A railway station at the end of a single track branch, and located somewhere within a retail park, does not bode well for station luxury. Here is the richness of facilities at Newquay ...
Yer what? Where there used to be bits of the former station canopy, you will find a posh plastic roof ...
... but there are zero station facilities and no necessitous "facilities" as a desperate fbb found to his anguish when he last visited!
St Albans Abbey is worse.
As No 3 son guided his limo along Station Road in Barnstaple, your chubby blogger expected similar.
... Costa Lot, Currys/PCWorld and, yippee, Tesco; all harbingers of an expected platform and bus shelter station.
But the harbingers did not harbinge correctly; as round the corner and past B & Q was the glorious delight of a real station building ...
... that was (almost) all station, not locked and barred or occupied by Bert Thrubb Accountants Ltd. The sign says it all.
And the signage was in beautiful "Southern" malachite green.
Malachite is Cu2CO3(OH)2, a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, and it is green, but, commonly, a bluer green than the paint shade that bears its name. (can't work out how to do suffix numbers.)
The platform offered excellent "facilities" duly labelled ...
... but it was the booking area that impressed. Staffed booking office ...
... staffed information office ...
... and more information ...
... and even more information.
And the caff was superb ...
... with real tables and chairs made of wood not plastic.
Sadly, there was no time to sample its excellent wares.
fbb was, however, allowed to explore while Nos 1 and 3 son repaired to Tesco for a few essential snacks; but, by pure co-incidence (honest), the old man was there to see the arrival of the train and its subsequent departure at 1143 (last Wednesday).
Approx 30 alighted but nearer to fifty were waiting to return towards Exeter.
Two single car 153s were in new GWR livery (dull and boring, see also South Western Railway).
Hearty congratulations to Great Western Railway, Notwork Rail, North Devon Council, The Tarka Line Community Gang or whoever it is who has created such a pleasing travel experience. fbb plans to ride the whole line from Exeter one day in the near future. Hopefully the caff will be open.
There has to be a disappointment, surely?
Indeed there is - in amongst the four information racks, the booking office and the information office there was not one single solitary bus timetable.
There was, however, partial mitigation which fbb will reveal tomorrow as we complete a virtual train journey to Instow.
Final Instow blog : Sunday 29th October
But does Tesco display leaflets for Pizza Hut? I'm sure Nos 1 and 3 son will have done a similar appraisal of information on their excursion.
ReplyDelete"Ah, but transport is different" Really? Ultimately First, Tesco, Stagecoach, Pizza Hut and the cafe on the the station are all in business to do the same thing: make money for their shareholders (although First seem to have forgotten that bit for the past several years!).
"But only transport fails like this" Really?
I bought a new desk lamp in the week, from a chain on ironmongers, and not one of the big DIY "sheds". The assistant spotted that there was 1 customer ahead of me at the open till, so stopped his shelf stacking and opened the 2nd till. So far so good. As part of the transaction he offered me a pack of batteries which were on offer. Not needing any I declined, and returned home desk lamp in hand. When I unpacked it I discovered it had no bulb, and my stock of bulbs, unlike my stock of batteries is wanting. The ironmonger missed out on a guaranteed sale (I got the bulb with my supermarket shop), unlike the bus company printing thousands of leaflets and spreading them around everywhere on the off chance.
Maybe I should have asked the ironmonger for a bus timetable?
If Tesco doesn't display leaflets for Pizza Hut, then why shouldn't they, as long Pizza Hut returns the favour, or even better, they use them to offer reciprocal offers.
DeleteOr even better still, the larger Tescos could have Pizza Hut takeaway concessions, or even Pizza Hut restaurants to replace or complement Tesco cafes, and enable them to have an evening restaurant service which is not provided by most supermarket cafes.
Clearly your ironmongers haven't really though through their upselling offers, but why shouldn't they have bus timetables, or any other useful local information? Everyone is potentially a public transport customer, so why shouldn't local travel information be available everywhere, whether in free leaflets or paid booklets, to get in front of people to make them aware of it, as well as online?
Um . . . . I think fbb's point is that all public transport systems are competing with the car; and only sometimes also with each other.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the case of Barnstaple, the bus and train complement each other, and First and Stagecoach don't have any competitive operations, so displaying each others' leaflets can only be good.
ISTR that Exeter Bus Station has copies of the X52 leaflets, which DO compete with Stagecoach's offerings, so that disproves my theory immediately!!
Mind you - I wouldn't expect an ironmongers to have bus timetables, but I WOULD expect a railway station to have relevent bus timetables and vice versa . . . . and it could all be so simple if we wanted it to be . . . .