UK plc - closed Sundays

[Clank]

Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.

I have spent more time this afternoon travelling from Stansted to Gatwick
than it took to get from Bucharest to Gatwick. Had I known in advance I
would foolishly not have agreed to meet friends in town, on the assumption
that 6 hours was more than enough time to transfer between London airports,
and just booked a coach - but evidently I've been out of the country too
long and forgotten that the country writes "Here be dragons" over the
weekends in their diaries.


So the Stansted Express isn't running; congratulations on the absolutely
total ansence if any signage at Stansted airport to that effect.
Fortunately, I found out via my mobile. Oh, no signage to the replacement
buses either, but no problem, the man at the information desk was at least
able to tell me it was stand 37, the furthest from thevterminal. Christ
knows how anyone could have found that by luck.

He was nearly right as well; turns out it was the bus at stand 36, the one
without a destination shown. The bus driver at Stand 38 was kind enough to
tell me, since there were no railway staff to be seen.

On the bright side, the rail replacement bus only took half an hour longer
than claimed (at 90 minutes) to reach Liverpool street. This magnificent
timing achieved by driving very very slowly but helpfully avoiding any
intermediate stops (e.g. Tottenham Hale) on one of the approximately two
tube lines that could be arsed to run today.

Still, good job I didn't go to the Victoria line because I might have been
tempted to try a train from there - a mistake because there is evidently
engineering work between Victoria and Clapham.

So probably a good thing I made my way to London Bridge. Being a brave
soul, I ignored the fact the station entrance is closed and found my way
in.

Wisely I ignored the signs telling me the train was "Delayed". I know
better than that - when it just says "Delayed" but you can see the train,
get on anyway - good job, because it actually left on time. Pity the fools
still on the platform.

I made it to Croydon to meet aforementioned friends for a full half hour.

I write this rant from the overcrowded Southern service to Brighton (via
Gatwick.) Why is it overcrowded, you ask? Why, because the Thameslink I
was going to catch was cancelled, of course!



How the fuck do you live in this country?

[Clank]

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.
I have spent more time this afternoon travelling from Stansted to Gatwick
than it took to get from Bucharest to Gatwick. Had I known in advance I
would foolishly not have agreed to meet friends in town, on the assumption
that 6 hours was more than enough time to transfer between London airports,
and just booked a coach - but evidently I've been out of the country too
long and forgotten that the country writes "Here be dragons" over the
weekends in their diaries.
So the Stansted Express isn't running; congratulations on the absolutely
total ansence if any signage at Stansted airport to that effect.
Fortunately, I found out via my mobile. Oh, no signage to the replacement
buses either, but no problem, the man at the information desk was at least
able to tell me it was stand 37, the furthest from thevterminal. Christ
knows how anyone could have found that by luck.
He was nearly right as well; turns out it was the bus at stand 36, the one
without a destination shown. The bus driver at Stand 38 was kind enough to
tell me, since there were no railway staff to be seen.
On the bright side, the rail replacement bus only took half an hour longer
than claimed (at 90 minutes) to reach Liverpool street. This magnificent
timing achieved by driving very very slowly but helpfully avoiding any
intermediate stops (e.g. Tottenham Hale) on one of the approximately two
tube lines that could be arsed to run today.
Still, good job I didn't go to the Victoria line because I might have been
tempted to try a train from there - a mistake because there is evidently
engineering work between Victoria and Clapham.
So probably a good thing I made my way to London Bridge. Being a brave
soul, I ignored the fact the station entrance is closed and found my way
in.
Wisely I ignored the signs telling me the train was "Delayed". I know
better than that - when it just says "Delayed" but you can see the train,
get on anyway - good job, because it actually left on time. Pity the fools
still on the platform.
I made it to Croydon to meet aforementioned friends for a full half hour.
I write this rant from the overcrowded Southern service to Brighton (via
Gatwick.) Why is it overcrowded, you ask? Why, because the Thameslink I
was going to catch was cancelled, of course!
How the fuck do you live in this country?

(I mean Buc to Stansted in the first sentence of course. Forgive typos
;-).)

[D A Stocks]

Post by Clank
How the fuck do you live in this country?

Drive a csr. That's my solution for a weekly commute between Sussex and
Chesterfield.
--
DAS

[Jan Mayen]

Perfectly well, thank you.

[p***@gmail.com]

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.
I have spent more time this afternoon travelling from Stansted to Gatwick
than it took to get from Bucharest to Gatwick. Had I known in advance I
would foolishly not have agreed to meet friends in town, on the assumption
that 6 hours was more than enough time to transfer between London airports,
and just booked a coach - but evidently I've been out of the country too
long and forgotten that the country writes "Here be dragons" over the
weekends in their diaries.
So the Stansted Express isn't running; congratulations on the absolutely
total ansence if any signage at Stansted airport to that effect.
Fortunately, I found out via my mobile. Oh, no signage to the replacement
buses either, but no problem, the man at the information desk was at least
able to tell me it was stand 37, the furthest from thevterminal. Christ
knows how anyone could have found that by luck.
He was nearly right as well; turns out it was the bus at stand 36, the one
without a destination shown. The bus driver at Stand 38 was kind enough to
tell me, since there were no railway staff to be seen.
On the bright side, the rail replacement bus only took half an hour longer
than claimed (at 90 minutes) to reach Liverpool street. This magnificent
timing achieved by driving very very slowly but helpfully avoiding any
intermediate stops (e.g. Tottenham Hale) on one of the approximately two
tube lines that could be arsed to run today.
Still, good job I didn't go to the Victoria line because I might have been
tempted to try a train from there - a mistake because there is evidently
engineering work between Victoria and Clapham.
So probably a good thing I made my way to London Bridge. Being a brave
soul, I ignored the fact the station entrance is closed and found my way
in.
Wisely I ignored the signs telling me the train was "Delayed". I know
better than that - when it just says "Delayed" but you can see the train,
get on anyway - good job, because it actually left on time. Pity the fools
still on the platform.
I made it to Croydon to meet aforementioned friends for a full half hour.
I write this rant from the overcrowded Southern service to Brighton (via
Gatwick.) Why is it overcrowded, you ask? Why, because the Thameslink I
was going to catch was cancelled, of course!
How the fuck do you live in this country?

You seem to have the strange idea that railways are to take you from where you are to where you need to be. It should be obvious to you now but that just isn't the case.

The railways exist for these reasons:

1) To keep vast swathes of people who would otherwise be unemployed in cushy jobs with inflated salaries.

2) To separate the poor from any money that they should somehow come into possession of by means of vast fares by imposing fines for breaching comprehensible far rules or simply charging ridiculous fares should they want to do something crazy like travel before 10am e.g. to get to work.

3) To give politicians vanity projects that they can write about in the next election literature.

That is why everyone who can drive in this country does.

Next time you will learn and hopefully just fly direct to your destination or change flights in a sensible county such as Amsterdam.

Philip

[Tim Watts]

Post by p***@gmail.com
You seem to have the strange idea that railways are to take you from where you are to where you need to be. It should be obvious to you now but that just isn't the case.
1) To keep vast swathes of people who would otherwise be unemployed in cushy jobs with inflated salaries.
2) To separate the poor from any money that they should somehow come into possession of by means of vast fares by imposing fines for breaching comprehensible far rules or simply charging ridiculous fares should they want to do something crazy like travel before 10am e.g. to get to work.
3) To give politicians vanity projects that they can write about in the next election literature.
That is why everyone who can drive in this country does.
Next time you will learn and hopefully just fly direct to your destination or change flights in a sensible county such as Amsterdam.
Philip

Unless the destination is central London, in which case only a fool
would drive, except on Sundays.

[p***@gmail.com]

Post by Tim Watts

Post by p***@gmail.com
You seem to have the strange idea that railways are to take you from where you are to where you need to be. It should be obvious to you now but that just isn't the case.
1) To keep vast swathes of people who would otherwise be unemployed in cushy jobs with inflated salaries.
2) To separate the poor from any money that they should somehow come into possession of by means of vast fares by imposing fines for breaching comprehensible far rules or simply charging ridiculous fares should they want to do something crazy like travel before 10am e.g. to get to work.
3) To give politicians vanity projects that they can write about in the next election literature.
That is why everyone who can drive in this country does.
Next time you will learn and hopefully just fly direct to your destination or change flights in a sensible county such as Amsterdam.
Philip

Unless the destination is central London, in which case only a fool
would drive, except on Sundays.

Only a fool would set foot inside the area encircled by the M25. It's a smelly noisy expensive hole.

Philip

[Tim Watts]

Post by p***@gmail.com

Post by Tim Watts

Post by p***@gmail.com
You seem to have the strange idea that railways are to take you from where you are to where you need to be. It should be obvious to you now but that just isn't the case.
1) To keep vast swathes of people who would otherwise be unemployed in cushy jobs with inflated salaries.
2) To separate the poor from any money that they should somehow come into possession of by means of vast fares by imposing fines for breaching comprehensible far rules or simply charging ridiculous fares should they want to do something crazy like travel before 10am e.g. to get to work.
3) To give politicians vanity projects that they can write about in the next election literature.
That is why everyone who can drive in this country does.
Next time you will learn and hopefully just fly direct to your destination or change flights in a sensible county such as Amsterdam.
Philip

Unless the destination is central London, in which case only a fool
would drive, except on Sundays.

Only a fool would set foot inside the area encircled by the M25. It's a smelly noisy expensive hole.
Philip

I was forced to today (Sunday, Purley area) and it was crap with traffic
jams.

[MB]

Post by Tim Watts
Unless the destination is central London, in which case only a fool
would drive, except on Sundays.

Some might say that only a fool would go there at any time.

[br!anrobertson1961]

Post by p***@gmail.com

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.
I have spent more time this afternoon travelling from Stansted to Gatwick
than it took to get from Bucharest to Gatwick. Had I known in advance I
would foolishly not have agreed to meet friends in town, on the assumption
that 6 hours was more than enough time to transfer between London airports,
and just booked a coach - but evidently I've been out of the country too
long and forgotten that the country writes "Here be dragons" over the
weekends in their diaries.
So the Stansted Express isn't running; congratulations on the absolutely
total ansence if any signage at Stansted airport to that effect.
Fortunately, I found out via my mobile. Oh, no signage to the replacement
buses either, but no problem, the man at the information desk was at least
able to tell me it was stand 37, the furthest from thevterminal. Christ
knows how anyone could have found that by luck.
He was nearly right as well; turns out it was the bus at stand 36, the one
without a destination shown. The bus driver at Stand 38 was kind enough to
tell me, since there were no railway staff to be seen.
On the bright side, the rail replacement bus only took half an hour longer
than claimed (at 90 minutes) to reach Liverpool street. This magnificent
timing achieved by driving very very slowly but helpfully avoiding any
intermediate stops (e.g. Tottenham Hale) on one of the approximately two
tube lines that could be arsed to run today.
Still, good job I didn't go to the Victoria line because I might have been
tempted to try a train from there - a mistake because there is evidently
engineering work between Victoria and Clapham.
So probably a good thing I made my way to London Bridge. Being a brave
soul, I ignored the fact the station entrance is closed and found my way
in.
Wisely I ignored the signs telling me the train was "Delayed". I know
better than that - when it just says "Delayed" but you can see the train,
get on anyway - good job, because it actually left on time. Pity the fools
still on the platform.
I made it to Croydon to meet aforementioned friends for a full half hour.
I write this rant from the overcrowded Southern service to Brighton (via
Gatwick.) Why is it overcrowded, you ask? Why, because the Thameslink I
was going to catch was cancelled, of course!
How the fuck do you live in this country?

