wrote in message
oups.com...

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Baffobear wrote:

What ever happened to the Ipswich to Basingstoke service. It wasn't
widely publicised, but if it was I'm sure it would have provided a good
cross London Link. I I remember seeing an Anglia DEMU at Camden Road a
couple of years back. Now 'one' has taken over Anglia, do you think
they
will be reintroduced?


Heres a report I wrote about the journey in 2001

An interesting report. The only time I travelled that way was once when I'd
been to Stratford and was returning home to Ascot - I thought I'd try the
Crosslink rather than going into London and across to Waterloo - a big
mistake!

The train was a nice new 170 - first time I'd been on one of those. I was
pleasantly surprised at the amount of legroom although it was frustrating
that the ventilators along the floor below the window are sloping so you
can't rest one foot on them - consequently I was sitting at an angle which
was uncomfortable. Unfortunately it was a scorching hot day, all the windows
were sealed shut - and the air-conditioning had packed up... Consequently
the train was extremely hot - verging on unbearable. The train ambled along
through Hackney Wick and Dalston, going slower than even the NLL trains,
even if it didn't stop at intermediate stations.

People were beginning to feel faint because of the heat. When the train got
to its next stop after Stratford (it might have been Camden Road - I forgot)
a lot of people got out and I heard a couple near me say "Come on, we're
getting off - can't stand this heat any more". The guard was well aware of
the problem and he was very concerned, but there was not a lot that he could
do. He did make an announcement as we were approaching the next station that
passengers might want to get off and wait for a NLL service. When the train
was held up at one station, I overheard the guard talking on his intercom to
the driver, saying "For Christ's sake open the doors till we're ready to set
off - we've got passengers melting back here!"

Finally we trundled down towards Kew, with a lot of stop-start-crawl-stop. I
was interested to look out for the rarely-used curve between the NLL and the
Hounslow Loop near Kew Bridge station. I can't say I noticed the semaphore
signals, though. Having left the NLL, the train speeded up considerably and
covered the remaining section to Feltham at a respectable time. At Feltham,
where I got off to change for my Ascot train, I was amused to see a huge guy
in a train-spotter's anorak standing on the opposite platform and shouting
out "the train now approaching" announcements; I'm sure he wasn't a railway
employee. At one point, the station PA announced a train and the announcer
humorously said "This is just to correct my 'friend' on the platform who
seems to have set himself up in competition"!

So it was a memorable journey - but not for the right reasons. On a train
with air-conditioning, there really does need to be some way of getting
emergency ventilation if the air-con packs up. Oh for real trains with slam
doors and drop-light windows! The crawl along the NLL was pathetic. My train
had left at the published time, so it wasn't as if it was late and had
missed its path, so I don't know what the problem was. I think the NLL line
speed problem would have been one of the main reasons why the service wasn't
particularly well patronised.