This thread is for talking about railways, and things related to railways, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Big intercity trains, modest rural trains, long freight trains, the stations they work in - we love them all.
The usual interesting links:
~The Man in Seat 61 (
seat61.com/ ) - the best rail travel resource out there for the UK, the EU, and beyond, bar none.
~Trainline (
thetrainline.com/ ) - probably the best option for overseas visitors wishing to purchase tickets.
~National Rail Enquiries (
nationalrail.co.uk/ ) - will show you the possible options for travelling by train, and link you to the train operator's website to buy a ticket. It doesn't matter which train operator you buy a ticket from, they'll all sell you a ticket from anywhere to anywhere for the same price.
~Realtimetrains (
realtimetrains.co.uk/ ) - track your train in real-time: ideal for keeping on top of your ETA and platform numbers.
~TIGER (tiger.worldline.global/home/) - live station departure boards.
~Traksy (
traksy.uk/live/ ) - live signalling information.
~Openrailwaymap (
openrailwaymap.org/ ) - for finding existing and disused railway infrastructure.
What's happening?
~Phase One of High Speed 2 (Birmingham-London):
hs2.org.uk/ ~Belfast Great Victoria Street re-construction as 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 (no website!)
~The East Coast Digital Programme:
nextgenerationrailway.co.uk/ What's kind of happening, but not quite yet?
~Great British Railways: indirectly mentioned in the recent King's Speech, zip otherwise.
~Avanti's Class 805 and 807 trains will slowly begin appearing in December; EMR's Class 810s are in production.
~East West Rail (Oxford-Cambridge rail link) is still in the planning stage.
~Crossrail 2 (north-south London rail link) is safeguarded, but... probably decades away.
Anonymous
What's in the news lately?
~Tree trespasses on railway line (
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp4pqpgx0pxo/ )
~Legislation needed to form Great British Railways won't happen before next year's General Election (
independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/rail-reforms-uk-trains-general-election-b2448496.html )
~Plans to close ticket offices in England have been scrapped following massive response to consultation (
theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/31/rail-ticket-office-closures-in-england-train-operators/ )
~...and off the back of this, the long-running strike-action saga may soon be coming to a close (
theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/08/rmt-and-train-operators-reach-breakthrough-in-national-rail-row/ )
~Virgin plan to challenge Eurostar's monopoly on Channel Tunnel trains (
railtech.com/all/2023/11/13/virgin-tunnel-richard-branson-could-challenge-eurostar-monopoly/ )
~...as does the Dutch startup Heuro (
railtech.com/all/2023/11/14/new-dutch-player-heuro-to-compete-with-eurostar-to-lower-prices/ )
~Timetables change next month (
nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/timetable-changes/ )
Cool stuff to do? (suggestions welcome!)
~
lner.co.uk/our-destinations/popular-destinations/trains-to-york/things-to-do-in-york/ - take a trip at 125mph from King's Cross to York. Make sure to spend an hour or two in the National Railway Museum near York station, and take in York Castle and the city's Viking history exhibits afterward.
~
avantiwestcoast.co.uk/where-we-go/destination-guides/lake-district/ - journey through the Dales into Oxenholme, and go mountain biking through the gorgeous natural scenery of the Lake District national park.
~sleeper.scot/destination/ftw/ - take the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Fort William, then change onto the
westcoastrailways.co.uk/jacobite/steam-train-trip/ Jacobite steam train that'll take you over the famous Glenfinnan 'Harry Potter viaduct'.
~
scenicrailbritain.com/lines/st-ives-bay-line/ - the St Ives Bay Line will take you to the sandy beaches of Cornwall.
Anonymous
and lastly, I've been reading Fire & Steam, by Christian Wolmar - the author's a grouchy railway historian, but the book's an accessible, normie-friendly look at the railways from the earliest mineral wagonways in the north-east through to the Industrial Revolution and railway mania, two world wars, and the end of the steam era. Its focus is on how the railways changed ... literally everything really. Go read it, it's good.
Anonymous
>>1962314 Hey man, thanks for recommending Wolmar's 'Cathedrals of Steam', I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.
Anonymous
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>tfw no link to the previous thread in OP >>1948399 Anonymous
>>1962398 He's a curmudgeonly, anti-HS2 hack; but he's been writing about the railways for decades, has authorial ties with railway insiders, and most importantly he's got his head screwed on right.
Also - meandering through Youtube and I stumbled on a few old GWR ads, I love the animation style:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sQvlBPFZgE Anonymous
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Bit like the old 'come to [seaside town], it's fucking ace' LNER and Southern poster ads, now found on middle-class kitchen walls. If we're going nostalgic, bring these back
Anonymous
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>>1962410 Back when I was a history undergraduate, we were always taught that there were four sequential revolutions from the mid-eighteenth through nineteenth centuries. In order, they were agricultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation. The railways, and their complex linkages with ports, were the capstone on this series of rapid societal changes, and I'm glad that Wolmar has highlighted in your excerpt the need to understand them as more than a vague nostalgic ache.
That said, I do love the effort that was made to humanise industrial design in Victorian England. The 'new' machinery got such an awful press in the early years (children crushed and so on) that it was treated with justified hysteria, so you can tell that almost anything steam-related was made almost like an expensive item of furniture. German and American people seem to have accepted the necessity of industrialising without the bucolic yearning that characterises the English, so their stuff is so much more utilitarian.
Anonymous
teenage girls can be so cruel
>>>/wsg/5345811 Anonymous
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>>1962543 (spaghetti erupting from pockets) it- b-because it's (fastwalking, mumbling into chest) the best l-looking thing in the station
Anonymous
Thoughts? I don't think the original Locomotion locomotive is capable of having fire in its belly up these days, but it'd still be profound to see a replica take the same trip along the Tees Valley line, two hundred years later.
Anonymous
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https://twitter.com/WeyandPete25871 My head hurts. All I want to do is have my head stop hurting and be able to think again. Someone make it stop.
Anonymous
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>>1962543 >why aren't you recording US?! Fuck em
Anonymous
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>>1962652 Peter Hendy (Chair of NR and overseer of this Rail 200 project) mentioned on a podcast that Shildon are working on a replica fitted with air brakes, etc., so a main line run isn't out of the question.
Interestingly it sounds like Rail 200 is intended to be a national celebration of railways & rail travel, but organised at a local level, with local areas given a free reign to highlight whatever the railways mean to them - for instance Cornwall would likely focus more on Trevithick whilst the North East leans more towards the S&D and the birth of public railways. Hendy is proposing having Rail 200 featured on every single station on the network, whether it's a poster & QR code linking to a piece about the history of the station/railway in the local area, right up to larger events at main stations (he gave the example of being in contact with the National Gallery about displaying Turner's painting 'Rain, Steam and Speed' at Paddington)
I'm glad the rail industry is making an effort with this, bicentennials for anything are a pretty rare thing, especially something that has had such an impact on the development of a nation
Anonymous
>>1962543 I see these types of subhumans all the time, the type of people who harass others for no reason, and it serves as a constant reminder that the collapse of the UK is inevitable.
There's too many sociopathic scum on the streets who kick others down while sucking on the teats of government welfare. Japan doesn't have this problem, it is only in the decadent and uncivilised west where this is a problem.
Anonymous
the new tube train looks small on a German test track.
Anonymous
>>1962543 What's that at the front? 4TC driving coach?
Anonymous
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>>1962980 Inspection saloon 'Caroline'
Anonymous
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>>1962968 I get that they're multiple units so it doesn't matter, but the carriages going BIG-small-BIG-small-BIG etc still offends my senses for some reason
Anonymous
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>>1962543 I'm not sure why it is but some women just seethe at the sight of men doing something harmless like this. I raised my camera to photo some stock and within 10 seconds I could hear the girls sat at a table behind me muttering about me
Anonymous
>>1962968 Reminds me of those 1940 Waterloo and City tube stock
Anonymous
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>>1963014 The holes are smaller there that's why they both look the same.
Anonymous
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>The Elizabeth line has had its busiest month yet, after it carried over 17 million passengers journeys in a 28-day period for the first time. >https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the-elizabeth-line-has-its-busiest-month-yet-67625/ Anonymous
Be amazing if lessons were learned + applied from this. Hybrid city metros and regional rail can work and be popular and useful, more of the same needed for Bristol, Leeds, Bradford, Cardiff...
Anonymous
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>>1962652 Me, I'd want a 'you see this shit? look at it. look at how fucking amazing it is. look at what it does, what it moves, who it's run by, and who it's run for' type of thing, from an industry that's proud of itself and what it does ... like, imagine what Brunel or Stephenson would have done to celebrate.
So, in lieu of this, I'd expect the usual wheezy Boomers to wheel their toys out of the NRM so they can ooh and aah over the Deltics, and an incredibly feeble, consultancy-led 'here is a leaflet about choo-choo-choosing STEM education at [LOCAL HIGHER EDUCATION ESTABLISHMENT], would you like your picture taken with Mallard or Flying Scotsman' thing at a few National Rail stations.
Anonymous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEYQROkuuOU basically, if you watch this and don't immediately cum in your Y-fronts enough to pass out during the last shots of a busy Paddington, you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the railway bicentennial
Anonymous
>>1963109 >new interchanges with existing underground stations >connects opposing ends of the conurbation >runs through the city centre >runs along an intercity mainline >uses new rail infrastructure Glasgow did the Elizabeth Line 40 years before the Elizabeth Line became a thing.
Anonymous
>>1963234 Low hanging fruit's always picked first I suppose. Next up: the mythical airport link, expanding the Subway, joining up Central and Queen Street, no more climate change, world peace...
Anonymous
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>>1963238 >the mythical airport link Edinburgh's fault for diverting funds away for their own trams, but it's still happening.
>expanding the Subway >joining up Central and Queen Street Basically all of the above are already happening with the Clyde Metro.
