Recent content by James James

Surely they can design and build it if needed. CAF didn't used to make trains with end gangways, and now they do. It might be slightly tricky due to floors being higher at the driving end, but that's not an insurmountable problem.

As long as you're OK with other countries banning the purchase of British built trains in return... oh, wait.

At rush hour sure, the rest of the time I've always had a good choice of seats from Basel.

Back to topic: - Camedo (CH) to Ribellasca (IT): around 1km. - Konstanz (DE) to Kreuzlingen OR Kreuzlingen Hafen (both CH): 1.2km. - Lustenau (AT) to St. Margrethen (CH): 1.8km (would've been less until Lustenau Markt was closed). - Buchs (CH) to Schaan-Vaduz (LI) seems to be 2.6km. -...

Basel Bad is on Swiss territory. The stations and the tracks may belong to DB, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still Switzerland, subject to Swiss law (plus the provisions of the treaty, which includes some stuff about it partly being German customs territory which still doesn't make...

Newag have copied the power pack approach for PKP's new hybrid Impuls'es. It's rather hard to find a good photo of the whole train, but there's a photo of the pack in here: https://railmarket.com/news/rolling-stock/51088-pkp-intercity-presents-first-of-35-newag-made-demus Older hybrid or diesel...

But it simply doesn't make sense. Why does the UK have to insist on this illogical timetabling "logic" that doesn't serve the passengers expectation? And why do you keep insisting on an offset which is proven to be unnecessary. Unaccompanied trains in Switzerland lock doors at :00, and will be...

So it looks like North Korea was only added to the list in 2019 - turns out it was only places like Iran that were on the list before that ( https://koryogroup.com/travel-guide/news-update-travel-to-the-us-the-esta-visa-waiver-program ). It's true that NK won't share data, but if you lie on the...

That's preposterous - by your logic you might as well never even unlock the doors because whoever gets to board last before the scheduled door-closing time gets an unfair advantage. (To illustrate: doors close on published departure time - those who arrive in the last minute are advantaged, so...

Seems unlikely given the small order size. Alstom is hopefully already exhausted from trying to sabotage Stadler all over the place on the much bigger OBB and SBB orders.

Nope - I don't think that's the answer, at least not universally - the Swiss procedure is activate door closing at the published time, and go once locked. If it's an accompanied train instead: the conductor activates door closing (except for their door), checks everythings good, boards and locks...

Can't speak to Belgium specifically, but every new train I've seen elsewhere in Europe* has horrible door noises and excessively bright lighting. I think it depends on the precise year of approval though, some reasonably modern trains indeed don't have the horrible door noises yet. * Even in...

Lots of talk, but no one has managed to explain why the UK insists on these standards when most of Europe gets by without it. (Amtrak examples aren't great given those are often multi-day journeys...) Airport comparisons also aren't relevant given there's no security check at the train station...

You wouldn't believe how much of a supply chain squeeze there is right now. It's affected components for all kinds of trains over the past 2 years.

You just have to tell the app which class you want in advance. If you select 2nd and sit in 1st you'll presumably be forced to pay for an upgrade (on IR/IC trains) or fined (local trains). Realistically no one would actually do this - for an all day sojourn you'd buy your ticket in advance on...