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Over the past few weeks you will no doubt have noticed that GoingLoco has suffered some downtime. This has largely happened because the server on which the site is kindly hosted has had the basic software on which sites are based upgraded to comply with the requirements of other commercial sites on said server. This resulted in the problems a few days ago where the site was down for a couple of days and the current issue where user logins are not persisting from session to session.
On the staff front, Chris, who has not been an active railway enthusiast (with the exception of preservation), since the very early 1990s is self-employed and is increasingly busy on the work front. Dean (86501) has recently moved to London following graduation from Bristol and is currently settling into a job working for one of the largest professional services firms in the world and Bonemaster is currently more than occupied with his new born daughter (Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Bonemaster). Nathan has also moved from Dorset and is now studying hard at University in Sheffield and Sprog has as always been working hard to juggle work commitments with his ongoing education.
Despite the busyness of the main members of staff, we have been working hard on a complete new release of GoingLoco, including many nice new features along with a slight change in focus however this is not yet ready for release.
As a result in the changes in people’s real life circumstances, combined with this work, we have not had the time we would have liked to concentrate on the current GoingLoco site.
We are now in a situation where the technical upgrades to the server have left a number of issues with the current site where the time is just not available to correct the issues, and a decision had been made to reluctantly shut down the site until the new release is ready for launch. Chris was able to solve a couple of the resultant issues from the recent downtime allowing us to put the site back up, albeit with the current problem of non-persistence of logins. We feel that despite this inconvenience, that you, our members would prefer this.
In addition to this, we are aware that for the same reasons, the GoingLoco Photographic Competition has been running very late recently and accordingly we feel the best thing to do would be to suspend the competition until the launch of the new site. We would however like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsor, Videoscene, and everyone who has entered photos or voted for your support. The competition will return with the launch of the revised site.
We remain quite short of staff time and it may be that the site will remain in its current state until the launch of the new product. Should any of you have time to help with the website, please feel free to contact one of us.
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Following our initial period of open access to our gen and news sections, access to these areas is now for registered members only.
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Visible to guests we have a forum Calender which contains a list of all the workings that we have times for in our Gen section. This is usually updated several times a day, but more recent information such as updates & location sightings may be available in the relevant forum sections.
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If you have any queries or comments then please send a Private Message (PM) to user '86501' by clicking HERE (If you hold a GoingLoco account) or email Dean@GoingLoco.org (If you have yet to register with the community).
The government have confirmed that they are taking the East Anglia franchise back from National Express, with their last services being run on 31st March.
A £50million scheme has been announced to refurbish the 10 worst stations in Britain. Following recent customer surveys it has been revealed that although over 80% of people are satisfied with their journey only 65% are satisfied with the stations that they use.
Since privatisation the rolling stock on the railways has seen a lot of investment and it is only recently that stations have begun to catch up as investment takes place in refreshing them. Now the worst stations are to be brought to modern standards. At the beginning of the year Wakefield Kirkgate was given priority for major work as it was determined to be the worst station in the country.
The 10 stations on Britain's worst list are: Barking Clapham Junction Crewe Liverpool Central Luton Manchester Victoria Preston Stockport Warrington Bank Quay Wigan North Western Passenger Focus chief executive Anthony Smith said: "We know from our research that the key thing for passengers is having the trains running on time.
A landslip caused by heavy rainfall in the Chepstow area has caused the line between Gloucester and Severn Tunnel Junction to be shut. Heavy rainfall has caused a variety of problems in Wales today, with the landslip at Chepstow being the most serious and the line is not expected to open until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.
The heavy rain is expected to move across Southern England over the next 36 hours and so further problems may be expected.
From Sunday 15th November the Circle line will no longer actually be a circle! Services on this line will now run from Edgware Road anti-clockwise to Edgware Road and then continue to Hammersmith following the Hammersmith & City route. The change has been made to provide more services on the H&C route following overcrowding and expected increases in use with the opening of the Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush. There will now be more services on the stretch of line between Edgware Road and Hammersmith, however clearly changes will be needed if travelling from stations such as Baker Street towards Kensington.
An article in this evening's Evening Standard has revealed that the cost of Waterloo International station, formally used by Eurostar services until they moved to St. Pancras, is £2million a year in maintenance just for it to be empty. Some work has been carried out on platform 20 since Eurostar vacated the station, but other than this and some test runs the station has sat empty.
Network Rail have devised a plan to restore the station to a state in which it can be used by domestic services, which is projected to cost about £54million. Most of this would involve access to the platforms from the main station concourse, which is not currently possible.
It is thought that the earliest Waterloo International might reopen is 2013 or 2014, and that the £2m a year will have to continue being paid while the station is empty.
First Capital Connect are continuing to suffer from a driver shortage on their Thameslink routes from Brighton to Bedford and from Sutton to Luton. This morning First Capital Connect expected to cancel 46 services on the route and they have now prepared a revised timetable for the next 2 days.
