Recent content by Western Lord

It very much depends on where your door is. I can be at Stansted in twenty minutes, it would take me about an hour and a half to get to St. Pancras!

As ever, one person's new station is another person's extended journey time.

Ken Bruce is late for his show again!

Perhaps it could be parked alongside the Royal Yacht Britannia at Leith!

Royal transportation has been going downhill for years. First The Queen's Flight was disbanded, then The Royal Yacht, now The Royal Train. No doubt the Royal State Limousines will be replace with Chinese BEVs.

I seem to recall that the locomotive of choice for the Derby Day Royal Train was a Stratford based Class 31 as the SR did not have any steam heat locos. When the stock was converted to ETH the Stratford men were somewhat miffed to lose the job.

Check out the Nantes-Bourdeaux line. In the last few years SNCF have reduced the central section of it to single track as they have no desire to increase the service level beyond the five or so trains a day. In this country such a link would be hourly. They would much rather people used TGVs...

It's a pity that the former RAF Usworth was not chosen as the North East's airport. Back in the fifities there was plenty of open land for a longer runway. Unfortunately it was part of Sunderland and therefore unacceptable to Newcastle, who built at RAF Woolsington instead, as far away from...

Although a southbound platform on the curve was built in 1878, Weymouth to Bournemouth trains had to reverse into the terminal platform until 1970.

French train drivers don't wear uniforms.

Ships officers wear shorts. Strictly speaking this is tropical kit, but very many years ago on a trip to the Scilly Isles on a warm and sunny day the Captain of the Scillionian III appeared on the bridge wing in full tropical whites.

On our crowded island few trains these days make long non stop runs. If you want to maximise capacity you should reduce the difference between fastest and slowest trains, not increase it. It also requires a lot of energy (i.e. cost) to accelerate a train to high speed.

Although the Melton-Nottingham line went right through it, West Bridgford never had a station. Presumably too close to Nottingham to be worthwhile, like a lot of the places mentioned on this thread (that is close to other places with stations, not close to Nottingham!).

50 odd posts to get the right answer. I wish the speed merchants on here would realise how much more higher speeds would cost, just to save a couple of minutes. There's a very good case for reducing speeds in some cases, I've long been of the opinion that the GW main line would be better off...

Does levelling UP mean London house prices "oop North"?