Recent content by Newtraveller58

I think, while it is true that there are lots of reasons why it takes much longer to recover from an incident such as this than it did in the past, the average passenger is only interested in when their train to work, college, friends family etc will operate normally again. In most transport...

I agree the safety of the public needs to be considered but that needs to be in the round. The current situation with the station closed, and no or very limited services on many routes to the south of Glasgow, is causing huge disruption to the city. This has both safety and economic...

I think the electrification programme is likely to reduce passenger numbers in the short term due to significant disruption in Fife over the next few years while parts of the line are electrified. After that, most services will remain diesel operated until at least 2031 which is currently the...

Not normally but they have been fuelled at Oban from road tankers during previous blockages.

I’m guessing these would have been the buses for the West Highland Line (WHL) services to Crianlarich. The Helensburgh and Balloch trains are running as far as Dalmuir with bus connections from there. I did ask ScotRail why the WHL trains were not running as far south as Dumbarton but got no...

45years ago as an on call operations supervisor, I would have been expected to go and cover if we were short of a shunter (or any other critical role within my team). Not running trains because of the lack of a shunter would definitely have had the Area Manager inviting me in for a serious...

Yes - I noticed that. Don’t know which is correct but I did notice the RTT timings from Bishop Auckland West to Stanhope was only 43 minutes which may be a bit optimistic when the shuttles on Sunday are timed as 59 minutes.

Anyone know when the ECS to Stanhope for this is. I have searched RTT for most of this week but while I can find the timings for Saturdays workings to and from Edinburgh, I can’t see any ECS workings to get the set to Stanhope. As I’m on holiday in Weardale, would be interesting to watch it...

Back in 1984, the last Inverness to Aberdeen train on a Saturday night sat in Huntly for nearly 24 hours due to a heavy snowfall blocking the line. The roads were also blocked due to the snow, so the train which had arrived in Huntly with about 20 passengers left with about 200! The crew kept...

I don’t think Network Rail staff would have keys for a station unless it was regarded as a line side access. Hopefully, NR would contact the local TOC control and get an on call TOC manager out to assist.

Part of the devolution agreement between the DfT and the Scottish Government (Transport Scotland) requires the Anglo Scottish operators to provide these services. If they do not do so, the DfT should be paying Transport Scotland so that ScotRail can obtain the resources required to operate the...

The original class 91 timing was 58 minutes but the speed round the Carstairs curve has been raised from 10/20 mph to 40/50 mph. The 64 minute timing of the 0648 from Glasgow includes 6 minutes pathing time and the 80x series train have better acceleration than the class 91 /mark 4 sets...

The advantage of using the route via Carstairs is that it allows trains to stop at Motherwell, which developed a significant flow to Edinburgh when the former GNER and Cross Country operators provided a 2 hourly service (hourly in the peak). With the upgrade to the Carstairs curve a journey...

Is the connectional issue here not people from T5 who want an Elizabeth Line train rather than being stuck on the HEx train to Paddington.

Now that the Carstairs curve has been upgraded, the journey time via Carstairs with a stop at Motherwell should be about the same as the standard 5 stop ScotRail service via Falkirk. The advantage of a through train would be a significant benefit for many people. Via Shotts would be similar now...