Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Railways

Little Thameslink Debacle

I like to break into proceedings for a little complaint, it makes me feel better.

Here I am with a rail ticket to board the 15:36 at London St. Pancras to Bedford and two Thameslink gateline staff have rejected the ticket saying it’s invalid with their service, refusing me access to the platforms. The Thameslink staff said that my ticket wasn’t valid on their service, only the EMR service. The details on my ticket read:

“Board the 15:36 service to Bedford (Thameslink). (G50426 service details)”

Now, I always fear I’ve made a mistake, as I do that quite a lot, so I thought I’d better check first with the ticketing company, Trainsplit. They’ve already checked for me and they’ve told me that Thameslink are in breach of the National Rail Conditions of Travel and the information they were supplying was wrong.

Here’s the details of the 15:36 train that the gateline staff said wasn’t an actual service. After claiming the 15:36 was definitely an EMR service, the gateline staff did let me through in the end (I think one of the staff had a moment of realisation that the only 15:36 service departing the station was their Thameslink service) but warned me that my ticket wasn’t valid and I might be asked to buy another one. I haven’t heard so much piffle since listening to Liz Truss prattling on about something she didn’t understand, but the railway wonders why people get confused. If I had followed the instructions of the gateline staff I would have been liable for a fine from EMR for travelling on a service that I didn’t have a ticket for which feels very sub-optimal given all the confusion over ticket prosecutions at the moment.

Merrily on board the 15:36 (albeit delayed).

December 9, 2024
Rail Journey : Liverpool to Luton (with changes at Crewe, Long Eaton, Leicester, Kettering and Bedford)

I have a slight problem at the moment with rail travel and that’s trying to keep the fares down whilst I’m travelling around the country. I’m simultaneously too young and too old to have a railcard and the fares can be challenging without using some ingenuity of split ticketing. I’ve also been hitting delay repay claims with some frequency recently and have had three turned down or refunded at a different amount, but all three fully reinstated on appeal due to ‘operator error’ or similar phrases. They don’t really have much choice as the Conditions of Carriage are very clear and it’s a bit of a faff, but we get there in the end.

So, mostly for my own amusement, here’s the story of today and endless changes of trains….. It’s actually evident to see why rail operators are struggling to unpick some of these delay repay claims and today’s will be another one when East Midlands Railways get it this weekend.

That’s not a great photo of Liverpool Lime Street, although I was taking photos to remind me at what time I was at each station. Half of the station has gate lines, the other half doesn’t and this was one of those tracks, track 6. Incidentally, on the way into Liverpool, we stopped at Broad Green railway station and I looked at the station history on Wikipedia (yes, I do this a lot) and discovered that it’s the oldest railway station in the world that is still operating, having opened in 1830. On that theme, Liverpool Lime Street is the oldest still operating grand terminus mainline station in the world, opening in August 1836.

The first train of the day was on time, the 10:08 West Midlands Train service to Crewe.

I liked this train, relatively empty and there were power points which are useful for journeys such as this. There was a passenger on board telling his friend Tony (he said the word Tony at the end of every sentence so I soon got to know Tony’s name) who gave a near constant verbal flow of railway facts on our journey. To be honest, I found it all quite interesting, so fair play.

Crewe, it’s not my favourite place in the world if I’m being honest, but I wasn’t leaving the railway station and so it didn’t much matter.

Here’s the EMR train service to Long Eaton.

More power points and an annoying customer who was playing music loudly sitting opposite. I’m generally quite immune to these things, but when it’s so loud it’s over the volume of my headphones, it probably is a bit much. Someone else sat opposite and stared at him, which meant he later on stopped, so that was a relief for us all.

Only here briefly, but a quick photo at Stoke railway station to send to Łukasz who sometimes meets me here. The train was delayed into Long Eaton, but this didn’t much matter as the one I needed to connect to was also late and was coming in on the same platform.

Long Eaton railway station which was opened in December 1888 as Sawley Junction.

An information board about Midland Railway Sheet Stores.

Right, I can still get the 12:40 because it’s going at 12:46.

Here it comes sweeping in to take me to Leicester.

And there’s Leicester in all its raw beauty and there’s been a railway station on this site since 1840.

This train into Leicester was busy and I couldn’t get photos inside and it was running fifteen minutes late, meaning I’d miss my connection. But, as luck would have it, the train I was connecting to was once again also late and coming in on the same platform. I boarded three different trains today that had an end destination of London St Pancras and all three had the seat reservations cancelled as the on-board computers had gone wrong.

