Heads up on rail disruption next week
Just a heads up that rail travel around major parts of Scotland are set to be disrupted over the next two weeks:
Warning over railway disruption
All high level services to and from Glasgow Central have been cancelled until Tuesday 30 December.
Some trains between Perth, Inverness and Aberdeen will also be affected over the next week.
And services between Dundee and Aberdeen will be out of action on 3 and 4 January.
First Scotrail said that track improvement works between Ardrossan and Kilwinning would hit services on the Largs line on 2 and 3 January.
Steve Montgomery, the rail firm’s operations and safety director, said bus services would replace the cancelled trains on all of the affected routes.
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My Nairn Blog- Record wet summer for Scotland
- VJ Day tribute at Fort George: Colossal Celebration of the Centuries
- Nairn on Bing Maps
- Cloned cows at Inverness?
- Rosebank School deputy dies in horse fall
- Inverness explodes!
- Harbour boats burned
- Highland Aviation Museum gets Nimrod
- New flats to replace Lodgehill Clinic?
- Highland Green Party – still very out of touch
I wanna tell you a rail travel story…
Returned north on the 23rd on the midday National Express out of Kings Cross. A great service when it runs on time, as it did until we reached Pitlochry. Then there were regular jolts that shook the carraige. Eventually the guard told everyone that it was due to the amount of rain and ice on the track causing difficulties as the train was now climbing. I was sitting opposite a regular user of this service who shared my view that that was a load of crap. Eventually a smell similar to what you get if you set off on a car journey and discover that you’ve left your hand brake on began to enter the carraige. To be fair you can smell this sometimes on main line trains as brakes are used. And then the carraiges began to fill up with smoke. Very soon it was reminiscent of what a pub full of Capstan full strength addicts used to look like. Carraige door windows were opened by passengers and this improved the situation a little.
The Guard assured us it was not a fire but a problem with a brake in coach D. Fair enough but his admission that he was trying to contact the driver was thought-provoking to say the least. Some passengers started to put handkerchiefs over their faces whlist others left in search of cleaner air elsewhere in the train. The guard assured us that the train would soon stop and that he and a fitter that was on the train would go and try and fix the problem.
After about 20 minutes from the start of the problem the train stopped and sometime later we were underway again and the guard informed us that the ‘brake had been released’. The smoke didn’t return.
So the Christmas travellers got home about 45 minutes late and with the taste of hot brakes still in their mouths. Haven’t heard a mention of it in the media, perhaps it happens all the time?
The long-suffering passengers had remained calm during the smoke incident but had it became even thicker what might had happened, hopefully there were no asthmatics on the train.
That sounds like a Health & Safety issue – but unfortunately rail companies seem to act as faceless corporations with little accountability. Frustrating for travellers, no doubt, as the company in question should have been made aware of the issue, the impact on user experience, and at the very least a letter of apology offered where possible.
I wanna tell you another one,
A few weeks ago I heard from a reliable source, who had been travelling on a Nairn bound train from Aberdeen, that the guard started asking passengers if they had finished with their newspapers.
‘What do you want them for,’ was the question.
‘They’re for the driver.’
‘Does he need something to read?’
‘No it’s to stop the water coming into the cab.’
Interesting – according to this guy, some major freight is being redirected from the Perth to Inverness route onto the Aberdeen to Inverness route – sending some pretty long trains through Nairn:
http://nigelburkin.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/direct-rail-services-highland-intermodal-service/
It’s good to see freight on the railways Brian but it can have problems given the single track nature of the line between here and Aberdeen. I remember being kept waiting in a train in Elgin, we were told that the delay was due to the fact that the loop in Forres wasn’t big enough to allow us to pass a freight train! Perhaps the Scottish Government might dip into their pockets one day to dual the whole line? Dream on me thinks.
I dunno – I think there’s a chance that the extra pressure on the Aberdeen to Inverness line means that some form of upgrade will require serious consideration. Upgrade the whole line? Not sure – add some slack somewhere? Perhaps…
Obvious from the recent proposed road improvements that Nairn is going to be ‘the’ Inverness satellite town of choice and therefore we will soon get TGV type trains that will speed us to and from Inverness on multiple tracks in 4 minutes flat
No-one who is anyone goes to Aberdeen so the track could be sold off and turned into roads for those towns out East that are asking for bypasses