ECML Farce/flap/riot today ....

[Donny Dave]

Started a 4 in 8 North East rover today. Arrived at Doncaster in plenty of time for 1S09 1045 Doncaster - Edinburgh. 5 minutes before departure time, and the doors were still closed.

The train was canned 7 minutes after the scheduled time, due to "not enough staff to crew the train". Real reason was that the door interlocking failed. At 1130, it was given a path to NL, but got 5 yards past the signal when the train decided to throw the emergancy brake on. All stop for 15 minutes as it was fouling the through lines .....

I caught the 1222 GNER to Leeds (pair of valentas, but forgot to note the numbers). 185128 then took me to York via Castleford, only for me to find every GNER service delayed without an ETA at York.

From a member of the station staff at York, I was told that a freight had failed south of Doncaster, and everything was bottled up behind it. 43119 (053 on the rear) eventually led the extremely late P'boro - Aberdeen in to York, where we left approx 2h 20m down hock: I spent an hour taking some photos at Newcastle of everything arriving via the High Level bridge before getting the 1805 back to Doncaster. 43367 led the set into Newcastle, and 43102 took us out via the HL bridge again. Arrived Doncaster about 10 minutes late at 1943. and that ends my day on the NE rover ....

 

[Max]

I was planning on doing the Askern diversion on the 1125 off York. I was also supposed to meeting David at York. However, as said above, his train was cancelled. To make matters worse, the 1125 was 4 minutes down into York, and the possession had ended early. This meant that the train paused at York for 15 minutes before going down the mainline! I decided to bail before the train left York and did a 185 to Leeds via Castleford. Since there was little much else I could do, I decided to visit a friend in Wakefield for a few hours.

On the way back, I noticed massive delays to GNER services at Wakefield towards Leeds. The 1514 and 1714 had been cancelled, and the 1416 didn't depart Wakefield until around 1635! At York, the situation was similar. The 1632 to Aberdeen didn't leave York until 1745, and the 1741 to Edinburgh was simply shown as 'delayed'.

Not a good day on the ECML at all on the whole!

 

[paul1609]

Tell me about it!
Got the NYMR from Grosmount to Pickering @10.50
Lunch in Pickering
Arrived at Bus Stop for 13.12 service to Malton.
For somereason this major tourist route only runs every 3 hours on a Sunday!
13.30 no show of bus phoned customer services number shown on bus stop as being available from 0900 to 1700 on Sundays told I had been transferred to harrogate and District and that they didnt have any details of coastliner services!
Unable to get a Taxi to Malton 8 miles away.
Felt sorry for the families waiting over an hour now to get to Flamingoland whatever that is. (with the next bus due at 16.12!)
Decided to get a bus to Scarborough at 13.42 which passes the Malton Bus running 75 mins late.
Arrive at Scarborough and get irritated queing at fast ticket machine behind local father and dad who are using it to find every price combination when Ive only 5 mins to the hourly train to York.
Didnt matter though as although the departure time had come and gone and the signal was showing off passengers were being held in a queue on platform 4 whilst the train was cleaned.
Arrived at York after a lengthy delay outside the station.
16 .03? ish from inverness to peterborough is running 16 late and i get this arriving 40 mins late.
At peterborough I foolishly decide not to fight my way on to the rail replacement bus.
Very foolish as it seems that only 1 bus has been provided for a packed and standing HST.
And I wait and I wait and I wait. All staff have now disappeared obviously fed up with the foolish passengers asking when the next bus will be!
Get to Hatfield and its on an all stations FCC to Kings cross.
Finally arrive at Victoria at 21.30 for the last train home.