I boarded the East Midlands train to Kettering and it was at this point that the network was entirely falling apart due to electrical cabling issues. There weren’t really enough staff to help at Kettering and no announcements to help passengers at the station, it wasn’t great for those who didn’t know their way around railway apps and the like.

I went to find someone (not pictured above) and she told me which train to connect, telling me to get on a train to Bedford.

I had a little walk around Kettering railway station which was originally opened in 1857. I find it very hard to be in Kettering and not think about James Acaster and the Kettering Town FC song. Incidentally, that bridge to the other platforms was only put in as late as the 1990s.

This is a nice reminder of how railway stations have been such important locations in times of war.

And here’s the canteen that it’s referring to. There are an awful lot of structures on railway stations, it’s a shame that more can’t be done with a great deal more of them, although at least this one hasn’t been demolished.

Aaaahh….

Another train boarded, this is the one to St. Pancras yet again. I was fortunate incidentally to get a seat on every service despite them being so busy. Most trains had power points and customers seemed to be generally calm and content.

And safely at Bedford. I thought it was positive that the train guard told anyone with flights from Luton Airport that they were fearing they’d miss to tell the platform staff so that they could do something about it. I’m not sure what the platform staff were planning to do about it (and even if they knew the train guard had been telling passengers this), but it was a nice gesture.

For reasons unknown even to me, I’ve started noting in this blog post when railway stations were first opened, so keeping that theme alive, this opened in 1859 although it’s moved about a bit. When I say that, I mean it’s moved down the line a bit, they haven’t relocated Bedford railway station from Truro or something.

I waited patiently here for the Thameslink train I was told that I could catch as they were accepting EMR tickets given the network issues. Of course, it changed its departure platform which involved more stairs. This is how I stay healthy I think.

But, it arrived on time and took me to Luton railway station and incredibly the only service of the day actually running to schedule. I arrived into Luton just under 50 minutes later, so that’s a 50% delay repay of the ticket and I thought I did well to actually get to the final destination not that late.

I am perhaps one of the few people who likes this kind of adventure, I’ve also been suitably productive working on trains and also in numerous waiting rooms that I didn’t take photos of today. And now, I’m safely in Luton. I can’t say that this is exactly a Michael Portillo Great Rail Journeys type of post, but it amused me and maybe in my old age I’ll relive the excitement all over again and return some fancy destinations as Crewe, Long Eaton, Kettering and Bedford. Incidentally, I should add, there are more direct ways of getting from Liverpool to Luton, this was just the cheapest one for me, even if not the most convenient.

December 5, 2024
Belgrade Trip – Getting Back from Luton Airport

I had a slightly (very) sub-optimal arrangement to get back to Newmarket from London Luton Airport, although I’ve realised if I can get slightly earlier flights back then I can get a National Express bus straight back. Unfortunately, the final leg of that service isn’t operated a night, so I had a few hours wait at the Pret landside with a 99p filter coffee. They have power and seating, that’s all I really required. I was suitably productive though, so the time wasn’t wasted.

The coach can arrive at any of these gates it seems.

As a slight side issue, why are they being that precise that a coach will be leaving one minute late? And I accept there are more important things to worry about in the world, but when you’re meandering around outside an airport at 04:30 these things provide at least a modicum of amusement.

Here it comes.

Four of us boarded. This route just flits between Luton Airport and Cambridge, obviously much busier later in the day taking passengers from the airport. They need more legroom on these coaches, that’s my summary of the service.

Morning Cambridge!

Then a 20 minute walk to the railway station.

It’s all happening now.

There’s the Ipswich Rocket at platform 5 that took me back to Newmarket.

After a quick sausage roll at Greggs waiting for Wetherspoons to open, I then had the £3 breakfast and £1 unlimited coffees. I quite a few coffees to stay awake, but as Tony Blair said, “that is that, the end”. Well, for the Belgrade trip anyway. I’m conscious I’ve skipped great chunks of the history, food and culture that I thought I’d write about, but there we go, maybe I’ll get back to it another time. Oh, I didn’t mention, that was one of the better Wetherspoons breakfasts so all was well with the world.

September 17, 2024
Greater Anglia – I’m Home

This is the outcome of Greater Anglia’s latest little debacle. It has also transpired that one of the largest taxi companies in Ipswich wasn’t contacted by Greater Anglia and they could have got a fair number of people back to Norwich in shared taxis. They’d better be reimbursing this promptly.

Brilliant taxi driver incidentally, very friendly and I got water and crisps since Greater Anglia hadn’t provided either. We had to go via Bury St Edmunds so it wasn’t a quick journey, but some roads are blocked.

