Recent content by Oxfordblues

A few years ago we arrived at Fort William on the Highland Sleeper, destined Inverie (for The Old Forge, the UK mainland's most-remote pub). On the opposite platform was The Jacobite, about to depart for Mallaig, whence we would board the afternoon ferry. So we got on, expecting to have to pay a...

I booked my bike on a Friday morning train from Reading to Castle Cary but when the train arrived the cycle compartment in the 5-car IET was piled to the roof with luggage and I was unable to board. Realising the next rain to Castle Cary was in two hours I went into Paddington to make sure I...

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In April 2020 the then Tory Health Secretary announced a blanket ban on "junk food" advertising on television before the 21:00 watershed: a simple, straightforward initiative to combat the UK's dreadful diet. Five years later we are still being exhorted during every ad-break to eat unhealthy...

The Mancunian Way was built in 1961 to speed the flow of private cars across the south side of the city centre in an age when public transport was in decline, railways closing and the future lay in encouraging private motoring. It's now a complete anomaly in terms of promoting sustainable city...

One factor might be that for deliveries to England of electric vehicles the distance must be often greater than the range of the batteries, requiring long stops en-route for recharging.

Could I nominate Andover-Ludgershall? "Q"-paths most days but no real trains for a long time.

I visited the booking office at Montpellier Saint-Roch to buy a ticket for the morning departure to Madrid. I was told they couldn't sell me a ticket because the train is operated by RENFE and I would have to book on-line. I can't imagine that in the UK.

Here in Oxford the Thames Conservancy had a very short length of broad-gauge track for moving the wharf-side mobile crane at its Osney Island maintenance depot.

I for one will use it to travel from Oxford to the North. Anything to avoid standing in a hopelessly-overcrowded 4-car XC voyager.

As a child growing-up in Beaumaris in the 1950s I could just make out the steam from trains on the opposite shore of the Menai Straits, but not the trains themselves.

This has brought back a childhood memory of travelling in a 820xx-hauled train to Pwllheli and seeing a plinthed "Duchess" at Penychain.

"Manchester" Exchange was in fact in Salford and Victoria is in Manchester so for the price of a platform ticket you could make an inter-city journey simply by walking along Platform 11.

Boarding the ferry from Menorca to Majorca we were asked to show our UK passports, yet both islands are in Spain and no such request was made of all the Spanish passengers. We showed them without protest!

East of Arpley Junction will this entail reinstating the high-level bridge over the ship canal at Latchford? If so, are there any "tall ships" still traversing the canal that require such generous headroom?