Won't deliver-can't deliver

[Erfolg]

Cease offence, immediately, it was, Country.

 

My granddaughter , who was asked with the rest of her class to paint her national flag, by another foreign import (like myself)  teacher, painted a blue and white flag. Being told that this was not the national flag, as there was no red, or it should be red and white. Said, this is my national flag, as much as than those other flags, (many of which apparently were non UK).

 

My son-in-law, decided to take a low key approach. Reassuring my granddaughter. It did make us all think, of how others perceive the UK.

[Eck]

No problem, Erf, I was only pulling your leg. I know plenty of people who get really upset about such things, but people are entitled to their own perceptions. It is not for us to impose ours on them.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Scotland do sometimes compete in certain county cricket competitions...

[Eck]

Cricket? ....nope, sorry!

[Doug Ireland]

Got an email from 'er indoors this morning, my wayward DHL parcel finally arrived in Peterhead yesterday after its round trip to Englandshire and back!

 

By the way Eck, there is quite a bit of cricket played in Scotland! A mate of mine showed me his bowling figures for when he played at Banff (and other places), very impressive!

[leccyflyer]

Posted by Erfolg on 16/12/2010 21:45:27:.

 

I am not sure which motorway you are referring to. Our route was straightforward, M6/M74 then across to Stirling to Perth, Dundee. Aberdeen. Unfortunately the A9 is chaos at present, the upgrade is much needed though.

 

Aberdeen is fine, it is inland up into the hills where the problems still exist, or did. Our Transit having great difficulty at times.

 

No amount of good will overcomes these problems.

 

Correct. 

 

That's my "commute" from the NW of England which I've been doing for at least 25 years now, on a very regular basis and it dramatically improved with the M74 upgrade. Unfortunately the A9 has been a bit problematical for a while, and particularly the past couple of years. It only needs a jack-knifed wagon, or a couple of cars to get stuck and things rapidly spiral out of control there. It makes one reluctant to set off, knowing that there is a problem there just waiting to happen.

 

So 90% of the trip can be fine, but that one bottleneck can wreck the whole journey and, if the alternates get hit as well, as happened last week with the M8 closed, then it is easy to see how the NE can effectively be shut off by road, even when much of the area is passable. If it had been vital, I could have taken the extra few hours that getting into the centre of Edinburgh and crawling through the congestion to get to the Forth Road Bridge, but it just snarls everything up for everyone.

 

The other notable blackspot in the past couple of years is at the Temple of Fiddes, where the wind howling across the open territory there can cause horrendous driving conditions., even when the rest of the A90 is blacktop all the way. These are not single track roads, they are decent, high speed, dual carriageways, but it doesn't take much to close them down, because of the topography and basic set-up, on quite short stretches. Long hill, snow and ice, drifting and normally equipped vehicles = occasional problems, albeit very localised.

 

The AA travel map last week showed everywhere as passable, with a few delays, but two prominent "0mph" bits, that cut the NE off for hours at a time.

 

The airports were not much better - a clubmate who is a Captain with a UK airline took his passengers on an extended tour of Scottish airports, with them each closing in turn, had a couple of landings and take offs, before eventually bringing the passengers back to where they had set off from, five hours earlier.

[Eck]

Doug- yes I know, I used to be a reasonable bowler in my schooldays (many yearsago). There is also a decent club at Forfar, about 15 miles up the A90 from me. I'm just playing the "ignorant Jock" for fun.

[Erfolg]

Leccyflyer

 

I totally agree, The Temple of Fiddes is the open curving descent, near Burns birthplace and the Knights Templar Church (long gone I have been told), isn't it.

 

Aberdeen is quite well served by road, though it will be the end of the distribution system, rather than a central hub. For many English people, it would come as quite a surprise that from Dundee to Aberdeen is about 60 miles, with no towns or village on the road. All towns and villages being some distance from this road, not merely by passed.

 

Inverness is not as well served by any stretch of the imagination. The number of times I have traveled this road hoping that the snow gates were not closed was to numerous, whilst also worried that I could get in or out..

 

I am not sure about the West to East road A82?, Fort William to Inverness. I have traveled part of it in winter. Going to the John Cobb memorial, water falls and a few walks. I found it intimidating as the wind blew a icy blast along the Loch, what appeared to be a constantly in the winter. Summer quite differant.

 

I do believe distribution of the outlying areas of Scotland is a real challenge. Though I still have some issues in considering Aberdeen and Inverness as the Highlands for post etc.

 

There can be little excuse for non-delivery to Glasgow and Edinburgh though.

 

 By and large Scotland is a unspoilt, not an overly populated country, where driving is not fraught with the congestion problems of most of Urban England. Yet bad weather can then become a very lonely challenge.

 

Edited By Erfolg on 17/12/2010 12:23:24

[Tony Smith 7]

Posted by Erfolg on 16/12/2010 18:55:27

 

I cannot believe that the Scottish capital is served by a twisting "A" road from the south, where is the Motorway befitting the capitol.

 

 

That was what I misunderstood.   I assumed you were referring to Edinburgh when you wrote "Scottish capital".

 

As for deliveries, I'm at work at the moment and we are getting our orders OK.  Some are coming a day later, but most are next day including goods that I ordered from Cirencester.

[flytilbroke]

We have 5 to 6 inch/13 to 15 Cms of snow at Fort William. Bit less in many areas as the Traffic Cameras show. Quite surprised I am as in some of the areas I would have expected it to be much worse.