October 21, 2023
Greater Anglia – Train Stuck Overnight in Ipswich as “Control Room Fail to Respond”

Excuse the poor quality of the photos in this post, I hadn’t expected to use any of them….. They are blurry, but they’re all that I’ve got at the moment. And this post might be slightly grumpy at I’m still at Ipswich railway station at 02:30.

This was the happy scene in London Liverpool Street earlier this evening whilst waiting for the train to arrive onto the platform before it became the 20:00 service to Norwich.

And here the train arrives in, ready for a quick turnaround so that it can return to Norwich. They were warning that they expected 15 minute delays during the journey due to localised flooding in Stowmarket.

I wasn’t thrilled that it was the bloody Stansted Express service once again, the train that keeps appearing on the mainline to Norwich which has no tables. I’ve asked the Greater Anglia press office and the train crew before why they keep using this train on the mainline and the former didn’t know, but one train guard told me last year “because they couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery”. I appreciated his candour, although it wasn’t quite the answer that I expected. Anyway, I digress.

Back to tonight, it was a train and that’s positive given the weather conditions today, so it’s not really a complaint for today (although I’ve moaned about it anyway). Off we went and the train arrived into Colchester more or less on time. Only then did Greater Anglia’s control room think to tell the driver that there were a series of trains stuck in front of it, meaning a long wait at Colchester. It did occur to me that this would have been useful information to tell passengers at London Liverpool Street, but there we go, we live in an imperfect world. The train behind us arrived into Colchester and then decanted onto the train that we were on.

The train arrived into Ipswich and there was some confusion as to what was happening. After a while they transferred us to the Norwich train on the adjacent platform, which transpired to be the train that had left London Liverpool Street one hour earlier that we did. This was at 22:31 and I’m writing this at 02:15 and the control room have still yet to come up with any information about what is happening. The driver has been endlessly apologetic that the control room have abandoned the train, but he and the rest of the crew are sticking with it. Not once has anyone at Greater Anglia explained what the problem is at Stowmarket or whether it can be resolved.

This is the train (the train in the rear of the photo, which I accept is terrible quality) that I arrived into Ipswich on. I wondered whether this would return to London and I decided that if it did, I’d get on it. The driver on our train then announced the train would be returning to London if passengers wanted it, so some decided that was the first organised communication that we’d had. At this moment, the train pulls off nearly empty and leaves the passengers wanting to return to London stuck in Ipswich, including myself. I remain annoyed (I expect I’ll get over it in a few months) that I could have been back in London in a hotel room ready to return when the railway line was back to normal.

I don’t think it’s a secret or I’ll get anyone into trouble by saying that the train crew have made a series of announcements about the behaviour of Greater Anglia’s control room tonight. To be precise, “Greater Anglia’s control room have failed to respond”. That’s their own train crew, just abandoned along with the passengers.

After three hours on the train, they asked us to move to another one. The train crew then said that they had finally got permission for passengers to book hotels in Ipswich, but there are of course none available. The cynic in me suspects they knew that when giving the permission, but that might be unfair of me.

And here we are, seemingly all night. It’s evident that this is the reality, but Greater Anglia still haven’t communicated this to anyone. The control room has apparently given up and it’s unclear what this train with around 150 to 200 people on is supposed to do. I don’t usually verge into the political and I have been deeply sceptical about the RMT, but it’s entirely unclear what the Greater Anglia management are doing to resolve this situation and I can see why their staff feel internal communications are a real issue from senior mangers. Between 17:00 and 23:00 they had the chance to communicate to passengers that they could stay in London, or return to London when it was realised how bad the situation was in Stowmarket, to get a hotel. I would have returned to London and then not been stuck on this train all night. Instead they just abandoned their train crew to deal with matters and have some social media team trying to respond without being given any information from their own control room.

The weather is evidently not in Greater Anglia’s control, but it’s clear that a better managed operation would have communicated far better. They had the opportunity to tell passengers to either stay in London, or indeed return them to London or elsewhere along the route, instead of leaving them on a train parked up overnight. And not once have they said what is happening at Stowmarket and whether the line might clear to given passengers the information they needed to make a choice. In fairness it’s positive that they have a social media team still on-line, but I can see why the train crew are upset at how Greater Anglia have treated them and their passengers tonight.

But, I will say most importantly, the train crew and station staff have been doing all they can by all accounts.

Oh, and the outcome….

