Hourly Cross Country Trains Between Birmingham and Stansted Airport Once More
The summer timetable for my local train service, the Birmingham-Stansted Cross Country route, brought the surprise return of the full hourly timetable, not seen since the start of the first pandemic lockdowns. No gap in service morning and afternoon, and the the regular trains now work through to and from the airport again, not some of them terminating at Cambridge. So far, so good, but ... anyone can publish a timetable! Will the trains actually run and will they be reliable?
Well, for several reasons I have had to make a few trips to and from Peterborough recently, and so far I have to say I have been impressed. Most of the trains have run precisely to time (and here in Stamford there is plenty of scope for something to upset them before they get to us), an improvement over recent performance. None of the trains I have needed has so far been cancelled: that should not be remarkable, but it is remarkable because cancellations had become very frequent. A couple of eastbound trains were running a few minutes late, but only a few minutes and my plans were unaffected. Other people may have had different experiences but for me this has been a welcome return to the good standard of service that we used to have a few years ago, better in fact because exact on-time running was always a rarity whereas now it has become the norm.
Things will always go wrong, of course: trains can break down, crew can suddenly be off sick, signals can fail, but so far it has been excellent for me and is encouraging me to want to take a few more trips ....
One of the boldest little trips I have done lately which required great faith in four trains working together well was when I took one of my granddaughters to Peterborough where her mother was arriving from London to take her on home to London. Also meeting us in Peterborough was another grandchild who lives there and was joining her cousin for a few days, so child 2's parents got her to Peterborough station where child 1's mother met her on the concourse after arriving by LNER from London, while I travelled with child 1 from Stamford to meet them both. Unfortunately this was the train that had a few minutes' delay. It was tight, but worked: child 2 with child 1's mother came to our arrival platform and once the two girls had greeted each other with their classic hugs the four of us made our was to the platform where the girls' train to London was due to depart. It arrived at the platform just as we walked on to it, five minutes before it was due to leave and in plenty of time for me to bid them all farewell and for them to find their seats. I then wandered back to platform 7 for my train home to Stamford, and this one was on time. The whole operation worked flawlessly in spite of the delay my outgoing train.
As an aside, travelling with the children is interesting. I have five grandchildren in three households and while all of them have 25% of their genetic input from me (and a fair bit of nurture, too, some direct and some via one parent!), their attitude to travel differs considerably. One child once declared as soon as we had sat on a train, "I'm bored!", while the one I took to Peterborough that day engaged me in interesting conversation about the crops in the fields that we passed on the way and much else that we saw from the window. Not once did I have to find something to entertain her. It is not an age thing, for they are of a similar age. Interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment