Bellatrix27

Was at Somerleyton Marina yesterday, working on the boat. Not a particularly hot day, bridge was closed when we arrived apparently also closed the day before. Inexplicably opened at around 2-3 pm - it had not started snowing so not sure why. Could not spot a single passenger on any carriage. Yes guys, when you buy a ticket you are not just paying for your ride but all those empty trains that run in the hours you are not on them. This is a bit similar to me, I pay a BA toll of several hunderd and currently get to use 1 mile of the Broads most of the time. Btw, train may fill up later but SSB only connects three stations before the end of the line. I have to ask, if the bridge has an issue with the heat, maybe try to stop it getting hot? Anyone who has left a bit of bare steel out in the sun for a couple of hours will know they will get a nasty burn if they try to pick it up. The ambient temp may only be 26c or so, but the metal absorbs energy and heats up well past that point. Can they not engineer a sun canopy system to keep the sun off? Furthermore it is right next to a bloody river so they would have no shortage of water for an aerosol cooling system to deal with high ambient temperature. These measures would be relatively cheap, but they won't do that because the old boy's network ensures that when work IS done, it has a decent price tag and goes to the "right" engineering firm. There's no money in low-volume, lower cost solutions.

Ruined our planned two day trip. We are at Somerleyton Marina, right next door and can only go through the swing bridge due to our mast. Stepping it is a major undertaking. The bridge was closed in the morning, it was not that hot. We've had much hotter days midsummer when the bridge was OK. We went out on Monday before this, luckily just a day trip. I dread to think what would have happened if we had stayed overnight on Monday. We would have been trapped on the Oulton side for two days. We don't get any compensation for this. If we were rail passengers we could at least claim our money back. The signage is a joke, a "melting X" with random letters under it. Maybe it was code for "we don't care".