Travelling to Stanstead was the first time I used the Railway for a considerable time, Ripon not having a rail station (victim of Mr Beeching in the 1960's). I went from York and changed trains at Peterborough. My friend who has an Ataxia also went with me. He travelled in a wheel chair so we had to book assistance to get on and off the trains.
I thought I would write about our experience, not all bad but mixed with a few hassles.
I set off on the local bus to York. Ripon is only 27miles from York as the crow flies but tell that to the bus company. We had a grand tour of North Yorkshire. I don't have any disabled problems and the bus seemed to be equipt for wheel-chairs, the front of the bus drops down to allow wheel-chairs on and there is a space at the front of the bus for them. But people seemed to use the space for luggage.
Arriving at York Station I met my friend who lived in Driffield and travelled by Taxi with no apparent problems. We had a coffee on the Station and then contacted the assisted passage staff who took us down and up the lifts on the subway and we waited for our train. When it arrived a ramp was put down and he pushed my friend to our booked seats. I asked him if he had informed the stations down the line and he said it was all on the computer..
We arrived at Peterborough on time and some one was waiting for us at the station to take us over the ramped bridge to the platform for our next train to Stanstead. No real problems so far except for a battle with electric door of the toilet, the button seemed to be nearly out of reach from a wheel chair, not a problem for my friend because I was with him and could rescue him. Would have been a bit like the song about the three old ladies been stuck for a week and no one knowing they were there! if he had travelled alone.
Our Stanstead train arrived the ramps arranged after trying to stop everyone else from trying push themselves on the train. We did get aboard and he disappeared leaving my friend in the corridor. One space occupied by another ataxian, the other with luggage and another able bodied passenger. The time pasted very quickly as we chatted with each other ( again problems with the toilet, this time because there was a ledge across the bottom of the door of the toilet that made it difficult to manoeuvre a wheel chair over it) and soon we were at Stanstead. The staff here were very good, a man by the name of Phil unloaded the three of us and took us all the way to the hotel not more than 100 yards away.
At this point i am going to break my story.
Last year my friend and went to Leicester to the conference we went by car and could not find the hotel ending back on the M1. We had to go 11miles down it to come back only to discover we had been within spitting distance of the Hotel. We got lost on the way back, I was so tired I missed a juction and nearly ended in Grimsby. This year we had hardly seemed to have set of from York when we arrived at the hotel in Stanstead.
Let the train take the strain! Part two of the story which did not go as smoothly I will tell later.
holiday in zante
Out for a walk
Vitamin D and balance shoes
To scoot or not to scoot...
