I remembered just why I hated commuting this morning.
I got up and dragged myself to the station, arriving in time.
The train to Kings Cross was cancelled.
There was a (very) slow train to Liverpool Street soon after, but there were no charging sockets on that, and the iPad I am writing on did not charge properly overnight.
So, I am waiting for the next Kings Cross train.
And, meanwhile, the video did not upload properly overnight either, so I am still waiting for that.
I admit, I like working from home. It may not suit everyone, but it does me and regular travel of this sort is something I am very glad to have behind me.
———-
And then that next train was reduced to 4 coaches. So 16 carriages worth of people in 4 coaches. There will be no more blogging for now. Apologies.
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Buy me a coffee!
I used to like it when I got what is now the D2 from Frome into Bath, on a nice day at least!
Watching the sun rise, deer in the fields and the jokes about my funeral arrangements – it went past the Bath Natural Burial Ground so I wanted my coffin taken on the bus with my pensioner pass taped to the lid.
What I do find interesting though is the different attitude to punctuality when I was in Poland. I was driving the last train from Poznan to Wolsztyn one night and we were delayed while the Railway Police came to remove a drunk. The Polish crew were very unhappy about even a few minutes delay while on another occasion someone else described an incident when the brick arch collapsed on an OK1 (Prussian P8) and they were having steaming difficulties. The passengers were NOT happy and made their displeasure known. Similarly I saw the overnight train to Cologne given the OK to go by the guard because it was departure time and ignoring the fact that passengers were still trying to board (OK not so good)
Perhaps we need to look hard at how they do things abroad
I won’t ask about how you got to drive….
I think this is the answer ro Richard’s query about John driving ( a train?) =====Wolsztyn (formerly Wollstein) is a small town set amongst lakes, 68 km south-west of Poznan, which was once noted for the manufacture of woollen cloth. It is a railway junction, with a locomotive depot, and is now the last place in Europe where service trains are regularly worked by steam locomotives, and the location of a project, managed by a British entrepreneur in partnership with a charitable trust in Poland, and with PKP, the Polish railway authority, that enables the skills of driving and firing steam locomotives to be passed to future generations. I seem to remember long ago English steam train enthusiasts paying to go on this course which entailed under skilled supervision of course, driving commuter trains!
Sounds like fun…
Mr Murphy, I am disspointed at your negative attitude to the Great British rail experience, it is unpatriotic & unkind to those working on the railways. I will be reporting you to the authorities that monitor this sort of thing. As we know, privatisation of the railways was a massive success, many bankers now lead happy & fullfilled lives because of it, and whilst things can go wrong from time to time (nothing is perfect) at least you did not need to pedal & I looking on the positive side: now you know how a sardine feels.
In a leased tin for which an exploitative price is being paid…,
Mike
I feel Mr Ian Hislop could make use of your talents.
Thank you, Gentlemen.
Not just banksters, Mike, but the rest of the City gang.
My manager at Barclays was a solicitor at one of the law firms, not a magic circle one, involved. His firm was responsible for the legal side of the sharing of infrastructure by train operating companies and how such infrastructure was managed. According to him, the team went to a siding one evening, observed operations for a grand total of two hours and went home. That two hours gave them sufficient insight to draft the contracts and other papers for privatisation. I learnt this a decade ago. By then, my manager had begun to realise the damage that Thatcherism had caused.
A few years before, I was at the City’s main trade body and was involved with training young officials from China and Russia. There were visitors, middle and senior managers from Turkey and Japan, too. All wanted to learn what had gone wrong with Blighty. Off site and after hours, I was able to be candid.
Commuting in UK is waking up every day just to be shat on from a very great height.
From the cost of travel, poor overcrowded transport, cancellations, then to be repeated at the end of a long day when hungry and tired.
The results of uncaring politics.
Taxation without representation.
I can remember commuting into London many years ago – something I do not miss. I only really appreciated it what it was like when we moved out of the South East and relocated to the North West.
My commutes now are better, not perfect though, and there are not as many cancelled trains. Also, I like having the option of working from home (not least due to the reduced cost).
Craig
These lyrics are classed as child-friendly and safe for all! so, with thanks to the late Donald Swann (and the late Gordon Langford) here are extracts from “Slow Train”
Miller′s Dale for Tideswell …
Kirby Muxloe …
Mow Cop and Scholar Green …
No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street
We won’t be meeting again
On the Slow Train. ————–
On the Main Line and the goods′ siding
The grass grows high
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Trouble House Halt.
The sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate.
No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay
No one departs, no one arrives —————-
On the Slow Train —-
Ah, Tumby Woodside. It really exists, and it really did have a station.
It is deep in Reform territory in Lincolnshire.
With apologies for mangling the words of Edward Thomas
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
🙂
There’s a delightful, lyrical version by the Kings Singers which my father (a railway enthusiast) requested to close his funeral.
Wow…the last train….
I recall my delight at discovering myself in the vicinity of Troublehouse Halt.
Gloucestershire if I remember correctly.
🙂
Ah, Flanders and Swan. Pure delightful nostalgia.
Chester- Le- Street is a few miles from me and still operational. It’s half-way between Durham and Newcastle Central. There are no churns, definitely no porters, but still the off-chance of a cat on a seat. It’s still an interesting place to sit for an hour as the trains thunder past and over the famous viaduct overlooking the market square. A two-carriage train calls every few hours.
Going to and from London, I’m told, is now usually okay. Attempting cross-country journeys is often a nightmare. Last week my daughter took 10 hours to travel from Barnsley to Cromer (166 miles by road). She opted for the Sheffield to Norwich service to minimise changes, as she had a lot of luggage, and also to avoid changing at Ely where she has been stranded for hours in the past. The train from Sheffield was terminated (I love their jargon) at Nottingham without any explanation. After a long phone call she received permission to change operators without charge and was allowed to travel to Leicester. There, she managed to get a train to Ely where, after a long delay, she boarded a train to Norwich and eventually reached home. She has had to fill in four different forms to the rail companies to apply for compensation. At no point did she receive any apology and East Midland Railways did not facilitate her onward journey, which she had paid for. One day I will strangle John Major at Lords with his MCC tie.
That sounds painful.
I am now on an ontime train home….so far.
I spent 24 years working on the railway, 17 of those years actually on trains.
I can confirm that Great British Railways will just create a similar, if not worse, dog’s breakfast than we have now.
Labour have decided not to renationalise the rolling stock companies, rail freight or the open access companies.
Add to that the fact that there is virtually no one left in the industry who has the first idea how to run a railway properly, and the fact that Louise Haigh was replaced by Heidi Alexander, I don’t expect things to improve anytime soon.
I hope to be proved wrong.
You won’t be.
Hope you get back half the cost of your train ticket:
greatnorthernrail.com/help-and-support/delay-repay-compensation
The time expended will not make it worthwhile.
‘Been to Mow Cop, to the Bleeding Wolf pub at Scholar Green no less – I wonder if it is still open these days – the more common side of Cheshire – unless money has swept it all away?
I commute into Stafford most days during term time. The local MP Leigh Ingram (who looks no older than my 6th formers) referred to it in Parliament as the “Stafford Escape Room”. There have been massively obstructive road works on the few main roads for over 18 months, with another 6 at least to go. Its more stress than teaching Year 9.
Back in the 1970s in the days of British Rail I had a phone call late one night. ” Stationmaster Liverpool St here. We have found a young Russian woman sitting on the wrong platform waiting for a train to Ipswich. But the last train to Ipswich has gone. But if we put her on the Boat Train to Harwich and stop it at Manningtree, can you collect her? Could that happen nowadays?
No.
We’re off on the Ffestiniog Railway tomorrow, hopefully on a steam train, though they can’t guarantee that. In the Pullman Car no less! And we pick up a cream tea at Blaenau Ffestiniog to have on the train back to Portmadoc. What a shame all trains aren’t like that! It’s years since we went on that railway and I’m really looking forward to it – intend to take lots of photos.
Saturday we’re going to a house called Ty Mawr for an Open Garden Day. We went last year, and the garden is wonderful. The lady who owns it bought some fields, and planted a wood, including an avenue of copper plum trees. She did all the tree planting herself! Along with all of the other various gardens on the site. If you’re ever in this neck of the woods it’s really worth a visit. It’s nearish to Aberdaron. Here’s a few photos of it I took last year:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liverpool-leftovers/albums/72177720319216208/with/53885767882
Enjoy the railway. I haven’t been for several years, since Thomas worked there, in fact.