Buying Tickets To Scotland
Next weekend, I’m going to Edinburgh and Glasgow and then down to Bolton to see Ipswich play.
All journeys were booked on-line in First Class and purchased using my Senior Railcard. It cost me £64.31 for the trip up using East Coast on Thursday and £57.45 for the split journey down using Virgin.
The journey down is probably cheaper, as it is effectively a typical Premium Economy journey in First Class on Saturday.
As I can now collect tickets from my local station at Dalston Junction, I was able to collect the tickets, whilst taking a constitutional walk to the pub in the evening.
Would people use the trains more, if it were easier to pick up tickets?
An Open Letter To The Lord Mayor Of Liverpool
I spent four years in Liverpool in the 1960s and as I met my late wife there, although like me, she was a Londoner and we had forty good years together, I have a great affection for the Second City. I also know the city well, although that is in part memory from nearly fifty years ago.
On Friday, I took the Virgin train up from Euston for a meeting with Liverpool University. As I had an hour to spare, instead of going straight to my meeting, I decided to awake an old memory by going to see the Richard Huws fountain by the Pier Head. I took the Wirral Line to James Street station and I must say, the Underground looks very good after refurbishment.
The fountain didn’t disappoint, especially as it was working.
I then needed to find my way up to the University. As I’m 66 and have a free bus pass, I remembered that in the 1960s, there was a bus from the Pier Head up Brownlow Hill. But I also know, that traffic layouts in Liverpool have changed a lot. So I did what I would do in London and found a bus stop. I tried several and there was no information that I could find that told me how to get up the hill. So in the end, I took a taxi and got entertained by one of Liverpool’s many comedians.
I know the city from a walking point of view well, but I didn’t see any serious walking maps like those in London, Ipswich or Bristol. I even gave directions to a group of alumni from my university, who were looking for the same fountain.
On the subject of information about the city, you rarely find any adverts or posters in London, directing tourists to visit Liverpool. Only recently, I finally persuaded an old friend, to have a couple of days with her husband in Liverpool and they returned thoroughly impressed with what they had visited. I recently came up to see the Chagall exhibition and the floor of St. George’s Hall, but I only heard about the latter by accident. I’m glad I didn’t miss it!
Unlike some cities I won’t name, you have the attractions, the hotels and the restaurants, but they just need to be linked with more and better information.
The Unreserved Coach E On Virgin Trains
I came back from Liverpool on the 14:48 train from the City. It wouldn’t have been my preferred choice, as it dropped me in the dreaded Euston at the start of the evening rush.
As I didn’t have a reservation and was travelling on an on-line off peak ticket at just £25.50, I made my way to Virgin’s unreserved coach E. There I sat in state in a backward facing window seat in a set of four with a table on which I laid out my paper and Private Eye. A young lady did sit opposite, but for much of the journey we were the only passengers in the coach.
After an hour or so, I went for some water from the shop in Coach C. It was a real obstacle course as the train was quite full and most of the coach in between was fully reserved, with a group of Scouse totties trying to find seats and blocking the gangway with their cases.
On Sunday, I’ll be coming back from Wigan after the Ipswich match. Again, I’ve not got a reservation and I’ll be checking out coach E first. If there is no space, I will probably pay for a Weekend First Upgrade. If the train’s occupancy is true to form, First won’t be very full!
If you want to know more about Virgin’s Unreserved Coach E, it’s all here.
A Gluten Free Breakfast On Virgin Trains
I went to Liverpool today on the 08:07 Virgin train from Euston. I was in First and got this gluten free breakfast as part of the ticket.
A Gluten Free Breakfast On Virgin Trains
It came with lots of tea and an orange juice, and very good it was too! Sadly, I think it is only served Monday to Friday until 09:59, as I reported here.
The scrambled egg was particularly nice and was some of the best I’d had that wasn’t home cooked or in a top class hotel. It certainly gave the impression that it was freshly cooked and hadn’t been stewing for a couple of hours.