FCC are also allowing customers to travel on the Great Northern route into Kings Cross and Moorgate for equivalent journeys and to use their car parking permits at the equivalent stations.
The dispute centres around wage negotiations between FCC and ASLEF that may lead to future strike action. Drivers are currently refusing to work rest days, thus causing the cancellations. The offer from FCC to their drivers is for a pay freeze until April 2010, when there will be a minimum 3% increase in their salaries. A statement from FCC said that they felt their pay offer was fair given the current economic climate.
The revised timetable is available for download at
The Local Government Authority has published a report telling Network Rail and the train companies to prepare better for extreme weather that may be experienced during the winter. The report considered the problems caused by the snowfall last Winter and the travel disruption that this caused public transport, both buses and railways.
Network Rail and the train companies were told that they should prepare better to prevent points and electric systems from freezing when the weather is colder. On some lines de-icing trains are run to break any ice built up on overhead wires or the 3rd rail system.
In a response to the report the Association of Train Operating Companies has said that a lot of the delays and cancellations caused by the snowfall were actually a result of roads not being gritted and so staff not being able to get to work but that the railway infrastructure itself stood up well.
Many meteorologists and scientists are predicting more extremes of weather in Britain as a res ...
A man has died after being hit by a train at Marston Green, near Birmingham, yesterday evening. The man was struck by a Wolverhampton to London Euston Virgin service early yesterday evening.
Meanwhile firefighters on Saturday had to rescue a woman trapped under a train at Lancaster station after she is thought to have attempted suicide by jumping infront of it. The woman escaped serious injury and was tended to by fire crews and paramedics from the local area.
The train involved was Transpennine Express' 1400 Manchester Airport to Edinburgh service. Trains were stopped for an hour while the line was cleared.
This Friday (13th of November) marks the 15th birthday of Eurostar's first services. To celebrate they will be holding a party at St. Pancras station's Grand Champagne bar, though unfortunately it is by invite only.
Absolute Radio are running a competition at http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/freebies ... index.html where you can win tickets to the celebration and the chance to win a trip for 2 to Paris leaving on Friday night courtesy of Eurostar.
Aberdovey station is to have the step from platform to train removed by the installation of a 'hump' at the station following complaints by local residents. The hump is being fitted as a trial and if successful it is thought that it could be rolled out at 20 stations along the Cambrian line.
Humps are being trialled in other parts of the country at the moment, including the Cumbrian Coast line and Marks Tey station in Essex, which have had differing styles of work done on them.
The hump scheme provides a significant cost saving over having to rebuild the entire platform.
National Express will hand the running of the East Coast rail franchise to the government on 14 November. The government had announced in July this year that it would take over the route, which runs trains between London and Edinburgh. Ministers had refused National Express's requests for its contract with the government to be renegotiated. National Express said it did not expect passengers, services or employees to be affected by the handover The company has been struggling with the franchise since it turned out that the amount it agreed to pay to run services on the line in 2007 was too much. It stressed that its two other franchises would not be affected by the transfer of the East Coast franchise. National Express East Anglia runs trains from the east of England to London Liverpool Street as well as o ...
Fares have made the news once more as Britain's first over £1,000 fare is being introuced. A return from Newquay to Kyle of Lochalsh cost less than £500 in 2008, yet it now costs £1,008 just a year later.
This is negative press for the railways in a time that prices are still low as part of the recession. Southeastern recently made the news as their HS1 agreement was revealed and showed that despite regulated fares being scheduled to fall in January Southeastern have a provision that their's can go up to pay for investment.
Following heavy rainfall and flooding in Scotland the railways out of Aberdeen have had to close. No trains are currently able to run between Aberdeen and Dundee or Nairn. One of the worst hit areas has been Stonehaven.
There are no replacement buses running because the roads are not navigable either.
Network Rail have provided a latest estimate of November 9th for the branch to Harwich Town to reopen. The line has been shut following a major landslide last week and another 2 weeks are needed in order to clear the line. London to Harwich services are being diverted to Ipswich for all of this week, increasing the number of London to Ipswich services to 4 per hour, a frequency not seen since the franchises on the Great Eastern Main Line were merged into one.
Network Rail has begun work to install new footbridges at Moorthorpe and Bolton on Dearne stations in West Yorkshire. The stations currently have pedestrian foot crossings across the track to get to one of their platforms, which have a history of being misused. The lines are also used by non-stop Cross Country high speed services as well as heavy freights, meaning there is a high risk of incident.
Network Rail are installing footbridges in order to remove the risk at the stations. The bridges should be open by March 2010. Woodlesford and Normanton are set to receive similar bridges.
Kevin Preece, area general manager for Network Rail, said: “These crossings both have a history of misuse – where pedestrians dash across the tracks while the warning lights are showing. This is obviously incredibly dangerous.”
“The crossings are now being replaced with footbridges which also give full disabled access.”
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