Rail replacement - Kings Lynn - Ely

[Steves]

The line between Kings Lynn and Ely is closed until Saturday this week.  During the day, there is an hourly service non-stop between Lynn and Ely and an all stations service.

I passed the station this afternoon.  There were two London General coaches (cream and purple livery) loading VC2 and VC6 and a Lynx Volvo/Wright Gemini BF53xxx (I think) in all over grey with Lynx fleetnames.  The London General coaches legal address was Luton Parkway station.

There were a couple of Youngs coaches in the yard on standby or waiting for the next journey and a D A Payne Setra on the Newmarket Road bus stop which may have been one of their vehicles too (it had a scruffy number label in the front window).

Around lunchtime, I saw a southbound stopping service at Littleport with another of the London General coaches running 13 minutes late and almost bound to miss the southbound train connection at Ely which is is reduced to hourly for this week..

[Coast_Hopper]

Have you got any photos

[barryb]

I tried to do the train bit of this today. 

Unfortunately there has also been a bit of an demonstration of how not to publicise these things.

The posters (and stories on the website etc) say they are about rail replacement bus services between Ely and King's Lynn (and the electronic ones have a graphic about evening and weekend engineering works when infact these are also during the day during the week).  If you read them they also do say that the direct service from Ely to King's Cross has been changed.  So far so good...

So I turned up at Cambridge North this morning expecting to catch one of the Cambridge North to London KX trains to make a connection at Cambridge.  Not only was it not showing on the departures display, but the staff had no idea those services were somehow affected either and suggested waiting to see if it turned up because there might have been a mistake on the departures board.

Some loud slow handclaps for Great Northern; firstly for the awful communication, and of course secondly for cancelling Cambridge North - Cambridge journeys at the drop of a hat like they always do, on this occasion where an excuse is particularly lacking :-(

[Steves]

I tried to do the train bit of this today. 

Unfortunately there has also been a bit of an demonstration of how not to publicise these things.

The posters (and stories on the website etc) say they are about rail replacement bus services between Ely and King's Lynn (and the electronic ones have a graphic about evening and weekend engineering works when infact these are also during the day during the week).  If you read them they also do say that the direct service from Ely to King's Cross has been changed.  So far so good...

So I turned up at Cambridge North this morning expecting to catch one of the Cambridge North to London KX trains to make a connection at Cambridge.  Not only was it not showing on the departures display, but the staff had no idea those services were somehow affected either and suggested waiting to see if it turned up because there might have been a mistake on the departures board.

Some loud slow handclaps for Great Northern; firstly for the awful communication, and of course secondly for cancelling Cambridge North - Cambridge journeys at the drop of a hat like they always do, on this occasion where an excuse is particularly lacking :-(

The publicity for this blockade has been appalling.  The posters appeared soon after Christmas but the timetable only appeared very recently - probably about two weeks before the start date and after the PR department had put their press release into the local papers.  At one point National Rail had the normal timetable but a warning triangle appeared about the changes.  Then the warning disappeared and I wondered if the blockage had been cancelled.

The Great Northern services to terminating at Cambridge North seem have been cancelled at Cambridge for the duration.  However, the shuttle between Cambridge, Waterbeach and Ely which replaces the Kings Lynn trains north of Cambridge does stop at Cambridge North in each direction.  It should have appeared on the screen as normal as it turns up on realtimetrains but that is not mentioned on any posters or press releases that I have seen.

[Steves]

Here is a shot from this afternoon.  These two vehicles will go out with the 1633 departures to Lynn.  I think the decker does the fast run.  I assume it is operated by Lynx although I could not see any legal info on the side.

My apologies for the picture being upside down.  It appears the right way up on my PC.  I have even tried turning over and inserting the upside down version but it still appears on here upside down.  Photo originally taken on a Galaxy S6 phone

[TCD813]

Is this OK?

[TCD813]

Oddly enough, Steve, when I clicked on your photo on my iPhone, it enlarged... with correct orientation! Tried the same trick on my iMac... still upside-down!

I then saved your photo into my iPhone photo app and found that it again had the wrong orientation (upside-down).

Next trick was rotating through 180° and reposting.

I can see the file size has been reduced, though.

What I have found, with my own iPhone, is that rotating something which appears correctly in my photo app but wrongly on the Forum website, is to rotate the photograph 360° in the app. I don’t know whether this would work with other kinds of phones, but it’s worth a try.

[skyLink]

Is this OK?

..... Think i might pop home and see my folks in Cambridge on Friday all of a sudden

[Steves]

Last day of the replacement services tomorrow. 

The direct Kings Lynn - Ely services seem to be all deckers.  1433 and 1533 from Ely were London deckers, 1633 is Lynx.  The stopping services are coaches.  Mostly Fowlers with the London General coaches.  Sometimes two vehicles operate.  1633 departure are both London General.  1533 are 2 from Fowlers.  1433, I think one Fowlers and 1 Lynx.  I am told that Harrods are out but I haven't seen any.  There are three Youngs and a DA Payne coach at Ely on standby.  I don't stay after the 1633 departure so I have not seen any of them in service.,

I have some pictures to post but I was distracted by a pair of 365s being hauled to Potters for storage.