Will Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 Brittany Ferries has said that its 2007 timetables will be available on line from 23 August (not that anybody seems to want to use the service at present). When I looked just now, they still stopped at 2006, but should be available soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted August 23, 2006 Author Share Posted August 23, 2006 Schedules and bookings for BF are now available on line up to the end of October 2007. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peterm Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 That's certainly true Will - however those of us who use the Portsmouth-Cherbourg route now find that there's no service from mid-October 2006 to mid-March 2007, when the fastcraft restarts! OK, P&O's service on the Western Channel routes left something to be desired, but at least they showed some responsibility to their customers by maintaining a service year-round. Does anyone have any insight into BF's thinking here?Peter [:@] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Sounds like basic economics, Peter. If it's not worth running the service then they won't. [:(] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 Quite right. You will find that the freight service remains all year, but the passenger service is only worthwhile in the summer months. As not enough people have used the air service from Cherbourg to Southampton and that is going too for the winter, it doesn't look as if Cherbourg is a particularly popular destination any more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peterm Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 The same logic does not appear to apply to rail services though, for example. It would no doubt suit southern region rail companies to only run trains into London from, say, 7 a.m. to 9a.m and 5p.m. to 7 p.m. because then they're packed; the trains're uneconomic for the remainder of the time. They don't do this because (as I understand it) when they take the franchise they have to undertake to provide a certain level of service. Pity that the ferry compnaies aren't under a similar obligation - with if necessary EU support being provided to maintain an off-peak service. EU cash is spent on worse things! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 I think you are right - the rail companies have their service times set out as a condition of their franchise. I know that there was a fuss when one of the bidding companies managed to get a less-trains deal agreed.In the days when mail went by boat... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted September 9, 2006 Author Share Posted September 9, 2006 Dick - fewer trains, not less trains. [6]As Brittany Ferries gets funding from the local authorities, which have a stake in managing the various ships, then there is a degree of pressure to keep services going. If it was a simple matter of not running services if they were not profitable enough then many of the other routes (not only BF) would probably stop carrying passengers in the winter months. Ships and trains are rather different. I know (I live on a commuter route to London from the south coast when in England, as I am now) that there is a strong demand throughout the day for rail travel. Admittedly, the further from London the emptier the trains become, as a rule, but even off peak the trains I get are packed between, for example, Clapham Junction and Gatwick. As the trains are there, the operators might as well run them. Not many on-board staff are needed, and fuel costs are comparatively low. The biggest part of running a ship is manpower, followed by fuel, so if there is not a demand for a service there is little economic reason to run it. Freight keeps the ferries running out of season, another thing which sets them apart from trains or planes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 Both less and fewer, if I recall correctly...They are never empty, in my experience. There is usually a drunk or two, some rough-looking guys, a bunch of noisy kids and a woman with a screaming child. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted September 9, 2006 Author Share Posted September 9, 2006 There are clear rules as to when 'less' or 'fewer' is used - I will put my sub-editor's hat on and consult the style book...That's one of my particular bees in the bonnet. Judie's is the use of 'different to' or 'different than' rather than 'different from'. So we both get plenty of opportunity to shout at the telly, reckoned to be one of the signs of becoming a genuine oldie. When such bastions of correct English as the BBC and the Daily Telegraph get these things wrong, there's no... (but now I'm sounding like a regular Telegraph reader, which is an even more abhorrent concept than being a regular Guardian reader).'Less' and 'fewer' are all tied up with concrete and abstract concepts. A simple. but not quite all-encompassing, test is that if the word works in the plural, then it's 'fewer' and if not then it's 'less'. So fewer trains, but less travelling.You must go on the same trains as I do - (but I know that - one of the rail routes from our English house to London goes through where you live). You forgot the person who occupies one seat and has a backpack that takes up the other three and the d***head who thinks that wearing a cheap suit entitles him to talk very loudly about other people's private affairs on his mobile phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 Or the braindead moron who, in these times, leaves a large, brand-new suitcase in the doorway, ignores all shouts down the train to ask who it belongs to until someone (guess who) gets the guard into the carriage, security alert, train about to be evacuated, and then says "s'mine".As I said, less and fewer trains... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted September 9, 2006 Author Share Posted September 9, 2006 Definitely, absolutely and categorically fewer trains, not less.Interesting how trains seem to have 'guards' again rather than 'conductors'. Perhaps we will again become 'passengers' rather than 'customers'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 Yes, there are fewer trains, but the trains are often shorter, so they can be both fewer and less.(Sophistry R'Us) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 My own rule of thumb for smaller quantities, if you can count the thing in question then it's fewer (fewer sheep), if you can't then it's less (less water).Right, I'm off to CdG shortly. Must round up the troops. Leaving with fewer troops (or less troops) than I brought here would be a disaster. I think either is permissible but I haven't time to dig out my copy of Fowler's "Pedant's English". [:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 Ah, well, I've got less copies of that than you two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederick Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 What was wrong with 12 coach trains .... like the slam door ones pulled by a thumping great locomotive .?.... People could get on and off faster and what a crowd you could move on one of them .! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 [quote user="Frederick"]What was wrong with 12 coach trains .... [/quote]8 coach platforms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted September 10, 2006 Author Share Posted September 10, 2006 Before we moved to France we lived in a place a little further south (like two stops on the train) than the town where our current English house can be found. Its station had platforms only four coaches long. No problem with 12-coach trains, you just got on where you could, and walked through the train, and for getting off you just made sure you were at the front of the train. People (usually drunk) did try and get out of the wrong bits of the old slam door trains very occasionally - I only ever saw one woman do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 I once overslept on the train from Charing Cross to New Beckenham and woke up at Hayes (Kent), after a very hard day at the office (??????). Returned in direction of London but fell asleep again, reawaking at Charing Cross. On the second outward, the last train, I reawoke at Hayes at about midnight. The driver agreed to drop me off at New Beckenham on his return (empty) to the depot at Hither Green. When the train stopped I jumped out of the train door (slam type) onto the track. The train pulled away. At this point I realised I was nowhere near a station, but following the direction of the train I found I had jumped out somewhere between West Wickham and Hayes. It took an hour and a half to walk home, including a scramble over the fence at West Wickham station after the walk down the line. What larks the ol' slam door trains allowed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 My mate Nobby claims to have been in a slam-door train with a bunch of other commuters, The train stopped outside a station and a sleeper woke up and rushed to the door, fell onto the track. He clambered up into the carriage again, apologised to all and sundry and promptly got out the other side...Probably an urban myth, but then so is Nobby most of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 Don't let it spoil a good story ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted September 10, 2006 Author Share Posted September 10, 2006 Dick - that sounds like the drunk woman at Billingshurst I mentioned in an earlier post. Another thing I witnessed was a woman getting out of the wrong side of the train when it pulled into Brighton. When asked by a staff member what she was playing at, she said 'but the station's on fire'. 'So why do you think everybody else managed to get out with no problem on the correct side?' asked the railway person. 'No idea', she replied, 'all I know is that the sign says "alight other side"'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted September 11, 2006 Share Posted September 11, 2006 [quote user="Dick Smith"]My mate Nobby claims to have been in a slam-door train with a bunch of other commuters, The train stopped outside a station and a sleeper woke up and rushed to the door, fell onto the track. He clambered up into the carriage again, apologised to all and sundry and promptly got out the other side...Probably an urban myth, but then so is Nobby most of the time.[/quote]Crikey Dick - I fell out my pram laughing at that - according to my mother it happened in the 'black out'[:D][:D]Talking about railways and my mother - where she lives the local youth have worked out that the railway line is the shortest route home after a late night - sadly one of them forgot the time of the last train and was hit last week - luckily only broken legs....could have been a lot worse ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted September 11, 2006 Share Posted September 11, 2006 [quote user="Will "]Another thing I witnessed was a woman getting out of the wrong side of the train when it pulled into Brighton. When asked by a staff member what she was playing at, she said 'but the station's on fire'. 'So why do you think everybody else managed to get out with no problem on the correct side?' asked the railway person. 'No idea', she replied, 'all I know is that the sign says "alight other side"'.[/quote]Oh dear! [:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monika Posted September 11, 2006 Share Posted September 11, 2006 I just looked at the BF timetable. As I am the world's worst timetable reader does that mean there are crossings this year from Poole to Cherbourg in November/December/January?? (Last year the Ferry was "Freight" only during above months. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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