Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: LNER

Friday – Arriving into Darlington (Part 2)

Picking up from the previous post.

The inside of Newcastle’s Central railway station, designed by John Dobson and constructed between 1845 and 1850 on a site which was three acres in size. The sheer scale of these projects was remarkable and today there are twelve platforms for trains and two platforms for the city’s Metro service.

I had a little issue that when I got the station that I had a ticket for a train that didn’t exist. I walked over to the customer service desk and the LNER staff member said that the train had been scrapped from the timetable the previous week and that I could board any LNER service to Darlington. I started my question with “I’m a little confused” and she responded “not as confused as we are”, so I liked her. The service was busy, not least because it was the day before and after a rail strike, but it meant I could depart 20 minutes earlier than I had expected. That strike action must have made matters challenging for the customer service staff, but they seemed to be doing a marvellous job.

I got a seat for the relatively short journey, but as it was so busy I didn’t take a photo of inside the carriage until I was disembarking. There was an announcement when I boarded that the trolley with food and drinks would be going through the train, but then another announcement ten minutes later saying that it wasn’t as it was too busy.

Safely in Darlington railway station which has some similarities to Newcastle, although was constructed later in 1887. There was an earlier station which had opened in 1841, but it didn’t prove large enough as passenger numbers grew.

Usually these signs note the local university of similar, but in this case, Lingfield Point is a large business park which is an important part of the town’s regeneration plans. One interesting little fact (or at least I thought so) is that the town’s name got shortened over the centuries and was frequently called Darnton during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was originally known as Deathingtun, meaning the settlement belonging to Deornoth’s people.

The frontage of the station which is now just the entrance to a car park area which I suspect might be repurposed in the future as it’s not a very attractive first impression. Although, looking at this news article, it seems they might be even more ambitious in their plans to modernise the station buildings.

Hints about the town’s railway history are visible at one of the main roundabouts. This is a model of the steam locomotive Tornado and there’s some information about this little arrangement at https://www.darlington.gov.uk/your-council/news/news-item/?id=997. More on this railway history in future days of this riveting blog though.

I was staying one night at the Mercure in Darlington, which I was returning to again later on during my little trip. The service was excellent, friendly and welcoming, and they kindly upgraded my room. There was a welcome drink available which I had to ask about, but that was willingly resolved. It was quite a hike to the room, it’s a large building and there are two separate sets of stairs (or lifts) to get there.

Ooooh, a Nespresso machine.

And a fridge with numerous cold drinks, all free of charge. I was very pleased with this.

It’s fair to say that there was no shortage of liquid soap and lotion options.

My welcome drink, a pint of John Smiths.

They’ve spent some money here on the hotel bar, and there’s a separate restaurant upstairs as well. The building has its origins as the Kings Head hotel and much of the original survives, although much modernised. The former grand entrance has been turned into shops, with a 1960s extension being where the reception and bar areas are. There was a large fire at the hotel only a few years ago, which led to a modernisation of the building, and everything still feels modern and contemporary.

The town’s market building, but more on this in a future post. I had a little meander around the centre of Darlington for an hour or so, although it was all rather quiet.

August 30, 2022
Northern Rail and LNER : Keighley to London King’s Cross

After what I thought was a successful LDWA groups’ weekend I meandered down the hill into Keighley to get the train back to London. Here’s the delightful railway station, with the main entrance to the centre of the building (which is entirely logical), but the gateway to the right leads to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, a heritage line which goes from Keighley to Oxenhope via towns such as Haworth. There has been some talk of trying to bring the line back into commuter use, since it is entirely complete and linked into the current network, but no real progress had been made on that.

I went to the ticket office to collect my ticket from the machine, but there was a queue and so I asked the man at the empty ticket desk if I could collect it there. He helpfully answered:

“Well, we can do that, but we prefer not to”.

Really bloody helpful. Anyway, he did print out the ticket and seemed otherwise friendly, but the failing here is the operator Northern not putting in enough ticket machines (I only saw one).

