The North Norfolk Railway
The North Norfolk Railway runs from Sheringham to Holt and is connected by a short stretch of line to the Bittern Line at Sheringham.
As the pictures show, they were showing off their Stanier Class 5 named George Stephenson.
One of the most interesting developments in rail in this area is the proposal for the Norfolk Orbital Railway, which would extend the route of the North Norfolk Railway onwards from Holt to the Ely to Norwich Line at Wymondham.
I do think sometimes, that if Doctor Beeching had seen the society we have today, he would have come to some different conclusions on the lines to be closed down. Sometimes though, as with the Varsity Line and the lines around Kings Lynn, he was for keeping lines open, but British Rail managers and politicians thought otherwise.
I have no view about whether the Norfolk Orbital Railway should be built, as I’m not privy to the true economics of the reinstatement. The railway does have a web site.
On the other hand if it was built my ranging around Norfolk and Suffolk could have been completed by going from Sheringham to Wymnondham, to get a train to Cambridge for return to London.
If we assume that the big drivers of the East Anglian economy in the next decades are going to be high technology and tourism, the pendulum must be swinging towards building the Norfolk Orbital Railway.
Sheringham
I spent an hour or so in Sheringham, but sadly I didn’t find anywhere suitable for lunch.
I was too late for lunch and too early for supper, so I just had half a pint of Aspall’s cyder and walked back up the hill to get the train back. I could have got plenty of unhealthy food and judging by the size of many of the visitors, there was an answer to “Who ate all the pies?”
It was a lovely day as the pictures show, but quite a few cafes and restaurants were closed.
It is also a town, crying out for the main street to be pedestrianised, as the traffic and the pavements crowded with the obese made walking up and down to the beach a real obstacle course.
Ranging Around Suffolk And Norfolk
I took the 09:30 Mark 3 express out of Liverpool Street station to Ipswich, buying a Day Ranger ticket for East Anglia north of Ipswich and Cambridge on the way from the conductor on the train for £11.40.
I hadn’t really decided on a route, but I started by taking the single coach Class 153 to Felixstowe and back.
The service between Ipswich and Felixstowe is now nearly twenty trains each way in the day and it seems to be more reliable since the Bacon Factory Curve has opened, which means that the service doesn’t have to thread its way through freight movements in Ipswich yard. Hopefully incidents like the one I suffered here, will happen less often.
When I lived in the town in the early 1960s, there were just a handful of services each way. It did wonders for a teenager’s social life when you didn’t have a car. The train I took wasn’t full, but it was pretty busy, with lots of families and tourists with buggies and bikes.
I wonder how long it will be, before the Felixstowe branch will be generating enough traffic for a two-car train? As it is, because of the length of the line, where a journey takes just twenty-five minutes or so, it means that an hourly service can be achieved with just one train.
There have been calls to reopen Felixstowe Beach station, but this simple schedule would be broken and two trains and some clever train operating would be required. So I’d be surprised, if it ever opened. It would probably be a lot cheaper to fund a bus, that met the train and distributed and collected the passengers all over Felixstowe.
The only way it will open, is if they electrify the line and the Port of Felixstowe encourages staff to come to work by train to a rebuilt Felixstowe Beach/Port station. But again, a bus from Felixstowe station would probably be better and more affordable.
Unfortunately, from Felixstowe I had to return to Ipswich to get the train to Lowestoft, as there is no easy train connection at Westerfield any more between the Lowestoft and Felixstowe branches .
At Ipswich, I was treated to a passing through of one of Mark 3 expresses in Greater Anglia’s new livery. These coaches just refuse to go quietly.
On the trip to Lowestoft, I used the new disabled toilet, that as I reported had been recently installed in the Class 156. The most remarkable thing about using the toilet was that I didn’t realise it was the new design. It was different and slightly more compact, but you didn’t have to think about how you used the door or the flush. But then that is the test of good design. If your target users don’t immediately know how to use something, then it is a bad design.
At Lowestoft I walked across the platforms to take another Class 156 on the Wherry Line to Norwich, where I stayed on the train to take the Bittern Line to Sheringham, where I intended to have lunch.
I did make a mistake in that my train back from Sheringham to Norwich, didn’t connect with a direct Cambridge train, as many do. So I had to go to Ely on a Nottingham service, before buying a ticket from there to London on First Capital Connect. My Ranger ticket covered the journey to Ely and I spent another £12.50 to get home.
Greater Anglia’s scheduling of the trains I took was excellent, as I didn’t wait more than a few minutes at either change of train or service. Looking at the timetables, it would appear that some journeys like say Beccles to Sheringham use these quick changes to minimise journey times. With a few more trains, it might even be possible to tie all these services together on an hourly basis. After all, if you knew that if you turned up at Lowestoft, Ipswich or Norwich and that in a few minutes your next train would be leaving, it would be a great incentive to travel by train.
Judging by the people, I saw on these busy trains, Greater Anglia will find that their services around Norfolk and Suffolk will see an increasing patronage.
The Best Packaged Sandwich I’ve Ever Eaten
It may be only a Marks and Spencer egg and watercress sandwich made with gluten-free bread, but in my nearly sixty-seven years I can’t remember a sandwich from a packet that tasted so good.
The Best Packaged Sandwich I’ve Ever Eaten
The bread was just right and the filling complimented it well. The only problem, as ever with this type of sandwich was opening it with my gammy hand.
I shall be eating a lot more, if they’re always this good.
Could Marks and Spencer have an agenda here?
If they made all their gluten-free sandwiches so good, would this increase sales at the expense of gluten-rich ones? So would this allow them to make all of their luxury and expensive sandwiches gluten-free, so that they can cut the cost of manufacture and only have one range!
I doubt it, but they are so good, you start thinking of ulterior reasons for the quality.
My Musical Taste
As a teenager growing up in North London in the 1960s, I saw a lot of the bands of the time. I saw the Stones, the Animals, Adam Faith and quite a few others at the Regal Cinema in Edmonton.
We also mounted a school outing in 1974 to see the Beatles, supported by the Yardbird, at Hammersmith Odeon.
At Liverpool in the 1960s, the University always had the best bands and I saw such as the Who, Manfred Mann, John Mayall and many others on Saturday nights at the Mountford Hall in the Student Guild.
At that time, I also went to various concerts in London and saw Eric Clapton with John Mayall at the Manor House, with to say he got paralytic would be a severe understatement. I was also at Cook’s Ferry Inn, when the Animals tried out the possible replacements for Alan Price.
My going to concerts stopped around the late 1960s, as I was married and as our children were born in 1969, 1970 and 1972, we went out less and less.
It was about that time, that I discovered Dory Previn, for whom I have had an admiration ever since. I actually saw her in concert at the Donmar Warehouse sometime in the 1980s.
It is true to say that Liverpool, the 1960s and Dory Previn defined by musical taste.
I have only ever been to the occasional classical concert over the years, although C and I did go concerts featuring such as Cleo Laine. But she wasn’t a great concert goer either. In her last years, she did listen to classical music in her car.
I have never listened to music, whilst I work, usually I’ll be watching sport on television, or listening to it on the radio. If it’s not sport, it’s either news or a documentary. I make it a point not to watch any drama series these days, although, I’ll go and watch a film or a play. But I never watch films on television or at home.
Now, I don’t even have a DVD player. And I’m not even sure where the DVDs are!
The only concert I’ve been to, since I moved to London, was to see Kate Dimbleby sing Dory Previn, although I did see the Glasgow Citizens Theatre production of Backbeat.
Where music is concerned, I’m probably a lost cause.
The Anonymous Widower 