Fyra Explained

I have just found this detailed explanation of the Fyra fiasco on the International Railway Journal.

The title of the article is “Fyra problems could be more political than technical” and it starts and finishes with the simple phrase, “What a Mess!”

We may create the odd mess in the UK concerning the trains, but usually it blows over in a couple of days as all the underlying technology is sound and managers and politicians come up with a quick solution.

To cap it all, isn’t the Fyra train one of the most ugly ones, we’ve seen in a long time?

Building A Station Like A Caisson

I was at the new CrossRail station at Canary Wharf today and took these pictures.

They show the enormous concrete block of a station and the walkway, that will connect it to the area of Canada Square and its offices.

Note how the main building looks almost like one of the giant caissons used for Mulberry Harbours, that were used in the Second World War to invade Normandy.

These giant Phoenix caissons, were actually built in these docks, after they had been drained and filled with sand. They were then floated out for the invasion. I’ve actually been in several of these amazing concrete structures in The Netherlands, where they were used to fill the last gap in the dykes after the North Sea Flood of 1953. They are now a museum, dedicated to the floods and those who perished.

It’s rather strange how history is repeating itself in a similar manner.  I suppose though, that the engineers know that the ground is strong enough to take the weight of the station.

It does look from this web page on the Crossrail web site, that Canary Wharf Crossrail station is going to be worth the wait until 2018, although it will be substantially complete by the end of this summer.

The highlight of spring and summer will be the tunnelling machines passing through on their way to Farringdon station.

Fyra Replaced By Slow Train To The Hague

This article from the Europe by Rail web site is a lesson to all those politicians and civil servants, who think they understand the transport needs of the general public. This is the first paragraph.

The Belgian Railway authorities this afternoon announced the return of old-style InterCity services from Brussels to stations in the Netherlands. This is to provide some kind of replacement for the short-lived FYRA service, introduced in December 2012 and then withdrawn last month.

The service has actually lasted less than two months.

There is also a sting in the tail of the article.

Meanwhile, coach operators have spotted a gap in this busy cross-border market. One company starts a new express link from Rotterdam to Brussels early next month.

After all, the UK has a large network of long distance coach services that compete with rail, so why not between Brussels and big centres of population in The Netherlands/

Booking A Train From London To The Hague

Just out of curiosity, I looked at how much it would cost me to go from St. Pancras to The Hague next Wednesday, the 30th of January.

So I looked up on the Belgian Rail web site called b-europe.co.uk.  They offer two routes.

You can go to Brussels Midi, where you take a train to Essen in Germany and then another one to Rosendaal in The Netherlands, from where you get a Dutch train to The Hague. For this Grand Tour of the Low Countries you will pay £114.42.

Alternatively, you can take the Thalys from Brussels to Rotterdam and then take the train to The Hague. It will be 17 minutes quicker, but you can’t book it in Second Class, so it’ll cost you £188.75 in First.

I have done the single leg in the past for under £100  and I can book it for about £60 by means of easyJet.

So who would use the train from London to The Hague?

Not this enthusiast for rail travel, for a start!

It’s all double-Dutch to me!

 

 

The Warning That Was Ignored

On the BBC web site, there is this article about the sinking of the ferry Princess Victoria on the 31st January 1951.

The BBC article gives a full time-line of the sinking of the ferry until she sent her last radio message at 13:58. But it leaves out anything of what happened later.

As a child for a few years I lived in Felixstowe and I can still remember the dark marks on the walls of the houses in Langer Road, showing how high the North Sea Floods of 1953 rose later on that fateful day, killing some 38 people in that end of the town.

Many more died in The Netherlands and Flanders.

Sad that the sinking of the Princess Victoria was, it seems inconceivable today, that the warning wasn’t heeded and so many deaths and damage occurred.

I hope we have learned from what happened that night.

Dutch MPs Show Their Confidence In Fyra

This story about the Dutch Aunt Sally, just adds to the mess the of the high speed train.

But as Fyra doesn’t actually go to The Hague, where the Dutch parliament sits, they would have to change at Rotterdam or drive there anyway.

The Fyra Farce Goes Worldwide

I’ve just been notified of two articles about Fyra; the Dutch/Belgium high-speed train from Business Traveller and Cleveland.com.

I’ve also had a look on the Eurostar web site.  They’re saying this.

To travel to the Netherlands book your Eurostar to Brussels first and then your Thalys train from Brussels to Amsterdam, Schiphol or Rotterdam.

I suppose they’re only telling you what is possible.

Let’s face it London to Amsterdam is probably only a similar distance, as London to say Perth in Scotland.  I haven’t done that journey  but I know it would be one web purchase not two, as incidentally so would London to Geneva on Eurostar’s web site, changing in Paris.

It’s a complete mess and it seems to be getting worse, with little leadership or common sense being shown.

Fyra Suspended

The launch on the Fyra trains between Brussels and Amsterdam, must rank as one of the worst launches of any train services in the last few years. We’ve had a few bad ones in the UK, where reliability has been questioned and we’ve also had problems with the wrong kind of snow, but nothing, which seems to have been hated by so many as this train has.  The BBC tries to explain the mess here.

If we are going to go back to the future, let’s hope that Eurostar are able to reinstate their beautifully simple ticket to Any Dutch Station.

I will be first in the queue to buy one!

If they don’t I’ll just go by train to that jewel of the Essex coast; Southend, get in an orange aeroplane and hop across to Schipol. The Belgians, Brussels and the planet will all be losers.

What Is The Dutch For In It Up To Your Neck?

We have had problems with trains including the wrong kind of snow, but the Dutch with their new high speed trains called Fyra seem to have got the wr0ng kind of everything, like politicians, strategy and trains. It’s all described here on a Dutch web site. This is the introduction.

The problems with the Fyra high-speed train service from Amsterdam to Brussels are as much to do with politicians as with the train manufacturer and railway operators, according to the main Dutch railway union chief.

Roel Berghuis of union FNV Spoor says the problems with the Fyra service go ‘well beyond the teething problems when a new train is brought in’.

So don’t knock Network Rail and the train operating companies too much, as it might happen here.

Eskimos

It was so cold today, that I joked to one of the driver/conductors on the 38 bus, that they were outsourcing them with Eskimos.

But seriously, on The One Show tonight, a doctor said that Eskimos shake their hands to keep them warm. I shall be trying it, if this weather persists.

I have heard from my friend in The Netherlands, that it could be as low as -13°C in Rotterdam with quite a bit of snow on the ground.

Hopefully, it won’t get that cold here tonight.