Anonymous
Following Sleeperchat from the previous thread:
>Airline-style lie-flat beds planned for sleeper trains to make overnight rail travel between Scotland and England more affordable (paywalled) >https://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/airline-style-lie-flat-beds-planned-for-sleeper-trains-to-make-overnight-rail-travel-between-scotland-and-england-more-affordable-4422909 >Airline-style seats which convert to lie-flat beds would be added to overnight sleeper trains under plans being developed with UK Government funding. >The “DreamSuite” premium seating would also be offered to day train operators for long-distance routes such as between Scotland and England. >Future Travel Studio (FTS) plans to demonstrate a prototype by September next year after being awarded £275,000 this week by the UK Department for Transport and innovation agency Innovate UK. Its designs remain under wraps. >The move follows a failed attempt by former Caledonian Sleeper operator Serco to introduce similar seating as part of its new fleet of trains introduced in 2019, which was shelved on safety grounds. The Scotland-London services also offer traditional seating, although some passengers have not found it conducive for sleeping. >Kathryn Darbandi, managing director of Caledonian Sleeper, which was nationalised by the Scottish Government in June, said: “We are aware of this innovative seating concept and fully support DreamSuite’s vision to make travel more sustainable, while keeping passenger comfort front of mind. We will closely follow developments and assess how we may be able to support.” >An Innovate UK spokesperson said: "On Britain's busy railway, not only do passengers want seats, they want comfy seats too. This is what this project addresses." ...cutting through the treacle, someone's proposing using the same seats that convert to lie-flat beds that Virgin Atlantic use(d?), in place of the current seating arrangements.
Anonymous
Anonymous
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>>1962312 fuuuuck where is this?
Anonymous
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>>1963230 >Grimy and grazed, the engines reflection, was it? >Down at the docks, were you? >For a "metal collection" was it? For me, it's "Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends.
Towards the steam tugs, yelping down the glade of cranes.
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces,
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her,
In the dark glens, beside the pale green sea lochs,
men long for news..."
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1963238 >joining up Central and Queen Street How would that work? I thought it was a Bradford kind of situation where you have two major mainline stations within shouting distance of each other, if it weren't for the city they so thoughtlessly built between the two
Anonymous
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>>1963627 Probably something similar to what they did in Liverpool like
>>1963253 but on a larger scale.
Anonymous
Anonymous
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-67552056 WCRC's temporary exemption on rolling stock without central door locking expires Thursday
Anonymous
>>1963890 they've been lucky so many times after their self-inflicted fuckups and near-misses, without showing any signs of learning from their mistakes or even wanting to learn, because they're old men playing with their toys and then hiding behind You Make Harry Potter Train Sad :( when someone tells them to buck their ideas up. fuck 'em, imo
Anonymous
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67577683 >Members of the RMT union agreed to an offer from train companies which included a backdated pay rise of 5% for 2022-23 as well as job security guarantees >It means that RMT members will no longer be involved in industrial action until at least the spring of next year. ASLEF still striking but this is progress at least
Anonymous
Does anyone have any decent railfan photo compilations that aren't based on Facebook groups or old forums half-filled with dead photobucket links? Ideally with a focus on the norf in the 70's and 80's. I've been sitting on an idea for an n-scale layout for the last year or so and I want to start planning both the locos/consists and also the scenery and features.
Anonymous
>>1964312 >foamer Where does this word come from? I've heard some youtubers use this word but that's about it.
Anonymous
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>>1964312 flickr
>>1964319 it's an american term and thus must be kept out of british discussions
Anonymous
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>>1964312 The 70's and 80's are most commonly referred to as the "BR blue" era when it comes to UK railways, so using that as a search term might be helpful for narrowing down results if that's the era you want to model. I find Flickr can be pretty handy for general searches, this was the first thing that popped up there after a quick look for BR blue:
flickr.com/groups/br_blue/pool Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1964335 >BEHOLD! An error page!
Anonymous
>>1964433 Works on my machine? Your browser is probably crying because it doesn't like http. Look for a 'mother may i pretty please use the 1999-era web design website i promise i'll be a good boy' bypass link, it'll probably be hidden behind the scary Advanced... button.
Anonymous
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>>1964436 In fairness to my apparent room-temperature IQ, it was 7 in the morning when I tried opening the link. The old meat computer needed adequate time to warm up.
Anonymous
I mainly wanted to do the wacky screenshot joke lol
Anonymous
Anonymous
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you may think your being le funny and quirky by not replying when making a post but all it does is make it easier to identify your posts
Anonymous
>>1962311 (pasted from old thread cos im retarded)
im new to using public transport in this shithole especially trains but my cars fucked and i cant bike more than 30 miles
how the fuck do i plan a route in this mess?
is there a website or app or something where i can just tell it point A point B and what time id like to be at point B by and itl tell me which trains and busses to catch and when and wheres cheapest to buy the tickets from and stuff?
i like taking my bike with me too but im already aware thats a massive hastle when it comes to our shitty busses
how do i do this?
every time i try to plan a route using public transport i just get confused and give up and either drive or bike all the way there instead
Anonymous
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>>1962312 that video is so cool
im not even a trainfag and i can apriciate that
Anonymous
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>>1964433 click advanced and then click proceed
its just some bullshit ssl certificate or something
Anonymous
>>1962311 i wanna take a train journey to margret thatchers grave ive got a rly big shit to let rip
right now im really upset because theres a disused railway in the exact place i really fucking wish there was a railway and theres even a train museum on it because its that much of a tragedy
even worse is that this disused railway is exactly where i wish there was a bike path because i and alot of other people have to cycle on a road parralel to it that is EXTREMELY dangerous to cycle on,for the drivers even more so than the cyclists
shits fucked
god i hate the south west
i hate the uk government even more though
the busses here are fucking awful too so its either grueling bike rides getting fucked by the almost nonexistant public transport or not being able to afford my medication becauase i need to buy petrol
i cant fucking afford car dependancy i already cant afford to heat my mouse pay my bills or afford food or clothes but my fucking car always has to be my priority its FUCKED
car dependancy is evil
god im jealous of boomers who got to experience the joy of nice cheap comfortable convinient train journeys instead of this hell
btw big updoots if anyone can guess where im talking about lol
Anonymous
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>>1962312 >Cool stuff to do? imagine being able to afford these trips...
god i hope tickets at least get cheaper
Anonymous
>>1962916 sucking government money is a good and moral thing to do
the people you are talking about are probably rich cunts who like the tories because they benifit from the status quo
remember every penny that doesnt go to the government is a penny not spent on yachts cocaine and child sex slaves
im gonna suckle their tits dry and be proud of it
and its better than being a wagie cagie working my ass off just to still be poor loool
Anonymous
>>1964312 real
the internet is dying a slow painful death
Anonymous
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>>1964554 Try Flickr or Smugmug, my good man.
Anonymous
I need some advice. I'm a university student in the UK and the houseshare rents in my city are increasing rapidly even for the shit houses. I've started considering just traveling by train every day. My home city is 2 hours and a bit away from where I study. I was wondering if there is any viable option to travel by train, 5 days a week for a whole academic year. Thanks in advance
Anonymous
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>>1964539 >is there a website or app or something where i can just tell it point A point B and what time id like to be at point B by and itl tell me which trains and busses to catch and when How fine-grain do you want your points A and B? - for 'get me from my front door to the Ukelele Orchestra Polycule Drag Show performance in time for doors open' type of planning, Google Maps' transit directions, up there at the top along with the biking & walking options. For 'get me from Manchester to Bristol by 3pm' type of planning, fire up
nationalrail.co.uk/ and punch in where you want to go. It'll show you the options for getting there, and how much it'll cost you, and then hand you over to the train company's website to actually buy a ticket.
>when and wheres cheapest to buy the tickets from and stuff? Literally any train company - LNER, GWR, Avanti, blah blah blah - will sell you a ticket from anywhere, to anywhere, and charge you the same price for the same journey, even if it's not their trains you're riding on, because they all work together as National Rail. There's also websites like
trainsplit.com/ out there, that'll sniff out the clever 'if you go by a slightly longer/slower/etc route, or buy tickets from X to Y then Y to Z, you'll save £5' type of options, if they exist.
>>1964793 You're thinking of a season ticket. This'll help you work out how much it'll cost, then point you in the right direction:
>https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tickets-railcards-and-offers/ticket-types/season-ticket-calculator/ Anonymous
Buses aren't as straightforward, because they're private companies and aren't interested in co-operating with anybody else (even their customers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgZZBwG7slY )
Anonymous
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For those lucky enough to live & work near a railway station, it's also worthwhile asking your HR people if they'll offer season ticket loans: where, rather than you paying the entire season ticket fare in one go, they buy your ticket and you pay back the price as a salary-sacrifice thing
Anonymous
>>1964796 >even their customers Kek, now I remember Gerry, a Yorkshire Traction driver who would be assigned to my school bus once in a while.
>lived on a busy main road >fortunate enough to have a bus stop out the front of the house next door and one on the other side of the road >the bus to high school (and middle school before that) goes up the main road past my house into the nearest village before coming back the other way to go to the school >been catching buses there without issue since I was 10 >then Gerry appeared. >Gerry was in his 50's and had that sort of smug pinched-in face and air of undeserved self-confident superiority peculiar to socially inept people who have been friendless most of their lives without realising the problem is with themselves >whenever Gerry was the assigned driver, he would not stop for me >I'd cross the extremely busy and dangerous main road to the other stop and he'd pick me up on the way back >et tu, Gerry? >"that is not one of the assigned stops for the route, we do not stop anywhere that isn't on the route manifest" >but I'm a student at the school Gerry. This is a schoolbus. None of the other drivers have ever raised this as a problem. >"cross the road then" >I'd rather not get run over >"not my problem" >this happens several times over the next few months but he's assigned infrequently enough that I put up with it >until one day he's got the afternoon bus >Gerry never gets the afternoon bus >my stop is coming up so I ring the bell >he drives right past my house >I start yelling at him to stop the bus >other people start yelling at him >that autistic fuckwit refuses to stop at any of the "unassigned" stops until we get into the village a mile away >friend says his mum'll drive me home. She's shocked when I tell her the story and says she's going to complain to the school and the bus company. Anonymous
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>>1964553 >sucking government money is a good and moral thing to do Irrelevant, read between the lines you spergy cunt
Anonymous
>>1964853 >get home and tell me mum and dad >they call the school immediately >words such as "kidnapping", "child endangerment", and "will be contacting the police" are thrown about >I'm taken into a meeting with my parents and the headmaster the next day >some stuffy little man in a cheap brown suit is there to represent Yorkshire Craption >headmaster is mad af that their drivers are "endangering students" "not fulfilling duty of care" >little man looks like he'll cry >after many apologies it's agreed that they won't be getting in legal trouble >never see Gerry ever again >not even on any of the public bus routes >who's laughing now, you smug autistic prick? >probably Gerry, because his sort never learn Thanks for reading my blog
Anonymous
>>1964853 >>1964855 that was the fault of one person not the bus company
Anonymous
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>>1964865 A company is just a collection of persons. If the company is not responsible for the actions of its employees, then when is it ever responsible for anything?
