The Easiest Way To Get To Ipswich For Tuesday Night Football
Tuesday night football at Ipswich, and probably Colchester, is a difficult and overly expensive journey, when you have to trouble out for a kick-off at 19:45 using the crowded trains of the rush hour, which charge you more for your pleasure.
Normally if I want to go to Ipswich on a Saturday, it costs me £26.25 for an Off Peak Return from Liverpool Street with a Senior Railcard. But last night, on a Tuesday it would have cost me £50.65.
But Crossrail has come into play with the takeover of the Shenfield Metro by TfL Rail, which means I can use my Freedom Pass to Shenfield for nothing. Younger people, using Oyster or contactless cards have seen a reduction in cost, which some publicity claims is 40%.
So last night, as I had to stop off at Forest Gate on the way, I took TfL Rail to Shenfield in the rush hour.
I then exited the station, had a coffee in one of several nice independent cafes around the station and then re-entered after buying a return ticket from Shenfield to Ipswich, which got me to the ground at a convenient time for the match.
It was all very civilised and for most of the way, I had a seat and was able to sit comfortably and read the paper, as most of the other passengers had departed by Witham.
And for this I paid the princely sum of £16.75, which is approximately a third of the regular price. Here’s the proof.
London To Ipswich For £16.75
I shall be going this way again, especially as I have friends in Shenfield, with whom I could share a drink.
This is a substantial benefit to anybody living in London with a Freedom Pass, who needs to go to anywhere in the South Eastern portion of East Anglia.
You’ve always been able to buy tickets from the Zone 6 Boundary, but the trouble with that is Harold Wood, which isn’t as well connected as Shenfield. You also have difficulty buying these tickets on-line and usually have to go to a booking office.
If you don’t have a Freedom Pass, using contactless cards to Shenfield on TfL Rail and then using an onward ticket from Shenfield may well be cheaper for the whole journey.
Of course, if you bought your onward ticket from Shenfield before you travelled, all you would do is get off one train at Shenfield and get on another to your ultimate destination.
The only drawback is that the journey via Shenfield is slower.
Currently, Ipswich is about 70 minutes from Liverpool Street, but when the Norwich in Ninety improvements are completed, I think we could see this time reduced to 60 minutes or even less. New trains with sliding doors would help too!
Shenfield is 43 minutes from Liverpool Street at the moment, but Crossrail will reduce this by a couple of minutes. Ipswich is probably an hour past Shenfield, but Norwich in Ninety must reduce this.
The biggest change could come when Crossrail opens and there is a new East Anglian rail franchise. If I was bidding for the new franchise, I would stop a proportion of the fast London-Colchester-Ipswich-Norwich trains at Stratford, Romford or Shenfield to interface with Crossrail, so that the journeys for passengers were optimised to get as many on board as possible., to maximise my company’s profits and hopefully my bonus.
Norwich in Ninety plus Crossrail can only mean that house prices in East Anglia will continue to rise.
Kensal Rise Station
Kensal Rise Station is being updated with a lift on the Eastbound platform.
If you compare the state of this station with that of Prittlewell, it illustrates how it was right for London Overground to takeover the Lea Valley Lines from Abellio Greater Anglia.
Prittlewell Station
After my doctor’s appointment, I came back from Prittlewell station.
The pictures show that it is getting the standard level of care from Abellio Greater Anglia. The Class 321 Train was certainly living up to its nickname of a Dusty Bin.
But if I’m honest, I wouldn’t be sorry if Abellio Greater Anglia didn’t keep the East Anglian rail franchise, when it is renewed.
At present the management just don’t seem to care, if the poor state of the stations and trains, and the service they provide are anything to go by. Just to look at say Hackney Downs station after the London Overground takeover, to see what a good deep clean and some paint will do.
More Electric Multiple Unit Refurbishment
I am not a great fan of the Class 321 electric multiple units, that I seem to use, when I travel all over Essex and Suffolk.
On my regular trips to Ipswich, I much prefer to take the trains formed of a rake of Mark 3 coaches hauled by a Class 90 electric locomotive.
