I flew into Heathrow on Saturday and knew there were replacement bus services on the Piccadilly line so decided for the first time ever to use the Heathrow Express - I waited 13 minutes for the train, two long-winded changes at Paddington & Kings X and still had to pay the same fare to get the tube from Paddington as if I'd got it from Heathrow (£2) so I paid £15.50 extra in all and would have saved about 10 minutes in total had the Piccadilly Line been running normally.
Now I know.
But after reading your Blog I think I did the right thing !
I think you probably did the right thing too.
Replacement buses are pants because they only stop at stations so with normal buses there are more bus stops. (Just in case some people aren't familiar with the whole replacement bus scenario and wonder why I didn't get off the bus earlier when I saw it begin to go in the opposite direction to the one I wanted).
My only experience of an LU replacement bus was a couple of years ago. The Central Line was suspended for engineering works east of Loughton, but I needed to get to Debden, one stop further.
Not knowing the area, I obviously got the replacement bus. After we'd sat outside Loughton station for about half and hour, we proceeded very slowly to the top of the road, sat in a bus stop (with the doors closed) for another 5 minutes, then proceeded to crawl very slowly towards Debden, stopping in another random bus stop for about 5 minutes en route, before eventually getting there about 45-50 minutes after I'd got off the train at Loughton.
Now I know the area I'd have got one of the three regular bus services that travel between the stations (2 of which would have dropped me closer to my eventual destination, or if I was feeling fit I'd have just walked the half hour or so from Loughton station and got their quicker!
On a different note, when there are no LU services between Heathrow and central London, you can travel on Heathrow Express for free - you just need to show an Oyster card to ticket inspector - they have no way of reading it, so it doesn't even have to have any money on it. (I've not done this myself, but an employee of Heathrow Express was the person who told me about it)
Balders, you don't have to pay for the Heathrow Express on days when the Piccadilly line is down. I flew out of Heathrow on Saturday and paid my pound fifty for the nice comfortable express train.
Cool - so perhaps it might make sense to try to fly from Heathrow when you know there are engineering works - just to get the Heathrow Express for free.
Hoorah for engineering works 
You should have taken a taxi like we do over here...
Marcel - thanks for that ! - hope I remember next time (it rang a bell when I read your comment).
According to the posters that were on display in Camden Town station last weekend concerning the closure of the sections of the Piccadilly and District lines about traveling to Heathrow - London Underground tickets which covered zones 1-6 were valid for the weekend on the Heathrow Express from Paddington...I read that as allowing you to use it if you purchased a £4 single fair (my thinking being any tube journey that goes through zone 1 is four quid therefore a single journey from Heathrow to Camden would take me through zone 1 and would therefore be zones 1-6), however the person in the ticket office there told me it had to be a zones 1-6 travelcard, which as it was the weekend and therefore off-peak would cost me £7 - still a massive saving when compared to the usual cost of taking the Heathrow Express and a journey time of less than half of the usual time taken to traverse town on the Northern and Piccadilly lines - but still it was rather unclear from the printed materials (though judging from your pictures from the stations that were actually affected by the closures I should be grateful that there were official posters at all!)
How you'd do it on Oyster is utterly beyond me however, knowing my luck, I'd end up with two sets of "maximum cash fares" charged to my card and a frustrating hour or two trying to get some sense out of the oyster card helpline.
How you do it on Oyster is very simple - there is nowhere to tap in at the Heathrow HEx platforms, so you don't. You just show your Oyster card to the person on the train when they ask to see tickets.
When you get to Paddington, there are no barriers of any kind on the HEx platforms, so you don't need to tap out (which is a good thing as you haven't tapped in).
When you get to the tube station at Paddington, you touch in as normal and then touch out when you get to your destination (e.g. Camden).
As far as the Oyster is concerned you've just made a journey from Paddington to Camden and will just get charged the off-peak Zone 1 to Zone 2 fare. Your trip on the Heathrow Express was free.
There were quite a few closures last year where I am, and I never used the replacement buses after one or two tries. Even when they run right - which is rare - they tend to run no more than one bus for every cancelled train, which produces a difference of hundreds of seats.
I have a policy now of always using a parallel normal bus service or taking an 'orbital' bus route to another station that isn't closed, which is often just as quick if not quicker.