Anonymous
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>>1964853 Did he go on to lead Sinn Fein out of spite?
Anonymous
Anonymous
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>>1965181 The rules are different for rich people sweaty ;)
They make them and we follow them, it's better for the environment that way
Anonymous
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oh shut the fuck up if you're going to be like that
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
no other response other than anger because you know i'm 100% correct, the england team will never sully themselves by taking public transport with the plebs
Anonymous
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>>1965443 I'm sure they don't even fly with the public, and instead charter planes because there's so many people on the team behind the scenes
Now it would be cool if they chartered a train, but again I doubt that would happen
Anonymous
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>>1965422 >Eurostar next to a Pacer There's something beautiful about the contrast
Anonymous
so mad about this i posted it in the wrong thread lol
Anonymous
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>>1963246 >Caledonian Sleeper, which was nationalised by the Scottish Government in June, The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was getting people to believe this. There isn't some bowler-hat-and-spectacles 'Man from the Ministry' boffin in an office somewhere drawing up timetables: it's run by private-sector consultancies with someone from the civil service signing everything off. The locos are leased from one company, the carriages are leased from another, the stations are owned by Network Rail.
Anonymous
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I don't know who's paying the staff tbf. Probably they just turn them off and stack them in a shipping container at the depot
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1966025 hope you like standing up for 45 mins waiting for your train...
Anonymous
What's an 'excess fare office' for?
Anonymous
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>>1966766 the office for excess fares
Anonymous
>>1966766 Say, for instance, you have an off-peak ticket for a journey, but for whatever reason you now need to travel on a peak time train. Rather than buy a whole new ticket, you just need to visit the excess fare office and pay the additional cost (the 'excess') for the peak time ticket on top of what you paid for your original off-peak ticket.
Or, you have a season ticket for a particular route/zone, and are making a journey through that zone but ending outside of it. Your season ticket permits you to travel to the edge of the zone, and the excess would be the cost for the remainder of the journey.
I don't know why a separate office is required for this, but I'd guess it might be that the regular ticket office systems are only designed to issue new tickets, rather than what is technically amending an existing ticket
Anonymous
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>>1964546 >god i hate the south west I used to live just outside of Yeovil and it was like that.
Anonymous
>>1966457 Is that Stoke? The station looks familiar but I am not enough of a train autist to recognise every station by sight.
Anonymous
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>>1966872 St Pancras, if you can believe it, back when it was a bit of a dump: a big, grand station from the railway mania age, with just two diesel trains every hour and the odd Thameslink service turning up every now and then.
Anonymous
>>1966842 Seems like a bit of a faff. Struggling not to make this sound like a shitpost, but I'd just buy the correct ticket in the first place rather than mess around travelling on an invalid ticket and promising to 'sort it out later' with top-ups or whatever
Anonymous
>>1966931 Obviously that's what the vast majority of travellers do, but it's understandable that at times people need to change their travel plans at the last minute and render their existing ticket invalid, so having the option to excess a ticket is a useful service that offers a benefit to the customer
Anonymous
>>1966935 If a fare and ticketing system requires a whole separate staffed office just to make payment adjustments then that would suggest to me that perhaps it's overly byzantine and requires some level of simplification.
Anonymous
>>1966958 The whole rail ticketing system certainly could do with simplifying, but that's a whole different matter. On excess fares in particular though, it appears that you should be able to excess a ticket at any staffed ticket office, which suggests that Edinburgh keeps a separate office for excess fares either because they process enough annually to justify its presence or (more likely) they simply want to filter out customers with those potentially more complex types of enquiries from the 'regular' customers at the ticket office who just want to buy a ticket
Anonymous
>>1966962 >The whole rail ticketing system certainly could do with simplifying Does it, though? People throw that word around a lot like it's a given, but nobody can ever seem to agree on what it should mean. They want simple fares, but they also want an option to travel in the off-peak because it's cheaper than during the commuter hours. They want simple fares, but there should be family discounts and of course pensioners and people in the forces and so on should get discounts. They want simple fares, but a return should be cheaper than two singles because (incoherent mumbling). Oh and also I want the flexibility to travel when I want, but without committing to a specific train if I don't want, but I don't want to pay extra. And so help me if I have to stand, but sometimes I want to stand. You get the picture.
Operator-only train tickets should be binned, though. Feel so sorry for people who have to deal with thick-as-pigshit I KNOW IT SAYS 13:06 TPE ONLY ON IT WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS IS THE 13:07 NORTHERN I DON'T UNDERSTAND TELL THE DRIVER etc etc.
Anonymous
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(thinking about it, that's a bad example - should be something like travelling from King's Cross to Doncaster, where you've a choice of three operators - LNER, Grand Central, and Hull Trains - with one being a platform alteration, and of course they'll all have different calling points, etc)
Anonymous
>>1966983 >Operator-only train tickets should be binned, though. I think part of the problem is simply people not understanding different train types. If train tickets are overhauled, it needs to be a part of a complete railway rebranding and timetable changes.
InterCity
Connect
Local
You could split Local in to Local and Commuter, but basically, the faster the train, the more expensive the base fare.
Pricing is dynamic, seat reservations are always included on long distance trains, but if you miss your train you just have to risk not getting a seat.
Anonymous
>>1966983 I don't think anyone is arguing that there should be less choice in terms of the flexibility of a ticket, Advance or Open is a fairly straightforward concept that can be explained in simple terms at the point of purchase. Same with peak/off-peak, that's not a new idea and most people should be able to grasp the concept. The discounts you mention are generally covered by railcards, and you either have one or you don't, that doesn't really add any confusion to ticket buying. Most people just want to buy the cheapest ticket from A to B at the time(s) they want to travel, and National Rail or whichever TOC is selling the ticket should show them that. You shouldn't have to figure out whether you could slash the cost of your journey by buying 3 separate tickets for portions of the journey even though you might be travelling on the same train the whole way, or whether it's cheaper to buy a ticket from your origin station to a destination 3 stops further down the line from where you actually need to get off
Anonymous
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£3 a stop for local trains, £4 a stop for cross-country. There. I have solved train ticketing forever. Some people might seethe, but they seethe anyway. Every train company is a localised monopoly, so what are they going to do?
Anonymous
>>1966994 >seat reservations are always included on long distance trains This is how you get the Chinese system where it's basically impossible to buy a long distance ticket for a popular route on a short notice.
Anonymous
>>1967092 But then you have someone seething because they paid £whatever and that's TOO MUCH because they didn't even get a seat and they had to STAND ALL THE WAY, compo face for local rag.
You'd think that, in this day and age, you could tick a 'yes I want a seat / no I don't want a seat' box when buying a ticket, but knowing the general public some dickhead would absolutely ignore that, plonk themselves into a seat, then reeeeeeee when someone says 'that's my seat'.
>>1966995 Are we arguing for the idea of yield management to be abandoned, and thus accepting that trains may end up running empty because they can't change the ticket price to encourage demand?
Anonymous
>UK FIRST AS LNER INCLUDES BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE ON DEPARTURE SCREENS >London North Eastern Railway (LNER) is trialling the full integration of British Sign Language (BSL) across its Customer Information Screens (CIS) at Doncaster Railway Station. >In a UK rail industry first, the screens display videos alongside the latest customer information, translating updates into sign language, with the integrated messaging providing true parity of information. >Teams from across LNER are working with Doncaster Deaf Trust and Communication Specialist College Doncaster on the project, which will see the messaging trialled throughout December 2023 with a view to expanding the initiative across the network should the pilot prove a success.
Anonymous
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>>1967143 >BSL yes text announcements would have been far more practical but doesn't send the right message. consider that the vast majority of deaf people lose their hearing later in life, not at a birth.
Anonymous
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>>1967143 Pretty sure GWR has already been doing this, I've seen BSL displays for departures at Reading station.
Anonymous
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>>1967137 >you could tick a 'yes I want a seat / no I don't want a seat' box when buying a ticket This would unironically be a better alternative than to force reservations for all tickets.
If the journey's short enough, I wouldn't mind standing if the train's full and I didn't make a seat reservation, which is not something that's possible in the Chinese system.
>general public some dickhead would absolutely ignore that They already do that but with your suggestion the warning about not getting any seats is a lot harder to ignore.
Anonymous
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(laughs mildly)
Anonymous
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>>1967143 I like Doncaster. For a busy interchange it's not terrible, and with it being right next-door to the Wabtec works you can sometimes see stuff buzzing around if you're on Platform 8: I've seen a 37 dressed up in Regional Railways livery, and this afternoon there was a rake of ScotRail Inter7City carriages parked-up in the sidings, presumably for inspection or something.
Anonymous
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HELLO?
Anonymous
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>>1967143 deaf people can't read?
Anonymous
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>Trains will run from London to Cologne, Frankfurt and Geneva by 2030, vows Eurotunnel >‘Space will be found at St Pancras for new entrants,’ says Channel Tunnel chief >https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/eurotunnel-eurostar-train-london-rail-b2464123.html >The company has earmarked €50m (£42m) for financial assistance for new entrants between 2025 and 2030. It is targeting cities that have a large existing aviation market from the UK – and which can be reached by direct trains from London in as little as four hours. Three cities are at the top of the list: >Cologne (4h) >Frankfurt (5h) >Geneva (5h30) >A link to Basel and Zurich in Switzerland is also seen as viable. >Mr Leriche said expanding the route network would be achieved by reducing the “time to market” from 10 to five years. ...so it's the actual Channel Tunnel chief, with a vested business + financial interest in encouraging more international trains, rather than Richard Branson and a Dutch startup playing investor-storytime games. I mean, we can but hope?
(cue every armchair architect and their stupid opinions about St Pancake)
Anonymous
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That was the good news. Here's the bad:
>Plans for centralised Great British Railways ticket sales scrapped >The government has dropped plans to create a centralised Great British Railways online rail ticket retailer, the Department for Transport has confirmed. >https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/plans-for-centralised-great-british-railways-ticket-sales-scrapped/65569.article ...more ideologically-driven bollocks that also conveniently makes their private-sector mates richer.
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Oh good. Capex money left-over from cancelling part of a gigantic decades-long megaproject to be spent on short-term road repairs in London that, well, let's not ask whether that should have been funded anyway, let's just focus on more long term fiscally responsible planning. Very good. Adults in charge, know what they're doing
Anonymous
>>1968933 >>1968934 It's obviously one of those automated ones where they fill in the name of the place depending on where you are. But they can't seriously have actually spent Northern Powerhouse money on London. This is unironically worse than when they promised to extend the Manchester tram line to the location that some of them will inevitably have travelled to the conference from, via tram.
