So Near And Yet So Far!
This Google Map shows the geographical relationship between Northfleet station on the North Kent Line and Ebbsfleet International station on the High Speed 1 Rail Link.
Northfleet And Ebbsfleet International Stations
Note Swancombe station at the top left, which is also on the North Kent Line.
In my view the designers of High Speed 1, lost sight of the ball here, just as they did at Stratford International station.
To many people and especially to a lot of rail commentators and builders, connectivity is very important, as it often gives passengers the ability to do difficult journeys easily with a simple cross-platform interchange.
If you look at the positions of Northfleet and Ebbsfleet International stations, as the crow flies it is about four hundred metres. But to walk it along the A226, Thames Way and a loop into Ebbsfleet International station took me thirty-eight minutes.
I took these pictures as I walked.
I am left with the following conclusions.
- Northfleet station appears to only stand up because the woodworm keep holding hands.
- Northfleet station is very welcoming to visitors to the town!
- The current route is a badly-signposted disgrace.
- I didn’t see any signposts pointing the other way.
- It would be a nightmare in bad weather.
- It is a step-free route.
It would not be the most difficult feat of engineering to build a walkway from Northfleet station to the Car Park C on the Northfleet side of Ebbsfleet International station.
Incidentally, the Ebbsfleet International station web site says this about getting to the station by rail.
If you can’t reach us direct then we’re just a 10 minute walk from Northfleet domestic station which is serviced by the North Kent Line.
For my age and health, I can walk reasonably fast, but it took me over three times as long. Did they hire Mo Farah to do the time test?
I think someone measured it on a map as four hundred metres and said that he or she could walk it in ten minutes.
If they did, it is downright incompetence.
I challenge Eurostar to find anybody over sixty-five, who doesn’t have form as an athlete, to walk the signposted route in ten minutes!
If they find someone, who can do it, I’ll give fifty pounds to Railway Children!
Any Dutch Station By Eurostar From London
I complained to Eurostar about the lack of this ticket after my last trip to The Hague.
I got this reply.
Good morning,
although we currently don’t offer a ticket to “Any Dutch Station” on our UK website this product is available through our call centre on 0844 848 5848. Please specify when booking that you don’t require the “Thalys” trains and that you will be using regular “Classic” trains onwards from, and back to, Brussels, and they will be able to booking the ticket for you.
Although this product was withdrawn from our website around the time that the High Speed link was introduced the position regarding the sale of this ticket on our website is under review. In the meantime, though, please ring our contact centre who are open 0800 to 1900 on Mondays to Fridays and 0900 to 1700 on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays.
Not perfect, but it looks like they’re on the case.
Back From The Hague
Before I left on Thursday, I wrote Off To The Hague Today and started the post like this.
Is there any other train journey between two capitals in the world, that is more difficult now than it was six or seven years ago?
It certainly doesn’t get any better.
Arriving in Brussels, the hourly train to Antwerp and The Hague left in half an hour, so I thought if I could get a ticket to The Hague, I might go direct.
So I tried a machine. But these only sell tickets to Belgium.
Ticket Office?
The queues were horrendous, so I got on the train to Antwerp as my Any Belgium Ticket would get me there!
At Antwerp, I took half an hour to buy a ticket and after a lunch of nuts and the worst coffee, I’ve ever had, I caught the next train to Den Haag HS, where I changed for Den Haag Laan van Nieuwe Oost Indie.
Express train it is not! On this main InterCity route, some of it has a speed limit of just 100 kph. Even London to Ipswich is a 160 kph line.
Coming back, there were a few delays and it took exactly four hours from the time I got on the InterCity train at Den Haag HS before I was on my on-time Eurostar leaving Brussels. Admittedly, forty-five minutes of so was checking-in and waiting for the Eurostar.
Incidentally, Den Haag to Brussels in 172.9 km. and can be driven in two hours.
London to Birmingham is actually slightly further and Virgin does it around 85 minutes.
If that isn’t a disgrace, I’m a Dutchman!
What wasn’t a disgrace was the food on Eurostar!
I’d forgot to ask for a gluten-free meal, but I was assured the main course was gluten-free. I’m pretty certain it was and it was also delicious.
So at least the last part of the journey went well and we arrived in St. Pancras on time!
Passenger services through the Channel Tunnel opened in 1994, with services to and from St. Pancras starting in November 2007.
The new Class 374 trains to start a service to Amsterdam and Cologne are now sitting in sidings, with services supposed to start at the end of 2016.
