Coronavirus Implications For London's Transport

Very conflicting tone from todays virtual meetings with reps from various transport modes and authorities concerning LHR. Everybody seems to be holding their breath for an announcement and the inevitable "intensification of demand driven resources" and yet the furloughing of operational staff away from the airport supply chain has in several instances been extended till the end of this month. I have a feeling that Sunday's announcement will be that the government has established a plan, which would be a first...

On a different note, I noticed that some VA ground staff reacted very quickly to the news that beardy is shutting shop at Gatwick.

I like the message on the engine cover (if viewing on a mobile device zoom in).

When was the last time they ran a truly “full” service? 😵

I wonder how many of them were key workers? I keep seeing groups of teenagers on bikes and kids on skateboards roaming the east end of the central.

Normal WTT duty times? That will be interesting. Even more interesting when they try to introduce the service with half the staff furloughed or missing for whatever reason. Plenty of "no relief driver, stick it in the yard"! I'm back from annual leave on the 18th so I'll look forward to some chaotic scenes.

February?

Each depot / line is different so whilst that might be true in your neck of the woods, it's not neccessarily true in mine.

We started running to Wimbledon from Upminster yesterday, as well as continuing the Olympia service we've run since this all started (albeit at a slightly reduced frequency). We've gone from 6 tph to 8 tph (4tph each to Wimbledon & Olympia) giving a train every 7 or 8 minutes compared to every 10 minutes previously.

We don't know why we've suddenly had our workload increased - especially as we were already running more trains than any other depot on the line despite not even being the largest depot on the line - but our suspicion is it's because our depot's attendance and thus driver availability figures have hardly changed since this all started. We were even covering for Barking yesterday and they're only responsible for three of the east end trains!

Now take somewhere like Seven Sisters where I gather 70 drivers were absent at one point and there's clearly a different set of circumstances to deal with / overcome.

Why have we been successful in maintaing our numbers at Upminster? I suspect its down to the way we've been able to successfuly implement and manage social distancing around the depot and avoid the need for live driver changeovers because we pick up and get off all of our trains at Upminster (so for example when picking up a train, the last time anyone was in that cab was an hour previously - anything in the air say from a driver sneezing or coughing will have settled in an hour).

Mind you, because we are happy with the current arrangemnts there is a fear that all our goodwill will fly out the window if more intense timetables requiring live changeovers in the same cab at Barking or Earls Court are brought in too quickly. There are certainly concerns being expressed that those making decisions about increasing service levels are doing so from the comfort of their homes rather than through any understanding of whats going on at the coal face.

A case of watch this space? Definately!!

EDIT: BTW, it was noticably quieter on the District line this morning - social distancing showed an improvement by going from impossible to challenging at the east of the line.

And now that we go to Wimbledon I'm able to make some kind of comparison with the west end of the line. I left Wimbledon around 7.30am and it was dead as a Dodo. I picked up about 30 people between Wimbledon Park and Earls Court - and that was with a ten minute road as I know what time the train in front of me left Wimbledon. The contrast with the east end of the line couldn't be more stark!

Even more impressive though was my second train (an Olympia trip this time) - I was able to count the total number of passengers from Earls Court to Upminster.......26

Bit late in the day but finally I've seen some evidence of this 95% dip in passenger numbers that keeps being claimed!

2nd EDIT: Also perhaps worth adding is the industrial relations level at particular locations - sadly that is also likely playing its part.....

London needs £2bn to keep transport system running until autumn
Sources say TfL has requested injection of state aid as income hit by coronavirus lockdown

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/07/london-needs-2bn-to-keep-transport-system-running-until-autumn

Both TfL and the DfT declined to comment

I thought Train Operators and other operational staff who were shielding for twelve weeks have been furloughed?

Apparently once someone has been initially fuloughed they have to remain off for the minimum three weeks, however after three weeks they can be recalled to work at short notice, possibly 24 hours. Naturally this may not necessarily work for Train Operators.

There's a place for political discussions on this topic & many other aspects of TfL/Transport generally.

In fact, there's two-Twitter & Facebook. Both very useful in their own ways, friends, and both give our mods less work than they should be encumbered with in these trying times.

From Saturday 9th May 2020 published station closures increased from 37 to 38, with Heathrow Terminal 4 closing from the start of traffic until further notice. Are trains working through without stopping, or are they all diverted to Terminal 5 now?

Reading and listening to the government briefings regarding limiting the numbers on trains, I can't quite fathom out how this will be achieved. If the train has the maximum number on to comply with social distancing, what happens at the next stop? There's not a hope in hell that passengers will comply with this and there is certainly not the resource to police this.

Anyone have any ideas on this?