You wouldn't need to go down to Euston, you can catch the Sleeper from Preston or Crewe.
I’ve been looking at the timings for the sleeper. It makes a lot of sense coming from the south, but when you’re closer to Scotland than London, there’s nothing wrong with going in the daytime.
Land‘s End is still better than The Lizard, especially if you walk in from Sennen Cove (avoiding the high parking charges at Lands End!).
JoG isn’t even a headland, whilst the other two are on big cliffs with lighthouses (plus the short walk to the dramatic stacks of Duncansby)
I drove there, I can’t imagine there is any other option than a taxi or hire car if you arrive by rail (there’s nothing but lighthouses there!)
Sennen Cove is the other place I was thinking of that was better than Land’s End. I can’t imagine driving all the way up to Thurso or Wick, but I can’t imagine there being car hire up there either. I am a fan of places where there’s nothing at all so I’ll have to work something out. In the meantime I’m more likely to go to Ribblehead.
Surely the railway should be primarily there for the majority of people that travel? If most people are coming into Southport from outside, rather than Southport going out, then the train service should be arranged to suit that demand.
Then that begs the question do more people travel south from Thurso and Wick than visit there? Should all railway stations be evaluated more on whether they are used more by local residents or by visitors? If the latter was found to be the case, there would be a lot of people in this country who’s local railway station would not provide them with a reasonable service for where they live.
Southport to Wick is hardly a major traffic flow to justify faster train service, or that shorter block sections would make the slightest difference to this fact.
Exactly. It would be egregious abuse if anyone timetabled a direct service from Southport to Wick. It is not an unreasonable or indirect route to simply go to Scotland and reach Wick from there, as this traffic flow is justified, but does not necessarily need to be a continuous unbroken journey from Carlisle or Bewick-upon-Tweed. However, improved journey times the Southport, Far North and West Coast Main Lines could all be facilitated by linespeed increases, not to mention a more reasonable connection from Southport to the northbound WCML at Preston via the Burscough North Curve or any other improvements in Scotland. Shorter blocks won’t make any improvement if you have an infrequent service which runs to time, but longer ones give you no room to increase frequency or recover late running. I intended this thread as a list of the longest blocks on the network, but it has now become John o’Groats journey planning.
Probably not as much as the cost of resolving the infrastructure constraints.
Is this to say that infrastructure constraints should not be resolved and the service should not be improved, so as not to encourage any new passengers to use it? There notably needs to be at least 4 tracks continuously all the way from Liverpool to Stockport including the Castlefield corridor, regardless of cost, as the service is not currently good enough. Bearing in mind that it is completely straight, if the Chat Moss route was restored to 4 tracks throughout, the fast line could be increased to 125 or 140mph, facilitating a Liverpool - Manchester express journey in approximately 23 minutes. The railway should continue to receive improvements indefinitely.