If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
The WCML seems to be constantly full ime. Travelling back from uni, I would always be on either the London to Glasgow train or the Bournemouth to somewhere in Scotland train between Birmingham and Preston, and it was full or nearly full for the whole of that period no matter the day or time. Incidentally, it might be nice if Manchester was linked by a high speed train service that just stopped at Manchester and maybe Bolton, because it seems to take forever to do that tiny stretch, and it looks like you're doing about 20mph for the whole distance. It would seem logical to me to do London - Birmingham - Manchester - Glasgow in the West, rather than this bizarre system where everything is linked to London, but nothing is linked to each other. I'd have to change trains if I wanted a high speed train between Manchester and Birmingham, or Glasgow and Manchester on that map, which is just stupid, when they're all roughly along the route that you want to go. But that doesn't surprise me. We'll eventually get a high speed rail service, and it won't go anywhere worth going. (ETA: I imagine my plan is geographically flawed, but I don't care).
The main benefit of a high speed train link I think is tourism, which is seen most obviously in Japan and China. You start off in Tokyo, and it's practical to do Kyoto or Osaka in the same holiday. In Britain, you just can't do that, so everyone just stays in and around London. I was actually advising a Japanese person on a trip to Britain, and she said she'd love to go and visit Alnwick Castle (Harry Potter's filmed there), and a few other places, but it just wasn't practical. From a tourism perspective, the fact that the main city is right down the South of the country means that we probably need fact transport links more than countries like Japan where it's in the middle.
We have an energy crisis now ...and a bigger one looming.
We aint even sure we will be able to keep all the lights on much longer.
Where is all this energy going to come from?
This is a prime example actually of how distance travel needs local travel and vice-versa. I would certain estimate that no more than 30-35% of people on a Birmingham - Edinburgh/Glasgow train would be doing a full trip. You are carrying a mass of local passengers, such as Birmingham - Wolverhampton, Stafford - Crewe, Preston - Wigan/Warrington as well as local trips between Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith and Carlisle. The distance element currently can not be sustained on an express journey and local trips suffer as the demand is not significant enough for a frequent service for the short hops!
In this area you are coming from express 110-125mph lines to 60-75mph local lines. This is because of frequent stations and quite a low track speed and these are just the quick neat improvements I have referred to which can improve journey times for long distance and local passengers alike. The same applies with High Speed, if you go on the Eurostar you will crawl in from Ebsfleet and crawl into Paris - you have to slow down and join the standard network at some point!
Your plan isn't flawed at all, the fact is that Cross-country travel is as significant, if not slightly more significant as London based travel. If you want to do Edinburgh - London then its great, if you fancy Carlisle - Newcastle, Leeds - Birmingham or York - Manchester these new plans offer no improvement at all, in fact using this new high speed lines would take longer and take you an extra 200 miles unnecessarily!
High speed rail would make a trip London - Alnwick even worse! Nearest rail station is Alnmouth and station receives a small number of London direct services (4 each way) so you have a direct journey! With a new high speed plan you have to take a HS to potentially Newcastle, a change between stations, and then a local service. You may have a slight journey improvement in terms of time but how much more inconvenient is a cross-terminal change in an unusual city going to be?
Well I think the more common holiday plan would be to use the train to spend a couple of days of your holiday at the other end of the country, and see the sights there. So it wouldn't be a there and back in a day job. It'd be good in Penrith, so that tourists could use it as a base to see the Lake District, for example. And I'm sure other areas could say the same.
In all seriousness if your friend is still considering the trip she should look at getting a BritRail ticket - http://www.britrail.com/.
Cheers, but she came last year. Not really a friend, just someone I was chatting to when I was applying to be a teacher in Japan.
I work in the rail industry and i've never heard of it taking 8 hours to get from liverpool street to anywhere on the east anglian mainline!
The thing that causes problems with things like the overhead wires is wind - excessive wind speeds can bring down the overhead wires or cause damage, which means the next train running along that line might pull down the cables. In some areas where diesel hauled traffic use the same lines as electric trains, it still causes problems, as you have to get diesel loco's to pull the standing trains out of the way.
With regard to your comment about 'bits of bridges' falling down - this is usually caused by road vehicles crashing into railway bridges and then driving off, or becoming stuck. If the bridge has no dispensation, then it is not possible to run trains over it. Would you rather wait on a train for 30 minutes whilst the bridge is inspected, or would you rather the train 'risked' travelling over the bridge, with the possibility that it may collapse?
To be honest, i think many parts of the rail network run brilliantly today. Comments about most trains being delayed etc etc are incorrect. On a daily basis, 90% and more trains run throughout the country - not bad, considering over 6000 trains run daily!
NXEA do a pretty good job - no worse than 'One' when they were in charge and i have to say they are pretty quick at organising road transport etc etc.
