Additionally, the non-car borne shoppers visited several shops on each trip, and went shopping more frequently, so it could be argued that they are more frequently exposed to impulse buys.

There’s more about how this and how cyclists make better shoppers on Copenhagenize.com – the Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog.

We do all our shopping by bike – it’s surprising what you can fit into panniers.

Frustratingly, Virgin and Cross Country trains whizz up and down the line all day, but even when these services did stop here regularly, it was never on Sundays, for some mysterious reason.

Northern refuse to improve the situation – stating their problem being reliable staffing, as Sunday working is voluntary.   So I’ve just asked Cross Country if they could consider stopping in Congleton on Sundays. They replied that the request would be passed on to the timetable planners.  Unfortunately, it’s the government and not the train operators that dictate timetables, and ‘timetable planners’ seem to be anonymous office workers, so it’s difficult to pinpoint who to pressurise.  East Cheshire Line Rail Users’ Group (ECLRUG) is good at doing this, but it takes a long time to change things (10 years, in fact, to reinstate our hourly service on weekdays).

Northern always talks about no demand.  But have you ever been asked what train service you’d like?   No.   And have you ever asked the train operators or the government for more trains?

If you want to help put on the pressure for a proper train service on Sundays, you could join ECLRUG and also email or write to Cross Country (find their email address here). If we don’t ask, we’ll never get.  If we do ask, and keep asking, we just might get.  One day.  Preferably Sunday(s).