Plus you have that awkward moment of eye contact when someone leaves the loo and it fucking stinks and you know they did it, and they know that you know they did it.
22 May 2024
522
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My best example of this was our first home game back in Premier v West Ham.
Was the day they had two 5 car trains joined together but no staff for the back half so 10 carriages of people in 5. And if it'd been 10 it would still have been packed. Late leaving as guard wouldn't go until people got off as was dangerously overcrowded he said.
I'd needed a shit since before getting on and once we'd left fought my way down carriage to bog.
Whole area packed with Hammers (one was sitting on the bog).
He laughed as he swapped with me saying hope you don't need a shit, then saw my smile and they all started throwing good natured insults.
Job was done and I came out to more good natured banter.
Good times...
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They are and very good value, too. I left my car for four days on a drive about 100 yards from the tube station, which is on the Metropolitan Line to St Pancras. Think it was £24.
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Nottingham to London is a bad example, but there are plenty of others where there is competition.
The East Coast Main Line is probably the best example. LNER (Govmt held I believe) holds the original franchise, but Hull Trains, Grand Central and recently Lumo have been granted open access licences to operate the route (for me, rather than direct from Sheffield, it's much cheaper to drive to Doncaster (or even take a local service train to Doncaster) and take a Hull or Grand Central service to and from London).
West Coast Main Line has similar with Avanti the main long-distrance operator, but London Northwestern running slower (and much cheaper) services from Birmingham/Northampton/MK etc.
I'm guessing the Midland Mainline doesn't have the revenue or passenger numbers to support additional operators (or the choice of destinations. -
Seems a bit mad, doesn't it? Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester are all pretty big cities that must all have significant numbers travelling in and out of London. Realise the East Coast line is longer but there's no big city south of Leeds.
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EMR trains are shit, but I think you guys kids are u16 so a Family and Friends Railcard (£30) gives you 1/3 of the adult fares and kids fares (already less) are half price.
As long as you're travelling after about 10, off peak or super off peak returns should be pretty cheap.
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No, but Hull Trains serves Humberside, then Doncaster south, so not the whole route
Grand Central serves Bradford and wider West Yorkshire beyond Leeds, then Doncaster south, so again not the whole route
Lumo is directly targeting domestic fliers, from Edinburgh and Newcastle fast to central London (non-stop from York I think) and only a handful of trains a day,
So it's not direct competition to the existing franchise, which is why they're allowed. I'm not sure there are those options on the MML.Matlock/Burton/Belper/Melton Mowbray? Mansfield to London is supposedly being looked at by EMR, but I'm not aware of any progress to even look at a business case, let alone a start date..
You could argue the only sizeable places without direct services are Barnsley (which used to have direct services until East Midlands Railway stopped running through to Leeds) and Rotherham (which probably doesn't have track capacity, given local services and trams already running on them).
I'd argue Meadowhall could be expanded as almost a London park-and-ride, being right next to the M1 and near the M18 junction (but when HS2 was planned there Sheffield Council had a meltdown), but that's about it. -
But running down the East Coast mainline to King's Cross.
May take a share of the Sheffield-London traffic from EMR (Although I'm not sure how big that is, as my experience of those trains is they are usually pretty empty between Sheffield and Derby). -
There's quite a large number of people who do Sheffield-London. The 06:30 train I regularly get is pretty busy. I mean, it's literally the reason why First are intending this service - they think there is enough demand to make it worth their while. Fingers crossed it leads to some competition in prices.
Dammit I seem to have talked myself into a loop and now want to keep the railways private ;-)
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It's looking a bit scruffy now to be honest.
There I said it.
Obviously not quite D*rby, Sheffield or Swindon levels of dilapidation but the odd splash of paint, unboarded up shop front and a hanging basket here and there wouldn't go a miss.
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Hull. That's another one. What a fucking shithole.
I retract my previous statement and I'm back on Team Ingo.
Nottingham. What a city.
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I believe private vs. state is why the NYC subway looks like this.
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Most of the London Underground was built by private enterprise.
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TIL. Interesting. I wonder why it’s far less of a shambles
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Victorians, innit?
