226
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All across the Great Western territory / Your rights and redress / Re: Delay repay
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on: October 28, 2021, 12:33:31
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Is Delay Repay applicable if you arrive early, due to the train you wished to travel on being cancelled? In that situation, the next available train may be too late for you to use, so you have to use a previous train to the one you wish to use, and thus arrive much earlier than you had wanted to.
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229
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Journey by Journey / Shorter journeys in Devon / Re: Starcross
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on: October 17, 2021, 16:11:36
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I've used the ferry a couple of times crossing from Exmouth, with a bike, and have had similar concerns. The access from the ferry to the platform is narrow, and so is the platform itself, and the whole route from ferry to the station exit is long and involves carrying the bike over the footbridge. Some forms of advance warning of all this would certainly help. If I remember correctly, getting off the ferry at Starcross, if the tide is low, also involves a very steep climb up the ramp.
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231
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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture - related rail and other transport issues / Re: Birmingham to become a super-sized low-traffic neighbourhood
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on: October 07, 2021, 12:08:05
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To be fair, with a few notable exceptions (Montmartre springs to mind) Paris is mostly flat too.
Actually I think this issue of flatness is a red herring put out by people who don't ride bikes, though. Generally you can find a flattish route to most places, and when you really have to climb a hill modern bikes have low enough gears to make this less difficult than it was in the days of the 3-speed Sturmey Archer. Failing that, there's no shame in getting off and pushing every now and then... or getting an e-bike.
And if you have a folding bike, you can also catch a bus to get you to the top (as I sometimes here in Bath). I agree that this is a red herring that is continuously trotted out. Bikes can get you to pretty much anywhere you want to go to, you just have to be more innovative in your thinking than if you are travelling only by motorised transport, and willing to take your time when necessary.
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232
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Where were Finn and bignosemac, Autumn 2021?
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on: October 05, 2021, 10:26:34
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The 227 bus brings back many memories for me, as it went past the house where I grew up and I often caught it as well. And yes, Shortlands was very obvious. The 227 bus brings back memories for me as well. Standing at the bus stop on the triangle at the northern end of Bromley High Street after visiting Medhurst's department store, waiting for a 47 for my journey back home to Catford, there were loads of 227s and yet so few of the 47s - it felt frustrating that Beckenham which I never visited had such a good service compared to Catford which was the centre of my world. At the time I didn't think about the RFs (single-deckers) on the 227 being more expensive for London Transport to operate than the RTs (double-deckers) on the 47. (The 227 had to be single-decker because of a low bridge.) Ah nostalgia. Ah, indeed, nostalgia ... arriving on the 227 from Chiselhurst Common, popping into J Lyons besides Medursts and then shopping in Caters, 227 back from outside and chaining there onto the 61 or 161A back home to Petts Wood. For changes to London, the novelty of taking the 1 rather than the 47 some times ... but to connect onto those we used to walk in Petts Wood to catch the 94 - further from home than the 61 or 161A, but then London trips by bus (often or Red Rover days or rail strike days) didn't involve carrying heavy groceries home. Ah - them was the days. Indeed. I lived at the other end of the route, on the borders of Beckenham and Penge, and still remember venturing along the whole route for the first time to explore Chislehurst Common, which was covered in deep snow on that day. It was a frequent service (I assume it still is) though only one in every 4 went beyond Penge to reach Crystal Palace. Maybe it was a mixture of its frequency and that it linked areas that were very different from each other which made it such an iconic route.
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233
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Where were Finn and bignosemac, Autumn 2021?
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on: October 04, 2021, 22:12:36
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No. 1 has to be Shortlands ... blindingly obvious to anyone who - err - was brought up in the Bromley area, commuting through there or a daily basis, catching the 227 bus and sometimes walking past the spot where the picture was taken on his way up through the park to the High Street. But then ... not everyone was brought up in that area The 227 bus brings back many memories for me, as it went past the house where I grew up and I often caught it as well. And yes, Shortlands was very obvious.
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234
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All across the Great Western territory / Looking forward - after Coronavirus to 2045 / Re: Patterns of returning passengers?
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on: September 23, 2021, 06:47:23
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From my recent travels, my impression is rates of mask wearing on trains differs greatly by region. Here, on trains I've been on around Bath, I would say the majority of passengers are still wearing masks, maybe 60-70%. On journeys I've been making down through Hampshire to Sussex over the last couple of months, mask wearing right through the summer there was much lower, just a minority on every train I was on.
Recently we've had a week in Wales, where mask wearing is still supposed to be mandatory on trains, and mask wearing rates on those trains appeared to be lower than on the trains around here. I noted on one train I was on, travelling from Crewe to Bangor, that when it crossed the border an announcement was made to the effect that as we are now in Wales, wearing a mask is mandatory. Not a single one of the majority of the passengers I saw who were maskless put one on, and rates remained low throughout the journey.
