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Greater Anglia 2019 - What could possibly go wrong?
- Thread starter Wivenswold
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. Don't know if the other unit is an unrefurbished one, might dash into it at the next stop, just to sample both flavours.
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That’s now a booked working, comes ECS from Colchester every morning.
Thank you, I now know to avoid this particular train in future.
I guess that's because the set previously on the diagram is now on the NiN? Might have worked to my advantage today as presumably it would have been my train that was cancelled if there was no NiN.
Missing my porridge though
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Trainfan344
Established Member
- Joined
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Was on the 19:00 Down we reached Ipswich in 57 minutes but were delayed by the late running 18:30, ideally a passing place between Ipswich and Norwich would allow for more flexibility
306024
Established Member
There is if you run the 18.30 via the up platform at Diss. Been tried once but not repeated to my knowledge. Causes just as much if not more overall delay.
dk1
Veteran Member
Only done because the press/media where on board on day 1. Caused delays to no end of services so not to be repeated.
306024
Established Member
Indeed. Bad move all round.
Sleepy
Established Member
I too had the pleasure of 0903 today - seats were the biggest surprise - yes they appear to have come from the "ironing board" family ! 
Not suitable for any 1 hour plus journey IMO They (renatus 321) have no charging facility as sockets still plated over as well - had I been aware of NIN cancellation before I left home I would have used 0930 instead.
Not suitable for any 1 hour plus journey IMO They (renatus 321) have no charging facility as sockets still plated over as well - had I been aware of NIN cancellation before I left home I would have used 0930 instead.samuelmorris
Established Member
They're Quantum seats. I prefer them to ironing boards but they are similarly firm. Personally I think they're one of the better new seat designs out there at the moment.I too had the pleasure of 0903 today - seats were the biggest surprise - yes they appear to have come from the "ironing board" family !
Agree, seats were awful. Too hard, too narrow and oddly contoured. I was numb by Ipswich (got on at Diss). I scurried to the rear unit hoping it would be unrefurbished but it was also a renatus unit, only crush loaded to boot. So back onto the front unit.
Horrible travelling environment with harsh lighting and too much white plastic everywhere. I don't understand the seats in bays of 4/6 with no table. All that does is result in a tangle of legs without the benefit of a table.
Any why if it's a planned working were the water tanks empty so the toilets had locked themselves out of use (on the front unit at least)?
Horrible travelling environment with harsh lighting and too much white plastic everywhere. I don't understand the seats in bays of 4/6 with no table. All that does is result in a tangle of legs without the benefit of a table.
Any why if it's a planned working were the water tanks empty so the toilets had locked themselves out of use (on the front unit at least)?
I'd have to disagree, I prefer a 700 ironing board or 80x seat to those. The bulges at the edges of the cushions are what does it, and the cushions being too narrow and not deep enough.
samuelmorris
Established Member
The cushions are quite narrow, I'll admit. We're straying into seat discussions again though, this is a thread about the TOC, not the rolling stock
Indeed. Forgive me.
More problems this evening due to a tragic incident near Shenfield. I think they've done a good job keeping people informed if what's happening and have held some connections where possible.
Glanced at the Twitter feed full of rather indignant demands from passengers expecting some kind of miracle. Reminded me why I don't use Twitter!
More problems this evening due to a tragic incident near Shenfield. I think they've done a good job keeping people informed if what's happening and have held some connections where possible.
Glanced at the Twitter feed full of rather indignant demands from passengers expecting some kind of miracle. Reminded me why I don't use Twitter!
samuelmorris
Established Member
There's only one guy manning the twitter tonight as well, poor sod. I had a similar day running our helpdesk at work solo for a few hours, but that doesn't compare to thousands of angry commuters.
F Great Eastern
Established Member
I really dislike them, I really thought that they would be much better than they are from all of what we heard about them, but it looks like what it probably was, an attempt to tick as many bosses as possible as cheaply as possible
I have a lot of grips with them, from the overly harsh white environment, the terrible lighting, the poor (but better than original) seats, the useless outdated and almost always broken passenger information system of which the producer has gone bust, the underpowered and frequently broken air conditioning, the blocked up plug sockets, awful ride quality, squeaky fittings just to name a few things.