An interesting point on the price of train tickets is that it cost me £42.90 to go up in First and £25.50 to come back in Standard. So my comfortable seat, breakfast and extra tea, cost me £17.40.
Virgin Trains Are Getting There!
I travelled up to Birmingham today in First Class on Virgin Trains. They now have an improved breakfast menu, which is available on all trains leaving Euston before 10:00.
Virgin Trains Are Getting There!
I’d had breakfast earlier at home and anyway I was on the 10:23, so I was too late! However I did get three cups of tea and a bottle of water thrown in to my £25 fare bought the previous evening.
The Joy Of Birmingham By Train
An old friend phoned up last night and we decided to have lunch in Birmingham today.
So I got on the Virgin Trains web site and bought myself a ticket to Brum for this morning at nine last night for just £25.75, which gets me to New Street station in good time to walk to Carluccio’s. I should be in the centre of Birmingham about two hours after leaving home
I didn’t buy myself a return ticket, as I want to look at several things in the city and am unsure about, whether I’ll come home to either Euston or Marylebone. So I’ll buy a walk-up ticket in steerage, when I decide to come back.
I just used the Transport Direct web site to see how long it would take someone else to drive. They reckon it will be just under two and a half hours, but they recommend taking a fifteen minute break. The cost in a medium-sized petrol car is £20 plus the parking.
So cost is probably about the same, if you exclude the cost of ownership of the car, but the train is thirty minutes quicker. I can also use my phone and wi-fi.
My one beef at a lot of big stations, is that they don’t have a decent restaurant, cafe or pub, where you could have a quiet meeting, close by. Birmingham New Street is a special case, as they are rebuilding the station, but some don’t provide hardly anything except gluten-rich fast food. Manchester Piccadilly, Kings Cross and Waterloo are setting a standard, that all others should try to follow. Where for instance is a good Indian restaurant in a station?
To Burnley To See Ipswich
I went to Burnley today to see Ipswich play. I went up via Leeds, as in my opinion, First Class on East Coast is so much better than the offering on Virgin Trains.
I also didn’t suffer any delays, but apparently some Ipswich supporters, who took the Manchester route, got to the match at around half-time.
Are Virgin Trains Going To Go Faster?
With trains, it has always been known, that the faster you go, the more passengers you attract.
So when you get a headline of Virgin mulls 135 mph working in Modern Railways, you suspect that they are working on faster trains.
After all the Class 390 Pendolinos are capable of 140 mph, but are limited to 125 mph in service.
At present, most trains to both Liverpool and Manchester take about eight minutes over two hours from Euston, but one train a day does it in two hours. So to lose that eight minutes and get all trains on the headline-grabbing two hours, would mean an average speed increase of 6.25%. If the average journey speed bears a direct relationship to the train’s maximum speed, then by increasing the current maxium from 125 mph to 135 mph is a rise of 8.0%.
So is this where the conservative figure of 135 mph came from? It is just enough to get all London to Liverpool and Manchester trains just under that magic two hours, that will give a sensible return for the cost of the extra speed and the track and signalling improvements?
Applying the same rules to the Glasgow time of four hours and thirty minutes, could give a speed reduction to four hours and ten minutes.
So on a rough and ready cakculation, Virgin’s op speed of 135 mph, could bring a great improvement to the West Coast Main Line. Remember that the rebuild of the line in the early 2000s was intended to deliver a London Manchester time of an hour and forty five minutes.
Manchester Comes To Liverpool
I’m fairly certain, although I could be mistaken, that the Class 390 Pendolino, I took back from Liverpool on Saturday was named City of Manchester.
But it was the second train south in the morning.
Manchester’s Disorganised Public Transport
Coming from London, you get to know, what properly connected and information-rich public transport can do for you.
Arrive at any Underground station and they’ll be staff to speed you on your way, with proper ticket information booths at many mainline stations like Euston. Nearly every bus stop, in the capital, also has a local map and a spider map for buses in the area. And of course every bus stop now has a full text message information system.
