Recent content by Foxcover

The worst one for me is the “get your money back” offer that often appears at the end of the booking/journey process (and others, including National Railcard). It’s far from immediately obvious that you’re leaving Trainline and dealing with a completely separate company, still less that by...

Given that EMR send 4x158s ECS at dawn every weekday from Nottingham to Liverpool…! Sorry, couldn’t resist!

I do remember Cheadle Hulme being used as a terminus for timetabled cross-Manchester passenger services (to the north) in the late 80s for a short time after the Windsor link opened, but it didn’t last for long from memory.

Have to say I was very impressed with the Avanti Train Managers, Avanti control/social media and even the Euston gatelines yesterday given the operational difficulties. We were on the 0932 from Chester to Euston, and the 1633 Euston to Piccadilly (as far as Crewe where it had to terminate) -...

The 230s have been on all the diagrams the last few days giving that much-needed 197 back to the rest of the network. Have used the line a lot recently and it’s been reliable (except Tuesday afternoon when there was a track defect northbound after Hawarden Bridge, super crew escorted us back...

It was an open return Neston-Manchester, issued by the guard on the Wrexham-Bidston - a journey that would have been issued from a ticket office as ‘Manchester stations’ so not sure why it said Piccadilly. At Victoria the gateline attendant sent me to the ticket office to confirm what he was...

Generally it’s getting that ‘don’t care’ feel it used to have. I nearly missed a Liverpool-bound train twice there recently - one a few weeks ago when the usual unhelpful gateline attendant refused to let me through with a paper *open* return ticket (issued earlier that day on the Wrexham to...

Nothing beat the bounce of a Crewe-bound 304 with a via-Macclesfield express on its heels between Stockport and Cheadle Hulme!

Just been on a 197 from Wrexham Central to Bidston whose PIS was stuck at Wrexham General. Pretty much the entire journey taken up with the full station listing in Welsh, then English, every 3 minutes!

I actually saw 2 Avanti west coast customers having to leave the 1807 XC Edinburgh to Birmingham before departure, because there was no ticket acceptance for Avanti. Like me they’d transfered to Queen St and then to Edinburgh on the fast-ish 1700 train. The train manager on XC kept repeating...

TPE were excellent - all the train crew of the cancelled 1611 were with the passengers giving advice. But then again, at least they had advice to give and had ticket acceptance to offer. Is the reason Avanti couldn‘t get acceptance because of the ownership, or because of the volumes? 1756928685...

Arrived at Glasgow Central just as disruption breaking, booked on the 1611 to Liverpool. Very helpful TPE staff on the platform, quickly directed us across to Queen St with confirmed ticket acceptance on Scotrail, LNER and XC so will pick up TPE again at Newcastle if all goes well. Sounds like...

On Irish ferries a couple of weeks ago there were only around a dozen foot passengers for the mid morning Saturday sailing Holyhead - Dublin and a couple of dozen returning a few days later. We had got to Holyhead by car. It did make me wonder what the point of the Holyhead connections was. The...

To the OP - do be aware that the discount clock starts ticking again once each appeal is rejected, and only stops again when you submit the next stage. If you’re taking advice, eg here, a few days between rejection and submission can quickly eat up the discount period. I nearly got caught out by...

I know the hot food etc is carefully described as ‘complimentary’ but there comes a point where the product advertising is simply misleading - as the delivery is so inconsistent.