Every Tuesday, at 9.45am precisely, a 50-seat executive coach draws up at a bus stop outside Ealing Broadway station in West London. No one ever gets on and, a moment later, it departs - empty - on a 70-minute trip to Wandsworth Road in South London.

Once there, it waits for two hours and 15 minutes before returning, again carrying no passengers. Welcome to Britain's most luxurious bus service, paid for by the taxpayer, immaculately clean, punctual to the second and which the Government is trying desperately to keep secret.

This service, funded by the Department for Transport, is not advertised on any timetables or departures screens, and staff at the stations it serves are not even aware it exists.

The “ghost bus” runs simply to allow the Government to escape the embarrassment of admitting that it has closed several sections of railway in West London to passenger trains.
Times Archive, 1861: Parliamentary trains

The railway magnates have never ceased to use their ingenuity to make this form of travelling as disagreeable, as painful and as loathsome as possible

By running a weekly bus, ministers can claim that a service still operates and avoid the legal requirement to hold a public consultation. Rail passenger groups fear that the Ealing “ghost bus” sets a dangerous precedent for more closures by stealth.

The Department for Transport is using a loophole in the law governing rail closures that allows ministers “to secure the provision of substitute bus services if a passenger rail service is temporarily interrupted or has been discontinued”.

Until December 14 Crosscountry ran two trains a day in each direction between Birmingham and Brighton, via Kensington Olympia, using the sections of track in West London. About 80 passengers used each train but the DfT decided that the carriages were needed to relieve overcrowding between Birmingham and Leeds. Delays in ordering new trains have left the network struggling to cope.

Yesterday The Times decided to try to catch the ghost bus. At Ealing Broadway station, a ticket inspector denied that any such bus existed. When asked to check, he went into his office and returned three minutes later with a piece of paper headed: “Rail replacement bus. Internal document not for display or distribution.”

It stated that the bus would depart from stop “F”. At exactly 9.45am it duly arrived there. The driver regarded us suspiciously as we flagged him down. Once aboard Simon Houlton explained to us that he had been told not to expect any passengers.

During the journey Mr Houlton said that he had been “told off” last week for not continuing to the final station, even though he had departed empty from the final pick-up point.

“They said it's got to run the whole route, empty or not,” the driver said. “It may seem daft but I'm just doing my job and getting my pay, though I would prefer a few passengers because it makes the job more interesting.”

The coach costs the DfT about £500 a day. A photographer and I paid £5.10 each for our tickets, so the taxpayer funded £489.80 of the cost of our trip.

A passenger complained to the DfT last month that it was withdrawing a service without going through the legal closure process, which includes a public consultation and an investigation by the Office of Rail Regulation. He received a reply in classic Whitehall-speak from Debbie Brent, a civil servant in the DfT's rail division. She wrote: “A rail replacement bus service is currently operating between stations located close to these sections of track. Because the department is not proposing to discontinue train services over those sections of track, the provisions of section 24 of the Railways Act 2005 do not apply in this case.”

However, the DfT has no plans to resume services and intends to leave services “suspended” indefinitely.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of Passenger Focus, the rail watchdog, said: “There may be situations where the wider passenger benefit justifies changing services to the detriment of some. This should be done with an open, honest, transparent consultation process.”

To travel with 48 vacant seats felt strange but our driver confided that sometimes it gets worse. When the coach is not available, its replacement is a split-level 100-seat “megadecker”. But it still travels empty.

From ghost buses to parliamentary trains

— The “ghost bus” has similarities to “parliamentary trains” - rail services that run rarely, usually very early in the morning or late at night, to maintain the legal fiction that a station or line remains open and avoid the politically sensitive closure process

— The term “parliamentary train” stems from the Railway Regulation Act of 1844, which set minimum standards and a maximum fare of a penny a mile in third class. Private companies were able to protect their profits while fulfilling the letter of the law by running only one compliant service a day at an awkward time

— Current parliamentary trains include: Stockport to Stalybridge 11.28 (Saturdays only); Ellesmere Port to Warrington 00.00 (daily); Chester to Runcorn 08.25 (summer, Saturdays only); Lancaster to Windermere, via Morecambe 05.38 (Mondays to Saturdays); Sheffield to Cleethorpes (six trains, Saturdays only)

— Parliamentary trains are mentioned in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado:

“The idiot who, in railway carriages,
Scribbles on window-panes,
We only suffer
To ride on a buffer
On Parliamentary trains”

Another great example of railway madness is Pilning station near Bristol. Only two trains a week (one in each direction on Saturday) means it's used by under 200 people a year and closed in all but name.

See also

One return, once a week

The Times: January 7, 2009
Behind the story

It took several calls and e-mails to the Department for Transport for The Times to establish the facts about the “ghost bus” of Ealing.

The department's press office initially suggested that the tracks in West London were still in use, albeit with a reduced passenger service.

It issued a statement saying: “Consultation revealed a lack of demand on this line and for now a reduced replacement service will serve those passengers who still want to travel on this route.”

When pressed on how frequent the service was and whether it was a train or bus, a spokesman admitted: “It's fairly limited. It's a bus service that's running at the moment.”

Asked for a more precise answer on frequency, he said that he would have to call back. He later e-mailed: “Once a week - one service a day.” Pressed again on exactly when it ran, he said: “There is one return service a week on Tuesdays.”

We then asked why it was being kept secret and why it was running with no passengers.

Perhaps aware that The Times had just travelled on the “ghost bus”, he replied: “There is some limited demand.”

Two passengers in total, he could have added. But he didn't.

See also:

Parliamentary trains

The Times: October 13, 1863

Letter to the Editor of The Times: