Wednesday 27 August 2008

Back on Track?

Hopefully Robbie will be back on track today, Network Rail engineering works over the bank holiday meat that the railway station looked more like a bus station and the poor old passengers had to endure replacement coaches yet again. Network Rail keep telling us how wonderful it is going to be when all the work on the West Coast Mainline is complete, we will have to wait and see, but I suspect that some of the passengers who have endured the greatest disruption and inconvenience will not derive least advantage from the improvements. I was very surprised to hear that the new platforms 5 and 6 at Rugby are too short to accommodate pendolinos and some other train formations. Apparently the platforms are intended to be used by local services, but it seems extremely short-sighted to have constructed new platforms that can not accommodate certain trains, it restricts the ability of the station to be flexible and it takes no account of future need.

Newcastle is also facing disruption because of major engineering work. Network Rail seem to know how to say just the right thing to make a bad situation even worse. I am sure the passengers at Newcastle were 'delighted' to hear from Network Rail that it is an unlucky coincidence that services from Newcastle are going to be worst hit during rush hour! How do they get it so wrong?

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