Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Railways

  • Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

    Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

    My last train journey was from Chesterfield to York in March 2020 and I didn’t expect it would take until August 2020 for me to make another. Norwich railway station looks different to when I last used it, with the ticket gates now left open and unmanned. There’s now directional signage around the concourse and a couple of the food outlets, West Cornwall Pasty and Starbucks, haven’t re-opened, nor has Marks & Spencer. It felt moderately busy, but nowhere near what I would have usually expected for a Monday morning.

    Waiting at platform 2, the new style train which serves the Norwich to London line.

    There was plenty of space for customers on board, just a handful of passengers in each carriage. The power points and on-board screens worked on the train, although it wasn’t doing a very good job of air conditioning and not for the first time this week I muttered to myself that it was too hot.

    Safely at London Liverpool Street railway station, the train arrived dead on time.

    The barriers were operating as usual at the station, with revenue protection officers and police questioning a couple of people as I walked by. So, although there’s no ticket barrier at Norwich and tickets aren’t checked on board, there are still mechanisms to ensure people have paid their fares. The concourse was relatively quiet and someone asked me how they could get out of the railway station, something I didn’t think was particularly challenging, but there we go. Once outside, it became evident to me just how quiet London currently is….

  • Rail Delivery Group and the Department for Transport

    Rail Delivery Group and the Department for Transport

    As another of my asides, this is an article from Rail magazine this issue, a query regarding rail vouchers which were about to expire. This is the sort of maddening decision which alienates people from the rail network, a decision would have likely been made immediately by the rail operating groups, or indeed the old British Rail, but is caught in a Government department that doesn’t want to answer. Anyway, that’s as political as I’m getting and at least I’m fortunate not to have any rail vouchers.

  • LNER Dining Facilities in 1939

    LNER Dining Facilities in 1939

    I hadn’t seen a list like this before, it details what catering facilities there were available in all of the London and North East Railway (LNER) stations.

    Strange to think that there was a refreshment room at Newmarket railway station, there isn’t even a station building left there now for those passengers passing through.

  • Railway Curiosities – Graig Ddu Quarry

    Railway Curiosities – Graig Ddu Quarry

    The first half of this 1935 video from Pathe shows an interesting way for the quarry workers to get back home after the end of their working day. I think it’s Graig Ddu quarry in North Wales and the devices the workers have built themselves are known as ‘car gwyllt’.

  • Railways and the Coronavirus

    Railways and the Coronavirus

    12 passengers in four hours? Surely it must be worth just using buses for these routes now, that’s on average fewer than one person per train (plus the guard and the driver)….. But impressive that so many people aren’t travelling and are obeying instructions.

    https://twitter.com/BTPEAnglia/status/1246360968919162882

     

  • Cross Country : Sheffield to York

    Cross Country : Sheffield to York

    The image above is of the beautiful York railway station, it’s always a delight to arrive into this glorious location. This was the second part of my trip from Chesterfield, having changed at Sheffield. The service was the 11:29 from Sheffield into York on Cross Country, a trip which was going on to Newcastle.

    This is the train after it arrived into York. I had a reserved seat but I, and others as I could hear the confusion, were struggling to work out which of the five coaches was which. There is an electronic display on the side of each carriage, but it’s hard to read and I have no idea why Cross Country don’t just have a clear sheet of paper at least in each carriage. This incompetence moderately annoys me, is it not beyond the wit of any Cross Country manager to change this situation, rather than have tens of people standing confused at the platform? This was the second Cross Country service of the day where I had experienced this problem, so I can’t imagine it’s an isolated incident.

    Fortunately my seat was waiting for me, with no-one in it most importantly, and was the table seat that I had requested. There was a power point at the table which worked fine and although a staff member did come through collecting rubbish, the carriage could have been cleaner. But, the train was on time, the staff member was happy and helpful with everything so I wasn’t displeased with the experience. Especially since it had cost around £5.

  • Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street (New Trains)

    Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street (New Trains)

    This is the first time that I’ve had chance to go on the new train between Norwich and London Liverpool Street, I seem to have caught the older rolling stock over the last couple of months. The train was the 11:30 from Norwich, which seemed relatively quiet, even though it was taking passengers from the 12:00 service which had been cancelled. The new train has twelve carriages, and they’ve been made by Stadler in Switzerland.

    A screen showing customers where everything is on the train.

    It’s possible to see all the way down the train, but there are closeable see-through doors along the carriages. The design of the seats is clunky and rushed, the heater unit on the side is in the way of customers, as is the table’s central support which is just where knees might otherwise go. There is now just one power point between two people (unless one has a USB) and for reasons that I cannot comprehend, plugs don’t fit into many of the power sockets as the base of the seat is in the way. I was able to plug my laptop into the power sockets under the seats on the other side of the table, but only because there was no-one sitting there. It’s an unfortunate bodged job from Greater Anglia, arguably unacceptable given the price increases that they’ve introduced which should have meant they had more than enough money to do this properly.