People are too quick to see the negatives in something - e.g. the engineering works in the Rugby area over new year and easter. They don't see this slight inconvenience for a few days as improving the rail network for millions of people for the coming years!
Lots of people travelling from rail towns into London slag off the railway. But what they forget, is that without a rail system, they would not be able to get into the city to earn the wage they earn!
I'm not saying everything is rosy on the rails - yes certain things do need to be addressed...i.e. the punctuality of certain TOCs, ensuring engineering items don't over-run too much, better signalling etc etc. But it all costs money.
I've got to say that i personally think companies like Network Rail, dignity, coroners and of course emergency response staff all do excellent work on the rail network - some of which i have seen first hand!
If these rail networks get the go ahead, this will be absolutely brilliant for the country!
what about the cost of the actual train fare?
I don't see the point in building new train lines if the cost of the actual ticket is so expensive.
I can understand that. Tbh if it's an overhead wire wotsit I'm not bothered because I know that that is hardly the fault of the train company.
Actually, it was a new bridge that was being built over the rail tracks just before Liverpool Street. A bit fell off and fucked up the trains for about 3 days.
Every journey I have made with NXEA since they changed from being One Railway has had some problem or other. Bad as they were, I rarely had any problems with One, and I go from Braintree-London or back at least once a week. The only time I had a very bad problem with them was when a train broke down on a Sunday night and it took Rich about 3 hours to get home. On Monday AND this morning, almost every NXEA mainline train (except the Braintree line today, since it goes away from the mainline after Witham) was delayed because of a broken down train. One in Romford on Monday morning and one in Ipswich today. I was sitting in Colchester for 2 hours (waiting for someone who was meant to turn up at 12 and didn't turn up til quarter past 1 :grump: ) and every train was "we apologise for the late running of x service, this is due to a problem with a preceding train". The train to Cambridge was delayed out of Liverpool St because of a "points failure". When I'm paying £12.85 (with a railcard!) for a cheap day single to Colchester, I at least expect my train to leave on time and get there on time (the train actually took longer than it should have today) without breaking down.
What about the engineering works outside Liverpool St at the New Year which overran by nearly a week and have improved a total of fuck all? I'm sure you would like to explain to the thousands of commuters that were affected why their missed meetings were only a slight inconvenience.
And yes, the overrun was only a slight cancellation. There are alternative trains from most of Essex and cambridgeshire and everyone else could use the alternative transport for a few days until things were sorted. The inconvenience was overstated anyway; the engineering works took place at Christmas because most people don't go straight back to work.
If we want a modern railway then unfortunately quite a bit of it needs rebuilding. That means closing lines and stations at weekends and holidays to make it happen. People have a choice but they can't have both.
To be honest, i haven't been watching BBC news - particularly East Anglia...as i don't live there. BBC talk so much crap that i've given up with it.
Plus i wouldn't always believe what other people say when they go on BBC news...people like to somewhat exaggerate to get sympathy!
And they never cancel all the trains...trust me!
I am somewhat aware of the disruption caused by the shifting of the footbridge. It didn't 'fuck up the trains' - it caused some disruption yes. 3 days? No it wasn't - everything was back to normal by 14:00 the following day. It wasn't even 24 hours, the incident happened around 19:20 on one evening and was cleared by 14:00 the following day!Trust me, that is correct.
But, with regard to the footbridge - that wasn't caused by poor engineering or the like - it was caused by the weather, due to the sheer amount of rain falling, the bridge wasn't able to remove the water as quickly as it was coming down, therefore some was retained and the bridge moved slightly due to the weight of the water. For safety purposes, trains were stopped to ensure the bridge did not collapse on a train. Trains were still running to Hackney Downs / Seven Sisters / Tottenham Hale and Stratford, with replacement road transport and LUL/ London Buses accepting tickets into London. I think that's pretty good to be honest!
With regard to the occasional broken down train - apart from the trains 'magically hopping over it', what would you propose to resolve the incident?? I would propose the driver having a look at the train, then calling the driver's helpline to request the attention of the fitters if (electrical) a reboot doesn't solve the problem. Then if still no success after fitters attention, then to get a diesel hauled loco in for assistance. As you can appreciate, all this takes time. Whilst this is ongoing, the TOC are usually sorting out replacement road transport, whereby the trains are diverted to appropriate stations and people are then advised to get the replacement bus, whilst the incident is resolved. They can't just keep running the trains up to the broken down train, as everything would be delayed - therefore, some are cancelled, to ensure the next service can be run on time etc.
Do you see my point about people seeing the negative...? What about all the journeys you have made without incident? Are you not going to comment on the person who was hit by a train at Stratford yesterday? Did that not disrupt your journey in some way?
All engineering works on the railway network are necessary - they don't just do them 'for the sake of it', cos it generally costs hundreds of thousands of pounds!!!!
People think the engineering is just done at inconvenient times - so much of it takes place overnight that people are unaware of - there is so much to be done, it is inevitable that a small amount will over-run, causing inconvenience to some commuters.
