Bah. I've just checked the train information online for 2 January, and
would you believe it, Network Rail have decided to do some work between
Larbert and Stirling, closing the line completely and cutting off
central Scotland from Edinburgh and Glasgow (and incurring massive
detours for those further north).

Whyohwhyohwhy can they not operate some kind of limited single track
service over the affected section of line? What is ordinarily a train
journey of about an hour is going to be mostly replaced by buses and
will end up taking up to 2 hours - absolutely ridiculous! Is there even
the remotest chance of the "shut it all down" hyper-'safety' mindset 
taking a more realistic and practical attitude? 

By all means schedule maintenance for holiday periods, when traffic 
levels are generally likely to be lower, but at least consider that 
these are also the times when some people who either rarely travel by 
train or only occasionally make certain rail journeys (eg, visiting
friends/family) may be making special journeys, and surely this is when
rail needs to present itself in the best possible light if it is to
encourage further rail journeys in the future - not just copping-out
with a 4th-rate replacement bus service..?


I'm tempted to do the unthinkable and venture into the unknown to see
if there are any scheduled bus services which might be a viable
alternative to this mess - surely they can't possibly take any longer
than this horrible hybrid?

But now, where would I actually start looking? Do I have to look up
every bus company I can think of (which marks me out as a transport geek
for starters - how the hell would an ordinary person know?), and even 
then I'll probably miss the one operator I really should have looked up 
(I reckon checking Citylink and First Edinburgh should probably cover
me, but who knows what else might be plying the routes?)?! Why is there 
no such thing as a "National Rail" for the buses? Are they all too busy 
defending their own little patches of turf to not realise that if it is 
difficult to find out about the bus 'system' <snort> as a whole, the 
average person will just dismiss it as "too hard" and go by train 
(actually normally relatively 'easy' to work out in comparison) if 
possible - ah, /oops/ - or just give up and drive?


Mind you, this is perhaps a minor issue compared to the problems which
will befall the not inconsiderable number of people who often do the
'east-west city swap' for Hogmanay and who, this time, will find
themselves unable to get back home again afterwards as the InterCity 
East Coast trains between Glasgow and Edinburgh will not be running this 
coming 1st January.

Ho-hum,


David.

-- 
David M. -- Edinburgh, Scotland. --[en,fr,(de) <-- corrections welcome]
*Please remove quotes not needed for context and interleave reply text*
*No-context, excess-quoted, slug-trailed, zero-content posts filtered.*

"David M" <david@bogus.domain.dom.invalid> wrote in message 
news:slrnfnfq4d.6ir.david@pepper.local.lan...
> Bah. I've just checked the train information online for 2 January, and
> would you believe it, Network Rail have decided to do some work between
> Larbert and Stirling, closing the line completely and cutting off
> central Scotland from Edinburgh and Glasgow (and incurring massive
> detours for those further north).
>
> Whyohwhyohwhy can they not operate some kind of limited single track
> service over the affected section of line? What is ordinarily a train
> journey of about an hour is going to be mostly replaced by buses and
> will end up taking up to 2 hours - absolutely ridiculous! Is there even
> the remotest chance of the "shut it all down" hyper-'safety' mindset
> taking a more realistic and practical attitude?
>
Because the "safety" crowd don't like trains running on one track when 
people are working on the adjoining track. The fact that it may be more 
dangerous for hundreds of people to travel by road rather than by train is 
something they (apparently) fail to consider.

Bevan

David M wrote:
> But now, where would I actually start looking? Do I have to look up
> every bus company I can think of (which marks me out as a transport geek
> for starters - how the hell would an ordinary person know?), and even 
> then I'll probably miss the one operator I really should have looked up 
> (I reckon checking Citylink and First Edinburgh should probably cover
> me, but who knows what else might be plying the routes?)?! Why is there 
> no such thing as a "National Rail" for the buses? Are they all too busy 

For Scotland: http://www.travelinescotland.com

In the dreadful, unitary, old days possession planning was overseen by
general managers who had overall responsibility for traffic, revenue,
S& T and civil engineering and could weigh all of this in the balance.

They did not have to consider franchise premia, rolling stock lease
costs etc.

Now possession planning is overseen by Network Rail managers who have
no interest in anything beyond infrastructure

Trains are run by people who's costs in this scenario will be paid by
someone else, and who are quite happy to bustitute as it is better for
their bottom line.

