Recent content by The exile

25 Apr 2024 Roma Valle Aurelia Roma Trastevere Roma Porta Maggiore Roma Termini Roma Tiburtina Roma Ostiense Roma Porta San Paolo Roma Basilica San Paolo Cavour Italy Total: 82

24 Apr 2024 Salfords UK Total: 2478 Valle Aurelia Termini Roma Laziale Roma Centocelle Parco di Centocelle San Giovanni Ponte Lungo Roma Tuscolana Roma San Pietro Italy Total: 73

IIRC these are the renewals plans, not the enhancements. How much money will be available for any of those remains to be seen!

No doubt that link is relevant to a certain extent but it’s not all about x minutes shaved off the running time. As a passenger, my journey is not station to station but involves bits at either end. You can shave 5 minutes off my train journey - but if all that means is that I have to stand in...

Probably depends on how many of the closed routes were substantially single track. Guessing fewer than we might now suppose. Certainly losses such as the GC and Waverley routes would have helped boost the “track miles” - double track (at least) throughout

I was under the impression that “train tracks” were to be found on some teenagers’ teeth.

We have spent years “putting money back in the taxpayers’” pockets. Unfortunately there has been no corresponding realisation that you gets what you pays for. Want Swiss style railways? Pay Swiss style taxes!

Presumably at the time you got up there had been no announcements about approaching New Street.

Or further city centre infrastructure. The Manchester network has reached a size where there should be no single points of failure in the centre. That’s be expensive, though!

I would imagine this is a case of discretion being the better part of valour on the staff’s part. It is not good if other passengers are made to feel totally uncomfortable but it may well be that not antagonising them was considered the best possible action in the circumstances. Short of...

Portion working isn’t always for tailoring train length, though. It may be the only viable way of getting a through service to more than one destination when only one path is available in a congested area.

That in itself is indicative of poor decision making - there should always be a contingency reserve.

The Kent loops are, I would guess, mainly aimed at the “premium dining” market - with the fact that it’s a steam train being little more than the icing on the cake. They have a huge potential market (London and Home Counties) on their doorstep. No disrespect to Llanelli, but the HoW is in a...

Probably more a case of being led to expect absolute perfection and (unsurprisingly) not finding it. This former German resident (from the times when in the eyes of British visitors and journalists German railways could do no wrong) remembers that yes - it was good - but nowhere near as perfect...

There are many readons for the different models - one being population density /distribution - another being the explosion of long-distance commuting, in particular to London (ironically encouraged by those intercity services). IIRC, pre COVID there were more annual season ticket holders from...