The Anonymous Widower

The Little Trains are Popular

At least something is booming amongst all the gloom. According to this report, all the small branch lines are popular and are showing substantial increases in traffic.

And it’s not just the traditional branch lines.  Recently, I’ve travelled a couple of times on the secondary line between Cambridge and Ipswich.  It used to have some of the worst rolling stock in Europe. Now it has much newer and larger, Class 170 trains, and traffic is rising fast. The newer trains are typically ten years old, but this is nothing compared to some of the rubbish, like Pacers, operating in parts of the UK.

Obviously, there is a need for more and better services on a lot of these lines. Hopefully, this will be rectified in the next few years, as the most suitable trains, the Class 170s are fairly numerous and a lot are used for fairly long distance services, where longer and larger trains are needed.  So the new trains would go to these services and the current units would be relocated. But remember a new carriage costs the best part of a million pounds, although in this country, we are very good at rebuilding old ones to a modern standard.

August 19, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Cambridge, Ipswich, Trains