Missing from all of this is the interest of the end user, the
passenger who has no say, no stake, and everything to lose

What a bloody shambles!

On 30 Dec, 20:07, "Bevan Price" <meVIAfreeukFULLSTOPcom> wrote:

> Because the "safety" crowd don't like trains running on one track when
> people are working on the adjoining track. The fact that it may be more
> dangerous for hundreds of people to travel by road rather than by train is
> something they (apparently) fail to consider.

To be fair, the work is new signalling, and Network Rail announced it
on 8 October:

http://tinyurl.com/22g9xw

"On January 2, services travelling through the Larbert area to
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen will be affected by
resignalling works on the line between Larbert and Stirling".

David M wrote:

> Whyohwhyohwhy can they not operate some kind of limited single track
> service over the affected section of line? What is ordinarily a train
> journey of about an hour is going to be mostly replaced by buses and
> will end up taking up to 2 hours - absolutely ridiculous! Is there even
> the remotest chance of the "shut it all down" hyper-'safety' mindset 
> taking a more realistic and practical attitude? 


Because, to test signalling (in connection with both Stirling - Alloa 
and linespeed/capacity improvements between Stirling and Larbert, it is 
necessary to have all lines clear of trains. After all it's kinda 
difficult to check whether track circuits are working correctly or not 
when there's a train sat on them.

But hey, don't let that stop a rant unless you think that doing this 
sort of work would be better done on a normal midweek?

Jeff.

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:38:32 +0000, jeff mcghie 
wrote:


>But hey, don't let that stop a rant unless you think that doing this 
>sort of work would be better done on a normal midweek?

Wouldn't be knowing about conditions north of the border but I am very
familiar with the west coast main line and considering the huge amount
of work that as been done on it over the last few years it should not
have needed touching for years to come. But I see they have been
touching it again this weekend and spreading the work over into
Thursday .
 Network rail must be the most incompetent company in the UK.

On 31 Dec 2007, 21:06, Broder...@O2.co.uk wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:38:32 퍍, jeff mcghie 
> wrote:
>
> >But hey, don't let that stop a rant unless you think that doing this
> >sort of work would be better done on a normal midweek?
>
> Wouldn't be knowing about conditions north of the border but I am very
> familiar with the west coast main line and considering the huge amount
> of work that as been done on it over the last few years it should not
> have needed touching for years to come. But I see they have been
> touching it again this weekend and spreading the work over into
> Thursday .
>  Network rail must be the most incompetent company in the UK.  

The work at Rugby is not 'revisiting old work'. It is part (II) of the
continuing upgrade, and planned as such

Patrick

wrote in message 
news:g4min3hra7m1n2j52l2v1r4f6cjqn21m57@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:38:32 +0000, jeff mcghie 
> wrote:
>
>
>>But hey, don't let that stop a rant unless you think that doing this
>>sort of work would be better done on a normal midweek?
>
> Wouldn't be knowing about conditions north of the border but I am very
> familiar with the west coast main line and considering the huge amount
> of work that as been done on it over the last few years it should not
> have needed touching for years to come. But I see they have been
> touching it again this weekend and spreading the work over into
> Thursday .

If you were 'familiar with the WCML' surely you'd know that they have been 
totally rearranging the layout a mile or two either side of Rugby, for 
nearly all of 2007, including rebuilding the south flyover, building a new 
down platform for the Coventry line, realigning the down main platform face 
etc; and the work will only end in a years time when similar rebuilding is 
done on the up side of the station & layout.

Of course some of the media are explaining it as a few days work that could 
have been done anytime.

Paul

On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 15:19:35 -0000, "Paul Scott"
 wrote:


>If you were 'familiar with the WCML' surely you'd know that they have been 
>totally rearranging the layout a mile or two either side of Rugby, for 
>nearly all of 2007, including rebuilding the south flyover, building a new 
>down platform for the Coventry line, realigning the down main platform face 
>etc; and the work will only end in a years time when similar rebuilding is 
>done on the up side of the station & layout.
I am just not interested in excuses for the delays being caused to
people paying very expensive fares to travel on the nations rail
system Paul and if the work was being done by a private company
instead of one that is masquerading as one when in reality it is still
a nationalized company . One only need to observe the number of men
leaning on spades and shovels along the track instead of using them to
see that they are acting just like any nationalized company employee
act's 15 minutes work and 7 hours 45 minutes thinking about it pr day.
>Of course some of the media are explaining it as a few days work that
could 
>have been done anytime.
And they are right .

