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Tag: Railways

  • Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

    Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

    I’m used to the journey from Norwich to London Liverpool Street, but it’s rare for me to be getting the 07:00 train as that’s normally an expensive commuter service. Today though, it was £12.50 which I thought was reasonable all things considered (namely how expensive some other Greater Anglia services are which are of a much shorter destination).

    Norwich railway station wasn’t packed with people, but there were a few services about to leave, including the service to Liverpool Lime Street, so it wasn’t entirely quiet.

    Here’s the London thunderbolt that would hopefully get me into the city at 08:51. I boarded and had a carriage to myself, which was rather lovely. I then had a woman come up to me and she said that I looked strong (can’t fault her logic there) and could I open her bottle of water for her. This sort of scenario isn’t ideal, as if I can’t open it then I look ridiculous. Fortunately, I gave the impression of huge strength since I opened the bottle immediately. That’s a decent start to a journey.

    What wasn’t a decent start was seeing that the train was marked as delayed, with no announcements made about it. I’m not sure what caused this, as the signs soon lost their delayed status and the train was ready to rock and roll at 07:00 as expected. The announcements made by the staff were all friendly and informative, with a guard checking tickets. This process didn’t exactly take him long and to my slight disappointment (as I like watching drama unfold) everyone seemed to have a valid ticket.

    Here’s the packed carriage. I also managed to sit at the only block of seats on the train that didn’t have working power, so had to move to the seats opposite. This wasn’t the only technical problem on board, as the shutter at the cafe had broken and jammed, so the staff had to walk up and down the train with the trolley. The service though arrived into London on time, so no complaints there. It didn’t get much busier either, just a handful of people on the entire train.

    This is London Liverpool Street at commuter time, but on a morning between Christmas and New Year’s Day, which is perhaps never going to be packed with hordes of travellers. Nonetheless, it was still quieter than I expected.

    And outside London Liverpool Street station, with a calmness in the air.

  • Northern Rail and LNER : Keighley to London King’s Cross

    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.

  • London – Bromley (Borough of) – Bromley North Branch Line

    London – Bromley (Borough of) – Bromley North Branch Line

    The lighting in this photo isn’t at all ideal, but I couldn’t use the night mode as this takes a few seconds of keeping the phone still and people kept walking in front of me. There are better day-time photos available on-line anyway…… I went on a little visit to Bromley to have a look at this slightly odd branch line, which goes to just three stations.

    And here is this quirky section of line, comprising the three stations of Grove Park, Sundridge Park and Bromley North.

    From Openstreetmap the branch line is clearly visible, coming off the South Eastern Main Line.

    The main part of the station building was closed, so the line could only be accessed by walking around the side. I poked my camera through the gates to take a photo of the concourse area that passengers couldn’t access. There was a sad event in April 1920, when a couple abandoned a four-week old baby on the train from Charing Cross railway station and the child was discovered here and taken to the waiting room, before the police later took the poor young soul to Bromley Infirmary. The newspaper noted that the child was left in the second-class section of the train….

    This area hasn’t much changed since the railway station was built in 1878, the odd set-up is historic and not because the line has been cut off during its history.

    The platforms at Bromley North railway station, with the station being extensively remodelled in the mid-1920s, which annoyed the dozen tradesmen who had premises at the station and were given notice to leave in 1924. The Southern Railway Company were displeased to discover in 1939 that their leading parcel porter and a colleague at the station had been on the steal for some time, primarily pinching clothes. The police investigated the two men responsible, Frederick William Smart (aged 52) and Sidney White (aged 40 and no relation) and they were sentenced to six months in prison.

    And the train coming in, with another not very clear photo…..

    The train just goes up and down the branch line, it’s not particularly decadent, but it is perfectly functional.

    And here we are ten minutes later at Grove Park, where there are direct trains into London. When the station was built, there were direct trains to London from these branch line stations, but they became peak-only in 1976 and they were then entirely withdrawn in 1990.

    These are the main lines into London, the branch line is at the rear of the photo and can be accessed by going over that bridge.

    The railway set-up is the same today as it was 100 years ago when the map was produced, but the entire area is now surrounded by housing.

    There has been some debate as to whether more can be done with this line, but there’s a limited capacity on the mainline which means that there aren’t really that many options available. For the moment this little set-up remains as a slight oddity and I can’t imagine this arrangement makes much money for the rail company, especially given the alternative bus alternatives that are available, and that there’s another railway station in Bromley. However, I’m glad it’s all still here (although surprised that it wasn’t closed down in the 1960s or 1970s), it felt just slightly quirky….

