway station car park was nearly full last Saturday, when the air show was on, in Bournemouth, still pretty much empty at all other times 7 days a week.
Title: Re: The end of "we always do our bigger works over weekends"? Post by: Electric train on September 08, 2021, 07:04:31 There has been a trend to go for blockades over the last few years, Brighton Mainline 2 years ago and there is another planned which was decided pre pandemic, this the Maidstone Ashford line was closed for a week again planned pre pandemic.
It is posible that the Southampton - Bournemouth blockade for a week has been a concept before the pandemic. Carrying out major multi discipline work over weekends is very expensive compared to a 5 to 7 day continuous run, it can also mean that noisy tasks can be carried out during the day and not at night. Blockades of lines over weekdays was going to happen anyway, the trackworker safety programme has made carrying tasks and even just simple access more difficult this and the pandemic has meant the project teams to increasingly to look at blockades This page is printed from the "Coffee Shop" forum at http://gwr.passenger.chat which is provided by a customer of Great Western Railway. Views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that content provided contravenes our posting rules ( see http://railcustomer.info/1761 ). The forum is hosted by Well House Consultants - http://www.wellho.net |