Sunday 18 December 2011

When is a train not a train?

When is a door not a door?

When it's a jar

Oh the old ones are the best, aren't they?

Let's try another one.

When's a train not a train?

When it's a ghost train!!!

Not really funny, and neither are they.

Otherwise known as Parliamentary trains, is a token service to a given station, thus maintaining a legal fiction that either the station or, in some cases, the whole line is open, although in reality the train operating company has almost completely abandoned the station or line.

A typical ghost train will serve its stations or line as little as once per week, and never when the service would be useful to any passengers. Such services will typically be either very early in the morning, very late at night or in the middle of the day at the weekend. Quite often the service will run in one direction only.

Strange as it may sound, it is sometimes considerably cheaper for a train operating company to run a ghost train than it would be to go through the legal process of applying for a station or line to be permanently closed. Hard to believe, but there you go.

There are some great examples of ghost trains, such as Kensington Olympia to Wandsworth Road (one train each way per day on weekdays), and Sheffield to York via Pontefract Baghill (two journeys per day each way).

So if you start noticing your train service getting downgraded, then it won't be long before you get a ghost train - Be very very afraid!!

Believe it or not, you can't get a ghost bus.

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