I Predict A Riot

[davidgillon]

I'd completely forgotten that right in the middle of the travel chaos that will be the five day Christmas travel window, Network Rail will be shutting down London Kings Cross for six days. That's never popular, but with all the added Covid chaos funnelling everyone who traveled up on the 23rd/24th to travel back home on the 27th (no services on the 26th), this year the complaints are going to be absolutely epic.

As far as I can tell, you're supposed to travel down to Peterborough, then switch to East Midlands Trains to go to St Pancras rather than KX, but those East Midlands Trains are already going to be full of the two days worth of people coming back from wherever they run from (just checked - Leicester, aka Covid central, Derby and Sheffield). Just reserving a seat is going to be a major problem. If anything goes wrong and services are delayed, forcing mandatory reservations to fall through, then Covid restrictions will mean they're going to look half empty to all the LNER passengers being told there's no room for them. In the immortal words of the Kaiser Chiefs (particularly appropriate for services from Leeds), "I Predict a Riot".

Chances of successfully booking a wheelchair space on both an LNER service trying to squeeze two days worth of people into one, and an EMR service already full of two days worth of Leicester and Sheffield types, are probably about zero, . Particularly as there are normally 12 services an hour into KX, but I think I'm right in saying EMR only run 5 into St Pancras, and those are smaller trains.
 

So glad I've already ruled out traveling!

And Boris has got his excuses in early by setting up, sorry, putting up Sir Peter Hendy, boss of Network Rail, as the Christmas Travel Tsar. So the buck will stop with the man who planned the Kings Cross shutdown, not with the man who then decided we'd all have to travel back during it.

I notice LNER are advising people to stay longer and travel back later - have they actually read the Covid regs?

Comments

[davidgillon]

It gets worse. Having poked around East Midland's website, not only do they run fewer/smaller trains, but half their bigger ones are non PRM-TSI compliant (must be operating under a waiver, that's been illegal since 1st January this year) and only have wheelchair spaces in 1st or Standard, not both. They say they'll be out of service by December, but I bet that was written pre-Covid. Plus the Meridians that replace them only have 2 wheelchair spaces per train, one of them size-limited, vs 3/4 per train on the ECML services. So any wheelie trying to get south on the 27th is royally stuffed.

[hilarita]

Ahh, so glad I'm not taking EMR this year. And probably not any future years, since my parents have moved to France. I'll just take Eurostar instead, which tends to be a bit less chaotic, if more expensive.

[redbird]

I mentioned that they're closing King's Cross for six days, and likely effects, to cattitude, whose reaction was a heart-felt "why?!"

Given the general level of stupidity here, I find myself wondering whether Boris Johnson remembered that there's no service on Boxing Day.

[davidgillon]

I'd forgotten myself that there's no trains Boxing Day until I was checking this morning, and the two full days to travel up, but only one day to get everyone back problem just leapt out at me, but apparently hasn't actually occurred to anyone in government.

I do understand the logic of why they shut the line down over Christmas, I just don't actually agree with it. They'd get far less public pushback if they split it over several weekends instead, even if that takes more time. That way they wouldn't inconvenience the weekday commuters OR the people trying to see family at Christmas.

[davidgillon]

I can easily see EMR being completely overwhelmed. So yeah, wouldn't want to try getting a seat this year.

[shewhostaples]

Eek. We decided a while ago that we weren't going to try going anywhere this year, and I'm glad. (We're in Ely, so on the line from King's Cross, though Liverpool Street is also an option.)