This station was built in 1883 and replaced a previous station constructed in 1847 which was a short distance away over the road.

My ticket was to leave Keighley at 17:33 and get into Leeds at 18:05, before going from Leeds at 18:15 and arriving into King’s Cross at 20:28. I’m quite risk averse when travelling so arrived into Keighley railway station early and saw an earlier train arrive which was going into Leeds. I decided I’d go and ask the train guard if I could get on the earlier one to prevent a misconnect (although the real reason is that I wanted to ensure I got a seat on the London train). He answered:

“Yes and no”.

I love precision. He said that if I had got on and not asked, the answer was no and I’d be charged a penalty fare. However, he thanked me for asking him and said that I could board and I had his permission to use that service. That caused a slight commotion later on when revenue protection got on, but the guard was true to his word and confirmed my ticket was valid.

Anyway, they’re clearly very hot on fare avoidance on Northern, they seem to regularly check tickets and I’d advise definitely checking with a guard before doing anything slightly different…..

This meant that I got into Leeds a good hour before my train to London departed and I was pleased to discover the train actually departed from Leeds, so this would be the first stop.

Around 30 minutes before the departure time, the Intercity train slides into the platform.

I then stood outside the train door for ten minutes waiting to be let in. I spend a lot of my time standing outside the doors of public transport.

Full marks though to LNER for actually having logical carriage letters. Sometimes they’re something similar to A, Z, H, 5, 9, G, P and my ticket says carriage C. This time though I was in carriage E and that was easy to find, not least as I had plenty of time waiting for the doors to be opened.

And here we go, I boarded first at my end of the carriage and got my reserved seat at a table. A nice guy mentioned that he had a seat next to me on the table for four, but he’d sit opposite so that we had more space and we could both use the power points (which are annoyingly two for every table of four). We were both going from Leeds to King’s Cross and no-one else sat at the table during the journey, so it was comfortable. Incidentally, I’d have problems getting a suitable seat if I hadn’t of caught that earlier train, so I was pleased I had boarded an earlier service.

The seating reservations had gone wrong though and was effectively just suspended, which seems to happen on nearly every service that I’m on. Other customers, especially those boarding later on, were getting quite distressed at the whole situation with groups broken up and no on-board train staff were seemingly available to help. If LNER can’t cope with seat reservations they’d just be better off scrapping them, but I think even their managers would agree that this sort of thing is low down their list of priorities.

There were a couple in the four seats opposite us who pretended that the other two seats at their table were taken, which I thought was pretty unimpressive and another case in point of how the current set-up just adds stress to customers rather than making it a smooth experience.

The ‘let’s eat at your seat’ service which I was surprised to see was working. That is until it broke at Peterborough and an announcement was made that the service was now being withdrawn for the rest of the journey.

We arrived into London King’s Cross on time, but there were no ticket checks on the train and the gates were left open.

A slightly blurry photo, but I didn’t want to spend too long outside King’s Cross at night with my phone trying to take photos…. I was entirely happy with the journey for my purposes, with the trains on time and as I boarded early I got my seat reservation at a table and with access to power. Other customers had a less exciting experience split up from their friends and family despite having seat reservations and this whole set-up has to be improved by the rail network if they want to increase usage. Perhaps it needs to be as radical as if the rail company can’t provide the seat booked by the customer then it has to refund the entire ticket in a similar manner to delay repay.

November 15, 2021
LNER : York to London King’s Cross

This is really handy when you’ve looking for platform 5 (I was on platform 6 at the time).

Anyway, this was the journey I took a few days ago from York to London King’s Cross. I’ll let the guard’s words speak for themselves about the state of this journey:

“I really wish I hadn’t been on this service, I wasn’t meant to be on it, I’m angry that I am on it”.

I certainly felt for him, LNER had served him badly, let alone the customers who had paid to be on it.

It is possible to try and work out where to stand on the platform by following the little code at the bottom. No-one bothered judging by the rushing around from place to place when the train arrived, it’s all a bit complex.

