On 8 Jan, 14:43, Offramp wrote:

On 8 Jan, 12:14, Mizter T wrote:

``
On 8 Jan, 10:14, Offramp wrote:

Weird stuff; I would think the departure next Tuesday would be quite
full.
Does anyone know if one can board at Ken Olymp? And if so, where?

No - it's just between Ealing Broadway and Wandsworth Road. The idea
is that the bus substitutes for a train service and covers a few
stretches of line (two in the Acton/Willesden Jn area, one in
Battersea) that are no longer served by a passenger train service -
the pretence is that the replacement bus continues to provide a
service over these lines (which is, to my mind at least, rather
absurd).

If you take a look at the uk.railway thread that I referred to in my
earlier reply on this thread [1] then you might get some more insight
into what's actually going on here that from just reading the
newspaper article - in particular there's a very interesting comment
from 'Andy' where he basically says that he thinks the DfT's
interpretation of the law is wrong, and also that he doesn't "think
that the law makes any mention of bus substitution being
acceptable." [2]

Agreed that after all this publicity I can well see a bunch of awkward-
squad bods turning up next Tuesday to ride on it!


I did read the posts at the other place and that was where I saw
"09:45 Ealing Broadway,
10:25 Kensington Olympia,
10:55 Wandsworth Road
Returns at:
13:15Wandsworth Road
13:45 Kensington Olympia
14:25 Ealing Broadway"
and I thought perhaps it stopped at K Olymp and took passengers.


My utmost apologies - I had completely failed to notice the mention of
the apparent Kensington Olympia stop in that post. If that information
is correct then yes it looks like it does stop an Kensington Olympia.

To be honest I think the whole interpretation of this law, if not the
law itself, is a bit fuzzy, but if a replacement bus is deemed as an
acceptable substitute for a railway service (which is debatable) then
in a sense one could argue that it need not stop at KO.

That said, stopping it at KO does perhaps emphasise the two separate
areas where the bus is acting as a substitute for a train - the first
to the north west of KO (the Acton/Willesden Jn area lines) and the
second being the 'Ludgate Lines' south of the river.

Also, the KO stop does arguably make the whole thing a little less
nonsensical, at least when it comes to journeys to and from Reading -
notionally a passenger from the west could change at Reading onto a
service that stops at Ealing B'way, take the bus to KO and then
continue their journey south on the Southern service (say to East
Croydon, or changing there for Brighton).

The KO to Wandsworth Road stretch however still remains pretty
nonsensical in my book as AFAIAA there has never been a train service
that stops at Wandsworth Road and then continues down through Brixton,
Herne Hill, Tulse Hill etc towards East Croydon - so a passenger
taking the replacement bus from KO to Wandsworth Rd won't then be able
to recreate the route of the journey that the Crosscountry train took
from Wandsworth Road to points south - sure, they can go via Peckham
Rye and change, but that's not quite the same thing.


Also I suppose the service is free.


No, at least not officially - in effect it's a railway replacement
service and in essence passengers are expected to have a ticket before
they board if there were ticket issuing facilities available at the
starting station. In practice whether the driver actually asks to see
passengers' tickets is another matter - however I definitely don't
think one should take it as a given that they won't, as given that
this is an unusual service I can well imagine the driver taking an
interest in their prospective passengers.


I hope the gawkers on Tuesday 13th don't ruin it for people like me
who may go later in the year as a matter of curiosity!
I didn't want to travel all the way out to Ealing, and I was hoping to
get on at Kensington, but I may get on at Clapham and jump off at a
set of lights.


Interesting that you place Wandsworth Road station in Clapham - to me
it's in a kind of hinterland between Clapham, Battersea, Stockwell and
South Lambeth. We had a discussion about it a while ago when John
Rowland suggested it should be renamed if ELLX phase 2 ever happens so
as to try and avoid passengers getting confused and thinking it's in
Wandsworth, which it ain't - for that matter it's not in the Borough
of Wandsworth either, it's just the road to Wandsworth.