London Can a Londoner identify this railway station, please?

mickledore

mickledore

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I know this is a London railway station. St. Pancras or King's Cross I think. Can someone enlighten me please?
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Fare increase money well spent again, reckon those luxurious Pacers have years of life left in them yet
 
tijuana taxi said:
Fare increase money well spent again, reckon those luxurious Pacers have years of life left in them yet
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Just been watching Portillo travelling across London. The station facilities, infrastructure and rolling stock that you have down there are light years ahead of anything we have. You've been on Merseyrail. That rolling stock is 40 years old. Most of the stations were built, not in the last century, but the one before that and few have had anything other than cosmetic work done to them. That Thameslink system. We can only dream of such stuff. Yet you still complain.
The Pacer trains on Northern Rail are bus bodies on railway wagon chassis so you can imagine how comfortable they are. They too are 40 years old.
It would be nice to see the fare money spent where it comes from instead of being inexorably sucked to Lunnun.
 
mickledore said:
Just been watching Portillo travelling across London. The station facilities, infrastructure and rolling stock that you have down there are light years ahead of anything we have. You've been on Merseyrail. That rolling stock is 40 years old. Most of the stations were built, not in the last century, but the one before that and few have had anything other than cosmetic work done to them. That Thameslink system. We can only dream of such stuff. Yet you still complain.
The Pacer trains on Northern Rail are bus bodies on railway wagon chassis so you can imagine how comfortable they are. They too are 40 years old.
It would be nice to see the fare money spent where it comes from instead of being inexorably sucked to Lunnun.
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Seem to remember a lot of work being done beneath Liverpool on the one way system, also thought that Merseyrail were getting all new trains.
Then there is the Metro system around the Leeds area, nice new trains and stations, Manchester had loads spent on a new link too

Just wouldn't be the North without a bit of the poor old us, if you really want to see crap trains try East Anglia.

As a bona fide born and bred Londoner that tunnel links Kings Cross and St Pancras.
 
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tijuana taxi said:
Just wouldn't be the North without a lot of the poor old us,
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Corrected that for you.

The work under Lime Street when you were up was replacing the worn out rails that run under The Mersey.

Dunno about the Leeds trams. They aren't railways are they? We'll have a good look at them in a fortnight. Still not got my compo from our Sheffield trip!!!
 
Trains around Leeds are very nice, all covered by the Metro area. Look pretty new to me, electrified and fares are pretty cheap too, saw at least two new stations.
Don't think they have trams, in fact pretty sure they haven't, ones in Sheffield were good though.

We could all learn something about public transport from Germany, cheap, plentiful, comfortable and reliable.
 
mickledore said:
Never been to Germany. Been to Swiss a lot and they are superb. And yes the trains do run on time.
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The European countries electrified their railways while our forward thinking government decided we should build some new steam locomotives.
Why modernise when you can carry on using century old technology then scrap them all ten years later for diesels
 
Indeed. After the war we had no money so stuck with steam. Meanwhile we helped rebuild Europe.....
 
German trains were good when I worked out in Munich, about 18 years ago (eek). Ran on time, so much so that if the driver was about to go and he saw you running up the stairs for his train he drove off anyway. Think I prefer our way.
Matt
 
tijuana taxi said:
We could all learn something about public transport from Germany, cheap, plentiful, comfortable and reliable.
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Couldn't agree more. The trains in Norway even have 3g service on 'em even in the middle of nowhere! (y)

Fat lot of chance of improvement in the UK - we prefer to spend billions on HS2 rather than sort out the existing troubles. :rolleyes:
 
tijuana taxi said:
The European countries electrified their railways while our forward thinking government decided we should build some new steam locomotives.
Why modernise when you can carry on using century old technology then scrap them all ten years later for diesels
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Most of Europe got us to pay towards their new railway network as we bombed the sh*** out of it during the war. Also they had the forethought to build it with nice straight lines making for less repairs and more speed. They then spent their own money on nice trains :)
 
None of which explains why we carried on building steam locomotives and then decimated our rail network

I also suspect we had an interest in European railways to transport men and materials to combat the Soviet threat.
 
Electric trains with centre driven axles are much less attritional on the track bed than rim driven steam locos, meaning fewer and cheaper repairs. Then we nationalised the railways and handed power to the unions. Now we send all the profits to France and Germany for their shareholders. Almost makes Corbyn's arguments seen reasonable:eek:
 
I believe that is part of King's Cross connecting to St Pancras (for non Londoners, they are two stations next to each other)
 
mickledore said:
Just been watching Portillo travelling across London. The station facilities, infrastructure and rolling stock that you have down there are light years ahead of anything we have. You've been on Merseyrail. That rolling stock is 40 years old. Most of the stations were built, not in the last century, but the one before that and few have had anything other than cosmetic work done to them. That Thameslink system. We can only dream of such stuff. Yet you still complain.
The Pacer trains on Northern Rail are bus bodies on railway wagon chassis so you can imagine how comfortable they are. They too are 40 years old.
It would be nice to see the fare money spent where it comes from instead of being inexorably sucked to Lunnun.
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Is London really subsidized by fare money from other parts of the UK?
If you think 40 years is old, go to the Isle of Wight, they have trains coming up to 80 years (not saying that they don't need changing in Merseyrail).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_483
 
Those IOW trains were on Portillo last night. Yes they are old just as every other heritage railway has old stock. Being basically a tourist attraction it's hard to consider them day to day working stock.

Now, the Pacer trains that we endure in the North came up here 25 years ago when they were considered to be past their useful life serving the high and mighty in the South East. At 15 years old they were considered to be past it. Simple maths shows that we have had to put up with out of date stock longer than southerners put up with new stock.
 
Being a high and mighty South Easterner, I can assure you it's not all puppy dogs and rainbows down here. All the trains on my line that I use daily to get into London are 30+ years old. There are a few other lines around here that are older still.
 
London has more people travelling to and around it by train, so yes there is more money spent on rail in London.
Improvements in various big London stations is often part-funded by big development companies. IE, part of the cost of the improvements at London Bridge was funded by the people who built the Shard. London Bridge has long been a major bottle-neck in the network, so it really needed the work done. Kings Cross and St Pancras has had money poured into it because of putting Eurostar in St Pancras (which benefits those north of London because it's easier to get to from the north than Waterloo was). St Pancras also had money come to it from the company that bought and renovated the old St Pancras Hotel that sits ontop of the station.

New stations are pointless however if the train companies can't run the network properly. The sooner it's nationalised, run centrally and properly, the better (IMO).

As for that light tunnel, I've been and photographed it, but it's slightly tricky because a) it's hard to get a window with no one in it, b) the light panels flash on and off in sequence and it's difficult to get them all on at the same time with no one in the frame and c) security don't like you using tripods.
 
mickledore said:
Those IOW trains were on Portillo last night. Yes they are old just as every other heritage railway has old stock. Being basically a tourist attraction it's hard to consider them day to day working stock.
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I don't think they are a heritage railway, when I went there on holiday I used to get from a to b. (It is a nice for those who have never been to IOW.
 
Justin Case said:
I believe that is part of King's Cross connecting to St Pancras (for non Londoners, they are two stations next to each other)
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Apparently it confused J.K. Rowling too. (The two stations next to each other bit)
 
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