The LNER Azuma train sweeps into York. In fairness to LNER, these are perfectly nice trains, or would be if they were operated by a proper company.

I’m normally more polite, but LNER really can’t run a rail service very well, the service is ridden with managerial incompetence.

They insist that customers book a seat as part of the reservation system. This is so often a policy set for disaster, as LNER don’t bother putting anyone on the trains to enforce this policy, they just dump that problem on the guard. And on this occasion, he was busy dealing with the British Transport Police who were lifting a customer off the service. Nor indeed is the seat reservation policy enforceable anyway. My reserved seat was taken, so I just sat nearby. The problem is that this happened to nearly every customer. We had this ridiculous situation that some seats were kept free as customers thought others would be sitting in them (as the sign by the seat said they were reserved), whilst other customers gave up and sat in the aisle (as visible in the above photo).

This would be much easier if LNER did what most other rail companies and just make reserving a seat optional when buying a ticket. I don’t want to reserve a seat, I wish they’d stop making me as otherwise I can’t buy a ticket. If someone wants to reserve one, then let them. LNER’s system just forces customers to cram into carriages hunting for their seat, which isn’t ideal during Covid times. I suspect there was a carriage somewhere on the train where there was open seating and there weren’t any reservations, but I have no idea where that was.

Anyway, the guard put an announcement over the tannoy that British Transport Police had already been called to the train on two occasions and he was now dealing with a third problem. The poor guard sounded fed up and he vaguely attempted to check tickets, but was continually called to deal with seating issues due to LNER’s hopeless reservation policy. Drunken customers were also making his job harder and he reminded them over the tannoy that he would ask the British Transport Police to board again if necessary. He also suggested that customers text British Transport Police themselves if they couldn’t find him on the train. This announcement was made when we had just left York railway station, so it hardly felt a friendly welcome to LNER.

As an aside, to be honest, people don’t really need to buy tickets for this service (although I’m too well behaved to risk that) as there is no gate line at York and the one at King’s Cross wasn’t enforced.

The poor staff in the catering section were trying to walk up and down the train to supply food and drink as LNER have this great idea that customers can order at their seat. The system didn’t work as the staff couldn’t find the customer who had ordered it and they had to battle to get past the customers sitting in the aisle.

As this journey unfolded, there was more excitement just before Peterborough, someone had started smoking in one of the on-board toilets. This positively annoyed the guard who made another tannoy announcement about the situation, evidently just entirely fed up with this service.

And into King’s Cross, admittedly on-time. The guard must have been relieved that the service was over. I certainly was. The rail network perhaps needs to consider some significant modernisation to its processes as otherwise I suspect more people will just give up and start flying rather than getting the train. Or perhaps they could let British Airways take over the East Coast Mainline……..

I accept this all sounds a bit ranty, but, to be fair, the guard was too and I agree with him.

August 9, 2021
LNER : Berwick-upon-Tweed to Newcastle

Back a couple of weeks again, this is the rail trip at the end of the St. Cuthbert’s Walk expedition when I needed to get back into Newcastle from Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The railway station at Berwick-upon-Tweed, which has the distinction of being the most northerly in England. It opened in June 1846 as Berwick station, being renamed to Berwick-upon-Tweed in January 1955.

Mine was the LNER Azuma journey leaving at 19:20 and arriving at 20:14.

A little bit of history when going down to the platforms, noting that the station stands on what was the site of the Great Hall of Berwick Castle. It had to be knocked down when they wanted to build the railway station here.

The waiting room at Berwick-upon-Tweed, which as can be seen wasn’t exactly packed out. There are toilets here as well, it was a better maintained railway station than I had expected.

The train arrived and the destination on the locator board was wrong, but a nearby staff member reassured me that it was the right train for me. They had a helpful staff member guiding people towards the right carriage as well, which was all very handy. My faffing about checking I had the correct train meant that I didn’t get chance to take a photo of it (which I’m sure is of no real disappointment to anyone).