  • West Yorkshire Day Ranger – Bradford, Halifax, Brighouse, Hebden Bridge, Sowerby Bridge

    West Yorkshire Day Ranger – Bradford, Halifax, Brighouse, Hebden Bridge, Sowerby Bridge

    There’s a handy rail rover ticket called the West Yorkshire Train DaySaver which costs £8.30 for the day and allows travel in Zones 1 to 5 of the above map, which is the area covered by West Yorkshire. On weekends, the ticket can be used at any time, but on weekdays it can only be used after 09:30 and not between 16:00 and 18:30. Nonetheless, it seemed a way of seeing a few towns in the area.

    Waiting for my first train at Bradford Interchange, which is also the railway station where I purchased my ticket from. I think that the tickets have to be purchased from the ticket office, or from guards on board when there isn’t a ticket office.

    Most of the services were run by Northern, although they’re also valid on East Midlands Railway, LNER, TransPennine Express and CrossCountry in the area.

    My first visit of the day was to Halifax, not somewhere that I’ve been before.

    This is the town’s new library, merging together a church and a more modern construction. Obviously this brilliant new library which has come at vast expense was shut for the day. £9 million this cost and it’s not open on some weekdays. Apparently they’re planning to improve opening times soon, which would be rather useful…..

    The town’s Minster, which was shut.

    Wetherspoons was open, so I popped in there.

    There we go, a quick half pint of the Chapter 4 – 24 Carrot from Fuggle Bunny brewery, perfectly acceptable…. Unfortunately, there was a limited opening of any decent pubs in town until later on during the day, leaving me opportunity to visit the other Wetherspoons in the town, the Barum Top Inn.

    I didn’t expect anything like this when I walked through the gates, the enormously impressive Piece Hall, the sole surviving cloth hall in the north of the country. It opened in 1779 when there were 315 separate rooms for smaller traders to sell their wares. It has recently been restored and the nineteenth century sheds shoved in the middle have all been removed.

    One of the gates into the Piece Hall.

    Then onto the train to the Richard Oastler pub in Brighouse which is located in a former Methodist chapel.

    And lunch in that pub, from JD Wetherspoon’s new chicken menu that is still just in trial pubs, but is being launched nationally from next week. As an aside, that means they’re bringing back half chickens, which they ditched a few years ago.

    The delights of Brighouse.

    And another train, this time taking me to Sowerby Bridge.

    A nicely looked after station, with plenty of history boards as well.

    I visited a few pubs here, the Hogs Head, the Commercial Inn and the Hollins Mill.

    I had to stay in Sowerby Bridge until 18:30 due to the restrictions on the train ticket, by which time it was starting to get dark. I’m not sure why I wrote that last bit, it’s self-evident from the photo. But there we go….

    I had a quick visit to Vocation’s pub.

    Then waiting for the train back to Bradford, although I stopped off at Halifax to visit the Victorian Craft Beer Cafe. This was my favourite train journey of the day as a customer complained that the toilet was still occupied. The guard stood outside the toilet looking annoyed, banging on the door loudly saying “there are other customers who need to use the facility, finish up quickly and get out please”. I love the direct approach that was suitably passive aggressive. An embarrassed young woman emerged a couple of minutes later, much to the relief of other waiting passengers. This is a tricky situation though, it might be that there was a hidden disability and the lady needed the time, but it did present some drama for me between Hebden Bridge and Halifax.

    Anyway, I thought that the ticket was good value for money and it let me see a few towns that I might not otherwise have done so. The ticket was a bit restrictive that it couldn’t be used in the evening rush hour, but I didn’t have any issues with using it. Northern seem to have very regular ticket checks, so I must have shown my ticket around ten times during the time, but it’s good to be on top of that I guess. All of the trains I boarded were relatively quiet, so this is a good way of selling what would otherwise be empty inventory. Other than for a very short delays, everything ran to schedule as well and I was back into Bradford before the trains stopped running….

  • Northern Rail + TransPennine Express : Dodworth to Bingley

    Northern Rail + TransPennine Express : Dodworth to Bingley

    Today’s rail meander was from Dodworth to Bingley, a journey that required three trains to complete. Part of the reason, or indeed nearly all of it, that I write these railway posts up is to try and remind me of the routes that I’ve taken, and also to remember which rail companies have annoyed me.

    There were two ways of making this journey, one was to go into Barnsley and then up to Leeds, but on my previous journeys that line is crowded and I was hoping for a more peaceful journey where I could actually sit down.

    Which gave me the journey plan of:

    09:09 – 09:50 : Dodworth to Huddersfield (Northern Rail)

    10:12 – 10:31 : Huddersfield to Leeds (TransPennine Express)

    10:49 – 11:07 : Leeds to Bingley (Northern Rail)

    That meant that the bulk of the journey was on the first train, which I didn’t expect to be that busy.