October 21, 2023
Liverpool Weekend (Day Four) – Crewe to London Euston

With no disrespect to Crewe, but I couldn’t find much to excite and delight me on the Monday afternoon that I was there. There were no museums, Good Beer Guide pubs or craft beer bars open, although there was a micropub which looked marvellous if it had been open. There wasn’t even a JD Wetherspoon pub in the town, it’s shut. It meant the limit of my expedition, and it’s over a mile to the centre from the railway station, was a sub-optimal Poundbakery visit. Also, apologies for the slightly blurry photos, that’s partly a result of the greasy bakes from the aforementioned location.

As an aside, and it was rebuilt in 1880, but the Crewe Arms Hotel was built in 1838 and is the first specially built railway hotel. Queen Victoria stayed there on numerous occasions and it’s still in use as a hotel today.

There’s a pleasant waiting room at Crewe railway station. There was no town at Crewe until the railway boom built a junction here and the railway station was first constructed in 1837. It was rebuilt in 1867 and then extensively remodelled in 1984.

The interior of the railway station and this was nearly all shut down around fifteen years ago when there were plans to move to a new building which would be nearer to Crewe. There were meant to be HS2 services from Crewe, but the whole project is currently up in the air.

As a fun fact, there are seven rail operators which operate services to Crewe, which is the joint highest in the country.

The West Midlands Train service that I was booked onto arrives.

Seats were shoved in, it wasn’t overly clean and there were no power points. However, the journey was on time and only cost £10.20 which all felt quite reasonable. I moan quite a lot about this trying to five seats in across, not least on this blog, and I’m sure my two loyal readers are tired of hearing about it. But it all feels sub-optimal, it makes the aisle quite narrow and the seats are hopeless for anyone who is slightly larger.

Happy memories of Rugeley from a previous GeoGuessr expedition with Nathan.

And safely into London Euston with its shiny new boards. I still liked the old ones as I could read them more easily, but maybe I’m just old fashioned now I’ve reached 24.

I’m going to bring the Liverpool weekend story to an end here. I had a marvellous evening in London with a visit to the Craft Beer Co at Holborn, before getting the train back to Norwich. All tired at the end of it, but it had been a really quite marvellous weekend. Thanks to Steve, Susan and Bev for their company and I’m already looking forward to the next set of adventures. The trip to Bucharest with Bev and Steve, amongst others, is already booked and I hope that Bev in particular will be well behaved.

October 3, 2023
Liverpool Weekend (Day Four) – Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe

After a marvellous weekend, it was time for me to meander back to Norwich and I was doing this in a number of stages. Firstly, it was getting a London Northwestern Railway service from Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe. The reasoning for this relates to split ticketing and making my train journey back as cheap as possible.

My morning started with a debacle, which at least gives me something else to write about. I use my Chase debit card to buy nearly everything, as I get 1% back and that’s entirely optimal as far as I’m concerned. However, there’s a glitch with Chase that for security reasons they garble the card number and so it’s not possible to pick up the tickets at the station as the machine doesn’t recognise the card. Recently this hasn’t been a problem, I just get e-tickets and so there’s no need for a pick-up, but it seems that London Northwestern Railway don’t have that facility.

After the machine failed, as I expected, I went to the ticket office with some moderate concern that my train was leaving in 25 minutes. That sounds a lot of time, but these things often take a while to resolve and I was sensing a problem. Fortunately the ticket office was entirely empty and the staff member there was very polite, but said that she couldn’t do anything about it. Now, when this has happened before, the ticket office has been able to print the ticket, but she said that wasn’t possible now. Her suggestion was to contact GWR who issued the ticket.

Now, I was mightily impressed at GWR. They have a WhatsApp contact where you can just message them and my problem was resolved by them within two minutes of my sending it to them. They changed the ticket so that it could be picked up by any card and that meant I could collect my ticket. They queried why the ticket office hadn’t done this or tried to contact them directly and it feels sub-optimal that there’s confusion between the rail company and the ticket office. I don’t know who is right, but I was fortunate to have booked with GWR as their customer service seems on point.

The train pulled into the station on time.

I wouldn’t say that it was spotlessly clean, but it was comfortable and there were plenty of seats.

