Recent content by 365fenman

How much influence exactly does the Welsh assembly have over setting the Wales franchise? Moreover, the each of the companies could be set up with different shareholders, for example, the Scottish government. Something like the Scottish Assembly having a 10-20% stake in LMS and LNER. Looking at...

Bearing in mind the chat on this forum about the pros and cons of railway renationalisation, I wanted to ask a similar question - would you be in favour of a return to the Big Four system? By this I mean reverting to the structure of the 1920s and 30s (GWR, LMS, LNER and Southern). I am...

Does it? Currently there's a maximum of four electric trains going north from Cambridge in an hour (between 18:00 and 18:40), with one being eight cars and the rest being four cars. That's five EMU sets in an hour. With that, the peak time service on the Fen Line could be standardised as 2tph...

Here's a solution for providing comfortable, easy-to clean seats: leather seats. Learn from the Continent. As regard to the ironing board seats on classes 387 and 700, what really doesn't help is that the seats are SO upright (basically 90 degrees). After using the former two trains a lot, I...

Absolutely. Peak time trains from Cambridge to Kings Lynn have been packed to the rafters for years and platform extensions should have been done by now. IMO this relatively simple job should have been prioritised over the Cambridge North station. I believe now that platform extensions will go...

One train where I think they got the announcements on the PIS system just right was the Class 365. Very clear, no strange gaps in between words (actually sounded like a real voice) and most of all the messages were just simple. No messing about, just 'the next station is Cambridge' or 'this...

Coming back to the use of class 91s + Mk 4s in the future, in my opinion the most obvious choice would be for them to operate fast services on the MML to Sheffield and Nottingham that only make three intermediate stops. Although I guess the question then is what to do with the stopping services...

I travelled from Sheffield to London the other day on a class 222 for the first time. What a poor experience! For the whole two and a half hours of the journey, I couln't relax because of the loud engine noise and the non-stop vibration, which you can feel just by putting your hand on the table...

Imagine if we'd had today's rail system in the 1980s, with TOCs, ROSCOs, Network Rail etc. But in the eighties, where trains were used much less than today and funding was very limited. Would they have done things like build pacers? Would they have done something better? Or would they have...

No it isn't. Rolling stock has an average life of around 40 years. Housing on the other hand, potentially forever. Rolling stock declines in value over time (as well as in terms of usefulness, efficiency etc). Housing doesn't. Its usefulness in 40 years' time is the same as today (and its value...

Waterbeach can :wink:

Would definitely be welcome. More trains to Cambrige alone would be a good thing! How about this for a long shot? Electrify Ely-Norwich. Looks like in a few years there'll be plenty of 317s knocking about (if not already), then you have a four car through train from Ely to Stansted.

I noticed this as well. So they will replace a 4 car EMU with a 2 car DMU? Maybe they could couple two DMUs together, making four cars? It disappoints me that this Norwich service, now extended to Stansted, will continue not to stop at Waterbeach. Especially as it stops at Whittlesford, which...

Fair enough, I agree the XC service is supposed to be fast and should only be for key stations. Again fair enough, I've never used the Norwich service so I wouldn't know. Norwich isn't the top destination... ...But that service stops at Cambridge and Ely, which are. Therefore, whilst...

The recently talked about plans of doubling the frequency of the Kings Lynn to Cambridge service and new Cambridge Science Park station got me thinking about stopping patterns at Waterbeach. Waterbeach currently has three off peak trains per hour passing through in each direction, but only one...