Thoughts on the East London Line
I’ve now had three trips on the East London Line and you can see how it is fitting into the fabric of society in East and South London.
Obviously, there are things still to be done, like the connection at Dalston to avoid the short walk between the two stations. Talking to a policeman at Norwood Junction after the Crystal Palace trip, he said that people aren’t sure yet which station to use for various places. So perhaps, Transport for London need to put up similar route finders on the Overground, as they have on bus stops. This would direct football fans going to Crystal Palace to Norwood Junction for example.
What happens too, if say people from say Liverpool or Manchester arriving at Euston station ask how they get to Crystal Palace for the football or somewhere else in the area served by the East London Line. You could walk to Euston Square and take the Circle Line to Liverpool Street and walk to Shoreditch High Street, the Metropolitan LIne to Whitechapel, or the Northern to London Bridge and the Jubilee to Canada Water. The choice is yours, but not easy for a non-expert. I think this illustrates the problem outlined by the policeman at Norwood Junction; the East London Line needs time for people to get used to how and where it runs.
If I take my example to its logical conclusion, you could ask why people from the north don’t use Watford Junction and possibly Willesden Junction to change to the Overground. You wouldn’t have changed to the old North London Line, but now it’s a very much better and a lot more comfortable than it used to be. So I would feel that we’ll see some developments and changes to make this easier. It would also effectively add capacity to Euston, by removing those, who perhaps wanted to go to Richmond, Islington or South East London from the station.
I’ll end this post by looking at the positives. Everything is clean, the staff seem competent and happy in their work, the trains seem to run to time and as at present there are always staff on the trains, there seems no sign of any trouble.
Perhaps, though my journey back from Norwood Junction on Saturday summed up the line. The train was fairly full, but there were still enough seats for those who wanted one and the train was cool and well-ventilated. It was much better than doing a similar journey on the Underground.
It will be interesting to see how it performs during the Olympics. But at least we know it will probably be there!
Here Come the Nimbys
They are going to announce the compensation scheme for the High-Speed Line to the North (HS2) today, so what does the BBC do? They get a stupid Nimby on the BBC Breakfast counch. Looking at her, she looks like a typical Home Counties woman, who thinks much more for herself, than the general population. I was uncertain about HS2, until I read an article in Modern Railways, which convinced me that the planned route, via the Chilterns was correct.
There are a lot of unpopular developments we need like nuclear power stations and freight distribution depots. Done properly and sympathetically, they can be to everybody’s benefit.
We must not let the Nimbys win!
Why We Are Short of Trains in East Anglia
Yet again, there has been a serious level crossing accident in East Anglia. At least the twat in a sewage tanker, who seems to have been the cause of the accident, has been held on suspicion of dangerous driving.
The knock-on of these accidents, is that yet another small diesel multiple unit, which are the backbone of rural services in Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire, is lost or at least out of service for several months. The line I use regularly between Ipswich and Cambridge, is in desperate need of a two-coach unit to replace one of the trains, which is only one coach an totally inadequate, but this accident probably means that replacement is far in the future. I hope we don’t lose one of our trains to replace the one lost in the accident.
Gluten-Free Food on East Coast
Readers may think, I’m just a whingeing coeliac, but no, I’m looking at this from a marketing point of view, as because I know that when there is nothing suitable to eat, I don’t! So that means that every trip I do up and down the East Coast Main Line costs them probably at least a tenner each way in lost revenue. Also, how many coeliacs don’t book say from London to York, because they know if they drive there’s a nice place for a meal halfway!
There are also alternatives at present, as because I live in East Anglia, I change trains at Peterbrough and as I usually have an hour or so, I can walk across to Marks and Spencer in the Queensgate Shopping Centre and have something in Cafe Revive or one of several other places in the city centre. But as I said in an earlier post, the route from the station to the shopping centre is not good.
If I move to London as I intend and I was going north for the day, I’d walk across to St. Pancras and have a gluten-free breakfast in Carluccio’s. I hope my favourite Italian caffes will book a place in the new King’s Cross, as it develops. But if it doesn’t, it’ll always be worth the walk!
But why should I have to, when I’m going on the train?
So what should they do in my opinion?
- East Coast offer a ready-made cottage pie in their Light Bites. As it is just microwaved there is no contamination problem. so this and I think the fish pie could easily be made gluten-free. After all, most peoples’ cottage and fish pies are gluten-free anyway, but then some food manufacturers can’t resist adding flour to everything!