Yesterday, I went to Blackburn to see Ipswich play. I chose to go the direct but slower route via Manchester, as this would allow me to have a decent lunch in Carluccio’s in Manchester Piccadilly station.
I arrived at the station courtesy of a Virgin Train’s Pendolino just before twelve and without any difficulty, bought myself an Off Peak Return from any Manchester station to Blackburn for the princely sum of £6.15, from a well-staffed Virgin Trains ticket office. At least I didn’t have the ticket problem, that I had at Liverpool on this day, where staff seemed to be non-existent.
I had an excellent brunch in Carluccio’s before setting off to Manchester Victoria by tram to get the direct train to Blackburn. Piccadilly to Victoria is a standard tram journey across the city, if you’re going onward like I was, after coming up from London, but as seems to be common on all Manchester transport, the system assumes everybody knows where they are going. There was no staff on the tram station to ask either.
Some might object, that there was no specific Senior ticket and you have to pay the full fare. I could afford the £1.10, so what does it matter. But other visitors might not be so affluent. After all, Sheffield allows me on their trams with my Freedom Pass, which of course doubles as an England-wide bus pass. But not on Manchester trams!
The train to Blackburn was one of the clapped out Pacers and Sprinters like these.
Two Clapped Out Trains
It was clean and worked reasonably well, but the passenger information system was very nineteenth century. It was a new line to me and I was no idea, where I was and which was the next station. As it was Blackburn was obvious.
Blackburn station has had a bit of a makeover, but this does not apply to anything to do with the buses. I was thinking about getting a taxi, when I saw a 1 bus, which said it went to Darwen via Ewood Park. Again, there was no-one to ask about which bus to take and where to get it.
It was then the usual rigmarole of getting a ticket issued on the bus, which I felt like promptly dropping amongst the litter on the floor of the bus. Why can’t we have a UK-wide system for bus ticketing based on London’s successful Oyster? I hate to use the term no-brainer, but if ever there was one, this is it. But I suppose cities, like Manchester, wouldn’t want to use a London-developed system, just as they won’t use two-door buses or fit good on-board information systems.
I’ll deal with the match later and then it was repeating the process on the bus to get back to the station. There was just a list on the shelter of times and no text message information system, to know how long we’d have to wait in the cold.
Luckily, I just caught a train to Manchester Victoria and the helpful inspector, said it would be easier to change at Bolton station. I did change, there but there was no chance of a cup of tea, whilst I waited.
The Closed Buffet At Bolton Station
Finally, I ended back at Manchester Piccadilly, in the little satellite station at the back. I knew where to get the London train and made it with perhaps two minutes to spare. I paid the £15 upgrade to First Class and was one of four in the carriage. I suppose the television presenter, Garth Crooks, was pleased, as he could just fall asleep for most of the way, without being bothered by large numbers of football experts. I did laugh though, as he pulled a cap low over his face and would a thick scarf round his neck, as he walked through a fairly deserted Euston station.
So if I was the Mayor of Manchester what would I do?
1. Put a proper Manchester Transport information booth in Manchester Piccadilly station. After all, the main bus interchange in Manchester is in Piccadilly Gardens, ehich is not a short walk away.
2. Make sure, it’s obvious how you get a tram from Piccadilly to Victoria.
3 Bring Senior Tickets on the trams into line with the rest of the country. I would also like to see the ability to use Oyster and bank cards as payment on the buses and trams, so that it is easier for visitors.
4. How about moving to London’s two-door disabled and passenger-friendly information-rich buses? This one might even get more people out of their cars, as I believe they have in London.
5. Manchester needs maps everywhere! Or at least somewhere!
6. A few more staff would help too!
I know Blackburn is outside of the Greater Manchester area, but a lot of the same things apply.
I suppose the problem, is that if you use public transport in large parts of the north, you’re a loser, so you should get lost and not be a drain on car-owning tax-payers!
Manchester public transport, must be a nightmare for the blind. Or don’t people go blind in the north?
The Anonymous Widower 