Saturday 23rd March 2024 I still call it St Pancras even though it gained its International suffix back in 2007 and if you want to buy a ticket from a ticket machine to travel there you have to know to type in London St Pancras International. At 33,296,120 passenger journeys a year, it lies in... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 12th December 2023 The west side entrance to Brent Cross West The seventh and eighth new railway stations for 2023 opened this week; on Sunday (Brent Cross West) and yesterday (East Linton). I'll tell you about East Linton in an upcoming blog, but for today it's a visit to Brent Cross West. Located between... Continue Reading →
Saturday 24th September 2022 An annual ride on the wonderful West Highland Line is a personal must in my book so having missed a full blown Glasgow to Mallaig journey during the pandemic (I managed one trip as far as Tyndrum) it was good to be back on board on Monday last week. It was... 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 5th September 2021 I visited Britain's northernmost bus stop in July 2018. It's on Unst, the furthest north island in the Shetland archipelago, in the small hamlet of Valsgarth. It was a great trip. I turned my attention southwards in 2019 and visited Lizard Point in August that year to check out Britain's most... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 20th July 2021 I made six train journeys on Saturday and experienced more mixed messaging leaving me wondering whether our Government controlled railways along with the train companies really are interested in attracting passengers back on board particularly following yesterday’s withdrawal of Covid restrictions. During the early months of the pandemic messaging was all... Continue Reading →
Monday 3rd August 2020 It was pats on the backs all round at Network Rail and GoVia Thameslink Railway (GTR) this morning as although operational problems a plenty caused by damaged overhead lines near Farringdon meant disruption for Thameslink services across the network, the opening of Stevenage’s new ‘turnback’ platform 5 was rightly being celebrated... 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 →
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 21st May 2019 First improvement in the May 2019 rail timetable I experienced yesterday on my tour around was from my own local station, Hassocks where our disjointed two an hour trains to the Thameslink Core stations and on to Bedford or Cambridge (one an hour to each but to a 40/20 pattern) have... Continue Reading →
Thursday 16th May 2019 We're fast approaching the anniversary this weekend of that fateful day in May last year when the Thameslink (and Northern Rail) train networks went into meltdown. Changes to the GoVia Thameslink Railway (GTR) operated Thameslink network had been billed as the culmination of years of investment and preparatory work including millions... 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 →
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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