Judging by the history of the development of services to places other than London, Brussels and Paris, I suspect that date will slip to somewhere about 2026 or even 2036.
The biggest problem seems to be the multiplicity of different electrical systems between France, Germany and The Netherlands. At least we chose our 25kVAC overhead system is the same as the French and has been since at least the 1960s.
I despair, that I’ll ever take a High Speed train direct to Rotterdam and then take a local train to The Hague.
No wonder the EU is such a mess, if the UK, Belgium, France, Germany and The Netherlands can’t agree on something purely technical like a connecting railway.
I’m Off To The Hague Today
Is there any other train journey between two capitals in the world, that is more difficult now than it was six or seven years ago?
When I first did this trip, I was able to buy a Eurostar ticket from London to Any Dutch Station, as many visitors to The Netherlands did.
But when Fyra; the high-speed train started, this was not possible any more. I couldn’t even get to the Dutch capital without a second change.
Today, I’ve bought a Eurostar ticket to any Belgian Station and will go to Antwerp for a spot of lunch, before I buy a ticket to Den Haag Laan van Nieuwe Oost Indie, so that I avoid all the hassle of using Dutch local ticketing, which will mean buying an Oyster-style card.
I will then use Shanks’s Pony to get to my final destination.
If that is progress, you can stick it up your backside.
Suppose to go between London and Edinburgh, you had to change trains at Newcastle or Berwick! Even the most rabid of Scottish Independence advocates, would never want a service like that between Scotland and England!
Also, if I was going to most important stations in Switzerland, I can buy one ticket from London.
Surely, this should apply to all major cities in Europe, that are within say five or six hours from London.
Going the other way, I could buy a ticket from say Paris direct to virtually anywhere in the UK.
Platforms 11 and 12 At Stratford
In December this year, an service hourly service called STAR will be started between Stratford and Angel Road along the Temple Mills Branch of the Lea Valley Lines via Lea Bridge, Tottenham Hale and Northumberland Park stations. Wikipedia says this about services to and from the Angel Road station.
Angel Road is only served by a number of trains every weekday to and from Stratford. No services operate at the station on weekends or public holidays. However, from December 2015 Angel Road will receive an hourly service to Stratford that will start here and vice versa, the service will be known as (STAR).
STAR services will obviously call at the new Lea Bridge station, when it opens next year.
I shall probably use the service occasionally, when I need to get home from Stratford, as Lea Bridge station is on the 56 bus route that passes by my house.
At Stratford, there are two platforms that have been positioned to give easy access to the Temple Mills Branch through Lea Bridge and Tottenham Hale and onwards to Stansted Airport. I took these pictures of the platforms.
They sit at the end of the two London Overground platforms, which are the Eastern terminus of the North London Line. You can see two Class 378 trains peeking out from underneath the rusty bridge. (Not my name, but an East London nickname, I’ve heard from locals and station staff!) This Google Map shows the layout of the platforms.
Stratford Platforms 11 And 12
In the map, platforms 11 and 12 curve away to the North from underneath the rusty bridge, which connects Eastfield to Stratford town centre.
Platform 11 is the Easternmost platform and is used as the terminus of the Stratford to Bishops Stortford service, which has been rumoured many would like extended to Stansted.
Platforms 1 and 2 for the North London Line are connected to the unused Platform 12, by a simple walkway, so in the future if Platform 12 is used for the STAR services, passengers going from anywhere on the North London Line to Tottenham Hale or Angel Road would just have an easy interchange.
As the STAR service will initially be an hourly service and the Bishops Stortford service is half-hourly and they run from platforms connected by a subway, I can’t help feeling that this will be an arrangement that won’t last long, before it is improved.
Suppose you arrive at Stratford wanting to get home to your house near Lea Bridge station and just miss the hourly train. Do you wait an hour for another train or catch the Bishops Stortford train, that will probably stop at Lea Bridge, after the new station opens?
It would be so much easier, if the two local services started from an shared island platform or at lest two platforms with a level walk between them.
This is going to get very complicated, if some of the plans for Stratford services up the Lea Valley are implemented.
- I’ve read several times, that reinstatement of the link to Stansted Airport is an aspiration of many, especially as Stratford is close to the Olympic Park and it is an important rail interchange and a terminus for two branches of the DLR and the Jubilee and North London Lines.
- There are also aspirations to start a direct service between the Chingford branch and Stratford using the reinstated Hall Farm Curve.
- With all of the housing, business and leisure developments along the lower Lea Valley, it will not be long before an hourly STAR service is inadequate.