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1963890 >>1964070 Small update - West Coast Railways lost their court case, of course, so they're now legally prohibited from using any of their rolling stock that's not fitted with central door locking.
It's a shame, but they've had god knows how long and they've not exactly presented themselves as a professional organisation up to now, which I think explains why they've had the book thrown at them
Anonymous
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>>1969383 good
also if you actually read it they have to present a timeline to implement the locking. it doesn't mean they get banned immediately, they just didn't need to be sshitheads about it and launch a legal battle over something that should be obviously necessary.
Anonymous
>>1968973 You can read the plan here
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65294b416b6fbf0014b75641/network-north-transforming-british-transport.pdf Money goes everywhere but the majority will be spent on the north. The naming means you get these dumb twitter threads. I have no opinion on whether this is better than HS2.
Anonymous
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>>1967143 In Manchester Piccadilly they have separate screens with someone signing announcements
Anonymous
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Happy Christmas, Orange Army
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0EAVKPlPb0 ...wait what's going on in Cornwall? I know the bottom end of the ECML is shut for a while now they're installing the new signalling system, not sure what that's all about though
Anonymous
Anonymous
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>>1966025 I like this design, mitigates the scrum ,rather than having everyone lined up parallel with the gates everyone is largely out of the way of your route to the platform
Anonymous
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>>1969402 Easier to kill the small schemes one by one over time.
Anonymous
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>unironically linking directly to twitter
Anonymous
>>1966462 More like 2 hours last week thanks to a bit of wind, outran a child just to get a first class seat during the platform marathon
Anonymous
>>1969782 You didn't reserve a seat?
Anonymous
Today, I learned that the HST cabs are basically fibreglass over a thin metal skin. The 'luv me hsts simple as' freaks are foaming at the mouth because it's the tree's fault, or something
Anonymous
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(compared to something built this century, capable of shaking off tree encounters with only flesh wounds)
Anonymous
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like have you ever just, wanted to grab people and give them a good shake? it doesn't matter if you like them! they're bad trains now! there's stuff out there that's better than half-century-old museum pieces! they really really really need to go! and so on. Fuck's sake
Anonymous
>>1969989 There was an episode of WTYP where they went over this issue, I'll find out which one. But yeah HSTs were built for speed so a lot of weight minimizing was done, not to mention laxer safety standards.
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
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Not the first time it's happened, either.
Anonymous
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>they're constructed to very rigorous railway engineering standards >what sort of- >well, the front's not supposed to fall off for a start! >what other things? >well, er, there's regulations governing the materials they can be made out of >what materials? >well, cardboard's out. >and? >no cardboard derivatives. >like paper..? >no paper, no string no sellotape...
Anonymous
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Nice mainline you have there.
Anonymous
Wish I'd thought to do this last year when I was all over the place, but, still. Slightly redacted, for obvious reasons.
Anonymous
flood detected. what now?
Anonymous
>>1970292 Is the flood in the tunnel itself or on hs1?
Anonymous
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>>1970294 the tunnel beneath the thames, between ebbsfleet and st pancras
Anonymous
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Early plan for the London end of the Channel Tunnel link - this was while they were building Waterloo International as the 'temporary' terminus.
Anonymous
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ok so i'm pulling together a retrospective for 2023, and while doing so i found this:
>https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/end-of-an-era-for-birmingham-new-streets-iconic-signal-box >https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=a7aSN6y5sDH ...a few boffins from Birmingham Uni scanned the inside of the Birmingham New Street power signalling box using LIDAR, after it was made redundant last year, and turned the results into a 3d VR doodad thing you can wander around. I'm honestly surprised at how small it is, for a nerve centre - a desk, a whole heap of early Cold War tech, and not much else. Still, this was absolutely state-of-the-art at the time.
The building itself is listed, so they're unable to demolish it, but they're apparently going to turn it into a signallers' training centre - which, I suppose, is the reason they thought to scan and preserve the interior while it's still possible.
Anonymous
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ok so i'm pulling together a retrospective for 2023, and while doing so i found this:
>https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/virtual-reality-keeps-birminghams-iconic-power-signal-box-alive >https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=a7aSN6y5sDH ...a few boffins from Birmingham Uni scanned the inside of the Birmingham New Street power signalling box using LIDAR, after it was made redundant last year, and turned the results into a 3d VR doodad thing you can wander around. I'm honestly surprised at how small it is, for a nerve centre - a desk, a whole heap of early Cold War tech, and not much else. Still, this was absolutely state-of-the-art at the time.
The building itself is listed, so they're unable to demolish it, but they're apparently going to turn it into a signallers' training centre - which, I suppose, is the reason they thought to scan and preserve the interior while it's still possible.
2023 retrospective - Passenger rail
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(If you want a nice, simple TL:DR figure, 1.4 billion passenger journeys were made between October 2022 and September 2023, which is 21% up on the figures for Oct 2021 to Sep 2022.)
>https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/passenger-rail-usage/ >https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/performance/passenger-rail-performance/ A couple of points:
>the ORR compiles data by the financial year, which of course begins in April, not the calendar year beginning in January >so, Q1 is Apr-Jun; Q2 is Jul-Sep (*YOU ARE HERE*); Q3 is Oct-Dec; Q4 is Jan-Mar >these most recent figures cover Q2 2023. It's stupid, but, that's what you get when you put accountants in charge of things. This data also excludes London Underground, Eurostar, light rail (e.g. the Manchester tram), and heritage railways.
Anyway, 397 million journeys were made in Q2 this year. That's an increase of 14% compared to Q2 2022, and it's 11% less than the same period in 2019, just before Something Happened.
The Elizabeth Line - Crossrail, if you like - has been a huge success, despite lingering issues with train software, with 55.4 million passenger journeys, an increase of 58% compared to Q2 2022. Other winners are ScotRail and Avanti (wtf?), at 26% and 25% increases in passenger journeys compared to Q2 2022.
The only operators who recorded a decrease in passengers were West Midland Trains and Heathrow Express, both at -1% compared to Q2 2022.
Regarding punctuality, there are two measures for trains: 'on time' (i.e. it arrives at a stop either early, or less than a minute after the scheduled arrival time) and 'public performance measure' (i.e. does it arrive at its final destination within either 5 or 10 minutes of the scheduled time).
>69.2% of all stops were 'on time', 1.5% better than Q2 2022 >PPM was 86.9%, 0.9% better than Q2 2022 Both figures are comparable with the figures from 2019, before Something Happened, so things are back to normal in that respect lol.
2023 retrospective - Freight
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>https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/freight-rail-usage-and-performance/ These figures also go by financial year, rather than by calendar year - due to their nature they're also a little more sporadic, as there's of course no single central railfreight operator, and thus more manual work involved in corralling all the figures. Thanks, privatisation!
Anyway, 17.5 million tonnes of freight was picked up altogether - down 6% from Q2 2022 - which travelled 4.11 billion tonne-kilometres - up 3% compared to Q2 2022. So, in short, compared to this time last year, slightly less material was moved over a slightly longer distance.
'Intermodal maritime' (i.e. shipping containers) is still the biggest railfreight sector, at 1.5 billion tonne-km travelled - not much of a surprise there - and it's up 9% on Q2 2022. 'Construction' is the second-largest sector, at 1.44 billion tonne-km - that's up 16% compared to Q2 2022, and the highest since records began 25 years ago, and is almost entirely down to material going via rail to the HS2 construction sites.
On the other end of things, coal has pretty much collapsed, at just 0.02 billion tonne-km travelled, thanks to the ongoing transition to renewables - no more coal trains going to power stations a few times every hour - and the lowest it's been since records began.
As for punctuality, 92.9% of freight turned up within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time.
2023 retrospective - Stations
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>https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/station-usage Also by financial year. This data isn't as current as the others, as they'll only cover April 2022 to March this year, but still. The top five most used stations in the country - i.e. total entrances and exits - are, unsurprisingly, in London:
>Liverpool Street (80.4m) >Paddington (59.2m) >Waterloo (57.8m) >London Bridge (47.7m) >Victoria (45.6m) ...and the five most-used non-London stations are:
>Birmingham New Street (30.7m) >Leeds (24m) >Manchester Piccadilly (23.6m) >Glasgow Central (20.8m) >Edinburgh Waverley (18.2m) The busiest flows between stations aren't particularly interesting - if you include London, it's all London commuters; if you only include a London station at one end, it's airport traffic and people headed into London; and if you exclude London altogether it's Birmingham commuters and people headed between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Ditto the station with the most interchanges: it's of course Clapham Junction.
The least-used stations in the country, which will probably appear on Youtube at some point if not already, are:
>Teeside Airport (2, but service was suspended in May last year, so...) >Denton (34) >Elton and Orston (56) >Kirton Lindsey (94) >and Reddish South (100) Eight new stations opened between April 2022 and March 2023, five of which were Elizabeth Line stations (the others being Reston, Barking Riverside, and Inverness Airport), and there were no closures.
The ORR are also looking at catering provision at stations:
>https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/rail-regulator-calls-greater-competition-railway-station-catering ...cutting through the treacle, one company has a vast, vast foothold in station outlets, which it fills with proprietary or franchised brands - this is why you'll almost certainly find a Starbucks or an Upper Crust if there's a food outlet at a station. The problem is, when the lease is up for renewal, it's usually rolled-over without someone else getting a chance to bid.
2024 prospectus - HS2
>https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/news/hs2-on-track-for-pivotal-12-months-as-high-speed-railway-takes-shape The project will now shift from enabling works - the boring invisible stuff like clearing land, putting up fences and so on - to actual construction. This includes the expected formal start of work on Birmingham Curzon Street, and breakthrough of the first machine being used to bore the Chilterns tunnel – the longest on the route.
In 2024, contracts will be agreed to oversee building of the tracks, zero-carbon power supply, signalling systems, overhead lines, and the maintenance depot & control centre at Washwood Heath. Actual physical laying of the rails will be the very last physical works to begin, around 2026/2027.
...so things are likely to gradually start taking shape in the coming year, rather than being a scattered bunch of tunnelling works and political sabotage. I'd like to think that, as concrete begins to be poured and people start seeing structures emerge - a sign that Things Are Actually, Definitely Happening - that normies are going to start making positive noises about the thing, but, who knows. There's also going to be an election next year, so, who the fuck knows how that'll turn out for the project either.
