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#1
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What ever happened to the Ipswich to Basingstoke service. It wasn't
widely publicised, but if it was I'm sure it would have provided a good cross London Link. I I remember seeing an Anglia DEMU at Camden Road a couple of years back. Now 'one' has taken over Anglia, do you think they will be reintroduced? |
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#3
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![]() Baffobear wrote: What ever happened to the Ipswich to Basingstoke service. It wasn't widely publicised, but if it was I'm sure it would have provided a good cross London Link. I I remember seeing an Anglia DEMU at Camden Road a couple of years back. Now 'one' has taken over Anglia, do you think they will be reintroduced? Not a chance. They were dependent on some sort of SRA grant which was withdrawn after a year and has now been scrapped, and the few times I tried them out I was about the only passenger. The journey from Stratford to Brentford on the NLL was painfully slow, as well, which probably contributed to its demise. |
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On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Baffobear wrote:
What ever happened to the Ipswich to Basingstoke service. It wasn't widely publicised, but if it was I'm sure it would have provided a good cross London Link. I I remember seeing an Anglia DEMU at Camden Road a couple of years back. Now 'one' has taken over Anglia, do you think they will be reintroduced? Yes, it's now called 'Crossrail'. ![]() As has been pointed out, the service was actually monstrously slow, so, although it was a nice idea and fairly convenient, it wasn't really better than changing. Also, it involves the North London line, where the little capacity left over after the current passenger and freight trains is soon (for some value of 'soon') to be gobbled up by Ken's space programme [1]. tom [1] Something about orbital journeys, right? I bet they'll have Met-style extra zones for it, though, the tight *******s. It'll probably be at least a tenner to the moon. -- Hit to death in the future head |
#5
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[1] Something about orbital journeys, right? I bet they'll have Met-style
extra zones for it, though, the tight *******s. It'll probably be at least a tenner to the moon. AIUI, the reason for the extra zones on the Met Line is because those stations are outside Greater London and Herts & Bucks CC provide minimal (if any) financial support for those services. |
#6
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On Thu, 16 Jun 2005, Joe wrote:
[1] Something about orbital journeys, right? I bet they'll have Met-style extra zones for it, though, the tight *******s. It'll probably be at least a tenner to the moon. AIUI, the reason for the extra zones on the Met Line is because those stations are outside Greater London and Herts & Bucks CC provide minimal (if any) financial support for those services. I see. So cheap access to space depends on the public transport policies of the cislunar local authorities? 8) tom -- The few survivors on ousfg's side ended up in a monastery of immortal monks who yearned for a life better than street-fighting social groups, learning to grow extra hands and feet on the way to immortality. -- Lyndsey Pickup |
#7
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![]() Tom Anderson wrote: On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Baffobear wrote: What ever happened to the Ipswich to Basingstoke service. It wasn't widely publicised, but if it was I'm sure it would have provided a good cross London Link. I I remember seeing an Anglia DEMU at Camden Road a couple of years back. Now 'one' has taken over Anglia, do you think they will be reintroduced? Heres a report I wrote about the journey in 2001 Rob -----Original Message----- From: Robert Smith ] Sent: 08 October 2001 19:40 To: Simon Bradley; Sadlers; Ben Franks Subject: Basingstoke proves too deep into East Anglia Its going to be a long time before Crossrail is built - a big tunnel between East and West London that will provide a way of getting from Ipswich to Basingstoke without changing. Until then there is Crosslink, the service from Anglia railways that does the same thing, using existing bits of the railway, and last Friday I checked it out. The Anglia train leaves from platform 10a, a far flung, urine reaking place I hadnt visited before, which was quite exiting, full of semi derilct station buildings. Our newish Turbostar unit was only ten minutes late, and we were soon curving round to join the North London line. To our right a vast field of rubble. This is the early stages of work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, and I guess once this has been built a flat in Stratford might make sense - 10 minutes to the city, 2 and a half hours to Paris. Still thats years away. Wed picked up about ten people at Stratford, the train virtually empty. Most of these it turned out were savvy North London Line passengers, realising this was an express to Highbury and Islington. It was a joy to fly through Hackney Wick and Dalston, instead of the usual stop start torpor of the NLL. We made use of the fast track, slow track that had previously been purely academic to me, and at Camden Road, a NLL train was held for us while we flew by. This superior treatment brought out the worst in me and I regret I found myself making "******" gestures at the passengers on the slow train. Somehow the view seems bigger from the Turbostar windows, and as we passed through Kentish Town you get a marvelous view of the city skyline. I tried to imagine myself in the position of an Ipswich resident, fearfull of the big city, knowing this train would take them to Basingstoke without risk of contamination by the great Wem. Perhaps I would look in bemused curiosity at St Pancras, the London Eye, the PO Tower, longing but not daring to approach "I can see the look in your eye Mabel - put such thoughts out of your mind. There is nothing but wickedness in this city, wickedness I tell you. This train keeps us safe". And thats the core market for this service - those who fear crossing London by underground. Its the yokel special. And people with heavy bags I suppose. Either way not many people are using it. 4.30pm and after West Hampstead there were only six passengers on board, four who got on there. Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly. As the doors shut it turned out that three of them didnt want to be on the train anyway. One woman wanted Willsden Junction and another Richmond. Thanks to the poor information at WH they were being whisked away to Feltham miles away. One guy wanted Cricklewood not much sympathy for him as he was at the wrong station. What should have been a five minute journey was for him now going to be nearly two hours. So of we went, six passengers, three who didnt want to be there and two who didnt care where the train went if there was a bar, which unfortunatly there wasnt due to staff shortages. This is where things started going awry. The train crawled through West London the only real points of intrest the loop between NLL and Brentford ( bizarely controlled by semaphore signaling - v rare in London) and long slow look at Feltham Young Offenders Institute. Beyond here the train stops at Staines - a station now known as Gateway to Thorpe Park Adventure World. Staines like Slough suffres from a negative image, whether being the entrance to a theme park will help I do not know. The train then breaks out of London through Virginia Water and along the Chertsey loop, a route I havent done before, quite pleasant, but lack of drink forced us to abandon our Anglian journey at Woking. Its a nice idea, crossing London without changing but they need more work at promoting it. Its not that quick either Stratford Basingstoke 2 hours 15 mins. On a good day you could do it on tube and train from Waterloo in an hour forty. But perhaps its better than being sucked into drugs and prostitution by changing in London. |
#8
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wrote in message
oups.com... Tom Anderson wrote: On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Baffobear wrote: What ever happened to the Ipswich to Basingstoke service. It wasn't widely publicised, but if it was I'm sure it would have provided a good cross London Link. I I remember seeing an Anglia DEMU at Camden Road a couple of years back. Now 'one' has taken over Anglia, do you think they will be reintroduced? Heres a report I wrote about the journey in 2001 An interesting report. The only time I travelled that way was once when I'd been to Stratford and was returning home to Ascot - I thought I'd try the Crosslink rather than going into London and across to Waterloo - a big mistake! The train was a nice new 170 - first time I'd been on one of those. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of legroom although it was frustrating that the ventilators along the floor below the window are sloping so you can't rest one foot on them - consequently I was sitting at an angle which was uncomfortable. Unfortunately it was a scorching hot day, all the windows were sealed shut - and the air-conditioning had packed up... Consequently the train was extremely hot - verging on unbearable. The train ambled along through Hackney Wick and Dalston, going slower than even the NLL trains, even if it didn't stop at intermediate stations. People were beginning to feel faint because of the heat. When the train got to its next stop after Stratford (it might have been Camden Road - I forgot) a lot of people got out and I heard a couple near me say "Come on, we're getting off - can't stand this heat any more". The guard was well aware of the problem and he was very concerned, but there was not a lot that he could do. He did make an announcement as we were approaching the next station that passengers might want to get off and wait for a NLL service. When the train was held up at one station, I overheard the guard talking on his intercom to the driver, saying "For Christ's sake open the doors till we're ready to set off - we've got passengers melting back here!" Finally we trundled down towards Kew, with a lot of stop-start-crawl-stop. I was interested to look out for the rarely-used curve between the NLL and the Hounslow Loop near Kew Bridge station. I can't say I noticed the semaphore signals, though. Having left the NLL, the train speeded up considerably and covered the remaining section to Feltham at a respectable time. At Feltham, where I got off to change for my Ascot train, I was amused to see a huge guy in a train-spotter's anorak standing on the opposite platform and shouting out "the train now approaching" announcements; I'm sure he wasn't a railway employee. At one point, the station PA announced a train and the announcer humorously said "This is just to correct my 'friend' on the platform who seems to have set himself up in competition"! So it was a memorable journey - but not for the right reasons. On a train with air-conditioning, there really does need to be some way of getting emergency ventilation if the air-con packs up. Oh for real trains with slam doors and drop-light windows! The crawl along the NLL was pathetic. My train had left at the published time, so it wasn't as if it was late and had missed its path, so I don't know what the problem was. I think the NLL line speed problem would have been one of the main reasons why the service wasn't particularly well patronised. |
#9
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#10
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"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
h.li... On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 wrote: So it didn't call at Willesden Junction? That would seem like a pretty obvious place to stop, given the interchanginess of it. Still, sounds like the service was slow enough as it was. From a London Connections map dated summer 2000, the stations that it stopped at we - Stratford - Highbury and Islington - West Hampstead [then a great BIG gap!] - Feltham Willeseden Junction would seem an eminently sensible place to stop considering that it's a very important junction. I remember thinking this at the time when I used that service. Highbury and Islington gives you the interchange with the ECML (either via the Moorgate branch or the Victoria Line) as well as a link with central London. West Hampstead give you a link with the MML/Thameslink and with the Jubilee line. I suppose it's close enough to Willesden Junction that you coud get off there and catch a NLL train between WH between WJ. |
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