Safe Speed Forums

Right here and it made many newspaper and TV headlines ... Nov 09
The West coast is pretty remote but not insanely so, but the East Coast line is somewhat more direct and a bit more frequent.

Also the 20 hr journey is pretty extreme too ! there must be some very slow areas or stops for it to take that long.
Don't get me wrong as I have said before the train has it's place, but often it can simply not deliver the requirements that passengers need.
I have done some short regular trips from Sheen to Waterloo but it was always crowded and I always went on earlier trains than necessary to ensure I arrived on time... (many yrs ago).

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Despite that if you manage to get a people out of theirs cars and onto their pedal cycles it actually reduces congestion?

In an ideal world I would agree with you, but we don’t live in an ideal world. It would probably lead to ‘cycle rage’ instead anyway.

Think of all the exrta spit everywhere and sitting next to stinky Eric at work. (Not everywhere has shower facilities).

Are you doing your one solution fits all thing again weepej without thinking it through, like speed kills?

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

To be fair, I often use the sleeper train from Carlisle to Euston if I have a London meeting that starts early. If I book far enough ahead, I can get to London for 8.00 in the morning with a (sort of!) breakfast snack for about £50! OK, it's not what you'd call "pleasant" in that it leaves Carlisle at 01.40 which is pretty harsh - especially in winter, but it does mean I can get the kids to bed, then take the leisurely trip to Carlisle and do London and back in a day. I wouldn't want to do that in a car with a difficult meeting thrown in! Even if I don't book that far in advance, it's rarely over £75 even if I book at shorter notice.

Ah but Carlisle is south (mostly) or the main snow hassles. The trains and roads to Inverness have all without exception been blocked by snow and they gave up clearing it all a few days ago !
So no matter how well booked the snow can prevent all traffic. When I came south again recently I left on Mon because of the snow front coming in and I was right to do so - had I booked a train it was likely to get stopped. This likelihood of a problem is that much greater for me. I appreciate that once on the train and with nothing else to 'do' (mostly) it can be appropriate transport.
But this is it and as I said before - it has it's place but it's band of value is narrow.
Had I gone by train I would then have had a trip to Dorset then I would have had to hire a car to go and see all the estate agents and so on that became immediately necessary. If I had not booked an open return ticket (total 'unknown' at the time of booking) I may have lost the return trip and then have had to rebuy it. That is another real issue - you want to only buy just what you need.
This expensive later rubbish is just such a huge put-off and they fail to realise it, it seems. I am unfairly penalised for booking last minute yet without a working crystal ball I just cannot predict the future. If they even made tickets transferable and a static cost (again) that would help many I am quite sure.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Actually, Ive just looked this morning for a meeting I need to go to next week and the prices have gone up somewhat! I've ended up on the early train from Penrith and have moved the meeting half an hour. That ended up being a tenner cheaper than the sleeper (unless I didn't pay the "solo supplement" for a compartment to myself - in which case, the sleeper would have been quite a lot cheaper but I don't really want to share a compartment with a total stranger)! It always amuses me that when you book the ticket you have to select "Choose Gender", but I'm never quite sure whether they mean what you ARE or what you'd LIKE to share with!

I take your point about the snow being worse up your way - but the trains start from the Highlands, so if they can't get past you, they won't get to me, and I still get stuffed the same way. (just not as cold)!

Also take your point about what you do when you get to the other end. London is really the only place I regularly go by train because when I get there, I know I can get to my final destination easily on the tube / bus / taxi etc. Anywhere else and I tend to end up driving/ Also if I'm travelling with the family, rail travel is prohibitively expensive (even with a family railcard).

Which is not a very good argument for preferring the car to the train

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Mole - your train on the WCML starts off life in Glasgow . It might be an extension of the service of two trains from Oban and Fort William ( both on the West Coast ,for southern dwellers ,with a lack of geography of the area),but the two adjoining services meeting at Crainlarech are Diesel multiple units( There's no overhead supply north past Glasgow,save for the line to Helensbrough lower ,which is a good distance from the other station ,Helensbrough upper on the highland line) .The service from Glasgow is probably a Virgin one ,most probably an electric loco, which then goes to Euston .Strangely enough though there's a lot of ho ha about roads from Glasgow north ,what is not known is that whilst road traffic from Glasgow to Fort William goes through snow laden Glencoe - the rail line diverts to the east of Ben Nevis and approaches Fort William from the north .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

No Tone, I said already, not everybody can cycle into work, not everybody has to.

Say 500 people drive their car to a factory every day, and you manage to convince some of those to cycle, say ending up with 50 people cycling to work on a given day (doesn't even have to be the same 50 people every day), that's 100 less car journey's per day, 50 less car parking spaces required (OK 48 if you take up two spaces for bike racks), 50 people getting excercise.

However, it seems that when somebody suggests perhaps some poeple could try it, you get people that take that as everybody must do it every day. Why?

So it's not me doing a one solution fits all, it's you asserting I am (for some unkown reason) when I'm not.

In fairness Weepej, unless you're going to "force" 50 people to do it each day, you can't get rid of the car park spaces because you don't know that 100 people will cycle in one day and 0 the next! I completely accept that there are benefits to cycling, but probably not as much as you might imagine.

Would you perhaps concur that not enough is being done to investigate all alternatives to car commuting?

Personally I would love an alternative to the very few commuting journeys that I do, however the public transport arrangements are a joke in this country!

Always reminds me of that joke:
If kings rule Kingdoms and Emporers rule Empires, who rules the Country?

OK, I was aware that "something" happened to them before Glasgow and that the thing I got wasn't the same as the thing(s) that left their original starting points, but I wasn't quite sure what! That said, presumably none of this changes anything in that if snow stuffs the first train(s) up, mine won't leave Glasgow? I had the devil's own job booking a ticket online in the second week in January and when I eventually phoned them, they said it was because they weren't sure whether the train would be running that day because of all the snow. Apparently they'd been left with rolling stock all over the place. I did, eventually, manage to book a ticket on the afternoon of the night I was supposed to be travelling, but it was touch and go!

Was just an explanation of what gets where . The snow problem would probably be en route to you - the route is crammed with snow problems between Glasgow and penrith

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on