However like many of the UKs electric multiple units, the Class 321 are based on the smooth-riding Mark 3 coach.
As in recent years, a some of these like the Class 319 and 455 have been refurbished, it is no surprise that Eversholt Leasing has decided to update its fleet of thirty Class 321 trains, to make them more attractive to train operating companies.
This article in the Railway Gazette describes the project to upgrade these trains, into a new variant called the Class 321 Renatus.
It would appear to me, that these 100 mph trains will find gainful employment all over the UK Rail network, as more lines are electrified.
Travelling By Pretendelino
Greater Anglia have hired Virgin’s back-up train or Pretendolino, which is a locomotive-hauled rake of Mark 3 coaches. I travelled to the Ipswich on this train today.
The red roofs are a give-away.
One thing you notice is that the quality is a lot better than most of Greater Anglia’s coaches.
You Can Do Better Than This; Greater Anglia
There has been a lot of anger from Ipswich Town about the lack of communication from Abellio Greater Anglia over weekend closures of the Great Eastern Main Line. This report on the BBC gives full details.
I took the 12:03 train out of Liverpool Street for Billericay. I had checked on the Internet and knew that this train gave me an arrival in Ipswich around two. But there had been a decided lack of information at Liverpool Street.
1. The staff seemed to have not been well-briefed.
2. Where were the informational posters, saying something like This way for all Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich passengers?
The consequences was that there was a lot of confusion and an elderly couple travelling to Colchester with me didn’t know whether they should get out at Shenfield or Billericay. I wonder how many passengers missed the stop at Billericay and ended up at Southend!
One thing to which I’m right to object, is that I was paying the same £25.60 for a Senior Standard Class single, that I would pay on Monday for a similar ticket on a faster train all the way to Ipswich in just over an hour. Compare this with the price of £35.45, that I typically pay for a Senior First Class Return.
Abellio Greater Anglia also provided a Class 321 train without a toilet. Or at least I couldn’t find one. Many passengers would have expected a proper train with facilities and a rather tired Class 321 wasn’t good enough.
At Billericay, the system was much better organised and I even found a toilet. But then the town is in Essex and the county knows how to live on scraps and hand-me-downs.
I can’t complain about the coach that was provided either, except that it took what seemed to be an age to get to Ipswich.
There wasn’t much chaos at Ipswich, and I was able to enter the station to get a much-needed cup of hot chocolate.
The journey had taken two hours as against a normal direct journey of just over an hour. And of course for no reduction in price.
Coming home, I decided that it was better to go the long way round via Cambridge, where I could get a snack and then a train to Tottenham Hale. At least I got a First Class seat all the way, as I had the unused return half of a ticket for the last time I went to Ipswich, when I got a lift back home.
But the train was a rather overcrowded Class 170 train, although I did have a comfortable seat in First. But judging by the number of passengers on the 17:20 train after a match with Ipswich riding high in the Championship, a three car train is not big enough.
I just missed the connecting Tottenham Hale train, so I had to wait in the cold. But I did have time for a pit-stop and to purchase a snack in the Marks and Spencer in the station.
Normally, I get home about seven, but I didn’t get home until nine.
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Ipswich Town Get Angry
This story on the BBC follows a similar theme to one I wrote a week or so ago.
I remember some years ago, when Stoke Hill tunnel by Ipswich station was enlarged for the larger containers, and passengers were bused from Ipswich to Manningtree, that the rail companies involved ran an exemplary system, backed by copious information and publicity.
So it proves yet again that Abellio Greater Anglia generally see passengers as irrelevant except as cash cows.
An Information Free Journey
This afternoon, I took an Abellio Greater Anglia train from Bruce Grove to Hackney Downs.
An Information Free Journey
The displays weren’t working on both platforms at Bruce Grove station and the only way to tell where the train was going, was to read the display on the cab, as the train trundled out of the gloom.
The Class 315 train, resplendent inside in all its girlie pink, doesn’t have information displays and as the driver was economical with his announcements, you were left peering into the dark to determine the stations, from the names on the badly-lit platforms.