This is a rather good idea, particularly given current events. I suspect it will increase the number of products ordered, as customers can see what’s available and the price at their leisure. There were some teething problems though it seemed given that there was a staff member from the cafe asking everyone in the carriage if they had ordered anything as they couldn’t work out who it was. I think it got resolved, but I suspect that projects such as this will be rolled out more. There’s a sensible set-up here as well that you can order and they won’t charge your card until they hand the food and drink over, to avoid any failed deliveries.

The service wasn’t overly busy. I did have a reserved seat, but it was sitting next to someone else and it was just as easy to sit a little further down the carriage to avoid bothering them.

Sweeping into Newcastle, which meant the excitement of getting to the Holiday Inn Express Metrocentre at Gateshead. The journey cost £7.30 and it left and arrived on time, so all very lovely and another efficient service. I probably wouldn’t have posted about this journey other than I liked the QR code to order which I felt was worth a little mention.

July 20, 2021
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.

May 25, 2020
Hull to Norwich by Train – Northern, LNER, Cross Country and Greater Anglia

My time in Hull had come to an end, so it was time to get the train back from to Norwich. In theory, this would have involved a Northern train from Hull to Doncaster, an LNER train from Doncaster to Peterborough and a EMR train from Peterborough to Norwich.

Here it is, the pride of the north, a Northern Rail Pacer train (144019) which they were phasing out by July 2019. As can be seen here, since it’s October 2019, that timetable hasn’t been met and there’s another year of them.

These really aren’t the best of trains, they probably do need to be sent to the dustbin of railway history.

Anyway, I was meant to get the 19:27 train from Hull on the Northern service. There was flooding along the line, outside of where I was going, but it was impacting on the Northern train service. Being a responsible passenger, I approached the TransPennine ticket desk as this was the only one I could readily find and they’re the company who operate Hull Paragon Interchange railway station. On this, I wish they’d just call it Hull, as it’s a bizarre name for the city’s main railway station. The staff member there was helpful, but he reassured me that the 19:27 was running, but that there was a service at 19:12 if there was a cancellation of my service. But, if at 19:12 the 19:27 service was showing, I had to wait for that, which is what I did.

There was a member of First staff at the railway station, which is logical because they operate the very interesting Hull Trains open access service to London from Hull. He was offering customer service advice as the 19:27 service was changed to start from Sheffield, not from further down the line. And, by the time I spoke to him, the 19:27 service wasn’t operating on time. This is relevant, in what is otherwise a winding and endless story, of mine because I could technically now no longer get home. He said that the rail policy was to get as far along my journey as possible, which made sense to me. He also explained that there were some tests of the brakes going on as the train had gone through the flooding earlier on during the day.

So, on the 19:27 service I get. I say 19:27, but the doors didn’t open until 19:40 and it didn’t set off until nearly 19:50. It then made extra stops, so my train from Doncaster to Peterborough had long gone when I arrived into Doncaster.

I thought I’d go and ask LNER staff at Doncaster what the rail policy was, because I’m interesting in knowing what happens when the rail network goes a bit wrong and people need to get home. Some of what they told me I knew, other parts I didn’t. But, in short, I was told that the rail network preferred to get taxis home for anyone who missed their final connection, as this is the set-up that different rail operating companies have with each other.

I was also told that rail companies might pay for a hotel, but this would usually have to be at least semi-authorised by the rail company would end up paying for it. So, it would be hard for a member of LNER or Greater Anglia staff to authorise a hotel and then get Northern to pay for it, whereas taxis were always paid. LNER apparently frequently shuttle passengers by taxi from Doncaster to London and from Doncaster to Newcastle, but rarely pay for hotels. But, equally, I was told that rail staff have been told to be pragmatic, so if someone is stranded hours away from home, with no other passengers to share a taxi with, the rail company might just pay for a hotel and endorse the ticket for use on the next day.

