This thread is for talking about railways, and things related to railways, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Trips, tracks, tickets, trains and stations, they're all good - making up rules is boring so let's just be normal. Questions are, of course, most welcome.
If you feel like travelling, head over to National Rail Enquiries (
nationalrail.co.uk/); tell it where you're leaving from and where you're going to, and it'll tell you how you're going to get there; then it'll hand you over to a train operator to buy a ticket. The golden rule is that it doesn't matter which train operator you buy a ticket from, as they'll all sell you a ticket from anywhere to anywhere, for the same price. If you're a visitor from overseas, your best option is probably Trainline (
thetrainline.com/) - they charge a booking fee on top of the ticket price, but they'll accept just about any payment card. There's also
trip.com/, who are apparently a 'thing' with overseas students: I've not used these myself, so please speak up with any thoughts.
Here's a few links:
~The Man in Seat 61 (
seat61.com/) - easily the best rail travel resource out there.
~Geoff Marshall (
youtube.com/@geofftech2) - Likes trains. Mostly harmless.
~A Visual History of Railway Rolling Stock in Great Britain (
gaelan.me/br-stock/)
~Realtimetrains (
realtimetrains.co.uk/) - live train timetables: ideal for keeping on top of ETAs and platforms.
~TIGER (tiger.worldline.global/home/) - live station departure boards.
~Traksy (
traksy.uk/live/) - live signalling information.
~Openrailwaymap (
openrailwaymap.org/) - railway infrastructure, mapped.
What's happening?
~Phase One of High Speed 2 (Birmingham-London):
hs2.org.uk/~Belfast Grand Central:
weaverscross.co.uk/belfast-transport-hub/~The Transpennine Route Upgrade (electrifying the Liverpool-York mainline):
thetrupgrade.co.uk/~The Midland Main Line electrification (still no website!)
~The East Coast Digital Programme:
nextgenerationrailway.co.uk/ 