On my next Scotland trip, I plan a stop in York on the way back before riding to Portsmouth to catch the ferry. Unluckily, it’s on a weekend (22-23 march) were all lines south of York are closed.
There are rail replacement buses running to Doncaster, and also to Selby and Leeds, all three in about an hour which then connect on trains to London, so in theory there’s no problem.
However I’d like to be sure if I can consider this reliable, or if it can be like “there’s one bus every hour and 200 people waiting so you will wait for 3 hours”. LNER says the trains may be crowded and advises to book, but nothing special about the buses.
Alternatively, there’s a regional train route that still works to Leeds via Harrogate, barely slower than the replacement bus, but the first train is quite late on the Sunday morning and I’d have to be sure it would run normally and not be overcrowded to decide to wait for it (otherwise I wake up early and take a bus asap).
At least, the good things are I will be in York on the day before which leaves me time to see in real how everything work beforehand and plan accordingly ; and the sunday morning is normally the least crowded period.
Has any of you any experience about the rail replacement bus system on a major British line ?
