Recent content by brianfraser

I enjoy walking old railway lines and have wondered what the legal position is with lines no longer in active use but with rails in situ.

I used to go on holiday as a boy to Monifieth (just north of Dundee) and there was a bridge with 6 feet of clearance I could walk under. Couldn't quite manage that now. Incidentally, I still see quite a few bridges with the clearance stated in imperial units only, including a recently...

I spend a lot of time in Germany and it seems like every town has a railway station. The French rail network is also very extensive. Did these countries not have a "Beeching" period? Not only did we shut down a third of our network, we also neglected much of the remaining infrastructure until...

Do they still have the covered walkway into the city centre?

This line runs past my house a couple of miles outside Dunfermline. There were regular daily coal trains to Longannet until about 2008, when the section between Stirling and Kincardine was reopened (it had been rusting away for years). The coal is shipped in to Ayr Harbour and is delivered by...

Although it is a little strange why rail bridges over roads, which would bear no load after closure and may well have stood for 100 years, were swiftly removed while many overbridges were left untouched despite being subjected to a daily pounding from traffic.

It is often said that building over the trackbed of closed lines was a short-sighted strategy. But a more cynical ploy was the removal of iron and steel bridges by BR itself, ostensibly for scrap. There are many examples of stone pillars and abutments remaining but a gap where a metal...

It can sometimes be cheaper to buy 2 individual tickets for a journey, rather than a through ticket. For example, when I travelled from Inverkeithing to York on the ECML, I found a cheap Edinburgh to York advance single and purchased a standard single from Inverkeithing to Edinburgh and did this...

Apparently Beeching wanted to close the branch to North Berwick off the ECML. A campaign to save the line surprisingly succeeded. But it was a false dawn, weeks later the glorious Waverly route from Edinburgh to Carlisle was shut down.

Neither. I'm simply trying to quash the myth that some people aren't able to learn languages. If that were true, how come nearly all citizens in Norway and the Netherlands can speak English? Where are those who were not able to learn? People avoid learning languages unless there is a social...

Absolute nonsense. Everyone is capable of learning to converse functionally in another language. Of course, it's not easy and people often underestimate the time and effort required, coming up with all manner of excuses like "I'm not talented at languages", "I'm too old", "Everyone in that...

Additionally, some ex-passenger lines still in operation for freight were closed and lifted during the 70s and 80s.

I can only really speak for my local Fife Circle line, but generally it's not a problem buying an off-peak return on the train when boarding at a station with ticketing facilities. The vast majority of guards are ok with it, some might point out that you should have bought the ticket before...

Ok, I'll rephrase it as "this would be unlikely to stand up in a court of law" I think any threat to prosecute would be a bluff by the train company. As long as you stay calm and provide your name and address if asked, would the police really be interested in taking this further?

"Ticket" is an international word, like taxi or computer. Besides, even if you don't speak any English, if a uniformed guy on a train is making his way down the carriage checking tickets, it's pretty obvious what he's asking for when he arrives at your seat.