A Railway Rant

Robbie has been really struggling mobility wise recently, in fact at the end of last week he was so bad that he simply couldn't make it to work and he had to work from home. This week it has been a real struggle for him but he has got himself to work. At times like this he has to plan his journey even more carefully than usual, making sure that he travels on a train that gives him more leg room and planning his return journey so that it works well with his bus connections and does not involve an excessive amount of standing around in the the cold. 


Yesterday his train home was running on time, but it was delayed at Rugby to allow a freight train that was running late to go ahead of the passenger train. This caused great inconvenience to the passengers as the train arrived at Northampton 12 minutes late. Meaning that Robbie missed his bus - and at that time in the evening buses are not very frequent. He was forced to walk to the bus station, a long walk when you are in pain, all up hill, and just to make matters worse it was freezing cold and raining heavily. By this time he had missed his connecting bus too, so he had a long cold wait at the bus station. It was passed 9.30pm when he eventually got home, and by then he was in agony.


Unfortunately this issue of a passenger train being delayed at Rugby in favour of a late freight train is a frequent problem for passengers. Robbie expressed his frustration (rather mildly in the circumstances) on facebook. He was met with a barrage of criticism from one person who works for a company which until now I have trusted and respected. Among his various unhelpful comments was a suggestion that Robbie should just put up with it and that he detested passengers claiming compensation because it takes money out of the railways. He also said 'thats the joy of public transport' and 'if you don't like it get a car' I was staggered by his attitude, it makes me wonder how many other people think like that. It certainly makes me wonder if the company he works for shares his lack of respect for passengers! Passengers have paid for a service and they should complain when things go wrong, especially if the same problem happens often. It is the only way to make rail operators understand how much inconvenience it causes and hopefully this in turn will lead to better service. It really isn't about compensation, nothing could compensate for such a miserable end to Robbie's day. If a train is delayed by a tragedy or by problems arising from bad weather that's one thing, and most passengers would be understanding about that, but to deliberately delay a passenger train that was running on time to accommodate a late running freight train has to be wrong. 


I understand that the railway has many customers and freight companies need to make a living too, but whatever the rules say, it is not unreasonable for passengers to expect their trains to be punctual and to expect that consideration will be given to their needs.  

Northamptonshire Countryside 06.10.07

Robbie and I had an 'us' day on Friday. We had planned to go for a day out on a train, but after a very busy week I wasn't keen on an early start and a long exhausting day. In the end we had a lazy morning, we went out for a nice lunch and then we went for a long walk to enjoy the Northamptonshire countryside. Not far from our home is the Brampton Valley Way a lovely rural walk along the route of the old railway line between Northampton and Market Harborough. It has the added attraction of running alongside our local preserved railway so Robbie has plenty to keep him interested. I like it too, but Robbie and I are interested in different aspects of railway history, I like freight and I like railway architecture. I enjoy taking photos from unusual angles and I like the fact that I can walk at track level and I am able to see bits of the 'under carriage' that would normally be hidden from sight by the platform, I am not sure that photos of bogies and toilet controls are of interest to many people, but I have already admitted to being boring! There was a very nice newly painted coal truck, but my favourites were all in need of some serious TLC, a horsebox, a cattle wagon and a very sad looking newspaper van.

Horses by Rail 29.04.07

Guess what we were doing in bed this morning? It's OK Richard, this is quite safe to read. We were finding out about the history of horse transport by rail. I had stolen Robbie's Model Rail magazine, because there was a long article about horse boxes and horse transport by rail. I like Model Rail because you can learn loads that perhaps wouldn't get a mention elsewhere, but it matters to modellers because they want to be as accurate as possible. I was surprised to find that horseboxes were usually incorporated into passenger services rather than freight services, where they would be positioned at the head of the train next to the engine. If four or more horseboxes were required a special could be run with just horseboxes and a passenger brake.

I was quite surprised at the extent of horse traffic on the railways. I had thought of the Race traffic, but there was also military movements, hunt specials, theatrical specials and general traffic. My favourite film from the British Transport Film Collection is Farmer Moving South because I love the way the special train is made up, I could watch that film over and over again!

When 'Sleeping Beauty' woke up and realised he wasn't going to be able to wrestle his magazine from me until I had read it from cover to cover he decided to distract me with other book's. Out came a book of plans, it was A Pictorial Record of Great Western Coaches (part 2) to be precise. It was really interesting with line drawings showing the layout of the horseboxes, there was even a specially strengthened version for Elephants! In the end Robbie gave up and plodded of to make a cup of tea because I wouldn't relinquish the magazine and I had swiped the book as well.

It isn't often that Robbie is unable to answer a question, but when I asked him what a clerestory carriage was he just showed me some pictures. I had to search the internet to find that it is a passenger vehicle incorporating a raised central roof portion in order to enhance headroom, lighting and ventilation. On the subject of questions I was looking at Class 20's this morning; why are they so weird? Nose first it looks like an alien and cab end first it looks really scary. I certainly wouldn't want to meet that on a dark night!

On the subject of dark nights, I had the strangest dream about Robbie last night. In my dream he arrived in the cab of a train and jumped out and killed an alligator in Morrison's car park. Oddly enough they do have a bit of a drainage problem in the car park, but I have absolutely no idea why I should have been thinking about Alligators! Anyway Robbie would have run a mile, he is even scared of the guinea pig.