Recent content by mds86

So you're giving Gloucester a 2 tph service to Bristol which will take around 1 hour 10 mins for a journey that can be done in about 45 minutes by car? For my home city with a population of over 130,000 that's rubbish and hardly going to be attractive to get people onto the train. For...

Sounds like the chicken and egg situation. The majority of people will always be put off from using the train if they've got to make 2 changes and travel across London verses a direct train. No, the journey numbers from west of Oxford to Cambridge are not suddenly going to jump up by millions of...

During the initial phase yes, as it will be just an OOC to Curzon shuttle. Once Handsacre is complete then additional trains from the north will be terminating at OOC in the short term until the high speed platforms at Euston are ready

Looks like the first passenger trains are starting to run with 2E80 forming the 21:57 Bristol Parkway to Gloucester

When the 2nd tph to Gloucester was introduced, the reason said at the time why it didn't call at Cam & Dursley was to allow provision for it to call at Charfield when it eventually opens. Thus the plan a few years ago was that Yate will receive 2 tph but Charfield and Cam & Dursley only 1 tph...

Yate already receives a half-hourly service for most of the day made up of the Bristol - Worcester and Weymouth/Westbury - Gloucester services. Is the turnback siding for times of disruption where a train can more easily be terminated early or plans for a further increase in services?

I went to an open day at Old Oak Common back in March (mainly a community engagement day aimed at local residents) to see a presentation on HS2, the recently completed work and what would be happening over the next few months. Afterwards we were taken up to the balcony that overlooks the site...

It looks like the problem points have been fixed as both lines are now open between Gloucester Yard Junction and Horton Road Junction

The local politicians are not in favour of building a new station by Morrisons as they think that the current station would then probably close - the train operators would be unlikely to want to stop at the two stations, half a mile apart. The operators would be even less inclined to reverse...

I don't know what the point of this would be. The time penalty would be around 25 minutes if it was possible and for the folks travelling to Gloucester, passing through the city on the avoiding line will be rather annoying to put it mildly. The railways would then lose their time saving...

Another standard premium question! I've bought split tickets from Glasgow Central to Preston and Preston to Birmingham New Street for the start of September, both with Avanti. I have to change trains at Preston anyway. If I sit in standard premium at Glasgow, when the train manager comes...

New video on You Tube showing the TBMs being made ready for launch at Northolt and their names

I'd argue that Cheltenham is a winner now as despite losing it's centrally located terminus, it's current station now has every passenger train that passes through it now call. With the expansion of the town, the station is now definitely part of the urban area and is only a 10 - 15 min walk...

It would have been helpful for space to have been left for a junction just south of Birmingham Interchange to leave the London bound HSL and then curve round southern Birmingham to meet the cross country line heading for Bristol. Initially this could have joined the current route south of...

I agree. The logical option is to make the Bristol - Worcester/Malvern service hourly when the Metro West phase 2 begins if I remember correctly with additional Bristol - Gloucester hourly service. My idea would be to add a hourly Gloucester to Birmingham local service calling at Cheltenham...