A Slow Bus from Cambridge to Ipswich
After the film, I did a bit of window shopping in Cambridge and then had lunch in Carluccio’s before catching the four o’clock bus to Haverhill, where I was going to get the coach at six o’clock to Ipswich for the football.
The weather was atrocious and it was almost pleasant to be at the front on the top of a warm 13 bus, as it meandered its way through the villages to Haverhill. At least, I had a little shelf in front of me, which allowed me to do the Sudoku.
Haverhill though is not the place to spend an hour at five ‘oclock on a very wet Tuesday afternoon. There was no cafe open and the one or two pubs that were looked very much like the places I would only visit in direst need. The rain looked friendlier! I walked up to Tesco’s as I needed a banana and a juice with which to take my Warfarin. They did have single bananas, but I couldn’t find any small drinks of juice or smoothies. As everything was in litre bottles or larger, I decided that it would be better to try elsewhere. I got what I wanted in the Co-op. But they didn’t have a gluten-free section, so my thought of buying a packet of suitable biscuits went out the window. Tesco’s did have a gluten-free section, but it was rather poor, with no nice biscuits. I did ask in the Co-op about gluten-free and they said it had been successful, so they stopped it.
So supper consisted of some sandwiches, I’d made before I left, some chocolate, a smoothie, a banana and a 5mg. Warfarin tablet.
The coach from Haverhill to Ipswich was probably the fastest part of the journey as the weather seemed to have kept the crowd very much below what I would have expected.
The Netherlands By Rail
I was looking at Eurostar, as I want to go to Berlin at some time to see the new museum.
When I went to The Netherlands last time on the train, I had to wait for about an hour in Brussels to buy a ticket to get to Den Haag, as it was impossible to buy one before I left London. Now though you can buy a ticket from London to any Dutch station. All you have to do is get to Brussels Midi and then take a Dutch domestic service within 24 hours! The rules for return, are that you can take any Dutch domestic service that arrives within 24 hours of your Eurostar departure.
That sounds like a really sensible way of travelling. You could catch the next train to say Rotterdam and save time or you could catch a morning train to Brussels, have a look round the city and perhaps have a good lunch as I did in the spring and then take an evening train across the border.
It would seem to be cheaper too, as my ticket last time to Den Haag from Brussels and back would have cost 60 Euros in Standard Class. Looking today and going in a couple of weeks, it looks like I can do the whole journey both ways for about £120 or less. That price was for next week, so I suspect, you could beat that if you booked further in advance.
Incidentally going by Thalys to say Amsterdam from Brussels on the same dates, doesn’t have a very good choice of trains and costs twice the price! I suspect you might save a few minutes on the journey, but because of the connections, you would probably have to leave London an hour or so later. That is not my style, as I’ve always been one for an early start! I always think that you can get a good lunch in Brusssels anyway. Or you could visit the falcons in the cathedral.
It all sounds to be a good deal to me! But one that won’t be too good to be true!
Airdrie to Bathgate
Modern Railways also has an article about the opening of a new electric railway between Airdrie and Bathgate, which effectively creates a fourth link across Scotland’s central belt between the two main cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
I’ve read the article in detail and it states that a new station is being built at Drumgelloch to serve just 3,700 local inhabitants. This really shows how different rules starve East Anglian stations of money. Bury St. Edmunds for example has a population of 35,000 and the best thing that could be said about the station is that it compliments the Abbey Ruins. Haverhill has a population of 22,000 and no train station at all.
I think East Anglia could take a leaf out of Scotland’s book and reinstate the line between Sudbury and Cambridge. But that will never get done in my lifetime, despite the fact it could probably be done for a lot less than Airdrie to Bathgate.
The only thing we get is other areas’ hand-me-downs and a virtual busway.
Edinburgh Tram Stalls
That is the headline in Modern Railways this month.
They reckon that there might be enough money left to complete the Edinburgh Tram from Edinburgh Airport to Haymarket, but say some politicians want to kill the whole project off. Wikipedia describes the whole sorry mess.