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235
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Journey by Journey / Transport for London / Re: Battersea Power Station Station (and Nine Elms) to open on 20th September 2021
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on: September 20, 2021, 16:22:21
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I find it quite odd that it was built as an extension from the Northern Line, when it appears from the map it would have been easier to connect it into the Victoria Line, and give direct access to central London. I guess the idea was that most residents in the new flats would be working in the City so would want access in that direction, but is that still likely to be the case?
Also, is the development area retaining the name Battersea Power Station? I would have expected the developers to have wanted something that might sound a little more upmarket.
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237
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All across the Great Western territory / Active travel: Cyclists and walkers, including how the railways deal with them / Re: London to Brighton Bike Ride, and not using the train to get your bike there
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on: September 14, 2021, 21:39:50
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The last time I rode the London to Brighton ride, probably more than 35 years ago now, I took a week off work and spent 2 days cycling to London from Bristol, did the ride and then spent 2 days riding back from Brighton. A lovely week.
I had ridden it a couple of times before that and think on those occasions there were buses arranged from Brighton back to London to take the bikes, with the riders taking the train and getting their bikes back in London.
I stopped doing the ride because I didn't enjoy having such large numbers of people riding very close, to the point that it felt pretty dangerous, and did see a few accidents were one bike clipped the wheel of another.
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238
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All across the Great Western territory / Active travel: Cyclists and walkers, including how the railways deal with them / Re: Bike spaces on IETs
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on: September 11, 2021, 09:13:36
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I travelled back from Rhyl (oh, the glamour!) yesterday - two of us, two (narrow) bikes, reservations made for each leg. Interesting to contrast the provision on the three trains we took.
Leg 1 was Rhyl to Wolverhampton, a TfW 158: 2 carriages to begin, 4 carriages after Chester. There was one (folding but unfolded) bike already on, and a third cyclist getting on at Rhyl with us. That's twice as many bikes as the stated capacity, but it worked fine, thanks not least to the very helpful guard who was keen to talk to us about his new gravel bike!
Leg 2 was Wolverhampton to Oxford, a CrossCountry 22something - or two in fact, totalling nine carriages. Voyager bike accommodation is slightly curious: 2 hanging cabinets, one taking two bikes, the other only one. Absolutely full marks to the XC▸ staff member who saw there was a single, wide-handlebarred bike in the 2-bike cabinet, and took it on herself to move that across to the 1-bike cabinet so we could get ours in.
Leg 3 was Oxford to Charlbury, and a five-coach IET▸ . I had an ominous feeling this would be the tricky one, and it was. No indication of which of the two "bike & bulk" rooms we were meant to use, but we chose the one nearest the front (and suggested to an Oxford-Hanborough cyclist that he use the other). But, as documented, IET bike spaces are not forgiving for anything that isn't a narrow-barred road bike... and though ours were, an existing occupant of the space wasn't: an "e-bike" that I would charitably describe as a motorbike with pedals. Absolutely no way you could have got a fully folded Brompton in the cabinet with it, let alone two full-size bikes! So we stood in the vestibules with our bikes and manhandled them out the way at Hanborough. No sign of any staff.
Any lessons learned? One is that staff goodwill can go a very long way - we were delighted with how helpful the TfW and XC staff were.
The second is that bikes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes these days, and bike accommodation needs to keep pace with that. I doubt it's ever going to be feasible for motorbike-sized e-bikes to be transported by train, and TOCs▸ might want to consider setting a maximum size. But the wide-barred bike on the Voyager was just a "normal bike", and it was a little alarming that it nominally took up two spaces.
Similarly, the folding bike on the 158 would ideally have been in a luggage rack, folded, rather than the main bike spaces. Luggage racks have been getting smaller over time, not least with IETs compared to HSTs▸ , and maybe that needs to be revisited.
Coincidentally I was coming back through Rhyl on the same day, with my Brompton (completely folded), and Rhyl was looking very wet, so I hope that downpour missed you.
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239
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The West - but NOT trains in the West / Re: Local honey rather than the imported product. What difference?
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on: September 03, 2021, 08:42:55
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* Queuing out onto the main road for McDonalds drive through
Driving through Melksham a few months back, I got caught in traffic caused by that McDonald’s drive through. Clearly a problem there. Should these be allowed on the grounds that they encourage car travel? Or should we replace them with walk through or cycle through versions? I would prefer carrots to sticks. At one stage earlier "in Covid", McDonalds was open only for drive through and they were not offering cycle through or walk through (no horse riding through either) and that certainly was not clever. You can cycle / walk in and take away now from the main counter - though cycling being slower and walking slower still, the food would likely be cold by the time you got it home. Going to pick up your takeaway by bus is likely to be ... impractical ... Cycling in a town like Melksham is likely to be just as quick as driving from retail outlet to home. Even if not, the difference in time would not be big enough to affect the heat of the food.
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