A Strange Station
The train to Norwich stopped at Lakenheath station, which is one of the least-used stations in the UK and is unusual in that it has no weekday services and only one each way on Saturday and three on Sundays. However, there has been a large increase in passengers in recent years, due to the stations proximity to the RSPB at Lakenheath Fen.
There is a big lesson here, in that if you have a special interest site, that can generate significant traffic, then it is perhaps worth researching whether a station could be provided. In my travels around the UK, one example that suggests itself would be to have a station close to the retail park, which is near to where Scunthorpe United play. There are also serious plans for a station at the Ricoh Arena, where Coventry City play.
To Norwich in the Snow
The train from Dullingham to Cambridge was a few minutes late but for once in the last few weeks, it was actually two coaches, so it was fairly comfortable. The Cambridge to Norwich train was a three coach, Class 170. It has been promised that the two coach version of this train will be used on the Ipswich Cambridge line after December 12th. But hopefully, I’ll have moved before I need to use one.
The train sped through the snow, as this picture shows.
Through the Snow to Norwich
It reminds me off the old joke about the old lady who’d been on a train journey on a very snowy day and asked the conductor, “How does the driver know where he’s going, when he can’t see the rails.”
Norwich incidentally, is the only town in East Anglia with a proper railway station, with enough platforms laid out so that trains can be despatched efficiently.
Inside Norwich Station
But is it not to be expected that East Anglia, the forgotten part of the UK, has such awful stations, as there are always more important places to buy votes, especially when Labour is in power. Norwich station seems to have slipped through the financial net or it could be that it is East Anglia’s only terminal station and was built properly in the first place.
But think of the others.
Bury St. Edmunds is best described as a building in keeping with the ruins of the Abbey.
Cambridge is effectively one long platform, which is the third longest in England, where trains are shunted, coupled and decoupled to try to run an effcient service. At least it is going to be upgraded with a new long platform. Hopefully, this will allow, Ipswich, Norwich and services to and past Peterborough to be expanded.
Ely is a busy junction station that works, but it is not the best place to connect between north-south and east-west services. It could do with a proper bridge and/or lifts so that passengers can transfer easier and a lot more car parking.
Felixstowe is a halt in the car park of a shopping centre.
Great Yarmouth is a low cost industrial building with a few facilities.
Ipswich is really a two platform halt on the main London to Norwich line, with additional platforms for the branches tucked along the sides.
Newmarket is a single platform with a shelter
Off to Norwich This Morning
I’ve just ordered the taxi to take me to the station to get my train to Cambridge. The weather doesn’t seem too bad, but it’s a bit cold. To say the least. The train was also on time at Ipswich and is just approaching Needham Market.
Here’s hoping it all goes well!
The London Transport Lost Property Office.
After lunch yesterday, my friend needed to go to the Lost Property Office to collect a bag, that her husband had left in a black cab a couple of weeks ago.
I’d lost something myself years ago, and then it was very much the haunt of the jobsworths!
But yesterday it was a totally different experience and after paying a reward for the taxi driver, the bag was efficiently and politely retrieved.
It all went to show that putting in a good and well-thought out system can bring significant benefits to both your company and your customers.
Cambridge Ipswich Trains
At last something is being done, but it will be too late for me!
From December 10th, there will be modern two coach, Class 170 trains, with extra services at night.
But last night it was cramped as the 18:43 out of Cambridge didn’t run due a train failure and the 19:43 was just one of the awful single carriage Class 153 trains, which struggled to accomodate all of the passengers.
A Crowded Cambrdge Ipswich Train
The picture shows just how bad it was. It was lucky, as I only had two stations to go.
Roll on December the 10th!
A Very Much Better Day!
I should say I had a very good day yesterday, as although I had a slight problem caused by my stroke on Monday, the Keppra that the doctors have put me on have made my life infinitely better. I met an old friend in Hampstead and we had a good lunch. I then spent an hour or so walking round the shops and I have found that my gammy left hand and my eyesight are both almost back to normal. Just typing this is very easy, but for the last few months, it has required endless corrections. So I did make three, but two weeks ago, I’d have made 33!
I caught the six forty-four home and even got a seat from Royston!
40 Out and 34 In!
Changing trains at Ipswich gave me a chance to see how rail freight works at first hand.
I have commented before about how the amount of container traffic on the A14 appears to have dropped. The reverse seemed to have happened at Ipswich, where within minutes a 40 box train went towards London and a 34-box train went the other way towards Felixstowe. When I used to catch trains to London from Ipswich, you might see the odd small train, but not ones as large as these.
There was also a lot of shunting about going on at in the sidings towards Norwich, as engines attached themselves to the other end of the train to get to and from the Felixstowe branch. All this will be a thing of the past, when the Bacon Factory Curve is built to take trains directly between Stowmarket and Felixstowe.
The engine sidings by the station, were also full of Class 66, 70 and 90 locomotives waiting for trains.
I do think this is all moving in the right direction.
Where is the Camping Coach?
One thing I always remember about Felixstowe station in the 1960s was the camping coach. This was not someone, who taught Larry Grayson or Kennethy Williams how to act, but a real railway carriage converted for camping.
Suffice to say, it’s not there now!
But I think you can stay in some at Petworth.
A First Train Trip to and from Felixstowe
Despite living in the town for some years in the early 1960s, I think today was my first trip to the town by train. And also my first trip away.
I used to take my bike to Felixstowe by train from Liverpool Street, but I always got out at Ipswich and cycled the last twenty or so kilometres.
Today I had to go to the dentist in Felixstowe and as I can’t drive, I took a taxi to Dullingham and then took a train to Ipswich before changing for Felixstowe, arriving just under two hours after I left the first station. I was about forty minutes in the dentist and I was able to catch a suitable return train. Some don’t just connect, so you spend nearly two hours in Ipswich. But I only had to wait 45 minutes, so a coffee was able to fill the time.
Felixstowe station today, is little more than a halt at the end of the branch line in the car park of a shopping centre. But it has been converted out of the old station reasonably sympathetically.
The Anonymous Widower 