A Farce at Whittlesford
When I picked up my ticket at Whittlesford Parkway station on Wednesday to go to Lingfield, the machine was a struggle for my limited eyesight, as it is placed in the sun. I also found the touch screen very unresponsive, unlike other machines I have used on East Coast and Virgin Trains.
As I eventually got the tickets successfully and I had a few minutes before my train, I popped into the booking office and explained what had just happened and on a Saturday a coiple of weeks ago. He said that the machine was badly placed and that it took a lot of pushing to get it to work. I also asked if the offce would be manned today, as I was going to London. He said it would be fully staffed as it should be!
But today it wasn’t ,manned and despite twenty minutes of trying, I could not purchase the ticket I required. I did get to the payment stage, but it rejected every credit card I had as unreadable.
I was not alone and of the dozen or so of you fought with the machine only one got a ticket.
After perhaps fifteen minutes a train for Cambridge pulled up and the driver or collector, told us all to travel and sort it out at the destination.
So this is what I did!
At Tottenham Hale, I bought my required Travelcard from a friendly ticket inspector called Youssef. And it was also with one of the unreadable cards rejected by the machine at Whittlesford.
Nothing annoys me more than technology that should be to everyone’s benefit, installed and implimented so t just makes people angry and causes extra work for others.
The sooner this machine isreplaced by something that works in a better place, the better!
Racing at Lingfield
As I said in an earlier post, Free As A Lark ran in the 14:20 at Lingfield today.
I took the train from Whittlesford Parkway, changing at Tottenham Hale and Victoria to get the train to Lingfield.
Lingfield Station
From the station it’s just a five minute walk to the racecourse.The ticket cost just £13.80 return with my Senior Railcard. I suspect that there were others using their Railcards for a day-out at Lingfield.
Free As A Lark ran better than last time, but not as well as I’d hoped.
Liverpool Street to Shoreditch High Street
This is a walking connection between the main-line station and the East London Line. I did it today, by walking across to Broadgate and then down the side of the station. It’s still quite long, but it is a better walk than going along Bishopsgate. There is also a convenient light-controlled crossing.
You also get this back view of Liverpool Street Station.
Back View of Liverpool Street Station
Whatever they do in the future, some signs are needed now!
Free As A Lark
She runs in the 14:20 at Lingfield today. I’m going by train from Victoria.
Here’s hoping her luck has turned.
And perhaps even mine!
An Alternative to Toll Roads
A report today, says that toll roads are not the answer to Britain’s crowded roads.
But is an alternative here already?
The A14 is one of the UK’s most crowded roads. A lot of the traffic is trucks carrying containers to and from the docks in the Haven Ports (Felixstowe, Harwich and Ipswich).
Over the next two years, Network Rail are upgrading the railway from Felixstowe to the East and West Coast Main Lines, so that large amounts of this traffic can go by rail. Network Rail are also upgrading the rail network to Southampton and other places to put the heavy freight where it belongs and the traffic figures are now showing that rail is carrying more freight traffic of this type than a few years ago.
The problem is that rail needs depots to transfer the containers for the final collection or delivery and planning permission for these is often difficult to get, due to local opposition from those same people, who will benefit from less freight traffic on the roads.
We may not have space in this country for a new motorway, but there is often space to fit in another rail track or two alongside an existing line.
The Isle of Wight, Great Yarmouth, Hastings and Morecambe
I am going to Portsmouth to see Ipswich on the 11th of this month to see Ipswich play. I thought that I might take the ferry and see the Isle of wight. but after reading Bronwen Maddox’s article in The Times today, I don’t think I’ll bother.
She says that the Isle is rather run down and virtually cut off from the rest of the UK, just like the other towns in the heading of this post. All places share higher unemployment than the rest of the country and have a run-down feel.
She says that the solution to the Isle of Wight’s problem is a bridge, just as all the other towns could do with transport connections to the rest of the UK to attract industry, jobs and tourists. I know the route to Yarmouth well and is it not only sib-standard, but very dangerous. upgrade it or perhaps the railway that runs alongside it and you might improve one of the worse unemployment blackspots in Southern England. I also drove to Hastings once. Never again!
These are the infrastructure projects that we must start. I even suspect that some might even be financed by the reduction in benefits, when the jobs are created.
Apologies to South West Trains
in the post, where I outlined how I could get to Portsmouth on September 11th, I assumed that I would no longer be allowed to break my journey at Micheldever, as I have done many times in the past, due to the new barriers.
But after a reply from South West Trains, I now know that I was making the wrong assumption.
Here’s what they said.
I can confirm that a break of journey is valid on tickets for travel between London Waterloo and Fratton. Customers wishing to break their journey must ensure that they only travel to a station that is along a valid route for their ticket and that they only travel on times and dates that their ticket is valid for.