Also if you're unlucky to enough have a First Class ticket on a loco set that's substituted for one of them, you can look forward to airline seats without tables of any kind and not even a window to look out of. Also being right at the front and back of the train, the ride quality is abysmal, the air-conditioning even worse than in standard class and if you even have half the seats filled there, makes it very humid.
The only positive thing I can say is from the side they look more modern and inside they look more modern, but when you actually travel on one it's actually style over substance. Give me a 360 or a 379 anyday.
F Great Eastern
Established Member
Honestly on Greater Anglia for the most part we've always had good customer facing staff, that's been the case going back to FGE and Anglia days, but the abuse that some of them get from commuters at times who don't even listen is pretty shocking.
I was on a rural service last month that was delayed a lot and again at a red signal and one self important passenger looking at himself in his pocket mirror said to a (off-duty) staff member that the driver just needs to go and stop messing around and if the train didn't move in 2 minutes he would be asking the staff member to explain to his boss why he lost out on a big contract. He then proceeded to phone his boss and put him on loudspeaker and asked the staff member what he has to say for himself and what he will do to compensate them. World of their own.
samuelmorris
Established Member
Yup, sadly one of the worst things about the railways in our neck of the woods is the customers...
Is the ride any worse than the originals? If so, how have they managed to achieve that? I recall going on a pair of Silverlink bins to Norwich many years ago. I think it was in connection with the Lowestoft airshow. Anyway, it was very bouncy as they clattered through the points at Gidea Park at full pelt.
Rubbish air con does seem to be a UK problem. A few weeks ago I was in Belgium and the Netherlands. It was over 30 degrees for most of the trip but all the air con EMUs and carriages worked perfectly.
700007
Established Member
Yeah I have always believed this too - Essex customers tend to be the most harshest when something goes wrong. Check Greater Anglia, TfL Rail and c2c's Twitter feeds whenever something goes wrong. Some truly nasty pieces of work out there sometimes.
The Europeans have the luxury of the space on the roof to mount nice big a/c units, look at some of the Euro 66s with them on the roof.
We don't have that luxury
dk1
Veteran Member
Two failures this morning as well as ongoing issues from yesterday's disruption. This mornings Ni90s have been knocked on the head.
Unless we get carriages with lower ceilings. I remember as a kid the "birdcage" carriages on the Southern which only had full-height roofs over the guard's lookout.
RailWonderer
Established Member
Day trippers to London I think are beginning to discover that they save a lot of time using this service the 50% of the time it actually runs. Like other new services introduced elsewhere, loadings always start light but pick up slowly. But it won’t ever be too busy since it’s only for Norwich and Ipswich passengers.
Panupreset
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One of benefits of NiN is you can now get to Braintree in 77 minutes in the evening peak To put that in perspective about the same time HS2 proposes London to Manchester.
dk1
Veteran Member
I thought HS2 Manchester timings where 68. One hour faster than now.
Mad isn't it. Clacton to London is 69 miles yet it takes 1hr 26mins. That is an average speed of just 54mph.
samuelmorris
Established Member
Clacton isn't exactly a huge hub to get to other places though. If I was travelling to almost anywhere in the Northwest from London I may very well change at Manchester. I'm not saying I think the 1tph service to Clacton is adequate but I think it's a little unfair to compare the average speeds of the two. By the same token the average speed between Canary Wharf and Waterloo is only 29mph, but that's still excellent given the context of the service.
Well Ok lets take another example then, one which is a bigger hub station with plenty of footfall say Witham. 39 miles from London yet it takes on average of around 50 minutes. Which equals an average speed of just 47mph. We are hardly breaking land speed records for the Essex outer suburban region are we.
Sleepy
Established Member
Lots of rumours circulating about GA top brass getting very upset with the lack of progress in bringing Stadlers into service - this and other " issues" will be likely to surface next week !!
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