We joke frequently about the state of Britain's transport infrastructure. But it really can be very, very poor.
We just had a great couple of days in Amsterdam. We take the train/ferry/train option and get cabins on the ferries. It's a bit more expensive but a much better (and quieter) experience.
It all falls down when you reach Britain. Firstly, the mobile gangway is out of action ("Since January, and it probably won't be fixed for a year as they're arguing about insurance"). So foot passengers - who used to be the first out of the terminal building - now mooch around in the ferry lounge until the car drivers have all driven off, so that a bus can ferry them to the terminal.
For this, we all have to troop down from deck 9 to deck 3, and crowd into the little lobby by the lifts until the bus comes back for its second run (there's only one bus of course). It's a small and cold are and we're jammed cheek-to-jowl with trolley cases, bags and paraphernalia hardly helping. This is an area for people to pass through as quickly as possible. A uniformed attendant waits just outside the door in case someone makes a break for it on foot.
So, finally, to the terminal building. The ferry has been docked for half an hour by now, and most of the foot passengers are worried about train connections. No problem! A cheery chappie from Abelio Greater Anglia is intercepting us as we come out and directing us to trains and buses. Now, I'd already planned the whole journey, so I knew we needed to get a taxi to Ipswich to be in with a chance of getting to Norwich at a reasonable hour. But he says we'll be fine, and that if we catch the next train to Manningtree (in a few minutes' time), the Norwich train will be wait for us there as there's been engineering work.
I know, I know. We should have laughed hysterically in his face and carried on with our plan. But a few days in the Netherlands had lulled us into a false confidence in infrastructure, only dented by the fiasco with the shuttle bus. So we dutifully went over the bridge and caught the train to Manningtree.
When we got to Manningtree, a train was indeed waiting for us - but only going to Ipswich (ie, the next station). So we got on that. And waited. And waited. It obviously wasn't waiting for us at all! Eventually it set off, arriving in Ipswich just a few minutes after the Norwich train had left.
Naturally, we protested. But the staff - whilst superficially sympathetic, (and I do mean superficially, they obviously didn't give a toss, they were just being polite), could only repeat that the jolly chap in Harwich shouldn't have told us that the Norwich train would wait, as our journey isn't a planned route. And that they don't control train times, it's all very tight with available slots, etc, etc. Basically shut up and wait for the next one (in just under an hour). It's certainly nobody's fault.
So we did. It came in twenty minutes before it was due to leave, because it needs a window for the passengers on the Rail Replacement Bus Service to get there from London. THEY are on a planned route; on this line, everything revolves around journeys involving London.
We get home a little before 11pm, deflated. What if we were visitors from the Netherlands? Coming to stay in Norwich? I'm more embarrassed than anything else, though of course I'm angry too.
The word in this part of the country has always been that journeys to and from London are prioritised - the connections are protected, so trains will wait for other trains if they're delayed. If you're travelling between places - say, Norwich and Bury St Edmunds (hi Mum) then you frequently find that the timetabling is crazy - you miss connections by a few minutes! Because the planners simply don't care at all if your journey doesn't involve London.
Surely we can now compute optimal timetables? Where giving one set of passengers priority connections doesn't exclude other passengers from getting a half-decent service?
The problems with disembarkation from the ferry are rooted in the same attitude - make the majority happy, and ignore the minority. That has never been a sane approach.
