Intermediate stations, avoiding Birmingham..

[Joseph_Pestell]

They are run by separate management so it is unfair to judge Virgin West Coast on the performance of VTEC.

East Coast has seen several failed franchises. Virgin have been the only franchise on the WCML. This suggests there is something else wrong with EC.

 

That "something else" has been the case since LNER days - a lack of large cities on much of the route.

[rockershovel]

That "something else" has been the case since LNER days - a lack of large cities on much of the route.

Not only that, but a long-established coastal freight trade. Mind you, I would have thought that the coal trade was profitable?

 

ECML is a sort of proto-HS2, which is just the British end of the Eurofederal project to bind the Union together by linking regional capitals by train. The Romans did the same with roads. You can’t have the United Kingdom, and NOT have a main communication link between the capitals and main centres of wealth creation.. but that doesn’t mean that route is profitable.

[big jim]

And the M6 is closed between junction 14 (Stafford north) and junction 15 this Saturday night (taking a bridge down)

 

All the best

 

Katy

It’s also shut every night this week too as I’m discovering travelling back from coleshill every night!

 

I come off at Stafford south (13) as its quicker to get though there than sit in the traffic waiting to leave the motorway at 14 then head off through eccleshall and the A51 to avoid all the wagons threading round stone (which also has long term roadworks which is a pain!)

[Hobby]

XC reading to Manchester service where you could actually alight at Coventry (Southampton airport services go that way I think, reading go via Tyseley) or continue onward to wolves or Stafford, stoke etc

 

You seem to have sorted it but just to pick up on that statement, the Bournemouth to Manchester services got via Coventry and Birmingham International but the majority of Reading and Southampton Central services (ones that start at RDG and SOU) go non stop Leamington Spa to Brum via Solihull and then head up to Newcastle (and Edinburgh) via the ECML.

[big jim]

Yeah that’s it, every other one goes via Coventry, just couldn’t remember exactly which it was

 

As it happened I tried to get on a new st to reading train on Sunday (bound for banbury) but gave up as it was full to bursting to the point if dangerous

 

Sat for 30 mins in new st for the following Bournemouth bound service and I practically had the whole train to choose from seat wise!

[Kickstart]

It’s also shut every night this week too as I’m discovering travelling back from coleshill every night!

I come off at Stafford south (13) as its quicker to get though there than sit in the traffic waiting to leave the motorway at 14 then head off through eccleshall and the A51 to avoid all the wagons threading round stone (which also has long term roadworks which is a pain!)

It is a pain. Stone is a nightmare with one lane closed, when added to 3 lanes of M6 traffic.

 

When the M6 is closed between 12 and 13 Stafford snarls up entirely. Pity the poor people living beside the road getting all the night time M6 lorries sitting at traffic lights which still have their default timing

 

Katy

[rockershovel]

We seem to be reverting to another thread - the total chaos resulting from the conflicts and overlaps between the Smart Motorways” Scheme” and the numerous upgrades and extensions which appear to have no overall plan at all, save only “do everything at once”

[DIW]

I was, indeed, looking for the online equivalent of the old paper timetable book.

 

This is published by Middleton Press now. You've missed the boat for the May to December  2018 edition (now rumoured to be shortlisted for a fiction prize regarding certain rail operators).

 

You can pre-order the December 2018 to May 2019 edition here, if you wish.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Dave.

Edited October 10, 2018 by DIW

[RJS1977]

I would always travel by train as a preference. But it is usually prohibitively expensive whether here or in mainland Europe.

 

 

 

Looking at Google, Plymouth-Preston is 302 miles.

 

The RAC estimates the true cost of motoring (including wear and tear on the vehicle, tax, insurance, depreciation etc) at approx 50p/mile (certainly my colleagues who get 45p/mile expenses claim it isn't enough!), which works at £150 for the journey.

 

Bear in mind also that the return fare may well not be all that much more than the single, whereas the return motor mileage would be another £150.

[stovepipe]

I have frequently found the German rail website rather better for finding out train times and intermediate stops in the UK, than the normal UK based website.

 

https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en?revia=yes&existOptimizePrice=1&country=GBR&dbkanal_007=L04_S02_D002_KIN0059_qf-bahn-svb-kl2_lz03&start=1&protocol=https%3A&REQ0JourneyStopsS0A=1&S=Plymouth&REQ0JourneyStopsSID=A%3D1%40O%3DPlymouth%40X%3D-4143792%40Y%3D50377976%40U%3D80%40L%3D007001757%40B%3D1%40p%3D1538519136%40&Z=preston&REQ0JourneyStopsZID=&date=Sat%2C+13.10.18&time=06%3A00&timesel=depart&returnDate=&returnTime=&returnTimesel=depart&optimize=0&auskunft_travelers_number=1&tariffTravellerType.1=E&tariffTravellerReductionClass.1=0&tariffClass=2&rtMode=DB-HYBRID&externRequest=yes&HWAI=JS%21js%3Dyes%21ajax%3Dyes%21

[Andy Hayter]

Or

 

https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml

 

which I suspect uses the same database.

