Will GWR insist on using the Shoreditch replacemnet bus?

[hwolge]

Dear Mr Wolge,
As part of the East London Line Project, Shoreditch station will permanently close from Sunday 11 June 2006. This is to allow for the line to be extended to Dalston Junction. A new station will be built as part of the Shoreditch High Street regeneration.

A non-stop replacement bus service will operate between Whitechapel station and Shoreditch (Bethnal Green Road) at the following times:

Monday to Friday: 0700 - 1030 and 1530 - 2030 every 10 minutes
Saturday: no service
Sunday: 0700 - 1500 every 10 minutes

Please ensure you have a valid London Underground ticket or Oyster pay as you go before you board. Tickets will not be sold on the bus.

For alternative travel options, please visit Journey Planner



Yours sincerely,

Lance Ramsay
General Manager East London/Waterloo & City lines

It would be consistent with the current T4 ruling that Shoreditch must be covered with replacement bus (until the whole ELL ceases to belong to London Underground). I guess GWR will argue this way...

[Beary]

Not necessarily. After all Shoreditch won't reopen.

[editorsfoot]

I have always been under the impression that when a railway line closes some form of replacement transport should be run. My only first hand experience of this was when the railway line from Tunbridge Wells closed and a bus operated to replace it, and probably still does today. I guess that a direct bus does not run from Whitechapel to Shoreditch, or does someone else know differently?

I am also certain I remember the posters for when Aldwych closed said that a replacement bus would not run because of the large number of buses that ran down Kingsway from Holborn, and GWR don't expect to visit the site of Aldwych today. Can anyone remember what the closure notice for Onagr said?

[moley]

As has been posted a number of times:

Shoreditch will no longer be required for the record from when it closes - why? - because it will no longer rejoin the network.

It will be closed permanently.

T4 is a temporary closure hence why you must visit it.

T4 is afterall still part of the tube network - Shoreditch will not be.

Ironically, the replacement bus service from Shoreditch to Whitechapel will be run on behalf of TfL Rail not TfL Tube.

[Root]

I'm not going to be using it when I do my challenge, unless Guinness explicitly tell me so. They say they take "4-6 weeks" to respond to an application, and I sent my stuff off -exactly- 6 weeks before my challenge, to the day. They say they'll respond with a full set of rules, so that'll clear up any confusion. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

[standclearofthedoors]

However, GWR will argue that as it's a replacement bus service and there will be a station opening in the general vicinity in a few years, then it will still have to be visited. Anybody contacted GWR yet?

[tubeguru]

Am I the only person who thinks this Shoreditch bus thing is a pointless argument.

The record is to visit the stations on the London Underground in the quickest time. Shoreditch will soon NOT be a London Underground station, so why would anyone want to go anywhere near it by any means of transport?

[CrunchySaviour]

I agree. This station will be no more. It will have shuffled off this mortal coil: it will have CEASED to BE!

[tubeguru]

It's gone to join the choir invisible. This will soon be a late station.

[Root]

Anybody contacted GWR yet?

See the post above you...

[Beary]

It will be an EX-station!

[hwolge]

I was merely thinking along the GWR line of thought. The reason for insisting on the T4 bus was that they want longevity in their records. Since T5 comes along in 2008, it would make sense to insist on Shoreditch meanwhile to maintain maximum consistency, instead of changing for a relative short period of time.

Personally I think they should not, and, instead, just acknowledge the fact that it's become a bit easier to break the record.

[tubeguru]

Which, in turn, is unfair on previous record holders who had to do it.

It works both ways ...

[nozzacook]

The imfromation I recieved from TFL is that the new shoreditch station will be open by 2010 but the service will then be in the hands of network rail. So as shoreditch will not rejoin the underground network it does not need to be visit by for the purpose of the tubechallenge.

[moley]

I was merely thinking along the GWR line of thought. The reason for insisting on the T4 bus was that they want longevity in their records. Since T5 comes along in 2008, it would make sense to insist on Shoreditch meanwhile to maintain maximum consistency, instead of changing for a relative short period of time.

Personally I think they should not, and, instead, just acknowledge the fact that it's become a bit easier to break the record.

I disagree regarding longevity...

The rules state that:

Only if a station is temporarily closed (e.g. for rebuilding, or in an emergency), or if it closes earlier or opens later than normal as a result of rebuilding work, will a non-stop pass through a station be acceptable.

All GWR did was to clarify 'how' you could achieve a pass through using the replacement bus service which was:

Note that while Heathrow Terminal 4 is closed to accommodate construction work at the airport, it remains necessary to visit Terminal 4, using the replacement bus service provided by London Underground for at least one leg of that journey (i.e. to travel to the terminal from Hatton Cross or to travel to Hatton Cross from the terminal, or both).....

Now, within the rules - the station is NOT closed temporarilly - it ceases to be an underground station - T4 has always been an underground station - it's just been closed for two years! It is NOT being rebuilt - no station will ever exist there again.

The replacement bus service is only being provided because TfL, in getting the ok to close that station, acknowledged that there was a flow of people that would be disrupted and contracted to minimise that disruption. If no one uses the bus service TfL are required to continue to provide the service.