You seem to have the strange idea that railways are to take you from where you are to where you need to be. It should be obvious to you now but that just isn't the case.
1) To keep vast swathes of people who would otherwise be unemployed in cushy jobs with inflated salaries.
2) To separate the poor from any money that they should somehow come into possession of by means of vast fares by imposing fines for breaching comprehensible far rules or simply charging ridiculous fares should they want to do something crazy like travel before 10am e.g. to get to work.
3) To give politicians vanity projects that they can write about in the next election literature.
That is why everyone who can drive in this country does.
Next time you will learn and hopefully just fly direct to your destination or change flights in a sensible county such as Amsterdam.
Philip

Quite right. You could train monkeys to drive trains.

[furnessvale]

Post by br!anrobertson1961
Quite right. You could train monkeys to drive trains.

True. It's training them to stop safely, that's the hard bit!

George

[D A Stocks]

Post by Clank
How the fuck do you live in this country?

Don't try using public transport on a Sunday? There's a reason those flights
arriving/departing London on a Sunday are so cheap ...

--
DAS

[tim.....]

Post by D A Stocks

Post by Clank
How the fuck do you live in this country?

Don't try using public transport on a Sunday? There's a reason those
flights arriving/departing London on a Sunday are so cheap ...

if you think it's easier to get to/from foreign airports on a Sunday
morning, think again

tim

[Clank]

Post by Clank
How the fuck do you live in this country?

Don't try using public transport on a Sunday? There's a reason those >
flights arriving/departing London on a Sunday are so cheap ...

if you think it's easier to get to/from foreign airports on a Sunday morning, think again

Do you think I flew to Stansted on my own power? I mean, I /can/ fly
gliders but the blanket of breakless cloud covering Europe at the weekend
didn't look too awesome for finding thermals...

[tim.....]

Post by Clank

Post by Clank
How the fuck do you live in this country?

Don't try using public transport on a Sunday? There's a reason those >
flights arriving/departing London on a Sunday are so cheap ...

if you think it's easier to get to/from foreign airports on a Sunday morning, think again

Do you think I flew to Stansted on my own power?

I didn't say it was impossible

I'm just saying that other country's public transport services early on a
Sunday morning are similarly reduced, when compared to weekdays, as ours are

tim

[John Levine]

Post by tim.....
if you think it's easier to get to/from foreign airports on a Sunday
morning, think again

Depends which ones. The subway (underground) to JFK in New York runs 24/7,
the LIRR commuter train only has a gap from 0300 to 0400.

[TimB]

Post by John Levine

Post by tim.....
if you think it's easier to get to/from foreign airports on a Sunday
morning, think again

Depends which ones. The subway (underground) to JFK in New York runs 24/7,
the LIRR commuter train only has a gap from 0300 to 0400.

I remember flying in to Dallas or Houston, I don't remember which, and getting a bus in to town, then finding that I'd need to take a taxi back because there was NO public transport there of any kind on a Sunday. Which of course means that anyone working there needs to have a car.
Tim

[ian batten]

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.

That the railways are lazy and run a 16x6 service is not news.

But it's the logic I've been advancing ever since uk.railway started, which
explains why the roads are overloaded:

The railways don't operate reliably in the evenings and the weekends, and
doubly not during the holidays. Therefore, you need to own a car if you
wish to travel outside weekday daytime with any sort of reliability. That
means you've paid the tax, insurance, depreciation and (in these days of
12000 mile service intervals) servicing. So the marginal cost of driving during
the week is just the fuel, which makes it cheaper than trains. So people drive.

Breaking that cycle starts with having public transport which works at the
weekends, in the evening and during holidays, even if the individual workings
aren't economic, because that is the only way you can convince people not to
own cars. I'm desperate to get down to owning only one car, because it's the one
move we could make which would at a stroke substantially improve our
finances, but I see that the usual "want to travel during the holidays? Fuck
off, we don't care" notices are up for half term travel between London and
Birmingham (the two largest cities in the country, for God's Sake) and only
a fool attempts to use diversions, bus substitutes and so on. Every week
the rail doesn't operate reliably between 9pm Saturday and 12 noon Sunday,
for reasons which are completely unexplained.

Hey ho. The report Notwork Fail have published on the Christmas fuckup
shows just how much contempt they have for the travelling public, so it's not
going to get better. Better budget to continue to own cars.

ian

[D A Stocks]

Post by ian batten

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.

That the railways are lazy and run a 16x6 service is not news.
But it's the logic I've been advancing ever since uk.railway started, which
The railways don't operate reliably in the evenings and the weekends, and
doubly not during the holidays. Therefore, you need to own a car if you
wish to travel outside weekday daytime with any sort of reliability. That
means you've paid the tax, insurance, depreciation and (in these days of
12000 mile service intervals) servicing. So the marginal cost of driving during
the week is just the fuel, which makes it cheaper than trains. So people drive.
Breaking that cycle starts with having public transport which works at the
weekends, in the evening and during holidays, even if the individual workings
aren't economic, because that is the only way you can convince people not to
own cars. I'm desperate to get down to owning only one car, because it's the one
move we could make which would at a stroke substantially improve our
finances, but I see that the usual "want to travel during the holidays?
Fuck
off, we don't care" notices are up for half term travel between London and
Birmingham (the two largest cities in the country, for God's Sake) and only
a fool attempts to use diversions, bus substitutes and so on. Every week
the rail doesn't operate reliably between 9pm Saturday and 12 noon Sunday,
for reasons which are completely unexplained.
Hey ho. The report Notwork Fail have published on the Christmas fuckup
shows just how much contempt they have for the travelling public, so it's not
going to get better. Better budget to continue to own cars.
ian

I know people who have got rid of their cars and joined a car club. It's an
option here in Brighton and Hove (there are a couple of spaces within sight
of my home), and for quite a lot of London. It wouldn't work for me because
I tend to live away from home (with the car) during the week as part of my
job, and I don't know what options are available elsewhere in the country.

--
DAS

[ian batten]

Post by D A Stocks

Post by ian batten

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.

That the railways are lazy and run a 16x6 service is not news.
But it's the logic I've been advancing ever since uk.railway started, which
The railways don't operate reliably in the evenings and the weekends, and
doubly not during the holidays. Therefore, you need to own a car if you
wish to travel outside weekday daytime with any sort of reliability. That
means you've paid the tax, insurance, depreciation and (in these days of
12000 mile service intervals) servicing. So the marginal cost of driving during
the week is just the fuel, which makes it cheaper than trains. So people drive.
Breaking that cycle starts with having public transport which works at the
weekends, in the evening and during holidays, even if the individual workings
aren't economic, because that is the only way you can convince people not to
own cars. I'm desperate to get down to owning only one car, because it's the one
move we could make which would at a stroke substantially improve our
finances, but I see that the usual "want to travel during the holidays?
Fuck
off, we don't care" notices are up for half term travel between London and
Birmingham (the two largest cities in the country, for God's Sake) and only
a fool attempts to use diversions, bus substitutes and so on. Every week
the rail doesn't operate reliably between 9pm Saturday and 12 noon Sunday,
for reasons which are completely unexplained.
Hey ho. The report Notwork Fail have published on the Christmas fuckup
shows just how much contempt they have for the travelling public, so it's not
going to get better. Better budget to continue to own cars.
ian

I know people who have got rid of their cars and joined a car club.

Birmingham City Council made a huge noise about that a couple of years
ago, in conjunction with "car2go". It lasted about six months. I had a card
to use it, as they handed them out free on campus (it was otherwise twenty
quid to sign up) but I never used it: the one time it would have been useful,
I couldn't find a car.

https://www.car2go.com/en/birmingham/

Paradoxically, I never saw more than a handful of cars actually being used. You couldn't
book a car, and had to take pot luck that when you wanted to make a
journey, one was available within walking distance of where you happened
to be. And at 11 quid a hour, or sixty quid a day, it is massively, massively
more expensive than a mix of taxis and conventional hire cars or, indeed,
just owning a car.

ian

[Tim Watts]

Post by ian batten
Paradoxically, I never saw more than a handful of cars actually being used. You couldn't
book a car, and had to take pot luck that when you wanted to make a
journey, one was available within walking distance of where you happened
to be. And at 11 quid a hour, or sixty quid a day, it is massively, massively
more expensive than a mix of taxis and conventional hire cars or, indeed,
just owning a car.

I tried Boris bikes in London for a while when you could get a year's
membership for £45.

The problem was that whilst the bikes were good (I'm not fussy) the IT
was being run by a bunch of incompetents who'd janked a system out of
Montreal with a fraction of the bikes and membership - a cruddy poorly
designed system that ran on Windows.

They shoved that in London and it spend most of the time having no idea
what was where.

The biggest problem was taking a bike to the station to catch a train.
You NEED to know where to dock it (ie which bike station has free
docks). The database was so wildly inaccurate that:

You'd check the app on your phone.

1 space at Charing X - Ok that'll be full in 2 minutes.

Several spaces down near Embankment Station. OK we'll go there.

Get there - zero spaces. App still shows 5 spaces.

Backtrack. Charing X docs full as expected.

William IV St - full.

Get back to Southampton St.


So by the time I found a space I'd wasted 15 mins and backtracked 30% of
the route!


I really do not know who they managed to make such a pigs ear of it. I
did a back of the envelope calculation on the amount and rate of data
they'd have to handle for a real time view and I know for afact I could
have single handedly programmed a better system - because a previous job
I had written an entire system to marshal and record a stream of data at
a much higher rate the BB would likely have.


It is just another example of crass utter incompetence.

Now they've jacked the subscription rate right up I just walk. I see a
lot less people on BBs too.

[ian batten]

Post by Tim Watts

Post by ian batten
Paradoxically, I never saw more than a handful of cars actually being used. You couldn't
book a car, and had to take pot luck that when you wanted to make a
journey, one was available within walking distance of where you happened
to be. And at 11 quid a hour, or sixty quid a day, it is massively, massively
more expensive than a mix of taxis and conventional hire cars or, indeed,
just owning a car.

I tried Boris bikes in London for a while when you could get a year's
membership for £45.
The problem was that whilst the bikes were good (I'm not fussy) the IT
was being run by a bunch of incompetents who'd janked a system out of
Montreal with a fraction of the bikes and membership - a cruddy poorly
designed system that ran on Windows.
They shoved that in London and it spend most of the time having no idea
what was where.

Essentially, the people that run public transport (let's include short-term
car hire and bike hire in "public" as it's effectively a self-drive taxi) don't
themselves use public transport, and have contempt for those that do. So
users of public transport are as supplicants, who should be bloody grateful
for the service that the operators deign to provide. The priority of public
transport is running a 1:1 scale model, and passengers should count themselves
lucky that they are allowed to soil the nice shiny model with their dirty feet.