    This slightly irritated me, some idiot putting their feet on what are nearly new seats. Fortunately, it also irritated the guard who politely, but firmly, told the passenger to stop this behaviour when he saw her.

    And safely into London Liverpool Street, all on time.

    The old rolling stock on the left and the new rolling stock on the right.

    Taking everything into account, I prefer the older train. It’s more comfortable, it’s better designed and I think it’s more functional. However, there are two caveats with that, the older train isn’t easy for those with disabilities and it also doesn’t hold as many people as the new train, so these are two big advantages with the upgrade. It’s all very nice that money has been spent on new trains, but I’m hoping that they’re taken in for an interior refit soon to try and give the finish a slightly classier and more functional edge.

  • Norwich – Toiletgate

    Norwich – Toiletgate

    I’m delighted that these lovely new Stadler trains are doing so well. I’ve boarded the 10:33 (which is still on the platform at 10:43) at Norwich to go to Ely, and the train’s toilets are out of operation. There was a plan to get a staff member at Norwich railway station to fix the problem, but it has been discovered that there aren’t any. Which now means that the train is making extended stops at Thetford and Ely for customers on this four carriage train to traipse out and use the station facilities. How lovely.

  • London – London Liverpool Street (Overground)

    London – London Liverpool Street (Overground)

    Heading to Cheshunt, I realised two things, that firstly there was a direct Overground service there and, also, that it departed from London Liverpool Street railway station. Network Rail, with their usual quality of customer service, didn’t seem to have much information on where I could catch this service from. Although, fortunately, it transpired to be much easier than I had expected as the Overground service uses the standard platforms.

    There is some Overground signage on the platforms, although it probably needs better signage around the concourse, with my train departing from Platform 1.

    The service got busier as we progressed towards Cheshunt, but not dramatically so. The carriages could probably do with an upgrade at some stage, but they’re clean and sufficiently comfortable given the short journey length.

    Disembarking at Cheshunt.

    And, here we are, the journey takes around 30 minutes and it ran perfectly to schedule. The journey is meant to cost £4 via London Overground, although it’s possible to go by train which is slightly quicker and also more expensive. I’m hoping that my Contactless card was charged the appropriate amount, with I assume the lower amount always being charged. Although, I’m unsure how that works exactly….

    Personally, I’d rather that this service was returned to the rail network as I can’t quite see what benefit Transport for London are adding by operating this journey. It was run by Abellio Greater Anglia until 2015 and there appears to have been nearly no investment in the service since. If it had continued to be part of Greater Anglia, then perhaps it would have received new carriages with power and more comfortable service.

  • Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

    Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

    I’ve taken this journey from Norwich railway station to London Liverpool Street railway station many tens of times before, but this is the first time that I’ve had a ticket on my phone to show, rather than a simple paper ticket. I was hoping that it might be as advanced as the ones used by Deutsche Bahn, albeit theirs was hardly reliable, but instead it’s just a QR code. Functional, but not exciting.

    I got 10% off this journey as part of a promotion offered by Greater Anglia, with first class being just a few pounds more than standard.

    Travelling at 11:30 in the morning has the advantage of meaning the carriage was relatively empty. The train is comprised of something like eight standard class carriages and two first class carriages. However, due to the forthcoming replacement of these carriages, they’ve been using first class carriages in standard class, but have declassified so anyone can use them. Fortunately the crew made an announcement that customers in declassified first carriages might want to move to actual first class carriages.

    The crew members were all polite and helpful, with the train being clean and tidy. Other than the windows that is, these needed cleaning so that customers could actually see out of them. The wi-fi was broken on the train, although I don’t use it, but the power points were functioning and this was more important to me.

    First class means free drinks and snacks from the buffet car, with the snacks being very lovely, although the coffee was not exactly packed with flavour. Well, it was packed with a bland and bitter flavour, but not much else. Greater Anglia also apparently don’t stock sparkling water any more, so it’s just still water which is available. Greater Anglia need to do more here, especially since they don’t give them out any more at weekends as apparently customers abused them. By abused them, I suspect they meant that they asked for them. I’m not sure how much Greater Anglia really lost on biscuits, but there we are….

    The train left on time and arrived into London around four minutes late, due to some congestion near to London Liverpool Street. The fare for this journey was around £18, which I thought was entirely reasonable given the free snacks and drinks. It won’t be long before the new carriages are being used on the mainline, at which point the journey might become even more comfortable.