It was a small flash of white on maroon, but it meant so much – the DB Schenker logo on the side of a Class 60 UK railway engine somewhere between Chesterfield and Derby on 3rd October, out of the window from my Sheffield-London train. If anyone can help improve […]
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London-Sheffield for an early meeting: how hard can it be?
I need to get from London to Sheffield on 3rd October and I ideally need to arrive by 0900. Shouldn’t be too hard? Think again. Maybe I am just too used to Eurostar that can get me from Brussels via Lille at 300km/h and allow me to arrive at London […]
You know you have a problem with your main airport when…
…you can make jokes about Heathrow Terminal 5 in adverts in German in the magazine of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Translation: “Sorry, our advertisement is still stuck in Heathrow Terminal 5”. The deckchair seems to make reference to the famous anti-German Carling Black Label advertisement about Germans and British and sunbathing. […]
Customer service – how you should do it
I’ve been so frustrated in recent weeks by a complete lack of customer service in all kinds of places I’ve been – Coditel and UPS in Belgium, Thomas Cook Airlines in Canada, BAA at Gatwick (on my return from Canada – not as severe as Boris Johnson’s experience!) – that […]
Riding the Railroad
The cloud sits heavy over Albany, NY and drips of rain slide down the windowpanes of the coach windows of Amtak train 69 “Adirondack” bound for Montréal. After a nightmarish bus journey in the opposite direction this is much more civilised. I wonder whether the border crossing is going to […]
Brussels – St Pancras – Gatwick – Montréal and onwards
Eurostar terminal Brussels on a Friday morning, 0830. Why so many people? Apparently it’s normal a stressed UK Borders passport checker informs me. Coach 17, filled with doddering pensions and Flemish children. Why can’t Eurostar do a business standard coach? And why can’t Flemish parents control their kids a bit […]