Anonymous
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remember how they said nobody used trains anymore?
Anonymous
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>>1964546 You sound like a uni blow in to Plymouth, too poor to move away, too unqualified for a nice bourgeois job where you can larp as a bien pensant leftie, growing more bitter as time goes on. Lol.
Anonymous
"The Channel tunnel should have made the UK truly European, but didn’t. We must get back on track" (
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/01/channel-tunnel-uk-european-30th-anniversary )
...thoughts?
Anonymous
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>>1970659 on the one hand, I hate the graun's commentariat and think brexit means brexit, but on the other I love sleeper trains, and think anny intra-uk journey, save perhaps penzance-inverness, is too short (also the train companies are thieving robdogs), so a sleeper from, say, Edinburgh Waverley to Amsterdam Centraal would be great. You'd need a train that can operate on all the intermediate systems though.
Anonymous
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>>1966983 All singles should be half a return price, to stop penalising triangular or multipoint journeys. There should also be no need to split ticketing nonsense or specific operator tickets.
Just peak vs off peak vs advanced single.
Anonymous
>>1970529 Labour really needs to reinstate at least 2a to crewe when they win their inevitable majority. That bit has minimal tunnellimg and bridges and relieves the 2nd most congested bit of the WCML after the London to Brum bit
Anonymous
>>1970885 Think they'll do Crewe and Euston as these are the minimum to keep the line viable. Can see Manchester if there's enough pressure.
Anonymous
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>>1970886 Yeah terminating at ooc as sunak reportedly wants is just non viable. Bunch of useless crooks this government.
Anonymous
>>1970659 It will make me seethe more, not less, if you can take state-of-the-art trains from London to Vienna and Bratislava but not to fucking Birmingham.
Anonymous
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>>1969989 Current gossip is that, once the Class 810s come into service Q4 2024 / Q1 2025, the Class 222s they're due to replace will pass over to Scotrail to replace the HSTs ... I don't think the Scottish Government will be ordering any rolling stock themselves for a long, long time
Anonymous
...in fact, speaking of, in this pic you can really see the difference between the 807's 'standard' snout, and the slightly stubbier snout on the 810
Anonymous
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LSL have repainted 37409 into Scotrail livery, presumably so they have something to put on their push-pull set when they fancy a change from 47712. Looks alright imo, but it's a bit weird to see a "heritage" livery that never appeared on a 37 under BR
Anonymous
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Tornado looking good. Currently finishing up a 2yr-long overhaul (spit, polish, ETCS installation) before coming back into mainline service.
Anonymous
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>>1962311 >~Belfast Great Victoria Street re-construction as Belfast Grand Central: weaverscross.co.uk/belfast-transport-hub/ They're really cracking on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1_FLdXieeo ...word is the Grand Central rebuild is 'on budget and on plan', so after the blockades in summer while the track is laid out and connected, it'll be ready to open by Q4 this year
Anonymous
>>1969989 At the time the HSTs were introduced, steam had only been banned by British Rail for about ten years - so 'vegetation at the lineside' still wasn't much of an issue. There was a big push in the late eighties, early nineties - still under BR - to *encourage* tree growth at the lineside, the idea being that (properly managed) trees would serve as an anchor thanks to their roots, as well as serving as natural noise barriers and so on.
Then of course came privatisation, and out went generations of collective knowledge.
Anonymous
>>1973956 Not to forget the current generation of eco-mongs who kick up a massive stink every time NR fire up a chainsaw anywhere near the lineside. The same spastics who campaigned against HS2 and are presumably delighted that the government is planning to spend a shitload of cash on roads instead
Anonymous
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>>1974005 >The same spastics who campaigned against HS2 That's because the eco warriors in this country are controlled opposition. All you need to do is look at where they're protesting, because it's not anywhere that will inconvenience the government.
Anonymous
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Fine TPE, I will now use your dogshit service by choice. £1 tickets from York to Edinburgh is pretty good though
Anonymous
Anonymous
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Looks like Flying Scotsman is back at the NRM later this month, before going out on the mainline in the autumn - if it's anything like the 100th birthday setup from last year, they'll have her stabled up in the 'big shed' just off the main hall, for people to get onto the footplate.
Anonymous
and now... the end is near...
Anonymous
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At least it's not a trampoline this time
Anonymous
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805s are starting to appear on the mainlines, anyway: here's an example,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKMQcC6HBX8 ...not in service, mind, just racking up mileage on the odometer before they finally go into passenger service in (mumble mumble). Sounds like the usual test track at Old Dalby is out of action with this recent awful weather, and on top of this Avanti are having trouble keeping trains crewed again lately :/
Anonymous
>class 37's are still in regular mainline service >built between 1960 to 1965
Anonymous
>>1975590 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SW1 >The unit built in 1939 was rumored to be one of the oldest operating diesels in Illinois and the oldest operating locomotive in the U.S. that was not preserved. Anonymous
>https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/news/construction-starts-on-hs2s-birmingham-curzon-street-station Construction begins on Birmingham Curzon Street. They mention the included bus and tram interchange, but there's no mention of the old Curzon Street station building: I'd really, really hoped this could be properly brought to life somehow alongside the new station
Anonymous
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>>1975592 Sadly it says the 1939 unit was retired in 2021. They apparently have a second unit built in 1946 that's still plodding along though.
Anonymous
>>1975590 Not a loco but I'm pretty sure London Underground still runs 1960 stock as maintenance trains. I also heard that 1938 stock is still in use on the Isle of Wight.
Anonymous
>>1975635 Why do people want HS2? All it will do is make the Midlands expensive.
Anonymous
>>1975673 Given how centralised the country has become around London and its surrounds part of the attraction of HS2 would be to allow for the economically disadvantaged norf to have easier and faster access to the souf.
Seems to me the more sensible thing to do would be to encourage decentralisation of the economy and rebuild a modern manufacturing base (as has been done in Germany or Japan), rather than hinging all economic success upon the activities of money changers in the square mile that is the City of London. The current logic though is that those grotty northerners are never going to vote Tory, so why bother rebuilding their economy or giving them fancy trains when you can just continue with the winning strategy of ignoring them?
Anonymous
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>>1975672 1938 stock was in service on the isle of wight until 2021 and has now been replaced by old district line D78 units that have been refurbished.
Anonymous
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>>1975687 your mistake is in assuming there is a plan, which requires coherent logic where one thing flows from another via the observable universe
Anonymous
>>1970208 is this a sheet you made yourself or did you find it somewhere?
Anonymous
>>1975687 >The current logic though is that those grotty northerners are never going to vote Tory But they did in 2019 and that's why everything has gone to shit. Now the party in government needs to appease them as well as their traditional base, whose interests are diametrically opposed.
Anyway, I came here with a train question: why are there so many adverts on TV now for individual train companies? If you want a train, you get the train run by your local train company. They're effectively all monopolies. Has the government created some element of competition between the train companies? Or are they just shaking in their boots because Northern Rail and that other one lost their franchises?
Anonymous
>>1975708 reminding you that the trains still exist
Anonymous
>>1975707 Myself, just for an 'ooh! data!' kind of thing. It'd be interesting to turn this into mileage and, thinking about it now, I'll have to add a column this year regarding delays.
>>1975708 >They're effectively all monopolies. Has the government created some element of competition between the train companies? Yes and no. If you're travelling between London and Scotland, you've a few different options depending on your tastes. Still, there's always value in showing a 'this is where you can go, this is what your experience will be like' thing.
Anonymous
>>1975712 >Avanti, LNER and some overpriced sleeper trains much choice wow
Anonymous
>>1975713 Lumo exist, and though I don't have figures to hand they've grown their own market for Ryanair-on-rails, rather than simply nicking passengers off LNER trains. My private theory is that tourists are on the Sleeper, whereas normies are either using Lumo or whatever LNER/Hull Trains/Grand Central/etc service that Trainline books them on, but that's just a hunch.
Anonymous
>>1975715 I went on the Lumo website just now and all they did was show me a £150 LNER ticket.
Anonymous
>>1974565 It's all new stock in there too, probably nothing from before 2009. What an absolute waste. Sums up shoddiness.
Anonymous
>>1975805 Dunno. Their business model is based on cheap-n-cheerful off-peak travel, I picked a random date and 20 quid for a trip isn't to be sniffed at: especially (thinking about it) for an arrival time that'd be well suited for checking into a hotel or something.
Anonymous
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Likewise, you could go with LNER and pay a little extra for an hourly timetable, a buffet car, a cycle rack, and so on.
>>1975818 The Nova 3s were a shoddy idea from the very beginning: that old adage of 'buy cheap pay twice' and so on. I'd say it's more a lack of ambition to make them work and put them to use, but who's ambitious these days?
Anonymous
>>1975835 >Rail travel is cheap! You just have to search three weeks in advance for one specific train that arrives so late you have to spend more money on a hotel! Anonymous
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>>1975902 I didn't say that, though.
Anonymous
>>1962311 why are my local trains (in devon) so cheap and timely and comfy but the moment i want to travel another city over it becomes vastly more expensive than driving and the trains are late and cancelled and packed with people and just all round shit?
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1975673 i dont think anyone actually wants it people just want to embezzle the funding for it
Anonymous
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>>1971609 why would you want to go to birmingham anyway?
Anonymous
>>1970659 we need the srn4s back
i cant beleive we had giant hover ferries and we replaced them with a shitty train tunnel that carries cars and in other places we replaced them with fucking jothing and now you need to take the long way round
why is this country so fuckig shit?
Anonymous
>>1976018 >wake up >crack open tin of Special Brew >cry on internet about the hover ferries heh. still, the simple answer is that, like Concorde, they were thirstier than the Indians in your sister's DMs. fine when they were developed, not so rosy after the fuel shocks of the 1970s
Anonymous
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>>1969894 Reservations are void when they declassify the whole train, or if you were bumped from another cancelled train
Oh lookie it happened again last weekend too.
Anonymous
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I genuinely don't get the 'love' for the GNER livery. Really deep, dark blue - fine, traditional, doesn't show the dirt - then there's the horrible, awful salmon-pink-ish-red stripe. The two don't go nicely together at all imo
Anonymous
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How did Serco manage to fuck up so badly with the Caledonian Sleeper?
