Trains and Planes in the UK in May/June

[Ming the Merciless]

We'd always liked the idea that our son could potentially gain British citizenship and were always of the opinion that we would leave it up to him whether or not to pursue it. In principle I'm not upset that he has citizenship and will have a British passport.

Where my grievances lie are in the fact that this has been forced upon us and with little to no notice. Like I said earlier I've had to cancel a forthcoming trip to the U.K. because there's no way we can get a passport in the 3 weeks left before the trip. We will need to get documents like his birth certificate and my marriage certificate officially translated and sent off and alongside these costs, the passport office have foisted an extra 20 pounds mandatory courier fee on top of the passport costs to deliver it to us.

The British government saying that it's been on there website for the last 4 months, brings to mind that scene in the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy where they are saying that the humans can't complain because the plans for the demolition of Earth had been in a planning office of another planet for years!



Just for the life of his current German passport, so currently he has one year left on his current one, then we would need a new one with his new passport. This is another major grievance, if the British Government said 50 pounds for this certificate, then I may well seriously consider it, but over €600 is crazy.



I know, hopefully these points don't breach these rules, I am sailing close to the wind!

Does this help?

https://www.gov.uk/overseas-passports

 

[Mike_P]

For some reason most journey planners for LBA-York the fastest way using the train from Leeds a suggest change of bus going to Leeds. The airport bus stops a 2 minute walk around from the railway station
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Sta...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDIyNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
Alternatively staying on the bus to the bus station and taking a York bus from there is at the expense of c.50 extra minutes
A further alternate is a bus to Harrogate where the bus station and railway station are next to each other but that bus is only hourly; the train onwards is half hourly Mon-Sat except evenings

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Trains in the UK may be horrible

In what way did you find them horrible?

 

[chriswoody]

Does this help?

https://www.gov.uk/overseas-passports

Thanks for the link, I'd actually popped in there last week and started the process of applying. I'm currently in the process of getting documents officially translated.

 

[blackrat]

In what way did you find them horrible?

It is utterly disingenuous to take one piece of a comment and attempt to create controversy with it.
Part of what I said - continuing with another's post was:
Trains in the UK may be horrible compared with - say - anywhere in Europe, but at least there are trains.

 

[wiggydiggy]

It is utterly disingenuous to take one piece of a comment and attempt to create controversy with it.
Part of what I said - continuing with another's post was:
Trains in the UK may be horrible compared with - say - anywhere in Europe, but at least there are trains.

Exactly!

I read a very comprehensive, and very dull, book about the Beeching cuts earlier this year. Those cuts plus later proposals like the Serpell Report could have left us with something that looked like this:

 

[Ming the Merciless]

It is utterly disingenuous to take one piece of a comment and attempt to create controversy with it.
Part of what I said - continuing with another's post was:
Trains in the UK may be horrible compared with - say - anywhere in Europe, but at least there are trains.

Nonsense, you said they were horrible. How have you found them horrible compared to Europe? It is a reasonable question.

 

[Andy in Germany]

So...

I looked on TPE and there is "Major" engineering "Between Saturday May the 23rd and Monday May the 25th Between Darlington and York" which will "affect services". Nowhere does it say what time on Monday, or what "Affected" means. Probably Armageddon.

How good are Network Rail at handing over on time? If I plan to arrive on Tuesday, is it likely all the trains will still be in Chaos?

 

[Mike_P]

So...

I looked on TPE and there is "Major" engineering "Between Saturday May the 23rd and Monday May the 25th Between Darlington and York" which will "affect services". Nowhere does it say what time on Monday, or what "Affected" means. Probably Armageddon.

How good are Network Rail at handing over on time? If I plan to arrive on Tuesday, is it likely all the trains will still be in Chaos?

Overrunning engineering works are not unknown. Depends on what they doing; if its involving infrastructure largely untouched since being built its only when they start messing with it do they know the full scale of what is involved. Same with the road network with often incorrect locations of mains services underneath.

 

[Andy in Germany]

So the question is, how much is that likely to affect trains Manchester-York, bearing in mind the affected section is to the north of York...

This is the bit I dislike: too much guesswork...

 

[Mike_P]

Difficult to say. Through trains from the Airport to York generally go to and from Redcar and leave the ECML at Northallerton midway betwen York and Darlington.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Tickets booked. There seems to be a service between Man. Airport and York so I booked those tickets too.

Oddly I can't get any times for the tram between Piccadilly and Victoria on the 25th of May. Don't they run on Bank holidays?