Recent content by biggerisbetter

With 378,822 people using Kirkstall Forge before the completion of the remainder of the office park and 456,000 using Apperley Bridge, I would say both have been a success and entirely justified. The new Thorpe Park station proposed is East Leeds in my view will also be positive with the number...

I am not sure there are sufficient units for the 350/2s to be used on post TRU electric services if all 323s are replaced which surely there will be by then. 37 350/2s to replace 34 323s and with the Wigan to Stalybridge and potentially making the Golborne all day, this would likely utilise the...

Presuming that the ship has sailed on this now but is anyone aware if: - Are there many platforms served by the units where 10 x 24m units would not fit or where SDO is not feasible? - Would it be feasible to extend the current units to 10-car (in a fixed 5+5 formation) without wasting any...

Not sure it has ever been a ‘nobody sits in the middle seats’ thing, more a ‘not enough people sit in the middle seats to offset the loss of standing capacity and for people to circulate through the train when busy’ thing.

I am not necessairly saying, 'it must be 9 cars to Hull' (and you weren't necesairly suggesting I was), but overall I like the ability of a national operator to be able to look at the whole picture and craft services to meet overall network demand. For example, current services to Hull may not...

My view is that if you are having to shift your stopping patterns around not being primarily abstractive rather than what would be the best calling patterns for the network as a whole then this is sub-optimal. Open access operators also tend to use shorter trains into termini with capacity...

Too late for this idea I think (and obviously fairly expensive, but perhaps not as expensive as another river crossing) but a sham that the new Beam Park station couldn't feature an interchange between Southeastern High Speed services (platofrms on passing loops), C2C services and the DLR...

You would add an extra 5 minutes to the journey vs. changing at Salford Crescent and a slightly more inconvenient / stressfull change at Victoria (where you can get the tram anyway). You would need improvements to the already constrained footbridges if you were requiring increased interchange at...

Salford Crescent is the preferred option as you can also change to and from the Atherton line services giving Wigan, Ince, Hindley, Daisy Hill, Hag Fold, Atherton, Walkden, Moorside and Swinton a greater effective frequency of accessing the Castlefield corridor with one change. It works in the...

Agree with this. The Castlefield corridor has Oxford Road which is better located to the concentration of most jobs in Manchester than Victoria, is within walking distance of the universities for staff and students; has access to a wider range of national services (Sheffield, Nottingham...

If it is officially or unofficially a ban, yes either way. The Marshlink, North Downs, Uckfield and Merseyrail extensions (Ormskirk to Preston, Headbolt Lane to Wigan, Bidston to Wrexham and Hunts Cross to Warrington) should be electrified in combination with the introduction of battery EMUs on...

Based on comments from others, my initial thoughts were along the lines of the following: - Provide XC with the currently unutilised Voyagers - Refurbish the 350/2s to provide 2+2 seating and tables - 1tph Bournemouth to Liverpool (5-car Voyager or 8-car if Reading reversal not an issue) - 1tph...

You also need to conisder the nature of people making the journeys between Manchester and Birmingham and their purpose. If you were proposing to replace one of the crosscountry services to Manchester I (and I imagine a not immaterial number of others) would still use the remaining Crosscountry...

Moorside and Ince have materially lower usage* compared to other stations on the line, are close to other stations and this reduces the increase in journey times as a result of tts switch for Southport line users. They would still have 2tph and 3tph respectively so worth skipping on the services...

Post the introduction of the western sidings at Salford Central and splitting of the Leeds to Wigan service, it would make more sense, in line with other suggestions, if you are getting rid of the 769s to have something like: - 2tph Wigan North-Western to Stalybridge via Westhouhgton EMU - 1tph...