Trains

[Withdean Wanderer]

They are about 40 years old and have not yet been refurbished, just repainted in southern livery. It was too expensive to kit them out with toilets apparently. And they have no air-cond...

There are signs up on all the trains saying they will be refurbished as soon as possible?

To be honest, given they are so old, they could be a lot worse. They still seem better than half of the First Crapital Connect jobs.

 

[34064 Fighter Command]

Long stoory Large.

Basically Southern needed to strengthen their trains in the South London suburbs. This was partly to do with the Olympics but also to encourage outer London commuters.

Unfortunately most of the stations there cannot take 12-coach trains, the standard long-distance formation, where you couple 3 4-car units up.

But they could take 10 cars (4+3+3) which would mean taken the Coastway 3-car units up to London where they can be coupled up.

BUT that means you have a gap on the South Coast with no rolling-stock, so they bought the old stuff being replaced on the North London line, which was being replaced ...for the Olympics.

They are about 40 years old and have not yet been refurbished, just repainted in southern livery. It was too expensive to kit them out with toilets apparently. And they have no air-cond...

In railway parlance the terminology is ' cascading ', and is nothing new, the LBSCR were doing it in the latter half of the 19th Century.

Is his Lordship really so old and doddery nowadays that he cannot control himself for the time taken to travel between Moulsecoomb and Lewes

 

[adrian29uk]

When will we have a decent high speed TGV service like the French. Will we ever be expanding on HighSpeed1. London to Paris, brilliant. Imagine if we had this network across the country.

 

[Cosmic Joker]

In railway parlance the terminology is ' cascading ', and is nothing new, the LBSCR were doing it in the latter half of the 19th Century.

Although "cascading" has been going on for ages, difference is it does not usually involve replacing new trains with old ones. The normal way to do it is new trains replace 20 year old trains on a high priority route, the 20 year old trains are then refurbished and cascaded to replace some 30-40 year old trains on a secondary route elsewhere, which then go to scrap, with one or two to preservation/musuem. That way everybody gets newer trains than they had before and the people who get the second hand trains have them refurbished first, not afterwards.
Replacing trains a few years old with life-expired stuff with no facilities and then refurbishing them later is a new and unwelcome development

 

[pasty]

Talking of trains, anyone know what was up with the Gatwick Express this morning? 6.56 & 7.15 cancelled. I heard a mumbled announcement about a lack of rolling stock or something. Better be bloody sorted by tonight.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Is his Lordship really so old and doddery nowadays that he cannot control himself for the time taken to travel between Moulsecoomb and Lewes

'Fraid so. In geriatric parlance, the terminology is 'cascading'.

It doesn't matter on buses. They are used to it.

 

[Norman Potting]

The leaflet that they issued a few weeks back promised that the Seaford line trains would be tarted up a bit during the summer.

The big issue seems to be toilets. These trains (brought in from North London) don't have one. Is it possible to travel from Moulsecoomb to Lewes in third world conditions like this? Last night, I refused to take the risk and went by BUS instead.

Are Brighton Buses fitting toilets now? IMHO this will be very useful for those of us "out of city" types wanting to get to Falmer by public transport and also wishing to have a pint or two before the game

 

[The Large One]

DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT? WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE OLD FELLA OFF,ALSO HAVE A QUESTION FOR HIM

*SIGH* ** MICHEL KUIPERS Appreciation Evening ** - North Stand Chat

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

'Fraid so. In geriatric parlance, the terminology is 'cascading'.

It doesn't matter on buses. They are used to it.

When you sit next to an old person on the bus and they reek of piss , it might well be worth thinking that its not them but the seat.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Talking of trains, anyone know what was up with the Gatwick Express this morning? 6.56 & 7.15 cancelled. I heard a mumbled announcement about a lack of rolling stock or something. Better be bloody sorted by tonight.

I didn't notice anything during my journey, Jon, but I'm sure the noticeboard at Shoreham said something about a defective train between Gatwick and 3-Bridges. Might have been that.

 

[folkestonesgull]

I got a nice HS1 train from Ashford to Folkestone today, though its only high speed from Ashford onwards when heading up to the city. Would be great to roll out this service across the country - Folkestone was 1h40 from London, now 53 minutes
I managed to get from Folkestone to Manchester in 3.5 hours a couple of weekends ago for a prebooked £55 return!

 

[Ernest]

It's nothing to do with the Olympics , the franchise commitment is that they strengthen the Metro services so are using the 3 car trains that they use on Seaford and West Worthing services now. These are being replaced by the 313 units and when the 3 car trains that they use for the Brighton Expresses are sent to the Metro in December then the Gatwick Express 442 trains will be used all day on the 19 & 49 Brighton Express services to Victoria.

 

[Cosmic Joker]

High speed rail, sometime maybe, hopefully
BBC News - High-speed rail network Bill 'in due course'

The previous government's plans are here
High Speed Rail but the Tories are on record as wanting to divert the route via Heathrow, instead of the current plan for an interchange station in west London with Heathrow Express and Crossrail

 

[ArfurW8]

Are the new trains slam door types with windows you can open ?

I used to like them.

 

[Smith DID score]

Are the new trains slam door types with windows you can open ?

I used to like them.

Ah the timing - the last ever Slam door trains in the UK - with windows you could open - ran for the last time on Saturday between Brockenhurst and Lymington.

 

[Cosmic Joker]

No, they look like this outside

and this inside, only more beat up

 

[See-Goals]

I'm on the much talked about bone shaker now, how do they get away with it?!

 

[Dover]

Are the 171's still in service up to Ashford from Brighton?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Trains have been really surpassing themselves for crapiness this week, and its only Tuesday. Broken down train & points failure at Gatwick last night, all the useful Gatwick Expresses cancelled this morning, broken down trains all over the place tonight. Oh, and a jumper at East Croydon.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Trains have been really surpassing themselves for crapiness this week, and its only Tuesday. Broken down train & points failure at Gatwick last night, all the useful Gatwick Expresses cancelled this morning, broken down trains all over the place tonight. Oh, and a jumper at East Croydon.

Today I reverted to the railway for my journeys to and from work. Just as the public address system was blaring out a horrendous list of reasons why passengers should abandon all hope of ever reaching their destination, what should appear? A three carriage train to Seaford of the sort that TLO had promised had been shipped off to London. Exactly on time, with a comfortable seat at a free table.

Marvellous! I almost wet myself.