The thing is, for that week of inconvenience, millions of people can use the service the other 51 weeks of the year generally without any problems!
You mention your train was delayed today because of a broken down train? I can't see anything on www.nationalrail.co.uk about a broken down train in the Ipswich area - the nearest thing i can see is signalling problems at Ely! They must report all disruptions over 20 minutes, so it should be on there, even on the cleared disruptions!
There are some TOCs with worse performance records than NXEA - a lot worse!
The 0938 Liverpool St-Lowestoft arrived at Liverpool Street at about 5 to 10. The 1000 Liverpool St-Norwich arrived at Liverpool St at just after 10 (it was meant to arrive at 0938, according to the arrivals board). Why would I make up something that isn't true?
Maybe I'm exaggerating slightly, but there was something that messed up the trains for the better part of a week. I don't do it every day, or at peak times, so I don't really know what that something was.
Also, I recall saying that I have never been on an NXEA service that was without incident since they changed hands from One, unless you count the 2 minute I-can't-be-arsed-to-walk-4-miles-to-work Braintree to Braintree Freeport journey that I do on occasion.
ALSO - I'm aware that trains can't jump over broken down trains :yeees:. But considering it happens quite a lot maybe that's a sign to, idk, get some trains that weren't built in the middle ages?
Kermit - actually, pretty much all of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk are served by NXEA. On the little map thing on the trains which shows which companies go where, everything from Norwich downwards is NXEA. Anyone from Braintree, Witham, Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich and everywhere in between is going to be affected by any problems on the main line. Of which there have been a great deal more than there should have been lately.
For example, if you own a car (don't know if you do or not) and the gearbox went, if it was a couple of years old, you wouldn't necessarily buy a new car would you? The same applies to trains, only a higher cost!
Some of them are leased, so the repairs are completed within the cost of the lease, making it more cost effective for the leasing of trains!
Those services you mention may have been delayed due to individual train faults - i can check later this week.
Did you mean the 09:38 Lowestoft to LST? or Lst to Lowestoft? and the 10:00 LST - NRW or NRW - LST?
Have you seen any of the NXEA trains recently? Barely any of them are "relatively new". It may be cheaper in the short term to just keep repairing them but if they then keep breaking down, it is surely cheaper in the long run to buy a new train.
What I dont think has been picked up yet is that NXEA = One, its just a new name, same owner, same staff, some management. Nothing has changed for the train company to be all of a sudden rubbish. Nothing has changed except the name.
I've managed to pull up the incidents and seen the cause for the delays to these two journeys. Closest I can find for the first one is 0642 Great Yarmouth & 0644 Lowestoft to London Liverpool Street. This service had an emergency passenger alarm activation between Diss and Ipswich caused a loss of 12 minutes. No reason given for the alarm (probably whoever did it wouldn't admit it!). As service was then late was routed behind a local service from Ipswich and finally arrived 28 minutes late. 0800 from Norwich to Liverpool Street (forms 1000 out) was stuck behind the Lowestoft train and followed it in. One incident looks to have delayed a lot of trains.
Majority of NXEA's trains were built 1990-1992 or in 2002-2003, they have one of the newest fleets around, certainly compared to most other companies. NXEA's electric trains run an average of 30,000 miles between failures, and this includes very minor faults that doesnt result in a train being taken out of service. Most cars probably couldn't manage that. This trains really are well well worked, most of NXEC's HST's (which run to Aberdeen/Inverness etc) will cover over 1,000 miles a day, engines powering for the best part of 20 hours a day, the average for these is about 16,000 miles which is good for a train which works almost constantly. Not many cars could manage that! This is before you count the fact that the majority of problems/failures will result in very little disruption.
Not exclusively though. From Southend and south Essex there's an alternative route into Fenchurch Street. From Cambridge and Hertford there's an alternative route into Kings Cross. From Norwich and Ipswich there's a connection into the First Capital Connect trains from Cambridge.
Most of Essex is also served by express coach into London.
For a couple of days people can work around it, especially in the quietest business week of the year.
Especially as train services terminated at either Tottenham Hale, Seven Sisters or Stratford, which connect directly into the Underground.
Watch this space.
So none of that was the TOC's fault? Just some stupid passenger.
Do you mean UK coal?
I do.
The world is mining and using twice as much coal as it was 25 years ago ...we are sitting on top a mountain of the stuff.
We have been and are ...missing out on billions of quids and loosing the skills.
Coal is making a comeback big time.
Thats not realy true though.
We are capable of extracting coal at a price thats worth it.
All gone very very wrong on the East Coast Mainline tonight. lightning strikes have wiped out signalling equipment in the Bawtry area - some services running between 3 and 4 hours late
Politics.
The Chinese can't get enough of the stuff.
New zealands economy is booming from coal sales to China. Australia are the same.
The UK could be making billions and will ...soon.
When you've taken over?