Recent content by AndrewE

I love (almost) all offal, and we are lucky enough to have a farm shop near here that has its own abattoir. When I asked for a couple of lambs kidneys the last time we were there the butcher (who is also the farmer and slaughterman) reached into the cavity of a lamb hanging in the shop, pulled...

I take it (from the company's decision to lock up and walk away) that their operation is so widespread and complex that they couldn't possibly try to run it without their whole Control and Management suite being operational. Hence my suggestion of trying to run a skeleton service on the trunk...

to put together a skeleton hourly service, say between Bristol and York fitting in with what resources GWR and LNER could lend? Don't you think it's appalling that in modern Britain they just abandoned train services on that axis? I suppose that it being a Sunday might have made it more...

Maybe a couple of the best diagrammers in a nearby Starbucks with pencils and paper - and a laptop for email distribution and mobile phones for liaison with depots... (remembering how we used to draw out the services on paper every week for the STN alterations and extra trains and allocate crews...

If there had been any spare GW crews then surely unemployed XC crews could have conducted them? Hand-written diagrams for them and the XC people would have sufficed...

I worked with a chap whose son had emigrated to Australia and worked on their railways. The son was amazed that we had a Control devoted to regulating trains to make the Passenger timetable work as well as possible, as theirs was almost entirely to regulate trains starting from a stand to...

Portillo's visit to Glasgow was re-broadcast recently, and he specifically commented on that name in it. The old transport museum had part of a car as an exhibit and I'm very glad it is now in the new one. What it can't show is the flexible nature of the cars, which distorted continuously when...

I don't think so... "electric companies" are numerous and widespread, and I guess properly-specified and sourced motors and even the hardware and software to drive them is also easily available and not too difficult to replace, almost certainly easier than bespoke ICE components. I would talk...

I imagine it depends entirely on how the domestic energy market is rigged arranged... and whether the electric ferry is actually any more expensive than a diesel one anyway? Currently my domestic gas is 7.25p/kWh, my Octopus Flux "cheap rate" - at 2 a.m. - is 16.1! I don't know how red diesel...

I agree that diesels through the tunnel makes it unpleasant by the time you reach the end - and I haven't had the experience of creeping through either. I can't wait for it to be electrified, but am not optimistic that it will happen in my lifetime. I am very sensitive to the NOx fumes and...

Our most recent experience (18 months ago) was of compulsory reservations on relatively short trains, so beware! (Especially on Fridays/weekends and around a public holiday.) We found the road coach network is a good fallback, just go to the coach station and buy your ticket (only an hour or...

it depends on how you see railways (which to my mind are an essential part of UK infrastructure for all people travelling long distances other than by car - pace road coaches - in a low-carbon way) and whether you think the state should be ensuring that it is reliable as a way to wean people...

It does seem to have been a local power cut, NCE says (https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/crosscountry-services-back-after-power-cut-at-control-centre-shut-network-24-08-2026/) Still not good enough though... Something this important should have a serious UPS and a stand-by generator...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyz37zzp22o has Moderator note - already being discussed here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/derailment-near-llangennech-carmarthenshire-2020-legal-action.306334/

Yes. A lot of the travelling public's stress will be coming from the constant warnings and harassment of "If you don't have a ticket for this operator you will have to buy a full-price single for this journey if you want to complete it." They (the travelling public) are understandably...