Turns out that Kerry McCarthy (Shadow Minister for Green Transport) has put out a couple of paragraphs on the Labour Party site here 👇 labour.org.uk/press/lorry-dr…
Nothing on Twitter though
Where the hell is Labour's 5 point plan to solve the truck driver shortage? Repeated and determined efforts to nail the government on this? Demand that - shock! - short term making it easier to hire from outside the UK might be necessary?
The Government has made a complete balls up, and it feels like Labour is asleep on the job - it's neither properly opposing nor putting forward alternatives
Hopeless
/ends
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This morning I’m one of the first new regional trains Maubeuge 🇫🇷 - Charleroi Central 🇧🇪 #CrossBorderRail
It was a bit of a #fail at the station. I needed a ticket to Erquelinnes, the first station in Belgium. But prior to today trains from Maubeuge didn’t stop there!
Ticket machine ⛔️
Ask at the ticket office. “Le train ne s’arrête pas à Erquelinnes!” I politely told the SNCF employee that yes, it did stop at Erquelinnes. I explained the situation to the SNCB train manager and he laughed, confirmed it did stop there, and I bought the ticket online!
Delays in my favour. Maybe? S-Bahn to FFM Flughafen. Get a late running ICE to Köln Messe/Deutz there. Then try to blag my way onto a Thalys Köln Hbf to Bruxelles? It’s a long shot but it might work…
ICE 612 Frankfurt Flughafen to Köln Messe/Deutz.
This is why accurate live running data in apps matters. Were this not running 10 min late I’d not have caught it… but live data allowed me to plan a connection that’d otherwise not work
Already on the 2nd train of the day: TGV Montbard - Paris. All being well I’ll be in Denmark tonight… but that feels a long way off just now! #EGPCongress#crossborderrail
Across Paris RER Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord, walk to Gare de l’Est (faster than changing into a Métro to Est) and it’s onto the TGV to Mannheim. So far so good, but I banked on this bit working 🙂 #EGPCongress#CrossBorderRail
Franco-German train service. Very French prices! And no, it’s too early (and expensive) for #beerontrains 😉
Jeez. It could take until 2025 until TGVs are approved for the line.
And the whole effing point of Stuttgart21 - of which this line is a part - was to create a Paris-München high speed corridor!
Really, how can everyone mess up *so badly*?
And to those going “yeah but there are few TGVs anyway” true, but so it goes on and on. International services are the lowest priority - even when *they were the stated rationale for building the line*