Recent content by Peter Wilde

Would also add that the Swiss “transfer culture” works so well there because: 1. Much of Switzerland is mountainous and many roads are relatively slow, indirect, steep, narrow - and may be positively scary (at least for tourists who are not used to them); and 2. There are a lot of people on...

No argument that dumping poo etc on the track is uncivilised and in an ideal world should never happen. However: There needs to be a way, in extremis, to deal with personal-hygiene issues on trains where the advertised and usually available toilets are unavailable; Mere non-availability of...

Might be mis-reporting, the interviewee may have been explaining that power had been turned off for the evacuation?

Regarding a comment that "the toilets are likely to be working as designed i.e. lock out of use when full - the alternative would be extremely unpleasant!”: Surely that is a design flaw? Yes, toilet tanks should be fitted and of course should normally take all the waste. But if there is some...

I agree, Surely the right approach is (1) adequate signage, (2) a moderately heavy girder arranged at least 5m in advance of the bridge and secured as a freestanding structure (a kind of goalpost consideration) and (2) money for this to come from roads budget not rail’s money. It is the roads...

Hit a problem on the evening of Saturday 13th. Waterloo to Guildford via Epsom service ran normally until Bookham where we were held at a red. After about 10 - 15 min, guard announced there was an indeterminate delay due to a problem on the line ahead and advised "anyone who could to consider...

Just wondering, is the last point really valid? If we had instead of starting HS2, put the 2 extra tracks along the length of the WCML, how many deep tunnels would have been needed to avoid disruption at all the places where new tracks could not have been squeezed in on the surface? Given the...

Yes the above messages show the mess we are in with too many suppliers each trying to do their own thing. Would be great if the advent of GBR could introduce some standardisation and order. Especially over 1. coupling systems and 2. driving controls. How about GBR telling putative...

The extent of any gaps between one project being completed and the next one starting is crucial, too. When the Southern Railway was engaged in its steady electrification of the suburban network in the 1920s - 30s, one of the reasons for the significant rate of progress was being able to keeping...

I mostly agree. The SWT/SWR 455s showed what could be done by a good quality refurb. And the trains were pretty reliable. Their only real downsides were no aircon and no toilets, the latter becoming a bit of an issue on routes with 1 hour journey times.

BBC today claims that - at least in Scotland - more people are taking flights out-and-back on the same day, just for leisure purposes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce84zd68242o The woman quoted claims that she offsets the carbon emissions from her family’s frequent flying. But surely...

Nobody has gone back to consider what the actual real customers might need. i.e the passengers on the trains. While suburban, this is not just a commuter network, it carries children, foreigners and sometimes, numbers of non-English speaking folk attending events like Wimbledon (or foreign...

One obvious reason is some units are so long - 10 car suburbans like the 701s for example - that they will never attach to anything else in normal service.

Found it working this afternoon.

There was a suggestion a few years ago that airports with lots of taxi time should develop a fleet of bidirectional, higher speed battery electric pushback tractors, so planes would only start their jets when nearing the front of the takeoff queue. Nice idea, but do the airports care about this...