    Dodworth railway station, a single track arrangement which is on the Penistone Line. The railway station was closed in 1959, but was re-opened in 1989 and seems to be reasonably well used.

    The two-carriage Northern Rail train meandering into the railway station.

    My guess that it wouldn’t be that busy was correct, I had a bank of the far too small seating to myself. It did get a bit busier as we approached Huddersfield, but nothing chaotic. There was a ticket check on the journey, unlike when I got the train the other way a few days ago.

    Back into Huddersfield railway station again, the one that is likely to be entirely rebuilt over the next few years.

    The second train pulled in early which slightly surprised me. I was standing on the other platform investigating something else, so it’s not an ideal photo. The train was three carriages and was busy with only a few seats not having reserved cards on the seats, although I was able to get one of them. No ticket check on this train, which goes to the beautiful city of Hull, but there were power sockets which were handy.

    Back into railway station at Leeds for what feels like the 30th time this year. There were some problems with football supporters yelling something that the police were heading to look at, but I have no idea what football team they were supporting as Leeds weren’t playing today.

    The third train was a bit broken and for a few seconds it was marked as cancelled, before being changed to delayed and then the doors opened. A staff member kept looking at the train and seemed pleased with something, but there was another option to get to Bingley a few minutes later if this train to Carlisle would have been cancelled. The train journey was moderately busy, but I was able to get a seat and there was a friendly guard doing ticket checks.

    And safely into Bingley, I think one minute late, so a very efficient set of journeys. Although the lack of delay meant that there was no chance of claiming Delay Repay, but I can’t always win on that one.

    And here we are…..

  • Northern Trains : Huddersfield to Barnsley

    Northern Trains : Huddersfield to Barnsley

    My time in Huddersfield was up, so I waved farewell to Harold Wilson and went into the railway station, slightly saddened that I was leaving too early to pop into the King’s Head or the Head of Steam (both pubs at the railway station) for one more quick visit. This rail journey cost just over £8, which was relatively high for a direct train journey of under one hour, based on prices that I’ve been paying recently. The anytime single meant that I could break my journey anywhere along the route, although nowhere initially sprang to my mind. I only realised too late that I could have got off at a stop near Holmfirth and walked there, but I’ll remember that for another occasion.

    Huddersfield railway station is probably going to be knocked down soon, or at least this rickety old bit at the back is. The frontage of the railway station is one of the finest in the country from the Victorian period when it was constructed, but everything else is tired, inefficient and in need of replacement. The matter is currently with Grant Shapps, which doesn’t entirely fill me with confidence, but perhaps that’s being unfair.

    This is platform 2, which it took me a little while to find. It’s illogically numbered due to historic reasons, but it’s actually the platform nearest to the station building, even though logically that should be platform 1 (which is behind it in the above photo).

    The service operates on the Penistone Line, which opened in 1850 and meanders through some fairly small settlements before going through Barnsley and onto Sheffield. There’s apparently a real ale trail which often takes place along the line, which sounds rather lovely (although probably isn’t, it’s probably packed with people feeling ill, but I digress).

    The situation I found myself in was a little odd. The train from Sheffield rolled in and it’s the only service that departs from Platform 2, so it was clearly the train going back again to Sheffield. The driver left the doors open and popped into the railway station building, so I assumed that everyone waiting would get on. They didn’t. I faffed about a bit on the platform looking awkward and confused, before deciding that I’d be brave and climb on board. I was half expecting the damn train thing to drive off and end up at Torquay or something if I’m being honest. One person followed me on, also looking confused. The driver came back a few minutes later and a customer asked him if they could board. He also looked confused, as if permission was needed to get on a train which had the doors open. Perhaps they’re just very polite people in Huddersfield…..

    Also, the seating set-up is completely pointless (not that I want to start moaning about something else), as three people don’t fit sitting side by side on those seats (well, usually don’t). They’d be far better off converting those to the same as most other rail companies, two seats one side of the aisle and two seats the other side. Anyway, the train service wasn’t that busy, so I didn’t have a problem getting a block of seats to myself.

    It’s not going to win any photography awards, but there were some scenic landscapes, and a fair few tunnels, along the journey. The guard seemed helpful, but there was no checking of tickets going on at any stage. They must be trusting folk.

    Arriving on time into Barnsley.

    This is Barnsley Interchange railway station, constructed a few years ago to try and merge the town’s rail and bus operations. What it meant for me was the chance to explore Barnsley, a town that I’ve never been to before. As an aside, I kept hearing Michael Parkinson’s voice in my mind (not all day, just occasionally, I’m not yet entirely losing the plot) who is the most famous Barnsley resident that I know. I don’t know many others, just Arthur Scargill and Dickie Bird, who statue I might go and have a little look at. Anyway, I digress.