That's exacerbated by the focus on London commuter-belt services, which
are people who indeed only need peak hour weekday trains, and have cars
at home for other use. Public transport other than London commuting is seen
as, and provided as, a distress purchase, so if sometimes you can't travel,
tough shit: serves you right for being too poor to own a car.

In other countries isn't not as bad, but then what could British engineers
possibly learn from overseas practice: we invented the stuff, goddammit.

So we're left with Network Rail's slogan: "want to travel for leisure? Fuck off".

They're closing London to Birmingham at both ends of the half term and over
most of Easter. Presumably Network Rail's senior management are on commission
from the SMMT.

ian

[Mizter T]

Post by ian batten
[...]
Essentially, the people that run public transport (let's include short-term
car hire and bike hire in "public" as it's effectively a self-drive taxi) don't
themselves use public transport, and have contempt for those that do. [...]

In London, that's simply absolute nonsense. But rant on, Mr Batten.

[ian batten]

Post by Mizter T

Post by ian batten
[...]
Essentially, the people that run public transport (let's include short-term
car hire and bike hire in "public" as it's effectively a self-drive taxi) don't
themselves use public transport, and have contempt for those that do. [...]

In London, that's simply absolute nonsense. But rant on, Mr Batten.

Other cities are available.

It's noticeable that railway engineers are able to run a tube network
without shutting it down at 9pm on Saturday, but can't grant the
rest of us the same privilege.

ian

[Clank]

Post by ian batten

Post by Mizter T

Post by ian batten
[...]
Essentially, the people that run public transport (let's include short-term
car hire and bike hire in "public" as it's effectively a self-drive taxi) don't
themselves use public transport, and have contempt for those that do. [...]

In London, that's simply absolute nonsense. But rant on, Mr Batten.

Other cities are available.
It's noticeable that railway engineers are able to run a tube network
without shutting it down at 9pm on Saturday, but can't grant the
rest of us the same privilege.

Don't assume things are great in the capital. As a supporter of a London
football club, it's my experience that TfL ensures that when Chelsea play
West Ham, the District Line is always closed. When Spurs or Arsenal are
playing, you can guarantee the Victoria Line is shut. If someone has to
play at Wembley, expect the Bakerloo to be closed and the overground
conveniently shut anywhere near Willesden Jn.

Part of me wants to think TfL deliberately fuck with football supporters,
but the reality is more likely that it's shit every weekend but only
football fans are stupid enough to actually try travelling, so we notice
more.

[ian batten]

Post by Clank

Post by ian batten

Post by Mizter T

Post by ian batten
[...]
Essentially, the people that run public transport (let's include short-term
car hire and bike hire in "public" as it's effectively a self-drive taxi) don't
themselves use public transport, and have contempt for those that do. [...]

In London, that's simply absolute nonsense. But rant on, Mr Batten.

Other cities are available.
It's noticeable that railway engineers are able to run a tube network
without shutting it down at 9pm on Saturday, but can't grant the
rest of us the same privilege.

Don't assume things are great in the capital

Yeah, but the entire network doesn't start to shut down by 9pm on
Saturdays so that the nice trains can put their pyjamas on early for
a special night in, does it?

Whereas Network Rail start shutting the rest of the country's
railways down at 9pm for precisely that reason, notably the WCML.

The London Underground is 249 route miles. The WCML is
399 route miles. They are not wildly different in scale.

ian

[Recliner]

Post by ian batten

Post by Clank

Post by ian batten

Post by Mizter T

Post by ian batten
[...]
Essentially, the people that run public transport (let's include short-term
car hire and bike hire in "public" as it's effectively a self-drive taxi) don't
themselves use public transport, and have contempt for those that do. [...]

In London, that's simply absolute nonsense. But rant on, Mr Batten.

Other cities are available.
It's noticeable that railway engineers are able to run a tube network
without shutting it down at 9pm on Saturday, but can't grant the
rest of us the same privilege.

Don't assume things are great in the capital

Yeah, but the entire network doesn't start to shut down by 9pm on
Saturdays so that the nice trains can put their pyjamas on early for
a special night in, does it?

And LU will be introducing 24 hour weekend tube services on some sections
later this year.

[Clank]

Post by Recliner

Post by ian batten

Post by Clank

Post by ian batten

Post by Mizter T

Post by ian batten
[...]
Essentially, the people that run public transport (let's include short-term
car hire and bike hire in "public" as it's effectively a self-drive taxi) don't
themselves use public transport, and have contempt for those that do. [...]

In London, that's simply absolute nonsense. But rant on, Mr Batten.

Other cities are available.
It's noticeable that railway engineers are able to run a tube network
without shutting it down at 9pm on Saturday, but can't grant the
rest of us the same privilege.

Don't assume things are great in the capital

Yeah, but the entire network doesn't start to shut down by 9pm on
Saturdays so that the nice trains can put their pyjamas on early for
a special night in, does it?

And LU will be introducing 24 hour weekend tube services on some sections
later this year.

No, they won't.

They'll introduce a 24 hour /timetable/. But they'll carry on closing half
the network every weekend for engineering work regardless. Because as long
as you've stuck a poster up the day before somewhere (on a board on the
bridge at Earl's Court next to the Beware of the Leopard sign is adequate)
it's not a crap service, it's the punter's fault for wanting to travel when
they should have known better.

[ian batten]

Post by Recliner

Post by ian batten

Post by Clank

Post by ian batten

Post by Mizter T

Post by ian batten
[...]
Essentially, the people that run public transport (let's include short-term
car hire and bike hire in "public" as it's effectively a self-drive taxi) don't
themselves use public transport, and have contempt for those that do. [...]

In London, that's simply absolute nonsense. But rant on, Mr Batten.

Other cities are available.
It's noticeable that railway engineers are able to run a tube network
without shutting it down at 9pm on Saturday, but can't grant the
rest of us the same privilege.

Don't assume things are great in the capital

Yeah, but the entire network doesn't start to shut down by 9pm on
Saturdays so that the nice trains can put their pyjamas on early for
a special night in, does it?

And LU will be introducing 24 hour weekend tube services on some sections
later this year.

Indeed. Clank's scepticism notwithstanding, at least LU are trying, and
making the statement that 24 hour operation is something to aspire to.
Network Rail appear to regard anything more than 16x6 operation as
unnatural and impossible.

ian

[Mizter T]

Post by Clank

Post by ian batten
[...]
It's noticeable that railway engineers are able to run a tube network
without shutting it down at 9pm on Saturday, but can't grant the
rest of us the same privilege.

Don't assume things are great in the capital. As a supporter of a London
football club, it's my experience that TfL ensures that when Chelsea play
West Ham, the District Line is always closed. When Spurs or Arsenal are
playing, you can guarantee the Victoria Line is shut. If someone has to
play at Wembley, expect the Bakerloo to be closed and the overground
conveniently shut anywhere near Willesden Jn.
Part of me wants to think TfL deliberately fuck with football supporters,
but the reality is more likely that it's shit every weekend but only
football fans are stupid enough to actually try travelling, so we notice
more.

Sorry Clank but that is just bollocks. Yes, there are closures but
saying stuff like "When Spurs or Arsenal are playing, you can guarantee
the Victoria Line is shut" and "If someone has to play at Wembley,
expect the Bakerloo to be closed..." strongly suggests you've swallowed
an entire tube of extreme hyperbole tablets.

And yes I live here, and yes I'm a football supporter, and yes I go and
watch games.

[Charles Ellson]

Post by Mizter T

Post by Clank

Post by ian batten
[...]
It's noticeable that railway engineers are able to run a tube network
without shutting it down at 9pm on Saturday, but can't grant the
rest of us the same privilege.

Don't assume things are great in the capital. As a supporter of a London
football club, it's my experience that TfL ensures that when Chelsea play
West Ham, the District Line is always closed. When Spurs or Arsenal are
playing, you can guarantee the Victoria Line is shut. If someone has to
play at Wembley, expect the Bakerloo to be closed and the overground
conveniently shut anywhere near Willesden Jn.
Part of me wants to think TfL deliberately fuck with football supporters,
but the reality is more likely that it's shit every weekend but only
football fans are stupid enough to actually try travelling, so we notice
more.

Sorry Clank but that is just bollocks. Yes, there are closures but
saying stuff like "When Spurs or Arsenal are playing, you can guarantee
the Victoria Line is shut" and "If someone has to play at Wembley,
expect the Bakerloo to be closed..." strongly suggests you've swallowed
an entire tube of extreme hyperbole tablets.
And yes I live here, and yes I'm a football supporter, and yes I go and
watch games.

I am not a football supporter but still have to go to some of the same
games, of which only one in the last two years had trains unavailable
(one at Chelsea due to a LU strike causing a decision to close
adjacent stations after the game). Spurs has two stations on different
lines serving it, Arsenal has four (or three and a half if the game
finishes after 20.00) and the Bakerloo Line hasn't served Wembley
Stadium for over 30 years.

[Recliner]

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:38:36 +0000,
... the Bakerloo Line hasn't served Wembley Stadium for over 30 years.

Why do you say that? Surely it's one of the three Tube lines that can be
used to get to and from the stadium, admittedly with an infrequent service?

[Charles Ellson]

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:21:11 +0000 (UTC), Recliner

Post by Recliner

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:38:36 +0000,
... the Bakerloo Line hasn't served Wembley Stadium for over 30 years.

Why do you say that? Surely it's one of the three Tube lines that can be
used to get to and from the stadium, admittedly with an infrequent service?

The nearest tube line is the Jubilee Line which used to be the
Bakerloo Line. The nearest stations in order of proximity to the
"front door" of the stadium are roughly :-
Wembley Stadium 650yds
Wembley Park 750 yds
Wembley Central 1650 yds
North Wembley 2190 yds
Stonebridge Park 2550 yds

Wembley Central only really counts as serving the stadium for those
from a limited choice of directions where diverting to the Underground
would cause a longer journey than going to Wembley Stadium or Wembley
Park.

[Recliner]

Post by Charles Ellson
On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:21:11 +0000 (UTC), Recliner

Post by Recliner

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:38:36 +0000,
... the Bakerloo Line hasn't served Wembley Stadium for over 30 years.

Why do you say that? Surely it's one of the three Tube lines that can be
used to get to and from the stadium, admittedly with an infrequent service?

The nearest tube line is the Jubilee Line which used to be the
Bakerloo Line. The nearest stations in order of proximity to the
"front door" of the stadium are roughly :-
Wembley Stadium 650yds
Wembley Park 750 yds
Wembley Central 1650 yds
North Wembley 2190 yds
Stonebridge Park 2550 yds
Wembley Central only really counts as serving the stadium for those
from a limited choice of directions where diverting to the Underground
would cause a longer journey than going to Wembley Stadium or Wembley
Park.

I don't follow football, but can't departing spectators leave from the back
of the stadium, from which side Wembley Central isn't very far at all?
What about arriving crowds -- do they have to enter by the "front door"?

[Charles Ellson]

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:55:44 +0000 (UTC), Recliner

Post by Recliner

Post by Charles Ellson
On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:21:11 +0000 (UTC), Recliner

Post by Recliner

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:38:36 +0000,
... the Bakerloo Line hasn't served Wembley Stadium for over 30 years.

Why do you say that? Surely it's one of the three Tube lines that can be
used to get to and from the stadium, admittedly with an infrequent service?

