Replacement Bus Services

[Chrisgr31]

With the landslide at South Croydon yesterday Southern have had to lay on a replacement bus service. On the Uckfield Line today I had a choice of catching one of the buses doing a shuttle service between Haywards Heath and Tunbridge Wells via the last 3 stations on the Uckfield Line, or I could have caught a train to Oxted at which point I had a choic of a train to Sandestead or a bus shuttle to Redhill, if I went to Sanderstead I could then get a bus shuttle to East Croydon. In the meantime they were also running a bus shuttle between East Grinstead and Three Bridges.

I saw 6 Hams Coaches plus another couple of suppliers coaches serving the Tunbridge Wells & Haywards Heath shuttle and that was in about 15 minutes. So I dont know how many they had in total.

But where on earth do I find all these buses from. The coach company cant have a whole load of buses and drivers just sitting around waitig for a rail company to call can they?

How much does an operation like this cost? Presumably Thames Water as the water main open end up paying?

[davepoth]

Could be worse. Last time it happened to me I was in Newport and needed to get to Bath. The stationmaster got me a taxi and the railway paid for it...

[nice1two]

HAMS do alot of school bus work so i'm guessing they just offered them as its the school holidays and it beats then sitting in the yard doing/earning nothing.

[Hooli]

I used to do that work at times when I drove coaches, it's often drivers on days off and/or coaches on school bus work fitting it in around other commitments.

[Nickyboy]

A lot of coach companies have coaches set aside for school runs and as such when needed for rail replacement they can have a large number available. 2 of the companies local to me have some 150 coaches between them, i'd say approx half are used almost exclusively for schools/colleges etc as they tend to be older, most of the drivers are part time or semi-retired so a quick phone call and they can be on the list for rail replacement.