There weren’t any power outlets though which was a little disappointing. The young lady sitting in this seat later on in the journey had the wrong ticket, she was travelling to Birmingham and had a ticket for later on in the day. The conductor was polite, but firm, telling her that he wouldn’t issue a penalty fare notice but saying that she would have to get off at the next station. The lady explained that she couldn’t afford to buy another ticket, but the conductor said if she disembarked than she could board a later train with the ticket that she had. The lady’s story was true as when the conductor had gone she phoned her mother to ask her to transfer money onto her card so she could buy the £30 or so ticket that she needed to stay on the train. She went off to find the conductor, asking me to look after her bags (which is something I don’t like doing really as if someone comes to steal them then I’m hardly going to fight them) and she merrily returned with a ticket which let her stay on the train.

And safely into Crewe with the journey running on time. The fare was £13.80 from Liverpool to Crewe, which felt entirely reasonable.

October 2, 2023
Liverpool Weekend (Day One) – And Another Delayed Train

I walked relatively quickly from Cloudwater to Manchester Oxford Road railway station, as I’m always slightly nervous about being late for pre-booked services of any kind. It’s a slightly odd railway station, constructed in 1849 and reconstructed in 1960, now looking and feeling dated and it feels like it is ready for a major refurbishment.

They’ve put quite an attractive frontage on the building at least.

I arrived with eight minutes to spare until my train departed, with the boards showing that it was running on time. Marvellous, I would be in join Susan, Steve and Bev for the evening meal and still have time to get to my hotel to check-in. The signage at the station was clear and it was a fifteen second walk to the platform.

The 16:46 train to Liverpool Lime Street via Urmston cost me around £3.50, this was not an expensive train.

The Northern train pulled in on time, it all boded well after the delays of earlier on during the day.

It wasn’t particularly busy and I’ve moaned enough times before about how they shove seats onto these services with minimal thought for comfort. There was though a USB power supply which was useful to top my phone up a little.

The view from the train window, just as there was an announcement that trespassers on the line at Warrington had caused a delay to the service. This felt sub-optimal as we sat there for ten minutes. Pesky interlopers.

We got to Birchwood and there was an announcement that the service was delayed and might be cancelled.

On the bright side, a more promising announcement was made and once again my train was likely to arrive something like 33 minutes late so I would get 50% off the fare. Given how cheap the fare was this was hardly a big bonus, but nonetheless, it would pay for a drink.

We arrived safely at Liverpool Lime Street. Taking into account the Delay Repay refunds, it meant that my journey from Norwich to Liverpool had cost just over £15, which is hard to complain about. I felt that the delays were just perfect insomuch as getting a partial refund, but without being majorly delayed and eating into my time in Liverpool.

The delights of the station concourse and it was great to be back in Liverpool once again. I haven’t been travelling much recently, so I’ve been very much looking forwards to a weekend away and it was rather lovely to finally arrive. I then just had to head to my hotel and then go to the Indian craft beer bar that I suggested we all meet at, a plan was coming together.

September 9, 2023
Liverpool Weekend (Day One) – Delay Repay and the Perfect Delay

I’m pleased to confirm that my train got in 33 minutes late into Manchester and so I’m getting a 50% refund on my rail fare. This is very optimal, a delay that doesn’t inconvenience me unduly but it’ll fund all my beers at Track and Cloudwater which I’m going to rush to visit. What a time to be alive! The rest of the journey incidentally was quiet, just some problems with the train which caused a few delays at a number of railway stations. But, I’m happy, this is all very handy for me, a minor delay and so free beer.

September 8, 2023
Liverpool Weekend (Day One) – And So the Trip Begins…..

I may have mentioned in passing, but it’s been too bloody hot this week and I was pleased to see some clouds in the sky in the hope that matters might be cooling down somewhat. As the observant might have noticed from the title of this post, I’m off for a little adventure to Liverpool with a few others. I deserve a break away I’ve decided.

I arrived early at the railway station as it’s the rather rickety East Midlands Railway service to Liverpool, although I’m getting off at Manchester as split ticketing meant that was much cheaper. And I decided I’d spend a couple of hours in Manchester itself as well.

There was then a twenty minute wait for me standing by the train, but I was pleased to feel that the temperature had reduced somewhat. This two carriage train is entirely inadequate for the number of people who want to use it, so it’s at capacity and there’s no space for luggage. Half of our group made the sensible decision to go via London, but I’v picked the thrifty route.

I boarded first to get a table seat, as this train doesn’t have any seat reservations which I personally think just makes thing easier but others are less impressed. It’s transpired that Bev is on the same train to Peterborough, where she’s getting of, and she’s a bit stompy down that end of the train judging by her comments in the group chat. Hopefully there will be some drama to report later on, likely involving Bev. But, I’m at a table seat, I have power and I’m settled in for the relatively long journey to Manchester. What could possibly go wrong…..

September 8, 2023