Recent content by Fudgefrog

I’ve used LNERs 800s and 801s and GWR and TPE’s 802s regularly over the last few years and they’re perfectly fine units, current issues notwithstanding. The standard class seats aren’t always as comfortable as some of the stock they replaced, and first class is a downgrade compared to both LNER...

I find this analysis curious, given that TPE, Hull Trains, Avanti WC, East Coast Trains and EMR, as well as GWR with their 802s, all choosing the AT300 voluntarily and separately from the IEP. The Government-designed and run competitive programme might have been a mess and a shambles, but the...

Or HSTs - remember MK3s required extensive rewiring to make them suitable for push-pull LCHS use. If half your 43s had gone down with a common fault or safety issue, you’d have nothing to haul the carriages with?

Then what you’re describing isn’t an issue of common design, but preferring fixed unit designs that can’t easily be short formed. But even then, you assume that there weren’t circumstances in which, say, the whole HST fleet could be grounded - problems with wiring or AC units, unsafe couplers, a...

The 375 and 377s were originally identical trains, but Southern's were renumbered to reflect their retrofitted dellner couplings. Connex/SouthEastern subsequently fitted their 375s with Dellners, but didn't renumber. 387s are a bit different though, as they're more of a hybrid...

You sell valueless things for £1 for contractual reasons - you need ‘consideration’ for a contract to be enforceable by the person receiving the assets, and consideration doesn’t need to reflect the true or fair value of the goods as long as it is objectively of some value. Without the...

The touchscreen on my iphone tends to go crazy when charging on class 802s, but curiously only when it’s on electric towards Paddington. The time the train’s on diesel all is well. Usually plugged into the train’s own USB port using an original Apple cable. Never had that problem on anything...

About 20 years or so ago me and a parent were trying to travel back from Charing Cross towards Croydon at about 10pm at night, and the platform staff hurried us onto a Connex South Eastern that it turned out was fast to Tumbridge Wells. After watching it head straight through London Bridge and...

Compare LNER/VTEC’s current first class vs the ‘Azuma’ first class and... Quite the downgrade. New first class seat vs current first class The current first class uses bold colours, but every seat is spacious, the seats are comfortable, and the build materials all feel of high quality. The...

Interesting that the 319/769 model in that video appears to have amended headlights that might, given the livery, imply it can run without a yellow front - yet no other cosmetic changes seem planned for the outside. Wasn't there originally a proposal to significantly rework the front end when...

Would 170s have been powerful enough on the steeper Pennine climbs to match the speed and acceleration of the 185s, though? It's worth remembering that the eco mode enabled a few years after introduction reduces fuel consumption quite a bit by effectively switching an engine off when it isn't...

www.railvolution.net/railvolution/hors-doeuvres.php?tag=siemens

Bringing the Pretendolino set(s) on makes sense in the few months leading up to the new CAF carriages being introduced for 68 training, or to provide extra capacity between now and then, but presumably carriages must be introduced from somewhere in service between now and 2018 or else the driver...

Look at the unit in the background and compare the (lack of) front passenger windows, and single door, to the pictures of the Northern EMU stock. While it's entirely possible this is for stock that was proposed, but wasn't taken up, my guess is the loco hauled stock will be designed to appear...

On the issue of job security, just a thought: It's not the new OBS role that has made guard's jobs less secure - it's the viable existence of DOO technology. GTR is choosing to keep the guards on, at least for the foreseeable future, in OBS roles. That's not a requirement to phasing the staff...