  • Northern Trains + TransPennine Express : Shipley to Huddersfield

    Northern Trains + TransPennine Express : Shipley to Huddersfield

    My rail journey today was from Shipley to Huddersfield, which isn’t an expensive one, coming in at £6.50 for the two services, a Northern Rail from Shipley to Leeds and a TransPennine Express from Leeds to Huddersfield.

    It takes a little bit of working out to find the appropriate platform at Shipley railway station.

    Wikipedia tells me that there are only two triangular railway stations left in the country, this one and Earlestown on Merseyside. I’m not entirely sure how interesting a fact that is, but there we go.

    That’s how the situation evolved.

    A handy little waiting room.

    The Northern train which had come from Skipton, with Shipley being the final stop before Leeds. This is a horrible train (or the interior, the actual train is fine), the seating isn’t large enough, but more about that another time when I get around to writing about when I went from Leicester to Bradford (when I took photos). It’s really not a good look for a rail company, and the Government managed Northern Trains (no longer Northern Rail, just to confuse things) would do well to just take half the seats out and dump them in a heap somewhere, as a large number of seats are unuseable with the current set-up. Anyway, I digress and it didn’t much matter as I found a seat at the end of the carriage.

    Here we are in Leeds.

    There’s the TransPennine Express service from Leeds to Manchester, which was operating at well over its seating capacity, meaning standing room only. As the journey from Leeds to Huddersfield is only 17 minutes, I decided just to stand near to the end of the carriage, but I felt sorry for those unable to be seated who were going all the way to Manchester. There was a friendly guy who was passing around sweets (which were sealed) to customers in his vicinity, which I don’t think was a mass poisoning exercise (can’t be too careful). I hope not anyway, I had a Wispa.

    And safely into Huddersfield, with hoards more people trying to get on (mostly not in the photo). This is clearly a heavily congested route, I’m not sure if there are usually this many problems with a lack of seating. Customers would have got away without paying for a ticket though on this route, there were no ticket checks and there are no barriers at Shipley and the barriers at Huddersfield weren’t in operation.

    The exterior of Huddersfield railway station, and a statue of the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

    As for this journey, convenient and on-time as it was, it’s not an ideal set-up from the rail companies who seem to be struggling to deal with the number of passengers wanting to use their services. Time perhaps for the Government to speed up more investment in the rail network to get more services running. Anyway, I digress….

  • LNER : York to London King’s Cross

    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.

  • Avanti West Coast : Birmingham New Street to Coventry

    Avanti West Coast : Birmingham New Street to Coventry

    Birmingham New Street is a delightful new and bright railway station, but the platforms under it weren’t modernised as part of the new structure. It seems a little unusual to go from a beautiful building which is modern and flooded in light, to the dingy platforms underneath. It reminds me slightly of Penn Station in New York, with the platform section being totally different to what is above (in that case because they demolished the beautiful building above the platforms).

    Here’s the Avanti train, not really looking the most beautiful in terms of its design, although apparently a number of their trains are currently receiving makeovers and so perhaps this one will soon receive the same modernisation.

    I had booked my train about twenty minutes before the trip using GWR (to get a few Nectar points) and it cost £4.90 to get from Birmingham to Coventry. Seat reservations are required and I was in Carriage F, although it transpired to not really be very busy on-board. The above set-up really doesn’t help customers find their carriage if they’re labelling them G and then U. The announcements made clear that customers need no longer wear masks, although they were welcome to if they wanted, which makes me confused as to what the rules actually are now as they seem to differ between rail companies. Customers were though asked not to sit in the aisle seats to help protect staff, although that request seemed to be widely ignored.

    The carriage, all clean and bright, although I couldn’t find any at-seat power (not that I actually needed any given that the journey was only twenty minutes). These are the old Virgin trains from when they operated the West Coast mainline franchise from 1997 to 2019, but Avanti will only hold the new franchise until 2026 due to changes to the way that the rail system will operate in the future (I suspect for the worse, but that’s a discussion for elsewhere).

    And safely into Coventry on time.

    I thought that this was all rather positive, they’re building a new station complex. The current railway station isn’t really very nice, it’s a bit tired and was in need of a modernisation. It was built in the 1960s after the previous perfectly adequate building was demolished, a sad loss for the city. As part of the integrated public transport strategy, buses and trains will now connect together at the new railway station building.

    Which all means that I’m safely in Coventry and this new development gives a much better first impression to the city than it used to.

  • 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.