I just found this while looking for something else, Decided to just post it anyway. That's me. Apologies for my comments about people from the North. I really don't have a problem with northern people. I just have a problem with CrossCuntry trains. They happen to come from the North and attract people who know no better - but should. It may come across badly but I mean no disrespect to Northerners, but just CrossCuntry and the people they attract. Now the insulting bit . . . . I live in the West Country and so GWR are the train operator here. However, when I go to Exeter, Taunton, Plymouth or to change at Newton Abbot, I try to avoid CrossCountry trains for they are crappy. These shit wagons come from the North and flout regional train franchises. Where I sit, about two rows in, for priority disabled, it's not someone's case stashed on the floor, as I thought, but some electronics box to ensure that mobility impaired customers are truly uncomfortable. The trains are always packed, coming from 'oop north' with two, three or four carriages with people often sat on the floor. You get the customer service announcement saying this train should be five carriages, but we hate you all so much that we reduced it to three, Northern Scum! Or something like that. From Exeter or Plymouth, I can get GWR trains that stop at Brizzle Temple Meads, on their way to either South Wales, or London. These trains have eight or nine carriages and don't fill up until Bristol, where I leave for a local train. When we get to the Paignton destination, it is overcast and about fourteen Celsius. The overwhelming response by passengers is 'ee by gum, it's reet good ere!' and T-shirts are dispensed with and thrown on the railway track. Some men do join in with the woman, with the their fat belly full of chips display. Chips are now to be found as it's been a good ten minutes without chips. It's not like that in this hotel. This is a northerners old peoples' home. The old ladies keep their tops on and everything is reet good. My problem, fault, blame, I readily accept. I don’t want to fly, but I have to accept that to go where I want to, then flying is inevitable. I've got Spain again soon by ferry and Italy next year will be from Heathrow. Maybe in September I will try a flight somewhere, but where? Its not even very warm here. My home town in Gloucestershire is as warm,or warmer! That's me done with the south-west. I would rather go to London if I were to do anything more in England, apart from Worcester. ⁰ Went to a coffee shop frequented by locals today and it was fine. Coffee and toastie with nobody trying to force chips down my throat. I was going to explore further destinations, like Penzance, but not now. CrossCuntry trains go there,so it could be shit. You can do it just by GWR, but I would rather stay at home. Strange thing - I used to work wherever stuff came up. Most places, like London, Stirling, IoM, and Norwich, I would gladly go back to and probably will maybe ,whereas touristy places, like Paignton, I don't like. Guess that makes me odd. Look on the bright side. Err, err, struggling with that. Would like to try London City airport. Don't know where you can get to from there, but the idea appeals to me for some reason. Now know that you can get to many European cities. I fancy Berlin, knowing some of the modern history of the place, I think that it could be interesting. I guess that they don't do 'reet gud Brit chips, but I think that I can live with that. I like the sea, but I guess that there is picturesque, or bucket and spadey. The later, such as Paignton, is not anywhere that I like to deal with.
You mean north of you. To me they are Southerners. I am a Northerner, living in the North, nearer to the Scottish border than Newcastle Upon Tyne.
The trains start in Scotland, so you could travel from whichever city in Scotland (Aberdeen or Edinburgh, maybe) down to Cornwall, but I think (but don't know) that most come from around Leeds, Halifax, York, sort of way. I'm just judging by accents. And I am not even very good at that. I go by flat caps and "ee by gums! To complicate matters further, I do think that there is some play-acting!
Cross Country Trains are part of Arriva and based in Birmingham. Applying your logic, when they are coming from Penzance do you class them as Southerners.
In the last few months I’ve used Southern, GWR & South West trains. Southern were by some margin the worst, filthy, delayed and overloaded. The line from Salisbury to Exeter seems to suffer from delays especially at weekends, shame as they are clean and I’ve always been able to sit in sight of my bicycle.
"Oooh arr" but if you didn't invade the salt of the earth northern folks trains, you wouldn't have a problem? Instead you could travel in carriages packed with red faced farmers chewing stalks of hay, chunttering about "getting orf moi lannd", whilst smelling of cow shit , scoffing pies and swilling down cider... Do they still wear ancient, ripped waxed jackets tied with string around the waist? When considering train travel you've really got to becareful what you wish for!
By reading the post aloud in the voice of ‘Jethro’ it makes perfect sense. However, in the voice of Dickie Bird it is nonsense.
Not saying that GWR is any good, but much better (for me at the times I travel) than CrossCountry. BUT! The bar is set pretty low! I accept that all of the other train services mentioned are also shit. It just seems to be the British way. Next year, I was planning to go to the Orkney Isles, well, Kirkwall on the ferry from Aberdeen and get to Aberdeen by train. Now, I think that idea will be binned and I will fly there from Heathrow. I was trying to save the planet by reducing carbum emissions, but I think I will have to leave that task to somebody else. Or, not go. I might do Spain and France and explore their railways. After all, how shit can they be? No way as shit as the mess we have here. I remember that story I told here about when I was staying in Plymouth, I got talking to a guy who trains train drivers. I asked how he found the train journey. "TAKE THE TRAIN? Not fecking likeley!" and he could do it for nothing but came from Yorkshire, I think, by car. That should of told me something.
Capital of Yorkshire - York Blackpool is to the south by latitude Therefore Blackpool is in the south ‘appen
thar be dragons outside of the M25. and everybody knows that dragons only live in the north. therefore, everywhere north of the M25 is, The North. Ork control east and south of the M25. Ents, and other vegetation inhabit all the land to the West of the M25. all the way to Pedn an Wlas.
