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?

In article .com,
(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?

It was an SRA funded initiative and was taken off when the money ran out.
It took longer to cross London than changing and taking the tube did,
amazingly.

So does Thameslink, though Thameslink "2000" may fix that. :-(

--
Colin Rosenstiel

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?

Not a chance. They were dependent on some sort of SRA grant which was
withdrawn after a year and has now been scrapped, and the few times I
tried them out I was about the only passenger. The journey from
Stratford to Brentford on the NLL was painfully slow, as well, which
probably contributed to its demise.

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?

Yes, it's now called 'Crossrail'.

As has been pointed out, the service was actually monstrously slow, so,
although it was a nice idea and fairly convenient, it wasn't really better
than changing. Also, it involves the North London line, where the little
capacity left over after the current passenger and freight trains is soon
(for some value of 'soon') to be gobbled up by Ken's space programme [1].

tom

[1] Something about orbital journeys, right? I bet they'll have Met-style
extra zones for it, though, the tight *******s. It'll probably be at least
a tenner to the moon.

--
Hit to death in the future head

[1] Something about orbital journeys, right? I bet they'll have Met-style
extra zones for it, though, the tight *******s. It'll probably be at least
a tenner to the moon.

AIUI, the reason for the extra zones on the Met Line is because those
stations are outside Greater London and Herts & Bucks CC provide
minimal (if any) financial support for those services.

On Thu, 16 Jun 2005, Joe wrote:

[1] Something about orbital journeys, right? I bet they'll have Met-style
extra zones for it, though, the tight *******s. It'll probably be at least
a tenner to the moon.

AIUI, the reason for the extra zones on the Met Line is because those
stations are outside Greater London and Herts & Bucks CC provide minimal
(if any) financial support for those services.

I see. So cheap access to space depends on the public transport policies
of the cislunar local authorities?

8)

tom

--
The few survivors on ousfg's side ended up in a monastery of immortal monks who yearned for a life better than street-fighting social groups, learning to grow extra hands and feet on the way to immortality. -- Lyndsey Pickup

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

Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Smith ]
Sent: 08 October 2001 19:40
To: Simon Bradley; Sadlers; Ben Franks
Subject: Basingstoke proves too deep into East Anglia


Its going to be a long time before Crossrail is built - a big tunnel
between
East and West London that will provide a way of getting from Ipswich to
Basingstoke without changing. Until then there is Crosslink, the
service
from Anglia railways that does the same thing, using existing bits of
the
railway, and last Friday I checked it out.

The Anglia train leaves from platform 10a, a far flung, urine reaking
place
I hadnt visited before, which was quite exiting, full of semi derilct
station buildings. Our newish Turbostar unit was only ten minutes late,
and
we were soon curving round to join the North London line. To our right
a
vast field of rubble. This is the early stages of work on the Channel
Tunnel
Rail Link, and I guess once this has been built a flat in Stratford
might
make sense - 10 minutes to the city, 2 and a half hours to Paris. Still
thats years away.

Wed picked up about ten people at Stratford, the train virtually empty.
Most
of these it turned out were savvy North London Line passengers,
realising
this was an express to Highbury and Islington. It was a joy to fly
through
Hackney Wick and Dalston, instead of the usual stop start torpor of the
NLL.
We made use of the fast track, slow track that had previously been
purely
academic to me, and at Camden Road, a NLL train was held for us while
we
flew by. This superior treatment brought out the worst in me and I
regret I
found myself making "******" gestures at the passengers on the slow
train.

Somehow the view seems bigger from the Turbostar windows, and as we
passed
through Kentish Town you get a marvelous view of the city skyline. I
tried
to imagine myself in the position of an Ipswich resident, fearfull of
the
big city, knowing this train would take them to Basingstoke without
risk of
contamination by the great Wem. Perhaps I would look in bemused
curiosity at
St Pancras, the London Eye, the PO Tower, longing but not daring to
approach
"I can see the look in your eye Mabel - put such thoughts out of your
mind.
There is nothing but wickedness in this city, wickedness I tell you.
This
train keeps us safe". And thats the core market for this service -
those who
fear crossing London by underground. Its the yokel special. And people
with
heavy bags I suppose.

Either way not many people are using it. 4.30pm and after West
Hampstead
there were only six passengers on board, four who got on there. Come
into my
parlour said the spider to the fly. As the doors shut it turned out
that
three of them didnt want to be on the train anyway. One woman wanted
Willsden Junction and another Richmond. Thanks to the poor information
at WH
they were being whisked away to Feltham miles away. One guy wanted
Cricklewood not much sympathy for him as he was at the wrong station.
What
should have been a five minute journey was for him now going to be
nearly
two hours.

So of we went, six passengers, three who didnt want to be there and two
who
didnt care where the train went if there was a bar, which unfortunatly
there
wasnt due to staff shortages. This is where things started going awry.
The
train crawled through West London the only real points of intrest the
loop
between NLL and Brentford ( bizarely controlled by semaphore signaling
- v
rare in London) and long slow look at Feltham Young Offenders
Institute.
Beyond here the train stops at Staines - a station now known as Gateway
to
Thorpe Park Adventure World. Staines like Slough suffres from a
negative
image, whether being the entrance to a theme park will help I do not
know.
The train then breaks out of London through Virginia Water and along
the
Chertsey loop, a route I havent done before, quite pleasant, but lack
of
drink forced us to abandon our Anglian journey at Woking.

Its a nice idea, crossing London without changing but they need more
work at
promoting it. Its not that quick either Stratford Basingstoke 2 hours
15
mins. On a good day you could do it on tube and train from Waterloo in
an
hour forty. But perhaps its better than being sucked into drugs and
prostitution by changing in London.

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.

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 wrote:

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

Most entertaining, thanks for that!

I tried to imagine myself in the position of an Ipswich resident,
fearfull of the big city, knowing this train would take them to
Basingstoke without risk of contamination by the great Wem. Perhaps I
would look in bemused curiosity at St Pancras, the London Eye, the PO
Tower, longing but not daring to approach "I can see the look in your
eye Mabel - put such thoughts out of your mind. There is nothing but
wickedness in this city, wickedness I tell you. This train keeps us
safe". And thats the core market for this service - those who fear
crossing London by underground. Its the yokel special.

Hee!

As the doors shut it turned out that three of them didnt want to be on
the train anyway. One woman wanted Willsden Junction and another
Richmond.

So it didn't call at Willesden Junction? That would seem like a pretty
obvious place to stop, given the interchanginess of it. Still, sounds like
the service was slow enough as it was.

tom

--
If you tolerate this, your children will be next.

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
h.li...
On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 wrote:

So it didn't call at Willesden Junction? That would seem like a pretty
obvious place to stop, given the interchanginess of it. Still, sounds like
the service was slow enough as it was.

From a London Connections map dated summer 2000, the stations that it
stopped at we

- Stratford
- Highbury and Islington
- West Hampstead
[then a great BIG gap!]
- Feltham

Willeseden Junction would seem an eminently sensible place to stop
considering that it's a very important junction. I remember thinking this at
the time when I used that service.

Highbury and Islington gives you the interchange with the ECML (either via
the Moorgate branch or the Victoria Line) as well as a link with central
London. West Hampstead give you a link with the MML/Thameslink and with the
Jubilee line. I suppose it's close enough to Willesden Junction that you
coud get off there and catch a NLL train between WH between WJ.