Recent content by Parham Wood

It would be interesting to know that if a person has an all line rover issued by LNER how they are supposed to get a replacement if it is damaged due to use of sub standard materials and repetitive handling by rail staff if they are say in Penzance. By the nature of the ticket with a short...

In the 70s I did surveys which involved walking long distances along the track in West Wales, the Marches and some Welsh valleys. I preferred to walk in the cess where it existed and where is was still fine stone. However in many places the cess was either uncompacted ballast stones which were...

Hopefully they can also confirm that compensation was paid in addition to any refunds due.

Appalling customer service. Their survival is not linked to customer service so presumably they don't care.

Maybe in an ideal world and if you wanted to save on spare equipment costs but a week not being able to run train services across a large part of the North West is unacceptable and strategically bad. I think if you went out to buy equipment you would find it difficult to source all you needed...

What worries me most is what happens if there is a major fire or terrorist activity and the centre is put out of action for good or a very long time? Are any contingency arrangement really suitable to take over until a replacement centre is built? I am glad I don't have to make decisions on this...

Something as major as this should have two separate supplies from different substations, hopefully sufficiently isolated from each other so an electricity network problem affecting both would be rare. Surely this should have been thought of and identified in a risk assessment? It will be...

i saw the same problem in healthcare. The A/C was not on auto start, I think it was changed as a result. Fortunately spotted in time to enable someone to switch them back on.

One of my jobs on the railway was to plan the cable routes that replaced overhead pole routes. This included everything west of Carmarthen, Ludlow to Craven Arms and beyond, plus the Rhymney Valley. The new signalling and telephone cables were buried using a mole plough train except where rock...

It used to be and I am not sure about now without consulting the timetable that you could get to Paddington or S Wales quicker than the next scheduled direct service from Temple Meads by going to Parkway and changing.

If I recall correctly at one time on the Paddington to Bristol main line where bi-directional signalling was installed if any people were working on the track they did something to lock out bi-directional working on the basis that it would be unsafe for the staff on the track. Not sure if I have...

On a slightly pedantic note would most passengers not have a valid ticket to alight at the station?

You need to keep complaining about this. There is obviously no incentive or will to fix the problem.

Not everyone checks train times on the web so some will be at the station and given we are talking about Merseyrail with the frequency of trains I expect many will opt to wait for the next train and be surprised by their intended train actually stopping. It really does not matter if anyone...

You would think drivers could be given the instruction that once they have caught up time to recommence stopping at intermediate stations provided they are on the correct line of course.