Category: Trains

What Could Have Been, and Why It Probably Should Be Again…

Interesting thoughts on if the old 3rd rail 750V supply to trains should be replaced with the newer overhead wires – although the latter do get pulled down a lot

It's Sunnier On The Southern Region

Twitter can be a very handy thing, and is full of interesting & knowledgable people*. One of the many feeds I follow belongs to @TurnipRail, the Twitter handle of Dr. David Turner, the Associate Lecturer in Railway Studies at the University of York. Today he tweeted this little gem:

* – I should note that Twitter also has it’s fair share of barking cockwomble fucknuggets. I’ve met a few of ’em (fortunately not in person.)

Yes. Wires. The Evil Electric Knitting. Can you hear my blood curdling, dear reader? The thing is (horrors) the LB&SCR were thinking ahead, and they were on to a good thing. Revenue on the commuter routes between Victoria and London…

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The ideal Christmas present for a Southeastern commuter…

Over on 853Blog there’s a post of a couple of Christmas present ideas for the Southeastern commuter… well I was going to put this up as part of the surviving winter on Southeastern series but here is my suggestion 😉

Gas Mask for surviving a Southeastern Toilet

Yep for the serious Southeastern commuter who has to put up with the unique odour common on the trains because they haven’t emptied the toilets for days on end.

 

Southeastern Contact Detals

English: Class 395 "Javelin" unit 39...
Image via Wikipedia

A new avenue for disgruntled SouthEastern Trains commuters to voice their complaints at the regular disruption, poor customer service and rip-off fares has arisen, perhaps you’d like to get in touch with the MD of SouthEastern Trains, Mr Charles Horton, give him a call on 0207 983 6200 or if emailing him is more your style, then drop him a message at Charles.Horton@southeasternrailway.co.uk.

But instead, you might prefer to contact the Head of Communications, Sarah Boundy, if she’s who you want to take a complaint to, then you can call her on 0207 620 5509 – both these are direct dial
numbers, obviously, some might prefer emailing her, so you have a papertrail of what you send her, if that is the case, fire your emails over to her at Sarah.Boundy@southeasternrailway.co.uk.

Of course, you might also want to call the Main switchboard and ask to speak to Vince Lucas, Frances Maynard or any of the other managers, the main switchboard is available on 0207 620 5000.

If you call Charles Horton or Sarah Boundy and get hold of their PAs, please be nice to them, it’s not their fault they work for – we believe that Charles’s PA is a lady called Lillian Connett and Sarah’s PA is Jennifer Wood.

Surviving Winter while commuting on Southeastern • Part 1

This is the first of a small series of articles on how to survive winter whilst commuting on Southeastern. The intention of this series of articles is to provide some hints on how to deal with those annoying things during the commute & on how to prepare for problems, sometimes before even Southeastern know about it.

In the first article in this series I’m going to cover Mobile phones & keeping them charged.

Continue reading “Surviving Winter while commuting on Southeastern • Part 1”

@iansblog #southeastern actually thats figure is worse than that.

The 400 train figure is really train units, not coaches. Some units are 2,3,4,5 or 6 coaches so the number of passengers in each differs.

So if each ‘unit’ has just 10 foil blankets/glow sticks, then that’s 1 for every 24-28 people – based on what Bombardier say the capacity on a Class 375 4 coach unit is (http://j.mp/pxliyP then click technical data)

Not looked up the figures for the other classes, but that’s not a good figure.

Government not providing figures due to

Government not providing figures due to ‘cost’? Sounds like either an excuse or they don’t hold that info!

Rolling Stock: Public Finance

Andrew Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the cost to the public purse was of administering rolling stock procurement in (a) 2007, (b) 2008, (c) 2009 and (d) 2010; and how much was spent in each category of expenditure. [69600]

Mrs Villiers [holding answer 7 September 2011]: I regret that this information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

© Parliamentary material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO on behalf of Parliament. Licence No: P2011000006

Src: http://setra.in/s/11s