Anonymous
>>1965181 Notice how they carved out an exemption from the 3 hour rule to travelling to and from Germany? It's because travel to europe via rail is fucking cancer, how about those faggots actually do their jobs and campaign for better public transport instead of pressuring people to accept declining living standards?
Anonymous
>>1976499 >Notice how they carved out an exemption from the 3 hour rule to travelling to and from Germany? I don't know what that means - what rule is this?
Anonymous
>https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2024/01/eu-stun.html >In part it's how the railways are - the current government hates railways and loathes long term investment - but the railways are just part of it. It's been going wrong for decades, a prolonged squeeze on public services across the board diminishing the things we need, an insistence on value for money that's resulted in paring back rather than enhancement, a grim determination to tighten the purse strings, a long-term policy of 'austerity' used simply as cover for cuts, a mindset that instinctively steps back instead of offering support, a selfishness that stems from the very top of politics, a blinkered drive to reduce taxes at all costs, an expectation that commercial interests will fund necessities, an earnest willingness to withdraw what the private sector could provide, an insidious rightward shift in the Overton window, the Eric Pickles-ation of public finance, forever kowtowing to what business wants, the abdication of society, a relentless drive towards Trumpian uplands, an obsession with cutting taxes because you think that's all the electorate will tolerate, an attitude so entrenched that even the opposition can't escape it, a narrowing of optimism in favour of petty penny pinching, a meathead urge to scrimp now and leave the future for others to tidy up, a deeply depressing abdication of community, a prolonged ideological constriction because voters think they want more money in their pockets, a ruling party left free to shrivel public services to the point where not even the most committed alternative could patch them up, a succession of budgetary shrinkers, a cabal of corrupt politicians letting shareholders off the hook, a philosophy of spend less and stuff the consequences, a decade and a half of I'm alright Jack, a creeping economic dystopia, a society off balance, a Tory government in power for far too long, an electoral error we need to put right.
Anonymous
Why is it always Chinese people who don't know how seat bookings work on trains?
Anonymous
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>>1976541 I don't know what you mean. Chinese train tickets are usually sold with the seat reservation assigned to them.
Anonymous
>>1976501 They say the rule the England team has to follow for the tournament is using the train for trips of 3 hours or less. An exemption for getting to/from Germany had to be carved out because the eurotunnel from a passenger travel POV is a failure since no government wants to commit to it properly.
Anonymous
>>1976685 well, i'm not calling you a liar or anything, but i'm not seeing any of this in the links or in the picture of the letter. i think you're mixing up what's been pledged and by whom?
the French side have pledged to travel by train for trips of under three hours:
>In October, the French Football Federation announced its national teams will travel by train for all trips under three hours. whereas the CBT have specifically said 'hey, travel by train, not by plane':
>“By matching the French team’s pledge to travel by train not plane, they can set an example to other teams and to football fans around the world.” ...missing out the three-hour criteria. which is sensible, given that it's about 2hrs to Brussels via Eurostar to start with. i'm not sure where you got this carving out exemptions business, or the eurotunnel being a failure.
Anonymous
Anonymous
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>>1976532 So the conspiracy theory that they did this for ad space was true.
Anonymous
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>>1976011 Because GWR are based and other train companies are pure AIDS.
Anonymous
>>1976532 >a prolonged ideological constriction because voters think they want more money in their pockets I would love more money. But productivity is low, so wages are low, so everyone is poor. As a result, taxes are too low in real terms to pay for anything, but too high as a percentage of income for anyone to feel rich. So now we're in the death spiral of low productivity -> low wages -> low tax receipts -> low investment -> low productivity again. I don't know how we can escape from this, but I suspect we might need another world war.
Anonymous
>>1976784 it's quite simple: get google, facebook and amazon in the room and say 'right lads, as of now you're now going to start paying your fucking tax, any questions'. so long as the retard in charge is a finance creep who'd otherwise be shilling crypto-buzzword garbage, good luck
Anonymous
>>1976837 The big problem with ideas like that (which I do completely agree with) is that the reason the UK economy is as large as it is on paper is primarily because the slack regulatory environment in the City encourages companies to do business there, resulting in GDP being large but the tax base being fuck all because of the many loopholes and laws that allow large corps to pay diddly squat in tax.
If you change that to start making them pay a more fair amount of tax and more importantly make it clear that the new taxes are there to stay no matter how many politicians they buy, then the corps will up sticks and start moving their business functions to somewhere with a "more encouraging business environment".
GDP would contract to be similar to other European countries of similar size but such a contraction so quickly would be so large that it would probably cause the complete collapse of the UK economy due to the loss of investor confidence, lowering of credit rating, inability to service current debt levels, etc. until you've got a GDP and living standards similar to Moldova.
That's how I see such a thing turning out but maybe I'm wrong. You'd have to slowly raise tax on big corps frog-in-a-pot style but that would require long-term vision and political consistency, meaning it'll happen sometime around quarter past never.
Anonymous
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>>1976842 >then the corps will up sticks and start moving their business functions to no, that's neoliberal 'we MUST appease the Market' handwringing garbage. loss of investor confidence? a few months ago the country's foremost infrastructure project was crippled out of plain bloody-minded ignorance. gdp and living standards collapsing? already happened with brexit and the lettuce. if your position depends on 'we simply must continue to allow apple to pay £0 otherwise vague bad things might happen' then i'm going to put your head in a metal bucket and hit the bucket with a big stick
Anonymous
Tell me about corridor tenders. The lore is that they allow the locomotive crew to change mid-journey, but I don't get how this in particular helped. If the train has to slow down so that the crew can come aboard, surely they'd just hop on at the footplate anyway, rather than just ... picking a carriage at random and 'excuse me, coming through, make way please'-ing their way to the locomotive?
Anonymous
>>1976859 The relief crew don't come aboard during the journey, they are on the train from the origin station & take a compartment in the first coach of the train where they can rest, read, or whatever, just like regular passengers. When it's time to relieve the original crew who have been on the footplate since the start of the journey, they use the corridor in the tender to do this at full speed. Presumably they or the guard would have a key for the corridor connection from the coach to the tender so that only train crew can access it
Anonymous
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>>1976035 i wouldnt be crying over it if they werent replaced by long car journeys
they werent even replaced with boats or bridges or anything
cars are far thirstier than hovercraft and way less cool
Anonymous
>>1976842 Many tax havens are the property of the British Empire and should surely do as we tell them. Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, the British Virgin Islands, they're our bitches. We own them. We could reduce worldwide tax avoidance by 70-80% overnight just by reminding them whose head is on the stamps.
Anonymous
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smile: this old lady was a Jeopardy answer
Anonymous
>>1977177 >We own them. Bold of you to assume that you, me, and the politicians that rule over us are part of the same collective "we".
Anonymous
>>1977201 >biting on bait stop that
Anonymous
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>>1975673 non-shitpost answer: because there's no room for any more trains on the existing west coast line. and we need more room, because the number of people that want to take the train to places goes up every year, and 'more people going by train instead of by car' is a plank of this net zero business.
>>1976014 nah, that's just the usual lazy journalism garbage. if you want a more relevant example, the contractors that were boring holes for phase 2 prep - the leg that was supposed to go to Sheffield, Leeds, Nottingham etc then on to the east coast line - have now been told to pack it in and undo their work because, (fanfare.mp3), the current batch of bastards decided they didnt want to spend money on phase 2 after all and cancelled it. net result being, paying people to dig holes, then changing your mind and paying them to fill them in again, which is being sensible with money, somehow
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1976893 >>1977624 It seems mad that they'd keep a whole second crew sat playing cards for hours, watching the clock until it's their turn to squeeze through the gap and take over, compared to just slowing to walking pace so a relief crew can hop aboard.
Anonymous
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>>1977247 This is /n/ so I always assume the worst.
Anonymous
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>>1971731 I get that 'boneheaded decisions by the DFT/Treasury' are old news, but it still amazes me that they decided to go with a full on brand-new 8xx model for the new Midland Main Line trains, rather than simply lengthen the domestic platforms at St Pancras and go with what's now a bog-standard 80x instead.
They're years late, Hitachi have dithered and pushed back dates again and again, and they know they won't suffer any consequences as it'll be the Government taking the flak.
Anonymous
>>1976699 The Eurotunnel is a failure because you can only get trains from one place in England to 3 places in England, for at least double the cost of flights.
They have asked the England team to travel by train on every trip below 3hrs, like France. They specifically exempted travel to/from Germany because it isn't possible to do that, because the Eurotunnel is a failure.
Anonymous
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>>1977918 i have literally no idea why you are incorrectly asserting that the eurotunnel is FINISHED AND BANKRUPT, i'm using hyperbole for sarcasm purposes of course, in a discussion regarding the england mens' euro team travel plans.
so, let's remember that the england team aren't going to be travelling from a 'home base' in england every time they have a match scheduled at the Euros in germany. they're going to be travelling to germany and staying in a hotel, and then they'll travel to their training camp and their scheduled matches from the hotel. the point of the letter is to ask Gareth Southgate to consider taking the train during the tournament, when these travel arrangements would be less than three hours by train. rather than their current travel arrangements, presumably flights, coaches, whatever.
Anonymous
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like it's right there in the letter. here it is: 'please take the train to the tournament that's germany, and then at the tournament, to take the train during the tournament where a rail option exists.'
Anonymous
There should be lynch mobs for the conservatives who're canceling high speed rail to fill in potholes when car ownership is increasingly being priced out for the working & middle class.
Anonymous
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>>1977738 it's about prestige and speed, not sense.
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1977984 They're cancelling high speed rail because it is an easy way to take tens of billions off the budget. I know that ine can argue that this is still mostly the Tories' fault, but as of now Britain's public debt situation is dire. Fiscal headroom rules don't allow for almost any additional spending, so big ticket items had to be found to allow the odd tiny election giveaway (1-2% off marginal tax rates) to even be put on the books.
HS2 was capex, it's absurd to think that they are genuinely cancelling it to fill in potholes. They were going to fill in the potholes anyway (well, those that DO get filled). This whole situation is entirely a product of flat lining British productivity and hence tax receipts, which the Tories have caused or exacerbated through mass immigration and failure to invest, but it is absolutely not "car brain" in the American sense.
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1978096 >Fiscal headroom rules don't allow for almost any additional spending So then get rid of the fiscal headroom rules. (insane headbanging libertarian shits start screeching)
Anonymous
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>>1978096 >>1978695 Please don't turn this thread into another /brit/
Anonymous
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>>1978694 Be genuinely interesting to see how the Transpennine Route Upgrade - basically taking the existing rail links between Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, and making them mainline-standard - will affect this
Anonymous
oh and apparently they've prettied up the entrance at Paddington. I love the place but it's like the opposite of normal railway stations: nothing going on outside, but gorgeous inside
Anonymous
like there could be a little mini-park there. planters, seating, etc.
