The Bacon Factory Curve Opens
The BBC are reporting that the Bacon Factory Curve or the Ipswich Chord to give it its official name, is now open. Here’s the summary.
A new £59m railway giving the Port of Felixstowe a direct link to the Midlands is opening to freight.
Until now freight trains have had to travel in to Ipswich and then out again, adding a hour to journeys.
Hopefully, this small piece of track will improve timekeeping of trains that pass through or by the junction.
As I first posted about this curve in February 2013, construction has been pretty fast.
Have the government and Network Rail decided that lots of small projects can improve the efficiency of the railway significantly?
The Lack Of Left-Luggage Facilities
On the 26th of April, Ipswich are playing in Burnley, and I shall be going.
Unfortunately, the match is on Sky and starts at 12:15, which means taking the 08:30 train to Preston out of Euston, where I change for Burnley.
It is not a difficult journey and I’ve done it before.
However, this time, I think it might be a good idea to go on holiday the next week and there is an ideal flight out of Liverpool to Gdansk on the Saturday evening.
So as it is easy to get to Liverpool Airport from Burnley, via Preston, it would be ideal.
But what do I do with my case for the holiday?
Preston is a major train interchange, but in common with most mid-sized stations in the UK, it doesn’t have any left luggage facilities.
So if I do decide to go on holiday that week, I’ll have to come home to get my case and use a more expensive flight, than the good value one out of Liverpool.
It strikes me that there is an opportunity for someone to create a nationwide system to handle left luggage.
The Anonymous Widower 