I had also become aware by now that I had what they called “an illegal connection” which was possible. So, not a connection that wasn’t allowable, but just one that passengers couldn’t be expected to get as there wasn’t enough time to change trains. Which is like conformance times at airports, although they can enforce those cut-off points. In my case, I could connect from the Doncaster to Peterborough train onto the Peterborough to Ely train, but there was only four minutes to do so. The LNER staff told me that I was under no obligation to rush for this, nor was I expected to even know about it. Rail policy was I should present myself to rail staff at Peterborough and they’d advise me. It was clear here that if I wanted a free taxi from Peterborough to Norwich, I could probably get one by faffing about when disembarking. However, I prefer trains and don’t really like taxis, and it would have also been a waste of the rail company’s money, in this case, Northern Rail.

At this point, I boarded the LNER Azuma train at Doncaster, which is in the above photo when it pulled into the railway station.

I commented on these before when I got the train up, but these are really clear to understand. There was also plenty of seating on the train.

And I got my table seat, with wi-fi and power that all worked well. An LNER member of staff came by and I asked him about my connection at Peterborough. He said the same as the customer service staff had at the station, which was that I shouldn’t worry, I should just get off at Peterborough and ask a member of platform staff what to do.

I was slightly disappointed to get off, as a staff member had just come into the carriage to check tickets. The customer behind me only had a reference number for his ticket, not the actual ticket. I was humoured by the staff member when she said “what do you want me to do with a reference number?” and the customer replied “accept I’m telling the truth?”. Which is quaint and rather innocent. She replied “it doesn’t work like that, how it works is you give me £130 and then I give you a ticket and not just a reference number”. I’m not sure what journey he was making, as that seems a lot of money, but he wasn’t happy. They were just getting into quite an argument, albeit a polite one, and I was really disappointed that the train pulled up into Peterborough and I didn’t hear how that ended. I love a drama….

And the good news is that I got in Peterborough six minutes early, so an impressive performance from LNER on a really decent train. Above is the photo of the train as it departed from Peterborough towards London.

Which then meant that I’d get the Cross Country train to Ely, which turned up on time. I got another table seat and the train was comfortable, but not particularly clean.

Let’s just say, it was clear that there wouldn’t be a fight for space when boarding the train. This is Ely railway station and it’s a shame Dylan and Leon weren’t there, we could have gone under the tunnel at least 20 times in the time I had to wait. The Greater Anglia service was on time and the staff member was enthusiastic and helpful, something which is common with their staff, which is why I still like them a lot as an operating company.

And smoothly into Norwich railway station, on time and the Stadler train (the one on the left) journey was seamless and comfortable. The train fare cost £19.80 and I got in 57 minutes late, so I’ve put in a delay repay request to Northern Railways for £9.90. I’m not sure how this will work out as they don’t seem to think they operate a 19:27 service, as it didn’t come up on the on-line form. We shall see, but all told, the rail network did come together nicely and there was not one single moment where I was doubting whether I’d get home somehow, even if it was a taxi.

October 29, 2019
Peterborough – LNER’s Luxury Seating

I can’t help but think that perhaps LNER, the operators of Peterborough railway station, could invest in seating that was just a little more comfortable.

And, LNER’s frugality with seating has meant they’ve had to put a sign up warning parents to look after their children when using the luxury seats. I assume this is because children quite often fall off the bloody things. Travel in luxury with LNER….

October 23, 2019
Peterborough – Railway Station and LNER

It’s not very high on the list of things to worry about in the UK, but I was just thinking what a poorly operated railway station Peterborough is in numerous ways. Although I don’t need to charge any devices, I’m not sure shoving power points up the wall and forcing customers to pay to use the charger is particularly good customer service.

I was getting ready to write an e-mail of complaint to Greater Anglia but I’ve remembered that this isn’t one of their stations, it’s LNER. So not much point bothering to write to them. But it makes me wonder whether Greater Anglia should be given the railway station to manage, since they’ve been steadily improving facilities in tens of other stations in other parts of East Anglia. Including lots of new waiting rooms with power points included, and not stuck half way up the wall.

December 20, 2018