- If the Hall Farm Curve is reinstated, would there be a need to run services between the Chingford branch and the North London Line?
- There is also the Crossrail effect, which in the Lea Valley’s case could not be just Crossrail, but Crossrail 2 if that ever gets built.
- Perhaps unlikely now, but I feel that at some point the Dalston Eastern Curve will be reopened, so enabling services between say Walthamstow to South London.
- Is there a need to better connect Stratford International station to the main regional complex?
I can’t help feeling that the layout of Platforms 11 and 12 will at some time not be able to handle all the Lea Valley services.
I suspect though there may be an innovative solution.
Look at the Google Map and you see that the Temple Mills Branch passes over the deep hole of the International station. I wrote Is This The Most Unwelcoming Station In The UK? about that dreadful station.
So could two or three bay platforms to serve the Lea Valley and Stansted Airport, be built alongside the Temple Mills Branch, as it passes over the International station?
This Google Map shows Stratford International station.
Stratford International Station
The building at the bottom right is also shown on the previous map that shows Platforms 11 and 12.
If the extra platforms were built over the Eastern end of the International station, it would enable the following.
- A new Eastern entrance to the International station could be created to give better connections between International and High Speed services from Stratford International and all the other services at Stratford Regional station.
- Crossrail would have a step-free interchange to Eurostar and other International services, if those services stopped at the International station.
- Interchange between Lea Valley and North London Line services, would be via a double Clapham Kiss, where passengers would just walk on the level to the other set of platforms.
- There might be opportunities to extend or improve the connectivity of the DLR. The current DLR station is at the top left of the map.
- Any direct services between the Temple Mills Branch and the North London Line would use the existing Platforms 11 and 12.
To get the connection right, the pedestrian links would have to be well-designed, but surely there is space to put a travelator effectively between the Regional and International stations.
Stratford International station would end up as what it should be, the International section of Stratford station.
Waterloo’s Blue Elephant
Waterloo International station was built for Eurostar services at a cost of £120million. I needed to get out of Waterloo to Clapham Junction and I noticed that the first train was in Platform 20 in the old Waterloo International.
So I went and had a look inside for the first time since C and myself went to Paris for the weekend.
I could have thought of better ways to spent £120million on the railways.
Every Transport Minister in the UK, should have a photograph of this blue elephant subtitled Don’t Create Another Of These on his or her desk.
Architects might like the design, but I think that there are much better-designed stations in the UK. Manchester Victoria is my current favourite, which scores highly on design, quality of construction and affordability.
The biggest crime though for Waterloo International, is that it was designed and built and when it was found to be inadequate, a replacement station was started.
It definitely scored -2 out of 10 for overall planning.
It is interesting to note that the whole farce of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link was more politically-led, whereas Crossrail is much more led by what engineers and architects say is possible. From what I’ve found out about Crossrail 2, it would appear that it has gone further down that route.
Eurostar To Marseilles
On the first of May Eurostar launched its service from London to Lyon, Avignon and Marseilles. Full details are given in this article on the France 24 web site.
Out of curiosity, I tried to see how many seats are available in the coming weeks.
There weren’t many left, so I suspect Eurostar might have a success on their hands.
On the other hand, when I travel up from the South of France or Switzerland, I often break my journey in Paris. So I still might do this, as the food is better than the train.
A Quick Crepe And Then The Eurostar Home!
I’d booked myself on the last Eurostar back to London and I just had time for a crepe and some cider at Cafe Breizh, near the Metro station of Saint-Sébastien – Froissart, which is just two stops south of Republique on Line 8.
A Quick Crepe At Cafe Breizh
I made the mistake though of trying a new route to the Gare du Nord using Line 4. It didn’t take any longer but I spent twenty minutes finding my way to the Eurostar terminal, as the signage from that line was poor to say the least.
Of the three direct Eurostar destinations that I have used in Europe; Brussels, Lille and Paris, the French capital’s terminal seems to have been designed with the sole purpose of persuading passengers, that they are better off staying in the city. I can’t wait until direct services to Marseilles start!
London To Kassel
When I left the UK, my aims were to travel to Kassel, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg and a few other cities, I’d not visited before as a tourist.
I was also intending to see and ride on some of the tram-trains that seem to be used in the area.
I started my journey on a 73 bus and finished it in a taxi. More on why I used a dreaded taxi later.
These pictures tell the story.
In some ways it was an easy but boring journey, which because of the extremely dull weather past Liege there wasn’t much to see.
Personally, I can’t wait for a direct London to Frankfurt train, which would make trips like this so much easier.
The Anonymous Widower 