Trains on Christmas day

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From IanVisits Blog

On Christmas Day, the land falls silent as the trains, tubes and buses largely shut-down for a well-earned break. However, when the railways were younger, the motor car didn^t exist, and the Christmas holidays lasted just one day, trains were commonplace on Christmas Day itself.

The notion of the country shutting down, is an oddly modern phenomena, and in our modern frantic lives, a very welcome one.

For example, December 1862:

South Eastern Railway ran a Sunday service, as did the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, with the addition of a fast service at 7am from London to Brighton.

The Great Northern Railway not only ran a Sunday service, but return tickets sold from the 20th Dec could be used on any day for the return trip up to the 27th Dec.

The London and North-Western ran a Sunday service, with extra trains in the morning from Euston. Likewise, the South-Western Railway had additional trains departing from Waterloo in the morning.

[Article continues ... find out when they ceased]

[ChrisB]

The local services/u- & s-bahn atound Vienna certainly seem to be working today. Will be checking them out later

[grahame]

The local services/u- & s-bahn atound Vienna certainly seem to be working today. Will be checking them out later

Have a great time - do post us some pictures and commentaries!

[BerkshireBugsy]

On the National Railway Museum facebook page they have shown a poster encouraging people to travel by train over the Christmas break...I found this ironic given the issues from last year.

I believe the image below should be visible even if you don't have a Facebook account (apologies if it isn't)

https://www.facebook.com/nationalrailwaymuseum/photos/a.91905537229.85987.7774637229/10153739039397230/?type=3&theater

[grahame]

... I found this ironic given ...

Indeed.  And I can't help noticing the irony that the Highways Agency is talking about a reduction in roadworks over the Christmas and New Year period to allow of much greater traffic flows that normal, while the railways offer a reduced service.   

All may not be as it seems with that, to be fair - the big flows by rail (in terms of passenger numbers) during the year are commuters, and that dries up for a couple of weeks at this time of year.  And yet ... our passenger counts on the TransWilts on 12th, 13th and 14th December (Saturday, Sunday, Monday) had the highest number of journeys on the Saturday, with Monday (just) second and Sunday third.  Yet if you counted numbers per train - with Sunday being 11 trains not 16 - Sunday's trains were busiest.   Remarkably, a noticeable number of the same customers on multiple days - showing how important the service is even on the none-traditional work days.

[Oxonhutch]

I don't know about the running of trains but the Christmas railway event I seem to remember as a young boy in Bamber Bridge, Lancs was the annual disruption caused by the permanent closure (for the day) of the level crossing gates across Station Road.  This was also the A6 and a main route to the north - alleviated to some extent by that date by the building of Britain's first motorway* - The Preston Bypass (M6).

Something to do with the railways asserting their statutory rights over the crossing and stopping it becoming a public right-of-way.

*Many southerners mistakenly think the first motorway was the M1 - sorry!

[grahame]

From the front page of gwr.com in the last few minutes - 17:45 on Friday, 25th December 2015:

[Chris from Nailsea]

 

[Red Squirrel]

Not often that everything in running as perfectly as this!

[Chris from Nailsea]

Still only 'generally', though. 

[JayMac]

Just shows how efficient things can be when those pesky passengers aren't around.

[Chris from Nailsea]

I believe the image below should be visible even if you don't have a Facebook account (apologies if it isn't)

Purely for ease of reading for those with portable devices:

[ChrisB]

The local services/u- & s-bahn atound Vienna certainly seem to be working today. Will be checking them out later

Have a great time - do post us some pictures and commentaries!

Sorry, not on my own & I don't want to bore my better half!

Yes, definitely running. 15min intervals this morning, but by the time 4pm arrived, intervals were down to 5min between trams, trains & underground. No shops open, but the attractions all were.

[eightf48544]

In the early sixties many (single ) train spotters spent Christmas in Scotland as there was still steam and trains on Xmas and Bosing Day.

[didcotdean]

A fairly full train service was run in the early 60s but this was progressively thinned out (some regions quicker than others) and gone by the late 1960s at least as far as long distance trains are concerned. Local services probably hung on in some areas for a while after that.