Dig This

It was back in September than I visited Berlin, but I receive a reminder of my journey to Schönefeld Airport all too often. The latest came over Easter weekend.

Why so? Simple. Network Rail are digging up the network yet again. After all the years of disruption, there was the thought that we might get the mythical seven days a week railway on the West Coast Main Line. But over Easter, that line was closed south of Crewe, with buses ferrying punters to Birmingham. Also it was closed to the north, so buses for folks travelling to Warrington, Wigan and Preston. The closure to the south was still there on Easter Monday.

Strangely, in other countries there seems to be an ability to run services even when there is engineering work going on. My journey back to the airport in Berlin involved changing to the S-Bahn at Adlershof: here you can see that this service continues to run while construction work is in progress.

After the journey back from Berlin? I arrived at Liverpool Airport to find that the journey back to Crewe had to be made via a bus into central Liverpool, and even then it had to conclude by coach. Train service with no trains involved.

The trains that have been running through Crewe over Easter have been busy: given that those using them are being asked, over time, to pay more for their journeys, it might be a good idea to allow more of them to use the train throughout. And with a minimum of diversion.