Recent content by takno

AFAIK Leonardo are all owned. The core of the group is the Jurys Inn hotels which they bought in bulk, basically at the point when they were probably getting a bit too tatty to be "nice" hotels, but were too nice and often too well-located to let go to ruin. They've done some refurbishment -...

Quite exciting to see that system actually making it to a fuller rollout on the Central Wales line. It seems so hard to get a nice cheap system in place to make incremental improvements generall. If it gives you some flexibility to make lines like Stranraer affordable without disrupting the...

The one I stayed in over the weekend (not UK), was a strange beast. The receptionist took a while to get to me because she was shouting quite rude instructions at somebody who was trying to get checked into one of their other properties. She then casually abused me about Brexit whilst checking...

When I mapped the route recently, I was surprised by how many completely unused loops it has. Was it still too busy for RETB when the other lines in Scotland got done? It's got to be a challenge keeping that number of remote signal boxes staffed and working when the line has totally lost its...

If they're going to be running tram-trains, and there's a road in the way, I think the answer writes itself

I suspect that having it on Network Rail trains gives a consistent view of the data which is mapped accurately to the train lines and regularly updated. If you are serious about getting an accurate and continuously-updated view then this is going to be much better than trying to patch together...

Best Western is definitely one of those brands which are so toxic they'd be better off not being with a network at all. Even the ones which are slightly less tired usually manage to mess it up with rude staff, who often seem to be managing 2 other hotels, a local hostel and several Airbnbs from...

Signals away at this point with ETCS makes more sense. The sheer amount of development and testing, and the weight of international adoption makes it a clearly safe options. Moving-block or smaller-than-conventional-signalling block ETCS provide demonstrably better-than-signals level of safety...

The idea that you're going to save a lot of money by taking out the physical signals in such a setup is optimistic. The ramp/beacon is still fundamentally going to require the same power, data and interlocking to be installed in the area, so why not get some fairly cheap lights and repeat the...

I suspect the point here is that even without the specific issues at this location, accessibility issues make a 2 platform station massively more expensive than a single platform. It would arguably be cheaper and more effective to double the whole line *except* stations, rather than take the...

That's fine, but the right approach to this is to get rid of the personal allowance taper, funded by making tax over 100k 50%, and then taper the loss of childcare. Any pretence that the Tories are making smart decisions about tax goes out of the window with their nonsense Inheritance Tax...

There could be, but what's the point in expensively setting up another new organisation? If you want the EA to dredge rivers you really need to restore some of the funding they've had cut over the years, or get rid of some of the other statutory obligations which have been piled on them.

It does seem to be from the Chris Grayling school of anarchy dressed up as small government. Exactly the sort of thing that saves a couple of hundred million for the first 2 years, but then starts killing people and takes a few billion to put right down the line

Seems pretty standard BBC News. They could just reprint the press release, but they figure they'll get more clicks by finding some random strangers who apparently haven't heard the news at all, give them a misleading summary and print their reaction.

Seems like a bit of a niche thing to change your vote over, particularly since it's likely 3 years out and hasn't been meaningfully costed. It is nice to see policies and positions about something other than immigration though.