I can confirm that as Micheldever is between London Waterloo and Fratton, you will be able to break your journey at this station.
Customers may find at times that their ticket will not automatically let them through barriers at an intermediate station. If this happens, please show your ticket to the member of staff operating the barriers at the station in question so that they can let you through.
So it would appear that the old rules are still in place.
I shall now probably buy a Day Return from Whittlesford Parkway to Fratton. It looks like it’ll cost me £28.
Boxing Clever
Boxing Clever is the title of two articles in September’s edition of Modern Railways magazine. They detail the works being done to upgrade the major freight lines of Felixstowe to Nuneaton and Southampton to Birmingham, so that they can take the larger 9 ft 6 in high containers (boxes) from the ports to and from industrial centres. In times of austerity and climate change, it is interesting to see how these projects which will cut out hundreds of thousands of lorry journeys are being carried out and managed using some very innovative solutions. So much so,m that it appears that the second project might be £10m under its £70.7m budget.
It is an example of very good project management and shows how by spending money wisely to remove freight bottle-necks is to the good of us all. You could argue for instance that Felixstowe to Nuneaton enhancement might be the equivalent of adding extra capacity to the A14, which is a road, that really can’t be widened too easily, as the Orwell bridge was only built for two lanes each way.
I particularly liked the way that the 1847 Southampton Tunnel was made larger. Rather than use the traditional approach and closing the tunnel for two to three months, as they did when they upgraded Ipswich Tunnel, they did it a track at a time closing for only three weekends and over Christmas 2009, saving a year on the project.
It is my belief that we can save a lot of money on infrastructure projects, like roads, railways, hospitals ands schools by thinking things through with a great deal more innovation, enterprise and by borrowing good and proven ideas and methods from other countries and industries.
Portsmouth on September the 11th
This will be my next match following Ipswich Town.
It might also need a bit of planning to get round the various ticketing regulations on the trains.
The easiest way would be to turn up at Whittlesford and buy a return ticket for Fratton, which is the nearest station to the ground. But this might be a problem as the ticket office there was unmanned yesterday and the automatic machine had been positioned so that the morning sunlight made it difficult to read.
Badly-Sited Ticket Machine at Whittlesford
These people were certainly having problems, so buying a ticket or collecting it from there might be a problem. I suppose I could get my ticket posted to my home.
So I think that I might take the train from Dullingham and go via Cambridge and King’s Cross, as I can buy a ticket from the conductor on the train. King’s Cross to Waterloo is also easier on the Underground than Tottenham Hale to Waterloo.
But the problem is that I can’t get a taxi at Dullingham, but I can pre-book one at Whittlesford.
But there is an additional complication. I want to have lunch with a friend at Micheldever, which is on the line to Fratton. So my journrey will actually be in three legs; Whittlesford to Micheldever, Micheldever to Fratton and Fratton to Whittlesford. It used to be that if you broke a journey and then continued on a later train in the same direction, that you could do this on the same ticket. I suspect this is now off the menu.
What is needed is a simple multiple ticket web site, where I enter the trains I want to travel on and then they post them to my house or I pick them up reliably at the first station.
I suspect that because of regulations though, I’ll need to buy a Whittlesford-Fratton return and buy an extra single ticket to get from Micheldever to Fratton.
And people think I’m getting paranoid!
Since I wrote that, I’ve found another problem. Not all trains to Fratton start from Waterloo and those of those that do not all go through Michedever, but the booking sites don’t seem to say which. It’s all very complicated. The Internet is supposed to make things simple not more difficult. Perhaps it would be easier to turn up and go at Waterloo and buy the tickets there. But that would mean I would have to leave earlier in the morning!
The Madam On the Train
Taking the train up to Ipswich today reminded me of a chance meeting going the other way.
I was going up to London on business and as my company was paying, I decided to have a full breakfast in First Class. C always used to have kippers! It’s sad to think that you can’t do that now!
I was sitting opposite a well-dressed lady in a formal blouse and dark skirt suit in perhaps her late forties or early fifties. You’d have thought she was a high-powered lawyer or accountant or perhaps the secretary to the chairman of a company like Shell or Lloyds Bank.
As we ate, she constantly questioned me about my business, but gave little away about what she did! I told her how we sold project management systems all over the world, how we did a lot of business in the Middle East and how we had become one of the fastest growing companies in the United States.
She then asked a surprising question. Did we ever need special services for overseas clients? I said that I didn’t know and she replied that all her girls were attractive, clean and many were public-school educated. We then chatted in a more general way about business and how you made it flow smoothly.
As we left the train, she wished me good luck and left me a card! I never used it!
