Forth Road bridge closure until the new year

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From STV

Train capacity is to be increased by 6500 seats as transport bosses try to ease disruption caused by the closure of the Forth Road Bridge.

Extra trains and buses are to be put on from Monday to ease congestion on alternative road routes between Fife and Edinburgh.

ScotRail said extra carriages and new services between Cowdenbeath and Haymarket will bring an extra 6500 seats per day into operation, increasing passenger capacity by 40% over the period of the bridge's closure. Around 30 Stagecoach buses will also be used as part of a park-and-ride priority service between Fife and Edinburgh, using the Ferrytoll and Halbeath sites.

Sounds impressive ...let's do a quick sum to see what can be achieved.  Take one of the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) we've been talking about elsewhere (only 2 of 5 used daily at the moment, I recall) and run it on a two-hourly cycle between Haymarket platform 0 and Cowdenbeath (journey time is about 40 minutes for regular stoppers, so should be comfortable timing) . 7 round trips (first starts 6 a.m., last ends 8 p.m.) = 14 single journeys; 500 seats per journey = 7,000 extra seats.

Probably not what they're doing - but it's a measure of the scale.

[IndustryInsider]

I must say I'm impressed with the information and the clear way it's presented on the ScotRail website:

http://www.scotrail.co.uk/about-scotrail/news/forth-road-bridge-closure-keeping-you-moving

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) could certainly learn a few lessons in how they present their own material when services are severely disrupted.

[caliwag]

Aye well, could do with that 'spare' 125 on the new Borders line. there seems to no talk of loco hauled, DVT^▸ (Driving Van Trailer (carriage) or Deep Vein Thrombosis, depending on context) use or indeed peak period HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) use.