The nearest tube line is the Jubilee Line which used to be the
Bakerloo Line. The nearest stations in order of proximity to the
"front door" of the stadium are roughly :-
Wembley Stadium 650yds
Wembley Park 750 yds
Wembley Central 1650 yds
North Wembley 2190 yds
Stonebridge Park 2550 yds
Wembley Central only really counts as serving the stadium for those
from a limited choice of directions where diverting to the Underground
would cause a longer journey than going to Wembley Stadium or Wembley
Park.

I don't follow football, but can't departing spectators leave from the back
of the stadium, from which side Wembley Central isn't very far at all?

You're possibly thinking of Wembley Stadium (ex Wembley Hill) station
which is near enough "just round the back". That station is passed
when taking the shortest route to Wembley Central. Wembley Central is
about 920 yds further away than Wembley Stadium.

Another feature of Wembley Central is that AFAIAA it no longer has
football specials stopping there as it did in the past as this
effectively put the Slow Lines OOU due to trains queuing to discharge
passengers which also had to draw forward to allow people to leave
carriages at the rear of the train. This means that arrival has to be
by local services (LO/LU) and Southern (unless that non-stops on "big"
days but it is also SuX c.0600-2000 only). Presumably we're too far
from the previous or next cup final to verify online if LM have extra
stops but platforms 5 and 6 (Down/Up slow) are only 146/155m long so
even getting e.g. an 8-coach 350 (163.2m it says here) in place is
going to require cutting doors out on Down trains; 350s commonly run
with 12 coaches now.

Post by Recliner
What about arriving crowds -- do they have to enter by the "front door"?

I've not been in there since c.1965 but the impression gained when
driving past is that entry seems to be from the North ("front door")
side. Exit OTOH might like other stadia be more distributed as the
only "extra" required is prevention of entry/re-entry while entrances
require ticket-checking and/or sales.

[Recliner]

Post by Charles Ellson
On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:55:44 +0000 (UTC), Recliner

Post by Recliner

Post by Charles Ellson
On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:21:11 +0000 (UTC), Recliner

Post by Recliner

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:38:36 +0000,
... the Bakerloo Line hasn't served Wembley Stadium for over 30 years.

Why do you say that? Surely it's one of the three Tube lines that can be
used to get to and from the stadium, admittedly with an infrequent service?

The nearest tube line is the Jubilee Line which used to be the
Bakerloo Line. The nearest stations in order of proximity to the
"front door" of the stadium are roughly :-
Wembley Stadium 650yds
Wembley Park 750 yds
Wembley Central 1650 yds
North Wembley 2190 yds
Stonebridge Park 2550 yds
Wembley Central only really counts as serving the stadium for those
from a limited choice of directions where diverting to the Underground
would cause a longer journey than going to Wembley Stadium or Wembley
Park.

I don't follow football, but can't departing spectators leave from the back
of the stadium, from which side Wembley Central isn't very far at all?

You're possibly thinking of Wembley Stadium (ex Wembley Hill) station
which is near enough "just round the back". That station is passed
when taking the shortest route to Wembley Central. Wembley Central is
about 920 yds further away than Wembley Stadium.

Obviously I'm well aware of the difference between the Chiltern Line
station and the Bakerloo station that we were discussing.

Post by Charles Ellson
Another feature of Wembley Central is that AFAIAA it no longer has
football specials stopping there as it did in the past as this
effectively put the Slow Lines OOU due to trains queuing to discharge
passengers which also had to draw forward to allow people to leave
carriages at the rear of the train. This means that arrival has to be
by local services (LO/LU) and Southern (unless that non-stops on "big"
days but it is also SuX c.0600-2000 only). Presumably we're too far
from the previous or next cup final to verify online if LM have extra
stops but platforms 5 and 6 (Down/Up slow) are only 146/155m long so
even getting e.g. an 8-coach 350 (163.2m it says here) in place is
going to require cutting doors out on Down trains; 350s commonly run
with 12 coaches now.

We were discussing your surprising assertion that the Bakerloo line no
longer served Wembley Stadium, not LM football specials.

[Neil Williams]

Post by Charles Ellson
Another feature of Wembley Central is that AFAIAA it no longer has
football specials stopping there as it did in the past as this
effectively put the Slow Lines OOU due to trains queuing to discharge
passengers which also had to draw forward to allow people to leave
carriages at the rear of the train. This means that arrival has to be
by local services (LO/LU) and Southern (unless that non-stops on "big"
days but it is also SuX c.0600-2000 only). Presumably we're too far
from the previous or next cup final to verify online if LM have extra
stops but platforms 5 and 6 (Down/Up slow) are only 146/155m long so
even getting e.g. an 8-coach 350 (163.2m it says here) in place is
going to require cutting doors out on Down trains; 350s commonly run
with 12 coaches now.

LM do run footexes for some matches and other large events. Sometimes
these are dedicated but most often they are stop orders on existing
trains.

Often they do up trains only, which might well be caused by the doors
issue causing too much delay.

Neil

[Clank]

Post by Recliner

Post by Charles Ellson
On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:21:11 +0000 (UTC), Recliner

Post by Recliner

On Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:38:36 +0000,
... the Bakerloo Line hasn't served Wembley Stadium for over 30 years.

Why do you say that? Surely it's one of the three Tube lines that can be
used to get to and from the stadium, admittedly with an infrequent service?

The nearest tube line is the Jubilee Line which used to be the
Bakerloo Line. The nearest stations in order of proximity to the
"front door" of the stadium are roughly :-
Wembley Stadium 650yds
Wembley Park 750 yds
Wembley Central 1650 yds
North Wembley 2190 yds
Stonebridge Park 2550 yds
Wembley Central only really counts as serving the stadium for those
from a limited choice of directions where diverting to the Underground
would cause a longer journey than going to Wembley Stadium or Wembley
Park.

I don't follow football, but can't departing spectators leave from the back
of the stadium, from which side Wembley Central isn't very far at all?
What about arriving crowds -- do they have to enter by the "front door"?

Indeed - Charles obviously doesn't go to Wembley very often...

No, arriving crowds don't have to come up Wembley Way - the route from
Central is actually quicker usually because it's much less overcrowded.
Although to an extent it depends which end of Wembley your team is in.

[Mizter T]

Post by Recliner
[...]
I don't follow football, but can't departing spectators leave from the back
of the stadium, from which side Wembley Central isn't very far at all?
What about arriving crowds -- do they have to enter by the "front door"?

No, you enter via the relevant turnstile (nearest to where your seat
is)- see:
http://www.wembleystadium.com/PDF/WS_Level-B1_Map.pdf

You'd normally exit via the same route.

I can't think of any large stadium where everyone needs to enter through
a single 'front door' type point.

[Clank]

Post by Mizter T

Post by Recliner
[...]
I don't follow football, but can't departing spectators leave from the back
of the stadium, from which side Wembley Central isn't very far at all?
What about arriving crowds -- do they have to enter by the "front door"?

http://www.wembleystadium.com/PDF/WS_Level-B1_Map.pdf
You'd normally exit via the same route.
I can't think of any large stadium where everyone needs to enter through
a single 'front door' type point.

It does happen - as I said, the Allianz or the Olympic stadia are ones I've
personally experienced like that; one reason it's not common in English
football grounds though is it makes it much harder to enforce segregation
of home/away fans.

[John Levine]

Post by Tim Watts
The problem was that whilst the bikes were good (I'm not fussy) the IT
was being run by a bunch of incompetents who'd janked a system out of
Montreal with a fraction of the bikes and membership - a cruddy poorly
designed system that ran on Windows.

If it makes you feel any better, Bixi doesn't work all that well in
Montreal either. They shut the whole thing down for several months in
the winter, on the odd assumption that a little snow would keep
Quebecois off their bikes.

[Tim Watts]

Post by D A Stocks
I know people who have got rid of their cars and joined a car club. It's
an option here in Brighton and Hove (there are a couple of spaces within
sight of my home), and for quite a lot of London. It wouldn't work for
me because I tend to live away from home (with the car) during the week
as part of my job, and I don't know what options are available elsewhere
in the country.

I used to car share with a mate - when I had a boring office job with
highly regular hours as did he.

These days it would never work as 1) I might be delayed in, b) quite
likely to vary my leaving times if something goes wrong at work.

[ian batten]

Post by Tim Watts

Post by D A Stocks
I know people who have got rid of their cars and joined a car club. It's
an option here in Brighton and Hove (there are a couple of spaces within
sight of my home), and for quite a lot of London. It wouldn't work for
me because I tend to live away from home (with the car) during the week
as part of my job, and I don't know what options are available elsewhere
in the country.

I used to car share with a mate - when I had a boring office job with
highly regular hours as did he.

By a car club D means something more structured; essentially, car rental from
the kerbside, in the manner of ZipCar or City Car Club.

They're tiny operators: there's a handful of cars in Birmingham:

http://www.citycarclub.co.uk/locations/birmingham-car-hire

and the costs are high and the amount of effort involved in not (for example)
carrying a massive insurance excess is substantial. For all the talk about it
being aimed at people who don't own cars, it's pretty obvious that the main
market is business travel (or failure, a la Car2go).

Fiddling around at the edges with car hire is an admission of failure from
public transport. It's not that hard to operate trains in the evenings and
at weekends: although there are closures on LUL, they are less in volume
and impact, and the underground does work (for example) during school
holidays (Network Rail's new decision for Birmingham is that you shouldn't
want to travel in school holidays, as they're closing the line to London
both for half term and the Easter holiday). Want to go to London to see your
family (I gather that quite a lot of people live in London apart from my family?)
Network Rail don't care: they're too busy over-running engineering works because
of using untested tools and not bothering to employ sufficient qualified staff.

[[ Before anyone says, with a nerdy track-bashing air, I used the "Blockade Buster"
a couple of Christmas Eves ago, EUS to BHM via Acton and Castle Bar Park,
then Leamington to Coventry. It was an hour late into New St, even allowing for
the massively slack timing, so we missed booked events on Christmas Eve.
It's a mistake I won't make again. ]]

ian

[Mizter T]

Post by ian batten
[...]
By a car club D means something more structured; essentially, car rental from
the kerbside, in the manner of ZipCar or City Car Club.
http://www.citycarclub.co.uk/locations/birmingham-car-hire
and the costs are high and the amount of effort involved in not (for example)
carrying a massive insurance excess is substantial. For all the talk about it
being aimed at people who don't own cars, it's pretty obvious that the main
market is business travel (or failure, a la Car2go).

I'm glad it's all so obvious to you. The majority of Zipcar usage is
leisure, and it's anything but a tiny operator in the metropolis. But I
recall you confidently stating before that car clubs only ever provide a
second car to existing car owning families/households, without
presenting any evidence of such. In London (sorry to sound like a stuck
record there), that's simply not so.

Obviously some of the data re the market and their customers is regarded
as commercially confidential by car club operators, but there's more
than enough information in the public domain (plenty of local
authorities adopt policies that are favourable to car clubs).