I'm so glad it's not just me then that hates the wretched things.
Annie,
As the operator of the two services you used that day, perhaps I should point out what was taking place.
We were operating two bus services. Service A replaced the District Line between Hammersmith & Acton Town calling additional at Gunnersbury for interchange onto the Overground (more about that later). And a fast service replacing the Piccadilly Line running direct between Hammersmith & Acton Town.
London Underground & London Buses ultimately decide the pattern of service which is delivered on the day. But as someone closely involved with this operation, I think I could point out a few constraints which were considered before this job took place.
Hammersmith & parts of Chiswick must be the most congested parts of London. Journey times can be very unpredictable. Flooding the area with hundreds of rail replacement buses would simply compound the traffic problems. In fact rail buses are frequently cited as being a significant cause of local traffic congestion. So running multiples of buses in different directions was not an option.
You mentioned the Richmond Branch. The District Line was suspended between West Kensington and Acton Town / Richmond. With London Overground running a suitable service between Gunnersbury and Richmond it makes sense to make use of this. So buses were booked to stop at Gunnersbury.
Another constraint is the number of buses & drivers needed to cover these services. On the weekend you travelled, there were a number of other rail replacement operations taking place around the Capital and resource needed to be carefully rationed.
As your experiences and those of others would confirm, using the replacement bus service is not always the best option. That’s not deliberate, but as I said above we have to contest with local traffic and occupy space normally used by other bus services. This in turn creates a knock on effect for local services. Therefore London Underground & National railways always prefer customers to use alternative road or rail routes which are quicker.
To encourage this, the Heathrow Express agreed to carry Piccadilly line passengers. London Underground issued them with a number of portable Oyster Card readers to enable them to carry out ticket checks. In addition passengers from Acton to London were encouraged to travel via Ealing Broadway & the Central Line. This helps reduce the burden on the bus service and provide space for local passengers who have little alternative.
Unfortunately despite all the announcements, all the staff and all the signage, there are always passengers who fail to get the message until its too late. As one of those yellow jackets you spoke to on the day, I did try to explain what was happening, but you chose not to listen. Whereas we understand your frustration, its hardly conducive to launch into a tirade of foul remarks to those who are simply trying to help. The Customer Information assistants we employ are not railway employees and cannot control policy. They enjoy their work and gain satisfaction from the large percentage of passengers who appreciate their help.
The reason we need more staff at terminal points as this is the location where we will have the most customer contact. Gunnersbury sees only a fraction of the number of passengers who pass through Acton & Hammersmith. The balance was right in my view.
This is a very difficult rail replacement service to operate. London Underground readily accept that. There is no easy option when the work needs to be carried out. One persons utopia is another’s inconvenience. Striking a suitable balance is very difficult when there are so many variables at play.
Dean Sullivan
MD Sullivan Buses
Hi Dean
Thanks very much for responding, I seriously do appreciate you taking the time to do this and you make some valid points.
I did admit in the blog post that you got the worst of my anger that day. I said I must have been your worst nightmare. Much of this was to do with my own stupidity of forgetting that London Overground was working. Much of it was to do with the fact that it was pouring down with rain, I was tired, cold and I had already spent about half an hour at Hammersmith waiting for local buses that never came. So I know that you took my anger and I'd like to apologise to your staff as it was not their fault.
I did choose to listen - I heard that you felt that Acton Town needed more yellow jackets than Gunnersbury. I mentioned this in my post. I disagreed with this at the time. I'm still not sure I agree with it now.
You say "despite all the announcements, all the staff and all the signage, there are always passengers who fail to get the message until its too late". This appeared to be the vast amount of people at Acton Town. Of those there were standing at one of the stops - when a bus came along that was going directly to Hammersmith & some of your staff shouted that this was the case. The entire bus stop of about a dozen people moved to the other bus stop. Did they suddenly change their mind - or did none of them have any idea what was going on?
I am positive that I heard no announcement made about the Heathrow Express arrangements. Admittedly this was probably because I got on at Leicester Square, but it's interesting that the commentators before me seemed to think this fact was being kept quiet as well.
Once again thanks for coming onto the blog to make a statement. It will probably stop me shouting at you so much next time (ah but there won't be a next time as I will simply use Network Rail instead).