Anonymous
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>>1978853 I remember there was woke artwork at that exact location for ages so i stopped using the station. It pissed me off because I saw it right after being told I couldn't buy a ticket with cash there anymore.
Anonymous
>>1978855 They tried that at King's Cross. Full of crackheads and homeless.
Anonymous
>>1978934 i quite like the food market they sometimes have outside. if i've time to kill and it's a nice day, it's pleasant to grab a wrap or something and peoplewatch for a while
Anonymous
>>1976532 They've updated it so it's ... a ... screen saver of some kind?
Anonymous
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>>1978959 I hate that trend of turning every entrance into food stalls. It's a deliberate ploy to push junk on people. You don't need a slice of pie but it's wafting into your nostrils after your 2 hour journey on the train so you spend £5.99 on an unneccesary 500 calories. And they wonder why UK obesity is so bad. In addition to this as I said it is unnecessary convenience bullshit. All the actual useful stores on my high street have closed down and all that is left is endless rows of fast food. Wow another fucking Korean chicken street food joint. Bring back Maplin.
Anonymous
Does anyone else think it weird that in the middle of London there is one location stuck in 1994?>1972 stock tube trains >NSE signage >30 year old diesels
Anonymous
New worlds longest train, previous was 7.3km long and 680 wagons in Australia.
Anonymous
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think you meant to post a new thread
Anonymous
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>>1979299 >one location Oh there are loads if you know where to look. Try going to Essex Road station.
Anonymous
this is a slow board, no need to post an early thread when this one hasn't reached the bump limit
Anonymous
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>>1979457 not sure what you're referring to.
>>1979312 is clearly nothing to do with this thread's topic lol
Anonymous
Now, I'm not saying I want to put my penis in that thing
Anonymous
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>>1979556 In a puppet fight between her and the EMR purple beast who would win.
Anonymous
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>>1975715 >though I don't have figures to hand they've grown their own market for Ryanair-on-rails, rather than simply nicking passengers off LNER trains Coming back to this, Hull Trains - an open-access operator on the ECML - commissioned an independent report into the benefits their services bring to the Humberside region:
>https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/news/161589/hull-regional/ >Overall, the report demonstrates sizeable economic, social and sustainability benefits, all linked to the growth of the Hull Train’s Open Access services, which is further backed up by consistent stakeholder praise and comments. The report also outlines that Hull Trains has won numerous awards and entered into several partnerships with local organisations. ...obviously there's a direct connectivity benefit in going from one direct train per day to seven direct trains per day, doubling-up the five-car 800s to meet demand, and so on, but the focus was on the actual benefits generated by this connectivity
Anonymous
>https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/2024/02/14/business-case-to-be-prepared-for-wires-to-temple-meads >Bristol Parkway to Temple Meads electrification moves a step closer oh good!
>Electrification would enable the existing bi-mode Hitachi IEP trains that work on London-Bristol services to be used elsewhere, with conversion of the route to electric-only IEP trains. yeah! that's good!
>A survey of Bristol Temple Meads train shed will be carried out, to prove that it could be modified to take the loadings of either ‘head spans’ or alternative solutions, including those adopted on tram lines where speeds are lower and lightweight catenary is used. >If this is achievable, it will avoid costly movement of signals and ease the impact on the building’s Grade 1 heritage listing. OK, well, that's good
>Once the OBC is prepared by NR, funding will be sought, mainly from the Department for Transport. AAAAAHHHHHHHHH
Anonymous
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>>1979698 I'm bored of electrification now. I want to see battery-electrics, that's the edgy new thing now.
Anonymous
>>1979698 I'm bored of 25kV electrification now. I want to see battery-electric locomotives, that's the edgy new thing now.
Anonymous
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>>1979704 symptoms of anti-rail governments desu
Anonymous
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>>1979006 Hey, that's a pretty high resolution screen. Could put train info on there and wouldn't have to shorten the long station names
>>1979704 Rhymney-Cardiff should be having tri mode FLIRTs at some point this year
Anonymous
Anonymous
I refuse, point-blank, to call the Goblin line the fucking Suffragette Line. It's not going to happen.
Anonymous
Anonymous
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Wow this is real. This is so woke I'm amazed they didn't name one the "Pride Line".
Anonymous
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I mean, if the alternative is Trainy McTrainface...
Anonymous
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I hated Sadiq so much after crime went up, he tried to cut bus routes, cancelled new Routemasters, forced masking on the tube long after the rest of the country had given up and fucked up the ULEZ rollout. But then I tried the Superloop and thought "maybe this guy isn't so bad" then he goes and does this.
Anonymous
JFC it's woker than I thought>Weaver line from Liverpool Street to Walthamstow to celebrate everyone from the Huguenot silkworkers to Jewish clothworkers ‘fleeing anti-semitism in Eastern Europe’ to Bangladeshi textile manufacturers. >The Mildmay line commemorates the hospital of that name, originally founded by an Anglican clergyman and his wife in the 1860s for the sick of the area, but more importantly in this context, it is better known as a hospital for people with HIV Aids
Anonymous
it's also not like he picked the names himself. it was on his manifesto and it's fairly gone through the usual outreach/engagement channels. if anything it's a rubber-stamp job
Anonymous
Anonymous
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no, i'm not going to click your youtube link
Anonymous
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>>1970208 >>1975707 There's also
https://trainlog.me if you're after something that can turn station data into mileage, and plot your travels on a map. It's not as immediately intuitive as a spreadsheet, of course, but there's a demo at
https://trainlog.me/public/demo if you want to see what it does for you.
Anonymous
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...of course it uses the sat-nav model where it picks the shortest usable route between two points, rather than a timetabled route that train operators will actually follow, so whether that's better than measuring 'as the crow flies' or even tracking your own GPS location, is up to you.
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1980067 >Over 8 minutes long >Immediates starts with muh leftists muh white genocide le West has fallen Why don't you just tell us what happens at the end?
Anonymous
Anonymous
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no, i'm not going to click your youtube link
Anonymous
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>>1980169 She gives me Mediterranean vibes.
Anonymous
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>>1980067 I don't know who is more retarded, the committee of trannies trying to make a train line about diversity or the guy dressed as Enoch Powell ranting that the woke names means the West has fallen
Anonymous
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>>1979819 >it's real I mean, it's for the lines I'd never use, but what the fuck
Anonymous
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Timetables change in June this year, rather than May - a holdover from the plan to increase to three timetable changes per year, that they're now rowing back on (surprise surprise). Anyway, the June-December timetable should be uploaded everywhere by this time next week.
Anonymous
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is it rude to book seat number 61? I don't want to take away the seat from the man in seat number 61. maybe he's on the same train and carriage. I'd rather want to become the man in seat number 69.
Anonymous
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it's almost always the first to be taken up, in my experience, along with the compartment(s?) in Premium. make sure you check a few days before you travel because sometimes they'll move seats around without saying anything - learned that the hard way - and they're making advance passenger information (passport details) mandatory as well, so make sure that's filled-out.
Anonymous
>https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wayfinding.pdf got me thinking, because i'm the type of person that finds documents like this interesting: why is it that we can make road signs look identical up and down the country, but a consistent wayfinding scheme for rail is still a pipe dream.
i know the answer is a succession of anti-rail governments, and NR prioritising revenue generation (i.e. "advertising opportunities") and the fear-of-responsibility See It Say It Sorted garbage, plus nobody being in charge or wanting to be in charge ... but still.
Anonymous
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The almighty fuck?
>https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c2145324-32a8-4c78-9f43-d51b68d44218?shareToken=0c2dea5cd1150e593f1b5b523773b3cf >Return of the night mail train, delivering online shopping at 100mph >After 20 years, a train driver turned businessman is reinventing the service to cope with a booming demand for parcels >Phil Read, 49, is launching a parcel line from London to Glasgow in early March, using electric passenger trains travelling at 100mph, instead of an average speed of 30mph for freight. The seats and tables have been removed to create space. Anonymous
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>>1980412 Because Tarquin and Jemima in Marketing don't know the rules, nobody is there to stop them, and they don't care.
Anonymous
The very first passenger train to operate using diesel traction in Great Britain: allegedly it's a photo of the very *very* first service run.
Anonymous
>>1980412 >why is it that we can make road signs look identical up and down the country, but a consistent wayfinding scheme for rail is still a pipe dream. Standardisation of road signage is much more important because you have a lot less time to process the information at a sign going 70mph than you would walking or standing still on a station platform.
Road signs need to be simple enough to read the information at speed, informative enough that a decision can be made on the spot, and uniform enough such that drivers can easily recognise the signs ahead of time.
>i know the answer is It says a lot that you don't even bother to ask for other possible explanations before answering your own rhetorical question.
Anonymous
>>1981721 >Standardisation of road signage is much more important because you have a lot less time to process the information at a sign going 70mph than you would walking or standing still on a station platform. Fair enough. So, let's flip the scenario around a little, and imagine that Birmingham roadsigns are different from London roadsigns, and they're both different from ScotRoad roadsigns. If they're all large enough and legible enough to be read from a passing vehicle at 70mph, is there an issue with this?
Anonymous
...and presuming the answer is 'no', then it's back to my original rhetorical question (in that i'm not specifically interrogating you, personally, for an answer): why, then, is it not OK for Birmingham roadsigns and Cardiff roadsigns to use different brandings, colours, typefaces etc, but it is OK for Sheffield (left) and London Liverpool Street (right) to use different brandings, colours, typefaces, and ways of ordering stuff?
(both examples date back to 2022 - the source for the 'new and improved' EMR signage is
https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/help-manage/about-us/news-press/emr-to-improve-wayfinding-signage-at-eight-stations-across-its , and the GBR signage is of course taken from the wayfinding PDF I linked.)
Anonymous
>>1981726 It'd cause confusion among drivers travelling between Birmingham and London, since they might not be familiar with the local signage.
This isn't analogous to railways because roadside signage matters to car drivers, but station signage does not matter to train drivers.
In regards to rail passengers, this all goes back to the fact that they're viewing the sign while standing still or walking, not when they're travelling at speed.
>>1981727 >...and presuming the answer is 'no' As it turns out there is an issue with that hypothetical scenario you've proposed.
