Recent content by 30907

There may be a crew diagram issue? But an hourly service south of Shrewsbury isn't unreasonable, and a random check suggests that the Manchester stoppers are calling additionally at Pontypool Rd.

...via a LE movement which caught me by surprise when I was expecting the locos to be working the non-stop. Stopping service trains to "water the grass" isn't uncommon - happened at least once on Saturday to my knowledge. 75078 at fault presumably - slightly embarrassing to those of us who...

Terminating them at Woking relieves Woking Jn as well as economising on (largely empty) mileage.

Not on those routes. 2 minutes is the official connecting time at Manningtree, but you have to use the subway, and the Norwich train won't wait. You will make the 0709, so rather than hang around at Harwich I would try for the connection - the worst case is ending up on the 0745 from Ipswic...

Where is the nearest diesel stock spare on a Saturday? I don't think the MML has anything to spare, nor WM or Northern.

The Stevenage ticket is undoubtedly valid from Bickley (or further north) via Swanley as Bickley-Sevenoaks is a through train. It is just over 3 miles further.

Magdeburg lies on a major freight route IIRC. Dessau-Woerlitz is worth investigating, the latter being a popular tourist destination. Otherwise, I second the Harzquerbahn/Selketalbahn and Halberstadt trams (and Cathedral); from a tourist POV Quedlinburg as well.

Any timetable rewrite for the Leeds route is unlikely to include extra trains, as the capacity is reasonably matched to demand. Clitheroe-Hellifield/Ribblehead would be a separate project. An additional round trip at 1205 or 1305 could be managed with no extra stock, but I can't see it would be...

Fratton guard, perhaps? Though Fareham as a terminus is nothing new in itself.

An unusual situation which I am not sure is exactly covered by the regulations. The rules clearly allow you to buy your ticket from onboard staff or at destination if you are unable to use the TVM and no booking office is available. Do they allow you to defer buying your ticket online because...

Grays has a bay platform?

11 years ago the Queen arrived at Blackburn by train - but Blackburn is rather easier to manage operationally than Durham :) Someone will no doubt know when she previously distributed the Royal Maundy at Durham and how she arrived.

There are two paths per hour; the next one is occupied by a Morecambe. The 1336 is only loosely related to the one-time Glasgow train which ran a couple of hours later. It would now make better sense for it to leave at 1250 or 1258 (in the latter case omitting Long Preston/Gargrave but giving a...

This is an unlikely scenario: a train company cannot prosecute you without evidence that you actually misused tickets, and they would be out of time anyway. They could possibly go down the civil claim route, but so far this seems a rare occurrence. What is far more likely is that they will...

Harwich-Scotland rather than Blackpool for a couple of years in the early 80s. Before the regular Norwich-Liverpool and Cleethorpes-Manchester were introduced, Sheffield-Manchester trains in the 80s had a whole raft of origins and destinations, cleverly cobbling together various shorter distance...