Luckily, just before Hackney Downs station, is the floodlit blue Mossbourne Community Academy, and I was forewarned of our arrival, and didn’t end up in Liverpool Street.
I know that on the thirty-first of May this year, the Lea Valley Lines will come under the control of Transport for London, so Abellio may think they have reasons to provide minimal service on these lines.
But that is no reason to keep passengers in the dark!
Abellio Greater Anglia Make Football At Ipswich And Norwich Difficult
A couple of seasons ago, my getting to Portman Road for the football was made very difficult, as virtually every match was difficult because of works on the line and it meant getting on a bus for most of the day.
So now Network Rail is sorting out the ballast on the track and from the 31st of January until the 22nd of March there will be no direct trains between London, Ipswich and Norwich at weekends.
A typical journey will now take nearly two hours, as opposed to the just over one it normally does. As that is twice, I really must get a lift up and back from somewhere.
Luckily it would appear to only be three matches; Wigan (31st Jan), Reading (21st Feb) and Brentford (7th Mar), as most in the period seem to be on Tuesday evening or we’re away at easier places to get to like Rotherham or Middlesbrough.
Tuesday night matches seem to be OK at the moment. Although, if we have extra time and penalties in the FA Cup replay on Wednesday, getting home might be tricky. As I write this there is a lot of anger on the forums complaining about no late trains after the match to Cambridge, Lowestoft and Felixstowe.
For the Norwich match on the first of March, which thankfully has a 14:05 start, it looks more feasible to go via Kings Cross and change at Cambridge.
Obviously, the ballast cleaning has to be done, but Abellio Greater Anglia could have used this disruption to fans getting to and from matches as a vehicle to show how well they can deal with adversity, instead of getting the old tired solutions out of the box.
For example, Abellio Greater Anglia have several rakes of Mark 3 coaches that run the services up the East Anglian Main Line. Could they not use a diesel locomotive to on match days run a football special either via or from Cambridge? Properly done, it might retrieve their battered reputation and encourage more people to travel by train.
But they can’t even get their information right. This was a poster at Liverpool Street on Saturday the 10th.
Greater Anglia Gets The Dates Wrong
That is unless it’s me who’s got the wrong dates. At least they said the first of January was New Year’s Day. Although, it was a Thursday not a Wednesday.
It would be interesting to know how Norwich fans are coping during this period, as I think quite a few are dependent on using the long-distance trains to get to both home and away matches. Surely, during this interruption, they should seriously think about running direct diesel-hauled services from London to Norwich via Cambridge for all passengers. Does granny visiting Norwich really want to spend hours on a coach, when she booked a comfortable train? Especially, if it’s crammed full with angry football fans worried about missing the match or getting their onward connection in London.
Yet again, Abellio Greater Anglia have shown all the conservatism and arrogance of their Dutch masters, who managed the Fyra fiasco and introduced one of Europe’s worst ticketing systems to piss off foreign visitors.
One For London Overground To Correct
I was at Walthamstow Central station last night and wanted to return home the quickest way, for which I have a choice of routes.
1. Take an Abellio Greater Anglia train to Hackney Downs and then get a 56 bus.
2. Take a Victoria Line train to Highbury and Islington and then cross the road and get a 277 or 30 bus.
3. Take a Victoria Line train to Seven Sisters and then get a bus to Dalston.
I prefer the first route, it has the least amount of walking and if it’s raining hard it’s mostly under cover. But the route has the disadvantage that you can wait fifteen minutes for a train. This is a bad picture of the information screen on the platform.
Information At Walthamstow Central
The trouble is that like all the other information screens at the station, it doesn’t give information for the Underground services in their station below.
Last night I waited about two minutes for a train, but if it had been six or so, I’d have probably dived into the Underground.
To make matters worse, if you arrive in the station using the underpass from the bus station, you do not pass any information screens at all and you have to climb the stairs to finds out the next train.
That’s not very customer friendly in my book.
Hopefully, when the Chingford services are taken over by London Overground in May, then as it will be an Overground/Underground station exclusively, then this lack-of-information problem will be resolved.
The Anonymous Widower 