Talk:Motorail (British Rail)

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Kensington Olympia

IIRC, there's also quite a bit of signage around Kensington Olympia railway station; eg. I think the main Olympia exhibition centre will still called "Motorail Car Park 4" or something. —Sladen (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Incomplete Map

I think the map is incomplete: there used to be Motorail services originating from Ely in Cambridgeshire. I know for a fact there was an Ely-Stirling service but not sure if that was the only route that involved Ely66.134.170.155 (talk) 16:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More Map Data

I think the line ran down to Folkstone as well but unsure of route 81.156.169.68 (talk) 23:42, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

pricing

Does any reader have information on the service's pricing? Three reasons for failure: cost? Why mostly sleeper services? (Surely avoiding crowded motorways during the day is a selling point?) and ease of access. Any thoughts? qhb (talk) 10:03, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Double Decker use re: Kensington Olympia

My family used Motorail a lot during the 1970's many times a year and the only car carrying units were standard wood floored flats with crampon style chocks hammered into the wooden floor and special anti-vandal and anti-diesel shields placed on car windscreens. The Euston service I seem to remember used still the enclosed coaches which were not popular with owners of larger cars due to the risk of paint scraping and damage and the extra complication of having to load the cars some distance away, shunt the car carriers to await the passenger coaches and then proceed northwards. I believe the westward running services saw the two tier units, cannot confirm this as we never used the west country service.

My late father was held over by BR one fateful night at Olympia (may have been 73 or 74) when a shunter was speared by a shifting consist killing him instantly, my father was the ranking BR man on site and spent two days with the inquiry whilst British Rail hosted my mother, myself and brother in the railway hotel in Inverness, the trip was further compounded when my father's car was unloaded at Stirling necessitating further time at the hotel whilst BR sorted its problems out. Incorrect designation of car flats wasn't a rare thing with one rather heated set of car owners arriving in Scotland to find their cars had been left behind back in London. Another moment I seem to recall was where the train supervisor left the "keys board" in the office at Kensington and a rather red faced panic to get the board up by express services as no car could be moved off the flats without the cars keys.

Loaders too were not bothered and did not treat customer's cars with any real care or attention, often sitting in cars wearing oily overalls and no protection for the interior's.

The service was quite poor from Kensington Olympia, it involved back then many many engine changes, with diesel from KO to pick up at Willesden to hook up an electric, that went as far as Crewe and another electric was put on to Birmingham and so forth. At Carlisle ScR engines would come down to fetch the quite long train to take up to Carstairs then a run to Mossend where the train if it had multiple destinations was quite violently shunted, split and carried on. Engine change if memory serves me right again at Perth with more violent shunting as the Perth flats were unhooked then the final run for the Inverness which invariably met higher priority traffic necessitating long waits in passing loops.

Finally, the stock invariably was compartmented corridor MK1's where adults used the bench seats and children were given seat squabs to make up a rudimentary mattress, the heating regardless of season was always set on maximum and with that and the lack of care by drivers when changing engines saw very few passengers get any sleep. Nor was there any form of buffet and customers had to rely on flasks and bottled drinks to get through the roasting hot night. The only consolation was Kensington's Traveller's Fare opened late for the embarking customers.

It really wasn't a pleasant experience, it was also very expensive and my father reverted to driving the distance than carry on using Motorail and the staff reduction was negligible.

2.97.46.84 (talk) 02:50, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

London terminal

At least in its later years, Motorail used London Euston station. This is not mentioned in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:30B0:C600:E193:672D:9C2F:33CC (talk) 19:40, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]