Recent content by Philip

Do you think Northern should adopt the TfW example with their 197s and fit a 'standard plus' upgrade area into some of their Civity trains, for routes like Calder Valley, Hope Valley, Manchester to Blackpool and Cumbria? Even though the purpose of Northern is not to provide a full first class...

Or perhaps Northern could reinstate the Southport-Alderley Edge direct and also extend to Nantwich or Whitchurch, using bi-mode 769s to make use of the wires between Wigan-Manchester-Crewe?

Is there currently enough demand for rail travel from Nantwich, Whitchurch and Wem to justify these stations having an hourly service interval rather than the current system? I know it won't be popular having all services from Manchester making these extra stops, so is there a strong case for an...

What are people's opinions on the idea of a grand coalition of Labour & Conservative taking us through the next few years? The last time we had one was during the last world war and it did seem to work and unite the country. Today the situation isn't as critical as in the 1940s, but you could...

I seem to recall the train was slowing down for Nantwich. This was still just about in BR days, so my thought was whether either Crewe or Shrewsbury traincrew signed 142s in the 90s, or whether some Piccadilly/Victoria/Lime Street traincrew learned the Crewe-Shrewsbury route then, which would...

Does anyone remember class 142s working Crewe-Shrewbury services in the 90s? I can vividly remember seeing one crossing the canal near Nantwich heading towards Crewe around 95-96 (can remember hearing the clickety-clack too!). Did they used to work the shuttle service regularly, even the...

Do you think a new smaller city centre station for Sheffield could be built at Nunnery Junction, specifically aimed at the Worksop & Stocksbridge lines but also with low level platforms for the MML to make it a small interchange? There does appear to be a limited amount of space in the area to...

If a passenger asks to buy a ticket on a route where we know there are split savings available, we'll offer the relevant split. Sometimes on a rather overpriced routes we'll check anyway to see if there is a saving to be made, and if so offer it. We don't refuse to offer split tickets off our...

Historically booking offices have been advised/told not to offer split tickets and to only offer them for sale if the passenger asks for them. However, in the interests of both customer service and in helping to persuade people to use the ticket office over online booking systems, are we now at...

Cardiff to Nottingham wouldn't be a bad shout nonetheless and Barton depot is on the route and has the advantage of being an Alstom depot. The XC 170s could easily find work elsewhere; EMR, Northern & Chiltern being the most likely as all 3 TOCs already operate Turbostars with suitable depot...

With a 175 now being stored/repaired at Barton-under-Needwood (near Burton-on-Trent), I suppose it's worth considering whether Cross Country could find some use for the units, being an all-diesel TOC? Possibly Cardiff-Nottingham to free up 170s which could in turn go to EMR, Northern (both to...

Any idea why it's going to Barton-under-Needwood?

It's the first mile I'm referring to, why does it remain 60mph for such a long way past the Colwich Jn?

Even if both Southport services went into Victoria, it would still be an easy change at either Bolton or Salford to connect to Piccadilly or the Airport, so I don't see why the direct service from Southport is so imperative? In relation to the original point of this thread, I'm not suggesting...

The timetable has been designed really well given how much needs to fit in and the infrastructure constraints, but no one can deny that it doesn't take much delay of a train to potentially cause numerous delays of services across hundreds of miles, particularly at Colwich if there's a train via...