My nearest and Dearest brought home from WHSmith "RC Model World" so I have something to read. Not seen any sign from Royal Mail of my RCM&E mag. Can't say I am too surprised as thier distribution system has a strange sense. Fort William classed under PH which is Perth means our mail travels from the Eastern Trunk Road route instead of Glasgow which would make more sense.

[Mark Millward]

Flytilbroke,  what site do you use for your traffic cameras ?

     Mark

[flytilbroke]

Traffic Scotland, Mark. Updated every five minutes so nearly "Live"

[flytilbroke]

P'raps no mail reached Fort William today as I never saw any Post Vans around. Normally at this time of year we have them working all weekend with Temporary Staff too. I don't blame any delivery firms for not being out today on the local residantial roads although there were a few (very) few. Most of the main roads are not too bad.

[Tony Smith 7]

I heard a good one today, from a business in an Aberdeenshire town.  The carrier claimed they couldn't deliver from the City depot which was as far as they'd got the shipment.  They wanted the customer to come and collect. 

 

How does that work again?    Its the same journey over the same roads, on the same day!!  So why does the carrier say its impossible, but still expect the customer to be able to collect (which they did of course).   

[flytilbroke]

Another Carrier has Problems too. As mentioned on another thread as well,,, Our favourite Mags are in WHSmith, so the carriers get through. Royal Mail can't it seems

 

Given the Mags get even into the Highlands, this does not say much for all the Suppliers who cancelled Scotland for the duration. Still

[Erfolg]

Flying til broke

 

Have some suppliers actually cancelled, or trying to manage expectations in the event of not being able to deliver, due to unseen events.

 

I have just returned from Ilkley, which takes you over the Pennines. Whilst driving and descending an apparently untreated road into Colne, I could not reflect that you cannot always get through, what ever the wife was telling me.

 

I did bring home to me that it only takes one impassable bit, to make the other 60 miles ( distance from home to Ilkley) of road, of little use.

 

Getting home, my wife complained that the coat ordered that was on delayed delivery of 4 weeks, was in the dustbin, according to the carriers note. This was a full 3 weeks early. Shows you cannot satisfy some people!

 

 

[flytilbroke]

Erfolg, a whole bunch of Suppliers stopped taking any orders from Scotland supposedly due to both having a backlog still to deliver and also weather related transport problems. What has irritated many of us is that we were singled out as a Country. No attempt was made to do a first come first served by including ANY other part of the UK in this blanket ban of thiers.

 

Royal Mail. We did not see much of the big push to catch up, today. In fact we did not see ANY Royal Mail activity. Not the footsloggers,, but a Top Management issue I think. Which has been ongoing for a long time.

[Tony Smith 7]

Personally I think it was the snow in England that set it all off.   I can't otherwise see the crisis about conditions that, although not pleasant, are pretty much to be expected every winter in Scotland.   As I say in Aberdeenshire its no where near as severe as last April let alone over last Christmas and into January.  No big news about blacklisting Scotland back then.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Erfolg]

Eric

 

How could you? Call me a muppet.

 

Here near Manchester it is a lot deeper than 1", probably about 3" plus.

 

I was very surprised that parts of the A6068 did not appear to be gritted, as was not Colne.

 

Flying til broke I am no fan of the Post Office, yet I suspect it is not just them who will not guarantee the original postal dates.

 

I obviously do not know all the issues, yet suspect that the problems lay in the Central Belt, as on my journey there was ample evidence of snow around north Glasgow. These poor conditions lasted to just past Dundee.

 

I think it is to easy to loose sight that just because all appears well where we are, the situation can be a lot different just down the road.

 

On my Ilkley journey the temp was -5C in Illkley and all was relatively well. Near Colne, in the hills the temp was -8C, and treacherous as the road seemed untreated. In this instance was the Lancashire/Yorkshire boundary the issue? At home South Manchester a warm -2C. Oh so different.

 

I do sympathise with the plight of rural Scotland and England. As the issues are so similar. Having lived until recently in rural Cumbria, I know how difficult it can be to get to a major road. In my case non of us in my village could get back into the village by car, when it snowed.

 

 

[Tony Smith 7]

Just received a package at work, ordered late on Thursday so that's a day late, but I guess it may not have been dispatched the same day.  That was Parcel Force.

 

The irony  ....   it was five sets of "snow socks" for the new company cars that some of the support guys have, which are completely useless on ice.

[flytilbroke]

We have only seen two Independant carriers plus one Parcel van today. Normally we would see at least six. Parcel Force was not in the street for long so obviously did not have much to deliver.

Postie put two cards and one local junk mail through the letter box, this when we have about a quarter of our normal cards in yet. Including some overdue by a week according to folks on the phone. No Mag. still, they do arrive via a stupid route, via Perth in the East.

[MarkyMarc]

Well - I ordered an amazon Kindle last Friday morning - and it arrived on Saturday.

[Tony Smith 7]

I just saw an Ebay listing where postage is stated to be by Royal Mail second class post - but they want to charge an extra £5.00 for delivery to Highlands.  

[Bryce Allcorn - BritFlight.co.uk]

TNT emailed yesterday to say that they were not guaranteeing next day delivery anywhere due to the back-log - so we've been working manically to get all orders out before the Wednesday cut-off only to find TNT say tough!

Royal Mail seem to be taking  3 days to deliver a special delivery and I have some people who I sent recorded stuff to Monday last week and it still isn't there.