London Banter - View Single Post - Planned engineering work between Acton Town and Hammersmith this weekend

[email protected] · January 6th 13, 08:22 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sun, 6 Jan 2013 10:37:46 -0000, "D A Stocks"
wrote:

wrote in message
...

Why oh why don't they let airport passengers use Heathrow Express or
Connect as an alternative
They do, don't they? = or are you saying Heathrow Express wasn't running
either?

Not routinely. It only happens on limited occasions when travel
options are very limited or rail replacement vehicles are in short
supply due to the volume of work on any given weekend. Even then it is
often only Heathrow Connect that can be used as HEX don't seem to want
people overloading the Express service. I expect money is also a factor.

Previous closures of the Heathrow branch itself has seen coaches used
express from Acton Town to Heathrow because of their superior luggage
carrying capabilities. Buses are still needed for the all stns
service. No matter how you try to do it there are no convenient
locations for rail replacement transfer in West London.

Hammersmith - busy, overcrowded, overloaded bus stns, congested roads.
Acton Town - local roads struggle to cope with the volume of buses,
pavements too narrow for waiting passengers.
Ealing Broadway - similar to Hammersmith but with less room in the
ticket hall. Oh and a 1 way system past the station making drop offs /
pick ups difficult.

However the tracks and bridges on the 4 track section really do need
work doing to them. Unfortunately you can't run trains while doing that.

Is it really not possible to close only two tracks at a time more? The most
inexplicable was the choice of such a busy weekend at Heathrow for a
blockade.

You had a number of options at various prices for the journey. You took a
choice for the price you were prepared to pay, and that's the service you
got.

I am off to hide under a table as I can feel the wrath of Rosenstiel
approaching!

When I found out about the works (daughter's boyfriend tipped her off while
we were away) and looked at the TfL journey planner from abroad it didn't
seem an unreasonable alternative via Acton Town and Ealing Broadway. In
particular it seemed to compare OK with any via Paddington option.

Reality turned out to be rather different with the inexplicable decision to
terminate Heathrow shuttles at Northfields and the abysmal lack of support
for large numbers of passengers with luggage there, at Acton Town and at
Ealing Broadway (best of the bunch). There was a tendency for what staff
there were to hide in a room giving out occasional PA announcements with
blank platform information screens.

Then there was the total confusion of contradictory information at Acton
Town. Loads of people heading to and from Heathrow just seemed bewildered.

TOCs do seem to do better at staffing up for disruptions like this to assist
their customers.

--
Colin Rosenstiel