[ian batten]

Post by Mizter T

Post by ian batten
[...]
By a car club D means something more structured; essentially, car rental from
the kerbside, in the manner of ZipCar or City Car Club.
http://www.citycarclub.co.uk/locations/birmingham-car-hire
and the costs are high and the amount of effort involved in not (for example)
carrying a massive insurance excess is substantial. For all the talk about it
being aimed at people who don't own cars, it's pretty obvious that the main
market is business travel (or failure, a la Car2go).

I'm glad it's all so obvious to you. The majority of Zipcar usage is
leisure, and it's anything but a tiny operator in the metropolis. But I
recall you confidently stating before that car clubs only ever provide a
second car to existing car owning families/households, without
presenting any evidence of such. In London (sorry to sound like a stuck
record there), that's simply not so.

So let's roll back my confidence and accept that London is different.

Here, Zipcar don't operate, so they have no usage at all. Car2go went
bust. There's a tiny, tiny residual market for other tiny operators.

ian

[Neil Williams]

Post by ian batten
So let's roll back my confidence and accept that London is different.

It is in a way, because owning a car is not necessarily a good thing,
whereas it clearly is in near enough every other city. Rather in
London it can be expensive hassle.

Post by ian batten
Here, Zipcar don't operate, so they have no usage at all. Car2go went
bust. There's a tiny, tiny residual market for other tiny operators.

I think as people tend towards small cars things like "rent a van for
an hour from B&Q" is likely to be the main sort of use-case outside of
London. But even so there are 4 such vans in Milton Keynes - 2 at B&Q
and 2 at Homebase - so it isn't *that* big.

Neil

[Mizter T]

Post by Neil Williams

Post by ian batten
So let's roll back my confidence and accept that London is different.

It is in a way, because owning a car is not necessarily a good thing,
whereas it clearly is in near enough every other city. Rather in London
it can be expensive hassle.

Owning a car is "clearly" a good thing nearly everywhere else... hmmm,
there's so many ways such a statement could be challenged. Sounds a bit
like 'designed for the car' MK has rather got into your system...

[Tim Watts]

Post by ian batten

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.

That the railways are lazy and run a 16x6 service is not news.
But it's the logic I've been advancing ever since uk.railway started, which
The railways don't operate reliably in the evenings and the weekends, and
doubly not during the holidays. Therefore, you need to own a car if you
wish to travel outside weekday daytime with any sort of reliability. That
means you've paid the tax, insurance, depreciation and (in these days of
12000 mile service intervals) servicing. So the marginal cost of driving during
the week is just the fuel, which makes it cheaper than trains. So people drive.
Breaking that cycle starts with having public transport which works at the
weekends, in the evening and during holidays, even if the individual workings
aren't economic, because that is the only way you can convince people not to
own cars. I'm desperate to get down to owning only one car, because it's the one
move we could make which would at a stroke substantially improve our
finances, but I see that the usual "want to travel during the holidays? Fuck
off, we don't care" notices are up for half term travel between London and
Birmingham (the two largest cities in the country, for God's Sake) and only
a fool attempts to use diversions, bus substitutes and so on. Every week
the rail doesn't operate reliably between 9pm Saturday and 12 noon Sunday,
for reasons which are completely unexplained.

Indeed. When I visited Switzerland in 2003 with a pregnant SWMBO, we
chose Switzerland *because* you could count on the public transport.

And it is true you can set your watch by it.

We had 3 late services out of more than a hundred taken in 3 weeks.

1) A steam boat on a massive lake was a bit late;

2) The Jungfraubahn mountain train was delayed. Because some korean
tourists had got "lost" on the top (ie forgotten the last train down)
and were being rounded up.

3) A regular train was about 10 mins late from Spiez to Interlaken as
the tourists getting on and off at every stop were being slow with loads
of suitcases. In this case, you have never heard so many apologies. In
FOUR languages (yes, SBB tend to do English where they can too).

Oh and a bus was 2 minutes behind the timetable in Zurich. I was
astounded, as to me, bus timetables are a vague hint that they might
have scheduled X busses per hour if the staff all bothered to turn up
for work. Beyond that, no expectations. In Zurich, at least, the busses
actually run to the timetable with only minor exceptions.

Post by ian batten
Hey ho. The report Notwork Fail have published on the Christmas fuckup
shows just how much contempt they have for the travelling public, so it's not
going to get better. Better budget to continue to own cars.
ian

[Neil Williams]

Post by Tim Watts
3) A regular train was about 10 mins late from Spiez to Interlaken as
the tourists getting on and off at every stop were being slow with
loads of suitcases. In this case, you have never heard so many
apologies. In FOUR languages (yes, SBB tend to do English where they
can too).

Automated, though. Le personel d'accompagnement du CFF... :)

Post by Tim Watts
Oh and a bus was 2 minutes behind the timetable in Zurich. I was
astounded, as to me, bus timetables are a vague hint that they might
have scheduled X busses per hour if the staff all bothered to turn up
for work. Beyond that, no expectations. In Zurich, at least, the busses
actually run to the timetable with only minor exceptions.

That's because they build the infrastructure with a view that the bus
must not have to stop unless it wishes to. The UK needs to start doing
that, then buses might be a bit punctual.

As for SBB I found the Lavaux line (Geneve-Vevey-Brig) to be somewhat
unpunctual at times, but that I believe tends to be caused by severe
delays to the ECs to/from Italy having a knock-on effect. And it *is*
the French bit :)

Neil

[Tim Watts]

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Tim Watts
3) A regular train was about 10 mins late from Spiez to Interlaken as
the tourists getting on and off at every stop were being slow with
loads of suitcases. In this case, you have never heard so many
apologies. In FOUR languages (yes, SBB tend to do English where they
can too).

Automated, though. Le personel d'accompagnement du CFF... :)

The english portion did not sound automated - they added that they were
holding a connecting service so not to worry. That'll hardly ever happen
on NR.

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Tim Watts
Oh and a bus was 2 minutes behind the timetable in Zurich. I was
astounded, as to me, bus timetables are a vague hint that they might
have scheduled X busses per hour if the staff all bothered to turn up
for work. Beyond that, no expectations. In Zurich, at least, the
busses actually run to the timetable with only minor exceptions.

That's because they build the infrastructure with a view that the bus
must not have to stop unless it wishes to. The UK needs to start doing
that, then buses might be a bit punctual.
As for SBB I found the Lavaux line (Geneve-Vevey-Brig) to be somewhat
unpunctual at times, but that I believe tends to be caused by severe
delays to the ECs to/from Italy having a knock-on effect. And it *is*
the French bit :)

Thinking about it I was mostly in the German sector...

Post by Neil Williams
Neil

[r***@gmail.com]

Post by Tim Watts

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Tim Watts
3) A regular train was about 10 mins late from Spiez to Interlaken as
the tourists getting on and off at every stop were being slow with
loads of suitcases. In this case, you have never heard so many
apologies. In FOUR languages (yes, SBB tend to do English where they
can too).

Automated, though. Le personel d'accompagnement du CFF... :)

The english portion did not sound automated - they added that they were
holding a connecting service so not to worry. That'll hardly ever happen
on NR.

Spiez - Interlaken is potentially going to be BLS rather than SBB, depending on the service. I don't think any of the regular trains on that route pass an airport, so the recordings will provide information in German and possible French (for example Basel - Interlaken will have French and German as standard). If you take, for example, Geneva Airport to St Gallen (which also passes through Zurich airport), you will get French, German and English.

One of the more charming features of the SBB is that the chime in stations that precedes announcements is different depending on which language the announcement is going to be given in.

Robin

[Neil Williams]

Post by r***@gmail.com
One of the more charming features of the SBB is that the chime in
stations that precedes announcements is different depending on which
language the announcement is going to be given in.

Yes, I like that, same on the train (unless it's a manual
announcement). Though I like even more the thing you get on the newer
German double-decker regional sets, which is that you get the first few
bars of the current Bundesland's anthem prior to any announcement. It
sounds cheesy, but it really isn't in practice.

Neil

[Arthur Figgis]

Post by Neil Williams
Though I like even more the thing you get on the newer
German double-decker regional sets, which is that you get the first few
bars of the current Bundesland's anthem prior to any announcement. It
sounds cheesy, but it really isn't in practice.

I've heard Ilkla Moor Baht At on a DMU horn, so it could be doable here...

[Neil Williams]

Post by Arthur Figgis
I've heard Ilkla Moor Baht At on a DMU horn, so it could be doable here...

:)

Got to be better than the ear-piercing Pendolino bing-bong. Bring back
the classy Mk3 "strum"...

Neil

[r***@gmail.com]

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Tim Watts
3) A regular train was about 10 mins late from Spiez to Interlaken as
the tourists getting on and off at every stop were being slow with
loads of suitcases. In this case, you have never heard so many
apologies. In FOUR languages (yes, SBB tend to do English where they
can too).

Automated, though. Le personel d'accompagnement du CFF... :)

As a rule, it's the local languages for anywhere on the route of the train, and if the train calls at an airport station (Geneva, Zurich), then English is added too. Some non-airport trains seem to offer English, though. I always enjoy the slightly odd expressions in English intended to entice you to the buffet/restaurant car.

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Tim Watts
Oh and a bus was 2 minutes behind the timetable in Zurich. I was
astounded, as to me, bus timetables are a vague hint that they might
have scheduled X busses per hour if the staff all bothered to turn up
for work. Beyond that, no expectations. In Zurich, at least, the busses
actually run to the timetable with only minor exceptions.

That's because they build the infrastructure with a view that the bus
must not have to stop unless it wishes to. The UK needs to start doing
that, then buses might be a bit punctual.

I have to say, I've never been on an actual bus in Zürich (Either city or Canton), when I've been to the city, my needs have been met by trams. In bad weather, I sometimes forsake my bicycle for the bus to get home, and one of the bus routes passes through a particular traffic black-spot here, and in the evening rush hour is routinely 5-10 minutes late (on a 4-an-hour schedule). It is particularly irritating as there are two bus routes interleaved that serve where I want to go, so they are meant to run every 7.5 minutes, alternating between the two, but they end up being two together every 15 minutes during the rush hour.

Post by Neil Williams
As for SBB I found the Lavaux line (Geneve-Vevey-Brig) to be somewhat
unpunctual at times, but that I believe tends to be caused by severe
delays to the ECs to/from Italy having a knock-on effect. And it *is*
the French bit :)

Anything coming up from Italy (with the possible exception of the Bernina line) is subject to all manner of timetable pollution France and Germany are somewhat better, but not immune. On the Gotthard there are regular ICNs scheduled to run Chiasso - Zurich just ahead of the ECs from Milan to provide a dependable service when the ECs are broken. Hot spares are maintained at Basel and often turn up when some sort of French or German timetable problems put the good running of the SBB at risk.

Robin

[Roland Perry]

Post by r***@gmail.com
I always enjoy the slightly odd expressions in English
intended to entice you to the buffet/restaurant car.

Not quite as bad as Tyrolean landladies?

eg: "you shall be well fed-up and agreeably drunk"

[Graeme Wall]

Post by Roland Perry

Post by r***@gmail.com
I always enjoy the slightly odd expressions in English
intended to entice you to the buffet/restaurant car.

Not quite as bad as Tyrolean landladies?
eg: "you shall be well fed-up and agreeably drunk"

With a French widow in every bedroom.

Gerard Hoffnung wasn't it?

