75ZT Community

This evening I decided to let the train take the strain. Instead of driving into Birmingham for the daily hospital visit to my wife, I decided to go by rail. It doesn't travel the whole way to near to me thanks to Dr Beeching but driving to Redditch is not much of a chore.

I haven't travelled this line for some 55 years and there have been some changes. For one, no steam engines, it has been electrified and I am impressed. OK, the carriages are totally characterless and not very comfortable but in a little over 25 minutes, I de-trained (ugh) within the hospital grounds having reached 90mph in places. (I checked with the driver, sad I know)

I did the return journey complete, including a short walk to my car -as I didn't want to pay the car park fee at the station- some 15 minutes fewer than in the car. And for a return fare of not much more than the hospital car park.

Never thought I would say this but I shall leave the car behind tomorrow too.

bev's mum is going twice a day via us, bev's brothers and uncle dave . in our case a train not really a option, i'm glad it was of use to you

All made good by the excellent wonderful staff our Railways now employ lol

I know a lot of people slag the Railways off, but in the last 4 years as I've been travelling around the Country collecting cars I've bought, I've found them clean, modern and on time!

If we could only make some of the stations a bit better and the cost of train travel on a par with Europe and I'm sure more people would use them!

Wolves 75 wrote:All made good by the excellent wonderful staff our Railways now employ lol

Ah1 I note the operative word 'now'.
Just about the last time I travelled by train, two of the off-duty rail staff were talking loudly and smoking disgusting cigars in my first class non-smoking carriage. When I protested that I travelled first and non-smoking for a reason they were quite abusive. As I was outnumbered 2 to 1 I decided not to press my point but stopped using rail for some years after writing a letter to the rail management that didn't even get a reply.

Things are a bit different now, I suspect. For one thing this local service has no first class.