I totally agree with Mr Sullivan and hats off to the man for being on the front line with his staff.
Sadly there is NEVER an acceptable excuse for swearing at anybody.
I hope that the staff involved decide to report this matter to the Police!!!
Jesus - if the police arrested people for swearing at someone the police cells would be fit to bursting.
Also where did I say my behaviour was acceptable?
I always check a bus is going where I want to go before getting on it.
hi annie may i just add you struck it right on the head when you said "you forgot london overground was working" this happends all to much with passengers taking there anger out on customer service assistants and people trying to help passengers when lines are shut there is a thing called journey planner that you can use which does actually tell you how to get from A-B very easily at weekends so before you star ranting and raving at staff please please please PLAN YOUR JOURNEY before o=you set off expecially at weekends and bank holidays at the end of the day were all trying to do our job
Thanks Ross for actually reading my original blog post. Unlike others' knee jerk reaction about my swearing which should be reported to the police.
I said I stupidly forgot, I was stupid. I have already apologised to Mr Sullivan's staff in my comment just after Mr Sullivan's post above. I will never make the same mistake again and always use Network Rail (where I can) over and above a rail replacement bus service.
I can totally understand your frustration with the lack of customer service staff and information. At least you knew what you were doing, can you imagine being someone unfamiliar with the area and being in the same situation.
I don't necessarily agree with the way you approached the staff at Acton Town but I note that you have since apologised for that. Getting the BTP involved for something like that may technically be correct in law but would end up being a waste of everyone's time. They probably have better things to do.
David - I imagine they do!
Annie - We accept your apology! Its water off a ducks back. In all honesty its was certainly not the worse we had that weekend. I had one chap who was so angry he wanted to fight us. If you took it personally, you would not last five minutes.
I worked for London Underground for fifteen years mainly in management and I quickly learned that when passengers explode the worse thing you could do is to react like for like.
The best thing to do is to listen, agree (if that’s the case) and then try to explain why. I certainly accept the pressures these customers are under. When I travel abroad and come across some form of disruption it pushes my blood pressure through the roof. The danger of missed flights, spoiled days and so on. Trivial to everyone else, but a major coronary to me!
My girlfriend and I visited Paris a few years back and came across one of their rail closures of the Paris Metro. No signs, no staff. When we found the replacement bus, it simply sped across Paris until we reached the terminus. Quickly realising we had missed our stop, we approached the driver. My girlfriend speaks fluent French. The drivers attitude was very much of type found in the On The Buses sitcom, who simply replied by hand gestures which went along the lines of “Off my bus” or something like that!
I was hoping we could have learned something from the Paris experience. Not to sure the experience was all that positive.
cool Dean - I know that I wasn't the bullying maniac that certain people (who weren't there) were trying to make me feel that I was.
As I said before I really do appreciate you coming on the blog to explain and you certainly seem far more human now. Although you did treat my outburst with rather bored indifference - it was the best thing to do at the time. I knew that you didn't feel intimidated by me. and it's quite laughable to think that five large guys would feel intimidated by five foot four me.
There's a blog I read regularly from a LU station manager and he often blogs about the delays and frustrations he experiences with other forms of transport and he gets fairly sweary with it.
I used to have a French boss and she said that us Brits actually deal with delays far, far better than the Parisians. She's amazed at how generally calm we are. She says it sometimes felt that people were in fights almost every day.
BTW - I loved On The Buses when I was a kid and still watch the films whenever they are on cable TV.
If BTP had become involved chances are you would have also ended the day in a cell, or £50 lighter in the pocket, by being issued a penalty notice for disorder, most likely both. The police do nick people for swearing in public (section 5 of the public order act), I did it on Friday night when someone swore twice, and I'm no over the top copper.
Interesting - do you mind emailing me or saying in the comments what swear words they used and what the context was? Was the C word involved? Was it the F word? Was there threatening behaviour as well?
Regarding LU tickets being accepted on Heathrow Express: there are posters at all zone 1 and Piccadilly line stations titled "Travelling to Heathrow this weekend?". At Heathrow tube stations there are numerous additional staff, at the T123 station there were 5 extra staff who capture people before they even get in to the tube station. There were also staff wearing the LU blue vests at the Heathrow Express station.
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