Apparently, Starbucks or was it Costa, has made a proposal to convert the tram marooned in Princes Street into a coffee shop.
Felixstowe Sets a Record
In the week of the 26th September this year, the Port of Felixstowe handled a record number of 10,764 containers or about 1,500 a day. A quick calculation says that moving those boxes by road would create a queue of trucks nearly 40 miles long every day.
So that may be contributing to a perceived reduction in trucks on the A14. There are now upwards of twenty container trains a day to places like Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham.
When the Felixstowe to Nuneaton freight upgrade is completed in a couple of years time, we should see even more.
Nottingham to Newmarket
This is one of those journeys that works, but because od the limited services in East Anglia, it takes a lot longer than it should. I got a direct train to Ely, but then it was another train to Cambridge and then another to Newmarket. But everything was on time and I met the booked taxi, which got me home about four hours after I left Nottingham.
At least though the train wasn’t very crowded after Grantham and I just sat there reading.
I did have to wait for perhaps twenty minutes at Ely and forty at Cambridge but it wasn’t cold and I had an excellent cappuccino from AMT at Cambridge.
So how could this jouney have been better?
East Anglia to the Midlands and the North needs more and bigger trains. At present we have Stansted/Cambridge-Birmingham (hourly) and Liverpool/Manchester-Norwich (3-hourly) , all of which pass through Ely and Peterborough. In addition, there is an hourly service from Ipswich to Peterborough. But even so, it is just not enough!
The trains that connect to these long distance services are not big enough either. At least today, I got a two-coach, Class 156, to and from Cambridge, but sometimes it is just a decrepit single coach, Class 153.
I ope this all gets sorted out in the next few years. But whatever happens, we need some bigger and better trains. But then as long as I can remember, East Anglia has always had evrybody else’s hand-me-downs.
Dullingham to Nottingham
I actually left fromy my local station at Dullingham, rather than my return destination of Newmarket as it was easier to get to at 9:15 in the morning. The cost of the return ticket is the same at £27.65 from both stations, so ticketing was not a problem.
To get to Nottingham was a double change at both Cambridge and Leicester. This is one of the problems about getting trains from East Anglia to the rest of the country. Nothing is ever straightforward unless you drive to either Ely or Peterborough first and I can’t drive at present.
The second problem is that the East Anglia to Midlands and North trains are just too small. The train was very crowded all the way to Leicester from Cambridge, but luckily I had a seat by the window. After Leicester I was in one of the larger Meridean expresses to Nottingham.
Everything otherwise was fine and I arrived in Nottingham just a few minutes over three hours after I’d started my journey, which was as should have been expected.
The only problem I had, was that the station information at Leicester wasn’t up to the standard I usually find and I could have missed my connection, if I hadn’t guessed right. It probably wouldn’t have been serious, as there are quite a few trains between Leicester and Nottingham. But what if I’d been going the other way, where missing the connection would mean a sizeable wait.
I’d never been to Leicester on a train before today, which is surprising, as in the past I’ve used trains to quite a few cities in the Midlands. I sometimes wonder if I’ve got a thing about the city, as it was one of the last trips C did by train for her business. She had just finished the radiotherapy for her breast cancer and had gone there by train and she then took a train to London to see a friend sworn in as a judge. Except for the odd trip to London, I don’t think she ever went on a train again. I also remember that I’d been to see Ipswich lose at Leicester. the day before she told me, that she had breast cancer. So perhaps it is a town for me to avoid! Although they do have a Carluccio’s there now, so at least the food will be good.
Off to Nottingham Today
Ipswich are at Forest today and I’m going.
It will be a train from Dullingham to Cambridge and then I change at Leicester for Nottingham getting there just after three hours on the train.
Coming back is again about three hours with changes at Ely and Cambridge from where I’ll get a taxi if I’m tired. Or I might go to Carluccio’s for supper and then get a taxi home.
It all depends on how I feel after the match!
The Anonymous Widower 