UNITED KINGDOM | Railways

[markydeedrop]

Thought it was about time we had a British thread. Here's my contribution from Manchester.

Some shots from Piccadilly Station, Manchester












Some shots from the East Lancashire Railway, Bury

[DanielFigFoz]

very nice!

[sweek]

Hah, I just found out I haven't taken one single picture of a British train, except for the Tube.

But here are the few stations I do have pictures of:

London Waterloo. A huge station that always managed to be crowded. This is not during peak, or anything. Say hi to the couple in the front of that picture, they're friends of mine.
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Kensington Olympia station, served by London Underground and trains running from Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction - so not that many, really. Will probably become a bit busier once the London Overground calls here. I sort of like how dark this picture is.
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The view from my good-old - rundown but still lovely - local station, Harringay.
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[Irish Blood English Heart]

I used to live on Wightman lane near Haringay station so it was my local one too, it didnt have a ticket machine for years meaning you'd end up in the underground system without a ticket (when the trains when to Moorgate). A bit naughty really, I used to always have to beg at the other end that I wasnt a fare evader, I just had no way to buy a ticket!

[sweek]

The ticket machine almost never seems to work, even now. When the ticket office isn't open that means that I'll just ride for free and touch in at Finsbury Park or Highbury and Islington, where I change for the Underground. I rarely actually see a ticket inspector that can sell me tickets on this route either.

[Jean Luc]

My sister lived in Cavendish Street, Harringay when she lived in London back in the early 90s. Do you know it? Is it a good street? Is Harringay a good area?

[sweek]

Hah, I walk through that street all the time. I think it's an excellent area, although don't tell everyone or our rents will be going up.

The train station has 6tph off-peak to Moorgate or King's Cross, depending on the time of the day. It's just 90 seconds to get to Finsbury Park, where you can change for the Victoria/Piccadilly. There is no tube station in Harringay, but Manor house isn't that far a walk. Furthermore there's Harringay Green Lanes, which should be becoming a more attractive station with the frequency doubling and services all the way to Clapham Junction some time soon. And a whole bunch of buses along Green Lanes, most notably the 29, which runs every 4 minutes or so during the day, every 10 minutes all night long.

Green Lanes is the main street, and it's always alive. It's full of Polish and other Eastern-European shops that are open all night long in many cases. There's the 24 hour Sainsbury's, and 24 hour McDonald's, too.

It's a bit on the rough side, but I've never really had a problem, to be honest. The population seems to be a good mix of people from all around the world, although the focus these days is on Eastern Europeans.

[Jaeger]

National Express takes over GNER train operations
Filed 10/12/07



http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/story.php?id=4579


New Look East Coast Trains with the New National Express Logo.

Britain's second largest transport company has taken over the operation of trains on one of the UK highest profile rail routes.

National Express East Coast succeeded GNER yesterday (9 December), gaining responsibility for running trains between London King's Cross and Aberdeen, Durham, Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, Peterborough and York.

The new franchise, which is due to continue until 31 March 2015 with the last 17 months dependent on performance targets, will see National Express spend nearly £44m in an attempt to grow the business in order to pay £1.4bn back to the Department for Transport during the next eight years. The franchise is expected to generate total annual revenue of £600m in its first full year. Group chief executive Richard Bowker said: "We are privileged to be taking over inter-city East Coast, Britain's premier railway, which is known for the quality of its service by its many loyal customers. Our combined strengths of industry-leading operational performance, excellent customer service, innovation and sheer hard work give us confidence that we can make National Express East Coast a truly world class railway."

Immediate changes to the service will see WiFi internet access provided free in standard as well as first class carriages and a 100-day joint improvement plan, agreed with Network Rail, designed to significantly improve the punctuality of services. Within months of launch, on-board catering will feature a more contemporary range of dishes and snacks, complementing the option of restaurant dining, with hot food served at seat in standard class.

