Recent content by swaldman

With nobody paying less than £265 for a cabin on the Highlander (well, railcards I guess), you'd think they could let everybody use the lounge...

Thanks! And maybe I have rose tinted spectacles re how quick it used to be. 1712838822 Frequently one can save an hour by changing (historically at Perth, I guess now also at Stirling). I always assumed that alternate trains down the HML went to Edinburgh and Glasgow, but it's probably more...

This week, for the first time in a year or two, I was on Scotrail services between Inverness and Edinburgh. In both directions we went via Stirling and Bridge of Allen rather than using the Forth Bridge. This seems to add 30-40 mins to the jouney time, which isn't very welcome. When did this...

I have fond memories of sitting in one of the ancient old lounge cars and trundling through Camden on the North London Line on one of those occasions. I think the highlander departed a couple of hours earlier than usual to allow for the reversing etc. 1712419085 You always had the *option* to...

What I'm hearing is a small chorus of "it's affordable with a railcard!". Which sums up UK rail pricing in general, IMHO :(

I'm travelling from Inverness. Or, actually, a significant distance from Inverness, but that's the relevant sleeper stop. I'm trying to book well ahead, so on day trains I would be using Advance tickets. The day train from Inverness to London is currently £74.10 on similar dates. To be fair, I'd...

Assuming the Senior Railcard is a 30% discount (I'm not sure if that applies to the sleeper supplement) then that £125 is £179 full fare. That still feels like a lot, but not as outrageous. Sounds like it's £86 extra for the Inverness route :-/ I wonder whether the majority of users are...

Wow. Clearly some people have a lot of money to spare.

Planning a trip, and considered using the sleeper for the first time since the new stock came in. Took one look at the prices - minimum of £265 for Inverness -> London, five months ahead - and quickly dismissed that idea. Clearly this is no longer a service for normal people; we have to fly and...

Is that really allowed? Surely if the crossing is open then the signal protecting it must be red?? (not an expert)

SWR are particularly bad at this. Some years ago (it might actually have been SWT) I listened and noted that the automated announcements never stopped at all from before the doors closed at Waterloo until after we had left Vauxhall. It was literally continuous. So of course our minds tune them out.

I still maintain that when the train is replaced with a bus, the fare I paid should be refunded to the value of the equivalent National Express fare. NX buses are faster and more comfortable than most RRBs, so if I'm getting a worse service I shouldn't be paying more. RRBing *can* be done...

Running *reliably* matters politically. AFAIK this isn't too much of an issue to Scotrail right now, but it certainly matters for eg TPE or Avanti (where it affects London-based journalists) and does get some attention. Running *without overcrowding* is also very important to the people who use...

Somebody may correct me, but I don't think they're the same HST sets. The Scotrail ones are ex-GWR, not ex-LNER. Now I have no idea whether it's down to the depot, or the trains, or a combination of the two... but both do seem to be options.

That's if you *get* a 4+2. I'm sitting right now, surrounded by American tourists, on a 170 that was meant to be a 4+2. It is.... crowded. And the frustrating / enraging thing about it is that this is just how things were when I left Scotland in 2018... I come back five years later and nothing...