Originally posted by ursus arctos
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Catchy tune too... -
With a bit of ultra culture . . .Comment
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Shuffling round of First Group MDs today. Andy Mellors at SWR has been moved to Hull Trains, he is being replaced by Mark Hopwood from GWR, with Matthew Golton stepping up at GWR.
looks to be as a result of continuing poor performance at SWR, and the impasse with the unions there.Comment
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First sending the SWR franchise hurtling off a cliff has made me do the previously unthinkable - thinking fondly of Stagecoach (whose tenure looking after it when it was SWT now looks like a golden age by comparison).Comment
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TFL Rail trains (which is to say the future Crossrail/Elizabeth Line rolling stock) now running to Reading. In other words, if you squint, Reading is now on the Tube network.Comment
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Just hook it straight to my veinsComment
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There are loads of problems on the East Coast line this evening with overhead wires, signalling and level crossing failures. Lots of cancellations and we're over an hour late heading to Edinburgh from Newcastle. Annoyingly it was meant to be my first taste of an Azuma, but a different train showed up instead.
Meanwhile, East Anglia is seeing a large chunk of it's local network halted by major signal failures again. This has happened several times in the last fortnight and caused chaos with multiple cancellations. It's making me twitchy for my trip down there on Christmas Eve.Comment
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Nearly two hours late now and counting. East Coast line reduced to single track near Edinburgh due to the power line failure. Very very bored.Comment
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I've been out in Durham City today and got to Durham station at 20.48 to get a train back to Teesside. Kings Cross train due at 21.29. Got off at Darlo 21.4?. Next train to Middlesbrough at 22.40. We're talking a distance of 20 miles. Fucking fourth world bollocks.Comment
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Worse, this train is full of young people having fun.Comment
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'Vapin', yer a child.'Comment
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For the last few weeks, the trains have been an absolute shambles in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire due to various issues since Greater Anglia brought in a new fleet of trains.
Firstly, some of the new trains aren't compatible with the signalling system. Secondly, there hasn't been enough time to train the new drivers on the new fleet. Thirdly, the old stock can't be used instead as it has apparently already been disposed of.
Worse still, a fair chunk of these cancellations keep happening at very short notice, so it is very difficult to plan local journeys too far in advance. My partner has had numerous issues getting to and from her mum's house in March while my sister had to abandon a trip to Cromer because of endless delays on the way. I've dodged cancellations on the Great Yarmouth line near my parent's house, but this track has been a bit more unscathed than the rest.
The bus replacement services are either very unclear or non existent. Throw in lots of staff shortages/illnesses too and it's a mess.
Late edit - forgot to add in engineering works too.Last edited by Arturo; 30-12-2019, 08:48.Comment
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Sounds like Northern 12 months ago.Comment
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I hope not. GA keep stating the problems will be solved "very soon" but we're several weeks in now with little progress so far.Comment
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On a couple of occaaions that I've used trains between Newcastle and Middlesbrough, I've been surprised how long and fiddly the journey is, given that they are two of the biggest places in the region.Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
It's all about Boro not being on the main LNER line I suppose. Getting from Bury St Edmunds to Norwich is a very similar example of this in Norfolk and Suffolk, but not as bad as Bury to Ely where it's only a 30 minute journey but with one train every two hours.Comment
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So from my parent's village this morning, there are already four Greater Anglia cancellations and numerous delays. Given that I have two connections to get to Cambridgeshire, I have no idea if any other trains will be cancelled en route. I'm already an hour behind.Comment
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This (and sw2's original example) shows how out of touch the London-centric government and media are with the rest of the country. During the election there was a lot of coverage around HS2 and improving journey times between Leeds and Manchester, and how each would be a massive boost to the North. Most of the North doesn't give a f*** about business people on expenses getting to London ten minutes quicker, or people in Leeds being able to get to the Manchester Christmas markets five minutes quicker, we'd just like to be able to get around our own patches a bit easier.Originally posted by Arturo View PostComment
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First batch of vouchers have arrived, one single, two open returns on the whole Northern network...plus got emails confirming two more complaints have been processed and further tickets are on the way...Comment
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That doesn’t ring true?Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
There is an hourly pattern of connections from Durham to Middlesbrough that takes less than an hour. XX29 Kings Cross off Durham and into Darlo at xx48 for the xx53 Saltburn which is into Boro at x120.
I’d say an hourly service between two not particularly large places, going on well into the evening, isn’t particularly bad?Comment
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Oh god, this. All people used to hear about in Norwich (and probably still do) was how commuters to London are really hard done by. Never mind the stone age cross country lines towards the midlands or the single track rural lines that have been crying out for improvements for years. Not to mention the poor sods commuting on them.Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
There is finally a direct train to Stansted from Norwich though. Long overdue.Comment
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UK
https://twitter.com/ABCommuters/status/1212807998604746757?s=20https://twitter.com/ABCommuters/status/1212807998604746757?s=20
https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1212659637939572736?s=20https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1212659637939572736?s=20
Germany
https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1212664866001043457?s=20https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1212664866001043457?s=20
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What a load of retweeted bollocks.
DB is financially fucked but can’t be bailed out by the German government. So instead, they have removed VAT payments for passenger rail travel, which most other European countries don’t have anyway.
DB have not passed on any savings on their suburban networks and neither have any of the private commuter operators.
Under duress, they have conceded to do it for some long distance tickets, mainly because open access operators were starting to sniff around, as fares had risen to a level that would have started to make a discount operator competitive.
overall, it’s just a financial bale out for DB from the state.Comment
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Yes the German Government cut VAT on Rail transport. Great idea.
meabwhie certain sectors of the Rail industry in the U.K. charge 300 pounds for a single from Manchester to London. Whilst the freight industry parties like rockstars in coke.
how fucking dare you talk about uncompetitive fares?Comment
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Some points;
1. Show me this £300 single from Manchester to London? Even the most expensive anytime first class ticket is way short of that?
2. ‘Certain sectors of the rail industry in the UK’. There is only one operator who runs between Manchester and London.
3. By far the biggest freight operator on the UK rail network is Deutsche Bahn.
4. I’ve never seen any freight operator party, let alone like rockstars, ‘in’ coke or not. They are grey suited men operating on wafer thin margins.
5. Who knew you had such passionate views about the legitimacy of comment about revenue management thresholds of the mainland European open access, long distance, passenger rail operators.
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