A Ginger Damsel In Distress
On the way home tonight, I went via Kings Cross to pick up a train ticket.
it was one of those times, when I wished I’d had my camera with me, as in front of the ticket machine was a ginger damsel in distress. She had an enormous ruck-sack on her back and was trying to bend over to pick-up the Oystercard she had dropped. Suffice to say she wasn’t managing to pick the card up.
So I did the gentlemanly thing and retrieved her card.
When I heard she was on her way to Norwich, I did wonder if I’d done the right thing!
What’s This Train doing At Norwich Station?
I saw this train at Norwich station, apparently working a service to Sheringham.
A Lost Welsh Train at Norwich
So have they moved Sheringham to the other side of Offa’s Dyke or have they run out of paint. You’d think as the train is almost in Ipswich colours, they would have repainted it as quick as possible.
Norwich Does Have Good Maps
I found this map of Norwich outside the station at Norwich.
An Understandable Map at Norwich
Even the most stupid, who could read a map would be able to find Carrow Road on this map, as it’s marked with as a black and white football.
Where are maps like this in places like Blackpool?
A Clock in Norwich Station
I took this picture of the clock in Norwich station.
An Inaccurate Clock in Norwich Station
Nothing wrong really, except someone in the station, put it back an hour a few days too early. I never knew that people in Norwich were ahead of their time!
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
Holy Smoke!
The new heating system in Norwich Catholic Cathedral is causing people to dial 999 because they see a fire, according to reports on the BBC.
The Anonymous Widower 