Recent content by BayPaul

There was a lot of that crane that wasn't painted with stripes that was clearly hugely out of gauge in the video. I would have thought it would need an assessment whenever it was moving with the crane deployed.

But only to Bournemouth, not to Southampton. And if these stations would be profitable with 2tph, surely SWR would provide additional services.

Not necessarily. It has been quoted above that in a typical day 81 people are killed or seriously injured on the roads each day, with around a billion miles driven per day (337 billion per year). With around 115 million rail passenger miles per day, that equates to an equivalent of 10 killed or...

In a situation with an absence of hard evidence, a good prudent position would be to assume the worst case scenario, until the evidence shows it to be something lesser. Based on that position, it could be considered sensible for people to avoid using railways in heat waves, because of the risk...

I can't imagine that there are many people who have an interest in the incident who haven't speculated at least in their own heads about potential causes. It is simply human nature. Equally, it doesn't seem at all unreasonable for media outlets to provide somewhat more informed speculation...

Why would a private company be interested in running that service which would clearly be very loss making though? For example, I can't see why they would have a single passenger on the Redbridge to Bournemouth part of the journey.

I don't think that official advice 'not to speculate until the RAIB has made their report' is very helpful. The RAIB are renowned for being thorough and comprehensive, but not for being fast. At the moment a lot of people will quite reasonably be speculating if these two incidents might both be...

Extremely well said. Most announcements on trains and stations fulfil little or no need for those with a visual impairment, and are just drivel, generally masquerading as health and safety, but achieving nothing, especially as no one actually listens to them any more. No other business would...

Top and tail in the morning, the ones I saw in the afternoon were just class 37

Running today with a steam engine on one end and diesel on the other.

Dartmouth Steam Railway switched to diesels yesterday in the middle of the day, possibly as a result of a fire near Broadsands. Will be interesting to see if they are back to steam today

What a terrible map. If GBR is the brand, why are there 'other operators' - surely XC, LNER and EMR will also be GBR services within the lifetime of the map. And if GBR: Anglia is the brand, why isn't it mentioned, and why are there separate colours for C2C and greater Anglia services, which...

It also doesn't have the ambition to achieve London or even Manchester levels of frequency and coverage. To get there, Portishead and the other branches need at least 4tph frequency, ideally 6tph. Bristol city centre needs more lines and stations, as Temple Meads is rather on the outskirts for...

I'm finding this discussion really interesting. I think the point I most agree on is that cities are not great places for cars, and that a great aim should be to bring the modal share of other cities up towards London levels. As Bald Rick said, driving in Birmingham is easier than in London, but...

I do sometimes wonder if a moderate level of organised civil disobedience (work to rule style) could be the only way to kill pointless announcements. If every passenger immediately texted BTP with the nearest defect (the possibility of there not being a defect with train, station or service in...