True stories from the Great Railway Disaster

A weekly chronicle of the absurdities caused by the Government's privatisation programme No 13: so you want to go to Bury St Edmunds?

BURY ST EDMUNDS in Suffolk is linked by rail to London via either Cambridge or Ipswich. The distance and time taken are roughly the same.

However, Martin Whitfield, a regular visitor to Bury St Edmunds, has discovered that the timetable at the station lists trains via Ipswich to Liverpool Street but does not mention services via Cambridge or Ely to King's Cross, despite the fact that certain trains going that way are faster and offer better timings. He feels that as there are only a few trains per day, it might be imagined that all services would be advertised

In fact, the relevant information is hard to come by in London, too. At Liverpool Street, timetables only exist for services via Ipswich. At King's Cross, no timetable mentions the possibility of connecting trains to Bury St Edmunds at all.

Services between Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich and Liverpool Street are operated by Anglia, while services between Cambridge, Ely and London are operated by West Anglia Great Northern. Both, of course, are still in the public sector and belong to British Rail and neither is due to be franchised to private companies until 1997 at the earliest.

Mr Whitfield wrote to ask why all trains were not listed. Patricia Timewell, customer relations officer for West Anglia Great Northern, replied: "We cannot advertise a connecting service from Bury St Edmunds to London via Cambridge as such a service does not exist. There are no guaranteed connecting services within West Anglia Great Northern nor between ourselves and our fellow train-operating companies."

Yet the BR timetable clearly shows that there are such connections.

Mrs Timewell added: "There is limited space available at Cambridge station and we do, therefore, put primary importance on advising our travellers of the services offered by West Anglia Great Northern."

The train inquiry service in London continues to give full information on both alternatives, but those at Ipswich and Cambridge favour their own services. The operator at Ipswich, for example, said there was no train to Bury from London between 2.30pm and 5pm (both Anglia trains) despite the fact that the 3.15pm and the 4.43pm from King's Cross both connect easily via Cambridge and are offered as available by inquiry staff in London.

None of this was surprising to Mrs Timewell. She wrote: "It must be taken into consideration that during the restructuring for privatisation, British Railways was split into separate companies. Consequently, we have no more jurisdiction over a fellow train-operating company, such as Regional Railways, than we have over London Underground or any other public transport company."