Recent content by WAB

I've been asked for book recommendations for someone going into railway operations management. They have an interest in the history of operations in BR days, railway economics and policy, and anything more generally rail ops-related. This is 'bonus reading' for wider interest so they know...

How do you know where people are driving to? They're obviously not going to be travelling by bus as it's not great.

The Ffestiniog always had a few members or medallion holders who used the railway for travel - must've worked out cheaper and more salubrious than the Crossville bus. These days, the buses are swanky electric buses with Wifi and phone charging ports, rather than the rather basic buses of old...

Derby had c.115 in 1986 at privatisation and is now down to 75 despite being one of the stronger ops.

Within UK Bus, which are the strongest depots (outside of the areas slated for franchising in the medium term)? Derby seems alright to me, are there any others?

It'd be a lot cheaper to run the TP with two buses per hour, and services from 0530 to 2300. New high-spec vehicles and through ticketing too, of course. As it stands, the service is not much use for people wanting to get to and from Buxton and Derby, with a late start and early finish...

A lot of time and money has gone into trying to upgrade train planning systems, but not a lot of progress has been made. Large parts of the industry still work on what is effectively a souped-up version of BR's PROTIM. Let's just say that the upgrade progress hasn't matched the general advance...

Yes, to me it seems like a simple case of contacting the LOM via NR HQ in advance, briefing participants on what to do in advance (stop if not started to cross, otherwise carry on) and assigning a marshal to stop any more people from entering if the crossing activates, and ensuring that there is...

The electrics are not popular in Leeds. Slow running and going pop on the 91 leading to 1 or 2 hour gaps which is driving people away from the route, according to the drivers.

New rules would be brought in the case of nationalisation, in which case all services could be categorised as High Speed, InterCity, Regional and Local, with tickets being allowed to be restricted to one sector only regardless of who is actually running the train.

Would there be any obligation to carry proof of age to prove eligibility for adult tickets, rather than vice versa?

Then again, the railway would fall to bits if bus practices were adhered to... I seem to recall this caught out a lot of the bus companies who bidded for franchises in the early days of privatisation...

Head office roles may contract, but given the churn a lot of these roles have (support roles in particular), I don't think we'll be looking at mass redundancy; instead, recruitment freezes. I suspect a lot of the attrition will be focused in the interface roles. In control for example, you'd...

Yes, and I’d argue that having to revert to control for instructions in normal circumstances means that in emergencies, they aren’t going to be familiar or confident enough with independently making these sorts of decisions.

When the guards were abolished on LU, I'm sure it was justified by the presence of sufficient staff at stations. Since then, the number of station staff has been reduced considerably including the number of more experienced supervisors. If I'm reading it correctly, the RAIB report says there...