[Grebbsy McLaren]

It was a dark and stormy night when Graeme Wall
<***@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote in article <ma61m5$6gr$***@dont-
email.me>...

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by Roland Perry

Post by r***@gmail.com
I always enjoy the slightly odd expressions in English
intended to entice you to the buffet/restaurant car.

Not quite as bad as Tyrolean landladies?
eg: "you shall be well fed-up and agreeably drunk"

With a French widow in every bedroom.
Gerard Hoffnung wasn't it?

"Affording delightful prospects".

[Sam Wilson]

Post by Neil Williams
As for SBB I found the Lavaux line (Geneve-Vevey-Brig) to be somewhat
unpunctual at times, but that I believe tends to be caused by severe
delays to the ECs to/from Italy having a knock-on effect. And it *is*
the French bit :)

As I've related before, the one time I travelled Milan-Geneva the
incoming train was late arriving in Milan and left 20 minutes late. It
was then exactly 20 minutes late everywhere along the route, even
allowing for the passport stop in Domodossola. On the Swiss portion we
were hauled by 460 001-1.

Sam

[Roland Perry]

When I visited Switzerland in 2003 with a pregnant SWMBO, we chose
Switzerland *because* you could count on the public transport.
And it is true you can set your watch by it.
We had 3 late services out of more than a hundred taken in 3 weeks.

Some of this may be accounted for by the rather slack rail timetables on
a small network.

[j***@pyromancer.net]

Post by Roland Perry
Some of this may be accounted for by the rather slack rail timetables on
a small network.

That's how public transport should be run - the single most important
feature is reliability, not all out speed.

[Roland Perry]

Post by j***@pyromancer.net

Post by Roland Perry
Some of this may be accounted for by the rather slack rail timetables on
a small network.

That's how public transport should be run - the single most important
feature is reliability, not all out speed.

So that's why the Thameslink core is so unreliable - the impressively
high speeds the trains run at??

[Neil Williams]

Post by j***@pyromancer.net
That's how public transport should be run - the single most important
feature is reliability, not all out speed.

I'm with you on that one. It's all very well to say that Euston to
Milton Keynes is 30 minutes (40 in the other direction, funnily enough)
but if you have to travel 20 minutes earlier in case it's late (as it
almost always is; it should really be 33 to 35ish to be robust) you've
lost the saving.

Neil

[Roland Perry]

Post by Neil Williams

Post by j***@pyromancer.net
That's how public transport should be run - the single most important
feature is reliability, not all out speed.

I'm with you on that one. It's all very well to say that Euston to
Milton Keynes is 30 minutes (40 in the other direction, funnily enough)

That's recovery time to add to the other ten minutes during which the
stats say it's not late.

Post by Neil Williams
but if you have to travel 20 minutes earlier in case it's late (as it
almost always is; it should really be 33 to 35ish to be robust) you've
lost the saving.

Or you might end up travelling 35 minutes earlier than the slower time
(a total extra time consumption of 30 minutes) in case it's cancelled.

[Neil Williams]

Post by Roland Perry
That's recovery time to add to the other ten minutes during which the
stats say it's not late.

I know, it's a classic case of the recovery time all being at the end.
IMO it should be spread out to be at each significant station.

Neil

[Roland Perry]

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Roland Perry
That's recovery time to add to the other ten minutes during which the
stats say it's not late.

I know, it's a classic case of the recovery time all being at the end.
IMO it should be spread out to be at each significant station.

The approaches to most of the main London termini are more fraught with
delay possibilities than the majority of places en-route, so I don't
think it's that unreasonable. In the other direction, not so much.

[furnessvale]

Post by Roland Perry

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Roland Perry
That's recovery time to add to the other ten minutes during which the
stats say it's not late.

I know, it's a classic case of the recovery time all being at the end.
IMO it should be spread out to be at each significant station.

The approaches to most of the main London termini are more fraught with
delay possibilities than the majority of places en-route, so I don't
think it's that unreasonable. In the other direction, not so much.
--
Roland Perry

Recovery time in a block at the end of the journey can be interpreted as a
device to avoid late penalties. On the other hand, if the only
significant delay occurs in the last segment of the journey, most of the
recovery time has been frittered away waiting unnecessarily at intermediate
stops and now only a couple of minutes remain to apply to this delay.

Result.....late arrival.

George

[bob]

Post by furnessvale

Post by Roland Perry

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Roland Perry
That's recovery time to add to the other ten minutes during which the
stats say it's not late.

I know, it's a classic case of the recovery time all being at the end.
IMO it should be spread out to be at each significant station.

The approaches to most of the main London termini are more fraught with
delay possibilities than the majority of places en-route, so I don't
think it's that unreasonable. In the other direction, not so much.

Recovery time in a block at the end of the journey can be interpreted as a
device to avoid late penalties.

Which is a result of the fact that penalties for late running are based
only on arrival at the final station on the route. I expect if
punctuality statistics were compiled on the basis of arrival time at
all stations on a route, recovery time would be differently disposed.

Robin

[Mizter T]

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.
I have spent more time this afternoon travelling from Stansted to Gatwick
than it took to get from Bucharest to Gatwick. Had I known in advance I
would foolishly not have agreed to meet friends in town, on the assumption
that 6 hours was more than enough time to transfer between London airports,
and just booked a coach - but evidently I've been out of the country too
long and forgotten that the country writes "Here be dragons" over the
weekends in their diaries.
So the Stansted Express isn't running; congratulations on the absolutely
total ansence if any signage at Stansted airport to that effect.
Fortunately, I found out via my mobile. Oh, no signage to the replacement
buses either, but no problem, the man at the information desk was at least
able to tell me it was stand 37, the furthest from thevterminal. Christ
knows how anyone could have found that by luck.
He was nearly right as well; turns out it was the bus at stand 36, the one
without a destination shown. The bus driver at Stand 38 was kind enough to
tell me, since there were no railway staff to be seen.

Better bet would have been NX or Terravision coach to Stratford to pick
up the Central Line into town.

Post by Clank
On the bright side, the rail replacement bus only took half an hour longer
than claimed (at 90 minutes) to reach Liverpool street. This magnificent
timing achieved by driving very very slowly but helpfully avoiding any
intermediate stops (e.g. Tottenham Hale) on one of the approximately two
tube lines that could be arsed to run today.

Approximately indeed - partial closure on the Met/ Circle / H&C between
Baker Street and Tower Hill / Aldgate / Aldgate East, whilst the
Waterloo & City line doesn't run on a Sunday. That's it. In other words,
most of the Undergroud network was running as normal.

Post by Clank
Still, good job I didn't go to the Victoria line because I might have been
tempted to try a train from there - a mistake because there is evidently
engineering work between Victoria and Clapham.

No dedicated Gatwick Express trains were running, but there were still
Southern trains taking a different route through south London (via
Brixton, Herne Hill, Streatham etc).

Post by Clank
So probably a good thing I made my way to London Bridge. Being a brave
soul, I ignored the fact the station entrance is closed and found my way
in.
Wisely I ignored the signs telling me the train was "Delayed". I know
better than that - when it just says "Delayed" but you can see the train,
get on anyway - good job, because it actually left on time. Pity the fools
still on the platform.
I made it to Croydon to meet aforementioned friends for a full half hour.
I write this rant from the overcrowded Southern service to Brighton (via
Gatwick.) Why is it overcrowded, you ask? Why, because the Thameslink I
was going to catch was cancelled, of course!
How the fuck do you live in this country?

By not being a bunch of miserable arses.

[Mizter T]

Post by Mizter T

Post by Clank
[...]
On the bright side, the rail replacement bus only took half an hour
longer than claimed (at 90 minutes) to reach Liverpool street. This
magnificent timing achieved by driving very very slowly but helpfully
avoiding any intermediate stops (e.g. Tottenham Hale) on one of the
approximately two tube lines that could be arsed to run today.

Approximately indeed - partial closure on the Met/ Circle / H&C between
Baker Street and Tower Hill / Aldgate / Aldgate East, whilst the
Waterloo & City line doesn't run on a Sunday. That's it. In other words,
most of the Undergroud network was running as normal.

Sorry, the Bakerloo also wasn't running between Queen's Park and Harrow
& Wealdstone (i.e. Network Rail's territory).

The partial closures on the sub-surface lines were down to Crossrail
works at Moorgate and Liverpool Street - they also did drainage works at
Euston Square.

[Charles Ellson]

Post by Mizter T

Post by Mizter T

Post by Clank
[...]
On the bright side, the rail replacement bus only took half an hour
longer than claimed (at 90 minutes) to reach Liverpool street. This
magnificent timing achieved by driving very very slowly but helpfully
avoiding any intermediate stops (e.g. Tottenham Hale) on one of the
approximately two tube lines that could be arsed to run today.

According to RTT, trains were running between Stansted and Bishops
Stortford and from Broxbourne to Liverpool Street or Stratford with a
bus linking those two sections so you seem to have been directed to
the direct non-stop bus rather than to the trains that were still
running.

Post by Mizter T

Post by Mizter T
Approximately indeed - partial closure on the Met/ Circle / H&C between
Baker Street and Tower Hill / Aldgate / Aldgate East, whilst the
Waterloo & City line doesn't run on a Sunday. That's it. In other words,
most of the Undergroud network was running as normal.

Sorry, the Bakerloo also wasn't running between Queen's Park and Harrow
& Wealdstone (i.e. Network Rail's territory).

Even that didn't give up for the whole day. Bakerloo trains started
running again about 21.30 and LO were still running Wembley-Watford as
was the parallel LM service between HRW and Euston. LU doesn't run
everything and nowadays replacement buses have become more for those
devoid of Oyster cards unless you're in the remoter parts of Greater
London.

Post by Mizter T
The partial closures on the sub-surface lines were down to Crossrail
works at Moorgate and Liverpool Street - they also did drainage works at
Euston Square.

Much of that had still had not-unreasonable alternative routing
available via other lines.

[Roland Perry]

Post by Charles Ellson
According to RTT, trains were running between Stansted and Bishops
Stortford and from Broxbourne to Liverpool Street or Stratford with a
bus linking those two sections so you seem to have been directed to
the direct non-stop bus rather than to the trains that were still
running.

Although even a direct bus from the airport is going to get to London[1]
quicker than one from Bishops Stortford, despite discounting the time
taken by the shuttle train.

With three stops en-route the actual Bishops Stortford bus was scheduled
to take just under an hour to get to Broxbourne, plus 37 minutes to LST.
The direct bus was scheduled at an hour to LST.

[1] By car: 48 mins to LST vs 44mins.

[Charles Ellson]

Post by Roland Perry

Post by Charles Ellson
According to RTT, trains were running between Stansted and Bishops
Stortford and from Broxbourne to Liverpool Street or Stratford with a
bus linking those two sections so you seem to have been directed to
the direct non-stop bus rather than to the trains that were still
running.

Although even a direct bus from the airport is going to get to London[1]
quicker than one from Bishops Stortford, despite discounting the time
taken by the shuttle train.
With three stops en-route the actual Bishops Stortford bus was scheduled
to take just under an hour to get to Broxbourne, plus 37 minutes to LST.
The direct bus was scheduled at an hour to LST.

