Interchange at Stratford
Yesterday I took a friend down the North London line to take a train to her home in Ipswich. The interchange there is now very good and it is just down one set of steps, a short walk and a climb up between trains. Both climbs can be avoided by lifts, if you have limited mobility or heavy luggage.
The only problem is that the proper Ipswich trains have non-sliding doors and this is a slight problem for some with less than perfect hands. It’s exacerbated by the fact that no-one gets out of an Ipswich train at Stratford, so these trains need to have a better door mechanism, when they are refurbished next time.
Stratford is going to be a major interchange during and after the Olympics. If say I was travelling from Ipswich to say Oxford Circus on the Central line, then now it is better to change at Stratford rather than Liverpool Street. Other journeys may also be better with a change at Stratford. For example.
- Ipswich to Gatwick, by changing to the Jubilee at Stratford for London Bridge.
- N**wich to Southampton, by changing to the Jubilee at Stratford for Waterloo.
The interchanges are much better than using the Underground or buses in central London.
You can make a list of places, that are directly connected to Stratford, but not to Liverpool Street.
- London Bridge, Charing Cross and Waterloo
- Canary Wharf, Greenwich and the O2.
- Camden Town, Kentish Town, Hampstead and the Heath.
When Thameslink is completed at London Bridge, many more places will be easier to get to, after a short trip from Stratford.
Chiltern are also threatening to connect at West Hampstead to the North London line, so this would mean East Anglia or Essex to Birmingham or Oxford would be a simpler journey in new trains all the way.
And then in 2016 or thereabouts there’s CrossRail.
An Unusual British Export to America
It has been said many times to me by American friends that roundabouts don’t work. But then American driving rules are a bit strange, with the four-way stop something that you never see in Europe. So it was a surprise to see this article on the BBC web site.
I just wonder though how Americans would get on with some of the European experiments of completely clutter-free streets, with no signs and barriers. Apparently, it’s being tried in Ipswich. I should look next time I go to the football.
Iconic Photos
They’ve just announced the route of the Olympic Torch Relay before the 2012 Olympics.
I know Britain pretty well, but what has surprised me is how many of the stops of the torch on the route, aren’t really that recognisable from the iconic photographs published alongside the interactve map. Obviously, for many cities they have used the cathedral, the castle or an iconic building and for Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Bristol they have used bridges. Liverpool has been indicated by two of the Three Graces. Some though, like Bolton, Hull and Luton have struggled, as they show what looks to be the town hall or some other unworthy Victorian pile that could be anywhere.
The worst is probably Ipswich, which shows an anonymous modern waterfront, that could be anywhere and is easily confused with London Docklands.
Ipswich has three iconic buildings all of which are Grade One listed buildings; Norman Foster’s Willis Building, Christchurch Mansion and the Ancient House.
I’d have shown the Willis Building, as it is one of the few truly great buildings from the 1970s, we have in this country.
New Trains for Old
Ever since I’ve lived in West Suffolk, the trains between Ipswich and Cambridge have been on their last legs. But these last few weeks with the cold weather has been a bit of a nightmare, with possibly the worst day shown here. Some days the trains haven’t been able to keep to the timetable because of cold weather, suicides and mechanical problems. On possibly four occasions, the trains have either not turned up or been very late at Dullingham. To make matters worse some journeys out of Cambridge have been very crowded to say the least.
But all was supposed to change today, as larger, faster, more comfortable and very much newer Class 170 have been cascaded onto the service from the Cambridge to Norwich service.
This video shows the first train arriving at Dullingham, exactly on time at 10:06.
And here’s the train at its destination in Cambridge.
The First Ipswich-Cambridge Class 170 at Cambridge
Coming back I did have a problem at Tottenham Hale getting the train to Cambridge, but after diverting to King’s Cross, I arrived at Cambridge to get the on-time 17:12 to Newmarket for a taxi home.
There is only one problem with the new timetable and that is after just getting used to the old one, I have to look up each train to find out their times. But after today’s experience with the new service, it is to be hoped that the timetable will be what happens and not what is supposed to.
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
Mary Beale was Disappointing
I mentioned Mary Beale in Suffolk Art and it says in the Public Catalogue for Suffolk, that there at least twenty of her portraits in the care of St. Edmundsbury Museums . Only four were on display in a rather dark corner and although I’m no expert, they looked like they needed some restoration. They certainly needed better labels.
If Ipswich can create a proper gallery for their collections in Christchurch Park, surely St. Edmundsbury can do the same. And they charge for entry, whereas Ipswich does not!
Perhaps, this is why none of my artist friends had ever heard of Mary Beale.
The Anonymous Widower 