Saturday 2nd September 2023 1. Tickets “not available“ Passengers using LNER’s website to book rail tickets will be familiar with the “not available” indicator on certain journeys when tickets have allegedly sold out. You might be forgiven for wondering how can that be, on what is supposed to be a walk-up-and-travel railway? Because it’s not... Continue Reading →
Thursday 31st August 2023 Welcome to August’s potpourri of miscellany that's caught my eye during the month and hasn't warranted a full blown blog. Flying visit to the Bluebell It had been a long time coming - tickets went on sale in May 2022 for an originally planned visit in August that year, with mechanical... Continue Reading →
Saturday 20th August 2022 Southern and Thameslink seem to be going through a bad patch lately with cancellations and delays for a whole variety of announced reasons including “due to more than the usual number of trains needing repair at the moment”; “due to a shortage of train crew”; “due to a problem under investigation”... Continue Reading →
Sunday 27th February 2022 In last Tuesday's blog about the Brighton Main Line blockade I mentioned a rail replacement bus was providing a direct journey between Seaford and Uckfield. As that seemed an unusual link - something not normally possible either by bus or train without changes and extended journey times - I thought I'd... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 22nd February 2022 A deserted Hassocks at 07:30 I was up bright and early yesterday morning taking a few rail replacement rides to see how Brighton Main Line commuters were faring on their first weekday of the blockade without trains. It was soon apparent, as in 2019, extensive pre-blockade publicity had done its job... Continue Reading →
Sunday 20th February 2022 It's a bit déjà vu on the Brighton Main Line this week. Flushed with a successful nine day blockade south of Three Bridges to Brighton and Lewes during half term in February 2019 which at the time was billed as a one-off efficient way of completing a whole host of upgrade... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd January 2022 One of the proposals London Mayor Sadiq Khan has put forward to help shore up TfL’s finances in ongoing funding negotiations with Government to replace the current arrangements ending on 4th February is the end of the Travelcard. If this goes ahead it will confirm without doubt the wheels have well... Continue Reading →
Sunday 2nd January 2022 What on earth is going on at Southern Rail? There we all were making alternative arrangements for travel between Christmas and New Year while Network Rail carried out resignalling work closing all lines between East Croydon and Victoria for nine days .... .... when on Thursday it was announced these arrangements... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 18th August 2021 It's always impressive to read corporate vision documents. You know the kind of thing. Glossy photos of staff helping smiling customers and paragraphs full of glowing statements about the company's unbridled commitment to customers and how we're at the heart of everything the company does. Sadly they seldom match up to... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 12th May 2020 Back in the carefree pre Covid-19 days of travelling around the country for pleasure, on Wednesday 5th March, I found myself on a train from my local station, Hassocks in Sussex, up to London to seek out hydrogen fuelled buses on TfL route 444 before they were withdrawn from service. I’d... Continue Reading →
Monday 3rd February 2020 - updated Wednesday 5th February 2020 First the good news. Rail passengers using Gatwick Airport will be pleased to see work finally get underway from May 2020 on the project to increase the station's capacity. Although an extra platform (7) was added in 2014 to reduce track congestion, particularly Gatwick Express... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 18th December 2019 There's never a good time to have a complete signal failure at East Croydon but for the power to go down just as the evening peak is kicking in around 16:45 is probably one of the worst of times. I'm sure everyone at Network Rail did their very best to get... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 14th May 2019 Exactly thirty-five years ago today British Rail began the first non-stop train service between London Victoria and Gatwick Airport marketed as Gatwick Express. Class 73 locomotives hauled Mark 2 carriages providing a 30 minute journey time. Since 1984 GX's history has been in three almost equal parts: the British Rail era... Continue Reading →
Thursday 21st February 2019 It's reminded me of London 2012. Aside from the brilliant athletes and the behind-the-scenes organisational excellence it was the deployment of Games Makers which made for such a positive and enjoyable visitor experience despite mega crowds and challenging transport logistics before and after events. When the wash up review of this... Continue Reading →
Sunday 17th February 2019 It's been publicised for over a year; preparations have been going on behind the scenes for much longer than that. It was originally planned to happen last October. Now we're finally on the cusp of the biggest rail replacement ever as the nine day Brighton Main Line closure is hours away... Continue Reading →
That's a headline to grab your attention for sure. And it's true; for those of us on the Brighton line and travel off peak into Victoria. GTR have announced from Saturday 1st September it's back to the bad old days with ticket restrictions reinstated around what trains we can use particular tickets on. Looking at... Continue Reading →
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