National Express plans innovations in ticketing and information to make it easier for customers to buy tickets and plan journeys more effectively. Proposals include real-time running information accessible by mobile phone; print at home tickets; a website which will enable total journey booking including parking and onward connection in a single visit, and smartcard ticketing. On Sunday (9 December) the GNER website, which has become familiar to customers during the past 11 years, was displaying an error message rather than forwarding visitors to the new National Express site.

From 2010, with the addition of five more trains to the East Coast fleet, there will be a further 25 services providing 14,000 extra seats each weekday. London-Leeds journeys will fall to two hours and London-York 1 hour 45 minutes, while the London-Edinburgh services journey time will be reduced to less than 4 hours 20 minutes on key services. At stations more than £10m will be spent to improve waiting rooms and information provision, increase CCTV cover, add more cycle spaces and increase car parking by 33%.

The company says it is aiming to make East Coast Britain's greenest railway. A predicted 17% reduction in fuel consumption will be targeted across the entire service and a number of stations will gain water conservation measures and wind turbines.

The business will be run by a management team based in York and led by managing director David Franks, who also retains his role as head of National Express Trains Division.

The launch of the new franchise marks the end of an era on the East Coast Main Line. GNER operated East Coast services since 1996 and became widely regarded as one of the most successful train operators created by Britain's newly-privatised rail industry. However, despite successfully winning a closely-fought new franchise term in 2005, financial problems at parent company Sea Containers and crippling subsidy payments forced it to hand back control of operations to the government, which has allowed it to run trains under a management contract until the handover to National Express.

National Express Group has also completed the purchase of Sea Containers Rail Services (SCRS) Ltd call centre at Newcastle. Under the terms of the deal more than 200 employees at the centre, in Baron House, and the assets will transfer to a new company, National Express Services Ltd, which will be a subsidiary of the National Express Group.

[Jaeger]

The New National Express Website - http://www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com/

[Svartmetall]

To my knowledge, National Express used to own M>Train in Melbourne as part of the suburban rail network there. They didn't do a very good job apparently so lets hope they manage the east coast routes better!

[Jaeger]

Originally Posted by Svartmetall

To my knowledge, National Express used to own M>Train in Melbourne as part of the suburban rail network there. They didn't do a very good job apparently so lets hope they manage the east coast routes better!

National Express already run a host of other rail services in the UK such as C2C and the Gatwick Express.

[Jaeger]

More about the NXEC Rolling Srock etc- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...ess_East_Coast

[invincible]

Originally Posted by Svartmetall

To my knowledge, National Express used to own M>Train in Melbourne as part of the suburban rail network there. They didn't do a very good job apparently so lets hope they manage the east coast routes better!

National Express pulled out midway through the M>Train, M>Tram and V/Line contracts and probably the worst thing they did was neglect to train enough drivers, which has left Melbourne with a large shortage of train drivers. That said, they did do some good things, like unify weekday and weekend evening timetables.

Connex has done a much better job in Melbourne, as opposed to their track record in the UK though.

[Songoten2554]

well lets hope they will bring in new routes and such to places with currently no rail service though

and lets hope they will manage better in a way

[CharlieP]

That livery would probably look quite good on a modern high speed train (not to be confused with a Class 43 High Speed Train!)...

[Jaeger]

Originally Posted by Songoten2554

well lets hope they will bring in new routes and such to places with currently no rail service though

and lets hope they will manage better in a way

The UK has quite good rail coverage, although we could do with even better coverage and high speed track on major routes.

[Jaeger]

Actually the 125's are looking great, and the new colour scheme is looking good. The whole 125 fleet has just had completely new engines fitted, and are much more enviromentally friendly
and much more economical to run. The 125 has been a great train and it will be sad to see it go during the next decade.

More Pics from Flickr

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[Jaeger]

Eurostar - UK

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[Jaeger]

The GNER Class 90/91 Trains (picture in the large photo below) which make up the vast majority of the East Coast Fleet, will all be repainted with the new National Express Livery (small photo below).



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[elfabyanos]

I like the new livery. It's clean. The nose lets it down though. It's almost like the design was only though of looking from the side, little thought was given to the front or three-quarter views.