Recent content by Nymanic

For the record, it looks like three of the four vehicles deployed on the 87 last Saturday (22/03) were Diamond-branded - one of which had both Bee Network and Diamond branding. (For completeness, the fourth vehicle was a diminutive Mellor Orion) While presumably due to vehicle shortages, it's...

Truly a depressing day. Among so many other things, I wait with jaded anticipation to see how 400m trains will apparently be accommodated under the Piccadilly trainshed (and indeed all the other 'classic stations en-route), without massive disruption, unforeseen cost increases and a further...

Carnforth's existing platforms are electrified, unlike anything beyond the station en route to Barrow. For that reason, it sees no electric services at all.

I could have seen merit in an ECML slew branching off south of Northallerton, and serving Middlesbrough (for Teesside at large) and Sunderland. How you'd thread it through the latter and onwards to Newcastle, without the blank cheque of plunging the whole thing underground, would be one of very...

FS use the Futura typeface - as did East Midlands Trains in some contexts. The bold weighting is pretty clear from a passing train, but the lighter weighting less so. Although the larger size of Italian station signs is a key factor in readability. I do like Brunel, which has stood the test of...

Technically they can't double up on any of the routes they presently operate, unless SDO is retrofitted. Sadly, there's nothing to suggest that's in the pipeline. Heck, for all we know it might not be possible to do economically. If it's possible, though, I'd expect a reasonable case for all 26...

It left Stockport but hasn't tracked since. Is it struggling again, or perhaps diverted to Piccadilly?

Am I right in thinking that 12814 is the number of the additional DT? Because I've just seen that attached to the rear of a Nova 3 set, headed by 68029. It appears testing is underway. Didn't get the set number, sadly.

I'm cheating here since it's not a 'bus return', but my longest day consisted of the 0430-ish train from Manchester Piccadilly to Newcastle, followed by buses to Carlisle, Keswick, Windermere, Lancaster, Preston, Bolton and arriving back at Piccadilly Gardens around 2230. Newcastle to Bolton was...

Unfortunately SDO is needed on that route too, if you're doubling up. Woodsmoor and Davenport (at the very least) require it. There seems to be a good case for retrofitting some form of SDO on 323s. But since there's no evidence that the option is even being considered, I'm not optimistic it'll...

As a minor point - if you've got even more time to play with and need to get around the peak restrictions at the Manchester end, you could consider the Super-Off-Peak Return between Euston and Crewe, with Advance tickets on the slow Northern services between Crewe and Manchester. Singles start...

This appears to have been the case on the Chat Moss line. Although the 319s were hardly any newer than what they replaced (and the lack of tables etc was unfortunate), they offered a consistent capacity uplift, improved acceleration vs Sprinters (which helped with timekeeping), a guaranteed...

Interesting seat design - possibly Transcal? The flat seat backs and their 'outline' are reminiscent of the Aerolite seats on their website (and in /1/8/5/20185_tn_gb-revolution-vlr-interior-impression.jpg']this VLR render). If so, their selling point is low weight, on a par with seat designs...

Essentially yes. The Italo Evo (ETR675) is an actual Alstom Pendolino, and so can be specified with tilting apparatus (as per the ETR600/610), but wasn't so in this case. Confusing all the same. This and the Railjets show that the seats are certified up to 250km/h - but perhaps no faster?

Variants are also used in all accommodation classes of the Italo Evo (non-tilting pendolino).