 

Use show details 

and then you can access intermediate details

[rockershovel]

Looking at Google, Plymouth-Preston is 302 miles.

 

The RAC estimates the true cost of motoring (including wear and tear on the vehicle, tax, insurance, depreciation etc) at approx 50p/mile (certainly my colleagues who get 45p/mile expenses claim it isn't enough!), which works at £150 for the journey.

 

Bear in mind also that the return fare may well not be all that much more than the single, whereas the return motor mileage would be another £150.

That’s true, but by joining up at Stafford, two of us travel the Northen half of the journey for the same cost as one.

[Oldddudders]

Were you travelling today? I do hope not. Dawlish closed for the usual reason, I hear? 

[rockershovel]

Were you travelling today? I do hope not. Dawlish closed for the usual reason, I hear?

 

Travelling now, as it happens. Didn’t notice any particular issues there?

 

Presently being diverted by way of Westbury.....

[Oldddudders]

Travelling now, as it happens. Didn’t notice any particular issues there?

 

Presently being diverted by way of Westbury.....

 

Great! Radio Devon was giving it large on weather issues this morning. Evidently it was sorted. I try to catch trains that avoid Westbury.

[rockershovel]

Great! Radio Devon was giving it large on weather issues this morning. Evidently it was sorted. I try to catch trains that avoid Westbury.

.

So do I, but apparently not on this occasion..

Edited October 12, 2018 by rockershovel

[Oldddudders]

Even the GWR saw the wisdom of avoiding Westbury - hence the avoiding line!

[TheSignalEngineer]

Travelling now, as it happens. Didn’t notice any particular issues there?

 

Presently being diverted by way of Westbury.....

Fatality at Worle unfortunately.

[Liam]

Just returning to the original question (though I suspect you’ll have arranged something by now) have you considered Penkridge?

 

You’d need to change at Wolverhampton for a Liverpool service, and then it’s just 10 minutes to Penkridge, which is even closer to the M6 than Stafford and has a free (but small) car park.

[rockershovel]

Just returning to the original question (though I suspect you’ll have arranged something by now) have you considered Penkridge?

You’d need to change at Wolverhampton for a Liverpool service, and then it’s just 10 minutes to Penkridge, which is even closer to the M6 than Stafford and has a free (but small) car park.

As it happens I went to Stafford, I was about 1h 10mins behind by then.

[Oldddudders]

As it happens I went to Stafford, I was about 1h 10mins behind by then.

 

Teignmouth is blocked, if that is part of your trip back, according to BBC sources posted by others this afternoon. A flood-related hole in the track. 

[rockershovel]

Teignmouth is blocked, if that is part of your trip back, according to BBC sources posted by others this afternoon. A flood-related hole in the track.

 

So we’ve just been informed. I’d previously been told there were no services beyond Exeter, now apparently there is a bus connection and further rail connection beyond. I preferred the single change and bus to Plymouth they were announcing earlier!

 

Cross Country might usefully listen to the BBC!

Edited October 14, 2018 by rockershovel

[Oldddudders]

As a retired railwayman it gives me no pleasure to hear of customers' misfortunes. Sorry. 

[Hobby]

Cross Country might usefully listen to the BBC!

 

It rather depends on what bus stock XC and GWR can get hold of at very short notice. I've found it better to err on the side of caution rather than promise the earth and have a load of unhappy punters when the promised road transport doesn't turn up as expected. I know earlier they were struggling to get some coaches, like extra rolling stock they don't grow on trees and weekends are a busy time for the coach operators.

[rockershovel]

It rather depends on what bus stock XC and GWR can get hold of at very short notice. I've found it better to err on the side of caution rather than promise the earth and have a load of unhappy punters when the promised road transport doesn't turn up as expected. I know earlier they were struggling to get some coaches, like extra rolling stock they don't grow on trees and weekends are a busy time for the coach operators.

I’ve now passed through the road link from Exeter to Newton Abbot, and am on a train to Plymouth. Top marks for the GWR staff at Exeter, doing their best with a difficult situation, calling in taxis to disperse the passengers from incoming trains as it was becoming increasingly obvious that coach drivers were running out of hours with trains still arriving, and had the platform at Newton Abbot fully staffed to guide incoming travellers.

 

However, a hail of rotten tomatoes for Cross Country who appeared to do nothing effective. Their complete lack of any sort of presence at BNS, total lack of coordination with Virgin (a medium-sized basket of those tomatoes should surely be directed toward the Bearded One, in this business) and laughably poor information to their train crews (and, it would appear, GWR) meant that they were, in effect, shuffling passengers Westward on severely over-crowded, short-formed trains, with no idea how they would complete their journeys. Train announcements were disgracefully uninformative, and the announcement near Bath, that passengers might break their journeys and their tickets be valid tomorrow, must take some sort of award for utter fatuity.

Edited October 14, 2018 by rockershovel