"D1039"  wrote in message
news:3cd158c7-a2f2-48ba-95cf-8059eda3000e@e26g2000hsh.googlegroups.com

[snip]
 
: The work at Rugby is not 'revisiting old work'. It is
: part (II) of the continuing upgrade, and planned as such
: 
: Patrick

May I ask the relevance of this to uk.transport.buses please..?

Ivor

On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 15:58:20 -0000, "Ivor Jones"
<ivor@thisaddressis.invalid> wrote:

>
>
>"D1039"  wrote in message
>news:3cd158c7-a2f2-48ba-95cf-8059eda3000e@e26g2000hsh.googlegroups.com
>
>[snip]
> 
>: The work at Rugby is not 'revisiting old work'. It is
>: part (II) of the continuing upgrade, and planned as such
>: 
>: Patrick
>
>May I ask the relevance of this to uk.transport.buses please..?

Dose it really matter it isn't a crime to post here even if it isn't
relevant he can even post to any forum he wishes to post to and it
still will not be a crime .
GET A LIFE IVOR .

Graeme wrote in scot.general 
 about: Re: Network Rail plan yet more Scottish chaos 

> David M wrote:
>> But now, where would I actually start looking? 
[..] 
>> Why is there no such thing as a "National Rail" for the buses? 
>
> For Scotland: http://www.travelinescotland.com

Traveline never seems to give a very convincing impression of having the
full picture to hand, though. For the holiday period, the site is full
of "Oh, there might be service changes, and we might not have
information for every operator, and you'd better look at this thick pile
of PDF addendums [1] and 'contact the operators directly' to be sure
that someone, somewhere, might just know whether or not you have a
chance in hell of making your journey.." That's really far too much
hassle to expect people to have to go through.

[1] Hmm, if they actually do have amended data, couldn't they do
something radical with it, like, you know, actually feed it into the
database so that it can give the right answers?


David.

-- 
David M. -- Edinburgh, Scotland. --[en,fr,(de) <-- corrections welcome]
*Please remove quotes not needed for context and interleave reply text*
*No-context, excess-quoted, slug-trailed, zero-content posts filtered.*

wrote in message
news:p6ukn3hleo0uppdi8itvgtk585acsnv5mo@4ax.com
: : On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 15:58:20 -0000, "Ivor Jones"
: : <ivor@thisaddressis.invalid> wrote:
: :
: : :
: : :
: : : "D1039"  wrote in message
: : : 
news:3cd158c7-a2f2-48ba-95cf-8059eda3000e@e26g2000hsh.googlegroups.com
: : :
: : : [snip]
: : :
: : : : The work at Rugby is not 'revisiting old work'. It
: : : : is part (II) of the continuing upgrade, and planned
: : : : as such
: : : :
: : : : Patrick
: : :
: : : May I ask the relevance of this to uk.transport.buses
: : : please..?
: :
: : Dose it really matter it isn't a crime to post here
: : even if it isn't relevant he can even post to any forum
: : he wishes to post to and it still will not be a crime .
: : GET A LIFE IVOR .

I never said it was a crime Ron, I asked its relevance to a buses group.

If you do not have a valid answer shut up.

Ivor

Obviously we have all noticed the new batch of MI5 posts with the 
subject line amended to get around filters.

I have been experimenting with different message rules to stop this 
rubbish and I just thought I would share what works for me. Obviously 
having MI5 in a filter is essential. Then I have used two methods. 
Firstly, I have created a rule that gets all the messages that start 
with M(Space) or M- or M. or M, or M' or M` (This last one is the button 
just to the left of the #1 on my keyboard).

Secondly, I have filtered everything that has a subject containing pers 
or cution.

Im both cases, I have told the filter to mark the messages in red so 
that I can see how it is working and, in both, cases the success rate, 
so far, seems to be 100%.

Brian.

On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:32:38 GMT, Brian Robertson <brian@[nospam].com>
wrote:

>Obviously we have all noticed the new batch of MI5 posts with the 
>subject line amended to get around filters.

Hang on Brian has I have said a few times to someone else who is
spammer mad tell me just what is so hard about totally ignoring them
and moving on you are not forced to read them and it is far quicker to
just ignore them than filtering the senders out.
I do not like spammers anymore than anyone else BUT I do not let them
get to me and start to rant and rave about them like someone else here
does I just totally ignore what I do not want to read and move on .