What is your controversial railway opinion/idea?

[Strat-tastic]

Underground trains look scary and ugly.

 

[PeterY]

Send some Pacers down south, so us southerners don't have to travel north to ride them

 

[DanDaDriver]

Despite what the majority of people on here think, nationalisation and having a silver service restaurant car on every service would not be a panacea for the Railway.

 

[johnnychips]

Replace coin-op toilet turnstiles with concierges with grey hair, glasses and knitting.

 

[Warwick]

Too many railway people live in a black and white world.

Ban bloody kettles off the main line, they can't cope with the modern cluttered railway

Nor can Network Rail.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Make the ENCTS bus pass valid on all trains, effectively giving pensioners a free annual all line rover.

Because the S&C is so wonderful, give it a half-hourly ten-coach service hauled by steam locos based at Leeds Holbeck, Skipton and Carlisle Kingmoor to accommodate all those pensioners who ride for free.

Build 55 new Britannia pacifics to haul all those new trains on the S&C.

A wide range of freight trains (whether loaded or not) , ought to be run on the Settle Line , "because it is there , and needs to be used"

 

[theironroad]

Northern Rail's operation of the train service is excellent and should be a model for the rest of the country.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Northern Rail's operation of the train service is excellent and should be a model for the rest of the country.

Can't speak for Northern but surely, GTR's service is far, far more superior

 

[bussnapperwm]

People who use the trainline should be shot on sight.

First and Arriva should be stripped of their franchises immediately and replaced by European state owned operators

 

[Kite159]

Send some Pacers down south, so us southerners don't have to travel north to ride them

*South East

(The people of the South West already have 143s in Devon)

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My controversial opinion, anybody caught with feet on seat to be automatically charged £100 and be thrown off the train at the next stop. No excuses.

 

[driver_m]

Anyone on here who advocates trying to save 10p by purchasing 50 split tickets should be castrated and made to watch EastEnders on a loop - any year will do. That and also anyone who has written clichés about small windows and stinking bogs .

 

[al78]

Take up the railway track and replace with bus lanes which also provide access to the national road network, except the high speed intercity lines.

 

[Joe Paxton]

The current way the railway is organised is far from ideal - and so are all the alternatives.

 

[ChilternTurbo]

Weekend first class upgrades on Virgin West Coast are way too cheap and for me defeat the point the point of upgrading because first class is so busy. I'd happily pay double the current cost of upgrading for an enhanced at seat service similar to weekday trains and for a bit more peace and quiet...

 

[backontrack]

We shouldn't hesitate to expand our rail network much more with new waves of line and station reopenings.

 

[fowler9]

Running some trains on the CLC route.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

All advance tickets should be withdrawn.

 

[ASharpe]

1. All 3+2 seating should be removed and replaced with longitudinal seating or 2+1 with plenty of standing space. If the journey is short enough for a cramped seat it's short enough to stand.
   
   
2. Announcements should be restricted to one carriage only and the rest of the train should have LED signs only (and they should be dimmed at night).
   
   
3. All trains not included in 1 should have a bar serving real ale.
   
   
4. No trains should ever be held for other delayed services, especially if it's the last train and people already on it have last buses to catch.
   
   
5. All large stations should have free wifi that you only ever need to connect to once, once on the move you should be expected to use your own 4G connection.
   
   
6. Central door locking should work in reverse for toilet door on stock without retention tanks. i.e. toilets locked out of use while the train is in a station.
   
   
7. Trains should be left open so that passengers don't have to stand waiting for a guard and driver at terminus stations.
   
   
8. Pacers should have their toilets locked out of use and be sent for use on London suburban services.
   
   
9. People who walk quickly, without luggage, who know where they are going and have their ticket ready for the barrier should be let of trains before everyone else.
   
   
10. People who stop dead at the ends of escalators to sort out their luggage or look where they are going should be sent to labour camps.
    

10 will do for now but I've got lots more.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

The following cities / greater urban areas should have fully devolved and vertically integrated ownership and responsibility of railway infrastructure and specification / operation of local train services (bar Intercity, which should be one national operator), and legal power to raise funding for such services through locally administered taxation. Services can be operated directly or franchised out as the local governing body sees fit.

Leeds/Bradford
Sheffield
Newcastle/Sunderland
Greater Manchester
Liverpool/Merseyside
Birmingham/West Midlands
Bristol
Nottingham
Exeter/Torbay
Cardiff
Edinburgh
Glasgow

 

[Parallel]

Refurbish all 143s and 144s and keep them going beyond 2020 and use them doubled up as preferred stock for a programme of newly opened/re-opened branch lines.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

We shouldn't hesitate to expand our rail network much more with new waves of line and station reopenings.

Especially for spurious freight flows that add profit to the Generating companies - Drax comes to mind - especially routing via a rebuilt Skipton to Colne line.

Aberystwyth to Carmarthen might reinvigorate the defunct Welsh milk business to London.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Central door locking should work in reverse for toilet door on stock without retention tanks. i.e. toilets locked out of use while the train is in a station.

I can’t resist asking - what happens if someone is already on the can when you arrive into a station?

 

[Railcar]

1. Third-rail Uckfield, Marshlink and Reigate-Shalford.

2. A low-cost bypass for the Brighton Main Line (running between Balham and Brighton platforms 1,2 and 3 via Horsham) by adding a chord between Arundel and Angmering.

 

[backontrack]

Especially for spurious freight flows that add profit to the Generating companies - Drax comes to mind - especially routing via a rebuilt Skipton to Colne line.

Aberystwyth to Carmarthen might reinvigorate the defunct Welsh milk business to London.

Don't mock me - did I ever say I supported that kind of thing?

Straw man, straw man, straw man.

 

[superalbs]

The IC70 is a bad seat.

 

[43074]

Devolution is bad for railways because they have to cross political boundaries.

 

[westv]

HSTs are an archaic relic from another age and should be sent to the scrap yard asap.

Mallard is far better looking than Flying Scotsman.

 

[tbtc]

If you need to mention "diversionary resilience" as part of your justification for reopening an old line then you are desperately scrambling around for reasons because you know that your case for reopening the line is pretty tenuous.

As we saw earlier this month on the Brighton Main Line, even when there's a parallel route not far away run by the same TOC operating the same trains, it's easier just to put on replacement bus services.

The idea that we are going to divert long distance services via Okahampton/ Bakewell/ Colne etc is fanciful. If you want to re-open abandoned routes, find a good business case for it on its own merits, good luck with that. But don't pretend that the diversionary usefulness is part of that case - we'll just get a twenty first century equivalent of Fraser Eagle to shuttle passengers by coach if anything goes wrong on the main line.

 

[Cowley]

I can’t resist asking - what happens if someone is already on the can when you arrive into a station?

Trapdoor?

 

[700007]

Chris Grayling and Charles Horton are undoubtedly the best men to run our railways.

Down with the 43s and let the 142s rise!