Ebbsfleet, what with its football team and its railway station, is in
the news more often than London these days. I wonder what it's like? I
bet it's a dump. If it's not too bad I might move there. Perhaps it'll
soon become the capital of the United Kingdom. That would be cool.

"Offramp" wrote in message
...
Ebbsfleet, what with its football team and its railway station, is in
the news more often than London these days. I wonder what it's like? I
bet it's a dump. If it's not too bad I might move there. Perhaps it'll
soon become the capital of the United Kingdom. That would be cool.


Oh, that would work, move the capital even deeper into the south east.
(thought it had moved to Brussels any way )

heavyhorses wrote:

"Offramp" wrote in message
...
Ebbsfleet, what with its football team and its railway station, is in
the news more often than London these days. I wonder what it's like? I
bet it's a dump. If it's not too bad I might move there. Perhaps it'll
soon become the capital of the United Kingdom. That would be cool.


Oh, that would work, move the capital even deeper into the south east.
(thought it had moved to Brussels any way )

I'm not convinced there is an actual place called Ebbsfleet. The
football team in in Northfleet (used to be called Gravesend and
Northfleet), and the railway station is within sight of Northfleet station.

Robin

"R.C. Payne" wrote in message
...
heavyhorses wrote:

"Offramp" wrote in message
...
Ebbsfleet, what with its football team and its railway station, is in
the news more often than London these days. I wonder what it's like? I
bet it's a dump. If it's not too bad I might move there. Perhaps it'll
soon become the capital of the United Kingdom. That would be cool.


Oh, that would work, move the capital even deeper into the south east.
(thought it had moved to Brussels any way )

I'm not convinced there is an actual place called Ebbsfleet. The football
team in in Northfleet (used to be called Gravesend and Northfleet), and
the railway station is within sight of Northfleet station.


Multimap still thinks the only Ebbsfleet is near Richborough, south of
Margate. Is the new Ebbsfleet a 'new town' using the older terminology?

Paul S

On 22 Nov, 12:17, "Paul Scott" wrote:
"R.C. Payne" wrote in message

...





heavyhorses wrote:

"Offramp" wrote in message
...
Ebbsfleet, what with its football team and its railway station, is in
the news more often than London these days. I wonder what it's like? I
bet it's a dump. If it's not too bad I might move there. Perhaps it'll
soon become the capital of the United Kingdom. That would be cool.

Oh, that would work, move the capital even deeper into the south east.
(thought it had moved to Brussels any way )

I'm not convinced there is an actual place called Ebbsfleet. The football
team in in Northfleet (used to be called Gravesend and Northfleet), and
the railway station is within sight of Northfleet station.

Multimap still thinks the only Ebbsfleet is near Richborough, south of
Margate. Is the new Ebbsfleet a 'new town' using the older terminology?

Paul S- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Can I refer you to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbsfleet_%28Dartford%29

although I don't guarantee it is true! However, I have a map showing
the Ebbsfleet as a river/steam.

MaxB

Paul Scott wrote:
"R.C. Payne" wrote in message
...
heavyhorses wrote:
"Offramp" wrote in message
...
Ebbsfleet, what with its football team and its railway station, is in
the news more often than London these days. I wonder what it's like? I
bet it's a dump. If it's not too bad I might move there. Perhaps it'll
soon become the capital of the United Kingdom. That would be cool.

Oh, that would work, move the capital even deeper into the south east.
(thought it had moved to Brussels any way )
I'm not convinced there is an actual place called Ebbsfleet. The football
team in in Northfleet (used to be called Gravesend and Northfleet), and
the railway station is within sight of Northfleet station.


Multimap still thinks the only Ebbsfleet is near Richborough, south of
Margate. Is the new Ebbsfleet a 'new town' using the older terminology?

There has been a minor outbreak of should-know-better references to the
wrong one, including in a book on the history of St Pancras station.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

I'm jumping onto this thread a little late but I've just had a weekend
in Brussels via Ebbsfleet and, having taken part in and been impressed
by Eurostar's 'integrated volume testing' at St. Pancras earlier this
month, I can't believe how pathetic Ebbsfleet International station is!

I mean, I wasn't expecting anything approaching the grandure of St.
Pancras, but this was extraordinary. I was travelling out on a 7.14am
train so it wasn't exactly peak usage time as I sat in the departure
lounge, but it was quite densely packed with people as it was quite
small. The one tiny shop couldn't cope with the passenger numbers at all
- there was just one person serving coffee to a queue half the length of
the room.

But the biggest joke of all was the toilet. There's nothing at all in
the station (apart from a few ticket machines and a stand showing a 2009
Hitachi commuter train) before the check-in point. Once you've checked
in you get access to the tiny shop, as mentioned above, and the toilets.

The gents' toilet, at "England's gateway", catering for thousands of
passengers, contained only one cubicle and one urinal, and the room was
about the size of my kitchen. (My kitchen is not somewhere you could
swing a cat - I'm not sure you could even swing a bonsai kitten.) At
6.45am I had to queue to use it, and I only wanted the latter facility.

There was also a single bizarre integrated paper towel dispenser,
hand-dryer and bin, meaning that although you could theoretically have a
few people drying their hands at once, the person using the hot air
dryer was standing in the way of anyone wanting to pick up towels, and
completely blocking the bin opening with their hands!

So much ranting and I haven't even started on the lack of decent
integration with local public transport. The Fastrack integration is a
nice effort (though even its bus stop had the same air of 'bare minimum'
cheapness as the station - no countdown display, wobbly glazing and not
even a single seat!) but with the weekend bus frequencies as low as they
are it means that, for instance, my train last night was due to arrive
at 21.45 and the next half-hourly Fastrack left at 21.49 - not easy to
make and last night it proved impossible as the Eurostar made an
unscheduled stop at Ashford (no idea why) and the delay meant we were
pulling in as the bus pulled out.

Couple that with the poor Southeastern train service frequency on a
Sunday evening and it meant it took me only about 20 minutes less to get
from Ebbsfleet to Crayford than it did to get from Brussels to Ebbsfleet
in the first place!

I can't fault Fastrack's customer services, who were really helpful in
the run-up to me travelling with planning my early-morning outward
journey, but until the timetable's beefed up at the weekends there's
going to be a lot of carbon emissions coming from taxis and cars for
people wanting a quick weekend away. I love the idea of the deal with
Southeastern and Fastrack to offer free travel to Eurostar passengers,
but there's more to an integrated transport system than freebies and
helpfulness unfortunately.

I have gone on long enough, particularly as Ebbsfleet's a few miles
outside Greater London so this thread is arguably off-topic anyway! To
bring it back on topic, I e-mailed TfL last week to ask if they would
consider extending the 96, 492 or 428 to Ebbsfleet (they all go to
fairly-nearby Bluewater, with the 428 also calling at Darent Valley
hospital). I'd gladly pay 90p each way to get straight there from
Crayford with TfL bus frequencies to boot.

Has anyone else here used Ebbsfleet? Have I been spoilt by St. Pancras
(and even Waterloo) or is it actually far too small and underequipped to
act as "England's gateway"? What about the Fastrack/Southeastern
'integration' - any better experiences?

Paul