Not strictly a moan about NXEA...

One of the many major irritations that come with travelling on NXEA is the crap 3G mobile phone service offered by Orange. It's got much worse since their merger with T-Mobile. It's never been brilliant but now it's dismal. Effectively there's no useable service anywhere between Stratford and Chelmsford which is a bit of a pisser when people on Vodafone and O2 seem to have no problems using their smartphones. Worse, since the merger, for an Orange user to be able to use the T-mobile signal means switching your phone from 3G to 2G. Which makes owning a smartphone somewhat pointless. Orange users were allegedly supposed to be able to use the T-Mobile 3G service, and vice versa, by now. But as usual, the technology has beaten them and the service has been postponed indefinitely. Hopeless.

Update

Just realised I haven't recorded anything on here for a few weeks. So I'll try and bring everything up-to-date.

The NXEA service remains as shite as ever. Invariably, trains run late or sometimes not at all, the infrastructure is as poor as ever, signal and overhead line problems are a daily occurence and occasional cable thefts disrupt travel for everybody.

Some incidents stand out, Friday 13th May is a case in point. Cable thieves caused utter chaos; the 0755 from Witham was 40 minutes late at Stratford.

My original Delay Repay claim for this delay was rejected by NXEA. Suitably pissed off I fired a letter off to 'em complaining they hadn't looked at their timetable, I even enclosed a page from the timetable showing them where they were wrong.

I finally received my refund together with a suitably apologetic letter.

A new timetable was introduced on 22 May, Highlights include the 1800 from Liverpool Street now stopping at Stratford as the 1809. I'm having to leave work a few minutes earlier to make this train. But so far I've been able to catch it.

The train calling at Stratford as well as Shenfield and Ingatestone means the arseholes who clog up the 1820 Clacton train don't bother with it so I now generally get myself a seat on it. Even I don't get one at Stratford, there will be one available from Shenfield. 

The train departs from the newly refurbished Platform 10A at Stratford. This platform had to be extended and resurfaced so it could handle 12 coach trains. Up to now it's been completely disused. Getting to it is a bit of a trek along a busy tunnel reached from the Jubilee Line by climbing a set of stairs and crossing over to the station exit. It's further away than Platform 10. This might need to be looked at.

Another highlight is the 0726,  this now leaves a minute earlier than before but is now timetabled to stop at Stratford at 0820. This is a full 10 minutes earlier than the 0727/0755 route I've been using since the December timetable fiasco.

Small improvements to be sure but welcome nonetheless. Roll on February.