Colchester commuters hail Greater Anglia's Olympics trains

11:20am Tuesday 31st July 2012 in Local news

Praise: Commuters hail Olympics trains Praise: Commuters hail Olympics trains

Commuters have praised Greater Anglia for going the extra mile for Olympics.

Passengers predicted delays and overcrowding with sports fans travelling from Colchester to Stratford on the Liverpool Street line.

Commuters said the railway has been working better than usual, with fast serves and more room.

SEE TODAY'S GAZETTE FOR THE FULL STORY.

Comments(10)

Feering in Brampton says...
11:54am Tue 31 Jul 12

Fast serves??? Is this a tennis related article???

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TheCaptain says...
12:06pm Tue 31 Jul 12

I think we are lucky the gazette spelt fast correctly :)

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Boris says...
12:38pm Tue 31 Jul 12

Gordon Bennett, give the Gazette a break. It's obvious they meant service.
And of course there was more room, because it's thwe school holidays. The trains are always less crowded for commuters at this time of year.
Anyway, the service worked fine on day one. No doubt we shall be told how it works over the fortnight.
And never mind the commuters, what about the lucky people who have got tickets to the Games? They need to rely on the trains.

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Noah4x4 says...
1:38pm Tue 31 Jul 12

On Monday, the 09.30 and 09.33 were standing room only from Colchester, perhaps suggesting a bonanza in additional off peak fares revenue for Greater Anglia. There was fairly shocking overcrowding upon reaching Chelmsford on the latter service.

This morning, at my more usual time, the car park, and 07.30, 07.33 and 07.42 trains were unusually empty, perhaps suggesting many commuters had taken the 'get ahead of the games' advice and the generosity of their employers and are "working from home".

What remains to be seen is what will happen on the commute home as things progress in the coming few weeks and particularly when the main Stadium Athletics (e.g. far more spectators) get going.

I find it difficult to swallow that Greater Anglian had prior relaxed the 16.00 to 19.00 prohibition - so permitting cheap day off peak returning passengers to fill returning commuter trains, leaving early starters that must pay the exorbitant full early dawn price fighting for seats taken by adults and children on lower fares, abundant shopping bags, buggies and other paraphernalia.

If 'off peak' no longer means what it says, Greater Anglia should come up with much fairer deal for those that are forced to pay the full price. Perhaps a return to having 'second' (full price) and 'third' (off peak) class carriages where seats in the former are strictly available only to those paying full whack (just as First Class passengers have their own sections).

This isn't a class thing, and I don't have any problem with 'off peak' discounts in principle, but let's have some greater fairness as regards seat allocation for those that do pay the higher ransom that subsidises the off peak service.

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Sdapeze says...
1:54pm Tue 31 Jul 12

We have tickets and we have pre-booked our train tickets and are hoping for an easy journey. So far so good. Will let you know how we get on. People love to knock the train companies don't they?

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6079 Smith W says...
7:21pm Tue 31 Jul 12

Sdapeze wrote:
We have tickets and we have pre-booked our train tickets and are hoping for an easy journey. So far so good. Will let you know how we get on. People love to knock the train companies don't they?
Probably because a look at Europe shows state run railways provide a much better service, and cost the taxpayer a lot less in subsidy than they do here.
Thought you hated sport, Sdapeze?!

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Sdapeze says...
12:43pm Wed 1 Aug 12

This isn't anything ordinary. This is the Olympics, hosted by Britain. It has my full support, and quite a bit of my money. It is an experience that I don't want to miss.

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6079 Smith W says...
6:58pm Wed 1 Aug 12

Sdapeze wrote:
This isn't anything ordinary. This is the Olympics, hosted by Britain. It has my full support, and quite a bit of my money. It is an experience that I don't want to miss.
Fair enough, Sdapeze. I hope you have a thoroughly great time. I must admit I was a little bit cynical about the whole thing before it started (how corporate it has become), but that fantastic opening ceremony had me hooked. I was even singing the national anthem, with a tear in my eye! And while I don't have tickets, I'll be going up to London to catch the men's marathon, and some last day, big screen action.

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Frating16 says...
2:32pm Thu 2 Aug 12

In reply to 6079 Smith W..
They don;t run nearly as many trains in Europe as we do do on the GEML, if we ran what DB and Dutch Rail run in the 'peak' we too could run 100% on time too!
Try driving in Rotterdam or Amsterdam at the rush hour, makes the M25 look like a breeze!

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6079 Smith W says...
5:41pm Thu 2 Aug 12

Oh come on. We simply don't have the high speed rail networks that exist on the continent. All provided by the state, and all at a lesser cost to the taxpayer (and the user). It's not simply just about 100% on time reliability. I wouldn't claim that for anywhere. Things will go wrong with even the best systems.

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