Which it was said was about half an hour less than reality. The route
over the still-working bits of railway would however have enabled
escape via Tottenham Hale to the Underground (and/or other bits of NR)
thus avoiding Liverpool Street which seemed to be Mizter T's desire.

Post by Roland Perry
[1] By car: 48 mins to LST vs 44mins.

[Roland Perry]

Post by Charles Ellson

Post by Roland Perry
With three stops en-route the actual Bishops Stortford bus was scheduled
to take just under an hour to get to Broxbourne, plus 37 minutes to LST.
The direct bus was scheduled at an hour to LST.

Which it was said was about half an hour less than reality.

It's 33 miles, 30 of them on motorway or dual carriageway. I'm stunned
that the bus travelled at an average speed of 22mph.

Post by Charles Ellson
The route over the still-working bits of railway would however have
enabled escape via Tottenham Hale to the Underground (and/or other bits
of NR) thus avoiding Liverpool Street which seemed to be Mizter T's
desire.

Let's try that:

The flight from Bucharest arrives at Stansted at 13:15, and we'll allow
45 mins for immigration and baggage.

Next train to Bishops Stortford: 14:15 - 14:25
Bus from Bishops Stortford to Broxbourne: 14:35 - 15:31
Train from Broxbourne to TottHale: 15:52 - 16:12
Tube from Tottenham Hale to Victoria[1] 16:20 - 16:39

The 14:15 bus to Liverpool Street should have arrived at 15:15

[1] For a train to Gatwick, allow 8 minute connection rail-tube.

[Clank]

Post by Roland Perry

Post by Charles Ellson

Post by Roland Perry
With three stops en-route the actual Bishops Stortford bus was scheduled
to take just under an hour to get to Broxbourne, plus 37 minutes to LST.
The direct bus was scheduled at an hour to LST.

Which it was said was about half an hour less than reality.

It's 33 miles, 30 of them on motorway or dual carriageway. I'm stunned
that the bus travelled at an average speed of 22mph.

Well, be stunned then! 90 minutes Stansted to Liverpool Street.

Approx 60 minutes to get as far as Whitechapel owing to nothing but slow
driving, followed by 30 minutes in gridlock around Aldgate. I am wondering
now if the roadworks to fix the burst water main may have contributed to
that...

Post by Roland Perry

Post by Charles Ellson
The route over the still-working bits of railway would however have

Post by Roland Perry
enabled escape via Tottenham Hale to the Underground (and/or other bits

of NR) thus avoiding Liverpool Street which seemed to be Mizter T's >desire.

Unfortunately, somebody should have told the staff at the Stansted Express
desk in the airport that - I explicitly asked how to get to Tottenham Hale,
and was explicitly told the only way was to take the bus to Liverpool
Street and then go on from there.

So we can add ill informed railway staff to the litany of failure. Colour
me surprised...

[Roland Perry]

In message
<1733412765444041512.106481clank75-***@reader443.eternal-septe
mber.org>, at 08:58:15 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Clank

Post by Clank

Post by Roland Perry
It's 33 miles, 30 of them on motorway or dual carriageway. I'm stunned
that the bus travelled at an average speed of 22mph.

Well, be stunned then! 90 minutes Stansted to Liverpool Street.
Approx 60 minutes to get as far as Whitechapel owing to nothing but slow
driving,

That's the 30 miles, approximately. What sort of bus was it, driving
down the M25 at 30mph?

[ian batten]

Post by Roland Perry
In message
mber.org>, at 08:58:15 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Clank

Post by Clank

Post by Roland Perry
It's 33 miles, 30 of them on motorway or dual carriageway. I'm stunned
that the bus travelled at an average speed of 22mph.

Well, be stunned then! 90 minutes Stansted to Liverpool Street.
Approx 60 minutes to get as far as Whitechapel owing to nothing but slow
driving,

That's the 30 miles, approximately. What sort of bus was it, driving
down the M25 at 30mph?
--

Presumably similar to the pair of "rail replacement coaches" I passed on the
M40 last weekend, crawling along at about 40mph on an essentially empty
motorway. They had those stupid "yes, of course we believe that all coaches
are registered in Northern Ireland and it's not just a scam to conceal the age
of rusty old shit" number plates, so I assume it was all they were capable of.
I wouldn't get on coaches that old and shabby: is there a special business in
renting out rotten coaches to railways, or do the railways seek them out especially
in order to save money?

ian

[Graeme Wall]

Post by ian batten

Post by Roland Perry
In message
mber.org>, at 08:58:15 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Clank

Post by Clank

Post by Roland Perry
It's 33 miles, 30 of them on motorway or dual carriageway. I'm stunned
that the bus travelled at an average speed of 22mph.

Well, be stunned then! 90 minutes Stansted to Liverpool Street.
Approx 60 minutes to get as far as Whitechapel owing to nothing but slow
driving,

That's the 30 miles, approximately. What sort of bus was it, driving
down the M25 at 30mph?
--

Presumably similar to the pair of "rail replacement coaches" I passed on the
M40 last weekend, crawling along at about 40mph on an essentially empty
motorway. They had those stupid "yes, of course we believe that all coaches
are registered in Northern Ireland and it's not just a scam to conceal the age
of rusty old shit" number plates, so I assume it was all they were capable of.
I wouldn't get on coaches that old and shabby: is there a special business in
renting out rotten coaches to railways, or do the railways seek them out especially
in order to save money?

Is there any form of land transport that doesn't upset you?

[ian batten]

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by ian batten

Post by Roland Perry
In message
mber.org>, at 08:58:15 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Clank

Post by Clank

Post by Roland Perry
It's 33 miles, 30 of them on motorway or dual carriageway. I'm stunned
that the bus travelled at an average speed of 22mph.

Well, be stunned then! 90 minutes Stansted to Liverpool Street.
Approx 60 minutes to get as far as Whitechapel owing to nothing but slow
driving,

That's the 30 miles, approximately. What sort of bus was it, driving
down the M25 at 30mph?
--

Presumably similar to the pair of "rail replacement coaches" I passed on the
M40 last weekend, crawling along at about 40mph on an essentially empty
motorway. They had those stupid "yes, of course we believe that all coaches
are registered in Northern Ireland and it's not just a scam to conceal the age
of rusty old shit" number plates, so I assume it was all they were capable of.
I wouldn't get on coaches that old and shabby: is there a special business in
renting out rotten coaches to railways, or do the railways seek them out especially
in order to save money?

Is there any form of land transport that doesn't upset you?

Trains running to time.

My car.

The cable-pulled thingie from International to BHX.

London taxis

The London Underground.

German trams and S-Bahn.

The Tokyo local railways.

Sure not even you are going to leap to the defence of rail
replacement coaches?

ian

[Graeme Wall]

Post by ian batten

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by ian batten

Post by Roland Perry
In message
mber.org>, at 08:58:15 on Tue, 27 Jan 2015, Clank

Post by Clank

Post by Roland Perry
It's 33 miles, 30 of them on motorway or dual carriageway. I'm stunned
that the bus travelled at an average speed of 22mph.

Well, be stunned then! 90 minutes Stansted to Liverpool Street.
Approx 60 minutes to get as far as Whitechapel owing to nothing but slow
driving,

That's the 30 miles, approximately. What sort of bus was it, driving
down the M25 at 30mph?
--

Presumably similar to the pair of "rail replacement coaches" I passed on the
M40 last weekend, crawling along at about 40mph on an essentially empty
motorway. They had those stupid "yes, of course we believe that all coaches
are registered in Northern Ireland and it's not just a scam to conceal the age
of rusty old shit" number plates, so I assume it was all they were capable of.
I wouldn't get on coaches that old and shabby: is there a special business in
renting out rotten coaches to railways, or do the railways seek them out especially
in order to save money?

Is there any form of land transport that doesn't upset you?

Trains running to time.
My car.
The cable-pulled thingie from International to BHX.
London taxis
The London Underground.
German trams and S-Bahn.
The Tokyo local railways.
Sure not even you are going to leap to the defence of rail
replacement coaches?

Last time I had to use a railway replacement coach, as opposed to TfL
buses vice the Northern Line, it was an old Bedford that should have
been in a museum. Proper number plate with a year suffix and probably
couldn't do much more than 40mph even downhill with the wind behind it.
(Between Chester and Wrexham IIRC)

However your latest moan is a bit scraping the barrel, You whizz past a
couple of coaches at about 80mph and assume because you are going so
much faster that they are only doing 40. Further you imply that the
railway companies dig out the oldest and most decrepit vehicles on
purpose, purely based on the fact the chassis are registered in Ireland.

If you were actually riding on them and could see they were crawling and
decrepit you might have a point.

[ian batten]

Post by Graeme Wall
However your latest moan is a bit scraping the barrel, You whizz past a
couple of coaches at about 80mph and assume because you are going so
much faster that they are only doing 40.

As they were being passed at the time by an articulated lorry, I'm
not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Post by Graeme Wall
Further you imply that the
railway companies dig out the oldest and most decrepit vehicles on
purpose, purely based on the fact the chassis are registered in Ireland.

There's no legitimate reason for the chassis of to be registered in northern
Ireland. Why would companies do that if not to conceal their age? One
of our local coach operators has all their stuff on personal plates, for
the same reason.

ian

[Roland Perry]

One of our local coach operators has all their stuff on personal
plates, for the same reason.

This is a rather fun (if illegally spaced) personalised plate on a bus
belonging to one of our local small operators:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cheltonian1966/6935716893/

[Neil Williams]

Post by Roland Perry

One of our local coach operators has all their stuff on personal
plates, for the same reason.

This is a rather fun (if illegally spaced) personalised plate on a bus
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cheltonian1966/6935716893/

It would be so funny to watch the Police stop and ticket that.

Neil

[Roland Perry]

Post by Neil Williams

Post by Roland Perry
This is a rather fun (if illegally spaced) personalised plate on a
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cheltonian1966/6935716893/

It would be so funny to watch the Police stop and ticket that.

I was stopped on the M40 by the police who apparently wanted to check
the spacing on my personal plate. It was, of course, spaced entirely
properly - something I'd taken the trouble to confirm with a ruler
having stumbled over the rules not long before.

The problem is that the kerning of the particular letters in the plate
makes two of them *appear* to be too far apart. But they reluctantly had
to agree that it was OK.

[Graeme Wall]

Post by ian batten

Post by Graeme Wall
However your latest moan is a bit scraping the barrel, You whizz past a
couple of coaches at about 80mph and assume because you are going so
much faster that they are only doing 40.

As they were being passed at the time by an articulated lorry, I'm
not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So quite likely they were doing 55.8mph.

Post by ian batten

Post by Graeme Wall
Further you imply that the
railway companies dig out the oldest and most decrepit vehicles on
purpose, purely based on the fact the chassis are registered in Ireland.

There's no legitimate reason for the chassis of to be registered in northern
Ireland. Why would companies do that if not to conceal their age? One
of our local coach operators has all their stuff on personal plates, for
the same reason.

The most obvious reason is marketing, there's always going to be people
like you moaning about how old the vehicle is despite it only being the
chassis that is that old. D you moan about trains being refurbished as
well rather than being replaced by brand new stock every ten years?

[ian batten]

Post by Graeme Wall
The most obvious reason is marketing, there's always going to be people
like you moaning about how old the vehicle is despite it only being the
chassis that is that old.

Chassis, suspension, steering and brakes, I think you mean.

Or is there an industry retro-fitting ABS to twenty year old chassis?

ian

[NY]

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by ian batten
There's no legitimate reason for the chassis of to be registered in northern
Ireland. Why would companies do that if not to conceal their age? One
of our local coach operators has all their stuff on personal plates, for
the same reason.

The most obvious reason is marketing, there's always going to be people
like you moaning about how old the vehicle is despite it only being the
chassis that is that old. D you moan about trains being refurbished as
well rather than being replaced by brand new stock every ten years?

But why is it that it's only coaches and not single/doubler-decker buses
that have Northern Irish plates. Is there less of a tradition of
reburbishing buses to prolong their lives or is it that people aren't as
concerned if a bus has a very old registration?

Indeed, given that Northern Ireland is part of the UK (if not Great
Britain), why have they still not adopted the AA11BBB or AAA 111B numbering
conventions used by England, Wales and Scotland since 1963? Or at least a
Northern Irish variant of it which encodes the year of registration? Even
the Irish Republic has had age-related registration numbers for a couple of
decades.

It's about time that the DVLA brought in a rule to ban NI numberplates on
coaches when it's used to deliberately hide a vehicle's age.

[Roland Perry]

Post by NY

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by ian batten
There's no legitimate reason for the chassis of to be registered in northern
Ireland. Why would companies do that if not to conceal their age? One
of our local coach operators has all their stuff on personal plates, for
the same reason.

The most obvious reason is marketing, there's always going to be
people like you moaning about how old the vehicle is despite it only
being the chassis that is that old. D you moan about trains being
refurbished as well rather than being replaced by brand new stock
every ten years?

But why is it that it's only coaches and not single/doubler-decker
buses that have Northern Irish plates.

Combining themes:

<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Second-hand_Hong_Kong_tri-axle_buses_
imported_to_the_United_Kingdom#mediaviewer/File:Stagecoach_in_Hampshire_
coach_13620_%28NDZ_3020%29_1990_Hong_Kong_tri-axle_%28Citybus_134,_ER_65
87%29,_Ryde_bus_station,_31_October_2010_%282%29.jpg>

Post by NY
It's about time that the DVLA brought in a rule to ban NI numberplates
on coaches when it's used to deliberately hide a vehicle's age.

Then they'd just use old English plates. Oddly enough, the only rule for
personal plates is they mustn't make a vehicle look *younger* than it
really is!

[Graeme Wall]

Post by NY

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by ian batten
There's no legitimate reason for the chassis of to be registered in northern
Ireland. Why would companies do that if not to conceal their age? One
of our local coach operators has all their stuff on personal plates, for
the same reason.

The most obvious reason is marketing, there's always going to be
people like you moaning about how old the vehicle is despite it only
being the chassis that is that old. D you moan about trains being
refurbished as well rather than being replaced by brand new stock
every ten years?

But why is it that it's only coaches and not single/doubler-decker buses
that have Northern Irish plates. Is there less of a tradition of
reburbishing buses to prolong their lives or is it that people aren't as
concerned if a bus has a very old registration?

Plenty of old buses around, often used on rail replacement services, but
that doesn't seem to upset Ian so much.

Post by NY
Indeed, given that Northern Ireland is part of the UK (if not Great
Britain), why have they still not adopted the AA11BBB or AAA 111B
numbering conventions used by England, Wales and Scotland since 1963? Or
at least a Northern Irish variant of it which encodes the year of
registration? Even the Irish Republic has had age-related registration
numbers for a couple of decades.

Since the 1960s politicians have had more to worry about in Ulster than
the minutiae of registration numbers I suspect.

[Neil Williams]

Post by NY
It's about time that the DVLA brought in a rule to ban NI numberplates
on coaches when it's used to deliberately hide a vehicle's age.

Personally I'd do away with age-related number plates, replacing them
with local ones like the Germans use (and with a requirement to
re-register when you move, unlike our rough location ones which end up
all over the place). We have a curious obsession in this country about
the precise age of a vehicle rather than its state of repair.

Neil

[Mizter T]

Post by Neil Williams

Post by NY
It's about time that the DVLA brought in a rule to ban NI numberplates
on coaches when it's used to deliberately hide a vehicle's age.

Personally I'd do away with age-related number plates, replacing them
with local ones like the Germans use (and with a requirement to
re-register when you move, unlike our rough location ones which end up
all over the place). We have a curious obsession in this country about
the precise age of a vehicle rather than its state of repair.

Why? Requiring re-registration when moving is unnecessary bureaucracy,
and has all sorts of downsides - easy identification of out-of-towners
isn't necessarily beneficial, for instance. Also some vehicles
legitimately spend a lot of time away from their registered address.

(Just because it's how Germany does it, doesn't necessarily make it
ideal Neil!)

[Roland Perry]

Post by Neil Williams

Post by NY
It's about time that the DVLA brought in a rule to ban NI
numberplates on coaches when it's used to deliberately hide a
vehicle's age.

Personally I'd do away with age-related number plates, replacing them
with local ones like the Germans use (and with a requirement to
re-register when you move, unlike our rough location ones which end up
all over the place).

They are of course where the vehicle was registered, not necessarily
even were the first owner lived. I drove (from new) a vehicle with
Stafford numberplates round Reading for several years as a result.

ObRail: I think I took the train to Stafford to pick it up.

Post by Neil Williams
We have a curious obsession in this country about the precise age of a
vehicle

Encouraged by the motor manufacturers because their market is those
"keeping up with the Jones's".

[Roland Perry]

Post by ian batten

Post by Roland Perry

Post by Clank

Post by Roland Perry
It's 33 miles, 30 of them on motorway or dual carriageway. I'm stunned
that the bus travelled at an average speed of 22mph.

Well, be stunned then! 90 minutes Stansted to Liverpool Street.
Approx 60 minutes to get as far as Whitechapel owing to nothing but slow
driving,

That's the 30 miles, approximately. What sort of bus was it, driving
down the M25 at 30mph?

Presumably similar to the pair of "rail replacement coaches" I passed on the
M40 last weekend, crawling along at about 40mph on an essentially empty
motorway. They had those stupid "yes, of course we believe that all coaches
are registered in Northern Ireland and it's not just a scam to conceal the age
of rusty old shit" number plates, so I assume it was all they were capable of.
I wouldn't get on coaches that old and shabby: is there a special business in
renting out rotten coaches to railways, or do the railways seek them out especially
in order to save money?

You do get a few of those; but as I've said before, round here (which is
the same AGA territory as Stansted) the normal vehicles supplied are
newish tour coaches.

[furnessvale]

Post by ian batten
Presumably similar to the pair of "rail replacement coaches" I passed on the
M40 last weekend, crawling along at about 40mph on an essentially empty
motorway. They had those stupid "yes, of course we believe that all coaches
are registered in Northern Ireland and it's not just a scam to conceal the age
of rusty old shit" number plates, so I assume it was all they were capable of.
I wouldn't get on coaches that old and shabby: is there a special business in
renting out rotten coaches to railways, or do the railways seek them out especially
in order to save money?
ian

Not at all. As a country we reserve the rottenest old coaches and buses to
transport what we laughingly believe to be our most precious commodity, our
children.

George

[Robert]

Post by furnessvale

Post by ian batten
Presumably similar to the pair of "rail replacement coaches" I passed on the
M40 last weekend, crawling along at about 40mph on an essentially empty
motorway. They had those stupid "yes, of course we believe that all coaches
are registered in Northern Ireland and it's not just a scam to conceal the age
of rusty old shit" number plates, so I assume it was all they were capable of.
I wouldn't get on coaches that old and shabby: is there a special business in
renting out rotten coaches to railways, or do the railways seek them out especially
in order to save money?
ian

Not at all. As a country we reserve the rottenest old coaches and buses to
transport what we laughingly believe to be our most precious commodity, our
children.
George

All generalisations are untrue, especially this one! In my patch the
coaches bringing in children seem all to be new, or newish. Sizes vary,
from mini- to full-blown long distance-style coaches, but come school
chucking out times the sheer number of them clog up the roads.

Sotto voce...In my day we had to walk or cycle to school, mutter,
mutter, grump, lazy little so-and-sos being chaffeured around, mutter...

[furnessvale]

Post by Robert
All generalisations are untrue, especially this one! In my patch the
coaches bringing in children seem all to be new, or newish.

It must depend on the area. I see many on Irish plates, not that they fool
anyone. Others showing their true age can start from V upwards.

George

[Graeme Wall]

Post by furnessvale

Post by Robert
All generalisations are untrue, especially this one! In my patch the
coaches bringing in children seem all to be new, or newish.

It must depend on the area. I see many on Irish plates, not that they fool
anyone. Others showing their true age can start from V upwards.

Round here we have some pseudo merkin single deckers.

[Graeme Wall]

Post by Robert

Post by furnessvale

Post by ian batten
Presumably similar to the pair of "rail replacement coaches" I passed on the
M40 last weekend, crawling along at about 40mph on an essentially empty
motorway. They had those stupid "yes, of course we believe that all coaches
are registered in Northern Ireland and it's not just a scam to conceal the age
of rusty old shit" number plates, so I assume it was all they were capable of.
I wouldn't get on coaches that old and shabby: is there a special business in
renting out rotten coaches to railways, or do the railways seek them out especially
in order to save money?
ian

Not at all. As a country we reserve the rottenest old coaches and buses to
transport what we laughingly believe to be our most precious
commodity, our
children.
George

All generalisations are untrue, especially this one! In my patch the
coaches bringing in children seem all to be new, or newish. Sizes vary,
from mini- to full-blown long distance-style coaches, but come school
chucking out times the sheer number of them clog up the roads.
Sotto voce...In my day we had to walk or cycle to school, mutter,
mutter, grump, lazy little so-and-sos being chaffeured around, mutter...

I used conventional LT (non of this "transport for" nonsense) green
buses. Proper AECs as well.

[Arthur Figgis]

Post by Clank
Seriously, this country; it's a bloody disgrace.
I have spent more time this afternoon travelling from Stansted to Gatwick
than it took to get from Bucharest to Gatwick. Had I known in advance I
would foolishly not have agreed to meet friends in town, on the assumption
that 6 hours was more than enough time to transfer between London airports,
and just booked a coach - but evidently I've been out of the country too
long and forgotten that the country writes "Here be dragons" over the
weekends in their diaries.

What we need to do is hide the airport rail link some way from the
airport, and create widespread rumours that foreigners won't be sold
tickets even if they can find it. The other terminus we can fill with
aggressive beggars. We could then run intercity trains slower than the
donkeys on the adjacent roads - this won't matter, as the only people
onboard will be local railway staff, two foreign trainspotters (one
using FIP boxes) and one of those tissue seller people.

[Neil Williams]

Post by Arthur Figgis
What we need to do is hide the airport rail link some way from the
airport, and create widespread rumours that foreigners won't be sold
tickets even if they can find it. The other terminus we can fill with
aggressive beggars. We could then run intercity trains slower than the
donkeys on the adjacent roads - this won't matter, as the only people
onboard will be local railway staff, two foreign trainspotters (one
using FIP boxes) and one of those tissue seller people.

Bucharest, perchance?

Neil