- A nice curry would also be gluten-free. Incidentally, curries are often the gluten-free meal on many airlines. I remember one I had was excellent.
- There is also a smoked salmon salad, which should be gluten-free, but they’d run out last time I asked for it.
- I notice there is a full English breakfast. I might try it one day leaving out the sausage. If they are prepared individually, it should be possible to deliver them gluten-free. That is just systems and perhaps a little bit of training.
- The choice of snacks is important, as some are suitable and others are not! Most coeliac-friendly pubs just stock the basic unflavoured Kettle ones. I didn’t check the crisps on East Coast, but as they were Walkers, they’d have been marked suitable for coeliacs if they were. I’ve been in pubs, where none were!
- Coeliacs don’t drink beer, so perhaps a bottled or canned proper cider, like Aspall or Weston might be an idea. That may not be possible, but wine is fine though, although I find some don’t taste too good with my stroke.
Incidentally, I’d travelled on GNER some years ago and I had asked the waiter, if the salmon was gluten-free. The chef came and said it was, but he'[d cook it personally to avoid any cross contamination. I remember, it was very good.
I don’t always want or need service like that, but with just a little bit of thought and virtually no extra expenditure, train companies might actually increase revenue.
No Left Luggage Facility at Ipswich
This could have caused me a problem, as I had my case with me. But luckily, the stewards at Ipswich Town let me take it inside after an inspection and I was able to put it underneath my seat.
I can remember when there were left luggage lockers at Ipswich Station. I bet I’m not the first, who could have been inconvenienced by their removal.
How Trains Have Changed
I travelled down to Ipswich for the match against Burnley on Saturday, by changing from the East Coast train that had brought me from Edinburgh to the National Express East Anglia one that took me the rest of the way. The train was a comfortable Turbostar and I sat cosily in First Class, which is one of the perks of a Senior Railcard, as I get one third off. I had thought about sleeping, especially as Ipswich is the end of the line, but in the end I talked about football and trains to two drivers from East Midlands Trains, who were positioning back from Ely to Norwich.
It was a pleasant journey in rolling stock that is a far cry from what we used to have to endure. We all had to agree though, that according to reports some of the newer trains that cross the Pennines are a lot better and have been consistently praised for the quality of the ride.
I arrived at Ipswich on time with ninety minutes before kick off after a six hour journey from Edinburgh.
A point to note is that the Felixstowe-Ipswich-Peterborough route is being upgraded to handle more and longer container trains to and from Felixstowe, by selective dualling of the line between Felixstowe and Ipswich and also between Soham and Ely. It is estimated that this and other schemes will take almost 250,000 lorry journeys off the road. To me this is a good thing, especially as the cost is probably less than adding an extra lane to sections of the A14. But there is a downside. I was told that these heavy freight trains can damage the track and make the ride of passenger trains worse.
Edinburgh’s Transport Systems
Edinburgh is supposed to be one of the big tourist destinations in the world. So it needs to get its public transport up to the standard visitors expect. The buses are just not up to scratch and late and static trams give the wrong message.
I also read in The Scotsman, that the city doesn’t have a big enough dock for the largest cruise ships to berth, so they are losing out to places like Belfast and Liverpool.
Walking around the city is not difficult, but of course there are few maps. Incidentally, my eyesight isn’t good enough to read a paper map in the rain and I suspect that for many visitors to Edinburgh, clear eye level maps are best.
At least though the taxis are reasonably plentiful and affordable. The drivers also give you chapter, verse and every last word about the trams and the buses. But then taxi drivers are the same the world over!
I didn’t use the local trains, but it would appear that they work well! That is if you can find out which bus you catch to get to the station!
WiFi on East Coast
It seems to be working fine and was a very easy connection.
An Extraordinary Theatrical Experience
There has been a lot of publicity in London about the Railway Children, which is playing until January at the old Waterloo International Station. It sounds as if it will be worth seeing, especially as one of the stars is a Stirling Single.
It is a superb example of how to reuse a redundant building.
You also wonder if the various railway museums and perhaps disused stations around the world will also stage the experience!
New Uses for Old Railway Buildings
The BBC has done a piece this morning about the reuse of Edge Hill Station in Liverpool as an artistic creative space by Metal
Often these buildings were well-built to designs of the best architects of their day. Let’s reuse them rather than build something new and rather boring and anonymous.