Anonymous
>>1981741 >It'd cause confusion among drivers travelling between Birmingham and London, since they might not be familiar with the local signage. ...and that's the point I'm getting at. The speed at which they're being viewed is irrelevant - you've never been in a hurry at an unfamiliar station with a nine-minute connection, and you're already running late?
The point for both car and rail wayfinding is to be intuitive and 'iconic', whether you're travelling at car-top-speed or human-in-a-hurry-top-speed. It's not acceptable for Glasgow and Cardiff to use different roadsigns, and likewise - for the same reasons - it shouldn't be acceptable for Sheffield and Doncaster to have different passenger wayfinding signs.
Anonymous
>>1981743 >The speed at which they're being viewed is irrelevant - you've never been in a hurry at an unfamiliar station with a nine-minute connection, and you're already running late? 9 minutes is 60 times longer than 9 seconds. It absolutely is relevant.
>The point for both car and rail wayfinding is to be intuitive and 'iconic' Absolutely. I think the road signage we have here is a design classic and the BR-era station signage is not far off either, but there is a clear difference in importance here as explained here and in my previous posts.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have a uniform design for wayfinding signs, but out of all the problems we have with the railways today, is this really the hill you're going to die on?
Anonymous
>>1981751 For fuck's sake, nobody's dying on any hills. It's a topic that I find interesting and relatable, and a return to a railway 'house standard' is something I would very much like to happen. I'm happy to chat with you about it, as we have been doing, but I resent this 'do you REALLY care all that much??' tone.
You're correct that there are other problems, and I care about those as well, but at the moment it sounds as though you're sniping at me in order to shut down discussion of this topic. Please don't do that.
Anonymous
>>1981753 It's just occurred to me that you're probably not even the same person who brought up the topic of signage in the first place. The writing style is completely different.
My antagonistic tone was supposed to be directed at whoever made that post for the reason I stated in my original reply, but I did not intend it to be directed at those who aren't just here to kick up a fuss about roads.
Anonymous
>>1981764 Well, it was: and I stand by what I said, and everything I've said since. I posed a question - one that is completely valid and accurate - and then answered it, and explained further when asked. I've no idea why you're now bringing up posting styles like it's relevant to anything; but I'm using capital sentences and punctuation because you were, and it's polite to code-switch like that when replying to people.
Anonymous
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>>1981781 Although it's clear that you're up for a discussion now, answering your own question like that in your first post came across as if you've already made up your mind and are just here to assert a particular point.
I brought up writing style because I had been posting under the impression that I was replying to the same anon and then incorrectly thought you were a different anon, but seeing that you're the same person, I still stand by the tone that I used in reply to your posts.
Anonymous
Anonymous
I'm flying into Heathrow from the USA for Spring break, and my hotel is by King's Cross. What's the best way to get from the airport to my hotel with luggage?
Anonymous
Anonymous
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>>1982049 I'd take the Piccadilly line from the airport: it'll take you to King's Cross St Pancras station in about an hour, and it's by far the cheapest option at just under £6; find a seat and zone out for a while.
You could also take either the Heathrow Express non-stop train to Paddington - or the slightly slower Elizabeth line train to Paddington - and then take the Circle line from Paddington to King's Cross. It'll be more expensive (roughly £25, sheesh), but it'll be a little faster and a little nicer than sitting on the Tube for an hour.
Whatever you do, make sure to grab an Oyster card at the airport: put a little cash on the card, and whatever you don't use you can get back if you return the card later. Or just keep it as a souvenir lol.
Anonymous
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(the Heathrow Express is the only option with luggage racks, which the option I'd take if I had a family's worth of luggage in tow, or if I was having to pay the 'keeping the GF happy' tax, or something. Your call though)
Anonymous
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>>1970111 Any different source?
That show has interesting premises, but the actual content is insufferable.
Anonymous
>>1982049 Piccadilly line. The Heathrow express is overpriced and terminates in a pointless location. If you take it you'll have to get the tube the rest of the way anyway so you may as well just take it direct from Heathrow.
>>1981680 Sovl.
>>1981727 I agree with
>>1981751 standardised signage would be nice and helpful but it's way down the list of issues with Britain's railways.
>>1982057 Give me the left of the thumbnail any day
Anonymous
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>>1982057 Our political system is terrible at holding corrupt politicians to account. In China you'll have a single corrupt leader who gets to purge everyone, but there's no real consequence for funnelling money from taxpayers in the UK.
Anonymous
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>>1980412 For me, it's the futura used in Italy. I used to have the style guide for Italian Rail but I can't find it on my computer... I like this site
https://retours.eu/ Anonymous
>>1982244 paddington is not a 'pointless location' simply because it's inconvenient in this single, specific example, anon.
Anonymous
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>https://www.screen.scot/film-in-scotland/made-in-scotland/tv/nightsleeper >the Club Car has ran out of Irn Bru >stern people in shirts talking into phones, helicopters against the sunset, scattered shots of blues and twos winding their way through traffic Anonymous
>>1982283 The only locations I can think of where HX would be more useful is north-west London due to the Bakerloo connection and inner-west London due to the H&C.
Anonymous
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>>1982312 i suspect HX will probably change into an alternating Old Oak Common / Paddington service once Phase 1 opens (sad, empty, hollow lol), but that'll be about it as far as transport from Heathrow goes, for a long, long, long time. simply because you can't have both net zero 2050 _and_ expansion at Heathrow.
the western rail link has been kicked about for decades, but in a world where the absolute worst-case alternative is having to double-back at OOC via HX or Crossrail, i don't think it'll ever happen.
Anonymous
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I would like to apologise to Merseyrail. When I saw their new class 777 at the bottom of the reliability tables I hated on them for purchasing "shitty foreign trains". I've since read more about the 777 and they are actually pioneering the first exclusively battery-electric line in the UK. They openly admitted that reliability was bad and they've refunded passengers but that "innovation has to start somewhere". I feel bad for criticizing them now.
Anonymous
Is it a train? Is it a bus?
Anonymous
Anonymous
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>>1962314 Does he cover the Irish railroads that the British built and that the Irish disgraced after becoming independent?
Anonymous
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>>1979006 Very environmentally friendly
Anonymous
Here's a question that's been bugging me: why are there two types of Class 43 locos? Wikipedia lists the 43 (Warship) and 43 (HST), but doesn't describe *why* two very different vehicles, built thirteen years apart, by different companies, share the same TOPS number
Anonymous
>>1982892 The Warships were all withdrawn before BR adopted the TOPS system, so they never received TOPS numbers. The power cars for the prototype HST were designated class 41, but when the HST was reclassified as a multiple unit, the power cars were given coach numbers, those being 43000 & 43001. The first "production" HST power car was then numbered 43002, and since there was no TOPS entry for class 43 locomotives, they could be allocated that class number going forward
Anonymous
>>1982900 I'm confused. The Warships were designated as Class 43 before TOPS?
Second, my understanding is the HST was intended to come into service as a fixed formation of two power cars sandwiching a rake of Mark 2 coaches: after all, it was only an interim to be used on the intercity routes until the APT could take over, which is why they were designated Class 253 (+254 and 255, depending on the composition of the carriages I think). The APT didn't work out, and in the meantime the HST was successful enough and useful enough that it could displace stock outside of the mainlines, and it was simpler maintenance-wise to treat them like any other locomotive - thus the Class 43 designation.
...which, looking at it, means I agree with you. I'm still curious where the Class 43 name came about for the Warships: I know the TOPS rules are more 'general guidelines' and don't really matter anyway, it's just interesting
Anonymous
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>>1982916 Looking at the dates for the withdrawal of the Warships, it's probably not the case that they never *received* TOPS numbers, but they never actually carried them in service. They were being withdrawn as BR was finalising the decision to bring in TOPS, and it's likely that a least some were still in service when the databases of new class designations were built up. As it turned out, none of the class was still in service when TOPS was actually rolled out, so it was probably just easier to leave the HST power cars with their existing 43xxx numbers when they designated them as locomotives and call them class 43
Anonymous
in fact, on the topic, someone posted a walkthrough of a HST power car across at Reddit a while ago, and if I were an engineer having to service the thing I'd burn the fucker down.
Anonymous
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>>1982922 Do the exterior panels not lift open or come out easily for more access? They have to no? Almost every other loco type does
Anonymous
Anonymous
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(OP here: I'll round up some news and post a new thread tomorrow. Plenty of time before this drops off the board though)
Anonymous
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Sir Nigel Gresley has been on a railtour today
Anonymous
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just browsing through slides about the new Avanti trains, like a normal person on a Sunday afternoon, and I'm surprised that the galleys on the 80x fleet are an actual ... well, kitchen, with a proper cooking surface and everything.
Anonymous
this is also promising, as well. obviously the proof will be in the pudding once the 805 and 807s come into service later this year: but it seems lessons have been learned from the Azuma and IET fleet, cue big fat bastards crying big fat tears about ironing boards
Anonymous
Anonymous
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX0i8RKLRZs blue and yellow streak of power
125 miles per hour
from the station to the sea
we're going by inter-city~
Anonymous
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>>1983169 >crying big fat tears about ironing boards Let it never, ever, ever, ever be forgotten that 'enthusiasts' will always, always, always wobble their jowls and cross their arms and stomp their feet about this. Here's an example ->
https://youtu.be/Xi-Ar-nPdCc?feature=shared&t=462 - timestamped to when the MD of Interfleet Technology, the privatised spin-off of BR's Intercity Fleet Engineering division, grumbles about the Mark 4 coaches' Standard seats being uncomfortable compared to those in the predecessor Mark 3s'. Because time is a flat circle and there is absolutely nothing at all new under the Sun, lol.
(incidentally, the Mark4 seats *were* changed when GNER refurbished the lot at the turn of the millennium, part of the Project Mallard business)
Like everyone posting here knows the story about the 91s never achieving their 140mph design speed ... people tend to gloss over or ignore how BR completely cocked-up the specification to begin with: like insisting this whiz-bang 140mph intercity passenger loco should also be capable of dragging 600 tons of coal around on freight duties, and I think in the early pre-1990 'Electra' documentaries kicking around Youtube there's talk of how they wanted it to be capable of international work through the Channel Tunnel as well. The 91s get away with a *lot*, with them being the 'last gasp of British Rail' or whatever.
Anonymous
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All change:
>>1983273 >>1983273 >>1983273 This thread is headed for Barry Scrapyard to be cut up.
